Tonight's FNatM is by chingchongchinaman.
Last Sunday, the Saint Louis International Film Festival (SLIFF) closed out, with over 300 films screened, according to several announcers at various screenings. The total count, at least IMHO, sounds to me as each short film was counted individually, since I counted full-length features as more like 138. But the point is that SLIFF offers a pretty hefty selection of movies that one would otherwise never get a chance to see in general release. A few mainstream selections were featured in advance of their release here (e.g. 127 Hours, Made in Dagenham), but overall, the selections are pretty offbeat. Some reflections on the festival overall, as well as two of the more "political"-themed films (this is DK, after all), follow below.....
As I mentioned, one great thing about SLIFF is the chance to experience a huge diversity of films that you would never have an opportunity to check out, without going to NetFlix or the Internet. The problem with such a hugely diverse list, however, is one of marketing, because the art-house filmgoer market is already pretty limited compared to the mass-market Harry Potter/big budget blockbuster audience. Furthermore, that relatively small audience can fragment further, albeit with overlap, among genres and regions (documentaries, cinema from any particular non-English country, gay-themed movies, etc.). This really puts the burden of "marketing" on the audience members themselves, where they (including me) have to go through the festival booklet, and select which movies to see, especially when you have 5 movies going on simultaneously on a particular night, and you could be potentially be interested in all of them. Some movies do get 2 showings during the festival, but you still have to choose. In other words, personal interests ("I love [fill in the genre] movies") really come to the fore, and the mass marketing in this context has to be about the festival itself as a whole, rather than any single festival film.
The one exception to that rule, in the worst way possible, was Casino Jack, the new George Hickenlooper film about Jack Abramoff, which I SNLC’ed about here. I think that even had the gods been kinder and Hickenlooper were still alive to appear at SLIFF to present the movie, the Tivoli Theater main hall would still have been pretty full anyway. Casino Jack did win the audience choice award, as announced at the SLIFF-after party on Sunday night. This wasn’t a surprise, given the sympathy factor.
From my viewing of the movie, moving into the more "political" aspects of this FNatM, it actually goes pretty light on the roots of how money infects all aspects of Washington politics, and how much "little people" can change it. The one character who does try to confront Jack Abramoff is Harry Clearwater, played by Graham Greene, after Clearwater's tribe got suckered by Abramoff and Clearwater's job was eliminated. When Clearwater tries to track down Abramoff at the latter's DC lobbying firm office, Clearwater is summarily thrown out of the building. In short, taking back the system away from the influence of money is perhaps the ultimate David vs. Goliath challenge (frankly because too many Americans are short-sighted, greedy fools who worship money above just about anything, as witness general wingnuttery and lunacy about extending Dumbya's useless tax cuts). The Republicans pretty much get painted as the main villains as far as the dirty influence of lobbying money goes, with Democrats pretty much relegated to the sidelines as far as partaking of the $$ goes. You may not be pleased at how soft-pedaled the cameo portraits of Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed are, for example. The portrait of Tom DeLay by Spencer Garrett, for example, doesn’t overdo caricature, and again may come off as somewhat "soft" by DK standards, but then real life can sort of overtake movies, so that one doesn’t need to lay it on with a trowel.
Another other "political" film that I saw at SLIFF was Les bureaux de Dieu (God’s Offices), a 2008 French film that is set at a family planning center, and tells several stories of various women who come to the clinic to deal with situations like unwanted pregnancies, concerns about using birth control, and girls' relationships with parents regarding sex. I'll admit that I thought the film ran something like 15-20 minutes long, and that it wore on my brain after a while. However, what struck me equally about this movie was the recurring feeling that "this movie could never be made in the USA". This is because the movie is non-judgmental about its characters, both the family planning center workers and the clients. The women, young and older, aren’t all put upon by dumb, selfish men, although there is that, to be sure, such as in the younger Algerian couple where the guy doesn't let his girlfriend get a word in edge-ways. Some of the women make some really foolish decisions, like the married woman who has an affair, but then has sex with her husband, becomes pregnant, and doesn’t know who the father is or what to do in this situation.
The film does not resolve that dilemma, which may disappoint people who are looking for some sort of resolution there. But it slowly dawned on me that the point is not resolution, but the point is the dilemma itself. In other words, she made a stupid decision and has to live with it. But that is my judgment, not the filmmakers'. This movie is a classic illustration of the quip attributed to the Great Thumb himself, Roger Ebert, at least so I’ve heard:
"American movies are about plot. French films are about people."
When the film presents arrangements for clients to travel to Barcelona to obtain abortions discreetly, it does so matter-of-factly, without sensationalism. However, one character in the film does make an overt judgment about anti-choicers, with one client who says that she saw something on the Internet about how having an abortion harms a woman’s chances of having children later, and such like. The family planning center worker quite bluntly tells the client that she was reading an anti-abortion website and all of the information there was false.
FWIW, at the one screening I attended, there were maybe 15-20 people in the audience. You can check out the trailer of Les bureaux de Dieu here (with Dutch subtitles - sorry):
One other film with an interesting local connection and political subtext, which I wasn’t able to attend, was Percy Schmeiser: David Versus Monsanto (please note again the city where this film festival took place). You can read more about this story here and here.
I don't know how many Kossacks have the chance to partake of local film festivals, or for those with such festivals, the kinds of films on offer there. This may well be a case of a particular demographic bias at work, without me realizing it. I guess it's just the fact that in St. Louis, we’re pretty lucky to have such a festival that continues to bring out-of-the-way movies year after year, especially in a tanking economy in a trending-red state (granted, St. Louis is one of the bluest parts of said state). Next year marks the 20th SLIFF, and who knows what it will bring. One can but hope.
With that, the DK film forum below is yours on this Thanksgiving weekend, for movies you've recently seen or just want to talk about. Have fun....