Beginning
tonight over 240 films and documentaries, 60 or so shorts,
countless special programs and numerous film fanatics blitz my
little city. It’s the
27th annual Seattle International Film Festival
(SIFF), the largest and most popular film festival in the U.S.
Around here its annual arrival is the real start to the
summer film season. Yes, there will be lines (like everywhere else I’d imagine) for
blockbuster wannabe Pearl
Harbor, but there will be far longer ones at the five main
locations for this year’s SIFF.
SIFF’s
own media guide and website
boasts that over 150,000 film goers from around the world will
come to this year’s event. Over
50 countries will be represented in the 25-day festival with
over 200 filmmakers attending screenings and forums.
Compare that to the much-lauded Sundance or New York film
festivals and SIFF’s success at attracting participants is
unequaled.
To
be perfectly honest, this festival is far more than one person
can manage. Covering it,
absorbing it and then trying to write it all down is kind of
suicidal. Especially
so when I ponder one of this year’s film forums boasting the
participation of Quentin Tarantino, or a tribute to bad-boy
French auteur Jean-Jacques Beineix (Betty Blue), or the world premier of the long-delayed and
controversial Othello-in-high
school epic O, or a 2
½-hour Stanley Kubrick documentary, or a film based on a script
co-written by Akira Kurosawa, or a – well, you get the idea.
My head borders on exploding think about it.
What
am I most interested in seeing at this year’s festival? A lot
– but that might be considered a copout by someone who
hasn’t examined this year’s lineup carefully.
Unfortunately, with this many films it doesn’t matter how
carefully you examine the lineup, it’s guaranteed you’ll
miss something great. (I
missed Il Postino in 1995, thinking it sounded trite.
It only went on to become the highest grossing foreign
film at the time and earned a “Best Picture” Academy Award
nomination. Go figure.)
Having
seen a few of the most buzzed about festival entries at press
screenings over the last few weeks, I admit to getting a brief
head start compared to most SIFF goers.
On the plus side, I can already heartily recommend
“Beat” Takeshi Kitano’s magnificent Brother
and the wonderful 2000 French silent film Le
Rat. Also worthwhile, Cheryl Dunye’s Stranger
Inside works pretty well and Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s 1997
Japanese horror/thriller Cure is a disturbingly lucid tale that had me enthralled until its
bizarre last third. Seeing
that the director is being honored as one of this year’s
“Emerging Masters,” maybe I’ll have to make time to see it
again so I can figure out what all the fuss is about.
That
said, I have come up with a few things I must see or be a part
of: The Tarantino Tutorials will examine the career of legendary
B-movie director William Witney culminating in a Q&A session
with the Pulp Fiction director.
The Beineix tribute is a must as is the “Shooting in
Seattle” series featuring 20 local short films. The 2001 festival focus is “Asian Beat: Focus on Southeast
Asia” and there are a good dozen films in that series which
have my interest peaked.
As
to the films themselves, Battle Royal, a blood-soaked Lord
of the Flies/Survivor
black comedy featuring Brother’s
"Beat" Takeshi as a 9th grade teacher who strands
his class on an island and orders them to kill each other off
until only one remains, is probably the most buzzed about film
of the festival. Keeping
in that tone, Tim Blake Nelson’s aforementioned
O has generated so much controversy (and a lawsuit against
Disney-owned Miramax) one can’t help but be curious as to the
film itself. And then
there’s Dora-Heita, Kon
Ichikawa’s new film based on a script co-written by Akira
Kurosawa. Any chance to see a film with just a hint of the master’s imprint
is a chance not to be missed.
Tonight’s
opening film is The Anniversary Party, co-written and co-directed by Alan Cumming
and Jennifer Jason Leigh., and it’s making its U.S. premier.
Much talked about at Cannes, shot on digital video and
featuring an all-star cast (Kevin Kline, Gwyneth Paltrow, Parker
Posey, John C. Rielly, Phoebe Cates and others), Party is sure to be interesting. I
must admit, however, I do get the feeling I’m in for a Big
Chill/Peter’s Friends variation and that doesn’t have me thrilled.
But with the prospect of many of its cast members
attending I at least get to star-watch, and that’s always good
for a bit of fun.
In
the next 25 days I’m going to be going back and forth
somewhere between elation and depression; battling with
exhaustion while flirting stimulation; and that’s not too
unexpected. After all, SIFF only happens once a year.
I can find time to sleep the other 339 days – unless
someone has tickets for the film festival in Toronto this fall.
Anyone?
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