Amelia's Picks

The 2008 Tribeca Film Festival has sadly come to a close. I had a ton of fun and saw a grand total of 20 films. Again, a huge thank you to Debbie and Amanda for incredible passes! Its impossible for me to give one answer for an overall favorite film at this year’s festival. Therefore, I have decided to divide my recommendations into categories.

• For a beautiful love story: Strangers
• For a good laugh: Bart Got a Room (especially if you’re from Florida) or War, Inc. (if your in a politically sarcastic mood)
• For the beauty of depression: Katyń (you might not want to but you really should)
• For an amazing thriller: Love, Pain, and Vice Versa (Hitchcock fans, this is a must see)

That’s all until next year! Are you a film junkie?

Rachel's Picks

Rachel's picks are: Katyn; Love, Pain, and Vice Versa; and Man on Wire

A President to Remember: In the Company of John F. Kennedy

Sadly, there wasn’t anything new to this story and we all wish it had a different ending. This documentary was an intimate view of JFK from his campaign for the Presidency all the way through to his funeral. This behind-the-scenes filming focused mainly on the office but still caught a many wonderful moments when personality, humor, and the American royalty of the Kennedy family shown through. The love shown by crowds in the States and across the world was astounding when one remembered our present day political climate. The most poignant moment came when John visited Ireland and read a poem about returning to once again see the face of the river Shannon. And he promised that he would return soon to do just that. But as an audience member you knew his time was running out and this would be his last trip to his grandparents’ home country.

This documentary achieved its goal of reminding the American people of possibly the most beloved of all American presidents. The dedication, sincerity, sacrifice, love, and joy that JFK brought to this country made the audience fervently wish that the upcoming election had brought then such a candidate.

Man on Wire

Philippe Petit is still performing and we caught his performance in Washington Square Park after the screening.

Man on Wire was a brilliant documentary but I almost wish Philippe Petit, the Man on Wire, hadn’t been there. The documentary did a fantastic job of honoring the art of this crazy guy while humorously portraying his stunt as some sort of high-level bank heist. Philippe Petit, an “oh so French” man, rebelled against his strict French parents by becoming a street performing and centering his life on high wire walking. He taught himself to walk the wire on a self made rig behind his family’s garden in France. From there he tackled the towers of Notre Dame and the Sydney Harbor Bridge. But his goal was always to walk on a wire between the two World Trade Center towers.

Philippe convinced many of his friends and his faithfully devoted girlfriend to help in his quest and this perfectly ‘70s group of French teens plotted for years. Once in New York, two Americans were recruited for unknown reasons. The French friends described them simply as “losers”. Someone said they believed one of the Americans showed up stoned. In response, the American said, “I smoked pot everyday for 35 years. There’s no reason to believe I didn’t smoke on that day”. At that point I couldn’t believe anyone had survived this stunt.

But they did. Philippe was let off by agreeing to perform for children. His French friends were expelled from the US and never allowed to return. His relationship with his dedicated French girlfriend was over when he slept with a fan that walked up to him as he was let out of custody. It turned out Philippe wasn’t really a nice guy.

The most stunning feature of the documentary was the beauty of the images of a man suspended in midair in some of the world’s most gorgeous locations. The black and white photographs of Philippe walking across Notre Dame with the Eiffel Tower behind him were breathtaking. Other than that, the reenactments and stories from this completely unprofessional group of teenage friends were hilarious. Kudos to director James Marsh for putting these stories together in such a unique way.

War, Inc

(This happened to be playing in a beautiful old theater)

The fact that we were sitting across the aisle from Michael Moore should have been a hint of the politically driven film we were about to see. War, Inc. was a hilarious spoof of a possibly terrifying future. It was Jarhead meets Spaceballs.

The film takes place in the future country of Turaqistan, in a time where companies have more power than nations and can wage war independently. John and Joan Cusack play some sort of undercover mercenaries living in a bizarrely westernized and highly militarized development in “the Emerald City”. Now that I think about it, Ben Kingsley’s character did play a man-behind-multiple-video-screens sort of persona. There were many not-so-subtle references to present day events and political figures. The addition of Hilary Duff as some sort of Asian equivalent to Brittney Spears was amusing. And sadly a few of her songs (written by John Cusack) were really catchy.

In the end, the film doesn’t make any profound statements. Its only point seems to be “if we continue down this path, here’s what our future could look like so lets make fun of it”. Advertising on tanks and Middle Eastern leaders wearing Croc sandals was pretty funny. And Joan Cusack fulfills her lifetime comedic potential. Two questions remain: How does John Cusack never age? And does anyone else think he looks like he’s wearing eyeliner?

Life in Flight

I completely blanked on the name of this film and then I thought, “Oh right, the pigeons”. Life in Flight was a less heart-warming version of an ABC Family movie. Cute successful guy meets cute successful quirky girl and eventually we know what will happen. Except in this case the guy is married and has a son so its no longer family-friendly material.

The story was pretty ho-hum and some of the dialogue was awful. Cute guy’s wife, played by Amy Smart, was an absurd character but that might just be a mixture of bad dialogue and less than stellar acting. The 30-something stay at home mom ended up looking like a petulant teenager in most scenes. Cute guy, played by Patrick Wilson, was average until he started spouting out the ridiculous dialogue. The best performance by far was the adorable Lynn Collins as cute guy’s love interest. She makes me want to be a redhead.

Life in Flight wasn’t an unpleasant hour and it definitely gets extra points for not being a depressing film. But we’ll probably forget about by next week.

Love, Pain, and Vice Versa

Love, Pain, and Vice Versa (along with iced coffee) turned out to be a fabulous way to start the day. The three of us clung to our seats and each other for most of this Spanish thriller. The director, Alfonso Pineda Ulloa, later said that his main influence was Hitchcock, and he did quite an incredible job of creating his own brand of psychological thriller.

The most interesting aspect of this film is the sequence of the story. Love, Pain, and Vice Versa focuses on a man and a woman who interact mostly in their dreams and nightmares. The sequence of events is in no way linear and sometimes the audience doesn’t know if their watching reality, a dream, or a dream foreshadowing reality. The director admitted in the talk back, “I loved the first cut of the film but I was the only one who could understand it. My producers kept asking me to add more and more scenes but I didn’t want to underestimate the audience”. I felt like raising my hand and telling him he might have overestimated me. But it turned out I had most of the sequencing correct and after a short discussion, the whole film came together. Its much more interesting if you have to be actively involved in piecing the film together.

There was one stunning shot in the film that captured the story in its entirety. I felt like I could have been looking at a photograph entitled Love, Pain, and Vice Versa. Over all, the film was an adrenaline rush with intense characters and a engrossing but not overly complex storyline. It was in no way a light film but we left the theatre wide eyed and energized.

Before the Rains

Before the Rains first and foremost was visually breathtaking. Set in a small village in India, this love story quickly turns into a thriller of culture clash. The English planter and his married servant have a beautiful love affair but when the planter’s English wife joins him in India, everything falls apart. Its hard to say much about the nest series of events without spoiling the “thriller” side of the story. The character caught in between the cultures is Teke, the English planter’s man servant and seemingly his best friend. The film explores where loyalty lies; whether it is with culture, family, money, or friends.

As the wife of the English planter, Jennifer Ehle gives an amazing performance. When she realizes what has happened between her husband and the servant girl, I thought her glare alone would kill her husband.

Finding Amanda

Finding Amanda was the only comedy I’ve seen in several days but it was still pretty dark. When TV writer Mathew Broderick gets into trouble with his gambling problem, he tries to make it up to his wife by driving to Las Vegas to rescue her nice Amanda (played by Brittney Snow).

In their first few encounters, Amanda, the 20-year-old niece making a very nice living as a hooker in Vegas, seems to be much happier and well adjusted than her ex-addict uncle. She’s proud of the money she makes, her new house and cars, and even her sketchy/ stupid boyfriend. On the other hand, her uncle loses almost $100,000 gambling and relapses into his drinking problem. And then he tries to tell her to go to rehab.

The turning point comes in single moment when the uncle is strung out on the floor and Amanda beaks down. She admits that once you “hook” for the first time, there’s no taking it back. You will always be that girl on the bathroom floor.

So in the end, not such a cheery film. But there were some hilarious moments and Mathew Broderick regained star status in this dark comedy.

Katyń

Katyń is by far the most powerful film I’ve seen this year. When the film ended, the entire audience shuffled out in silence. It would have been bizarre if the weather had been anything but cold and grey outside.

Katyń followed the lives of several interconnected characters in Poland during WWII and ended with a horrifying and blunt recreation of the mass murder of 15,000 Polish officers in the Katyń woods in 1940. The Polish director Wajda’s father was among those killed at Katyń and that must be the key to the emotional depth of this film.

In the opening scene of the film, a stream of Polish refugees are stuck on a bridge, not knowing which side to cross to. They are trying to flee from the Germans, who are approaching from behind, but are also being told that the Soviet’s are encroaching from the other side of the river. The whole film explores the tug-of-war done with the Polish people during WWII even in who was to blame for the Katyń murders.

Katyń was beautifully shot with vivid characters and eerily beautiful relationships. By placing the murders at the very end of the film, the audience is so emotionally involved with the stories of each officer and his family that even just staring at the floor and listening to the gun shots and the thud of bodies haunted me into chilled silence for several hours.

Mister Lonely

The best thing to say about Mister Lonely is that the soundtrack was awesome and the film wasn’t nearly as bad as Merry Misfits from last year. But this definitely takes the cake as this years WTF film. Written and directed by Harmony Korine, this film seems to simply be based on two ideas; nuns falling out of airplanes and a commune of impersonators. That’s all and, no, the two do not relate. If ever I needed a Q&A, it was for this and unfortunately there was none.

I feel like a watched this entire movie with my mouth open in disbelief. First of all, the main character is a Michael Jackson impersonator played by none other than Mexican actor Diego Luna. And yes, he keeps the Mexican accent. He is taken to a commune in a castle by a Marilyn Monroe impersonator and meets Charlie Chaplin, her husband, and Shirley Temple, her daughter. Also in the commune are a swearing Abe Lincoln, a vaguely Hispanic Queen of England, the Pope, and the three stooges. After admitting that her husband looks more like Adolf Hitler than Charlie Chaplin, the most disturbing moment in the movie comes when Chaplin (Hitler) rapes a sunburned Marilyn Monroe.

The nuns falling from airplanes storyline is randomly interspersed with the impersonators. The nuns like in a mission in South America and use a small airplane to drop food to nearby villages. On one of the food drops, a nun falls out of the plane, prays in midair, and lands softly on the ground. So then the priest tells all of the nuns to jump out of the plane. All land safely, a miracle is declared, and the priest and nuns are invited to Rome to meet the Pope (the real one, not the guy living in the impersonator commune). All die in a plane crash on the way to Rome.

In the end, Mister Lonely had a few bizarre but hilarious moments and never failed to shock or confuse me. I guess it was all based on “finding yourself” but I think the confusion, complexity, and utter strangeness ended up losing most of the audience members.

Mathew Modine

But then we figured we should look around for Mathew Modine just in case. And there he was, smoking, talking on a cell phone, and chaining his orange bike to a city lamp post while he went in for his screening.

Strong Brothers

So as we were leaving Strangers, Amanda pointed out that we could just go see the Cold Feet short program again. And then we realized the Strong brothers were behind us. We have run into them so many times in the past week that we had to get a picture.

Strangers- Liron Levo Q&A

(Liron Levo is beautiful and we think he’s the equivalent of Brad Pitt in Israel. So here are a few shameless pictures.)

This is one of the most memorable Q&As I’ve been to. It began with “Unfortunately, the filmmakers are stuck in traffic”. Oh no! “But, the lead actor is here.” SCORE! Aside from the fact that a middle-aged woman actually asked Liron Levo is he was single, the questions came hard and fast and he had great (and funny) answers for them all. So here are some of the highlights (only from memory):

- There was incredible chemistry between you and Lubna Azabal. Was that natural?

- We did not have sex. Does that answer your question?

- How much of the film was improvised?

- We had a basic two-page storyline. I think two scenes were scripted and all the rest was improvised.

- If there was anything you could add or take from the film, what would it be?

- More love, less politics.

- I don’t think a relationship like this could actually exist. Do you know of any Israeli/ Palestinian couples?

- No, but that does not mean its not possible.

- How was the film shot?

- (Cinematographer) It was shot by just me with one camera. We had to disassemble the camera and each carry a few parts to be allowed into the world cup. We kept getting kicked off trains so we would have to stop and jump back on to keep filming.

Strangers

Finally, I’ve found a true gem. Strangers was introduced as the modern day Romeo and Juliet story with a Middle East conflict twist. Rana, from Lebanon, and Eyal, from Israel, meet in Berlin on their way to the World Cup finals when their bags accidentally get switched. They share a few days and romance blooms. When the topic of politics and war comes up, they decide that two people sitting in a bar in Berlin for a night probably can’t solve an age-old problem. They share one more beautiful night and then Rana must fly back to Paris in the morning. At the airport, she asks Eyal not to call her again. The next day he flies to Paris instead of Israel.

Once in Paris, it becomes increasingly apparent that the couple’s political views can never align. They watch news reports of bombings and each calls friends and family speaking rapidly in languages they other does not understand. Possibly the most touching part of the film is the day Eyal spends with Rana’s 5-year old son strolling through Paris. At this point, the audience begins to think their relationship could really work.

The two lead actors, Liron Levo and Lubna Azabal, are their characters. The combination of incredible acting and chemistry between the two plus the one-man camera crew makes the audience feel as if they are watching a home movie of these characters’ lives. Strangers feels like a darker and more romantic twist on Once blended with a political and less philosophical bit of Before Sunrise.

And in the end? Is it a true Romeo and Juliet story? All I will say is the ending is fabulous. And much better than a piano.

*On a side note, we selected this film partly because of an article about the soundtrack. Supposedly Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova of Once wrote a song for this film. We never recognized it in the film but the entire soundtrack was beautiful.