THE MAINE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2004

DAY 8

Here we are at day 8, and yes, that old familiar feeling of fatigue is creeping in. Yesterday, Raphael Di Luzio spoke of film promoting the noisy, quick eye rather than the quiet eye of times past, and I’m beginning to long for a little of that quiet eye. I expect I am not the only one to feel this way, and I have designed a list of signs of film festival fatigue so that other festivalgoers can gauge their level of exhaustion. If one or two items apply to you, then you have a mild case of festival fatigue, and there’s no cause for concern. If four or five items apply, then you are well on your way to festival fatigue. If more then six apply, then dear reader, you have it.

TEN SIGNS OF FESTIVAL FATIGUE

1. You really need that chocolate martini, even though in normal times, you rarely drink.

2. You have no idea what day it is.

3. Plot? What plot?

4. Popcorn and Peace Pops come to feel like part of a balanced diet.

5. Your house is a mess, and you don’t care.

6. Exercise and sunlight are but distant memories.

7. The mail piles up; bills go unpaid.

8. Festivalgoers seem more like family than actual family members do.

9. Unable to keep track of which movie you’re supposed to see next, you fall into a panic if you can’t find your schedule.

10. It seems as though you are caught in an endless cycle of eating, sleeping, and movies, and you feel powerless to break the cycle.



MEDIUM COOL
USA, 1969; 110 minutes; 35mm; in English

1/2

An uneven movie that at times feels very dated but nevertheless has moments of power and honesty. These moments come mainly from Verna Bloom, who plays Eileen, a single mother from West Virginia who has moved to a Chicago ghetto. Bloom’s performance reminds me of Sissy Spacek in Coal Miner’s Daughter. She has the same waifish look and the same decent, stubborn integrity. Eileen may be unsophisticated, but she is nobody’s fool and doesn’t seem to spend a single moment feeling sorry for herself. The film shines in the scenes between Eileen and her young son Harold. They have a wonderful rapport and really do seem as though they are mother and son.

Less successful are the scenes with John (Robert Forster), a TV cameraman and reporter. As he investigates car accidents and the tensions between races, the scenes feel jumpy, rough, and abrupt. The same can be said of Forster’s performance, which is stilted and stiff, a striking contrast with Bloom’s natural, graceful style. Forster always seems to be acting, and at no time does his character ever come to life. Worse still is the music, loud, jarring, and tacked on randomly. I suppose the lyrics are appropriate, and maybe at the time the music seemed hip and modern. Today, the music sounds cheesy, and I don’t think I am overstating the case by suggesting it could qualify for a spot on The Most Annoying Music Show featured on PBS.

Naturally, John’s life intersects with Eileen’s, and the two fall in love. However, Harold does not completely approve of this, and when he catches John kissing his mother, he runs off in a huff and stays out all night. Eileen searches the city for him, and finds herself smack dab in the middle of the Chicago riots of 1968. (Incredibly enough, this part of the movie was shot during the actual riot.) The scenes of Eileen searching for her son are unforgettable. Wearing a bright yellow dress, she looks like a flower amidst a bunch of harsh weeds—the protesters and the policemen—and this is an apt metaphor for the whole movie.

WILD PARROTS OF TELEGRAPH HILL
USA, 2004; 83 minutes; video; in English



Even in my movie-befuddled state, I have enough sense to recognize that the documentary Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill is one of the freshest movies I’ve seen in a long time. The folks at Railroad Square and their affiliate Shadow Distribution recognize it, too, and have decided to distribute the film. (We understand the distributed copy will be 35mm.) In Wild Parrots, filmmaker Judith Irving chronicles the life of Mark Bittner—a bright late bloomer who has had a hard time finding “right livelihood”—and his love and fascination with a flock of parrots that live on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco, where Bittner lives as well. Irving is fascinated with both her subjects, especially Bittner, who, as she puts it, has plenty of time to do the things he wants to do and yet has no visible means of support. Bittner lives simply, does odd jobs, and relies on the generosity of friends. Because of this, he is able to study the parrots in a way that most people are not. Better still, Bittner is a terrific raconteur who has a beautiful narrative style as well as an empathetic imagination that allows him to identify with the parrots. This could lead to an over-the-top kind of New Age movie, with Bittner as the guru of parrots, but somehow it never does. Bittner’s understated style combined with a healthy respect for facts ground his observations and make for a perfect blend of heart and mind.

Through Bittner’s stories and Irving’s eye, we come to know and love the parrots and see them as individuals rather than as just one big flock. There’s Mingus, the parrot with the broken leg, who prefers captivity to freedom; there’s Connor the loner, a parrot of a different species who is always on the edge of things; there’s Sophie, the tiny Frenchlike parrot who pairs with the large Picasso but is able to manage on her own when Picasso disappears.

All these elements—Bittner, the parrots, Irving’s eye—come together to form a story as compelling as any fictional story, and, indeed, Wild Parrots fits neatly into the creative nonfiction category. And unlike many documentaries, this one didn’t seem a minute too long. If Wild Parrots comes to a cinema near you, get thee hence!

RECONSTRUCTION
Denmark, 2003; 89 minutes; 35mm; in Danish and Swedish with English



Reconstruction, perhaps, is another film that suffers from being viewed at the wrong time. What could compete with Wild Parrots? Certainly not Reconstruction. A time-bender tale that winds and rewinds and uses elements similar to Run Lola, Run, the movie starts out promisingly with a godlike narration. It turns out that the voice belongs to August, a writer, whose wife Aimee is having an affair with a young photographer named Alex. As soon as August discovers the affair, strange things start happening to Alex. His apartment literally disappears, and neither friends nor family recognize him. I will admit these scenes pique my interest, but then the movie segues into a semitragic story of doomed love that nevertheless is so cold and slow that I really don’t care what happens to Alex and Aimee. I don’t even care whether the story is, in fact, one of August’s tales and therefore completely unreal or whether August actually is messing with Alex. A story within a story? Or a story? However, unlike Off the Map, Reconstruction will not get a second chance. Once is definitely enough for this movie.
 

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