THE MAINE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
2005 DIARY

By Laurie Meunier Graves

DAY 4

Lance is in the lead, by two minutes and forty-six seconds. That doesn’t sound like much, but in a race this close, even one minute can make a difference. I am referring, of course, to Lance Armstrong, who has been winning the Tour de France nearly every year since the film festival started. The race and the film festival run roughly at the same time, and every summer, in between watching movies and eating popcorn, I have been keeping track of Lance Armstrong. However, this is his last year. It will seem odd not to have Lance Armstrong to think about during the festival. I’m far from being a sport’s enthusiast, but Armstrong’s story is so compelling that it has drawn me in. How can anyone resist the saga of a man who battles cancer and then goes on to win the Tour de France six times and is trying like mad to win it a seventh time? The fact that he’s so good looking doesn’t hurt, either.

In thinking about Lance Armstrong and the Tour de France, I have come to realize that Clif and I have developed a series of traditions based around the film festival. Not surprisingly, most of them involve food. (The other night when I was debating between going to a movie and going to a reception that might have good food, someone said rather impatiently, “It’s supposed to be about movies.” True enough, but with me, I’m afraid, food goes neck and neck with movies.)

Generally, we kick off the festival with chocolate martinis and appetizers at the Bread Box Café. Then, once, sometimes even twice, we hit the Mexican restaurant for nachos and margaritas. There’s always a Denny’s Diner night, usually on the second weekend after the last film of the day. Most of us get breakfast, but some of us also indulge in burgers and shakes. On Sunday, the last day, a large group goes to the Last Unicorn for one of their delicious brunches. This year, we are also squeezing in lunch at a new Italian restaurant that just opened in Waterville.

I have come to look forward to these little treats that have become a tradition for us. They anchor the film festival and give us something to look forward to during ten days of what is very hard work. I know. It doesn’t sound like much to watch over twenty-five movies and then write about them so that they can be posted as soon as possible in the web magazine. My own great-grandmother, who lived on a farm in northern Maine, would probably scoff at the fatigue I feel during and after the film festival. Her capacity for hard work has nearly become the stuff of legends in my family. But that doesn’t stop me from planning and enjoying my food outings, restful islands of tranquility and sustenance in a sea of movies.

REEL PARADISE
USA, 2005; 114 minutes; 35mm; in English



What do you do when you’ve helped promote Spike Lee and Michael Moore, written a book called Spike, Mike, Slackers & Dykes, and have created the IFC cable show Split Screen? Why, you go to a remote island in Fiji for a year to run the 180 Meridian Cinema and show free movies to the locals. Then, just to make the experience more interesting, you agree to allow your family—your wife, your sixteen-year-old daughter, and your thirteen-year-old son—to be part of a documentary that chronicles the experience. Most of us would hesitate before embarking on this sort of adventure, but John Pierson, a thin, energetic man, seemed to have no qualms. (However, his wife Janet quite sensibly had reservations.)

Reel Paradise follows the Pierson family during their last month on the island of Taveuni, a rural island far off the beaten track, so to speak. Most of the residents—farmers, fisherman, and merchants—are very poor, living in houses pieced together from what looks to be scraps of metal, wood, and even cloth. The floors are often made of dirt, and chickens run freely in and out of the houses. The Piersons, on the other hand, are an affluent family used to doing things a certain way and having their magazines, their computers, and their amenities. As to be expected, there are culture clashes and troubles aplenty. They get robbed twice, Georgia, the teenaged daughter, runs wild with the locals and swears at her parents, and the man who operates the projector is unreliable, to say the least. John Pierson goes up against the Catholic Church by showing movies during the same time as mass, and this causes hard feelings. (This viewer can’t help but wonder why Pierson didn’t change the time he showed movies. Church seems to mean quite a lot to the islanders, and to set up this conflict was insensitive, a typical willful American approach.)

This movie certainly shows the Pierson family, warts and all, and at times it’s hard to watch them, particularly John and Georgia, as they scream and fight. I’m not a huge fan of reality shows, which this movie, at times, comes very close to being. Yet, the movie holds my attention because the cultural conflicts are interesting, and John’s desire to show free movies is admirable. The island itself is very beautiful, and I find it fascinating to watch the islanders fish, gather food, and weave fronds into hats and baskets. Perhaps best of all, the movie succeeds in showing John as a mixture of contradictions—engaging, abrasive, generous, volatile, and as rigid in his own way as the Catholic church. He comes off as a multidimensional human being, and this does not always happen in a film.

The last movie Pierson shows is a Buster Keaton movie, and the audience literally screams with laughter as they watch Keaton’s antics. Standing in the back by the projector, John laughs right along with them, and, for an hour or so, he and the islanders are united by one of the great comedians of American cinema.

COLOSSAL SENSATION: DODO AND NAPHTHALENE
Hungary, 2004; 95 minutes; 35mm; in Hungarian with English subtitles



I feel as though I should like this movie more than I do, but, for some reason, I am just not able to take to it. The acting is good, the production quality is good, and the setting, Hungary, has the advantage of being both familiar and unfamiliar, a winning combination for a movie. However, I am never able to connect with the movie’s main characters—the circus twins Dodo and Naphthalene—as they make their way through over fifty years of Hungarian history. Perhaps it is the episodic nature of the story that gets in the way. It skips from event to event and never really allows the characters to have much depth, Whatever the case, I am lukewarm about this film. 

Day 5 -->

5 1/2" x 5" 2008 Wolf Moon Calendar just $10.00 each
More Info

More Info

© Wolf Moon Press 2002-2008 all rights reserved.

Submission Guidelines