MIFF 2005 FILM FESTIVAL NOTEBOOK

By Joel Johnson

DAY 10

Sunday: The last day of the festival is finally here. The day is superb with warm, dry, and clear weather. It is beautiful for just about everything—except a film festival. Rain—especially light rain—works pretty well for a film festival. The relatively empty parking lot at Railroad Square following a traditional brunch gathering of hardcore cinephiles shows that only the most cinema-addicted have shown up for the early films. My first film of the day is Yuva and, though it will run for most of the afternoon, it has a later starting time that allows me to enjoy the outdoors and hobnob with staff and festival goers. Though it seems almost criminal to eschew the glorious weather, I do have my priorities. Today of all days, I will be rewarded for my devotion to cinema with three outstanding pictures.

YUVA
India, 2004; 169 minutes; 35mm; in Hindi with English subtitles

1/2

Mani Ratnam’s Yuva was this year’s Bollywood representative. However this film is different from what MIFF festivalgoers have experienced with other Bollywood entries. While music is lavishly spread throughout the film, there are only a small number of production numbers in which the actors break out into singing and dancing. The actors mostly act to the accompaniment of the music and singing. The action revolves around three young men. While each of the three has his own romantic relationships to stoke, the film has other issues to address. The film owes much to Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Amores Perros. The film opens with a scene which brings Michael (Ajay Devgan), Lallan (Abhishek Bachchan), and Arjun (Vivek Oberoi) together for the first time. Arjun begs Michael for a lift on his motorcycle so he can pursue a young woman with whom he has fallen in love. Just moments after dropping off Arjun, Michael is shot as he rides by another vehicle. While the film intercuts the stories of the three young men, each of the young men has a section in which he is the primary focus. The first section is devoted to the ruthlessly ambitious and physically imposing Lallan who joins his more sophisticated and elegant older brother in the employ of the seamy career politician Prosonjit Bhatacharya (Om Puri). Lallan is to provide the muscle that makes sure that Bhatacharya continues to stay in power. Ultimately, he will prove to be a challenge for Bhatacharya to control. The first part of the film shows Lallan as a dark and handsome lover who exudes a potent aphrodisiacal brew of vulnerability and danger. Despite the obvious reasons why a woman should avoid him like the plague, an unfortunate young woman makes the horrible choice of Lallan over the desperate protests of her family. This first section is, in fact, the part of the film with the most traditional romantic Bollywood musical numbers. Later on, we meet Michael who is a budding political reformer itching to retire Bhatacharya from public service. Then we meet Arjun, a self-involved college student blithely headed off to America for further schooling until the fateful coincidence that brings him together with Michael. Arjun is never quite the same after that. Not only does the story borrow from Amores Perros, but the cinematographer has adopted the same herky-jerky visuals that seem to make the action sequences—and there are several thrilling martial arts segments in addition to the dance scenes—explode off the screen. The film kept my interest throughout its 169-minute running time. This may be heresy for true Bollywood fans, but I appreciate the fact that it did not let its story become overwhelmed by its singing and dancing. The music effectively supported the story as opposed to the focus being on the music with the story providing the slimmest pretext for it.


THE DISAPPEARANCE
United Kingdom/Canada, 1977; 100 minutes; 35mm; in English

1/2

Stuart Cooper’s The Disappearance was our penultimate film for this year’s MIFF. Strangely, this dark, moody 1977 mystery with a handful of well-known actors (Donald Sutherland, Christopher Plummer, David Hemmings, John Hurt, David Warner, and Peter Bowles) has never been released in this country—at least not in the form that was shown at MIFF. While many films now get released on DVD with director’s cuts, few would have had to be reassembled so thoroughly from what the studio did to it. The film begins with a shooting and, shortly after that, the shooter Jay Mallory (Donald Sutherland) comes home to find phones off the hook and his wife Celandine (Sutherland’s real-life wife Francine Racette) missing. The film then intercuts flashbacks of their earlier relationship with footage of Mallory trying to piece together what has happened to his wife before he reluctantly takes an assignment to eliminate a “shy” (English carnival term for the target of a throw) in England. While this construction needs the audience to be attentive, it is not especially difficult to follow the back and forth time frames. The flashback sequences are, of course, the only scenes that would provide any context for the relationship between Mallory and his wife. That did not seem to cause any hesitation for the studio editors. The studio cut, reported Mr. Cooper, decided to eliminate all the flashback sequences as flashback sequences. They did decide to insert some flashback footage into the contemporary narrative of the hitman going to England in search of his quarry, although the sudden appearance of the missing wife who then suddenly disappears again seemed to be a particularly baffling turn of events for the audience. The film we saw has a deliberate pace intended to pique the audience’s curiosity and is well acted, particularly by Sutherland as the very professional, yet emotionally wounded assassin-for-hire. The decade of the 70s seemed to specialize in dark quirky films—some like Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation have been given honored places in the decade’s pantheon of best films. The Disappearance probably never was a film that would have wide mass appeal even with its fairly well-known cast, but it is hard to believe the film we saw was considered such a “disaster” that evisceration and burial seemed to be the only remedy. As he had after The Overlord, Mr. Cooper conducted an informative and entertaining Q and A session. He clearly was MIFF’s most engaging guest since Jonathan Demme.


THE REAL DIRT ON FARMER JOHN
U.S.A., 2005; 83 minutes; video; in English

1/2

Taggart Siegel’s The Real Dirt on Farmer John is an amazing film about a farmer who grew up in a Midwestern farm family in Illinois. While there certainly are several ways that John Peterson’s story is similar to that of dozens of farm families that have had to sell their property and do something else because they could simply no longer make a go of it, there are some key ways that Mr. Peterson’s story is uniquely his own. First of all, his life is incredibly well documented on childhood home movies and experimental filmmaking forays with his college friends. He then began a friendship with the filmmaker who was present when John’s love affair with farming reached its low point—when he had to auction off much of his land and equipment. Though John appeared as a typical strait-laced young farmer-in-training while growing up, he became exposed to a wider world and broader means for self-expression during his college years. This happened during the turbulent late 60s—yes, the 60s made a big impression at small Midwestern colleges, too. This freer self-expression has led to farmer John frequently posing—and it’s a staple of his personal appearances on behalf of the film—wearing a feather boa while driving his tractor. His farm has frequently been a place where his college buddies would get together and mix art and agriculture. Unfortunately, the various artistic sentiments were not always appreciated, and the Peterson place became associated with rumors of wild orgies, satanic worship, and drugs. He became a pariah among the people with whom he had always lived. The film pulls out a lot of emotional stops with snippets from family—especially his mother, current and old girlfriends, various friends and neighbors in recounting the salient events of Farmer John’s life. There’s also the premature loss of his father while John was still a young teen and then the heartrending deterioration of his mother during her bout with cancer. There are large doses of humor and irony as well. However, the film would just be a quaint little film about an eccentric farmer who has had to give up farming without Farmer John’s underlying agenda. He is using this film about his own experiences to draw attention to the movement for Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) that has allowed him to dramatically reverse his farm’s fortunes and begin to reacquire land he had previously lost. During Farmer John’s extended Q and A session (the first for a MIFF closing night film), he was impressed that many in the audience were familiar with Community Supported Agriculture, with several local CSA farms identified by name. This was a very engaging film that alternately dismayed, delighted, and depressed the audience, but the triumph of Farmer John over ignorant neighbors and lousy farm fortunes will be savored by farmer and nonfarmer alike. Likewise, Farmer John proved to be the most engaging guest since—well, since Stuart Cooper.

 

 

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