Forever Enthralled

Chen Kaige tells the story of Chinese opera singer, Mei Langfang, who experienced world-wide fame, only to have his career threatened when he refused to sing under the Japanese occupation.

SHOWTIMES
Tue, Feb. 23 @ 8:15pm (B1)
Thu, Feb. 25 @ 7:00pm (C21)

The Inheritors

The Inheritors takes you behind-the-scenes of the daily lives of hard-working people in Northern Mexico. Often working long hours under rough conditions, entire families partake in labor in order to survive.

SHOWTIMES
Thu, Feb. 25 @ 6:00pm (B3)
Sat, Feb. 27 @ 2:45pm (WH)

The Sicilian Girl

A crime drama inspired by the true story of a 17-year-old girl who came forward against organized crime in Sicily, in order to avenge the deaths of her brother and father.

SHOWTIMES
Fri, Feb. 26 @ 6:15pm (B1)
Sat, Feb 27 @ 8:00pm (WH)

Videocracy

Explore the crazy world of Italian television, which is crammed full of game shows and reality TV. Oh, and did we mention the media is controlled by the governing body?

SHOWTIMES
Wed, Feb. 24 @ 6:15pm (B1)
Sat, Feb. 27 @ 2:30pm (B1)

Ward No. 6

Shot in an operating mental ward, this film is a rehashing of Checkov’s tale about a doctor turning patient in his own asylum.

SHOWTIMES
Wed, Feb. 24 @ 6:00pm (WH)
Thu, Feb. 25 @ 8:15pm (B3)

Woman without Piano

Rosa seems to live a boring, lonely married lifestyle, but when her husband is asleep, she sneaks out to meet a young Polish construction worker. Going with the flow, she explores nocturnal Madrid in ways she’d probably never imagined.

SHOWTIMES
Sun, Feb. 21 @ 2:00pm (B4)
Mon, Feb. 22 @ 9:15pm (B4)
Sat, Feb. 27 @ 8:00pm (C21)

A Town Called Panic

An insane surreal stop-motion animated fantasy film featuring toy figurines doing all sorts of things in all sorts of settings.

SHOWTIMES
Sat, Feb. 20 @ 3:45pm (B3)
Sun, Feb. 21 @ 7:45pm (B1)

Chameleon

This Hungarian film follows a Gábor, an office cleaner who thoroughly analyzes the garbage of those he works for. Using garbage as a guide, he carefully targets vulnerable women to take advantage of, but has a conflict when he finally falls in love with one of them.

SHOWTIMES
Sun, Feb. 21 @ 6:45pm (B4)
Tue, Feb. 23 @ 6:15pm (B3)
Wed, Feb. 24 @ 7:15p (B4)

City Of Life And Death

A brutal recreation of the “Rape Of Nanking,” in which more than 300,000 Chinese civilians were massacred by the Japanese army during the late 1930s.

SHOWTIMES
Sun, Feb. 21 @ 7:30pm (WH)
Mon, Feb. 22 @ 8:15pm (B1)

Dawson Isla 10

After Chile’s military coup in 1973, President Salvador Allende’s most trustworthy collaborators are locked up in a concentration camp on Dawson Island. Thirty years later, they return to the island to see how time has healed their wounds.

SHOWTIMES
Sat, Feb. 20 @ 8:15pm (B4)
Mon, Feb. 22 @ 6:45pm (B2)
Wed, Feb. 24 @ 8:45pm (B3)

Reporter

World-traveling investigative New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof takes us into his world, which is full of situations we can never imagine from the comfort of our homes.

SHOWTIMES
Mon, Feb. 15 @ 4:30pm (B3)
Sun, Feb. 21 @ 2:30pm (B1)

Mother

Elderly women in many countries are majorly tough cookies who engage in manual labor and really know how to fight for what they believe is right. Mother is a psychological drama about the mother of a mentally-handicapped young adult, and what she’s willing to do to prove that he is innocent of the crime he’s convicted of.

SHOWTIMES
Fri, Feb. 19 @ 9:15pm (B1)
Tue, Feb. 23 @ 6:00pm (WH)

Passenger Side

From Los Angeles to the surrounding desert of the Inland Empire, Passenger Side follows the story of two siblings who embark on a common road trip, with uncommon results.

SHOWTIMES
Fri, Feb. 19 @ 8:30pm (B3)
Wed, Feb. 24 @ 7:00pm (B2)

The Shock Doctrine

Let’s quote Sundance Film Festival, shall we? They’ve summed it up well: “Based on the best-selling book by Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine seeks to explain the rise of disaster capitalism: the exploitation of moments of crisis in vulnerable countries by governments and big business.”

SHOWTIMES
Sat, Feb. 20 @ 6:45pm (B2)
Sat, Feb. 20 @ 9:15pm (B2)
Sun, Feb. 21 @ 1:00pm (B2)

Vincere

Seen through the eyes of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini’s first wife, the Australian aristocrat, Ida Dalser, Vincere explores what happens to Dalser after Mussolini rejects both her and her newborn son.

SHOWTIMES
Fri, Feb 19 @ 8:45pm (WH)
Sun, Feb. 21 @ 4:45pm (B1)

Waking Sleeping Beauty

Disney might not be what they used to be, but they’re still a household name. This behind-the-scenes documentary explores Disney’s past, from the mid-1980s until now.

SHOWTIMES
Sat, Feb. 20 @ 1:30pm (B3)
Mon, Feb 22 @ 9:30pm (B2)

Welcome

This French film follows the lives of illegal immigrants who are trying to flee their homelands to reach England, serving as an extremely memorable look into young immigrants and what their experiences as they try to make new lives for themselves.

SHOWTIMES
Wed, Feb. 17 @ 8:45pm (B1)
Fri, Feb. 19 @ 8:15pm (B2)
Sat, Feb. 20 @ 6:15pm (B3)

The Wind Journeys

A film shot in the countrysides of Northern Columbia, The Wind Journeys follows Ignacio Carrillo, an accordion player who goes on one last trip to return his accordion to the man who gave it to him. When a young teenager with dreams of becoming a nomadic musician, the former tries to convince the boy that the lifestyle can only lead to solitude and sadness.

SHOWTIMES
Sat, Feb. 18 @ 6:00pm (WH)
Sat, Feb. 20 @ 12:00pm (B1)

From its opening train hijacking sequence to its creative opening credits, The Good, The Bad, The Weird seemed like a film that would be right up my alley. The first few minutes were so enjoyable that I was quite sure that the goofy, highly stylized film would be one of my new favorites.

Well, that was shooting a little too high. While it was in fact very close to being a perfect over-the-top, tongue-in-cheek masterpiece, it fell slightly short — an unfortunate situation, considering the film is very obviously the collaboration of people who know what they’re doing.

First and foremost, the film succeeds in a fundamental way with fantastic character development. Familiar Korean actors fill in the roles impressively, with Song Kang-ho (Thirst, Memories Of Murder, JSA) playing “The Weird”, bad ass Lee Byung-hun as “The Bad” (Three Extremes, Hero, JSA), and lesser-known Jung Woo-sung (A Moment To Remember, The Warrior) as “The Good”. Ultimately, they are caricatures, but it works. Song plays the role of the familiar bumbling comedic relief, Lee owns the role of the egomaniac killer, and Jung is almost too perfect as the renegade long arm of the law. The three, as suggested by the title, are vastly different, and Lee and Jung in particular stand strong; the whole film seems to be a teaser leading up to their ultimate showdown.

The film is a visual treat in a cluttered, hypercolored way. With impressive neon lighting that’s notable in nearly every frame, The Good, The Bad, The Weird is home to brightly colored, ornate marketplaces, warriors donning unmatching, richly patterned textiles, and strange leftover war relics. At some points, it literally seems like the costume and set designers just scoured junk stores and pulled home everything with some kitschy collectable appeal, from motorcycles with sidecars to Manchurian-inspired furs and rusty wind instruments. This kind of worldly hodge-podge works with The Good, The Bad, The Weird, because if films could be copy-and-paste collages, this would be one. It is stylistically all over the map, but somehow it pulls together.

With so much going for it, then, The Good, The Bad, The Ugly only falls significantly short in one way. Apparently, the director and editors decided after shooting that they really, really love explosions — from every angle and in every speed. And while the explosions are initially entertaining, they become boring towards the end of the film. There is what seems to be a ridiculous ten-minute clip that switches between shots of running horses and shots of explosions. The over-saturation is completely underwhelming.

Asides from this misstep, though, the film concludes in a satisfying way. As mentioned, The Good… seems to be teasing the viewer throughout its duration, hinting at the ultimate showdown between the film’s three main characters. And despite this built-up anticipation, the conclusion satisfies.

SCREENINGS AT THE 2010 PORTLAND INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL:
February 13 - 9:00pm at Regal Broadway Cinemas (B1)
February 15 - 4:00pm at Whitsell Auditorium (Portland Art Museum)
February 17 - 9:15pm at Regal Broadway Cinemas (B2)

Through the years, I’ve taken quite a liking to the black comedies exported by Scandinavian countries. Not quite in line with typical American humor, Scandinavian black comedies are funny in a dry, cynical, and wholly fantastical way; they often revolve around scenarios that are so absurd they become surreal. Terribly Happy begins in just such a fashion, with just such an influence. It perfectly sets the tone for a film that will sink deeper and deeper into crazy comedic scenarios, only… that’s not what happens.

Terribly Happy soon starts to hum to a vastly different tune. Comedy goes out the window, and it becomes a mixed and mashed amalgam of psychological thriller, action, noir, and western. In fact, asides from the beginning and end of the film — which are steeply entrenched in “black comedy” territory — Terribly Happy is quite serious, with slight moments of amusement in the, “this-is-funny-but-not-in-a-laugh-out-loud” variety.

The film follows around city detective Robert Hansen (Jakob Cedergren), who is transplanted temporarily into a small town. He is quite obviously out of place, and one learns early on that he has no one but a wife and kid who do not wish to speak to him. He is, for all intents and purposes, alone. And while we do know his on-screen character to a degree,we soon learn that we don’t really know anything about him other than the fact that he is a man who yearns to do his job as police chief.

As the bizarre inconsistencies of a small town replete with strange rituals emerges, one begins to question who is correctly pointing the fingers and who is behind the mysterious murders and disappearances that take place in the town. Is it the entire town? Is it the film’s ultimate wife-beating villain, Jørgen? Is it Robert? It’s hard to decide, because Terribly Happy is terribly hard to predict. Somehow, the film manages to bend genres and expectations without becoming overly complicated or feeling cluttered in any way.

About Elly

An Iranian drama that explores what happens when a group on a weekend getaway realize that one of their travelers has gone missing. The most powerful moments in this film lie in the clash between traditional values and modernity, and the film provides a detailed look at gender roles and husband-wife relations in Iran.

SHOWTIMES
Sat, Feb. 13 @ 3:15pm (B3)
Sun, Feb. 14 @ 1:45pm (B4)
Sun, Feb. 14 @ 7:00pm (B4)

Cooking History

Czech filmmaker Péter Kerekes takes sneak peeks into the lives of various military cooks from all over Europe. The film captures viewpoints on 20th century European wars through the viewpoints of food service personnel — certainly not individuals you hear historical tales from everyday.

SHOWTIMES
Sun, Feb. 14 @ 9:00pm (B3)
Thu, Feb. 18 @ 9:00pm (B3)
Sun, Feb. 21 @ 12:45pm (B3)

Hipsters

Set in 1950’s Moscow, Hipsters shows how musicians can break free in the midst of Soviet conformity. A love it or hate it musical some will swoon over and others will abhor.

SHOWTIMES
Fri, Feb. 12 @ 8:45pm (B3)
Sat, Feb. 13 @ 5:30pm (B2)
Tue, Feb. 16 @ 8;15pm (B1)
Wed, Feb. 17 @ 7:00pm (B3)

Home

What director Ursula Meier has termed, “a road movie in reverse.” As opposed to hitting the open road, one family coops themselves up in their home and slowly drive each other insane.

SHOWTIMES
Sat, Feb. 13 @ 8:30pm (B2)
Sun, Feb. 14 @ 3:15pm (B2)
Mon, Feb. 15 @ 8:00pm (B2)

Mid-August Lunch

Director Gianni Di Gregorio stars in his own film as a money-troubled man who spends his time caring for his elderly mother. Soon, his home is filled with aged women for him to care for, and the film unfolds with stories and interactions.

SHOWTIMES
Sat, Feb. 13 @ 6:15pm (B1)
Sun, Feb. 14 @ 5:45pm (B3)

Protektor

A stylish drama set in Nazi-occupied Prague, which explores the fragility of relationships by means of bright, minimalistic visuasl.

SHOWTIMES
Sun, Feb. 14 @ 12:45pm (B2)
Mon, Feb. 15 @ 2:00pm (B1)
Mon, Feb. 15 @ 7:45pm (B4)

Short Cuts I

Worth it simply for the grotesquely beautiful Next Floor, pictured above. Add 7 more short films into the mix, and you’re getting your money’s worth. ‘Nuf said.

SHOWTIMES
Sat, Feb. 13 @ 12:30pm (WH)
Mon, Feb. 15 @ 1:45pm (WH)

Terribly Happy

A film that begins and ends in typical Scandinavian black comedic fashion, Terribly Happy follows the life of Robert, a city cop who has been thrown into a small town. When murder shows its head, things become confusing for Robert, and a mix of psychological thriller, action, and comedy make the film a genre-bending romp.

SHOWTIMES
Fri, Feb 12 @ 6:45pm (B1)
Sun, Feb. 14 @ 4:45pm (B1)

The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls

The Topp Twins are lesbian twins who are popular amongst New Zealanders in all walks of life. Like a non-American Dixie Chicks mixed with yodeling, the Topp twins are a fascinating duo to hold the camera frame.

SHOWTIMES
Sun, Feb. 14 @ 7:15pm (B1)
Tue, Feb. 16 @ 6:15pm (B3)

Tomorrow night is the kick-off party and film for the Portland International Film Festival. For just $25 (or $20 if you’re a PAM member or Silver Screen Friend), you can socialize with Portland’s film elite and see Tilda Swinton star in the film, I Am Love (Io sono l’amore in Italian).

The film follows a wealthy industrial family, the Recchis, as they celebrate the birthday of the grandfather of the household. Set against beautiful backdrops glowing with opulence and affulence, Italian director Luca Guadagnino explores a wide range of emotion — and what it is to listen to one’s heart against odds.

Head on over to the PIFF website to pick up your passes for the event now. It’s tomorrow. 7:30pm. Go quick!

TICKET PRICES
GENERAL: $10
PORTLAND ART MUSEUM MEMBERS: $9
GROUP RATE (15 or more to a single screening, in advance only; Sunday–Thursday screenings only): $7
CHILDREN (12 and under): $7
SILVER SCREEN CLUB FRIEND ($60 annually): $7
DIRECTOR, PRODUCER and BENEFACTOR members receive free admission with their valid Silver Screen Club cards.
OPENING NIGHT TICKETS: See below
CLOSING PARTY: $15 general; $10 Silver Screen Friend and Portland Art Museum members

In the end, my only problem is with the short’s post-production. It may have been purposely dreary, but overall, it feels too unprocessed. Not that overprocessing is a must for every film, but in the low-light conditions in which this short was shot, the colors feel muddled. Nonetheless, if human reactions and social interactions are up your alley, this short will interest you.

You can watch the whole short below.

Laundrette from Alex Nevill on Vimeo.

Skhizein (Jérémy Clapin,2008) from Bertie on Vimeo.

Just wanted to share with you this really amazing animated short about a man who is struck by a meteorite and then forced to live “91 centimeters away from himself.” Before I watched it, I had no idea what that tagline could possibly mean, but now it makes sense, and it’s one of the best animated pieces of work I’ve seen in a while… because of both the animation and the concept.

The DVD also just came out in October 2009, so head on over to http://www.muiye.com/skhizein/SKHIZEIN.html to see how you can attain a copy!

The result of of ten film students from Ontario, Canada, Life Of Charlie is a strangely charming low-budget flick. Perhaps what is most appealing about the film is how much it captures the spirit of young adults in this day and age, when it seems like many 20-somethings are discontent, wondering where they are headed in life and how they are getting there.

Life Of Charlie starts off detailing moments in small town life where everyone seems to know everyone else. From horse races to ramshackle house parties, the filmmakers truly give the audience a taste of a lifestyle where no one seems to have any real aspirations beyond surviving the day-to-day and having fun. The main character, Charlie, is in a dead-end band that “has talent” but is still going nowhere, and it becomes quite obvious early on that he has nothing in common with his bandmates, who ridicule him for his indie folk songwriting and “gay” musings on being in love. Charlie’s eyes are only opened to his true feelings on life when a city girl transplant shows him what he’s missing in life, and even then, the movie is surprisingly careful not to delve into overly cheesy territory.

The acting is not exactly top-notch, but because of the entertaining dialogue and convincing screenwriting, Life Of Charlie is a student film that is actually very enjoyable. There are some really captivating moments in this film, and an introspective folk rock soundtrack to boot.

At its basest, noise is a genre that comes about through the manipulation of various instruments — often homemade — with sounds that range from dirty squeals and ambient drones to robotic pulses, and everything in-between. It can be carefully controlled, or it can be a form that takes on its own life, with very little human input, through the use of electronics.

When discussed, noise can be hard to quantify with words. But listening to noise musicians discuss the creation of their art actually yields surprisingly deep discussions. Some compare the act of creating noise like working within an electronic circuit or closed environment. Others create noise because it is a reminder of an impending apocalypse to come. Still others enjoy it because it’s a type of music that’s easily accessible to all who are curious. The reasons and inspirations for creating noise are vast, but always interesting; for while some pop musicians might say, “I really like to write fun songs that make people dance,” noise musicians talk about noise music in a way that’s similar to physicists talking about physics.

All of the Portland noise musicians in People Who Do Noise — from Smegma to Yellow Swans to god to Argumentix — approach their craft with a seriousness and earnestness that one can’t help but appreciate, even if one doesn’t necessarily appreciate the music itself. Nonetheless, noise musicians can also see the ridiculousness in their craft, when viewed from the outside.

Musician Sisprum Vish gave an anecdote about his childhood which serves as a pretty solid example as to why people become interested in noise. He recalled being a young child who would record cartoons and slow them down because the resulting sound was appealing, and it is this kind of curiosity that is necessary for creating noise. It’s a genre for those who like to tinker endlessly — for who like to build and invent and experiment.

“I think my work is fueled almost completely by what happens when you do something wrong,” reveals musician Redglaer. “Feedback is the wrong thing, but that’s almost at the heart of my work and of a lot of people’s work.”

Utilizing amazing sound mixing and a strong balance of interviews and performances, People Who Do Noise is a good introduction for those who know nothing about noise, as well as an appropriate portrait of noise musicians for those who are already interested.

Like any other self-respecting genre, noise isn’t for everyone. However, it is created by people who find amusement in their craft. And although the amusement to be found in creating noise might come from engineering strange instruments or going against the musical grain as opposed to gaining fans and touring extensively, it doesn’t make the genre any less important.