2011 MFF Film #5 - A Cat in Paris

A CAT IN PARIS
France/Belgium/Netherlands/Switzerland, 2010
English
Director: Alain Gagnol, Jean-Loup Falicioli

Zoe is a young girl whose policeman father was killed and her mother, a superintendent with the police, works many hours and is trying to track down her husband's killer.  In her grief, Zoe no longer speaks, and only finds solace with her cat, Dino.  Every evening, Dino prowls the streets of Paris, the accomplice of Nico, a cat burglar.  One night, Zoe decides to follow Dino to find out where he goes, and becomes embroiled in several sticky situations that could bring her great harm, and she finds that she has to trust Nico when even home isn't a safe place anymore.

A Cat in Paris is an utterly charming film.  Though it was technically a children's film, it was definitely tailored to an adult audience as well.  The themes of A Cat in Paris include murder, felony theft and contained a huge amount of action.  There were several times when I could feel my heart racing and I know the look on my face was hilariously anxious; more than a few times, the audience (including me) audibly reacted to what was happening onscreen.

The animation was somewhat typically French: simply drawn characters with bizarre physical features.  I noticed that the good guys all looked kind of similar, yet the bad guys all had different looks to them.  There were also some really breathtaking animated "shots" and wonderfully illustrated panoramic scenes of Paris.  Even the music was great, opening and closing with cool jazz rhythms and a rich symphonic score in between.  The film was in English, undoubtedly for children, and though I tend to be really adamant about watching films in their native language, I wasn't offended at all by the voice talent in A Cat in Paris.  In fact, I rather enjoyed the British accents of some of the characters; without having seen it in its original language (presumably French) it all worked really nicely with the characters.

I absolutely loved A Cat in Paris and I think my decision to see it despite being "a kid's movie" is going to prove to be one of the best viewing decisions I've made in some time.  A Cat in Paris was amazing, charming, suspenseful and brilliant.  Nowadays, we're hard pressed to find any feature film, animated or not, that can be described in these words.

MFF Ballot Rating: 5 out of 5

2011 Milwaukee Film Festival - Day 2

Sunday, September 25- Day Two

Noon

I feel good about having seen four films yesterday, despite the fact that I bailed out of the 9:30pm show.  I'm currently sitting and waiting for the screening of A Cat in Paris to begin.  Apparently, it's currently nominated for a European film award (like the American Oscars, I guess) and this is one of the first screenings in the U.S., which is kind of cool.  There are a lot of kids here because it's part of the Take One kid's festival, but I can't hate on the kids too much because their parents are obviously cool enough to take them to see something other than The Lion King in 3D for the tenth time.  This is the only film I'm seeing as part of the kid's fest, but there are activities afterward for them and stuff, so that's pretty cool to see. 

I was too busy vegging this morning and watching watered down reruns of The Sopranos on A&E to make myself anything to eat, so i basically have a small z-bag of vanilla cupcake goldfish to sustain me until midnight.  Oops.  I may have to treat myself to an overpriced icy beverage to assuage my hunger after a while.

I'm hoping that today is going to be a little less heavy than yesterday, when I saw four documentaries in a row, most with pretty heavy subject matters.  I'm not sure if I'll be going to all of them, but as of now I have an animated feature, two fiction features, one documentary feature (that I've been waiting to see for months) and a shorts program.  Ahhh variety.

9:30pm

A crazy busy day filled with movies but I made it to the final show of the night, the shorts program, and at 38, I'm feeling a little on the old side in this audience.  Perhaps it's because of the late start time on a Sunday night, since I'll admit that I'm usually in bed with a book by now, kidding myself that I'll be able to read longer than 15 minutes before lapsing into snores.  

MFF Film #4 - The Flaw

THE FLAW
UK, 2010
English
Director: David Sington

The Flaw dissects the the hidden credit bubble beneath the financial crisis ravaging the world economy and features in-depth interviews with an impressive array of experts, including housing expert Robert Shiller and Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. 

Director Sington's previous work, In the Shadow of the Moon, was screened at a previous year's Milwaukee Film Festival and was absolutely outstanding, so I was looking forward to seeing The Flaw, and his treatment of this subject.  Indeed, Sington presents the "evidence" thoroughly and in an entertaining way, inter-cutting the sometimes mind-boggling numbers crunching with hilarious scenes from financial-themed cartoons and short films from the 1950's.  This, coupled with his use of graphics and charts to give a visual point of reference to what a talking head may have just explained.

Unfortunately, this is a subject that anyone who watches the news, reads the paper (or online news) or listens to NPR is already educated about.  There weren't any "gasp!" moments for me, or new information revealed; it was just well-presented information, with a couple of the obligatory housing bubble victims trotted out again, that anyone who was interested in what happened have learned over the course of the last three years or more.  And frankly, that is probably the audience for this kind of film.

The Flaw is a good, solid film, though not overly impressive, and unfortunately it felt like late news since, despite the after-effects that most of us are dealing with today, the "how" and "why" are by now, old news.  Had any damning new information been uncovered and presented, it could have helped keep the film fresh, but unfortunately that didn't happen.

MFF Ballot Rating: 3 out of 5

2011 MFF Film #3 - Marathon Boy

MARATHON BOY
India/UK/USA, 2010
Oriya/English/Hindi with English subtitles
Director: Gemma Atwal

Marathon Boy is a documentary that presents five years in the life of Budhia Singh, a young slum kid who was adopted by Baranchi Das, a man who owns a Judo school and orphanage.  When Das discovers that Budhia, at age three, has incredible stamina and is a gifted runner, he enters him into marathons, prompting Budhia's rise as one of India's national treasures.  The government and child welfare authorities accuse Baranchi of abusing the child through exploitation, and the film becomes an examination of exploitation vs. free-will and ambition, and whether a young boy is capable of making decisions that could affect his health and well-being.

Marathon Boy is a riveting film.  There were times when I forgot I was watching a documentary because it played out like a noir thriller at times, pervasive with greed, politics, power and even murder.  This is director Gemma Atwal's first film and it is first-rate.  She captures amazing footage spanning five years, and presents a thoroughly researched product while remaining objective; she presents all sides,and then hands it over to the audience to decide for themselves.  She was granted amazing access to everyone and captured some very candid footage, including exchanges among people who knew they were on camera, but continued to discuss plans that were blatantly exploitative and harmful.  Atwal simply pointed the camera and soaked everything in.

An incredibly thought-provoking film that stayed with me for hours after I saw it, Marathon Boy is a "should see" film that would be of interest to a wide audience; I highly recommend it.

MFF Ballot Rating: 4 out of 5

2011 MFF Film #2 - Into Eternity

INTO ETERNITY
Denmark/Finland/Sweden, 2009
English/Swedish/Finnish w/English subtitles
Director: Michael Madsen

The premise of the documentary Into Eternity is that it is serving as a film for generations far into the future, explaining that since they have found the film, they are now in a dangerous place, which are tunnels in Finland that house nuclear waste.  The project will span almost two centuries, after which the tunnels will be sealed and left alone.  The film explores what would happen if, 100,000 years from now, people would discover the tunnels and tries to explain why they're doing this through interviews with various scientists. 

Realizing the subject matter of Into Eternity is serious, it was still incredibly over dramatic.  Madsen goes for style and it manifests itself in a lot of slow motion:  people walking in slow motion, people working in slow motion.  It made the pacing absolutely excruciating, because a scene that would, frankly, have been boring in real time was suddenly dragged out to more than four times its normal length. 

Madsen decided to provide captions for everything and everybody, even during the overused "aria by female opera singer dramatic moment".  Here's the kicker:  Everyone spoke perfect English.  In fact, better English than some people I know, and myself after drinking too many Diet Cokes.  I was absolutely astonished that they were captioned, and instead of being an aid to the audience, I found it to be completely distracting, because despite the fact that I could understand every word they were saying, my eyes were still drawn to the captions.  And, in another attempt to be stylish, Madsen gave us many shots of interviewees just looking straight at the camera, or fidgeting and saying nothing.  My suggestion to Madsen is that if he's going to rip off Errol Morris, he should also realize that Morris uses these techniques to great effect for the stories he's telling. 

Clearly, there was not a lot of content to the film and Madsen attempt to mask this, but in general, got it all wrong.  At one point, there was a dramatic shot of a moose defecating in the woods.  Seriously, that was it.  No lead in, no lead out, no relevance.  We were just entertained with a moose shitting in the woods.  There was so much padding in the film, it could have been edited down without removing any of the interview footage, and it would have made a perfectly fine 45 minute documentary for television.  Madsen struck me, however, as a guy who is somewhat self-serving, both during his scenes in front of the camera and some of the inflections in his narration.

I've watched many documentaries before with subject matter I wasn't remotely interested in, yet I ended up not only impressed with the film, but informed as well.  Into Eternity was not one of those films, unfortunately, and since I wasn't expecting anything to start with, ended up being a major disappointment. 

MFF Ballot Rating: 2 out of 5

2011 MFF Film #1 - Kinshasa Symphony

KINSHASA SYMPHONY
Germany, 2010
French w/English Subtitles
Director: Claus Wischmann, Martin Baer

A 200 piece orchestra of amateur musicians, the Kinshasa Orchestra of Congo is a group of diverse people who have or are experiencing poverty, bad living conditions and hardship, yet come together because of their desire to play classical music, sometimes at great sacrifice.  As an orchestra, they practice in makeshift spaces on plastic chairs with spotty lighting rigged by one of the violists.  When they perform, they perform outside in the dusty city and often-times hot climate.

Kinshasa Symphony is interesting, especially when it's revealed that not one of the musicians, or even the conductor, are professional musicians.  The group is comprised of both singers and musicians, and all seem to be completely immersed in music.  Stylistically, Symphony is structured differently than other documentaries.  At times, it seemed that the camera was just trained on the city streets for minutes at a time, and I'm not sure if that was supposed to echo the cadence of the music, or if I'm just looking too much into it.  Either way, I would have liked to have learned more about the profiled musicians.  In fact, with the exception of a couple of them, the subjects would receive such sparse camera time that I completely forgot who they were by the time their story was revisited.  I also would have liked to have known how some of the musicians learned their craft, particularly in the environment they were raised in. 

Both the film and the orchestra push their way to the climactic final performance, at which point we realize how much they have improved since the beginning of the film.  The performance, on a dirt field in the city, was attended by thousands, many of whom had never heard classical music before, and it was a triumph and absolute joy to watch the orchestra play Beethoven's Ninth, and the chorus putting everything they have into Ode to Joy and O Fortuna.  It was truly an emotional moment that showed the culmination of so much hard work by a group of underdogs, and the audience I was in broke into spontaneous applause when their performance finished.

I liked Kinshasa Symphony, but really wanted to know more because these were some pretty interesting people.  Despite that shortcoming, it was still interesting, heartfelt and enjoyable. 

MFF Ballot Rating: 3 out of 5

The 2011 Milwaukee Film Festival is Here!

Saturday, September 24 - Day One

12:45 pm

Back at the North Shore Theatres. Circumstantially, I wasn't able to make the opening movie the first two nights, so this is my first foray into the festival this year. So, henceforth, my day count is actually two behind the actual day count of the festival. Get it? Got it? Good.

Unfortunately my first experience here waiting for the first movie to start is the woman standing right next to me talking loudly to the woman sitting a couple of rows behind me. She's so annoying and pervasive that I can't even give her any slack for wearing a Brewer's t-shirt.  Ugh, now I remember why people consider me anti-social...I'm a magnet for obnoxious people, which, mixed with a low tolerance for bullshit makes for a mighty horrendous cocktail.

Anyway, despite the harpy in my ear, I'll try to concentrate on the task at hand - the venue is the same, but the theaters are different. In fact, we're in a pretty big auditorium and I'm wondering if more people are going to get here because there are some reserved seats behind me that may be for people connected with the film, which would be kind of embarrassing with a half empty theater. (It turns out they just stayed free, much to the consternation of the people around them.) It's not so much that there aren't a lot of people here, it's just that there aren't 300 here to fill up the auditorium for a 1pm matinee about an amateur symphony in the Congo. Go figure.

One thing that's pretty cool is that the poor people behind me that the obnoxious woman honed in on were actually talking about the festival before she started jawing and they apparently got festival passes for the first time and are THRILLED about it. They were talking about the two films they saw at the Downer Theater the night before, and how they had 4 or 5 movies to see at the North Shore today. I think it's really cute and I love that this couple and their friend are so into it. 

Philosophically, I'm kind of zen about this year. I've found that I really push myself every year and then just get completely burned out, between the time invested in the screenings and writing. Not to mention just getting there - it's an hour round trip and the weather has been crap; I got caught in a severe rainstorm with hail going 70 on the freeway on the way here. Anyway, last year I kvetched about "only" having seen 18 movies. But really, in 10 days, that's pretty damn good, especially considering the half-assed attempts at blogging I try to do, not to mention the reviews I eke out. I am planning on going with the "not so comprehensive" review structure again this year because it's just impossible to invest the time and effort into a huge review for every film I see and still get my writing done in a timely manner. Besides, sometimes there's not a whole lot to say about a movie, regardless of how critical you are. 

Anyway, I'm planning on scheduling full slates of films every day and if I decide to see all of them, fab. If not, oh well. With the constant "go go GO!" I deal with daily in my professional life, I refuse to stress out on what is supposed to be one of my vacations! So, lady, get your abdomen out of my face, and in the immortal words of the great philosopher Henry Rollins, "Sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up!"

7pm

Three films into the day and I'm doing well. My festival comrades from the unfortunate jawing lady incident are behind me again, where they've been all day, regardless of the screen. I have no intention on engaging any of them in conversation, but it's actually a little comforting to have them hanging out behind me and talking about how many movies they're planning to see. It kind of makes me feel a little less freakish. Let's face it, the third time the volunteers say, "Aha... back again, Ms. Press?" is, well three times too many really because it's kind of a dumb thing to say, but they're all really nice so I just give them the sheepish thing and say, "Thank you, I'll be here all day folks" and then regret it instantly because it's just lame. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm glad that more people are getting singled out than me. Because anyone who knows me knows how much I love to be singled out. Despite the fact that my tailbone is starting to sing protest songs due to over usage, these guys inspire me to trek on.