SIFF - 6/1/06

Films Today: 2
Running Total: 17

I knew we were entering a tough stretch here. Two movies tonight at 7 and 9, then work in the morning, then across the great beyond to the Eastside for another movie tomorrow night. Life’s tough, I know.

Today was Rossellini day - The Flowers Of St Francis and Rome, Open City back to back at Harvard Exit. However I was really looking forward to something else - before they were showing the new Guy Maddin short My Dad Is 100 Years Old, featuring Isabella Rossellini talking about her dad in a script she wrote. It did not disappoint, being interesting, funny and quite touching, all in the inimitable Guy Maddin style. The centerpiece is a roundtable discussion between Roberto, David O. Selznick, Alfred Hitchcock, and Frederico Fellini which is both hilarious and insightful about the way film is viewed as well as Roberto’s place in it. All the parts in the above discussion are played by Isabella (with the exception of her dad who is played by a large disembodied stomach throughout.) Not only was this a wonderful tribute from daughter to father, but it was a fantastic mini-introduction to Rossellini and his approach to filmmaking. I may yet forgive the SIFF programmers for failing to schedule The Wayward Cloud.

I can’t say I was much into The Flowers Of St Francis, which is just a series of re-enactments of St Francis and his followers with no real narrative thread throughout (other than the message of St. Francis himself.) I just found an article on the Criterion website, taken from the DVD release, which is pretty interesting reading, although I don’t know if it makes me like the film any better (it did make me appreciate it a bit more, which isn’t quite the same thing.) I would like to make a comment about the crowd though. There is a scene wherein Francis and one of his followers are discussing how you acheive true happiness. They knock on a man’s door to ask for alms and spread god’s word. The man reacts angrily, telling Francis to leave him alone and stop bothering him, and when Francis continues to talk the man beats Francis and his follower. Lying in the mud, Francis and his follower pull themselves up, and Francis declares (in essence) that this is true happiness, spreading god’s word with no ties to earthly things. At this juncture, many members of the audience started laughing out loud. Now I myself am not religious at all , but to treat a sentiment which is frankly pretty noble in this sort of ironic hipster manner really got on my nerves. This happened several times throughout the film. In fact I have noticed a lot of oddly inappropriate laughter throughout the fest (usually at foreign films) and I can only guess that these people think anything they don’t understand is funny.

After this film I was standing in line waiting for Rome, Open City. Just as I got in line this guy with his hood up and a really gaunt sunken face walked up and said “Excuse Me.” I assumed he was a panhandler and pointedly turned my back to him. Then he moved on to the next person and asked if this was the ticketholders line, and proceeded to queue up a few people back. I totally felt like an asshole, especially in the context of having just seen a film where a man broke down in tears because all he could do for a leper was give him a hug.

Rome, Open City was a much more enjoyable experience all around. The story was quite gripping and well done, and I could totally see how Rossellini’s verite style really serviced the story he was telling, by completely non-dramatizing it he actually made it infinitely more gripping. The last 20 minutes in particular were enthralling, and I shudder to think how they would be executed in the modern day. I don’t see how any amount of “showing” the torture could have made it any harder to watch. I was left wondering what happened to the Francesco character though, I don’t recall seeing his storyline concluded. This would make an awesome double feature with The Grand Illusion.

Then home we went, to too little sleep and undoubtedly a long day at work tomorrow.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 5th, 2006 at 6:44 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.