2014 VIFF Day 1
Oct. 1st, 2014 11:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzfishVancouver International Film Festival time again.
Based on an unscientific and statistically insignificant random sample, film is unsurprisingly terrible at women. Also at making movies I like.
Black Fly, Jason Borque (dir.)
In which it is demonstrated that backwoods remote-Canadian-island culture is a lot like backwoods US-South culture, only foggier and greener. Mostly an exploration of the lengths a man will go to in order to "protect" his "property," which in this case includes not just his land but also his dog and his passive, panicky, ex-hooker girlfriend. Stilted, unrealistic dialogue (reminded me of Harrison Ford's "You can write this shit, George, but you can't say it") leads to a lack of tension in what ought to be a tense psychological escalation.
Women: the aforementioned girlfriend serves as a third character for the two mains to talk to, a plot device when someone else sleeps with her, and a target of the main's complicated rage.
Rekorder, Mikhail Red (dir.)
Guy who camcorders everything camcorders a savage street beating and shooting, doesn't want to turn video over to the police, has an epiphany, uploads video to YouTube where it goes viral. Well-shot, intriguing main character, very slow pace. Interesting but not interesting enough to recommend.
Women: wife and daughter shown in flashbacks.
The Fool, Yury Bykov (dir.)
A plumber discovers that a tenement is falling apart and likely to collapse entirely in the next day or so. He brings the matter up with the deeply corrupt town council, with predictable results.
This reminded me strongly of the plays I read in Modern Drama a decade ago: specifically, the brutal lack of empathy in things like Ionesco or Brecht, or especially Dürrenmatt's The Visit. The language, the characterizations, the black humor and over-the-top gestures, all draw from theatre. The central message I took away from The Fool (and from The Visit) is that short-term self-interest always trumps empathy. That... does not describe a world I want to live in, or one I'm interested in exploring any further.
Women: The conflicted mayor of the town is female, and there are several other supporting female characters. On the other hand, literally the first scene of the movie is a drunk beating his wife and daughter because he thinks they've stolen his vodka money (I nearly walked out at that point), and the women are repeatedly attacked, trivialised, shoved into back rooms, or simply ignored. I expect this is a faithful rendition of small-city Russian culture but it was still unpleasant and mostly uncalled for.
Both Black Fly and Rekorder have, as their last scene, a backstory revelation that is supposed to cause one to Finally Understand the characters' torment and See The Film In A New Light. This lazy O.Henry crap is something newbie writers are warned against, and now I understand why.
Based on an unscientific and statistically insignificant random sample, film is unsurprisingly terrible at women. Also at making movies I like.
Black Fly, Jason Borque (dir.)
In which it is demonstrated that backwoods remote-Canadian-island culture is a lot like backwoods US-South culture, only foggier and greener. Mostly an exploration of the lengths a man will go to in order to "protect" his "property," which in this case includes not just his land but also his dog and his passive, panicky, ex-hooker girlfriend. Stilted, unrealistic dialogue (reminded me of Harrison Ford's "You can write this shit, George, but you can't say it") leads to a lack of tension in what ought to be a tense psychological escalation.
Women: the aforementioned girlfriend serves as a third character for the two mains to talk to, a plot device when someone else sleeps with her, and a target of the main's complicated rage.
Rekorder, Mikhail Red (dir.)
Guy who camcorders everything camcorders a savage street beating and shooting, doesn't want to turn video over to the police, has an epiphany, uploads video to YouTube where it goes viral. Well-shot, intriguing main character, very slow pace. Interesting but not interesting enough to recommend.
Women: wife and daughter shown in flashbacks.
The Fool, Yury Bykov (dir.)
A plumber discovers that a tenement is falling apart and likely to collapse entirely in the next day or so. He brings the matter up with the deeply corrupt town council, with predictable results.
This reminded me strongly of the plays I read in Modern Drama a decade ago: specifically, the brutal lack of empathy in things like Ionesco or Brecht, or especially Dürrenmatt's The Visit. The language, the characterizations, the black humor and over-the-top gestures, all draw from theatre. The central message I took away from The Fool (and from The Visit) is that short-term self-interest always trumps empathy. That... does not describe a world I want to live in, or one I'm interested in exploring any further.
Women: The conflicted mayor of the town is female, and there are several other supporting female characters. On the other hand, literally the first scene of the movie is a drunk beating his wife and daughter because he thinks they've stolen his vodka money (I nearly walked out at that point), and the women are repeatedly attacked, trivialised, shoved into back rooms, or simply ignored. I expect this is a faithful rendition of small-city Russian culture but it was still unpleasant and mostly uncalled for.
Both Black Fly and Rekorder have, as their last scene, a backstory revelation that is supposed to cause one to Finally Understand the characters' torment and See The Film In A New Light. This lazy O.Henry crap is something newbie writers are warned against, and now I understand why.