This section presents editorial views and aspects of various types of topics.

Seattle's International Film Festival: Part 3

SIFF Day 3 – Polish Director Saves the Day From Bombing

By Sara M. Fetters.

The Set-Up

There are four main locations for this year’s Seattle International Film Festival. Three of them, The Egyptian, The Broadway Performance Hall and The Harvard Market, can be found in Seattle’s Capitol Hill Neighborhood, an eclectic community overflowing in cultural diversity that festivals such as this thrive on. The third, the Pacific Place 11, can be found in downtown Seattle. It’s your typical big city downtown multiplex, save for the Pacific Northwest inspired micro-brew beer and wine bar located on the second level. Joining the festival for one week only is the downtown landmark Cinerama (check out the website), beautifully restored to its former glory and boasting sound and picture quality – as well as one heck of a huge screen – beyond any other movie house I’ve been to. Other venues pop up for special events around town throughout the festival, but for all intents and purposes the guts of SIFF are held at these five locations.

Five main locations can cause a problem, especially if I see a movie at the Cinerama – which is at the far end of downtown – and then have to rush to the Harvard Exit – which is on the far northern end of Capitol Hill - to fit in a film which starts 20 minutes after the previous one. There are shuttles set up to take the more insane of us from venue to venue, but they fill up quickly and arrive and leave so soon as to allow no time to doodle, so forget those bathroom breaks.

Seeing that this was only the second day, I can’t say I’m exhausted as of yet. However, with five films lined up for Saturday and another four to five mapped out for Sunday, I’m sure my exhaustion level can only rise.

Pearl Harbor Excursion

I admit to taking a small break from the schedule today to do my duty as a filmgoer and pay my respects to the deities Disney, Bruckheimer and Bay by taking in Pearl Harbor this morning. I’ll not rail too much against the film right now – you can read my review for that – let me just say I was suckered into going like the rest of America. It had to be done, I’ve gotten it out of the way and it’s three hours I’ll never have back.

That said, the film looked glorious on that huge Cinerama screen and no matter how many times I see the trailer for Tim Burton’s reinterpretation of Planet of the Apes my pulse never fails to begin racing. I’d follow Burton off the deck of a sinking battleship, so the thought of him remaking one of my all-time personal favorites does not hack at me like it probably would with someone else doing it. Now, if only someone could do something about that idiotic Tomb Raider trailer...

Jerzy Stuhr on Kieslowski, Film and Poland

My day was saved by Jerzy Stuhr, the director one of my early festival favorites The Big Animal. One of the filmmakers being honored at this year’s SIFF as an emerging master, he attended Friday evening’s showing of his 1999 film A Week in the Life of Man.

The movie is one week in the life of Polish prosecutor and famous crime memoirist Adam Borowski (Stuhr) and ostensibly about his pursuit to put the cash together to by a suburban home. What follows is a comically devastating journey as he repeatedly finds and loses his way in life, shutting out his wife, work, friends and dying mother while avoiding his taxes and a blackmailer. The resultant film is as wonderful as anything I’ve seen put on film this year as the protagonist is as real as any person I’m liked to find any day on the streets of Seattle.

The best part of the evening was after the film when Stuhr consented to a Q&A session with the audience. Unfortunately, Seattle is not known for it’s more cutting edge questions as visiting artists tend to be treated like royalty. But, amongst the usual puff balls there were a few gems, and Stuhr’s answers to these were rich.

On the Hypocrisy in His Film

Stuhr felt he was able to tap into the central hypocrisy evident in his film "through honesty." His goal was to be brutally honest as to the nature of man as he saw it while making the film and delving into his own life and the choices he’s made for guidance. Stuhr felt the hardest part of making a film about a man such as this was the initial choice of actually making the film at all and to talk about these issues. "It is human, our own weaknesses, that mold us as individuals,” he remarked. "It is hypocrisy that accompanies [man] through life and [the film] strives to show that. Not to take sides but to be honest and show [its] existence [in life]."

On Krzysztof Kieslowski, Faith and “Decalogue”

Together, Jerzy Stuhr and Krzysztof Kieslowski made six films together, first teaming for the director’s debut fictional film, 1979’s The Scar. "He had no idea how to work with actors," said Stuhr. "He did not trust us. [Until then] he had only seen real tears, real laughter, real sorrow and here were [actors] who could [now] fake it all [and] repeat.  [But] we learned to work together to gain technique, to often improvise. This gave a sense of authorship to [the actors]. His greatest lesson was to learn to not be afraid to 'exist' in front of the camera – not act. [Kieslowski] said, 'Don’t be afraid to act with dirty hair [just] because everyone wants to have washed hair.'"

When asked to consider the similarities between Life of Man and Kieslowski’s Decalogue, in which he had appeared, Stuhr remarked that his friend’s Ten Commandments series was a "tremendous influence" but that he was "not the inheritor of his ideas [but was] in the school of film." Saying Kieslowski primarily dealt with God only on a metaphysical level, while personally he was a person of faith. "He envied that,” said Stuhr. "[Kieslowski] had a quarrel with God, I did not. We never discussed God other than [when] work required it."

In his own film, Stuhr sees just as much hypocrisy in the church as he does in his main character. "[Adam] wants to be a better person. He knows how to deal with things in his professional life but he is weak in his personal [life].  Note that [the church] only asks him how many times he prays not [of] his sins from the week. This is the church dealing with people on a shallow level." The inference I got was that Stuhr feels the church is more interested in people the way fast food restaurants are – as commodities. Unfortunately, I never got to ask that question for the Q&A ended so the theater could be prepared for the next film.

Today, (Saturday) I plan on seeing Stuhr’s most recent film The Big Animal for the second time. It’s remarkably entertaining, concerning a bank clerk, his wife, their community and a Bactarian camel left behind by a travelling circus. This has been one of the SIFF’s first pure delights and the director is scheduled to attend this afternoon’s performance.

Also tonight is the world premiere of Tim Blake Nelson’s (O Brother, Where Art Thou actor, Eye of God director) controversial and highly anticipated Othello adaptation O.  Starring Julia Stiles, Mekhi Phifer and Josh Hartnett, this has been one of SIFF’s hottest tickets. I’ll report back Monday with my thoughts and a review should be up early next week.

Rounding out my schedule for Saturday is the Boy Scout documentary Scout’s Honor concerning the aftermath of the recent Supreme Court decision saying the scouts could exclude sexual minorities from membership, and the Hungarian multigenerational tale Glamour. I may also attend another screening of my favorite film of 2001, Takeshi Kitano’s Brother – although I may use the two hour block to do something else constructive, like lunch.

[Top] | [Features]