SFIFF 54: Critic's Notebook 1.

SFIFF 54: Critic's Notebook 1.

By Craig Phillips

There's an ice cream parlor down the street from me that is locally famous for its giant spinning wheel aimed at the indecisive or risk-taking customer. A plethora of flavors are listed on the wheel as well as several "free" spaces. You could end up with marmalade-tobacco crunch (okay, I exaggerate) but you could also really score. No, films are not like ice cream, but this is kind of how I've approached deciding which films to see at this year's San Francisco International Film Festival, while also trying to focus even more than in past years on films that may not have wide distribution. The temptations are there: Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Meek's Cutoff, Beginners - which I did see - are among the distributed films playing at SFIFF 54. But director Graham Legget and his team of programmers (Rachel Rosen, Rod Armstrong, Sean Uyehara and Audrey Chang) have done a fine job populating the fest with gems from around the world.

I also try to mix up my viewing choices also based on directors new and known, between moods dark and light, of various styles and formats. And, sometimes, just based on pure luck and convenience -- or on what the wheel spin tells me. Serendipitous surprises are the greatest pleasure of a film festival. Today and tomorrow I'll write about these pleasures (and at least one disappointment).

Nostalgia for the Light

Patricio Guzm�n, whose 1970s documentary trilogy, The Battle of Chile, and his bio Salvador Allende, focused on Chilean political strife, returns with the haunting, extraordinary dual-sided documentary Nostalgia for the Light. The film seems, at first, to be a change of pace for Guzman, as it begins as a look at a series of huge high desert telescopes in Chile's Atacama desert where the air is so incredibly dry that the night sky is crystal clear, perfect for watching the skies. But the film becomes the story of something deeper and darker: Two groups on a quest searching the past for answers, astronomers searching the skies, and in a parallel story. Chileans still searching for their "disappeared," loved ones missing since Pinochet's brutal dictatorship saw a period of terror that "swept away history and science." It's a difficult challenge, to make these two parallel stories jibe not only coherently but of a piece, but Guzman, who narrates as well, turns it into something profound and eerily natural.

The astronomers in the film consider themselves archaeologists of space in a way, only dealing with far more time separation than earth bound historians. "We manipulate the past," says one. The energy from the past takes millions or billions of years to reach us so when they look into the light of stars they are really looking into the past. Something, this film infers, that many on the ground have neglected to do. Guzman pointedly if subtly jabs at Chile's own denial and neglect of history -- the victims are forgotten or ignored by the government and many cataloguers of history, all would rather let the sands of desert cover up these atrocities. (In an odd coincidence, I'd recently watched Costa Gavras' Missing, a fictionalized thriller based on the Pinochet reign of terror, a far different film, of course, but would make an interesting companion piece with Guzman's work.)

Several people featured in the film search the barren desert for the remains of family who were victims of Chilean brutality, critics of Pinochet who were taken and thrown in concentration camps, such as the one in this wasteland near the observatory. One of those surviving prisoners tells Guzman about how in his time there he learned about astronomy, including how to concoct a homemade device that allowed him to measure the constellations, until the military banned astronomy lessons. But he managed to preserve his inner freedom. A woman searches for her brother, digging through the desert in search of the missing, poignantly armed with only a small hand shovel, even more moving when you hear the story.

Nostalgia for the Light is about the paradox of a country (and society) that has ignored so much of its darker past, that has kept its more recent past hidden. Guzman's film is gorgeously photographed, like a dreamscape of the heavens, and of hell on earth. While it doesn't always feel as if every ambitious dot is connected, it is a sober, and sobering work.

The Colors of the Mountain

Carlos C�sar Arbel�ez's appealing debut feature is set in the remote mountainous region of Columbia near Panama border, where a group of village boys' passion for soccer gives them some pleasure in a place disrupted by political strife -- as violent guerilla fighters increasingly dominate the villagers lives. When Manuel's new ball - a rare, decadent gift in an impoverished place - ends up on a mine field, he and his cohorts try to figure out if it's worth getting it back. The Colors of the Mountain's deceptively simple storyline may seem not quite enough to hang your hat on, and it could use more ferocity at times, but there's certainly more going on here than the kiddie story on the surface.

A cast of non-professional actors, mostly children, is led by the wonderfully engaging Hern�n Mauricio Ocampo a total natural as the soccer-obsessed Manuel, plus Genaro Aristizabal as the picked-on, nerdy albino kid they call Poca Luz, as well as the rest of the sweetly played young cast.

Manuel's parents have an increasingly tense relationship; his father wants to show who is in charge there since he feels helpless with his place in the world, trying to fend off threats from the guerillas to join them, or else, while protecting his family and his manhood. Meanwhile, a caring new, young teacher adds a positive presence to their otherwise drab lives. All of this is seen through the child's point of view and had me fearing it would veer off into sentimentality or even fantasy, but instead the director keeps things firmly rooted in reality.

Arbel�ez's use of blackouts is an occasionally annoying affectation and the editing has its share of choppy moments but his touch overall and Ocampo's utterly natural central performance help keep the film from becoming too mawkish. In fact one of the best, most moving scenes involves a simple act: when the teacher has the students paint over a graffitied wall.

The film has a sunny sense of humor but overall there's a necessary air of sadness. Finding that ball is not going to solve the problems that engulf them. A bittersweet final shot seems to signal both resilience and harder times to come.

The Colors of the Mountain will thankfully be distributed by Film Movement this summer.

Attenberg

Athina Rachel Tsangari's dramedy was described by some wags as "Dogtooth Lite," I suppose because it is another quirky Greek film (there's another connection I'll mention later). That would be fine by me, and even if it doesn't really sum the film up, it's true this would make a pretty gentle companion, warm-up piece with Giorgos Lanthimos' already legendary film. This is a far warmer vision of patriarchy, however.

Attenberg has its own deadpan charm, as Tsangari seems to wear her Godard influence on her man�ki. Starts off with two women practicing tongue kissing, which denigrates into a spitting contest and then playful animal noises, setting the tone for the film's humorous moods and interludes. One of these women, Marina's father Spyros is dying of cancer, which puts her basically on her own devices for the first time in her young life. The film centers on this sexually immature woman's romantic awakening and exploration, she claims she'd never previously felt anything for anyone - even getting grossed out by bodily contact, now Marina (Ariane Labed) is trying to make up for lost time, her dad's illness a reminder of pending mortality. She can't quite figure out which side of the fence she sits on - maybe it's both. Fascinated and repulsed by male and female anatomy, including her own - she's more like a zoologist rather than a sexual being.

And in fact the title is a reference to Sir David Attenborough, whose name they knowingly mispronounce and whose nature documentaries are a favorite of Marina and her father -- the film offers dual conversations and multiple references about humans as animals. Tsangari was quoted as saying that she approaches dramatic filmmaking like an anthropologist: ?I don?t use psychology,? she says. ?I prefer biology or zoology. These are my tools." And in this film she proves herself to be as observant of the human animal as Attenborough is of wildlife, but this is a far more formalist yet playful film than that would imply. It is full of bouncey dance asides and cathartically silly walks that would make John Cleese proud.

Marina has an odd, sexually magnetic (both positively and negatively charged) friendship with Bella (Evangelia Randou), a relationship that manages to be deep and yet shallow and catty. And never mind Dogtooth, Attenberg in many ways would make a better companion piece with Mike Mills' Beginners (also screened at SFIFF, and which I adored), that it is about two melancholy characters dealing with the pending death of a father, a film about death that is full of quirk and zip and playful asides. And it has a refreshing sexual frankness. When Marina develops a somewhat anonymous if still caring relationship with a man -- whom she won't introduce him to her friend because she's worried she'll steal him, and won't introduce to her father because she's not sure it's worth it -- their scenes together are depicted with an erotic eye and yet full of a believable amount of awkward fumbling around.

Some of the animalistic and silly tangents wore a bit thin for me, but Tsangari mostly manages to unpretentiously balance the ribald and real with the poignant. I might have wished the film had a bit more narrative momentum, as my interest waned from time to time, but that would be missing the point in a way -- the film is purposely comprised of pieces, if not random then seemingly disconnected, as if a collage. But it is of a piece, too, the logic connecting it all becoming clearer as it unfolds. And it's hard to look away from a film with so much spirited word play and footplay.

There is one decided connection with Dogtooth here: The lovely, appropriately moody cinematography is by Thimios Bakatakis, who also shot Lanthimos' film.

Posted by cphillips at April 28, 2011 4:29 PM

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