Montreal International Film Festival
(General Comments & American Feature-Length Films)
Film reviews by Evelyn C. Leeper
Copyright 1994 Evelyn C. Leeper
I don't normally review films, leaving that to Mark. However, our initial plan for this festival was that we would not necessarily be seeing films together and so I figured I would review the ones Mark didn't. As it turned out, we ended up going to all the same movies but I was already prepared to write some reviews, so what the heck. I will, however, avoid repeating the same comments about the festival that he makes (regarding ticket procedures, etc.).
One thing we had to be careful of in deciding what films to (try to) see was what language(s) the film was in. Many of the non- English-language films are sub-titled in French rather than English. We prefer not to repeat my MALEVIL experience: I went to see MALEVIL at a science fiction convention in the Netherlands. Unfortunately, it was in French. Fortunately, it was sub-titled. Unfortunately, it was sub-titled in Dutch. This time the only thing we had initially selected that had no English was JEANNE LA PUCELLE, PARTS I AND II, and those turned out to be sold out anyway. (The Cinema Imperial, a magnificent older, and larger, theater, had what they called "Softitles," which is an electronic subtitling system similar to what is used for super-titles at operas. This makes it possible to show films subtitled in both English and French, with the English on the film itself and the French on the board, and that is what was done with, for example, the Chinese STORY OF YUNNAN.)
The first night of the festival there were only two films, KABLOONAK and NATURAL BORN KILLERS. The first, because it was the official opening of the festival, did not accept the coupons sold at ten for C$45; the second was sold out by the time decided to try to go. In fact, before the festival even opened, about two dozen screenings were sold out, mostly French-language or high-profile films. (The one sold-out film that didn't meet either of these criteria was MRS. PARKER AND THE VICIOUS CIRCLE--and that turned out to have been filmed in Montreal.) So we decided to spend our unexpectedly free evening ... going to a movie!
JACK L. WARNER, THE LAST MOGUL, directed by Gregory Orr, USA, 1:44:
I just know this will show up on television the week we get back- -it is a made-for-TV film and that's usually how our luck runs. But we figured we might as well see a film about a film producer at a film festival. (Not too many agreed with us--while the theater for PRISCILLA was packed, this had maybe three dozen people all together.) Unfortunately, this is a rather run-of-the mill documentary.
Gregory Orr is Jack Warner's grandson--well, actually, he's the son of Warner's step-daughter (who by the way was the actress who played the young Bulgarian woman in CASABLANCA), which makes his claim to be Warner's grandson a bit debatable, and makes me wonder if the truth isn't being stretched elsewhere as well. (In fact, the photographs shown while the narrator is talking about the Warners emigrating to America include some of the Warners and many other which are just general archival photographs, yet no distinction is made.)
The film did have its interesting moments. Neal Gabler talked about the irony of Russian Jewish immigrants marginalized by American society, founding the industry that would eventually come to define American society. It was also thought-provoking to see the contrast between Warner Brothers Studios's actions during the 1930s, when they shut down operations in any country occupied by the Nazis, and in the 1950s, when they completely caved in to pressure from HUAC. (They had made MISSION TO MOSCOW during he war at the express request of President Roosevelt, who wanted a film favorable to our then-allies and came under suspicion in the McCarthy era because of it.)
It seemed to me that Orr spent too much time on HIS story, even including a movie he made as a child, instead of concentrating on his subject. This will probably do well on television as a nostalgia piece, but doesn't have any spark beyond that. Rating: 0 (-4 to +4).
WHAT HAPPENED WAS..., directed by Tom Noonan, USA, 1:30:
Tom Noonan wrote, directed, and co-starred in this two-person, one-set film. It cost $300,000 and was shot in just eleven days (proof that the spirit of Roger Corman is alive in the land). It then went on to win the Grand Jury AND screen-writing prizes at the Sundance Film Festival.
Noonan and Karen Sillas play two co-workers at a law firm. What they discover when Sillas invites Noonan over for dinner one evening forms the basis of the film.
Noonan is not afraid to let the characters remain silent when that is called for, nor does he insist on obvious "twists" or pat resolutions. The title refers to the story within the story, the children's story Sillas's character is writing, and how you interpret the film may be based on how you interpret this story. Though a dialogue, this film is reminiscent of some of Alan Bennett's monologue plays (more so than to MY DINNER WITH ANDRE, which might seem the obvious comparison), and is more likely to appeal to fans of theatrical plays than to the average movie-goer. Rating: +1 (-4 to +4).
WOODSTOCK, directed by Michael Wadleigh, USA, 4:00:
This was being shown on a giant outdoor screen in the Place des Arts. Since we got there late, we ended up sitting a block away with our view partially blocked by a tree, and we could still feel our ribs vibrate from the sound. We stayed for five songs (including Joan Baez singing "Joe Hill"), but even twenty-five years ago, there was a lot of this music that I didn't like and I haven't much mellowed toward it since then. I can't really give any rating based on this abbreviated viewing. However, it's interesting to note some of the changes in the director's cut. For example, the original cut had no footage of Janis Joplin. Now director Wadleigh says Joplin is possibly the best blues singer in the last thirty years and has added footage of her to the new version.
MEN LIE, directed by John Andrew Gallagher, USA, 1:27:
There didn't seem to be much point to this film. Jill is going out with Scott and believes he is faithful to her. He isn't. She finds out. That's about it.
Of course, that wouldn't fill the 87 minutes this film takes, so screenwriter/director Gallagher fills in the time with what is fast becoming a cliche--a bunch of people giving their comments and opinions to the camera. (Is it Spike Lee or Woody Allen who started this trend? And speaking of similarities to Woody Allen films, almost everyone is this film is of European descent too--I think there was one black "comment character.")
There is actually a positively portrayed male character, and I thought many of the female characters were negatively portrayed, so I wouldn't claim this as completely one-sided as the title might lead you to believe, but it was certainly a pessimistic portrayal of relationships, and not really worth the time. Rating: 0 (-4 to +4).
KILLER, directed by Mark Malone, USA, 1:33:
This film with its cast of five relies on writing and acting rather than on special effects or action sequences for its appeal (although it does have a couple of steamy sex scenes). Anthony LaPaglia plays a hitman whose assignment is to kill a woman (played by Mimi Rogers) who seems strangely accepting of the fact. Complicating the job is LaPaglia's assistant, who bungled his last job and is looking for a way to redeem himself.
This is, as I indicated, more a character study than anything else, and the actors do a convincing job of portraying their characters. Rating: +1 (-4 to +4).
And of course, even though we did see nineteen films in a week, there were several more that sounded interesting that we didn't get to (several of which played only during the second week after we were gone). These included:
KABLOONAK, directed by Claude Massot, Canada/France, 1:45:
This was the official opening film of the film festival and tells the story of Nanook, who in 1922 was the "star" of Robert Flaherty's NANOOK OF THE NORTH. Later when people went back to see him again, they discovered he had died the following winter during a seal hunt. (Today, of course, they would have signed him to a multi-picture deal and flown him all over the world for press conferences.)
PRINCESS CARABOO, directed by Michael Austin, USA, 1:37:
A mysterious young woman appears in an English village in 1817, and the villagers decide she is a Javanese princess. We went to a press conference with Austin (who also authored the script) at which some of the questioners gave away a fair amount of the film, leading one of the film's promoters to ask the press not to reveal too much in their articles or reviews. So I won't, except to say this is based on a true story written up in ENGLISH ECCENTRICS, stars Phoebe Cates and Kevin Kline, and cost under $10 million.
SEX, DRUGS, AND DEMOCRACY, directed by Jonathan Blank, USA, 1:27:
This documentary look at how the Netherlands treats sex and drugs in terms of laws and attitudes. Blank is quoted in the daily magazine distributed at the festival as saying that it was the Commissioner of Police in Amsterdam who explained to him the provisions made for the handicapped in the city's brothels. "The Dutch were all really proud of them," Blank said. Apparently marijuana is illegal (to make the Americans happy), but no one pays any attention to the law, and abortions are illegal but the government pays for them. Blank finds the attitudes of many Americans very strange. For example, the anti- pornography lobbyists have claim pornography affects the viewer, yet they have probably seen more pornography than anyone else and claim to be unaffected.
JEANNE LA PUCELLE I (LES BATAILLES) and JEANNE LA PUCELLE II (LES PRISONS), directed by Jacques Rivette, France, 2:40 and 2:56:
Even if these hadn't been sold out before we had a chance to get tickets, the fact that they were in French and un-subtitled would have made us give these a miss here, but a six-hour epic about Joan of Arc is something in which I would definitely be interested if it were subtitled in English (or even dubbed, though dubbing a six-hour movie is probably prohibitively expensive). The two parts will probably make the rounds separately in most areas, since I suspect they are each self-contained stories.
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