SIFF Wrapup

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With the closing of the Harvard Exit, so to did the 41st Seattle International Film Festival draw to a close. Over the course of 30+ days (including press screenings), I saw 78 films (including Unexpected, which I accidentally forgot to recap) from all six movie-making continents of the globe (Antartica doesn’t count, right?).

Unfortunately, this year for SIFF felt rather lackluster. Out of the 78 films, there were only two narrative features to completely catch me off guard and blow me away: Craig Denney’s The Astrologer and Aaron Hann and Mario Miscone’s Circle. The Astrologer is astounding for what one determined man can make without any actual skill. Circle is perhaps the perfect snapshot of our time and discourse. In the documentary section, my two favorites this year were Frame by Frame and Romeo is Bleeding. Frame by Frame is a sociopolitical snapshot of Afghanistan through the lens of photojournalism. Romeo is Bleeding is a microcosm of a larger social problem. Both are skillfully made without much use of the dreaded talking head technique.

One of the biggest trends this year was an obsession with genre. Not to play with it, but to obsess over its conventions and try to make things new and fresh. Both America’s Slow West and Hungary’s Mirage reimagined the Western. Cub fashioned itself out of the slasher genre. Others played with very specific tonalities: Liza the Fox-Fairy explored Amelie, DEATHGASM explored Peter Jackson, Sleeping With Other People explored When Harry Met Sally, Before We Go is in debt to Before Sunrise, The Blue Hour was in debt to David Lynch, and Turbo Kid exploited Cannon Films’ entire oeuvre. Even 2045 Carnival Folklore, one of the best experiences this year, was in debt to Alphaville and Tetsuo.

The most unique films were the ones that explored meta-ness as well as crafting their own narratives. Blind, my favorite narrative feature of the year, was all about itself, and the ways it tells its own story.  The Automatic Hate got a lot of juice from playing with a bunch of different tonalities before revealing its true self. Manglehorn, which I thought was a complete failure, was an experiment in narrative storytelling until it falls into formula. There isn’t really another movie like Corn Island, and it should be required viewing for those who aren’t particularly beholden to popcorn cinema.

Perhaps one of the reasons this year felt lackluster was because of the rise of the gay male self-loathing movie. This trait is perhaps best exemplified by I Am Michael, a movie about a gay activist who has a life crisis and becomes a devout preacher who made strong anti-homosexual statements, but the movie is so careful not to judge that it becomes emotionally flat and distant. Do I Sound Gay? is a documentary about the gay voice, yet is completely filled with David Thorpe’s self-judgment about his being “too gay.” I Kissed A Girl ignores bisexuality and has a gay man have a straight crisis. Front Cover debates whether embracing American culture is just as bad as staying closeted. Fourth Man Out, a movie by straight dudes, judges any gay man who doesn’t fit into the heteronormative masculine behavioral set. Guidance is all about self-loathing. The New Girlfriend wonders if straight men becomes transsexual because they suffer a lot of trauma. Those People is about a group of pathetic rich people who revel in their own misery. If it wasn’t for Xenia, Tangerine and Eisenstein in Guanajuato, I’d be wallowing in self-doubt and misery. Not that I want everything to be happy happy rah rah, but criminey, this year was particularly sour for queer cinema.

Women had a largely better showing, however. From documentaries like Frame By Frame to cultural explorations like Sworn Virgin to dark romantic comedies like The Little Death, women had a more positive showing this year than I expected. Even with the strange uber-aggro-woman movies Alleluia and Shrew’s Nest, gender was not very far from most of the conversations. Women even worked their way into stories I wasn’t fully expecting, like The Black Panthers whose stereotypical image was black men in leather coats armed with guns. I saw 19 movies directed or co-directed by women, or about 25% (including the accidentally unreviewed Unexpected). My favorite movie dealing specifically with women and gender, however, was the genre bleeding Challat of Tunis.

Race showed up quite a bit in the movies as well. Most of the racial issues were between black and white, such as 3 1/2 Minutes and Black Girl, but racial tension popped up in other movies as well. Romeo and Juliet was used as the foundation for two completely different movies, Romeo is Bleeding and A Few Cubic Meters of Love. The former is a documentary about gang wars in Richmond, CA. The latter is an exploration of the Iran/Afghanistan culture war. Both are quite amazing for completely different reasons.

Mostly, what I noted, was that this year seemed to be about looking backwards. Documentaries are, by nature, about looking backwards, but a lot of narratives were caught up in the past. From obsessing over past true crime (The Connection, Alleluia, The Boss, Next Time I’ll Aim For the Heart, I Am Michael, Manson Family Vacation) to lingering over the past (Slow West, Graziella, Before We Go, Those People, West of Redemption, When Marnie Was There, Pioneer Heroes, Xenia, The Primary Instinct) to movies about not moving forward (Guidance, Shrew’s Nest, Sworn Virgin, The Automatic Hate) to movies that specifically call eras in the past (Turbo Kid, Yosemite), this year’s SIFF was severely marked by naval gazing and inertia. Maybe that’s where we are as a global society right now. Maybe we’re all looking to the past because the future is so grim. There is an effort to reconcile the past with the present, but most of these movies seem content to stay with the present and not look into the future for their characters.

By this time next year, I’ll have forgotten what movie was where. Most others will have as well. As such, I’m including a handy dandy index of every movie seen, and what article(s) they appear in.