MIFF 2004 FILM FESTIVAL NOTEBOOK

By Joel Johnson

DAY 8

Day 8 begins with the first of the films highlighting the career of Verna Bloom. She states during the Q & A afterward that Medium Cool (1969) was her very first film. Our plan is to follow that with Khyentse Norbu’s Travelers and Magicians. Due to the length of the first screening, the only remaining seats are in the front row of cinema two at Railroad Square. My wife vetoes that, and we decide to have that rare event during a film festival—a leisurely meal. We will resume our plan and complete our evening with the Danish film Reconstruction by director Christoffer Boe.

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



Medium Cool was directed and written by noted cinematographer Haskell Wexler in his first effort in directing a work of fiction. He had previously directed a documentary. The film, set specifically in and filmed during late summer of 1968, has two storylines that eventually intersect. Verna Bloom plays Eileen, a young mother who has relocated from Appalachia to Chicago. She is trying to raise her son who is rapidly picking up ways to get into mischief. It is this mischief-making that brings John Cassellis (Robert Forster) into their lives. Cassellis carries the other storyline. He works as a news cameraman covering all the happenings in The City of Big Shoulders. The film begins with Cassellis and Gus (Peter Bonerz), his soundman, coming upon a car accident in which a woman is seriously injured. The newshounds get their footage, call for an ambulance, and then head off to sniff out other stories before help shows up. They do absolutely nothing to comfort or care for the injured woman. The film spends some time throughout commenting on television news gathering, racial attitudes, and the charged political environment in that time. Some of this is in a cocktail party scene reminiscent of something out of Robert Altman’s Nashville. There is a long scene in which the TV news watches police training for riot conditions. There is also a revelation that the news footage of anti-war demonstrators is being provided to police and FBI to aid them in gathering information on these people. The film also catches the sexually liberated ethos of the 1960s in a scene between Cassellis and his sometime girlfriend Ruth (Marianna Hill) that earned the film an X rating in 1969. This scene of the lovers cavorting naked and passionately making out seems more playful than pornographic. The original rating has now been revised to an R rating. Of course, Cassellis begins to change, becoming more mature after he comes into contact with Eileen and her son Harold. The biggest event of late August 1968 in Chicago—if not the entire nation—was the tempestuous Democratic National Convention both inside and outside the convention hall. Cassellis is part of the army of television newsmen covering the wild convention and the even wilder riots in the streets of Chicago. When Eileen’s son goes missing, she makes her way through the crowded streets looking for him and heads to the convention hall to find Cassellis so he can help her look. There is this amazingly dramatic national event that played in the homes of Americans throughout the nation and a very personal one that is almost oblivious to the larger drama taking place all around it. Wexler’s camera crew follows the bright yellow dress Verna Bloom’s Eileen wears that easily distinguishes her from the protest marchers that are all around her. The cinematography is terrific as the director uses an Oscar-winning cinematographer—himself. (He won Oscars for cinematography on Guess Whose Coming to Dinner [1967] and for Bound for Glory [1976]. He was also nominated for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest [1975], Matewan [1987], and for Blaze [1989].) The film is by design a bit choppy because it has many scenes that are different in tone and do not contribute directly to a linear narrative. Unfortunately, the screening itself is chopped up, as the print could not be placed on a continuously feeding platter in contemporary projection booths and instead has to be placed on multiple reels that need to be projected in sequence. The old-time projectionists would have to coordinate the starting and stopping of projectors so that the transition from one reel to another would appear to be seamless. During this screening, it certainly was not seamless, with average delays of one to two minutes. Bloom does a fine job playing the loving and earnest young mother. It is the straightforward, decent Eileen that starts to melt Cassellis’s cool cynicism. Robert Forster, in the larger role, is less consistent, and we sometimes become acutely aware that he is “acting” as opposed to being the character. The film shares certain stylistic qualities with a number of films from this era—such as Medium Cool’s more celebrated and also formerly X-rated peer Midnight Cowboy (1969). The Q & A segment with Verna Bloom is very interesting. We learn that the film includes actual footage of the riots in Chicago. I had known this from doing research prior to the festival, but I had assumed that this would be file news footage that was filmed by the news broadcasters covering the events and simply spliced into the movie where needed. However, the director had actually filmed the movie on location in Chicago at the Democratic National Convention with a script that called for a riot. If the events placing Robert Forster inside the convention hall look real, it’s not special effects—it’s because he was there. If Verna Bloom wending her way through Chicago surrounded by protesters looks real—it is because that really is what happened. This was an incredibly risky film to make. Today’s equivalent might be setting your film in Baghdad with your script calling for a massive suicide bombing and deciding to film on a location that would be a likely target. We also learn that the yellow dress that makes following Eileen through the streets of Chicago so easy was the result of a serendipitous wardrobe choice by Verna. Despite the interesting exchanges during the Q & A, we decided that we had to leave the Q & A early to go to our next film. Alas, we find that we are already too late since we are unwilling to sit in the very front row. We decide a good meal will assuage our disappointment. This, of course, allows us time to reflect on the daring film we have just seen.

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

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Christoffer Boe’s Reconstruction won the Caméra d’Or for best first film at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. This Danish film has been compared by some reviewers to the films of David Lynch, and the comparison is apt. Lynch’s films are intriguing but frequently stretch the reality boundaries, if not actually smashing the limits of physical reality. This can be a mesmerizing experience for many filmgoers, but there is also a frustration that can affect filmgoers as well with the fact that it could mean so many different things or perhaps mean nothing at all. Indeed, an individual may find these two sensations at war. One’s tolerance for frustration and/or one’s ability to think “outside the box” reaching a “solution” may be critical determinants of whether one likes this type of film. This film introduces us to Alex (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) who is engaged to Simone (Marie Bonnevie), but he becomes very attracted at first sight to the beautiful Aimee (also played by Bonnevie). He throws himself into an affair with Aimee. Aimee, however, is already married to the older August (Krister Henriksson), a famous novelist. Can the prior “reality” of their relationships before the affair be restored? Can they find happiness? Can they find happiness together? We see a variety of scenarios play out. The filmmaker plays with textures of the images as each version is shown. Which one is real? Are any of the scenarios “real?” This type of film is challenging under any circumstances, but being in a foreign language adds an additional barrier to understanding and makes one have to work harder to comprehend the dialogue. And in addition to the dialogue, we have a voice-over. So the comments about tired eyes and late-night movies apply to Reconstruction just as much tonight as it applied to Intimate Strangers yesterday. I must admit that I do like Marie Bonnevie, and being able to watch her portray two different characters is very interesting and entertaining. I am able to rapidly come up with an explanation for the film's convoluted storylines. That does not mean that I understand each plot twist and that the film is simple. Members of the audience with whom I saw Reconstruction spent a fair amount of time afterward discussing the film, and there were alternate explanations. I like the film and would love to see it again. Either because of or despite the fact I was not able to stay alert and awake for it all. I think my failure to stay awake is directly related to my fatigue (a film festival occupational hazard) and not a function of the storytelling in the film. The film’s structure, of course, is so dense that losing parts of the whole does interfere with one’s overall comprehension. This is not the kind of film in which one can miss a prolonged segment from the middle, or even arrive in the last half hour or so and still have a complete grasp of the film’s story. Again, I will have to confer a conditional rating on the film.
 

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