9-17-2004
The air was a little melancholy today.
The festival is winding down into its last hours and the proceedings
have taken on the essence of a helium balloon about five days after the
end of a party. It's still kind of inflated and hanging lifelessly in
the air, but it's mostly deflated, sagging and droopy, and is clearly
on its way down. The city streets are emptying of lanyard-and-pass-clad
industry folks, screenings are becoming fewer in number, and even
festival director Piers Handling seems to be phoning it in.
He introduced my first film of the day and gave the most half-assed
opening remarks I've ever seen him do. He even got the name of the film
wrong. He welcomed us to the second screening of "The Heart is a
Deceitful Thing".only the movie's actual title is The Heart
is Deceitful Above All Things. That's how much he doesn't seem to
care at this point. The film is the second from Italian director
Asia Argento, who's the daughter of famed horror-film director
Dario Argento. I saw Asia's first film, Scarlet Diva, several
years ago quite by accident. That movie was a filler, and a little
intense (lots of sex, drugs and nudity, but without a notable
storyline), but Asia was so charming and funny at the post-film Q&A
that I couldn't help but like her.
So I decided to give Heart a shot, even though it received less
than stellar reviews for its (once again) graphic and unpleasant
subject matter. Asia wasn't at the screening (which may account for the
seriously lax intro) this time, though. Ah well. The film follows the
world's worst mother (Argento) as she drags her young son (played at
various points in the film by Jimmy Bennett and Cole & Dylan
Sprouse) from place to place, and subjects him to physical,
emotional and sexual abuse while she has lots of sex with lots of
different men. I have no idea if the admittedly wild and wacky Argento
modeled the mother character on Courtney Love, but it sure looks like
she did. The character has Courtney's white-blonde hair, bright red
lipstick, pale skin, love of punk rock and penchant for the outrageous
and, sometimes, obscene.
The movie is unrelentingly bleak and often weird. Celebrity cameos
(including Peter Fonda, Winona Ryder, Jeremy Sisto and even a
makeup-free Marilyn Manson) are sprinkled throughout, but they
don't do much to improve things. I could also tell by the audience's
reaction that not many of them had seen Asia's earlier work, since
gasps and nervous laughter leaked out several times.
I followed that with a rather lighthearted documentary called The
Year of the Yao, which chronicles NBA star Yao Ming's first
year with the Houston Rockets. It tracks his draft, his move to the
U.S., his adjustment to the NBA's in-your-face play style and, as a
story thread throughout, his friendship with his NBA-assigned
translator, Colin. It was a really sweet movie and kind of surprised
me. I didn't really think (going in) that I'd enjoy it as much as I
did, and it gave me a better understanding of the inner workings of the
professional basketball world.
Last up (only three movies today) was the Australian drama
Somersault. It was introduced as being utterly fabulous (in
many, many more words than I just used), and I was immediately wary.
It's been my experience that often times the more pre-screening praise
is lavished on a film during its introduction, the more likely I am to
not like it. And I have to say that this one, based on how
breathtaking it was made to sound, kind of disappointed me. It's the
story of Heidi (Abbie Cornish), a troubled 16-year-old who runs
away from home and moves to a ski town to find herself. Or escape. Or
both. There, she meets Joe (Sam Worthington), whose motivation
and actions are never quite clear to the audience but whom Heidi
immediately falls for. The film was rather slow-moving and could have
been edited down by about 15 minutes. Its tone bounced around a bit,
and the relationship between the two leads (as I mentioned) is kind of
ambiguous. Maybe if I'd seen this movie first thing in the morning,
with a fresh brain, I might have understood it better. Or wanted to
understand it better. But, as it stands, I just kept checking my watch
and waiting for the credits to roll.
I did manage to sleep in this morning (all the way until 8:30!) because
I didn't have a screening until the afternoon. It's amazing how
refreshed you can be after a full 7 ½ hours of sleep and the time to
eat a sensible breakfast. Okay, well, a mostly sensible breakfast. I
was able to eat it sitting down while chatting with one of my film-fest
pals, but it consisted of a Frappuccino (again!) and a slice of
fat-laden pound cake. But still, it wasn't consumed on my lap in a dark
theater, so I count that as a bonus.
Tomorrow is the last day of the festival. For the first time
ever, I have a ticket to the closing-night film. Actually, hang
on, it's the second time. I won closing-night tickets several years
back, but that year's closing night film was the insomnia-remedy
Onegin, which was so painfully boring that I don't count it.
This year's closing-night film is the comedy Jiminy Glick in
Lalawood, which was partly filmed during last year's fest,
so it should be good for a few laughs.
Who knows, maybe Mouthy Martha even got herself on camera.
:-o
Roger Ebert Sightings: I think I have to wear a black armband. I don't
know what to say. A festival without Roger just doesn't seem right.
:-(
Celebrity Sightings: Yeah, no.
Line Buzz: Lots of intense dislike for an Isreali film called
Promised Land. I mean, intense dislike. People really did
NOT like this one. But more good buzz for Les Choristes and
Touch the Sound.
