Small thoughts about 18 films 10-18

10. Silk. So why did I see this one? I was a sucker for The Red Violin, the same director. I thought it would be beautiful - a trader ventures to Japan to collect silkworms in the decade preceding the Meiji Restoration and falls in love. But it wasn't that beautiful. Michael Pitt was impenetrable; I never knew what he felt. The scenery should had a bigger role. Maybe it's because I'm Canadian, where our literature presents setting as character as often as people.

11. I'm Not There. This was the Bob Dylan biopic. I'd rather watch this than any other biopic I can think of, except for maybe Capote. Because it tried to capture the person through several meta-analyses. It presented him as if his former lives (Woodie Guthrie, Arthur Rimbaud, etc.) were parts of his real life story, or through fake documentary of made-up people that were very similar to him. However, it also removed the bearings you have in a biopic, making me feel at times lost. This is maybe irrational, but part of me really wants to know how far I am into a film. What more do I need to commit to this? Should I be bracing for leaving this film world yet? I couldn't do that here.

12. Le Scaphandre et le Papillon. The story sounded bleak, a magazine editor suffers a stroke that leaves his only means of communication the blinking of his left eye. Through a simple system of alphabet recitations and yes or no blinks, he recites his memoir. Then I saw the trailer, and it looked like it would be in some ways whimsical, with his memories and dreams merging as he lives imprisoned in his body. It was neither. It wasn't bleak and it wasn't whimsical. Instead, it was sad, honest, and funny.

13. Alexandra. The only other Sokurov I had seen was Russian Ark. And this one wasn't an experiment, it was just a film. It presents war in a different way than I've seen. The Grandmother of a Russian Captain visits him on base in Chechnya. She treats all soldiers as her grandson, spoiling them with one hand while she disciplines them with the other. It's quite clever how she manipulates them. Then she visits the town without permission and creates a friendship with a local woman her age. It's this relationship above anything else that explains the perspective on war that the film portrays. It was equal parts refreshing to see these themes presented in this way, and unsatisfying that it didn't have more to say about it.

14. Flash Point. No, I didn't see SPL last year, so I can't compare this. This is Hong Kong action cinema. It was 2/3 a throwaway police drama, and 1/3 unbelievably exciting Mixed Martial Arts crazy shit. Unfortunately it was divided timewise this way too. After sitting through the first parts, it probably made the last sequences seem that much better. I need to see SPL.

15. La Fille Coupee en Deux. Claude Chabrol seems lazy to me. It's a story (or two stories) that I've seen many times. A woman must choose between two men, one significantly older, married and (depending on your sexual politics) abusive, the other rich and devoted but her own age and possibly unbalanced. The other story is what the rich can get away with. It is, however, told in one narrative. It just seemed to me that any time I tried to get a handle on some piece of symbolism or intention it was left meaningless. The film starts in an amniotic red, with overhead lights shaking across the screen, their light trails making them appear sperm-like. The character we are following is a minor character in the story, not one of the three, and not one of the rich. Does that sound like it fits the themes above? I don't know. It's still an enjoyable drama, but that depth is missing I think.

16. Dai-Nipponjin. A documentary film crew follows around a super-hero in his daily activities. When Japan needs him, he is electrically grown to building-sized, where he fights absolutely absurd "baddies". The documentary side is very subtle on the humor making me think I was missing a whole lot in the translation. Unfortunately, the big battles were done in CGI and didn't match at all with the documentary feel. I'd have liked to see it better integrated. Sony managed to do what I wanted to see in its Ratchet and Clank commercials years ago. Surely they could have done better? The last 20 minutes turns into Ultraman or some other reference that I have no clue about seeing as I ain't no Otaku. The absurdity of it is still funny, and the closing credits are brilliant, but I know I missed the meaning. I felt like the 12 year-olds watching Family Guy who think that the everything is random and I just want to tell them that Stewie hitchhiking in the rain is Bruce Banner, it's not random, it's referential.

17. Joy Division. I'm not going to watch documentaries in the theatre anymore. This was a good documentary, with some nice techniques that really reflect the subject matter. But it's still a documentary, and that's TV. I stopped going to Doc Soup and Hot Docs, why did I think I should go see this one? Should have seen Control instead despite my above-noted feelings about biopics.

18. A L'Interieur. Is there a word to describe the feeling that the entire audience was clearly feeling? It's better captured in phrases like "No...they wouldn't do that in a movie, would they? Oh god, they are. Should I plug my ears or shut my eyes, which part of the horror I'm about to experience will be the part that gives me nightmares, the sound or the picture?" This was brilliant. The antagonist shares a bit with Black Christmas' Billy, in that the motivation and behaviour are completely fucked up and unclear, making the tension that much better. This film builds up better than any I've seen in a long time. Alas, the ending has problems, depending on how you interpret it. I don't want to say more about it because you should see this if you are a sick bastard like apparently I am. I can't think of a better way to end the festival...