AFRICAN FILM FESTIVAL
More info: africanfilmfestival.org.
THE DEVIL CAME ON
HORSEBACK
There’s no way to sugarcoat a documentary about the ongoing genocide
in Darfur. Made using the testimony and photographic evidence collected
by former US Marine Captain Brian Steidle, The Devil Came on
Horseback is a shocking and sorrowful portrait. MARJORIE SKINNER
PCC Cascade Campus.
EZRA
A drama about a former child soldier from Sierra Leone. Hollywood
Theatre.
KINSHASA PALACE
A “study of family displacement and the socially corrosive
ramifications of the recent African diaspora.” PCC Cascade
Campus.
THE LEGEND OF THE SKY KINGDOM
An animated film about three children who find—wait for
it—a kingdom in the sky. Kennedy School.
MASAï: THE RAIN WARRIORS
Masaï adolescents must find a lion’s mane in order to bring
rain to a drought-stricken land. PCC Cascade Campus.
THE NARROW PATH
Tunde Kelani’s film follows a young woman who must choose between
suitors, with disastrous results. PCC Cascade Campus.
THE RED GLASSES
We can’t do any better than the official synopsis: “This charming
film depicts the adventures of a young sister and brother after they
find a pair of magic sunglasses which are later stolen by two local
bullies, and the life lessons they learn.” Kennedy School .
Portland International Film festival
More info: nwfilm.org
H A Gentle Breeze in the Village
(Japan)
This sweet, slow-moving Japanese film is set in a tiny village where
seven kids make up the entirety of the town school’s student body. The
film focuses on the minutia, finding significance in the smallest
moments, which, while occasionally tedious, is often quite
moving—and the adorable cast of schoolchildren means that even
when the story meanders, there’s always something cute to look at.
ALISON HALLETT Broadway Metroplex.
Afghan Muscles (Denmark)
A look at the most popular sport in Afghanistan—body building.
Broadway Metroplex, Northwest Film Center’s Whitsell
Auditorium.
Alice’s
House (Brazil)
With an exceptional performance by Carla Ribas as Alice, Alice’s
House centers around one working- class family in Brazil. Alice’s
family—an underemployed husband, three sons in their early
twenties, and a blind grandmother who sees more than she is willing to
admit—all live together in a modest home. Theirs is not the
Brazil of Carnivál fame, but instead one of quiet desperation
and distant dreams. Extra-marital affairs and dark motivations create
tension as each of them reach outward, seeking independence—only
to find that they are fated together by blood and circumstance. LANCE
CHESS Broadway Metroplex.
The Art of Negative Thinking (Norway)
A “politically incorrect black comedy” about a therapy group for
handicapped people. Oh, Norway! Broadway Metroplex, Northwest
Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium.
Beaufort (Israel)
A drama about Israeli forces pulling out from Lebanon (heh) in 2000.
Broadway Metroplex, Northwest Film Center’s Whitsell
Auditorium.
Breath (South Korea)
An artist from Seoul falls in love with a Death Row prisoner.
Broadway Metroplex.
California Dreamin’ (Romania)
A social farce inspired by true events in Kosovo in 1999. Broadway
Metroplex.
Chihuly in the Hotshop (US)
A documentary about glassblower/artist Dale Chihuly, who will largely
be remembered as the dude who made that one sculpture in the Bellagio
that makes everyone upchuck their comped booze. Northwest Film
Center’s Whitsell Auditorium.
Clouds Over Conakry (Guinea)
With a mostly steady hand, Clouds Over Conakry traverses the
spiritual and generational divides in modern Guinea through the
intersecting lives of two families. BB (Alexandre Ogou) is a political
cartoonist who hides his work and his love from his father, a Muslim
imam who expects much of his family and son. BB dates Kesso (Fifi-Dalla
Kouyate), whose father runs a secularist newspaper. The conflicts are
broad and clear, though at times, Conakry seems more a
sign-of-the-times explanation for Westerners. (I wonder how interesting
this would be to someone from Guinea?) ANDREW TONRY Broadway
Metroplex.
Duska (Netherlands)
A story about a lonely film critic whose “best years are behind him.”
As if we could even imagine what that’s like! Ha! Ha! Ha. Sigh.
Broadway Metroplex, Northwest Film Center’s Whitsell
Auditorium.
Eduart (Greece)
An Albanian refugee illegally moves to Greece, kills a man, and ends up
in an Albanian prison. Good times are had by all! Broadway
Metroplex.
Empties (Czech Republic)
An elderly man tries out a succession of jobs in this hit from the
Czech Republic. Broadway Metroplex.
Family Ties (South Korea)
This week, the irrepressible Alex P. Keaton (Michael J. Fox) discovers
a get rich quick sche—oh, wait. This is a family drama from South
Korea. Never mind. Broadway Metroplex.
Getting Home (Hong Kong)
When his coworker keels over in mid-swig, a straight-laced office drone
finds himself stuck with the corpse far from home. Lacking the cash to
bury his drinking buddy, he buys two tickets on a bus. Things don’t go
smoothly. From this rather broad Weekend at Bernie’s-type
premise, director Zhang Yang (Shower) puts a new spin on the
standard road movie, mixing pathos and light comedy with an oddly Zen
beat. An agreeably sentimental, slightly absurdist film that keeps
threatening to wobble into mawkish territory, but never quite tips
over. ANDREW WRIGHT Northwest Film Center’s Whitsell
Auditorium.
In the City of Sylvia (France)
A nameless young man watches nameless young women do everyday
things—wait for a date at a café, chat with friends,
smoke, walk down the sidewalk—as he sketches them. But he’s not
just an artist, soaking up street life in this French city of
Strasbourg. He’s looking for someone with a name: Sylvia, a woman he
met six years ago. The film, which follows his alternately creepy and
relatable behavior (the man is, at times, practically a stalker), is
both beautiful and tense, the anxiety enhanced by the lack of dialogue
and the babble of city life that replaces it. AMY J. RUIZ Broadway
Metroplex.
In the Heliopolis Flat (Egypt)
A romantic comedy/drama set in Cairo. Broadway Metroplex.
La
Antena (Argentina)
Dateline: the future. (Or possibly the past.) An entire city has lost
its voice and can only communicate through subtitles, except for one
woman who can still talk, and consequently doesn’t need subtitles to
speak to others, and is used as an unwilling tool by the megalomaniacal
Mr. TV to take all of everybody’s words away forever. Oh, and her son
can sometimes speak, too. Are you following this? Argentinean director
Esteban Sapir’s visually ravishing homage to black and white
photography, silent films, and Robitussin fugues doesn’t make a lick of
sense, but in an intriguing, endearing fashion, it’s a trip, man.
ANDREW WRIGHT Broadway Metroplex.
Mister Foe (Great Britain)
Hallam Foe (Jamie Bell) is a reclusive, voyeuristic, and somewhat feral
17-year-old who figures it’s finally time to fly the coop of his
architect father’s enormous estate in the Scottish countryside when (1)
his sister takes off for Australia, and (2) he ends up having sex with
his stepmother (Claire Forlani)—who he’s pretty sure killed his
mom—in his childhood tree house. He burns his bridges and heads
off to Edinburgh, where he finds work, love, and lots of trouble. A
cousin of lost little rich boy tales like Igby Goes Down, set to
a cool UK soundtrack. MARJORIE SKINNER Broadway Metroplex.
The Monastery: Mr. Vig and the Nun (Denmark)
Mr. Vig is an 82-year-old virgin who is obsessed with people’s noses.
(He doesn’t like them. He doesn’t like ears very much either.
Basically, he doesn’t like people.) He is also in possession of a
crumbling castle in Denmark, which he very much wants to transform into
a Russian Orthodox monastery, which in his own estimation would leave
the perfect mark on the world as testament to his own more or less
loveless life. Sister Amvrosya shows up to help prepare the place, and
the two clash in the kind of slow motion only the elderly and devout
are probably capable of. There are bursts of hilarity in this
documentary, but they are far and few between. MARJORIE SKINNER
Northwest Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium.
My Brother Is an Only Child (Italy)
Like most brothers, Accio (Elio Germano) and Manrico (Riccardo
Scamarcio) spent their entire childhoods fighting each other. Their
struggle continues through adolescence, when Accio falls in with
fascist revivalists while Manrico becomes a Communist rabble-rouser.
My Brother is an Only Child is a largely effective look at the
two brothers as they navigate their way through the political turmoil
of Italy in the 1960s. The intricate evolution of Accio’s character is
handled remarkably well, but Manrico becomes increasingly
nebulous—to his brother and the audience—as single-minded
ideologies fade and humanity takes over. Despite a rushed ending and a
baffling final shot, the film navigates a variety of emotions with
grace and humor. NED LANNAMANN Northwest Film Center’s Whitsell
Auditorium.
Off the Grid:
Life on the Mesa (US)
Deep in the heart of undeveloped New Mexico lies The Mesa, a patch of
Wile E. Coyote desert where a group of Gulf War Veterans, runaways, and
other castoffs form their own society, with a strict moral code that
gets tested when a pack of Marxist teens begin to upset the barely
self-sufficient atmosphere. Directors Jeremy and Randy Stulberg
occasionally get carried away with the hippie-dippie blissfulness of it
all, but this remains a generally fascinating and reasonably clear-eyed
look at a truly fringe group. ANDREW WRIGHT Broadway Metroplex,
Northwest Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium.
Operation Filmmaker (US)
Liev Schreiber invited a 25-year-old Iraqi film student to work on his
shitty adaptation of Everything is Illuminated. The resultant
culture clashes are captured in this award-winning doc. Broadway
Metroplex.
OSS
117: Cairo, Nest of Spies (France)
After saving the Allies’ bacon in WWII, a strapping French superspy
goes undercover in Cairo on a mission complicated by slumming Nazis,
henchmen in fezzes, and ridiculously leggy dames. Oh, and an assassin
who wields chickens. Bond spoofs may be old hat, but director Michel
Hazanavicius generates such a rolling comedic momentum—and a few
genuinely ace retro action sequences—that the thing feels like
the first of its kind. The rare spoof that actually improves as it
goes, due in large part to the increasingly hilarious deadpan machismo
of star Jean Dujardin. Even his goddamned teeth are funny. ANDREW
WRIGHT Broadway Metroplex, Northwest Film Center’s Whitsell
Auditorium.
Paranoid Park (US)
Let’s just get this out of the way: Portland audiences will love
Paranoid Park simply for its beautiful and unaffected depictions
of the city. Opening with a gorgeous shot of the St. Johns Bridge, the
film works its way through the Burnside skate park, Lloyd Center, Half
& Half, the Pearl, and more, accompanied by a soundtrack that
includes Ethan Rose, Cool Nutz, and Menomena. In this sense,
Paranoid Park might be the quintessential Portland movie of the
decade. That alone does not a great movie make, however. Taken on its
own merits, Gus Van Sant’s latest is as evocative and elusive as his
recent films, Elephant and Last Days, although
Paranoid Park is not so glacially paced. It’s the story of a
local teen skater who drifts through middle-class high school life
before a murder by the Burnside skate park turns his world upside down.
Audiences expecting a fast-paced, straightforward skate/murder movie
will be stumped by Van Sant’s elliptical storytelling, but those who
wanted to like Gerry, only to crumble under the film’s
never-ending action-less sequences, should be happy that Van Sant has
struck a great balance between artful and intrigue here. CHAS BOWIE
Northwest Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium.
Persian Carpet (Iran)
Fifteen filmmakers contribute to this collection of shorts. Broadway
Metroplex.
Saviour’s Square (Poland)
A critically acclaimed look at “a family’s struggle to stay afloat in
post-Communist Poland.” Broadway Metroplex.
Short Cuts IV: Made in Oregon
This batch of locally made shorts runs the gamut from the visually
ingenious Ring! Ring! to the pretty but pointless one-take stunt
of Who’s Good Looking, which features overlapping Woody Allen
dialogue but none of the humor. Other highlights include By Modern
Measure, a hilarious, note-perfect Jules et Jim take-off,
and The Pull, which documents an unconventional breakup through
sumptuous split-screen and casual narration. You’ll get a chance to see
the very cool video for Thom Yorke’s “Harrowdown Hill” on the big
screen, produced by Portland production house Bent Image Lab. You’ll
also have to slog through the indulgent charade of Little
Terrors, an incomprehensible 28-minute navel-gaze on terrorism and
the insularity of Western society. Like the animated roller-coaster
ride in another included selection, A Streetcar Named Perspire,
there will certainly be ups and downs. NED LANNAMANN Northwest Film
Center’s Whitsell Auditorium.
Shotgun Stories (US)
Jeff Nichols’ story of a rural family feud. Broadway
Metroplex.
Silent Light (Mexico)
Winner of the Cannes Jury Prize, Carlos Reygadas’ film tells “a story
of adultery and spiritual crisis in an isolated modern-day Mennonite
community in Northern Mexico.” Broadway Metroplex, Northwest
Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium.
Snow Angels (US)
The latest from David Gordon Green. Director in attendance.
Northwest Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium.
Still Life (China)
Another film dealing with the effects of the Three Gorges Dam (see
Up the Yangtze), Still Life blends dramatic and
documentary methodologies. Broadway Metroplex.
Taxidermia (Hungary)
Ohholyshitwasthatevergross! Hungarian director György
Pálfi, best known for 2002’s gentle and slightly macabre
Hukkle, goes absolutely full-out bizarro here, crafting a
monument to bodily glop that might make even Cronenberg reach for the
Sprite and Saltines. The plot, what there is of it, focuses on three
men in severe biological situations (one speed overeats, one has a
thing for embalmed cats, the other… um, pees fire), but rapidly
digresses into a series of hilariously random grotesqueries. Smart,
sly, and pretty much unforgettable, especially during the bits that
you’d probably rather forget. Strongly recommended… I think. ANDREW
WRIGHT Broadway Metroplex.
Times and Winds (Turkey)
A “lyrical portrayal” of life in a small Turkish town and three friends
who live there. Also: Rhyming! Maybe? Broadway Metroplex.
The Trap (Serbia)
Director Srdan Golubovic describes his modern film noir as “a Balkan
version of Crime and Punishment.” Finally! Broadway
Metroplex.
Unrelated (Great Britain)
A romantically free falling woman in her thirties takes up her married
friends’ invite to spend the summer at their holiday place in Tuscany,
only to get romantically entangled with the couple’s teenaged son.
Director Joanna Hogg’s feature debut shows a real understanding of the
way personalities ebb and flow in unfamiliar surroundings and close
quarters, sometimes to the detriment of her film’s pacing. Still, this
is a worthy, well acted, beautifully shot, and occasionally hot film,
if not always a compelling one. ANDREW WRIGHT Broadway
Metroplex, Northwest Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium.
Up the Yangtze (Canada)
Yu Shui, a young Chinese girl from a rural peasant family, just
finished middle school, and wants to go to high school. But her
parents’ own future is uncertain, and they can’t pay for her education,
thanks to a massive government project—the construction of the
Three Gorges Dam—that will soon flood their home on the Yangtze
River and force them (and two million others) to relocate. So Shui
finds a job, on a luxury ship that takes Westerners on voyeuristic
“Farewell Cruises” to check out parts of the country that will soon be
under hundreds of feet of water. Filmmaker Chang’s cameras deftly
capture one family’s struggle amid rapid and dramatic change, while
simultaneously offering a peek at a contemporary China rarely seen. AMY
J. RUIZ Broadway Metroplex, Northwest Film Center’s Whitsell
Auditorium.
XXY (Argentina)
An applaudable departure from PIFF’s more staid subject matters, this
is about a 15-year-old of indeterminate gender. Broadway
Metroplex.
The Year of the Nail (Mexico)
Being the son of one of the world’s best living filmmakers can’t be
easy, but Jonás Cuarón tries to carve a spot for himself
outside Papa Alfonso’s shadow with The Year of the Nail. It’s
the story of two lonelyhearts—gringo college student Molly and
horny teen Diego—coming of age in Mexico City. Borrowing a page
from Chris Marker’s La Jetée, Cuarón sequenced two
years’ worth of still photos into a storyboard, and then wrote a
fictitious screenplay to be voiced over by actors. The director gets a
thumbs up for the thoughtful effort, but Nail is pretty flat
from beginning to end. There’s promise lurking within, but I’d hold off
for his next film to see what the young Cuarón really has to
offer. CHAS BOWIE Broadway Metroplex.
Yella
(Germany)
A small town East German girl (Nina Hoss) leaves for the big city and a
high-pressure office job, only to find that her past isn’t easily
shaken. Utilizing a tricky structure that flashes both back and
forward, director Christian Petzold’s nifty little metaphysical
thriller finds tension in some notably mundane objects, creating a
genuinely uneasy atmosphere throughout. The fairly ruthless combination
of cold clinical surfaces and hopped-up emotional cores might not be
for all tastes, but if you can catch the vibe, it’s a stunner. ANDREW
WRIGHT Broadway Metroplex, Northwest Film Center’s Whitsell
Auditorium.
All in
This Tea
David Lee Hoffman is a California tea importer who spends most of this
film searching China’s visually stunning rural regions looking for the
best handmade teas. Despite its esoteric subject matter, this doc
rarely drags, largely because of Hoffman’s uncompromising, pioneering
spirit. Part Indiana Jones and part tea geek, he’s become successful in
life by following his true interest which, after about 10 minutes,
becomes infectious. MATT DAVIS Hollywood Theatre.
Caramel
Named for the hot, gooey candy used to wax body and facial hair in a
dingy Beirut beauty salon, the Lebanese Caramel is the story of
the women who work and congregate there. In an environment where merely
being alone with a man you are not wedded to is asking for trouble, the
salon provides a sanctuary for them to be open about their particularly
feminine travails: an affair with a married man, the terror that a
soon-to-be husband will discover his bride is not a virgin, the
insecurities brought on by aging, the shyness of being a lesbian in a
conservative society, and the sacrifices of happiness one must
sometimes make to fulfill familial responsibilities. Caramel succeeds in pointing out the universalities of being a woman, but it’s
also this quality that makes it less than extraordinary: You’ve already
seen a million you’ll-laugh-you’ll-cry films about sisterly friendships
and female bonding; this one just happens to be in a different
language. MARJORIE SKINNER Fox Tower 10.
Definitely, Maybe
See review. Various Theaters.
Diary of the Dead
See review. Lloyd Center 10 Cinema.
Grindhouse Double Feature: Alligator & Seven Brothers Meet
Dracula
See My, What a Busy Week!. (As an added bonus,
Alligator features Robin Riker as probably the sexiest
herpetologist ever!) Hollywood Theatre.
Half Moon
An Iranian film about a famous, elderly singer (Ismail Ghaffari) who,
along with his sons, attempts to put on a final concert in Iraqi
Kurdistan. Shockingly, such a thing is easier said than done.
Hollywood Theatre.
Impulse
William Shatner as a maniac gigolo. What else do you need to know?
Laurelhurst.
In Bruges
See review. Cinema 21.
Jumper
See review. Various Theaters.
Massacre at Central High
Do you love Dead Alive? A huge fan of Russ Meyer? Yaaaay, me
too! Bearing this in mind, you’re going to want to marry 1976’s
Massacre at Central High. They don’t make films like this
anymore, if only because no one can get away with the following laundry
list: hippie threesome crushed by gigantic boulder, hang glider
electrocuted by power lines, booby-trapped lockers exploding in fat
kids’ faces, and a death caused by a really loud hearing aid. Aaaah,
1976—those were the salad days. COURTNEY FERGUSON
Laurelhurst.
Nanking
A film about the Japanese invasion of Nanking, China. Not screened for
critics. Fox Tower 10.
Spiral
Spiral‘s premise is promising enough: A telemarketer, Mason
(Joel Moore), toils away in his lonely life, which is punctuated by
obsessions with women (including Amber, played by an incredibly
annoying Amber Tamblyn). But something’s up—Mason has fits and
gets upset easily, and there’s a sinister glow coming from under his
bathroom door. Thus the stage is set for a film that would like to be a
psychological thriller, but is mostly an under-budgeted turd filled
with mostly bad acting. The most interesting thing about it is that
it’s filmed in Portland. Neat. MARJORIE SKINNER Clinton Street
Theater.
Step Up 2: The Streets
See review. Various Theaters.
The Spiderwick Chronicles
One more CG-heavy fantasy kids’ flick. Thanks Lord of the Rings!
Various Theaters.