I figured out why you go to film festivals. You go to discuss the question, "What the hell just happened?"Friday night started with wine and cheese and more schmoozing over art at the Rochester Contemporary Art Center - like you see on the left. The artist, John Katzner, obviously has serious Attention Deficit Disorder. And I ran into Taylor, the Sound critic from two nights ago, who skipped Thursday night altogether from exhaustion.
So I had this theory. Every movie I saw was better than the program description led me to believe. I had two movies to pick from, one which sounded pretty good, and one that didn't sound good at all. The latter was "Women Without Men", based on the book about 4 women living in pre-Shah Iran who get together in an orchard. Blugggh! So I went to see it.
You can probably guess the rest. I actually cried at the end, which was kind of embarassing. It was as moving, lyrical, and visually arresting as any film I've seen in a long time. But when we all got of the theatre, we started talking and found something very strange had happened.
There's one scene with a Communist sympathizer fighting a shah's army soldier. One of the women, who has fallen in love with the communist, watches them battle. The communist plunges the knife into the soldier, and the soldier falls to the floor. The woman bends down very sadly, and places her hand on the fallen soldier's chest. But when we discussed it, half the people said, "No it was the Communist who falls to the floor." And the more we discussed it, the more we disagreed. But this wasn't a quick camera shot. It was at least two minutes long. The director had basically shown us what we wanted to believe ... and very convincingly.
I'm sure we could've rolled the movie again and figured it out, like a magic trick. But wow!
The second movie, "Cell 211" was a thriller from Spain. A guy (newly married, pregnant wife) comes in on his first day as prison guard, ... and with his luck, right on the day there's a prison riot. Hostages are taken, of which the prison guard is one. But he convinces them he's an inmate.
And from there, you can pretty much write the Hollywood screenplay right? Yeah well. That's not this movie at all. So you're thinking, "Oh yeah, so the new prison guard is really an escaped inmate or something." Nope. There's no gimmick. Everything unfolds right in front of you, and it's pretty un-straightforward in its straightforwardness.
No spoilers. Just watch the damn thing! It's gonna be out on DVD soon. And if subtitles turn you off just remember ... newspapers are just subtitles for life. And you don't hate newspapers, do you?
Oh, and if you want to see trailers for any of these films I'm describing, they're at http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=FCC55060B7CFFE4F.
Anyway, Friday was a sandwich with Kerri Vaughn as the bread, and the Film Festival as the filling. A lot of you know her - she's a former co-worker, my first dance teacher, and dear friend of mine. So we started the day with a bike ride down the Erie Canal, ate lunch at Alladin's in Pittsford, and came back in a little drizzly rain. After the films, I went to the Tango Cafe, of which she is the proprieter, and drank sangria, shot the breeze, and watched the salsa dancing until 2 AM.
And salsa lessons are now on my list of things-to-do. I dunno. Seems like the souvenirs I bring home from vacations are mostly to-do items. "Been There. Done That. Got 5 More Things To Do." Bliss!
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