The 12th annual Roger Ebert's Film Festival was held April 21 - 25.  Here are reviews of the films there.

     "Pink Floyd the Wall" is infused with songs of great potency and resonance.  This feature length music video of sorts stands as a distinguished work of art that conjures feelings of dread, regret, exhilaration, and frustration.  Stretches of the film are dank and disturbing.  Images of youth, the classroom, and a sun-swept football field are juxtaposed with scenes of a fading rock star named Pink, shots of trench warfare, and bold animation.  It would be difficult to catalogue all the brilliant visuals, since the film has prodigious invention.

     Set free by the liberating expression of animation, the film shows a female plant seducing a male plant and then swallowing it.  Women are a sensual presence in the film.  Pink is withdrawn and oblivious to the loving caresses of his girlfriend.  Then he inexplicably tears the room apart.  One indelible image is of Pink being carried out of his room and into the hallway by paramedics after an overdose.  He is seen with some kind of flesh-eating disease.  All set to the tune of "Comfortably Numb."  Perhaps the most famous shot is of schoolchildren with masks falling into a meat grinder one by one.  "Another Brick in the Wall" accompanies that scene, to goosebump-inducing effect.

     "You, the Living" is a droll, deadpan comedy of manners from Sweden's Roy Andersson.  This deceptively simple film is about troubled people doing very strange things.  The reception at the festival was one of uproarious laughter.  The framing is precise and the timing is exquisite.  Andersson's mise-en-scene reminds one of Luis Bunuel, Jim Jarmusch, Todd Solondz, and Jacques Tati's "Playtime."  The look of the picture makes great use of depth-of-field, vanishing points, and exaggerated foregrounds.  The mood of the film is dryly ironic.  A man attempts to pull a tablecloth out from under a set of china, with disastrous results.  He shatters the 200-year-old china set and is on trial for it in the next scene.  A witness informs the judges about the value of the china.  "Life sentence," one judge says.  "Wait, that might not be enough," another says.  "The electric chair perhaps..."

     "Munyurangabo" is a naturalistic slice of life about a prodigal son, Ngabo, and how he gets along with his family and his best friend.  This gripping story is set in genocide-torn Rwanda.

     "Departures" is an elegant film about a cellist who becomes a mortician.  Yojiro Takita's movie, which won the Oscar for best foreign language film, deftly balances humor with serious drama.

     "Man with a Movie Camera" is a busy film; a rapid juxtaposition of images set in Russia.  Amped up by music from the Alloy Orchestra, the film definitely strikes a chord.  The final image of a camera's iris and a human eye had the festival audience buzzing.

     "The New Age" is an evocatively scored film about a yuppie couple who have spent their way into the poor house.  They pursue enlightenment through philosophical gurus, orgies, swinging, massages, and even open their own yuppie clothing store, "Hipocracy."  Get it?  "Hip" as in cool, "-acy" as in aristocracy, and the whole word sounds like hypocrisy.  The ending is unforgettable and strong.  Peter (Peter Weller) has ingested a suicide serum and Katherine (Judy Davis) has had a little of the poison pudding as well.  She says she wants a divorce and that she doesn't want to die.  She leaves him some pills in case he really wants to end everything.  Then she exits the house, which is full of candles.  Samuel L. Jackson has an inspired cameo in the film as an efficiency expert.  The movie is playful, provocative, and full of ideas.

     "Apocalypse Now Redux," seen in all its glory on the big screen, is a euphoric experience.  There's so much to love about this spaced-out, hallucinogenic journey through the hell of Vietnam.  The film concerns a classified mission to terminate the command of a rogue commander (Marlon Brando).  Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) is charged with the task.  The movie is a rich film to look at, with cinematography by Vittorio Storaro.  One of my favorite scenes in this pungent film is of Willard and the surfer Lance, who has just dropped acid and has a puppy with him, making their way through an area around a bridge at night that is being attacked by the Viet Cong.  Lights sway as bombs drop.  Christmas lights in the trenches add to the atmosphere of stoned American troops who are very far from home.

     One classic scene has Colonel Kilgore (Robert Duvall) who is fond of surfing and is hilariously oblivious to shells exploding right next to him.  Then he says the famous line, "I love the smell of napalm in the morning."  The Redux version of the film has a more powerful entrance for Duvall's character.  The use of montage and exotic locales has an intoxicating effect.  This is one of the great landmarks of cinema; a pungent masterpiece.

     "Synecdoche, New York" is a profound work that marks the directing debut of the prodigiously talented screenwriter Charlie Kaufman.  The film captures everyone's fear of death and the emotional baggage we all carry.  This fanciful picture concerns an ailing playwright, Caden Cotard, who is trying to make a sprawling work of theater with a money grant he has been given.  The looming specter of illness and age get a thorough treatment in the movie as well. 

     Moments in the film are perceptive about life and death.  The movie is reminiscent of Akira Kurosawa's "Ikiru" with its ill bureaucrat trying to get a playground built in his town.  I am also reminded of a scene in "Stranger Than Fiction" where Dustin Hoffman reminds Will Ferrell that he is going to die, as we all must.  A priest in "Synecdoche, New York" says "We are alive only for a fraction of a fraction of a second.  We spend more time being dead or not yet born than we do alive."

     The film is obsessed with mortality, yes, but it is so inventive and playful.  Caden has an earpiece in with a lady's voice instructing him at the end.  "Ask if you can lay your head on her shoulder."  He finds comfort for once in the movie toward the end when he feels he has everything worked out.  "I know how to finish the play.  If I can just..."  Caden's voice is interrupted by the lady's, who instructs him one last time.  "Die," she says.  And the movie fades to white with entrancing static noise.  A perfect movie.

     "I Capture the Castle" is a lovely story of two sisters who grow up in a castle with their father and stepmother.  The father is a writer who is blocked.  The setting is lush and green. Soon two visitors arrive and romance blooms.

     "Vincent: A Life in Color" is a charming documentary about a dazzling individual whose hobby is doing brief fashion shows for riverboats in Chicago.  He takes his coat off quickly and spins around, waving his bright coat in an ornate display of color.  His enthusiasm is infectious and deserving of an audience.  And he gets one on the morning and evening news in the documentary.  One thing is for sure:  he loves to entertain everyone, friends and strangers alike.

     "Trucker" is a naturally paced character study about a mother who must look after her son when the father becomes ill.  She has been out of the kid's life for a long time and their rapport is bitter at first.  The film has a certain momentum from scene to scene that makes the observation keen and taught.

     "Barfly" is Barbet Schroeder's poignant treatment of a nuanced script by Charles Bukowski.  The insightful film concerns a barfly (Mickey Rourke) who one day sees a lady (Faye Dunaway) at the other end of the bar.  "She looks like a distressed goddess," he says.  He befriends her and soon a symbiosis takes place; a pleasant camaraderie of sorts.  She steals some corn from a cornfield in Los Angeles at one point.  This is one of the film's most memorable moments.  The monotony of scrounging for money for booze and fighting the bartender every other night highlight the film. 

     "Song Sung Blue" is a true love story about a singing group who do exciting covers of songs by Patsy Cline, Neil Diamond, and ABBA.  The husband-and-wife duo are Lightning and Thunder.  During the course of the movie, they endure hardships but also jam with the likes of Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam.  The performances are pitch-perfect.       

Tags: Film Festival

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