Chris Knipp Writing: Movies, Politics, Art


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PostPosted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 1:13 pm 
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Eliminated--already covered:

The SFIFF 2008 selections I have already seen and written about are these:

ALEXANDRA (SOKUROV)
ALL IS FORGIVEN (HANSEN-LOVE)
BRICK LANE (SARAH GAVRON)
THE ROMANCE OF ASTRA AND CELADON (ROHMER)
GO GO TALES (FERRARA)
FADOS (SAURA)
IN THE CITY OF SYLVIA (GUERIN)
A GIRL CUT IN TWO (CHABROL)
STILL LIFE (JIA ZHANG-KE)
THE MAN FROM LONDON (BELA TARR)


My colleague at Filmleaf Oscar Jubis went over the whole list of selections (now online and announced April 1) and gave me the list below of ones he has not seen, I have not seen, and he thinks worthy. I immediately eliminated MY WINNIPEG, because I can't stand Guy Madden. My comments below.

From Oscar Jubis:
I.
UNDER THE BOMBS--Lebanon, documentary . Definitely a must for me.
TRAVELING WITH PETS, Russian. Maybe.
MY WINNIPEG. No. I don't respond to Madden's twee, fey vision and this one is even said to be strictly for Madden devotees.
WONDERFUL TOWN--Post-tsunami Thailand. Maybe. Good reports.
A STRAY GIRLFRIEND--Argentina, Un Certain Regard. Probably
NOT BY CHANCE--Brazil, coincidental disasters. Probably not?
WATER LILIES--French girls' coming of age of figure swimmers. Yes, but this is now showing in NYC at the Landmark Sunshine.
THE WARLORDS--Chinese historical, with Takeshi Kaneshiro. I can't resist.
TIME TO DIE--Old Polish lady. Maybe. Titles reminds of of Rutger Hauser in Blade Runner.
II.
SOLITARY FRAGMENTS--Spain, lives of women, good but arty. Maybe.
I SERVED THE KING OF ENGLAND--Czech, WWII drama about waiter's experiences. Doubtful. But highly rated: see below.
LA FRANCE--French WWII story, Pascal Greggory, Silvie Testud, with song numbers. Maybe, though I have doubts about the musical bits. Nathan Lee of the Voice liked it--in the ND/NF series recently at Lincoln Center.
FROZEN--Himalayan drama. Maybe, or maybe not.
LADY JANE--French nourish mystery. I have a weakness for noir and French films. See below.
STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURES--Errol Morris, re: Abu Ghraib. A must for me.
MUTUM--precocious Brazilian boy, docu-fiction. Maybe.
FLOWER IN THE POCKET--two little Malasian boys and father. Will avoid. The video excerpt looks too self-indulgent.
BALLAST--a suicide in the Mississippi delta. Sundance winner, also in Berlin. A must. Sounds strong. American!
THE ART OF NEGATIVE THINKING--Norwegian dark comedy about disabled people. Looks fun. Probably will see this one.

I have not ruled any of these out yet and will keep the list handy. Only a few seem musts to me at this point; I have to see what else is showing. I would hope for more US films of interest than this.

I will see Kechiche's SECRET OF THE GRAIN/LA GRAINE ET LE MULET, possibly the most important new French film we haven't seen yet. Oscar presumably saw it so didn't mention it, but that's one I want to catch even though it will overlap in Filmleaf coverage. The opening night gala features Breillat's MY LAST MISTRESS/UNE DERNIÈRE MAITRESSE but that one I saw last year (six months ago!) and it is covered in the NYFF 2007 thread. A third French film in the festival is Chabrol's A GIRL CUT IN TWO/LA FILLE COUPÉE EN DEUX but that I covered also as part of NYFF 2007. Michael Hawley guesting in Michael Guillen's San Francisco film blog THE EVENING CLASS goes over the French entries and says he's surprised LADY JANE got included because the Cannes reception for it was not warm. Eric Rohmer's THE ROMANCE OF ASTRÉE AND CÉLADON--again NYFF 2007 covered here--is a dry, somewhat feeble effort. Hansen-Love's ALL IS FORGIVEN, about a French heroin, his German wife, and their daughter, is looking better to me now and it was recently chosen as the best film of the year by Cahiers du Cinéma (it was a Cannes Directors Fortnight selection too). I've seen it twice, once in Paris last fall, once in February 2008 at the Rendez-Vous at Lincoln Center. Hawley concludes
Quote:
As far as the films that didn't make it into the festival (Jalil Lespert's 24 Measures, François Ozon's Angel, Gäel Morel's Après lui, Jacques Nolot's Before I Forget, Claude LeLouch's Roman de Gare, Michelange Quay's Eat, For This is My Body, Erick Zonca's Julia, Cédric Klapisch's Paris, Claude Miller's Un secret, Christophe Honoré's Love Songs), I'll just have to hope I cross paths with them somewhere else down the line.
I have 'crossed paths' with Before I Forget (Paris thread), Klapisch's Paris, Miller's A Secret, and Honoré's Love Songs (all at the Rendez-Vous Feb. 2008-see Festival thread).

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