SFIFF 2013: Nothing Happens
In really good movies the characters drive the plot. In okay movies the plot just happens. In these movies, the plot just doesn't happen. Here are the code phrases the SFIFF uses to tell you this:
The Artist and the Model - This gentle and knowing meditation on the nature of art, those who make it and those who inspire it...
Big Blue Lake - "a touching and keen meditation on aging, memory and healing the wounds of the past."
Eight Deadly Shots - "a Zola-esque depiction of life’s complicated reasons, where time and duration become little by little a hypnotic force..."
Everyday Objects - "a compelling and elliptical portrait through the routine occurrences and banal moments of solitude that comprise life."
A Hijacking - "Tobias Lindholm's thriller chronicles a fictive instance of [....]grueling, dispiriting, claustrophobic tedium "
Il Futuro - "an engrossing meditation on Italy’s moviemaking past"
Just the Wind - "a riveting portrait of everyday Romani life"
Mai Morire - "a haunting meditation on death as a part of life" There are movies I like that have death. Some of them have lots of death! Some of them have haunting! None of them have meditation*.
Marketa Lazarová - "Upon its release in 1966, Variety declared Marketa Lazarová-with its three-hour length, elliptical, dream-like narrative and totally foreign flavor-"a stunning work... unsuitable for general commercial release.""
Helsinki, Forever - "a poetic tribute to film as a form of collective memory."
Memories Look at Me - "a serene meditation on life."
Nights with Theodore - "an evocative, eerie tale in which the park becomes a geographic character, a silent, elemental presence that is capable, by its very nature, of imposing a tragic fate" [boredom? - CTD]
Pearblossom Hwy - "a challenging, delicate and poetic examination of wounded souls trying desperately to assimilate into a universe that appears to have no room for them."
Museum Hours - "a beautiful and poetic exploration of lives that are artful and art that is full of life."
A River Changes Course - "This gentle and visceral film transcends the studies and statistics to present a deeply personal portrait of the cost of these changes."
The Spectacular Now - "Unexpectedly nuanced in its portrait of teenage friendship" The only thing more boring than a portrait is a nuanced portrait.
Thérèse - "Thérèse is not an exercise in stylish depravity so much as an affecting, simmering psychological melodrama that creates a portrait of a central character no less dark than Hitchcock’s heroines, just differently shaded." [So, Hitchcock without depravity? Extra boredom points for "simmering". -CTD]
Youth - "Youth is a nuanced portrait of identity coming into focus" [More nuanced portraits! And Yahweh knows, with one you already have a glut! - CTD]
* "Yoga Temple Massacre III" excepted
The Artist and the Model - This gentle and knowing meditation on the nature of art, those who make it and those who inspire it...
Big Blue Lake - "a touching and keen meditation on aging, memory and healing the wounds of the past."
Eight Deadly Shots - "a Zola-esque depiction of life’s complicated reasons, where time and duration become little by little a hypnotic force..."
Everyday Objects - "a compelling and elliptical portrait through the routine occurrences and banal moments of solitude that comprise life."
A Hijacking - "Tobias Lindholm's thriller chronicles a fictive instance of [....]grueling, dispiriting, claustrophobic tedium "
Il Futuro - "an engrossing meditation on Italy’s moviemaking past"
Just the Wind - "a riveting portrait of everyday Romani life"
Mai Morire - "a haunting meditation on death as a part of life" There are movies I like that have death. Some of them have lots of death! Some of them have haunting! None of them have meditation*.
Marketa Lazarová - "Upon its release in 1966, Variety declared Marketa Lazarová-with its three-hour length, elliptical, dream-like narrative and totally foreign flavor-"a stunning work... unsuitable for general commercial release.""
Helsinki, Forever - "a poetic tribute to film as a form of collective memory."
Memories Look at Me - "a serene meditation on life."
Nights with Theodore - "an evocative, eerie tale in which the park becomes a geographic character, a silent, elemental presence that is capable, by its very nature, of imposing a tragic fate" [boredom? - CTD]
Pearblossom Hwy - "a challenging, delicate and poetic examination of wounded souls trying desperately to assimilate into a universe that appears to have no room for them."
Museum Hours - "a beautiful and poetic exploration of lives that are artful and art that is full of life."
A River Changes Course - "This gentle and visceral film transcends the studies and statistics to present a deeply personal portrait of the cost of these changes."
The Spectacular Now - "Unexpectedly nuanced in its portrait of teenage friendship" The only thing more boring than a portrait is a nuanced portrait.
Thérèse - "Thérèse is not an exercise in stylish depravity so much as an affecting, simmering psychological melodrama that creates a portrait of a central character no less dark than Hitchcock’s heroines, just differently shaded." [So, Hitchcock without depravity? Extra boredom points for "simmering". -CTD]
Youth - "Youth is a nuanced portrait of identity coming into focus" [More nuanced portraits! And Yahweh knows, with one you already have a glut! - CTD]
* "Yoga Temple Massacre III" excepted