MIFF 2004 FILM FESTIVAL NOTEBOOK
By Joel Johnson
DAY 2
Welcome to Day 2 of the Maine International Film Festival! We have outlined
a schedule that includes just three films. After some debriefing of fellow
festival goers for their impressions of the films seen on Day 1 and the
earliest events on Day 2, we are in Railroad Square Screen 1 pursuing a
traditional music form with Ruth Oxenberg’s Bluegrass Journey. Then
it’s off to the Waterville Opera House. After strategically ordering supper
from the bagel shop in the city center to be ready at the conclusion of the
first film, we are ready for the Windows and Doors double feature.
BLUEGRASS JOURNEY
USA, 2003; 86 minutes; video in English
1/2
Bluegrass Journey is a film about Bluegrass music. This film tells a
little bit of the history of this music form. Bill Monroe is credited with
coalescing in the 1930s and 1940s the quintessentially traditional American
music forms into the sound now recognized as Bluegrass music. The film
spends little time actually tracing the family music tree either up to or
beyond Bill Monroe. The film spends most of its time at the Grey Fox
Bluegrass Festival and at the International Bluegrass Music Association
awards, letting us listen to the musicians, meet the musicians, and meet the
people for whom this form of music is an obsession. (Just because film
festivals take place in air conditioned inside venues and bluegrass fans are
outside exposed to wind and rain is no reason for film festival goers to
assume superiority.) The fact that there is no definitive boundary between
the performers and the fans highlights both its charm and its niche status
in American music. Bluegrass music performers and fans frequently mingle easily amongst
each other as well as informally jamming together well after the official
performances have ended. The emphasis is on the music, and listening is the
means that it is appreciated by its fans. There’s little emphasis on
showmanship—most performers are concentrating intently on their instruments
and not trying to visually draw the attention of the audience—and certainly
no light show or dance troupe to add visual excitement. Young mandolinist
Chris Thile (who looks like he could be Jude Law’s younger brother) is one
of the few who seems to feel the music in a way that results in natural
visual accompaniment to the sound. His more visually interesting performance
style probably accounts for his disproportionate presence in the film.
Appreciation of this film may depend somewhat on your appreciation of the
musical form itself. I like some of the songs, but I think I fall far short
of being a fan. I love its energy, but the nasal singing at the top of the
singer’s range I find a bit tiresome. This is, of course, one of the
hallmarks of the music form. While the fans consist of bedrock Americans and
seem to be a really wonderful group of people, I’m not sure that the film
needs to spend quite as much time with the fans telling us how much they
love bluegrass music. An interesting observation was that while there is
certainly no articulated racism, and one of the cited forebears of bluegrass
is African music, there were no black bluegrass performers and very few
black faces (I know I saw one) amongst the fans. The film gives an overview,
a sampler of bluegrass music today, and expresses genuine affection for
performers and fans. It is informative and entertaining, but rarely
transcends the viewer to the same place its hardcore fans are.
FACING WINDOWS
Italy, 2004; 106 minutes; 35mm; in Italian with English subtitles
z
Facing Windows is the first part of the Windows and Doors double
feature. This Italian film by Turkish director Ferzan Ozpetek is a
complicated little film with intertwining stories from two time frames. The
film begins with a deadly knife fight dated in 1943 and then a bloody
handprint dissolves into a contemporary scene of young couple Giovanna
(Giovanna Mezzogiorno) and Filippo (Filippo Nigro) arguing as they troop
through town shopping. They soon find themselves confronted by a very
disoriented elderly gentleman (Massimo Girotti) asking for their help. This
becomes a further source of dispute as Filippo decides to bring the old man
home to help him, and Giovanna wants nothing to do with him. We are gradually
introduced to the world this couple inhabits. We meet their children, a
lovely girl and boy. Filippo works nightshift in a factory while Giovanna
works days as a bookkeeper in a poultry processing plant. Comic relief is
provided by Giovanna’s chubby coworker and neighbor Eminč (Serra Yilmaz),
who has an African husband and biracial children. However, the most salient
part of Giovanna’s life is that she longingly watches her handsome neighbor
(Raoul Bova) through the facing windows of their apartments. Soon the
elderly gentleman, who calls himself Simone, brings Giovanna together with
the handsome neighbor, Lorenzo, as they need to find the elderly man and
then unravel the mystery of who Simone really is. We go back and forth in
time as layers of his life are revealed. It soon becomes clear that the old
man is a concentration camp survivor and that the war years left a very
powerful impression on him. Giovanna begins to realize as well that the
handsome Lorenzo admires her with just as much fervor as she admires him.
Her resistance to acting on this attraction is wavering. The film then moves
into new territory when Giovanna is able to reconnect with Davide
(previously identified as Simone because all he could remember was the name
of his gay lover, Simone). Davide, back at his own home, is improbably very
lucid seemingly fully recovered from whatever dementia he was suffering. He
is a retired pastry chef, and he shares this passion with Giovanna. Giovanna
must decide which passions she should pursue. This is the crux of the film.
This is a beautiful looking film—as have been all of Ozpetek’s films. The
story is gentle and meandering—which is another way of saying slow-moving
easily lulling susceptible viewers to sleep. I must plead guilty to being
alertness-challenged watching this film. The film alludes to intensely
dramatic events during the World War II part of the story, but the
filmmaker has chosen either for artistic or economic reasons not to show us
those things. The two leads, Mezzogiorno and Bova, are so attractive that it
is easy to understand becoming infatuated just by watching them from a
distance and certainly watching them is hardly a chore. The film does climax
well before it actually ends feeling unnecessarily dragged out. I am forced
to give it my less than satisfactory
z
rating.
THE DOOR IN THE FLOOR
USA, 2004; 111 minutes; 35mm; in English
1/2
Producer Ted Hope introduced his new film The Door in the Floor. This
film is a film adaptation by Tod Williams of John Irving’s novel A Widow
for One Year. Most adaptations try to capture the essence of the entire
book’s story while having to freely discard significant elements from the
book to make it fit into feature film form. Screenwriter and director Tod
Williams basically has limited this film’s story to what Hope says is about
“the first 150 pages” of the novel. The story begins with a family already
in turmoil. Ted Cole (Jeff Bridges) is a writer and illustrator of
children’s stories who describes himself as “a simple entertainer of
children who loves to draw.” His wife Marion (Kim Basinger) is a depressed
woman carrying a heavy burden of pain. A young daughter Ruthie (Elle
Fanning) is entranced and trapped in a “shrine” to her two dead older
brothers Tom and Tim whom she only knows through these pictures. Into this
world comes Exeter student Eddie O’Hare (Jon Foster) hoping to learn
something about being a writer. His only critical job qualification is that
he has a driver's license and can drive Ted, whose license has been
suspended, around their Long Island community. He arrives, as he is told by Ted,
during “a sad period in a long and happy marriage,” as Ted and Marion have
agreed to temporarily separate. They begin a unique living arrangement
alternating between the family home and a nearby apartment, but never being
in either place together. Eddie is the film’s moral center, but morality is
under fire from several quarters. This is a very challenging film. There are
multiple scenes of graphic nudity and sexuality that pack a pretty good
wallop of shock value. These may unsettle many filmgoers. However,
the film integrates these scenes purposefully both in a rich drama and for
effective comic relief. Although I have only seen the film once, I suspect
that one’s appreciation may increase with multiple viewings. Hope described
both Bridges’s and Basinger’s performances as “the bravest of their careers.”
While that may be a proud producer overlavishly gushing, both performances
are indeed brave and deeply human portrayals of very flawed characters. Ted
Hope is, of course, quite hopeful that they may be recognized next winter
when awards are presented. They, as well as young Jon Foster, certainly
deserve consideration for such recognition. I was very impressed and looking
forward to my second viewing.
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