SIFF - 6/6/2006
Films Today: 2
Running Total: 26
6/5 was a day off, with no films. Urban Scarecrow was scheduled but we couldn’t face a 9:30 showing. If there’s one lesson learned from this SIFF it is to ease off on the late night showings on weekdays.
6/6 we had two screenings. First was Hell, directed by Danis Tanovic (who directed the Oscar winning No Man’s Land last year) from a script by Krzysztof Piesiewicz originally intended for Krzysztof Kieslowski. The is the second in their proposed series Heaven, Hell and Purgatory (Heaven was released a couple years ago, directed by Tom Tkwyer of Run Lola Run fame.) This ended up being my favorite modern fiction film from the fest. It is far more reminiscient of Kieslowski than Tkwyer’s entry was (although that is also a fine film.) There is one really nice visual reference to the Three Colors Trilogy that made me smile. The film itself follows the lives of three sisters, all of them on their own variety of collision course with an event from their past which they are forced to address at the end in their own ways. Like all of Piesiewicz’s scripts, he manages to hit that fine line between metaphor and cliche just perfectly, hitting many points with just the right amount of force and making them ring with recognition later in the film. Tanovic directs the film with grace, and the cinematography is wonderful. Here’s hoping this gets a release somewhere down the line, it seems ridiculous that it wouldn’t although in some miscellaneous net wandering I have been surprised to find some pretty negative opinions.
The second film was Someone Else’s Happiness from Belgium. A couple days ago I saw this film in my list and I could not remember a single thing about it. I had to go to the festival website to remember what it was. The film chronicles the events following a hit and run accident in which a young child is killed. I feel like it cheated in the first two thirds by going to great lengths to setup someone as the killer and then later pull the rug out from you. There’s a fine line between misdirection and lying in situations like that and this film crossed it. It strongly reminded me of another film which I am having a hard time placing. The fact that it was so forgettable is a good indication of my opinion of it.
related articles
- Memories, Complicated (February 14th, 2008)
- SIFF Day 10 (I Don’t Want To Sleep Alone, The Man In The Chair, The Elephant And The Sea) (January 1st, 2008)
- Some Shit I Stole From socialretard (September 10th, 2007)
- SIFF Day 9 (The Cloud, Still Alive: A Film About Krzysztof Kieslowski) (June 25th, 2007)
- SIFF Days 7 and 8 (Slipstream, Eagle Vs Shark) (June 24th, 2007)
