film review by Jon Reinsch

An Orgy of Movie-watching

A red-eyed look back at this year’s SIFF

Each year, the Seattle International Film Festival brings us plenty of good films. But after a while, I tire of “good,” and start muttering “show me something I haven’t seen before!” (Maybe this was about the same time I confused my Metro pass with my SIFF pass, nearly showing the latter to the bus driver.) Fortunately, there are always a few truly astounding films. With the caveat that I saw a mere seventh of the films screened, here are some standouts.

Ghost World is the best American movie in over a year. The work of Terry Zwigoff (Crumb), and based on the comic by Daniel Clowes, it revels in a biting, satirical portrait of the phoniness of American life, largely as seen through the eyes of 18-year old Enid. And yet, it also heartbreakingly conveys what it’s like for someone learning the limits of ironical distance, the impossibility of reconciling all of one’s values, and the loneliness of thinking for oneself. Being expected to coax customers into buying the jumbo popcorn in her job at the megaplex is the least of Enid’s troubles. To be this funny and this true at the same time is a rare thing. Thora Birch (the daughter in American Beauty) was a deserving winner of the Golden Space Needle for Best Actress in the role of Enid.

Those of you who run in terror from subtitles should face your fears and see The Road Home, the latest from Zhang Yimou (Raise the Red Lantern). Few films depend less on words, or more on the expressiveness of one actress’ face. In this case, it’s the face of Zhang Ziyi, who you’ll remember as the precocious martial artist in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Here she plays Zhao Di, a village girl who, when a handsome teacher arrives, decides to make him her husband.

The first indication of something special here comes in a scene where Zhao Di scrambles around on a hill, positioning herself to see (and hopefully meet) the teacher as he comes up the road with his charges. Everything’s slightly slowed down and hushed. Shots of her dashing to the left intercut with his movement to the right. The children’s chanting is mixed with a little music on the soundtrack, but it’s not the overbearing stuff you might expect. Instead, it quietly suggests that we’re witnessing something almost holy.

The Road Home exhorts us to “know the future, know the past.” Especially the latter. Another film that looks back on young love from the perspective of old age is Innocence. Director Paul Cox (Vincent) specializes in visually absorbing humanism, and views the past through an impressionistic lens. But the emphasis here is on the present, when the long-aborted romance is taken up anew. The lovers, though aged, nevertheless worry about doing things “like adults.” Everything’s complicated by conflicting emotions, yet intensified by the awareness of mortality.

If you’ve seen Tran Anh Hung’s lushly evocative The Scent of Green Papaya, you’ll know what to expect from his new film. Vertical Ray of the Sun is set in Hanoi, so it’s momentarily disorienting when the film opens to music by the Velvet Underground. The core of this film consists of the exquisite scenes of a grown-up brother and sister slowly rising in the morning to songs like “Pale Blue Eyes.” He exercises, she stretches languidly, sunlight streams in. And from time to time, a nearby temple bell tolls, adding a new layer to the music, and making for something like epiphany.

Vertical Ray focuses on three sisters and the men in their lives. Not to deny that much simmers beneath the tranquil surface, but there’s a tenderness between these people to make one envious. The scene in which one sister informs her husband that she’s pregnant is beyond sweetness.

Music figures most prominently in Tony Gatlif’s Vengo. As in his Latcho Drom, the music is flamenco. The story involves a blood feud between two gypsy families, but for me it takes a back seat to the ecstatic music. This was the fourth film of the day for me, after some three hours of sleep the night before. Vengo brought me back to life.

In the orgy of movie-watching that is SIFF, it’s difficult to form a meaningful relationship with each and every film. If there’s a common thread in the exceptions above, perhaps it’s a soulfulness, a depth of feeling. Watch for them in the coming months. The Road Home has already opened, and Vengo plays the Varsity September 14-20.

I would be remiss if I neglected to mention a couple of politically significant documentaries that played SIFF. Many Americans buy into the notion that real poverty is a thing of the past in this country, and that the few remaining poor deserve it. Such attitudes are challenged in LaLee’s Kin: the Legacy of Cotton. This film is devoted to one Mississippi woman’s struggle to do right by her numerous children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. It also examines the efforts of the local school district to get off “probation.” It’s an enormous challenge, in part because of poor funding, but also because so much has been left to tragically overburdened people like LaLee.

The Punishment shows us Belgrade in the aftermath of the 1999 NATO bombing. The film features on-the-street interviews with some very articulate people. Some engage in soul-searching over their countrymen’s apathy and susceptibility to demagogues. Others reflect on the damage inflicted by the outside world. One man, referring to depleted uranium, says “We’ve lived through a quiet, sophisticated Hiroshima.” A woman observes that reporters keep saying that the American “people” rescued the Albanian “people” by bombing the Serbian “people”—but never speak of some “John Smith” dropping the bomb that killed some “Anica.” Lalee’s Kin and The Punishment both oppose that tendency to think in terms of groups instead of individuals.u