SFIFF 2015: The Boring List
Darling, darling, don't you know, the worst crime a filmmaker can commit is to be DULL! And yet it happens, year after year. "Poetic meditations" on "longing and loss" keep coming. Why don't they just cut to the suicide? At least that would have some resolution.
This year's intentional duds:
7 Chinese Brothers-"Larry (Jason Schwartzman) drifts through life, from one menial position to the next, without much thought for the future. Often drunk, solitary and unmoored, his closest companion is his French bulldog."
Alive-"Shot in a wintry palette that will have audiences feeling a chill in their bones, Park Jung-bum's Alive is a remarkable accomplishment, an intimate, yet emotionally epic tale of souls living on the fringes of their own dreams."
Designing Interactive Narratives-"Eli Horowitz will reveal how he is transforming the novel into a time-based reading experience."
El Cordero-"the film's shrewd study of alienation, set in 1990s Chile, quietly resounds with the repressed trauma of a conservative society leaving the shadow of a long military dictatorship."
The End of the Tour-"David Foster Wallace"
H-"Challenging our ideas about narrative connections"
Hill of Freedom-"The deceptively simple cinema of Hong Sang-soo belies a filmmaker who keenly observes the follies of human nature and delights in playing with chronology and perspective."
The Iron Ministry-"A thrillingly expansive portrait of contemporary China as observed in the cramped compartments of its trains, J.P. Sniadecki's The Iron Ministry is simultaneously a vivid social document and an aesthetic tour de force. Shot over three years and dozens of rides, the documentary seamlessly unfolds as a single voyage spanning a wide range of social spaces from tightly packed sleepers to sparsely populated bullet cars."
The Kindergarten Teacher-"Poetry is the beating heart of Nadav Lapid's rich and unsettling new work [....] Using his own writing from a very young age, Lapid complexly explores a world in which poetry is undervalued"
Luna-"Beguilingly melding the messy drama of interpersonal relations with vividly rendered flights of fantasy and imagination"
Of Men and War-"intimate access to a different kind of conflict zone-the interior battle waged by veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan as they struggle with PTSD and related war traumas" So, nothing blows up then.
The Royal Road-"Primarily composed of only two elements-Olson's self-conscious butch voiceover narration and long takes of beautifully composed urban landscapes-the film's spare approach belies a sly and bountiful complexity as it burrows into the endlessly mineable terrains of history and memory."
Sand Dollars-"the drama records these quiet tensions but skirts judgment, making a measured, almost delicate exploration of the cultural intersections"
Stations of the Cross-"A carefully composed parable"
Two Shots Fired-"a digressive and slyly funny low-key existential comedy. Deploying deadpan magic realism with a sly indifference to narrative expectations, the film offers careful, amused observation of how we all get through life, somehow."
Vincent-"special effects are resolutely low fidelity with a few well-crafted examples of Vincent's abilities in action. Spare with dialogue, the film has the easygoing pace of a vintage silent comedy"
When Animals Dream-"muted, tense and beautifully filmed tale of transformation"
This year's intentional duds:
7 Chinese Brothers-"Larry (Jason Schwartzman) drifts through life, from one menial position to the next, without much thought for the future. Often drunk, solitary and unmoored, his closest companion is his French bulldog."
Alive-"Shot in a wintry palette that will have audiences feeling a chill in their bones, Park Jung-bum's Alive is a remarkable accomplishment, an intimate, yet emotionally epic tale of souls living on the fringes of their own dreams."
Designing Interactive Narratives-"Eli Horowitz will reveal how he is transforming the novel into a time-based reading experience."
El Cordero-"the film's shrewd study of alienation, set in 1990s Chile, quietly resounds with the repressed trauma of a conservative society leaving the shadow of a long military dictatorship."
The End of the Tour-"David Foster Wallace"
H-"Challenging our ideas about narrative connections"
Hill of Freedom-"The deceptively simple cinema of Hong Sang-soo belies a filmmaker who keenly observes the follies of human nature and delights in playing with chronology and perspective."
The Iron Ministry-"A thrillingly expansive portrait of contemporary China as observed in the cramped compartments of its trains, J.P. Sniadecki's The Iron Ministry is simultaneously a vivid social document and an aesthetic tour de force. Shot over three years and dozens of rides, the documentary seamlessly unfolds as a single voyage spanning a wide range of social spaces from tightly packed sleepers to sparsely populated bullet cars."
The Kindergarten Teacher-"Poetry is the beating heart of Nadav Lapid's rich and unsettling new work [....] Using his own writing from a very young age, Lapid complexly explores a world in which poetry is undervalued"
Luna-"Beguilingly melding the messy drama of interpersonal relations with vividly rendered flights of fantasy and imagination"
Of Men and War-"intimate access to a different kind of conflict zone-the interior battle waged by veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan as they struggle with PTSD and related war traumas" So, nothing blows up then.
The Royal Road-"Primarily composed of only two elements-Olson's self-conscious butch voiceover narration and long takes of beautifully composed urban landscapes-the film's spare approach belies a sly and bountiful complexity as it burrows into the endlessly mineable terrains of history and memory."
Sand Dollars-"the drama records these quiet tensions but skirts judgment, making a measured, almost delicate exploration of the cultural intersections"
Stations of the Cross-"A carefully composed parable"
Two Shots Fired-"a digressive and slyly funny low-key existential comedy. Deploying deadpan magic realism with a sly indifference to narrative expectations, the film offers careful, amused observation of how we all get through life, somehow."
Vincent-"special effects are resolutely low fidelity with a few well-crafted examples of Vincent's abilities in action. Spare with dialogue, the film has the easygoing pace of a vintage silent comedy"
When Animals Dream-"muted, tense and beautifully filmed tale of transformation"