Vancouver International Film Festival 2007

Review by John Packman.

Thanks to the one-two punch of gritty Big Apple melodramas King of New York and Bad Lieutenant, Abel Ferrara was briefly touted by some critics as the heir apparent to Martin Scorsese. Since then, Ferrara has mostly flown under the radar, making a series of modestly-distributed films and relocating from the U.S. to Italy in 2002. If his new film Go Go Tales is any indication of his new direction, Ferrara needs to get back to New York with all deliberate speed. The majority of the film takes place over the course of one night in a floundering gentleman's club run by Ray Ruby (Willem Dafoe), a chronic gambler with an almost idiotic surfeit of optimism. Ruby is forced to contend with flagging attendance, low revenue, increasingly impatient dancers awaiting their paycheques, and an omnipresent landlady (Sylvia Miles) who continually threatens to sell the club if things don't pick up. What follows is a Grand Guignol tour of the least credible strip joint since Exotica, with some of the most exploitative male-gaze nudity since... well, since Ferrara's other films.

Astonishingly, some advance reviews of Go Go Tales have likened it to the work of Altman and Cassavetes; evidently all it takes to garner such comparisons is unintelligible dialogue and narrative incoherence, respectively. Ferrara's strength lies in coaxing theatrical and affected performances from iconoclasts like Harvey Keitel and Christopher Walken; conversely, when it comes to making chaotic ensemble comedies, he clearly has no idea what he's doing. The film is totally shapeless and toneless, careening from attempted laughs to attempted pathos with little success. The actors involved are either given nothing to do, like Bob Hoskins and Asia Argento, or so far over the top that they seem like rejected SNL characters. Matthew Modine somehow reimagines Andy Warhol as a fey hairdresser, and Dafoe, never the most natural of actors, chews the scenery like he hasn't eaten in three days; it may be his worst performance, ever. Only the shrill, foul-mouthed Miles and ex-Fugee Pras (!) as the club's put-upon chef (!!) are able to provoke anything resembling yuks. Ferrara has called this his first "intentional comedy", but I can think of two things wrong with that description. Back to the drawing board, dude.

Go-Go Tales
Abel Ferrara | France/Italy | 2007 | 105min

Thur. Oct. 11 | 9:30pm | Empire Granville Theatre
Fri. Oct. 12 | 1:00pm | Empire Granville Theatre

Review by Zandro Salvo.

The first film offering from acclaimed Israeli authors Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen, “Jellyfish” is a well-constructed original work. The poetic tale takes full advantage of the ensemble cast as their interwoven stories provide just the right amount of dramatic sting and comedic current. Keret and Geffen masterfully connect the lives of a down-and-out waitress, a rebellious photographer, a Filipina care-giver, the surly mother of a struggling actress, a suicidal author, and a honeymooning couple. In each of their individual struggles we find the over arching need to connect. While at times dreamy and euphoric, the simplicity of the message is never lost.

“Jellyfish” provides a refreshing take on how we deal with isolation and how we are sometimes forced to forge the relationships that we truly need to feel complete. Keret and Geffen personify their love for story telling in the suicidal author who refuses to kill herself until she perfects her suicide note. Her death comes when she finds the writing of a jealous new bride. The poem, character, and film as a whole playfully but accurately define how we use our relationships to both cause and cure the pains of isolation.

Jellyfish
Etgar Keret/Shira Geffen | Israel/France | 2007 | 78min

Tue. Oct. 2 | 7:30pm | Empire Granville Theatre
Mon. Oct. 8 | 3:00pm | Empire Granville Theatre

Review by gloria wong.

Fans of Marjane Satrapi's now-classic series of graphic novels Persepolis can breathe a sigh of relief - Persepolis the film is lovely.

Since Satrapi wisely chose to make a mostly independent adaptation herself (with collaborator Vincent Paronnaud), I guess we didn't have a lot to worry about. Persepolis tells some of Satrapi's life story - from her childhood in Iran and the swift and brutal changes the country underwent following the 1979 Revolution and subsequent near-decade of bloody warfare with Iraq, to her adolescence and young adulthood living in and out of Tehran. It's in many ways a classic coming-of-age story - albeit one greatly elevated by its unique context, and its author's sharp sense of humour (about herself most of all) and compassionate nature.

But those of you who read the graphic novels already know all of this. I suppose the biggest surprise about this adapatation is that first-time filmmaker Satrapi and Parronaud (who's made only one other feature) have managed to create a highly accomplished film. Animated mostly in black and white, its organic, fluid style slyly recalls both The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Peanuts cartoons, with wonderful use of texture and shadow throughout. Persepolis transforms an excellent graphic novel into an excellent film.

Persepolis
Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Paronnaud | France | 2007 | 95min

Mon. Oct. 1 | 10:00am | Empire Granville Theatre
Sun. Oct. 7 | 7:00pm | Empire Granville Theatre
Thur. Oct. 11 | 11:00am | Empire Granville Theatre

Review by gloria wong.

Among his Barbet Schroeder’s most famous films are General Idi Amin Dada (a documentary about the famous Ugandan ruler who was most recently given a fictional treatment in The Last King of Scotland) and Reversal of Fortune (a docudrama about Claus von Bulow, who may or may not have tried to murder his socialite wife). If there’s one thing Schroeder seems drawn to in his work, it’s characters with a certain moral equivocality. And so it is with his latest documentary, a study of revolutionary French activist/lawyer Jacques Verges, whose client roster includes Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, genocidal Serbian and Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic and deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. And Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot? Just a friend.

Schroeder traces the life of this lightening rod for controversy all the way from its unusual beginnings in Thailand as the son of a French diplomat and his Vietnamese wife to his nearly decade-long ‘disappearance’ in the 1970’s and onto a comfortable life in Paris. He had already become a Communist, joined the anti-Nazi Resistance in France, and staunchly supported Algeria’s separation from French rule long before becoming the so-called “Devil’s Advocate”. His life is so deeply entwined with so much of radical politics of the past 60 years that, if it were fiction, it would be very hard to believe.

As you can imagine, the film itself is dense - and long at nearly two and a half hours. Those unfamiliar with or uninterested in political history of the twentieth century, might want to steer clear. Also, if you’re looking for a moral stance from the director, this is not the one for you. If you are game, however, Terror’s Advocate provides a revealing look at the fascinatingly over-the-top life and times of what would seems to be a pretty normal person.

Terror’s Advocate
Barbet Schroeder | France | 2007 | 138min

Fri. Sept. 28 | 7:15pm | Empire Granville Theatre
Fri. Oct. 5 | 11:00am | Empire Granville Theatre
Thu. Oct. 11 | 12:00pm | Empire Granville Theatre

Review by Richard Toews

He set out to write a book on vengeance but instead discovered grace. Julian Schnabel’s latest gem The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, starring Mathieu Amairic as Jean-Dominque Bauby, is, if anything, a vibrant, visual monument to the overpowering mystery of the human imagination.

Schnabel’s film is a recreation of the last years of Bauby’s life after he suffered a stroke which reduced him to a state of absolute helplessness known as “locked-in syndrome.” His brain worked perfectly, yet his body was as if frozen in time save for the movement of his left eye. The once ebullient editor of Elle magazine, became what, for the American author Flannery O’Conner, was a model of grace - the grotesque figure.

The film opens with Bauby waking from a coma. Immediately, he fails to comprehend that while he hears his thoughts, they are only that; the health care practitioners in attendance regard Bauby as a minimally functioning object – he has no voice. But in the economy of O’Conner, the grotesque figure, while broken, threatens a world that prizes the principle of harmony over difference. The mere presence of Bauby challenges invisibility. He will be heard and in one defying gesture, Bauby discovers what it means to be human.

With the help of his nurse, who teaches him to communicate words through the blinking of his eye, he accomplishes the near impossible - he writes a book, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly", and in the process he comes realize that imagination and memory supersede the constriction that has imprisoned his body. Indeed he can begin to live a vibrant life as never before.

In allowing us to share and thereby participate in Bauby’s memory, Schnabel enables us to feel what is perhaps the most poignant moment in the film, Bauby’s visit with his seemingly helpless father, and the subsequent call from a father to a son who is now the helpless. The link between father and son is powerfully relived when Bauby connects at the deepest level as a father with his children who come to visit him. That link as all the more profound when we learn that it is in his final visit before his stroke, Bauby shared a memory of his childhood with his only son.

The seriousness of the film is more than compensated by humour deftly delivered by a brilliant cast, Almaric in particular, but wonderfully supported by Emmanuelle Seigner who plays his estranged wife, and Max Von Sydow as is father.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Julian Schnabel | France/USA | 114 min

Fri. Oct. 5 | 9:30pm | Empire Granville Theatre
Sun. Oct. 7 | 4:00pm | Empire Granville Theatre