April 22, 2008...3:00 am
NaFF: Day 4
I saw Alexander Sukurov’s Russian Ark a few years ago and thought it was an awesome technical achievement even though I was pretty uninspired by it’s subject matter. I felt that same way with his new movie Alexandra, about a grandmother who goes to visit her grandson at his army outpost. The film is obviously an allegory, but I couldn’t mesh with the pacing. There are some beautiful moments and the musical score is perfectly understated, but I was left unsatisfied. Still, I’ll be checking out more Sukurov soon to see if I’m missing something.
In the City of Sylvia is my favorite kind of movie. Almost nothing happens during the whole run time, but the director focuses so much on faces and feelings that I wanted it to last forever. The plot is simple: an artist in Paris thinks he sees a girl he once fell in love with and follows her around the city for a long time. You might think it sucks, but I loved it to death. It’s the kind of movie that asks you to look long and hard into it to find the hopes, dreams, and longings of the characters. Look long enough, and you might find your own. Brilliant.
If I was in a serious mood walking out of In the City of Sylvia, The Pencil Stand broke it up in an instant. The Pencil is made by Phil Chambliss, known by the London Times as “The Arkansas Auteur.” His films are classified as “folk art” but they really shouldn’t be put into any category because they approach a new category of weirdness that blurs the line between amateur and auteur. I have no words to explain his work, especially when they showed his earlier 1982 opus Shadows of the Hatchet Man. Wow.
Being a student, I can’t possibly afford to attend a whole film festival. My grades would suffer along with my wallet. It was sad to leave, but I’ll be back next year for the 40th annual festival. It’s one of the highlights of my year.
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