2006 MIFF FILM
REVIEWS (Part 3)
By Joel
Johnson
KIRIKOU AND THE WILD BEASTS—Four African
folk tales have been adapted for Michel Ocelot and
Bénédicte Galup’s gorgeous and charming animated film
Kirikou and the Wild Beasts.
Although Kirikou and the Sorceress, in which he tames the evil
sorceress that is bedeviling his village, followed Kirikou from infancy to
adulthood, this sequel has a still-small Kirikou leading his people against
wild beasts, their own ignorance, and the machinations of the sorceress and
her minion fetishes. There’s even a travelogue through Africa for one of
Kirikou’s adventures. The sorceress torments Kirikou’s village, but she’s
not the focal antagonist that she was in Kirikou and the Sorceress.
The stories in Wild Beasts are not quite as dramatically satisfying
as in Sorceress because they seem to be part of a story that
continues and not one that has been fully resolved. Not that the target
audience of children seemed to mind. They squealed with delight when he
outran the scary hyena and then outwitted the sorceress. The Kirikou
films that showed at MIFF were in French with English subtitles. The
dialogue is quite simple and the reading level needed for the subtitles is
probably about first or second grade. School-aged children should enjoy the
film without any difficulty at all, but young children who haven’t yet
learned to read may have difficulty following the story. It is also worth
noting that Kirikou and the Sorceress was eventually released on DVD
in a dubbed version.
THE NOTORIOUS BETTIE PAGE —Mary
Harron introduced her recent film The Notorious Bettie Page and then
did a Q & A afterward. For those who may not know, Bettie Page was a
statuesque, raven-haired beauty who became a racy pin-up queen of the 1950s
when sexually suggestive material was subject to possible prosecution. What
was considered very risqué was kept in brown-paper wrappings and behind the
counter for rather exclusive customers. Bettie Page (Gretchen Mol) comes
straight from the Bible belt of Tennessee to this world of girlie magazines
with nude pin-ups and pictorials with crude narratives. Her personal
history includes incest, domestic abuse, and rape. The pictorials and the
silent short 8mm films she appeared in had themes of bondage and
sadomasochism. They consisted mostly of posing in sexy lingerie, looking
nudge-nudge-wink-wink threatening, and then clearly faking all the blows.
These images have a quaint innocence in comparison to the plethora of
explicit sexual images available today. The film does, however, raise issues
of sexuality and decency that continue to resonate today. In dealing with
Bettie’s life, we have to confront our own attitudes toward this material
and how this fits into our own beliefs relating to their morality. Gretchen
Mol is excellent in the title role with strong supporting performances from
Lili Taylor (last year’s MIFF honoree), Chris Bauer, David Strathairn (as
Tennessee Senator and one-time Presidential aspirant Estes Kefauver), and
Jared Harris. The film is very thoughtful and decidedly nonexploitative,
even though in different hands, the material could certainly turn into a
highly titillating romp.
½
THE CIVILIZATION OF MAXWELL BRIGHT—Patrick
Warburton (TV’s Seinfeld and The Woman Chaser) has made a
career out of playing characters with a skewed, self-serving view of
reality. This has never been exploited more effectively than in The
Civilization of Maxwell Bright. From the opening scene where
Warburton’s Maxwell Bright has an au natural driveway confrontation with his
girlfriend about what sexual acts she is willing to do and how difficult she
is to satisfy, we know that Max is very much in need of being civilized. Max
is an outré fortiesh version of an animal house frat boy who has matured not
a whit since college. Max decides that he wants a docile Asian wife who will
submit to his every wish and whim. He eventually sends British expatriate
Simon Callow off to the orient with a $100,000 to find a suitable bride.
Callow eventually returns with the beautiful and allegedly virginal bride
Mai-Ling (Marie Matiko). The “allegedly” is used in reference to Max’s
cavalier attitude toward it. Despite the daunting task of living with Max
that Mai-Ling has accepted, she begins cleaning up his home, satisfying his
physical needs, and then enlightening Max himself. Although she has some
limited success in her reeducation attempts, she does not really get Max’s
full attention until he is dealing with a most serious health crisis. This
plays out over the last fifteen to twenty minutes of the film’s running
time. I’m not sure how much I accept of his embrace of Buddhism, since this
final segment of the film coincided with my own increasing sense of fatigue,
but clearly Max needed to make profound changes in his life, and much of the
film’s audience seemed profoundly moved by what transpired. I’m reserving
judgment on The Civilization of Maxwell Bright, since I would
like to watch the denouement again sometime. This is a film that is rude,
crude, hilarious, horrifying, and, ultimately, poignant in addressing that
most profound reality of our own lives—our mortality.
THE TRIALS OF DARRYL HUNT—Ricki Stern
and Anne Sundberg’s The Trials of Darryl Hunt is a film that
shows how an innocent man can be convicted of a vicious rape and murder. The
legal system found a plausible perpetrator in Darryl Hunt, black and poor,
in its rush to secure a conviction for a brutal crime against a white woman,
and then it stacked the deck against him. He spent twenty years in prison.
This is a very disturbing film. It shows how racism continues to pervert the
course of justice. It shows how horrible mistakes can be made and how
reluctant the justice system is to admit its mistakes. Most disturbing of
all is that it shows how a calculated miscarriage of criminal justice can
take place, and none of those responsible are held accountable. It does show
how the black community rallied around Darryl Hunt through this long ordeal.
It shows the perseverance of his legal team. It also shows how important
investigative journalism can be in turning the tide of justice. How the
black community rallying around Darryl became the community rallying around
him. Through it all, it shows Darryl Hunt’s humanity, humility, compassion,
and faith despite his cruel victimization. As a film, it does rely too much
on certain footage to no real benefit. The investigative journalist whose
eight-part series helped galvanize the entire community probably should have
received more attention because her role was to analyze the case from a
dispassionate objective perspective. A defense attorney arguing how his
client has been unfairly treated may not truly be able to evaluate the case
objectively. Not that I have any doubt that a true miscarriage of justice
occurred and that this was the result of systematic and deliberate acts. The
film is a very powerful piece portraying how badly our system can fail.
The Open Window is a short film
featuring local casting director turned actress Dee Cooke. Based on a short
story by Saki, it shows how a young girl can playfully and cruelly
manipulate the perceptions of adults. The short is well done, leaving the
audience with a taste for more.
DISAPPEARANCES—Jay Craven’s
Disappearances is based on a book by Vermont author Howard Frank Mosher.
Wild Bill Bonhomme (Charlie McDermott), remarkably well-behaved to be called
wild, gets dragged along by his father Quebec Bill (Kris Kristofferson) on a
whiskey-running expedition along Vermont’s Canadian border during
Prohibition. The title might seem a little odd for what appears to be a
coming-of-age romp, but the film is channeling “realismo magico” (magic
realism) á la Latin American authors like Gabriel García Márquez. Wild Bill
receives key information and learns a lot of mystical family lore from his
grandmother Cordelia (Genevieve Bujold), who repeatedly appears and
disappears like a specter. He learns the long-ago disappearance of Wild
Bill’s grandfather is an unhealed wound. Kristofferson is terrific as the
adventurous wild dreamer somewhat unhinged from reality and who laughs at
adversity. Craven has assembled an outstanding cast (Lothaire Bluteau, Gary
Farmer, Luis Guzmán, and the Vermont-based Rusty De Wees) for this odd film
that mixes a hard-edged existence and the mystical. Some may find this
alternative reality charming, but others may find it all a bit unsettling
and confusing.
THE BREAST CANCER DIARIES—Linda
Patillo’s film chronicles Hallowell television journalist Ann Murray Paige’s
journey through the course of her treatment for breast cancer. This strikes
pretty close to home for me since my wife Alice is, like Anne Murray Paige,
a breast cancer survivor. In fact, the course of my wife’s treatment runs
roughly parallel to Paige’s during 2004. My wife Alice was invited to share
her experiences as were several other women in a Community Diaries
short that preceded The Breast Cancer Diaries. Alice was also invited
to introduce the film prior to its initial screening at MIFF. The Breast
Cancer Diaries is an intimate, unflinching, and sometimes amusing look
at coping with both a deadly disease and the rigors of treatment. Paige, a
television journalist for commercial and public television stations in
Maine, uses her maiden name of Anne Murray. She spends much of the time
talking directly to a video camera in her bedroom as she describes what she
is facing, how she feels physically and emotionally, as well as how her
husband and two young children are reacting to her illness. While the film
does take us along for her surgery, her chemotherapy, and her radiation
therapy, it is remarkable that a film that relies so much on a static camera
can be so engaging and powerful. It is a testament to Paige’s willingness to
share her experiences and her professionalism to remain composed and
articulate despite the intimacy and difficulty of the subject. This has the
potential to become an indispensable weapon in the arsenal of informative
and self-help tools that are provided to anyone newly diagnosed with breast
cancer. This is a first-hand account of dealing with the disease so that
patients and their families can know the challenges to be faced and, most
important, that there is light at the end of the treatment tunnel. No matter
how frightening it is, no matter how sick one feels, no matter how anxious
friends and family get, there are better days ahead, and life can return to
its normal rhythm.
½
THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER—Film director
Mary Harron chose and introduced with festival programmer Ken Eisen a
special showing of The Night of the Hunter (1955). This film is the
sole directorial effort by prominent actor Charles Laughton, who won one
Oscar and was nominated for two more. It features Robert Mitchum as a
sinister preacher Harry Powell, sporting LOVE and HATE tattooed on the
knuckles of his hands. Powell is a prison cellmate of Ben Harper (Peter
Graves), who is executed for murder committed during an armed robbery.
Powell comes to town to see if he can locate the money that was never
recovered. Shelley Winters plays the widow Harper left behind with a son
(Billy Chapin) and daughter (Sally Jane Bruce) that Mitchum targets.
Eventually, the two children head down river to get away from Harry. The
Night of the Hunter is a live-action Grimm’s fairy tale that is by turns
beautiful, lyrical, funny, and terrifying. Rachel Cooper (Lillian Gish)
frames the film with Biblical quotes about “false prophets” and “knowing
them by their fruits” as well as being the care provider who finally takes
in the two youngsters fleeing Mitchum. This is an unusual film that
stubbornly resists being conventional. This may have definitely put
filmgoers off in 1955, but the film is now considered a classic. If you have
the opportunity to see it, take advantage of it.
FACTOTUM—One of the running arguments
between my wife and me is that we don’t have the same appreciation of
Scandinavian films. My wife finds them much too angst ridden for her taste.
This is not to say that Scandinavian film directors and film audiences never
do comedies. That simply isn’t true, but my wife finds them very dark, and
often the characters are in the midst of severe psychic pain. Norwegian
director Bent Hamer’s Factotum is an interesting twist on
these themes. Adapted by Bent Hamer and Jim Stark from Charles Bukowski’s
semi-autobiographical novel, Factotum is Hamer’s first American film.
It is the story of Henry Chinaski (Matt Dillon), who bounces from one menial
job to the next just to (barely) pay the rent so that he can pursue his
deepest passion—writing. He writes about his other major interests in
life—women, booze, and gambling that are suitably modified by words like
fast, cheap, and easy. This is a man who lives on the edge for his art. Most
of us would be in extreme psychic pain if we lived Chinaski’s lifestyle of
cheap rooms, drunken binges, volatile love life, and an almost constant
search for jobs, since Chinaski has a knack for losing jobs faster than he
finds them. Chinaski doesn’t seem to be particularly motivated to change his
lifestyle, taking his hard knocks pretty much in stride. Despite the angst
that Chinaski should be experiencing, Hamer gives us an amusing, if not
always appealing slice-of-life story. Dillon is outstanding as Chinaski and
is onscreen for almost the entire movie. Last year’s MIFF honoree Lili
Taylor has a prominent supporting role as Chinaski’s main squeeze. Fisher
Stevens, Marisa Tomei, Adrienne Shelly, and this year’s MIFF guest Karen
Young round out the more prominent supporting players.
STEPHANIE DALEY—Hilary Brougher has come
to MIFF four or five times in the past nine years. She brought her first
film, a lesbian sci-fi time travel film called The Sticky Fingers of
Time, in 1998. Stephanie Daley is just her second film, and it
is a significant step up in her filmmaking. Although made for less than a
million dollars, this film has a name cast and substantially higher
production values than her first film. The themes of this film have come
from Brougher’s own life since 1998. She has started a family. Lydie Crane (Tilda
Swinton) is a pregnant forensic psychologist evaluating why teenager
Stephanie Daley (Amber Tamblyn) seemingly concealed her pregnancy and then
killed her premature newborn. Lydie is pregnant after having experienced a
stillbirth. The film intersperses scenes from the past events of Stephanie’s
life that Lydie wants to evaluate with the current lives of both women.
While this is not an abortion movie per se, the young woman’s story does
touch on aspects of that debate. Lydie’s story features the emotional roller
coaster of pregnancy, particularly when there has been difficulty in having
a child or when motherhood will very radically alter one’s life. This film
presents some important thought-provoking issues, but it doesn’t try to
change anyone’s mind. Brougher both wrote the script (winner of the Waldo
Salt Screenwriting Award at the Sundance Film Festival) and directed the
film. Brougher has attracted an outstanding cast that includes supporting
players Timothy Hutton, Denis O’Hare, and Melissa Leo. Stephanie Daley
is a thoughtful drama that should find a solid niche with the arthouse crowd
and may attract segments of the mainstream audience.
½
KEEPING MUM—This year’s closing night
film was Keeping Mum. With comic genius Rowan Atkinson (Bean),
Academy Award nominee Kristin Scott Thomas, and two-time Academy
Award-winner Dame Maggie Smith heading the cast, Niall Johnson’s film was
filmed entirely in the United Kingdom on the Isle of Man, in Cornwall, and
in North Yorkshire. The storyline of how a grandmotherly servant with a
penchant for homicide has a positive influence on a dysfunctional family
seems as though it couldn’t be anything but a British creation. Yet there is
an American genesis for this film as well as a very strong Maine connection
to it. Maine novelist and screenwriter Richard Russo shared how the original
inspiration for Grace Hawkins (Maggie Smith) was an American woman who
murdered and dismembered her husband and his paramour during the 1930s. She
had escaped from prison for several years, becoming a maid for a family.
After being returned to prison, the woman served out her term in prison only
to be released back to the family she had worked for. Musing over what
family could find a double-murderess a stabilizing influence, Russo wrote a
screenplay setting the story in the Midwest. The script languished for
several years until Niall Johnson became intrigued with the story and
transposed everything to Britain. We are exceedingly grateful for that
because the film seems to fall so naturally into the British tradition of
eccentricity, arrogance, and wit. With strong performances by Kristin Scott
Thomas and Maggie Smith as well as a more subtle one than we usually see
from Rowan Atkinson, this kept the closing night audience—some of whom had
seen over thirty films in the previous week—engaged, entertained, and very
much amused. This is a minor classic of British comedy that will thrill
audiences for decades.
