SIFF 2014 kicks off
Started this year's Seattle International Film Festival with two films that couldn't have been more different:
Beyond the Brick: A Lego Brickumentary
An excellent, polished documentary about the history of the company and the evolution not only of the product but of the community that has grown up around it. Entertaining, informative, lots of fun. Had to leave before the Q&A with the director due to parking meter limitations, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. Well worth seeing and inspirational even to those of us (like me) who haven't played with Legos in years.
The Congress, starring Robin Wright, Harvey Keitel, Jon Hamm
Well, that was . . . disappointing. The film posits a world in which an actor can be scanned both physically and emotionally, so that her image can be used in any way a studio wants, and the actor herself never has to work again. Robin Wright, washed up actor on the verge of obscurity, accepts the studio's offer. Suddenly it's 20 years later and she's attending a futurist conference as an animated character and . . . things get weirder and weirder. Visually and conceptually interesting, I found it narratively muddled and slow-moving, with too many holes in the chronology and too many things unexplained. Once we got to the animated sex, I was pretty much done. The direction of the live-action scenes made every performance feel deliberate to the point of over-rehearsed. Only Paul Giamatti and Sami Gayle seem to rise beyond this choice. Its animation is eye-popping, and its last live-action scenes are beautifully textured, but by the end I was riding along because I was so lost there was nothing else to do. I see that Rotten Tomatoes gives it an 85% rating, but I just can't agree. First--and, I hope, last--disappointment of the festival for me.
What adds to my disappointment in The Congress is that I had to choose between it and another film I wanted to see--Tracks--and I suspect the film I missed is the one I would have preferred. Oh well.
Beyond the Brick: A Lego Brickumentary
An excellent, polished documentary about the history of the company and the evolution not only of the product but of the community that has grown up around it. Entertaining, informative, lots of fun. Had to leave before the Q&A with the director due to parking meter limitations, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. Well worth seeing and inspirational even to those of us (like me) who haven't played with Legos in years.
The Congress, starring Robin Wright, Harvey Keitel, Jon Hamm
Well, that was . . . disappointing. The film posits a world in which an actor can be scanned both physically and emotionally, so that her image can be used in any way a studio wants, and the actor herself never has to work again. Robin Wright, washed up actor on the verge of obscurity, accepts the studio's offer. Suddenly it's 20 years later and she's attending a futurist conference as an animated character and . . . things get weirder and weirder. Visually and conceptually interesting, I found it narratively muddled and slow-moving, with too many holes in the chronology and too many things unexplained. Once we got to the animated sex, I was pretty much done. The direction of the live-action scenes made every performance feel deliberate to the point of over-rehearsed. Only Paul Giamatti and Sami Gayle seem to rise beyond this choice. Its animation is eye-popping, and its last live-action scenes are beautifully textured, but by the end I was riding along because I was so lost there was nothing else to do. I see that Rotten Tomatoes gives it an 85% rating, but I just can't agree. First--and, I hope, last--disappointment of the festival for me.
What adds to my disappointment in The Congress is that I had to choose between it and another film I wanted to see--Tracks--and I suspect the film I missed is the one I would have preferred. Oh well.