As the robber barons in charge of America attempt to isolate our country from the rest of the world, the Portland International Film Festival makes its annual cinematic case for humankind’s inherent interconnectedness. The 88 feature films and 48 shorts that the NW Film Center has collected will pack Portland theaters for the next two weeks, bringing a can’t-eat-it-all smorgasbord of movies from every corner of the globe. While the diversity of this year’s lineup outlines how privilege, race, and geography can divide us, the films themselves successfully argue that many of our struggles and ambitions are universal.
PIFF’s pulse-taking of global cinema is highlighted by a remarkable movie made close to home: Andrew Haigh’s Lean on Pete (Feb 28) was shot in Portland and in Burns, Oregon, and adapted from Portland-area writer/musician Willy Vlautin’s magnificent 2010 novel. It’s a difficult but extraordinary movie to sit through; while Vlautin’s humanism cushions the book’s tragic but ultimately hopeful story of a latchkey teen and his horse, Haigh’s film is observational and conspicuously unsentimental, keeping in line with Vlautin’s unadorned prose style but giving its rawer elements a knife’s-edge immediacy. Charlie Plummer as the 15-year-old boy is restrained but riveting to watch, and Steve Buscemi, as a no-bullshit horse trainer, is at his very best.