SIFF - 5/31/06

Films Today: 3
Running Total: 15

It was another long walk to NWFF from work today. No pre-show excitement like yesterday thankfully. The lineup was two shorter features - 42 and 50 minutes each. The first was How Little We Know Of Our Neighbors, an interesting look at a movement in Britain called Mass Observation. These guys wandered around the countryside taking photos of everything as a kind of sociological study. The subtext concept is that as cameras have been gradually introduced into society people have become less conscious of being photographed, with all the attendant pros and cons. Quite interesting, and one of the better looking DV docs. Here’s a fact for you: the average Briton is photographed 300 times a day because of all the cameras installed throughout their society. I hope that doesn’t scare you because its only a matter of time that its just as bad here. Just the other day I noticed a new batch of cameras installed on lampposts at the intersection of Denny and Boren as I walked to work. What the hell are those there for?

Worldly Desires is the new film from Apichatpong Weerasethakul, or “Joe” as he is more commonly referred to. This is really just a series of vignettes from a film shoot interspersed with vignettes from a music video shoot (perhaps the same shoot, its never quite made clear.) Joe really knows how to compose a frame. Something about where he drops the camera, its as if he searched miles of jungle just to find the perfect set of leaves and branches and he lets it linger long enough to take it in. On the surface a fairly straight-forward film but also kind of touching and personal in the way it shows the interactions between people on a set (in front of, behind, and around the camera.) Joe shoots the entire film in long distant shots which gives it a voyeuristic feel and spotlights the landscape as much as the subject. It’s not on the class of Tropical Malady by any means but I liked it quite a bit. This was shot on DV and projected digitally and sadly that format does not do his work justice. Also what he said.

Down the street for A Conversation With Stewart Copeland, which was supposed to be Copeland screening and then discussing his new documentary Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out. Sadly with the death of his brother Ian, Stewart was not able to make it but they screened the film anywas and it’s a winner. Early on in their career Stewart Copeland bought a Super8 camera and started filming them doing various things as they rose to super-stardom. This film is compiled from those tapes, and its awesome but also very personal. Even if it was just the footage it would be great fun, but Copeland recorded a humorous and somewhat sarcastic voice-over for it which is pretty entertaining. There are also some very innovative and clever editing techniques used in a couple places which are somewhat mind-blowing. For instance, when shooting the video for “De Doo Doo Doo De Da Da Da” Copeland was hopping around shooting at the cameraman, who was of course shooting him doing this. So what he does in the film is cut between these two lenses staring back and forth at each other. It’s a very powerful technique, especially in something like this where you’re only used to seeing it from one side. The clips are choice, lots of inside details including recording studio sessions for Ghost In The Machine and Zenyatta Mondatta. The film was obviously a labor of love for Copeland, it really captured what it must have been like being them flying around getting famous, and you can really sense the distance in the later years as the clips being shot become less and less fun and interactive and more and more simple documentation (where they exist at all.) I should note that as a great Police fan (and in particular a fan of Copeland’s) this is not exactly an objective view and a review like this one is understandable and valid (mostly in terms of how Copeland pretties up the band’s conflicts and shows only the good side of things.) Given that I had a blast and couldn’t stop smiling the entire time this was running. Personally my biggest bummer was there was no footage from the one time I saw them.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 3rd, 2006 at 10:30 pm and is filed under Movies, SIFF 2006. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.