May 3–10, 2001

movies

Fest Shorts

Following are reviews of selected films which run during the PFWC’s closing weekend (through May 7). All times are p.m. (Note the added screening of Brooklyn Babylon Monday night; the Sunday night screening is sold out.)

Wendigo

Venues:

IH International House, 3701 Chestnut St.

RB Ritz at the Bourse, 400 Ranstead St.

RE Ritz East, Second & Sansom Sts.

R5 Ritz Five, 214 Walnut St.

ST Studio Theatre, Annenberg Center, 3680 Walnut St.

ZT Zellerbach Theatre, Annenberg Center, 3680 Walnut St.

Single tickets are $7.50, $6 for screenings before 4:30. Tickets for all shows may be purchased at TLA Video locations at 1520 Locust St., 7630 Germantown Ave. and 761 Lancaster Ave. (Bryn Mawr); tickets for Zellerbach and Studio Theatre screenings only may be purchased at the Annenberg Center box office, 3680 Walnut St. Tickets may also be purchased by phone at 215-735-7887. For more information, go to www.phillyfests.com.

 

ABERDEEN

This beautifully photographed drama by Hans Petter Moland focuses on Kaiser (Lena Headey), whose mother is dying in a hospital in Scotland. The mother’s last wish is for a visit from Kaiser and Kaiser’s father, Thomas (Breaking the Waves’ Stellan Skarsgård), but the journey is complicated by Thomas being the kind of falling-down drunk who can’t get through an hour without taking a swig of whiskey. Kaiser has her own issues to deal with — from emotional impenetrability to an addiction to cocaine — and resents her father’s past and present failures. The lessons father and daughter learn from the journey aren’t new, but that’s what you get for taking on such an eternal set of themes. —Sara Marcus (5/4, 7:15 RE)

 

ANGELS OF THE UNIVERSE

(recommended)

PFWC hero Fridrik Thór Fridriksson’s films specialize in mining the tectonic seam where foreign culture rubs up against the insular gestalt of Iceland, that frigid/temperate, ancient/nascent, conqueror/colonial oxymoron of a country. On the surface, Angels strays from that theme; a post-romantic breakup Reykjavik painter sees a doctor to fix the "headache in his heart," but is committed for something more like schizophrenia in his head. Yet, the tale of the standard-issue Cuckoo, Interrupted loonies and their exploits gives way to yield a haunting, poetic saga of the identity crisis suffered by Iceland itself as a new member of NATO. —Ryan Godfrey (5/4, 12:15 R5)

 

BEFORE THE STORM

Written and directed by Reza Parsa, an Iranian who has lived in Sweden for twenty years, Before the Storm concerns an émigré taxi driver who tries to live a normal family life in Sweden until his Middle Eastern career as a terrorist catches up with him and he is forced to undertake a dreadful mission. Things get more involved when he befriends a 12-year-old boy (the director calls him a "miniature De Niro") who has to marshal his own courage to confront a vicious bully. Although the film is florid toward the end with overly familiar thriller sequences, Before The Storm is a fine accomplishment for a debut film. —Ruth and Archie Perlmutter (5/3, 7:00 R5; 5/4, 2:30 R5)

 

THE BIG ANIMAL

—See Ruth and Archie Perlmutter’s article (5/4, 2:45 RE)

 

BROOKLYN BABYLON

(recommended)

This tale of love and rage in Crown Heights, directed by Marc Levin (Slam), wants to be a band movie for The Roots, a treatise on black-Jewish rivalry, and an affecting saga of star-crossed love. Well, two out of three ain’t bad. Solomon (Tariq Trotter, a.k.a. Black Thought) and Sara (Karen Goberman), a young Orthodox Jew, fall for each other as relations between their respective communities turn ugly and Solomon’s rap career begins to take off. The exploration of music’s role in the social life of black and religious Jewish communities, augmented by the soundtrack by The Roots and a cameo by Yossi Piamenta ("the Jewish Jimi Hendrix"), is fantastic. So is the treatment of black-Jewish tensions. But Solomon and Sara’s relationship ultimately gets lost in the shuffle. —SM (5/6, 7:15 RE; 5/7, 9:15 ZT)

 

DEAD BABIES

What kind of movie would the love child of Ken Russell and Danny Boyle make? The question that should never have been asked has been answered by Dead Babies, directed by (the somehow-American) William Marsh from Martin Amis’ novel. A group of shiftless, post-college, thoroughly unlikable upperclass English malcontents invite a goofy American threesome, massive stash in tow, to their palatial communal home for a weekend of mind-altering debauchery. The rampant partner-swapping and hallucination scenes are occasionally fun (and would be more so if we cared at all about any of these twits), but the gaudy and unbelievable terrorist subplot is buzzkill aplenty. —RG (5/4, 5:15 RE)

 

GINGER SNAPS

(recommended)

This black-comic Canadian horror movie makes more of teen angst than any movie since Heathers, what with its tale of death-obsessed sisters whose friendship is tested by the twin perils of sexuality and lycanthropy. Just as the elder sister gets her first period (at 16) and starts to be more interested in boys than in staging elaborately faked death scenes with her sister, she’s bitten by a werewolf as well, which means the hungers which possess her aren’t entirely sexual. Food for a thousand seminars on "Grotesquerie and the Female Body," Ginger Snaps is also wicked fun, doing things with the genre your parents should never see you do. —Sam Adams (5/4, 2:15 RB)

 

JUMP TOMORROW

(recommended)

This brightly colored romantic comedy is built for festival crowds, with its multi-ethnic cast and offbeat flavor. Englishman Joel Hopkins’ feature debut — about a romance between an uptight Nigerian-American and a headstrong Latina — is winning in every way. Its spare, eye-popping mise-en-scène suggests what Warhol’s films would have been like if they’d looked more like his silkscreens, and the film’s giddy energy makes you root for its foregone conclusion. —SA (5/3, 5 RE)

 

THE KING IS ALIVE

—See Ruth and Archie Perlmutter’s article. (5/3, 4:45 R5)

 

LIFE AS A FATAL SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASE

(recommended)

Krzysztof Zanussi’s Life as a Fatal Sexually Transmitted Disease is a Polish film about Tomasz, a cynical middle-aged doctor facing his own impending death. Played with dry wit and appropriate solemnity by Zbigniew Zapasiewicz, Tomasz sets out to challenge the beliefs of an ambivalent monk and the romantic illusions of a young couple in love. Like his colleague Kieslowski, Zanussi is an idealist who pursues issues of moral choice, faith and the yearning for evidence of God’s presence. Despite the gravity of its musings about the human condition, the film is never ponderous. —RAP (5/4, 7:15 IH; 5/6, 2:45 RE)

 

MARSHAL TITO’S SPIRIT

When the typically droll wit of Central Europe is good, it is very good, as in Marshal Tito’s Spirit (Vinko Bresan), a send-up of the establishment. On an impoverished Croatian island, covert communists emerge to make "capital" off the presumed sighting of the ghost of Tito at the funeral of a Yugoslav soldier. The superstitious townspeople are gripped by gleeful greed at the prospect of exploiting the "ghost" to promote what the mayor euphemistically calls "socialist" tourism. A low-budget political satire with grainy, pseudo-realistic images and wry charm. —RAP (5/5, 8:45 RB; 5/6, 2:30 R5)

 

MARYAM

(recommended)

The fragmentation of families that stems from diluted ethnic identities takes its toll on the characters of Maryam (Ramin Serry). A first film, made by an Iranian-American, it takes place in a suburb of New Jersey during the Iranian hostage crisis. Although over-extended in its awkward attempts to incorporate personal and political complications, the timely film succeeds in telling an involving multi-cultural story about the effect of remote political events on family and community relations. —RAP (5/4, noon, RB; 5/5, 9:00 IH)

 

MONDAY

(recommended)

Alcohol, tobacco and firearms are the catalysts for an eventful weekend for Takagi, who is trying to remember why he’s holed up in a hotel room with such an awful headache. Gradually, the pieces come back. It seems Takagi has a bit of a drinking problem, and an even bigger gun problem. What begins as liquor-soaked, sunny comedy in the Sellers/Moore tradition turns positively Bronsonesque when Takagi finds himself armed with a yakuza honcho’s shotgun. What follows is an intriguing and entertaining indictment of the easy availability of firearms, albeit one with a significant body count. —RG (5/6, 7:30 RB)

 

MUTANT ALIENS

The first of veteran colored-pencil animator Bill Plympton’s features not to play like it’s merely a showcase for preexisting snippets, Mutant Aliens still wears thin over its relatively brief length. The film too often feels like it’s spinning its wheels, treading ground Plympton has trod before. His skill and gruesome inventiveness is, as always, appreciated, but not for so long. —SA (4/27, 9:30 IH; 5/5, 9:30 ST)

 

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE CHICKEN

(recommended)

Mark Lewis conjures the spirits of Errol Morris and Tex Avery with this deliciously bent, smartly compact film which skirts the boundary between documentary and personal essay: Call it "The Chicken Variations." The film ranges from peeks inside the mass slaughtering of chickens raised for food to the cooings of a woman who keeps one as a house pet (including a satin diaper to catch its droppings). There’s plenty of whimsy here, of course, but Lewis has a cosmic point to make as well, one about all the ways we can find to interact with a single species of animal. Getting more specific would violate the spirit of the film, which is one of playful suggestion and pensive whimsy. —SA (5/4, 9:30 ST; 5/6, 7:15 ST)

 

OTESÁNEK

(recommended)

Can’t have children? Like most infertile couples, you’ve probably been tempted to carve one out of a tree stump and bathe, feed and care for it like a real baby. Well hold on, Geppetto: You’d better watch Otesánek before you start investing in wooden diapers. Jan Svankmajer uses his idiosyncratic mélange of live action, stop-motion and traditional animation to update the cautionary Czech fairy tale of an insatiable infant root-creature with a fondness for mailman flesh and cabbages. Visually, it’s a treat; the muted brown palette of banal middle-class existence provides a funny, creepy backdrop for a Behind the Carnage bio of a maw-and-tendrils problem child. —RG (5/3, 9:15 ZT; 5/5, 2:30 RE)

 

RESTLESS

The highest-grossing domestic film in Finnish history, this import features plenty of swell-looking naked people getting it on, but the drama is utterly forced and the characters basically uninteresting. It’s all about people in their 20s considering getting serious about life, but not quite sure they want to, and going through crises, etc. What’s the Finnish word for "redundant"? —SA (5/5, 4:45 R5; 5/6, 9:15 ZT)

 

SONG OF TIBET

After period pieces like Kundun and Seven Years in Tibet, it’s disconcerting to see a film about Tibet with scenes in an Internet café. One of the strengths of Song of Tibet is its oblique depiction of the astonishing changes the country has undergone in the span of a lifetime. The costs of the nation’s headlong spring into modernity are just hinted at — the Dalai Lama’s exile and Mao’s Cultural Revolution are only mentioned in passing. If, as a result, this Chinese-produced film feels too well-scrubbed, we’re still left with the timeless strength and beauty of both an indomitable woman and her all-too-domitable nation in the clouds. —RG (5/3, 12:15 RB; 5/5, 4:30 IH)

 

LA SQUALE

(recommended)

Remember when you accidentally set the audio track on your Kids DVD to French? The effect is similar to watching Fabrice Genestal’s debut La Squale, although the latter is a better film — less energy is spent trying to shock, and more on developing characters and situations that just feel real. Set in the hardscrabble tenements of a Paris suburb, La Squale focuses on Toussaint, a gang-banger (in both senses), and Desiree and Yasmin, who are competing for what passes for his affections. It’s at first difficult to care about any of these guarded, damaged teens, but by the end it’s as if we’ve participated in the birth of both a hard-won friendship and the merest hint of hope. —RG (5/4, 9:30 IH; 5/6, 6 RE)

 

STARTUP.COM

(recommended)

Directed by Chris Hegedus (The War Room) and newcomer Jehane Noujaim, this tightly structured documentary charts the rise and fall of an Internet startup with intelligence and clarity. Even if would-be millionaires in their 20s make you want to retch, it’s a fascinating look inside a world you never want to get closer to than this. The film finds its core in the relationship between two lifelong friends whose relationship is sorely tested by the crushing pressures of an environment where millions can be lost in a day. Each man seems likeable and unlikeable by turns; you end up developing sympathy for the entrepreneur and questioning the idealist’s motives. —SA (5/4, 8:30 RB)

 

STRANGER INSIDE

(recommended)

Let’s hear it for the mainstream: Cheryl Dunye’s second feature (shot for HBO Films) is less experimental than her debut, The Watermelon Woman, but it’s also a hundred times more watchable. Set inside a woman’s prison, Stranger Inside concerns Treasure (Yolonda Ross), who’s already seen her share of trouble with the law when she finds out the mother she’s never met is locked up in a higher-security facility. She promptly assaults a fellow prisoner and gets herself transferred, but the path hardly gets easier from there. Her mother, a lifer and the hardest of the hard, wants nothing to do with tearful reunions, and Treasure, who’s already too tough for her own good, is forced to grow even more calloused in order to win her mother’s respect. With strong performances and a script that never stoops to sentiment, Stranger Inside is a powerful, even important film, set on turf which rarely graces the big (or small) screen. —SA (5/5, 9:15 R5; 5/6, 4:45 R5)

 

SUNSHINE HOTEL

Michael Dominic’s documentary is full of stories, some of them enthralling, but the overlong film never quite finds its own shape; even interesting conversations can drag on too long. Set in a residential hotel on New York’s Bowery, the film (inspired by an NPR report) turns up plenty of characters, like the normal-seeming desk clerk who’s been writing letters to Pia Lindstrom for two decades. But it’s too enamored of its subjects to cut judiciously. —SA (5/3, 7:00 ST)

 

UNDERTAKER’S PARADISE (recommended)

The oddball premise of this German film directed by Matthias X. Oberg turns on the exploitation of the business of death. In a small Welsh town populated by aging retirees, a downbeat clarinetist (Ben Gazzara) and a young German undertaker’s assistant join to establish a funeral home called The Last Paradise. The task would appear simple in a town noted for the "highest mortality rate in the UK," but Gazzara employs his own conspiratorial methods to help his young friend achieve success. Mildly satirical, leisurely paced and scored with lively jazz, Undertaker’s Paradise is an engaging black comedy. —R&A P (4/30, 12:30 RE; 5/2, 7:15 RE)

 

WAITING FOR THE MESSIAH

A Jewish maturation story with a light, heartwarming touch. Part of a close-knit Jewish community in Buenos Aires where he videotapes weddings and bar mitzvahs, Ariel Goldstein falls in love with a Christian bisexual. After this foray into foreskin territory, he comes home to his Jewish girlfriend and his Oedipal ethnic roots. —RAP (5/5, 7:00 R5; 5/6, 12:15 R5)

 

WENDIGO

(recommended)

Larry Fessenden (Habit) has made something of a mini-career out of making brainy films in a horror-film mode. With Wendigo, he gets the balance just right, delivering a film that’s thought-provoking and endlessly creepy all at once. Patricia Clarkson (High Art) and Jake Weber play an NYC couple who, young son in tow, make their way up north for a weekend getaway, but promptly find themselves confronted with a rural environment that wants nothing to do with them. Playing off everything from The Shining to Deliverance, Fessenden includes a vengeful hunter who may be stalking the family and an angry American Indian spirit which may be out to either kill or protect them. —SA (5/4, 11 RB; 5/6, 9 IH)

 

WILLOW AND WIND

(recommended)

Written by Iranian grandmaster Abbas Kiarostami and directed by Mohammad-Ali Talebi, Willow and Wind moves toward its inexorable conclusion with majestic dread, allowing only the barest glimpse of hope to salve our spirits. A young schoolboy is ordered to replace a broken window before day’s end or face expulsion; the rest of the film concerns his quest to get money, secure the glass, carry it to the school and install it himself, all with the clock ticking down. With so simple a plot — which, in its own way, recalls that of Kiarostami’s Taste of Cherry— the film is mostly mood, composed of shots of the boy struggling across the plains in the face of howling wind, facing brutal odds not out of courage but of necessity. It’s excruciating to watch, but never less than involving. —SA (5/3, 5:15 RB)