Jeffrey (and other Seattle-ites),

I just did a quick scan of the lineup for this year's SIFF.

Highly Recommended (all four were among the best films I saw last year):
- The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
- Instructions for a Light and Sound Machine [short]
- Something Like Happiness
- Three Times

Recommended (not favorites, exactly, but all worth seeing):
- Heading South
- Hell
- I Am
- Shanghai Dreams
- Sketches of Frank Gehry

Films that were on my short-list at TIFF but that I didn't see:
- Dreaming of Space
- Into Great Silence
- My Dad is 100 Years Old
- The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes
- The Proposition
- Sa-Kwa

Must-See Classics:
- The Flowers of St. Francis
- Rome Open City

Five More I'd Love to See:
- Old Joy
- The Power of Nightmares; The Rise of the Politics of Fear
- The Road to Guantanamo
- 49 Up
- Wrestling With Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner

By the way, Lazarescu and Three Times both have American distribution, so they might end up playing in Seattle some time down the road, or will at least end up on DVD. Something Like Happiness, though, has a deal with a very small company and so likely won't get much exposure. The short film, Instructions for a Light and Sound Machine, is unlike anything I've ever seen. And this might be your only chance to see it.

I know that Lazarescu will have a limited run. I've seen it on the calendars for the Varsity theatre. Not sure about Three Times yet.

I'm not sure if I'll be able to go to the Festival at all this year. Deadlines are killing me, I can't go to daytime screenings due to work, and we'll be out of town on three different trips in June. I wish I had a more flexible schedule and situation. I'd love to see so many of the titles you've listed, especially Three Times, Lazarescu , and The Proposition.

Just to complicate things:

Film Movement will be releasing Be With Me in the next month or two, so if you have a subscription, you can safely skip that one. I've heard good things about it, but the DVD will be my first crack at it.

Highly Recommended

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
Delwende - S. Pierre Yameogo's best film and his most mature to date, shades of a more subtle Ousmane Sembene on this one.
Hell
Kissed by Winter
Something Like Happiness
Three Times
Case of the Grinning Cat - Chris Marker's latest

Recommended

Carmen in Khayelitsha - Carmen sung in Xhosa, who could ask for anything more? And Christian enjoyed it too, so it's not just us art film types.
Crime Novel - same screenwriters as Best of Youth and like that film, it's very epic in the way it shows Italy's lost generation. Reminds me a bit of Marco Bellocchio's Good Morning Night too.
Heading South
The Hidden Blade
My Nikifor - very well done biopic of an eccentric artist (played by an actress)
Shanghai Dreams

Mixed

I Am
Isolation
3 Needles

On My To See List
Road to Guantanamo and Pierrepoint will play NY Human Rights Watch
Sacred Heart (latest from Ferzan Ozpetek who made Facing Windows)
Princess Raccoon
Old Joy
Nordeste
The Iceberg
The Forsaken Land
The Comedy of Power (Claude Chabrol's latest)
Man Push Cart

I admired this, too, especially its nuanced look at grief, almost like a Scandinavian response to Blue. Its use of Jeff Buckley's rendition of "Hallelujah" is superb.



Well there's a must see! I thought the Cinematheque Ontario had an exclusive on this...guess not.

Another outlet for Buckley's song?

Uncle! I cry, Uncle!

I admit to being clueless when it comes to popular music...do tell?

This has been discussed elsewhere on this board, but I'm not sure where. Anyway, this song has permeated pop culture. It's used at the end of crime shows (Without a Trace, or maybe it was Cold Case, or probably both), and ... well, I'm not sure where else, although the earlier discussion on this board cites other instances, IIRC. The kicker for me was the song's use in Shrek.

Shrek!

EDIT: I'm reminded that Buckley's version is a remake of Leonard Cohen's version. I'm not sure which version(s) I've heard over the years, but I have no desire to hear this particular song again anytime soon.

UPDATE: From Wikipedia:

"Hallelujah" has been used in movies as diverse as Basquiat, The Edukators, A Lot Like Love, Shrek, St. Ralph, Barfuss, Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei and Lord of War, and TV series such as Grey's Anatomy, Holby City, House, The L Word, The O.C., Scrubs, The West Wing, Without a Trace, Cold Case, and Criminal Minds.

I think Doug was referring to the parallel between the film and Buckley's own untimely death. There are two boys/young men in Winter Kiss who suffer a similar fate, and the film largely deals with how the people left behind reconcile with their own grief and sense of culpability. So in that sense, Johnsen isn't just using the song for its melancholia, but because it reinforces the idea of the randomness of fate and how life can be suddenly be taken away even in moments of seeming ordinariness.

Moving to 08, I just looked through some of the World Cinema -- some excellent stuff coming.

Worth a trip to Seattle to see:
Ben X I may not speak to any of you Seattle folks who skip this
Captain Abu Raed
Mongol

Maybe not worth a trip, but if you're already down there:
King of Ping Pong
Timecrimes (I described it as how Hitchcock would have done sci-fi)

One I didn't see but which I could have:
Phoebe in Wonderland

looking through the schedule I noted that it's theoretically possible to take in a double feature with Ben X and Captain Abu Raed on June 1. (They each have another date as well.)

Did none of you Washingtonians make it to see one of these excellent films? I'm pained. (I'm also waiting for Ron to have time to post what he thought of Ben X when he saw it.)

I did catch Ben X. Will comment later.

Wait. Which films are we discussing? Is there a link? If it's fest films, I saw "Silent Light" and some French animated short films at the latest DC Film Fest.

FWIW, Mongol, mentioned above, is the subject of Peter Suderman's favorite recent takedown.

CF. the post above the one you quoted

I thought so, but don't see a link in that post. But I feel as though I've already reviewed a link at some point. Sigh. Is it Friday yet. Oh, yeah: It is. Just in time.