The gargantuan Seattle International Film Festival looms like Godzilla on the horizon, signaling that it's time for every reviewer in Rain City to write an obligatory gush piece about the embarrassment of cinematic riches SIFF spews every spring.
And, trust me, there's a whole lot in this all-over-the-map affair to gush about. First and foremost, Big Numbers top our film fest's claim to fame: From May 24 through June 12, The Largest Film Festival Ever will screen 405 films, representing 60 countries, 211 narrative features, 61 docs, 12 archival flicks, 48 world premières, 39 North American premières, 20 U.S. premières, etc., etc. SIFF's cinematic plethora will unspool in all the familiar venues - Harvard Exit, Pacific Place, Egyptian, Northwest Film Forum, Lincoln Square, Neptune - but most happily, in its new, year-round digs at McCaw Hall in Lower Queen Anne.
Those numbing numerical headlines are drawn from almost two dozen programs that promise a taste of every cinematic flavor. And, at first glance, SIFF looks like manna from heaven to Seattleites perennially suffering from foreign-film deprivation. A brand-new entry in the crowded slate, Planet Cinema taps into environmental topics du jour. Look for docs and fictions about men on the moon, arctic beasties, global warming, whales and industrial wastelands - and be sure to check out "The Last Winter," Larry Fessenden's eerie ecological horror tale about earth's mythic revolt against careless humanity.
In Alternate Cinema, the spotlight's on 11 innovative, edging-toward-radical reimaginings of how movies look and move. Two to earmark: "I Don't Want to Sleep Alone," a deeply conflicted meditation on the nature of home by Taiwanese Tsai Ming-liang; and Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul's ravishing "Syndromes and a Century," which critic Richard T. Jameson writing from the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival found a "quietly amazing film [that] affords a new way of looking at the world, and at movies, too."
SIFF has traditionally fudged on how one earns the honorific title of Emerging Master, failing to define this category in any precise sense, especially in the context of international standards. How long does it take to "emerge" (a decade? two decades? until Cannes canonizes you?), and what's the difference between a Young Turk and a Master? The designation seems a bit off the mark as applied to Mauritania's Abderrahmane Sissako ("Bamako"), already recognized on the world stage, though still a bit shy of master status. Eytan Fox, Rafi Pitts and Olivier Dahan are far from stand-outs - either as critical darlings or box-office bait - so why not just dub them New Kids on the Block?
Trailing big bucks ($8 million) from its Sundance sale, Opening Night Film "Son of Rambow" has garnered lukewarm to gaga critical responses. (One can only hope the frequent comparisons to "Billy Elliot," 2000's highly overrated growing-up movie, are unfounded.) Touted as subversively charming, this Huck-and-Tom tale chronicles the comic adventures of two unlikely kid-pals in '80s England. Writer-director Garth Jennings last gifted us with that disappointing mess "The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy."
As for Closing Night Film, "Variety" assures us that "romance, creativity, subterfuge and repartee are among the pleasures to be had" from Laurent Tirard's "Molière." If you've a sweet tooth for richly mounted period romps, spiced with comedy, buxom ladies, dry-witted Gallic thespians and speculations about the nature of genius, "Molière" will be a flavorsome dessert to SIFF's monthlong banquet.
Then there are the Gala Screenings. Try not to doze off during these glittering premières after indulging in hors d'oeuvres and cocktails at the receptions beforehand: "A Battle of Wits," a large-scale war epic (sans fantastic martial arts) by Hong Kong helmer Chi Leung "Jacob" Cheung; "2 Days in Paris," directed, written, scored, produced and edited by and starring Julie Delpy, who co-wrote and co-starred in Richard Linklater's tender "Before Sunset"; usually preachy Lars von Trier's light-as-a-feather office comedy, "The Boss of It All"; and "Evening," in which a dying Vanessa Redgrave recalls her youth. A quintessential "women's film" helmed by Lajos Koltai ("Fateless"), "Evening" overflows with distaff talent: Natasha Richardson (a Redgrave daughter), Glenn Close, Toni Collette, Meryl Streep, Mamie Gummer (Streep's offspring), Claire Danes, Eileen Atkins. While none of the gala selections is likely to knock our socks off, cinematically speaking, "Evening," due in theaters June 29, looks good-to-go as a classy show-case for feminine sense and sensibility. (Susan Minot's bestseller was adapted by Michael "The Hours" Cunningham.)
Who could be so base as to cavil at A Tribute to Anthony Hopkins, honoring the actor who started screen life as Richard the Lion-Hearted-to-be (in 1968's "The Lion in Winter") and went on to give us Hannibal Lecter, a memorable Professor Van Helsing, Titus Andronicus and Nixon, with a Lifetime Achievement Award? We can count on the always-urbane Sir Anthony to regale us with Welsh wit and charm during his on-stage interview, hopefully in response to informed questions that rise above awed fandom. Afterward, enjoy a special screening of "Remains of the Day," that delicate Merchant-Ivory dissection of a soul too timid and gray to embrace his one chance at love.
And there's more. Tempting you to quit your job, drink coffee nonstop and turn into a zombiefied festival addict, SIFF seduces with nonstop fun and games: Face the Music, Films4Families, Midnight Adrenaline, Fly Filmmaking, the Secret Festival, SIFF Forums and lots of mega-parties. It's enough to make one break into a slight paraphrase of the panderer's song from "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum": "Something familiar, something peculiar, something for everyone: a festival tonight!"
INTELLIGENT DESIGN
Up here in the West Coast's "nicest" city, local writers rarely commit the gaffe of criticizing the arts in any depth - showing critical teeth is considered bad manners, a puzzling stumble out of lockstep with a mostly self-congratulatory and self-satisfied arts community. (How come all those raves about the "new Seattle Art Museum" never wonder why a major urban museum lacks a formal film arm? Anyone ever hear of the Museum of Modern Art?)
Seattle's film culture is largely incestuous and parochial, and local reviewers - there are few critics - simply don't diss their relations. A colleague once shut me down as I lamented SIFF's lack of intelligent design: "It's what we've got," he said flatly. So, not surprisingly, most SIFF coverage, comprised of redundant lists and blurbs, ducks into the descriptive, fleeing the critical - critical not in the sense of carping, but rather considered, informed analysis of the "work" under discussion.
Why, you may be asking, do I sound like such a SIFFian sour-puss? Well, for starters, because every year's bloated slate makes me wish the festival were less a multicultural grab-bag and more a sharper, truly curated event. SIFF's identity resides in Bigness, not in specialized programming intelligence and taste. Why not earn a rep for showcasing, in real depth, some cine-matic crème de la crème? Why not aim for something besides hodgepodge, such as the kind of cutting-edge, top-of-the-line programming that might elevate SIFF to the status of major American film festival?
And while I'm in gadfly mode, why doesn't SIFF do more to educate Seattle audiences in how and why film is a lively art, as "highbrow" as opera, theater and ballet to urban audiences with access to informative criticism and intelligent discourse about something besides the latest blockbuster?
Throwing 405 movies at people in 24 days is like encouraging cinematic bulimia, as opposed to inviting folks to a gourmet feast or a tasting of fine wines. You gotta wonder how Seattleites choose which fast (film) food to buy. The ubiquitous blurbs (newspaper guides, SIFF catalog) are almost always plot summaries, rarely placing the movie in any tradition or style.
Going to see a film because it's got gay or ecological or Iraq war or coming-of-age content may satisfy one's personal predilections and interests, but it doesn't always strengthen one's grasp of what constitutes movie greatness, past and present. Why can't some attention be paid to critical standards - is the movie good, bad or indifferent? - so that the viewer becomes more informed and selective next time he or she sits down in the dark?
After all, isn't Seattle known far and wide as a "great film town"?
Every one of SIFF's dozen-or-so forums and panels is geared to serve and inform aspiring filmmakers - and that's fine. But along with grooming industry wannabes, it would also be an admirable goal to teach people how to see movies. Couldn't one or two discussions be designed to open up the way we consumers think - or don't think - about film as art, as entertainment, as cultural artifact? Might be fun, even enlightening, to wrestle with whether movies still matter - as anything more than escapism, as psychosocial mirrors or catalysts.
Since SIFF is spotlighting Germany's national cinema, why not take the opportunity to screen and discuss at least one film by R.W. Fassbinder, that enfant terrible of the spent German New Wave who loomed large in the very first SIFF (1976) and remained a festival fave to his death ... and beyond. (Werner Herzog, that other, less self-destructive, pillar of the German New Wave, is represented by 2006's "Rescue Dawn.")
During SIFF 2005, one of French director Catherine Breillat's controversial excursions into human sexuality - "Anatomy of Hell" - was followed by a panel discussion, literally cobbled together at the last minute. The panelists knew zilch about movies in general, Breillat's other films (not infrequently honored in the New York Film Festival) or what her thematic and stylistic passions were - and they, and the audience, couldn't have cared less. This largely unsuccessful yet provocative example of Breillat's intellectually erotic filmmaking was greeted by lowbrow giggles and mindless mockery. A film festival worth its salt should never confirm and perpetuate cinematic ignorance.
It's a curious custom, this all-too-persistent failure to intellectually challenge people who go to movies, as though jolting audiences into actually thinking about what's up there on the silver screen might somehow undermine their viewing "pleasure" or willingness to buy tickets.
In this centenary year for the births of Katharine Hepburn, John Wayne and Barbara Stanwyck (see Anthony Lane's wonderful homage in The New Yorker), couldn't SIFF have mounted some small tribute to these giants of cinema? Instead, we're treated to a plug-and-play slate of crowd-pleasing swashbucklers and a pair of film noir, "The Big Combo" and "The Damned Don't Cry." The latter duo seems especially superfluous, given that Greg Olson has been screening noir at the Seattle Art Museum for more than a quarter-century and actually featured "The Big Combo" just last year. Nevertheless, a couple of cast-iron Stanwyck noirs surely would have hit the spot.
Still, as my friend so succinctly riposted, it's what we've got.
So, keep an eye out for my weekly SIFFtings - and I'll see you at the movies!
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