Special Report From Philadelphia Film Fest 2007

Here’s a run­down of my itin­erary at this year’s Philadelphia Film Festival. Seventeen movies in four­teen days. Good thing I live here.

We start with a film that defies cat­egor­iz­a­tion, Lionel Bailliu’s Fair Play. This part thriller, part comedy, mostly cor­porate soap opera plays out (maybe a little too much) the jux­ta­pos­i­tion of cor­porate and ath­letic com­pet­i­tion. Worth checking out for the unbe­liev­ably tense twenty-minute squash sequence alone.

A couple of for­eign crime dramas made the rounds. Uro, by the Norwegian dir­ector Stefan Faldbakkenn, is a Michael Mannish take on the drug trade in Oslo, with a good deal of family drama thrown in. As under­cover cop stories go, it’s no Narc or Deep Cover, but it’ll do in a pinch. Triad Election, on the other hand, approaches Godfather–level status at times. Though it screened without its pre­de­cessor, Election, I was still able to follow the action, which dir­ector Johnny To films with gor­geous dark­ness. Basically another take on the “but I don’t wanna be a gang­ster” genre, but executed beautifully.

I only checked out a couple of dramas and had very dif­ferent reac­tions. Red Road is being hailed from here to its native Glasgow as the best thing since the inven­tion of Dogme, but I was unim­pressed. It’s one of those films where I can appre­ciate the out­standing dir­ec­tion, acting and even the power of the story, but still find it boring as watching video render. Everybody else loved it, though, so you may still want to check it out.

Day Night Day Night on the other hand, achieves more with even less. But it’s con­text that makes all the dif­fer­ence. The film begins with a woman arriving at an air­port, going to a hotel and taking a bath, clip­ping her nails, etc. This is, like, the first twenty minutes of the film. Should be deadly dull. But you know going in if you know any­thing about the film that this woman is about to commit a hor­rible ter­rorist act. Suddenly everything takes on a greater sig­ni­fic­ance, whether it really should or not. Director Julia Loktev con­tinues to film her prot­ag­onist with a Jarmusch-like focus on the minu­tiae, even as her lit­eral dead­line nears. It makes for some of the most grip­ping, dis­turbing cinema pre­cisely because it’s depol­it­i­cized (we never learn her name, much less who she’s working for or why).

The Danger After Dark pro­gram was as strong as ever this year. Though not tech­nic­ally part of the pro­gram, The Kovak Box would have fit right in, with its mind con­trol, sui­cides and Stephen King-esque prot­ag­onist. It’s dark fun, if a little silly at times. The same could be argued for End of the Line which asks the ques­tion what if a bunch of fan­at­ical Christians all snapped at once and started killing people in order to “save” them from the Apocalypse, and what if you were trapped on the subway with a bunch of them when it happened? This Canadian flick wrings a lot more ten­sion from that premise than you might think, espe­cially in its closing seconds.

Operating at another level is Dead Daughters, from Russian helmer Pavel Ruminov. A visual feast with the best use of surround-sound in a horror film I’ve ever heard. Mood and atmo­sphere, not blood-and-guts. Severance, on the other hand, is the fun­niest horror movie since Scream — maybe fun­nier. Basically The Office thrown into a slasher flick, it’s the most fun I had at any movie of the fest.

The most unlikely source for comedy this year was Lars Von Trier whose The Boss of It All skewers cor­porate cul­ture, actors and Icelanders with equal glee. Eagle Vs. Shark takes the quirky, affect­less comedy of Napoleon Dynamite and sets in in New Zealand and Samoa with a little more depth. The Ten takes on as many com­mand­ments with mixed results.

Waitress, by the dearly departed Adrienne Shelly, shows how adept she was as an act­ress, writer and dir­ector telling the story of the eponymous character’s trav­ails trying to leave her over­bearing hus­band by whom she has just become preg­nant. Firefly and Felicity fans take note, Nathan Fillion and Keri Russell are out­standing in this, though Curb Your Enthusiasm fans have the most to enthuse about as Cheryl Hines gives a near Best Supporting Actress worthy per­form­ance as a fellow waitress.

My favorite comedy of the fest, though, was Rocket Science from Spellbound dir­ector Jeffrey Blitz, who’s as adept with nar­rative fic­tion as doc­u­mentary. The film fol­lows the trav­ails of a young stut­terer con­vinced to join his school’s debate team. It’s based on Blitz’s own dis­fluent child­hood and aches with all the tur­moil of bitter youth. And it’s funny.

Finally we come to the docs which were a myriad bunch. The Killer Within enthralls with its tale of a seem­ingly normal psy­cho­logy pro­fessor who con­fesses to mur­dering a dorm mate in col­lege. The reac­tions to and implic­a­tions of his crime and sub­sequent release res­onate throughout and provide plenty of dis­cus­sion fodder.

VHS Kaloucha pro­files a pas­sionate (the man lit­er­ally bleeds for his shots) Tunisian dir­ector who cranks out genre films on VHS with no budget as he makes his latest opus Tarzan of the Arabs. A must for film geeks and anyone inter­ested in Tunisia.

Finally, In the Shadow of the Moon takes a seem­ingly worn out topic, the moon landing, and finds fresh life that not only illu­min­ates a tur­bu­lent time in his­tory but sheds light on a number of cur­rent crises. The archival footage dir­ector David Sington inter­cuts with the sur­viving astro­nauts, who provide the film’s only nar­ra­tion, is still powerful today.

Most of these films will be get­ting their release in the months to come, so keep your eyes peeled.

Tagged as: philadelphia