The young girl and boy we see breaking up at the outset of George Washington might almost be brother and sister. Granted the kids are only 12 and 13, but there's none of the gamesmanship or the hard, aggressive sexuality we associate even with kids of that age these days. There's only a sense of closeness, of friendship, and a sweet, wistful longing to be in love — whatever that is. George Washington is a spare and lovely little piece of minimalist filmmaking about kids living in that last gasp between childhood and adolescence. The kids, poor and mostly black but with a few white stragglers in the color-blind mix, live in a small Southern town and spend their days hanging out, shooting the breeze (albeit shooting it with a series of eloquent, intimate monologues that sound composed in their perfection) and not really doing much of anything important. Around the mid-point, something very bad happens and the kids find themselves in what amounts to a moral quandary, but, other than that, George Washington is more concerned with the languid rhythms and rich textures of its characters' lives than with what actually happens or doesn't in its skeleton of a story.
In all, the kids in this dreamy meditation seem less like real-life human beings and more like poetic representations of who they're supposed to be. They're aging children living in an American Neverland, where disadvantaged kids are aware but not hopeless or mean-spirited. Just as director of photography Tim Orr's stunning camerawork fetishizes the rural landscape (you've never seen fields of weeds and vacant lots look so beautiful), so does the film transform its characters — all of whom are very near the bottom of the socioeconomic food chain — into figures of nobility and grace. At times, George Washington may bring to mind James Agee's famous photographs of Appalachian mountain folks.
First time director David Gordon Green reportedly watched Terrence Malik's The Thin Red Line over and over in preparation for shooting George Washington, and that research shows in every frame of this fascinating and strangely dreamlike project. Hypnotic music, visionary images and sensuous pacing contribute to the process of turning the banalities of small town life into something extraordinary.
The most comprehensive and intriguing collection of Latin-American films ever assembled in the Bay area, The First Annual Uno Latin Film Festival will light up the screens at Clearwater's Main Street Cinema this weekend. The 16 films being screened over the Cinco de Mayo weekend will include features and shorts from Mexico, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador, Chile, Argentina and Brazil, and will likely offer a little something for almost everyone. All of the films will be followed by audience discussions with local film instructors or, in many cases, the directors themselves.
Uno Latin Film Festival kicks off on Friday, May 4, at 7 p.m. with the Brazilian short Ilha das Flores (which won the Berlin Film Festival's prestigious Silver Bear award) and the feature film Ultima Llamada (Last Call), a Mexican feature that examines some tough issues involving the death penalty. Following the films, a reception will take place at the Comfort Inn, with plenty of down-home food from the Columbia restaurant.
There's much too much happening over the weekend to describe it all here. A few highlights that we were able to preview include Sol de Otono (Autumn Sun), a charming Argentinean effort in which a middle-aged Jewish woman attempts to fool her inquisitive brother by recruiting a lonely gentile man to pose as her fiance. A real-life relationship eventually blossoms, to no one's surprise, but the film's real strength lies in its gentle humor, much of which stems from the crash course in Judaism that the "fiance" bumbles his way through.
Another standout film is Alias, La Gringa, a colorful Peruvian/Spanish co-production that's half gritty prison drama and half charming buddy flick. The film recounts, often in harrowing detail, the exploits of a career criminal who forges an unlikely relationship with a former linguistics professor when both find themselves stuck in the same island prison.
The real jewel in the Uno Latin Film Festival, though, is Maria Candelarias, an award-winning 1946 Mexican film starring the great, recently deceased Dolores Del Rio. Simply put, this is one great movie.
Del Rio stars as the title character, an Indian peasant woman of noble bearing who mostly turns the other cheek when she is shunned and tormented by the other villagers because her mother was a prostitute. A lyrical poem of a film, Maria Candelarias is a beautifully shot tribute to the Mexican countryside and to its people (and to Del Rio, who looks gorgeous here, even in her obligatory death- bed scene).
Filled with politically charged, larger-than-life characters, the film bursts with emotions and moments that must be described as magical: a lovers' moonlit boat ride down a narrow canal (as gorgeous as the famous nocturnal river-ride in Night of the Hunter); a series of iconic close-ups of Maria/Del Rio communing with the land; a ritual procession of the Blessing of the Animals — the last being a big, bizarre spectacle that looks a lot like what Eisenstein might have been up to in his unfinished Que Viva Mexico.
Maria Candalerias screens once only at 9 p.m. on May 5, but there's a world of other fascinating Latin films to be seen during the festival's three days and nights.
This article appears in May 3-9, 2001.