Lots of themes interwoven into this film about a an actress performing aTagori play, Red Oleanders, married to a rich husband who is ready for her to quit acting and have babies. Her servant who becomes pregnant and leaves to work in a clothing factory. Concerns that the character she plays, Nandini, is not a realistic woman because she only cares for others and has no self. She gets a chance to direct a modern version with a modern interpretation, but this conflicts with the wishes of her husband who doesn't take her work seriously and her mother who is becoming more religious.
So much there, all with Dhaka as the backdrop - her fancy apartment and then the hustle and bustle of street life. Well done and unexpected film
Drove gingerly downtown in the new snow. Didn't want to end up like this guy who was parked about as close as you could get to the AK Exp Theater, where I'm headed soon. At least he missed the fire hydrant.
But I kept walking down to the Snow Goose for Stink! Stink! is one of those films I think everyone should see. This young man's wife has recently died of cancer and he buys some pajamas for his little girls for Christmas. But when they open the package there's a strong chemical smell. So he calls the company they come from - Justice - to find out what chemicals are in them.
This leads to a long trail - including finally sending them to a chemical testing lab - to find out why companies won't reveal their chemicals. There are interviews with various proponents of labeling chemicals in products and banning known carcinogens, interviews with lobbyists and a pro-chemical lobby congress member. Footage of congressional hearings.
Every film makes me think about the criteria of a good documentary. I've address this at length during other festivals. In this case the strength is taking a complex subject, getting the basic issues, and clarifying them in a compelling way. Adding in his family issues in this regard makes it a little more personal.
The basic points I got were:
Chemical industry has hijacked legislation by
Lack of transparency protecting them from disclosing chemicals in their products - particularly behind the term 'fragrance'
not banning know carcinogens
not requiring that chemicals be proven safe before using them in products
Europe and even China in some instances have higher standards than the US
While chemical industry says the amounts in their products are minor, this doesn't account for the accumulated impacts of all the exposure people get from all over
New borns have been found to have close to 200 non-human-natural chemicals
There's lots more alarming information. I highly recommend this. Don't by the perfume the filmmaker concocted to prove how easy it was to get approval. He called it "Ignorance is Bliss" but since he put urine in it, it could have been called "Ignorance is Piss."
Pam Miller talking with audience after Stink!
Pam Miller of Alaska Community Action on Toxics (ATAC) was there to talk with audience members about the film and the Alaska Toxic-Free Children's Act (HB 199/SB111) which
"would ban ten toxic chemicals used as flame retardants in children's products and upholstered furniture in Alaska."
Here's Part 2, and a reminder - no Festival movies at the Bear Tooth today, but there are films at the Snow Goose, so don't go to the wrong venue. An * means the film is in competition. Here's the grid, with details below. Grid is screenshot, so no links. Go to the original here to get links for everything. For Saturday Part 1 - the morning and early afternoon, go here.
Since this is the second half of the day's grid, the locations got cut off.
Left is AK Experience Large, Middle is AK Experience small, Right is SNOW GOOSE
Animation Program* - All the animated films are in this program. I haven't seen it yet, but these usually have some of the most interesting films. And they're short, so if you don't like what you're watching, a better one will be soon. All the 'in competition' animated films are in this program. For more on each film, click here. 5pm AK EX Large No Greater Love - A military chaplain's movie about his work with the soldiers in war and going home. 5:30 pm AK EX small.
Where Do We Go From Here? - A 25 year old moves into an nursing home. 6pm Snow Goose.
Magic Utopia* - I saw this Thursday night and have some video of the co-directors during the Q&A that I haven't had time to put up yet. This is a beautiful film, but definitely NOT a Hollywood film. A lot of loving attention is paid to details. Art is part of the fabric of this film. And strange things happen - levitation, a phone call from a dead person. But I'd note, they played the trailer for Die Hard before this film, and there's nothing more unreal in this film than there is in Die Hard. If you're looking for a strong plot line and plenty of action, skip this film. If you want to see the kind of artistic film you can't normally see, then this is for you. 7pm AK EX Large
Love Between The Covers* - I haven't seen this documentary yet. It didn't get the audience I expected when it first played. It's an exploration of romance novels and novelists, why they aren't taken seriously, and why they are such an important part of the fiction market. I'm told this is a serious film to be watched. And I'm looking forward to seeing it. 8pm AK EX Small They Look Like People - Here's the blurb:
"Suspecting that those around him are actually malevolent shape-shifters, a troubled man questions whether to protect his only friend from an impending war, or from himself." 8pm Snow Goose
Living With The Dead - I still have some of my mom's ashes. Does that mean I can relate to this film? The blurb:
"Max McLean is eighteen years old and can't get out of bed. Since her boyfriend Adam killed himself over a year ago, Max has been using sex, drugs, and parties to ignore the pain until one day she wakes up in a hospital, haven taken a nearly lethal dose of sleeping pills. While being haunted by visions of Adam, Max runs away from home and ventures into the forest with a bizarre but endearing boy named Ish."
As you can see, I can't post the trailer here, but just go to the link below. 9pm AK EX Large
Interesting options today. New venue - Snow Goose - so be careful you don't go to Bear Tooth by mistake. No Festival films there today. *means 'in competition."
So, let's do this by morning and by evening. Morning first.
A Courtship - documentary about an evangelical Christian who wants an arranged marriage. 1pm AK EX Large Shorts - Real Life - If you haven't seen a shorts program, go see these, there are some gems in here. And if you don't like one, then the next one comes up quickly. But the shorts I've seen have all be worth watching. 2pm Snow Goose (some are in competition) Under Construction -This is the movie to see if you want more information on the people Trump wants to ban from the US. 3pm AK EX Large
"Muslim woman Roya struggling to find herself in the sprawl of urban Bangladesh. Roya performs her last show playing ‘Nandini’—the epitome of Bengali womanhood, the central character of Rabindranath Tagore’s play ‘Red Oleanders.’ She delves into a psychological journey and battles to reconstruct ‘Nandini.’ Roya finds herself under-construction—traveling alone to exert her own desires, wishes and ambitions."
From This Day Forward - Another interesting documentary of political relevance as conservatives try to repeal Anchorage's new civil rights protections for the LGBT community. This film is made by the daughter of a man who told his family when the kids were young, that he was really a woman. It was difficult for the family, and the now adult daughter goes back home as a filmmaker to document their story. Well done. The filmmaker was here for the Tuesday night showing. 3pm AK EX Large
Very, Semi-Serious - A doc on cartoons in the New Yorker. 4pm Snow Goose
OK, this gets you to about 4:30. I'll post the rest of the late afternoon and evening soon.
The Polish documentary short by Teresa Czepiec was the best film I've seen at the festival so far. That's a pretty strong statement and I'll try to flesh out the reasons when I have more time. For now, I'll just say, it used the medium of film to tell the story better than anything else I've seen. The camera flowed, shots transitioned beautifully. The images in this otherwise stark Soviet era housing block, were beautiful. There was no narration and relatively little talking, but the story of the building and the people who lived in it was exceptionally well told.
I'd pick this one for the best documentary of the festival simply because it was the best use of the medium to tell its story. To give you at least a sense of it, here's the trailer.
Unfortunately, unless the jurors agree with me and it gets an award, today was the last chance to see this film at the Festival.
Is it really Friday already? Movies start early today - 2:30pm at the Bear Tooth for the Martini Matinee which includes both narrative and documentary shorts, some of which are in competition* (Asterisks for films in competition). A few we saw last night in the shorts program, and they're worth a second look. The documentary shorts I haven't seen yet and am looking forward. Since they are all packaged together, no need to tip you off. It's better to just let you pick your own favorites.
All the evening showings will be at the Alaska Experience theater.
The evening has several features and documentaries in competition. I'm looking forward to seeing The Creditors*. Here's the synopsis from The Creditors' website:
"Based on August Strindberg's 1888 play, "Creditors" is a modern re-telling of Strindberg's story of love, betrayal, revenge and psychological manipulation, which he considered to be his one true masterpiece.
Grant Pierce (Christian McKay) arrives from London into Madrid, Spain, hoping to be given the chance to meet his favourite painter, American Freddie Lynch (Ben Cura), who is currently staying at a private hotel in an unassuming location outside the city. As Grant steps into the main building of "El Madroño", he finds Lynch a crippled man whom, he soon reveals, has been unable to actually paint for the better part of a year.
As the two men get to know each other under the watchful eye of one of the owners of the hotel, Michael Redmane (Tom Bateman), they start to piece together the disturbing picture of Freddie's marriage to beautiful writer Chloe Fleury (Andrea Deck) which harbours secrets that will reveal much more than Freddie's recent creative emaciation and his obsession with Chloe's ex-husbandAt times disturbingly funny and cruelly bleak, "Creditors" deals with some of the most private aspects of human relationships."
AK EXP Small 8pm
I haven't seen this yet, so no guarantees, but it looks like one of the more ambitious films in the festival.
Here's the grid for today. It's stretched out because it starts at 2:30pm.
Orphans and Kingdoms* is a New Zealand feature that's in competition. AK EXP Large 9pm
CODE is a documentary about gender issues in the tech industry. AK Exp Small 5pm
Janey Makes a Play is about a 90 something woman who writes and directs her own play. AK Exp Large 5:00pm
And Brainwashing of My Dad is about how Fox News has taken over the filmmakers' Dad's brain. It says on the SCHED:
"Special “work-in-progress” screening. This is a rare opportunity to see an early edit of the film and provide valuable feedback to the director, Jen Senko."
AK Exp Large 7pm I'm guessing liberals will have trouble with this because it's so depressingly true and conservatives will have trouble because it's so disturbingly false.
The program just ended. All of them were definitely worth watching. Some were excellent. I'm sitting in the theater during the break until Magic Utopia. So let me just ramble and see which ones I remember.
The Story of a Rainy Night - was amazing and so sad. A man in his Iranian apartment (more people should see Iranian films and see how well many Iranians live) on a rainy night. He feeds a cat we never see. Then there's a knock on the door and a daughter arrives with kids and husband. The old man acts surprised she came. Two more kids arrive, there's lots of commotion. Someone brought a birthday cake. There's talk about not seeing the kids very often. They also brought some pizza. We see the man from the back of the head mostly. Sometimes from the left side, sometimes from the right, but never fully from the front. Until near the end the camera comes around and examines him fully and closely and the audience realizes that all the visitors were an illusion. He's been home alone on his birthday. He lets the cat out. When all the kids were there the subtitles were flying and it was hard to read and a linguistically talented friend said it wasn't Farsi, maybe Iranian Azerbaijani.
Nkosi Coiffure - Terrific. Belgian lady and her boyfriend are fighting on the street and she slips in a door to escape him. She's in an African hair salon. One of the ladies goes outside to talk to the boyfriend and the others talk to the lady. Wonderful film.
The Bravest/The Boldest - This one's been on the circuit a long time, but I understand why. Two military chaplains go to tell a woman her husband's been killed. She's in the elevator coming up from the laundry room when they get in. She senses they're there for her. When they get to her floor, they let her go out first, but she says not her floor and pushes another button. The rest of the movie she avoids them as she deals with her grief. Excellent film.
Zawadi - A Kenyan girl is sick so her mom has to stay home to watch her, so Mom tells her son he has to collect twice as many bottles today to make up for her staying home. And the neighbor girl is upset because it's her birthday and her mom doesn't remember. Beautifully done.
The Call - A pregnant South African prostitute, the taxi driver who's the father, a cell phone left in the cab, and a funeral. Terrific acting.
Mike - A young man drops his brother off at the barber shop and waits in the car for him to come back. He finally goes in to check and the receptionist says there haven't been any little boys. Also good, but not quite at the level of the others for me.
Merry Xtmas - This one stood out because it starred Dick Van Dyke, Valery Harper, and Matthew Modine, was full Hollywood production levels, and was short, sweet, and funny. And a good ending to a set that started with a man waiting for his kids to come for his birthday. It somehow seems like it shouldn't be in the mix with these other, more budding filmmakers. But it was great.
OK, I've gone back and I missed three, but that's not a reflection on the films. One of them - The One Minute Time Machine - was one of my favorites. I'll talk about
[UPDATE 11:44pm - the new film was starting and I had to shut down my computer and I wasn't even sure this got posted.
One Minute Time Machine - was a romantic physics sci-fi short, with good imagination and characters. Very clever and well executed.
The other one I forgot was Unleaded about and armed robbery that went wrong, at least from the robbers' perspective. It was well done, fun, but again, like Mike, not quite there with the others.
Picking the best will be hard. For me, just based on the one I enjoyed the most, it would be One Minute Time Machine. But I also really liked Nkosi Coiffure. plus The Bravest/The Boldest had great acting and a good twist. And I know I'm going to see that cab driver's face from The Call in my head many times in the next week or two.
Congratulations to those who put this whole package together. All the films were worthy, and, as I said, starting with the imaginary birthday dinner and ending with the manipulated Christmas dinner was a great touch.
Everything except the After School Special and the Quick Freeze (which are more like local contests) is in competition. Circus Without Borders looks at acrobats in the Arctic who team up with acrobats in Guinea. Jasmine is a Hong Kong based murder mystery.
Screenshot - click here for actual schedule with links
I've been told that Japanese made Magic Utopia is the feature to see. But it's not an easy film they say. My early perusal of the features in competition led me to believe that Creditors is also an interesting and complex film. You can see details and trailers of both (and Jasmine) at my overview of the features in competition.
I'm going to pass on Creditors tonight (it's playing again Friday at the Alaska Experience Theater at 8pm) so I can see the Shorts Jury Selection. This program has all the short narrative films that are in competition, plus a few more. I haven't seen any of the shorts programs yet because of the way things have been scheduled. Tonight's the right time for me to start.
The Quick Freeze films are always fun. The groups get three prompts that somehow have to be incorporated into a film and then have six days to make a film. This year's prompts are:
VHS tape
Kiss
Dolly/slider shot.
Each year these productions have gotten more and more clever and professional. These should be good, for those of you who can sleep in late on Friday.
I'd seen the trailers for this enough that I was getting a bit jaded, but I had high hopes for this film. What could go wrong? People find tsunami debris on Alaska and Canadian beaches and track down the owners and take the things back. International cooperation, returning lost items to disaster victims, all good fodder for a movie. Generally the movie was good and I felt the people in the movie were sincerely trying to do some good.
But somewhere along the way it got a little cloying and annoying. I think the underlying issue for me is the construct of helper and help. Being a helper means you have the power to do something for another who, in this situation anyway, has less power. That doesn't mean we shouldn't help others, but we should understand our motives and not get carried away with what we've done. I posted long ago about charity and included some Jewish thought on charity that is relevant here, though not sufficient, I'm sure, for some to get my point about the power relationship in giving. Part of the issue is that in Japan there is a very strong culture of gift giving and thanking. So the degree of thanks became a bit embarrassing.
After all, these people where doing what they enjoy doing - beach combing. They found some stuff an said, wow, wouldn't it be interesting if we could find the owners? So far so good. But then they get on planes and fly to Japan and become the recipients of this overwhelming level of thank you. I get all this. It's my nature to try to find the person who lost something, to get something back to a rightful owner. But I also know that it's what I enjoy doing and I'm not making any big sacrifice to help out. I'm not interrupting my life or giving away money that I can't afford to give. I'm just doing what I enjoy doing and if that makes someone else happy, then that's a bonus.
Kevin and kids answer questions after Lost and Found
So I was sitting there watching the film end and thinking about whether I'm being overly picky and critical. But my gut was telling me this was a bit over the top.
And then the movie ended and one of the finders, who's from Anchorage, and his kids went to the front to answer questions. Two things he said stood out:
Some people weren't interested in getting stuff back or even talking to us. Wow, that certainly wasn't in the story. We were told about a signed volley ball whose owner hadn't been found, but not about people who weren't interested, who didn't want to be 'helped.'
That he'd been contacted by the film makers and they were interested in his story and that they paid for his trip to Japan.
OK. That made more sense, because the returning of the found items and the meetings between the losers and the finders were all filmed. So maybe that was my problem. This was the story line for a film and the filmmakers found the folks to fit their story line. Japan experiences disaster. Debris crosses Pacific. People find the debris and track down and return the debris. What a wonderful heartwarming story. But at least some of these folks wouldn't have gone to Japan on their own if they hadn't been encouraged and financed by the film makers. And the film never mentioned the people who didn't want their stuff back and didn't want to meet or even talk to the people who found it. Including that would have made this a much richer film. But instead we got an, apparently, artificially sweetened feel good story.
It makes Ruth Ozeki's novel, A Tale For The Time Being, all the more remarkable with its richness and darkness. This story, completed just before the tsunami hit, tells the story about a Japanese-Canadian who finds a teenage Japanese girl's diary on a beach in British Columbia. She too wants to find the owner and return the diary. But the story doesn't have the Disneyesque happily after after quality of Lost and Found. The diary tells us very dark tales of life as a teenager in Japan.
That said, I have no criticism for any of the beach combers. My sense was that they were each doing their thing and genuinely wanted to be helpful and that they all learned a lot and grew from these experiences. What I saw in the film makes me think the people returning stuff to Japan were themselves a bit overwhelmed by their reception. And it's up to the filmmakers to decide how to tell their story. It's just that they told a story that didn't sit all that well with me. Their story put happy makeup onto a situation that wasn't nearly so happy.
