I was planning
on writing a series of larger reviews for some of the films
that are popping on to my radar because of the seriously
fantastic SFIFF, but while attempting to watch as many films
as I can this year (so far below the number I’d hoped) I had
a bit of an epiphany. Instead of writing my usual brand of
big, clunky verbosity, I’ll just consume and spit, consume
and spit, rapid-fire reviewing the films that I’m lucky
enough to see. This will give me more time to watch films
and you more time to get to see those films and the good
people at SFIFF even more publicity that they so
wholeheartedly deserve.
Quick And Dirty - San Francisco International Film Festival
Detroit Wild City
makes me happy
to be a film reviewer. If you’ve been paying attention to,
well, any sort of credible news source over the last twenty
years, you know a little something about the slow, steady
abandonment and decline of the once great Detroit, Michigan.
French director Florent Tillon turns his gorgeous lens on
both the fall and bewildering rise of Detroit in this film.
It’s interesting to see the difference between a French
filmmakers documentary - all quiet mood and unobtrusive
melancholy - and an American filmmakers documentary - take
Morgan Spurlock’s head-bashing Pom Wonderful Presents
... all bluster and shit-eating aggression. Tillon’s
approach turns the city of Detroit in to a philosophic
playground. There are very few talking head interviews in
the piece, but when they do pop up, they’re unnamed. Just
organic denizens of this organically reconstructing city
that have slipped in to Tillon’s frame. The point of the
film seems to be that Detroit is slowly becoming a credible
projection of Rosseau’s philosophic belief in our world
going back to nature, and his quiet take on the city
presents this splendidly. For hours, as I worked on other
writing, this film played in the background, and its quiet
hum became a perfect ambient soundtrack for which I could
think.
Attenberg
is a hard film not to comment on as a separate piece of art.
The second film from the writer/director duo of Athina
Rachel Tsangari and Giorgos Lanthimos (the first being the
bug-fucking wild and so absolutely worth seeking out
Dogtooth) Attenberg seems to rest comfortably
within that film’s themes of intense seclusion and the
bizarre behavior it draws out of us. Where Dogtooth
was written by Tsangari and directed by Lanthimos, with
Attenberg they’ve switched roles, with Tsangari jumping
in to the director’s chair. I stray from comfortably deeming
a film "feminine" but looking at both the films (as I think
they’re intended to be seen) Attenberg is so clearly
the work of a female director. Where Dogtooth is
brash and in your face with its sexuality and bizarreness,
Attenberg has a slow beating heart that diffuses it’s
strangeness and helps the film to actually be sweet in a
way. Marina (Ariana Labed) is a maybe twenty-something who
lives in a coastal mining town and has one friend and a
father slowly dying of cancer. As her father dies, her need
to cope with the world outside of his loving grasp, becomes
clear and the film follows her as she attempts to become a
sexual adult. The interactions between Marina and her father
(Vangelis Mourikis) are sweet and beautifully filmed, but
the subtext of each scene seems to hint at a
stranger-than-we-can-see type of back story. A back story
that stems from the confined family of Dogtooth, a
distant cousin that somehow escape most of the craziness.
It’s a slow-paced film, but Tsangari milks the pace to
charming effect and I found myself entirely won over by this
quirky, deviant little gem.
There’s too much good stuff out there at this festival and I
hope, upon hopes, that if you’re in the Bay Area you’re
getting over to San Francisco and digging in. If not, I hope
it’s because of a dire leg accident that has forced you to
stay at home with your cat.
Detroit Wild City screens Friday the 29th, Sunday the
1st, and Wednesday the 4th at the Kabuki.
Attenberg screens Wednesday the 27th and Friday the 29th at
the New People.
- Noah Sanders
-
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