Perhaps the real surprise of the
festival this year was the number of films available winning awards at Cannes,
Venice, Locarno, or Berlin, offering a wide range of styles, but those were
certainly among the most interesting options, including the three best films
seen, all award winners at Cannes.
In Competition Best
Screenplay: Céline Sciamma for Portrait
of a Lady On Fire (Portrait de la jeune fille en feu)
Un Certain Regard
Best Film Award: Karim Aïnouz for Invisible
Life (A Vida Invisível)
Caméra d'Or (Best
First Feature): César Díaz for Our
Mothers (Nuestras madres)
All three reflect a new focus about women in film, yet their
styles are remarkably different from each other, as the Sciamma film was made nearly
entirely by women, offering a decisively female point of view in a highly
stylized, historic yet romantic love story between two women, made by an openly
lesbian filmmaker, while Aïnouz also
has a history of making gay-themed films, whose MADAME SATÃ (2002) about the
anguishing life of a drag queen won the Gold Hugo top prize at the festival
more than a decade earlier, this time devising a more classical style of
filmmaking reminiscent of Italian films in the 50’s and 60’s starring Anna
Magnani, yet focusing upon the struggles of women, who have a“history of
invisibility” in Brazil. The Díaz film
was like a fictionalized documentary honoring the victims of mass genocide in a
36-year civil war conflict in Guatemala that left over 200,000 dead, targeting
almost exclusively an indigenous population, leaving only the surviving widows
to tell their story of what actually happened, which is harrowing.
The Sciamma film went on to win
the Gold Hugo for Best Film of the festival, the only time in recent memory
when my personal favorite was also awarded the best film by the festival. While I didn’t see it, Jonathan Dabian viewed
Litigante, winner of the Gold Hugo in
the New Directors competition, and claimed the festival also got that
right. Once again, like last year, the
quality of documentaries has diminished as they were no match for the fictional
film programming, so their positions have reversed in recent years. What was once the cream of the crop in terms
of festival offerings in Chicago has shifted in recent years. For those preferring more challenging and
experimental filmmaking, this festival offered I
Was at Home, But... (Ich war zuhause, aber), winner of the best director at
Berlin and Vitalina
Varela, best film and best actress at Locarno, invaluable films that are
not for everyone, but set a different standard for non-commercial filmmaking,
literally challenging the limits of cinema. This diversity reflects an expansion in
offerings, as the Chicago Festival is known for more traditional, less
challenging choices, so it was good to see a little adventurousness in the
programming. There was also a crowd
pleaser, Les Misérables,
a racially explosive, incendiary work loosely based on the Parisian riots of
2005, almost entirely filmed with constantly moving handheld cameras, capturing
a spontaneously erupting, violent
insurrection against the police in a housing project in the banlieue regions of
Paris, an explosive revolt that captures the French revolutionary spirit of the
Hugo novel. Some of the most rapturously
beautiful nature photography you’ll ever see produced one of the most
audaciously original films of the year, Fire
Will Come (O que arde), near wordless, magnificently shot on 16mm, winning
a festival award for best sound design, mixing music with natural and man-made
sounds, sometimes
indistinguishably.
Easily the best thing that’s happened to the fest is the
addition of programmer Alissa Simon, which is a major
coup, as she specializes in Middle Eastern and Eastern European films, formerly
in charge of the Iranian fest at the Film Center when it was the best and most
progressive festival of the year, but now she helps run the Palm Springs Film
Festival for the rich and famous, but it’s one of the earliest fests of the
year, beginning the day after New Years. In addition, she’s the best
interviewer, by far, and brings needed talent and energy to the fest, as
there’s no one else in her league. She also makes Facets a second home,
with a bundle of mail piled onto a desk just waiting for her to sift through, also
catching up on her email in an office there for years, much like detectives making
phone calls in a bar in film noirs.
As it turns out, the increased
ticket prices this year explains that the $2/per ticket surcharge from a year
ago still applies, but it’s a hidden fee, as customers are still paying for it
in the ticket prices.
All films scheduled to screen in
Theater 20 were relocated to other theaters in the nearby vicinity, either
directly across the corridor or down the hall, due to projector malfunctions.
Final tally
Robert Kennedy, Cranes Are Flying
A
A-
B+
B
Babyteeth 89
Ghost
Tropic 87
Lara 85
B-
C+
C-
D
Frank Biletz, Loyola history professor
A Hidden Life (US/Germany, Terrence Malick) A-
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (France, Céline Sciamma) A-
Sorry We Missed You (UK/France/Belgium, Ken Loach) A-/B+
Our Mothers (Guatemala/Belgium/France, César Diaz) A-/B+
Les Misérables (France, Ladj Ly) B+
The Painted Bird (Czech Republic/Ukraine/Slovakia,
Václav Marhoul) B+
Babyteeth (Australia, Shannon Murphy) B+
Atlantics (France/Senegal/Belgium, Mati Diop) B+
Bombay Rose (India/UK/Qatar/France, Gitanjali Rao) B+
Varda by Agnès (France, Agnès Varda) B+
Vitalina Varela (Portugal, Pedro Costa) B
The Cordillera of Dreams (Chile/France, Patricio Guzmán) B
Corpus Christi (Poland/France, Jan Komasa) B
The August Virgin (Spain, Jonás Trueba) B
Mr. Jones (Poland/UK/Ukraine, Agnieszka Holland) B
The Apollo (US, Roger Ross Williams) B
Gloria Mundi (France, Robert Guédiguian) B
Fire Will Come (Spain/France/Luxembourg, Oliver Laxe) B
Renzo Piano: Architect of Light (Spain, Carlos Saura) B
The Human Factor (Israel, Dror Moreh) B-
My Father and Me (UK, Nick Broomfield) B-
On a Magical Night (France/Luxembourg/Belgium, Christophe
Honoré) B-
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