SFIFF 2013 ROUNDUP

As usual I've written about every film I saw. The San Francisco International Film Festival, twelve days in late April and early May, can be a last chance to see last year's festival films before the new ones begin, since the cycle truly starts over in mid-May with Cannes. I watched nine of the ten New Directors award nominees. Of these I particularly liked the touching little sci-fi film of Lima, Peru, after a plague, The Cleaner, but the Brazilian film, They'll Come Back, is also great and the cinematography in the Turkish film Present Tense is hauntingly beautiful. Both Present Tense and The Cleaner were recognized by the SFIFF New Directors jury.

My most memorable viewing experiences of this festival were the most lengthy ones, two made-for-TV mini-series: Mika Niskanen's 1972 Finnish saga of an alcoholic farmer, Eight Deadly Shots, starring the director, and Kiyoshi Kurosawa's intricate five-part psychological thriller of murderous women, Penance.

Of the nine films I'd already seen before besides They'll Come Back I'd recommend A Hijacking, the Danish feature film about Somali pirates, a significant real phenomenon, and Sarah Polley's autobiographical Stories People Tell is a strong documentary debut for the Canadian actress-director. Also the weird, oppressive, memorably fish-eye doc, Leviathon.

In their stylish opening and closing films, Siegel and McGehee's What Maisie Knew and Richard Linklater's third in the talky Ethan Hawke-Julie Delpy romantic two-handers, Before Midnight, the festival organizers struck a very good balance of quality and audience appeal. I did not see the midpoint film, Jacob Kornluth's politicized documentary Inequality for All featuring academic Occupy champion Robert Reich, but I bet it's going to be worth seeing. Local interest: Reich is a professor at UC Berkeley.

In my other choices I'm pleased to say that though it may not sound like it, I did well enough, so everything was decent: none that rocked my world, but no duds. I got as much variety as possible with an emphasis of fiction over documentary but with some good documentaries. So I got to range around from one language to another constantly, seeing films in Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Turkish, Farsi, Italian, French, Chinese, Finnish, Danish, and an African dialect I never previously heard of. At least a third of these may not come available on DVD, and that's the value of festivals.

I'd also single out Andrew Bujalski's uniquely nerdy 1980-set video recreation of an early Computer Chess convention. Similarly I discovered a talented super-indie American director, Mike Ott.

I hope you enjoy my reviews and through them discover some films to watch later on your own.


What Maisie Knew, Inequality for All, Before Midnight

DESCRIPTIONS AND RATINGS:

The preceding comments and the following thumbnail reviews were originally written for Robin Yacoubiian's Flickfeast,uk and the ratings are my rather severe interpretation of that site's 1-10 star system. All the reviews are on this website and Filmleaf.net. Google chrisknipp+name of film or go to Filmleaf Festival Coverage for links to them there.

Act of Killing, The (Joshua Oppenheimer 2012).
This is a harsh documentary about massacres in Indonesia and I did not like its tone, but it has been widely admried. Grade: 6

After Lucia/Después de Lucía (Michel Franco 2012)
A Mexican fiction film about brutal bullying at a posh high school. It has occasioned much comment, but as a treatment of the theme it is weak, and has a vague ending. Grade: 5

Artist and the Model, The (Fernando Truba 2012)
A beautiful black and white film about an aging sculptor (Jean Rochefort) who's momentarily revivified by finding a beautiful, vibrant young woman model. Nice enough but the them is hackneyed and the action is bland. Grade: 4

Before Midnight (Richard Linklater 2013)
Julie Delpy's character has become peevish and crabby in this sequel where the couple are finally married. The romance has gone out of it but the talk is still as energetic as ever. Grade: 6.5

Chimeras (Mike Matilla 2013)
A new documentary by a Finn long resident in Beijing contrasting and linking two contemporary Chinese artists. Beautiful and elegant, if inconclusive. Grade: 6

Cleaner, The (Adrian Saba 2012)
A touching, perfectly pitched little Peruvian first film about a city employee and a little boy he rescues in the wake of a virus wiping out the male population of Lima. Grade: 8. This like LA SIRGA got Honorable Mention New Directors prize at the SFIFF.

Cold War (Longman Leung, Sunny Luk 2013)
A new Hong Kong gangster flick by two new directors with some big name stars. Very slick, but in two halves that don't fit together enough. Grade: 5.5

Computer Chess (Andrew Bujalski 2013)
Well beyond mumblecore, its godfather recreates the mood, look, and ultra-nerdiness of 1980 when computer chess was still rudamentary. This one is unique. Grade: 7.5

Ernest & Célestine Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar (2012)
By the guys who did A TOWN CALLED PANIC, this time adapting a popular French comics series with lovely watercolor style animation. Grade: 7.5

Eight Deadly Shots (Mikko Niskanen 1972)
Finnish 5-hour 1972 TV miniseries about an alcoholic farmer's gradual meltdown is deeply memorable and a remarkable tour de force by director-star Mika Niskanen. Should become a Criterion DVD set. Grade: 9

Fill the Void (Rana Burshtein 2012)
This was in the NYFF 2012, about an ultra-orthdox wedding in Israel. Much admired and well done (with short NYC release), but it's like an advert for a very retro style of living. Grade: 5.5

Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach 2012)
Black and white talky improv drama debuted at NYFF 2012 is like mumblecore for young white New York hipsters. Greta Gerwig is in her element but I don't think Baumbach is. Grade: 5

Futuro, Il (Alicia Scherson 2012)
I loved Chilean Scherson's debut PLAY. Here she adopts a hitherto untranslated Roberto Bolaño novel (his last) set in Italian in Rome. An oddity. It's got Rutger Hauer. Grade: 4

Habi, the Foreigner (María Florencia Álvarez 2012)
An extreme form of cultural tourism, a young woman temporarily pretends to be a Muslim in Buenos Aires to escape her drab life. Good cultural details but it doesn't quite add up. Grade: 4.5

Hijacking, A (Tobias Lindholm 2012)
Escellent, highly realistic evocation of what it's like for a Danish shipping company and a crew to be victims of Somali pirages. Grade: 7

In the Fog (Sergei Loznitsa 2012)
Much admired festival film about men in WWII Bellarus wandering through a forest mired in moral ambiguity. Metaphor over action. Grade: 5

Juvenile Offender (Kang Yi-Kwan 2012)
Well-written and acted little Korean film about a parent and child both victims of a judgmental and exclusive society. Grade: 7

Key of Life (Kenji Uchida 2012)
A gangster and a failed actor switch identities. Regarded by some as clever and witty, but this gets bogged down in detail and the pace lags. Grade: 5

La Sirga (William Vega 2012)
A young woman takes refuge in the Andes with a cousin and helps repair his crumbling shack of a tourist inn in this metaphor for Colombia's national condition. Beautiful location, draggy action. Grade: 5. This received Honorable Mention New Directors award at the SFIFF.

Last Step, The (Ali Mosaffa 2012)
Witty and convoluted Iranian film about jaded artist intellectuals and what did and didn't go right in their lives, with the actress who starred in Farhadi's A SEPARATION. Grade: 6

Leviathon (Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Verena Peravel 2012)
NYFF 2012 Harvard ethnography doc center product fish-eye view of Mass. fishing tanker, exhausting to watch, one of their most emersive experiences and most admired efforts. Limited NYC release earlier. Grade: 8

Memories Look at Me (Song Fang 2012)
A young Chinese filmmaker goes to visit her parents and shoots herself talking to them. Much admired at fests (NYFF 2012) but I find it hopelessly drab and obvious. Grade: 4.5

Museum Hours (Jem Cohen 2012)
Cohen received the POV (Persistence of Vision) SFIFF award this year and this shows his elegance and subtle humanism as a documentary filmmaker blending a view of Vienna's Kuntshistorisches Museum with the viewpoint of a low-key couple. Grade: 6

Nights with Théodore (Sébastien Betbeder 2012)
Young Paris couple meet at a party and start spending the nights inside a park. A big creepy and not much to it. Original premise, though. Oddly enough won the SFIFF FIPRESCI award. Grade: 4

Night Across the Street (Raul Ruiz 2012)
Too complicated to explain here but this acts as a kind of summing up of the late master's themes. Grade: 8

Patience Stone, The (Atiq Rahimi 2012)
A very handsome but overly symbolic and theatrical film based on the director's own novel about an Afghan couple trapped in the war in Kabul. US release. Grade: 6

Pearblossom Highway (Mike Ott 2012)
A young ultra-indie US director worth knowing about, he focuses on marginal young people in a nowhere SoCal town. His previous LITTLEROCK you can watch on Netflix instand play. Grade: 6.5

Penance (Kiyoahi Kurosawa 2012)
In between TOKYO SONATA and the new REAL Kurosawa made this elegant 4-5-hour TV miniseries about murderous women based on the novel by Kanae Minato. This is going the rounds and was in Film Comment Selects. Grade: 8

Present Tense (Belmin Söylemez 2012)
A divorcee getting by barely in Istanbul as a fortune teller. Captures marginal survival strategies well and has lovely cinematography. Grad: 7. This won the SIFF New Directors feature prize.

Rosie (Marcel Gisler 2013)
Little film about a gay writer who returns from Berlin to deal with his alcoholic, ailing mom. Sibylle Brunner won Best Actress at the Swiss awards. Grade: 5.5

Sofia's Last Ambulance (Ilian Metev 2012)
Three HD cameras stapled onto the dahsboard made a chronicle of exhaustion. Grade: 5

Something in the Air (Olivier Assayas 2012)
Assayas' attractive, but shapeless, autobiographical feature about kids chasing the revolution that vanished after May '68. Grade: 6

Stories We Tell (Sarah Polley 2012)
(New Directors 2013 entry). Polley's strong doc debut is about her own life and investigates her confused patrimony. Grade: 7

Strange Little Cat, The (Ramon Zürcher 2013)
German first film is more a logicstical game than a film but very clever and precise as a Swiss watch. Grade: 5.5.

Tall as the Baobab Tree (Jeremy Teicher 2012)
A young American's gorgeously shot drama about teenage girls in revolt in a village in Senegal profits from his excellent rapport with all the people. Ultra low-key action though. Grade: 6

Thérèse Desqueyroux (Claude Miller 2012)
Claude Miller's last film is the Mauriac novel redone with less verve than Georges Franju's 1952 version and Audrey Tautou instead of Emanuelle Riva. Grade: 6

What Maisie Knew (David Siegel, Scott McGehee 20113)
Typically cold-blooded and unfun, this Siegel-McGehee remake of the Henry James novel fits its plot neatly into cotempo Manhattan. Their best since THE DEEP END. SFIFF opening night film. Grade: 7

Youth (Justine Malle 2013)
Alas, Justine Malle's fictionarlized study of her celebrated New Wave director father Louis Malle's last days and what she was doing at the time seems too little, too late and in the protag role Esther Garrel hasn't at all her brother Louis's charisma or sex appeal. Grade: 4/5

Links to the reviews on Filmleaf

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.