The Bay area film scene has never experienced anything quite like the assault scheduled to take place over the next couple of weeks. And with what's going on in the world right now, I don't need to remind you that any sort of assault that doesn't involve bodies coming home in bags is a very good thing indeed.The assault in question is of a strictly cinematic nature, and it's being jointly mounted by the Tampa International Film Festival and the Ybor Festival of the Moving Image. Together, these otherwise unrelated festivals constitute the most impressive collection of films and film-oriented events this area's ever seen.
See this week's cover story for an overview of both of these festivals. For those who still want more details, this column provides the skinny on all of the individual films — or at least as many of them as we were able to preview in the Tampa International Film Festival. Several important films weren't available in advance, notably TIFF's opening night selection — the Brazilian offering Man of the Year, whose screening will be the film's North American premiere — and the acclaimed Cuban film Nights of Constantinople. The directors of both these films will be flying into town for the occasion.
There's a whole lot that we are able to tell you about, though, and we're dying to get to it. Without further ado, then, here are some of the highlights from these eagerly anticipated film festivals.
Japon This astonishing debut from Mexican filmmaker Carlos Reygadas is a prime example of what the Tampa International Film Festival does best. The film's narrative is minimal and deliberately paced — a nameless, self-destructive drifter finds solace in his relationship with an elderly widow — but the story is primarily a gateway into a sublimely shot no-man's land where spirituality squares off with existential dread. The film's effect is both visceral and highly poetic, and it all occasionally feels like a spaghetti western written by Camus and directed by Tarkovsky. That's a good thing, by the way. (TIFF, Apr 9, 9 p.m., Tampa Theatre, 
1/2)
Sweet Sixteen Veteran English director Ken Loach offers up yet another of his patented portraits of institutionalized underclass life in this grotty tale of a Glasgow family of petty criminals, druggies and all-around losers. Loach is playing with some well-worn narrative elements here, but he makes the material live and breathe through sheer conviction, humor, a love of his characters and a cast of mostly unknowns who seem to be essentially playing themselves. The approach is fly-on-the-wall, the young lead a winning mix of Eminem, Johnny Rotten and Casper the Friendly Ghost, and the English subtitles crucial for rendering the thick Scottish accents decipherable to our Yankee ears. (TIFF, Apr 12, 8:30 p.m., Channelside, 1/2)
At First Breath of Wind A distillation of pure cinema, for better or worse, in which director Franco Piavoli evokes a summer day in the Italian countryside. Barely a word is spoken as characters eat, read books, nap, take walks and sit at the piano playing endless cycles of Erik Satie. No one does any work except for the African hired help (the movie's token political statement?), and everyone else in the film simply drifts in and out of sleep. You may too, but that's probably OK. Florida premiere. (TIFF, Apr 11, 7 p.m., Channelside, )
La Commune, 1871, Paris An actor directly addresses the camera (and us) at the outset of Peter Watkins nearly six-hour tour-de-force, introducing himself, telling us who he plays and describing exactly what the film's about, both on and below the surface. La Commune is both passionate and unavoidably postmodern as it assembles some 200 actors on a stage-like set, offering personal perspectives from the rebels who rose up and attempted to establish a proletarian government in 1871 Paris. The past isn't so much evoked as it's used as an all-too-clear commentary on the present, and Watkins' rigorously researched, relentlessly experimental epic turns out to be as much about process as it is about history or politics. A sometimes off-putting experience, but as unique as they come. (TIFF, Apr 7, 6 p.m., Reeves Theatre at UT, 1/2)
Alexei and the Spring Seiichi Motohashi brings a distinctly Japanese eye for delicate but authoritative visuals to this post-apocalyptic poem about a small Russian/ Bellarus village that's been contaminated by Chernobyl. Images of quiet beauty abound in sequences detailing an ancient, all-but vanished life: People plant potatoes, thresh wheat, wash clothes, tend to animals, attend pagan-like festivals. It's a bit like a Russian Tree of Wooden Clogs, as the camera caresses every crease in the weathered faces of aged characters who refuse to leave "this afflicted land that is our home." A small but amazing film, and that rare documentary that manifests all the visual power and storytelling chops of narrative. Florida premiere. (TIFF, Apr 11, 8:30 p.m., Channelside, )
Cuckoo and The Checkist TIFF pays tribute to Russian director Alexandr Rogozhkin with a series of films that includes two radically different works. The Checkist is a grim account of the brutalities of the proto-KGB organization charged with eliminating enemies of the young Soviet state. The film offers up more naked bodies than you'll find in a Peter Greenaway film, although here they're just so much flesh to be disposed of. The film is beautifully shot but verges on bombastic freak show, as it graphically depicts the routine mechanics of evil whereby lists are drawn up and bodies are stripped, shot and hoisted into carts. The Cuckoo is a bird of a much different feather, a sometimes overly sweet charmer bursting with life, humor and mild eros, about an earthy young peasant woman tending to a couple of soldiers on opposite sides of a conflict. (Cuckoo: TIFF, Apr 5, 7 p.m., Tampa Theatre, 1/2) (Checkist: TIFF, Apr 6, 8 p.m., Channelside, )
Satantango Simply put, Satantango is one of the greatest films ever made. Hungarian director Bela Tarr's seven-hour opus focuses on a motley crew of East European farming collective members, using the characters' plotting and petty bickering as a reflection of the collapse of communism, and repeating events from multiple perspectives and in what seems to be real time. Beyond that, the film is something of a mystical experience, as bleak as it is beautiful, and as stunning a piece of filmmaking as you will ever see. An absolute must-attend event for anyone interested in the possibilities of cinema as great art. (TIFF, Apr 10, 6 p.m., Reeves Theatre at UT, )
Inside/Out A film that tells us about its world almost exclusively through images and the way that space opens up as the camera works through those images. The action is inscrutable and largely wordless here, as a number of nameless characters seem to collide and collapse in a snowy, rural landscape dominated by a mental institution where the keepers appear to be as disoriented as the patients. Director/cinematographer Rob Tregenza's long takes, luminous imagery and fluid, graceful camerawork evoke the works of Angelopoulos and Bela Tarr (for whom Tregenza has shot films), but the sensibility is ultimately uniquely his own. Tregenza and producer J.K. Eareckson will be present at the film's Florida premiere. (TIFF, Apr 13, 6 p.m., Channelside, )
JLG/JLG Cinema's grand old man, Jean Luc Godard cooks up another wise, mysterious, melancholy, sensuous and highly literate collage of sounds and images. Some of them are familiar, some startling, some oblique, some profound, and some apparently just there to take the piss out of us. Like so much of Godard's recent output, the film is more of an essay or a notebook than anything else, and the director's whispered voice-over tells us to expect a self-portrait of a man "already in mourning for myself." The creative juices streaming through this rich little film put the lie to that. Florida premiere. (TIFF, Apr 8, 6 p.m., Reeves Theatre at UT, 1/2)
The Cow (Krava) A fable-like tale from the Czech Republic about the trials and tribulations of a simple peasant, the woman he loves, and the Buddah-like bovine that silently takes it all in. There's not a tremendous amount of depth or complexity to director Karel Kaychna's film but its performances are convincing, its imagery is lyrical, and its emotional power is undeniable. (TIFF, Apr 8, 8:30 p.m., Reeves Theatre at UT, 1/2)
One More Mile This thoughtful, articulate and passionate examination of the doomed rebuilding process in devastated and divided Bosnia is made even timelier by our impending role as "nation builders" in Iraq. Elizabeth Coffman and Ted Hardin's documentary is energetic enough to allow us to forget (or at least forgive) what is basically a traditional talking head structure, and the film is filled with intriguing contradictions within contradictions. The festival screening will be the film's North American premiere and the filmmakers will be present. (TIFF, Apr 8, 7 p.m., Reeves Theatre at UT, 1/2)
Mondays in the Sun Javier Bardem virtually disappears into his role as one of a group of balding, bearded, middle-aged men who haunt the unemployment lines in a Spanish port city. The film does an exquisite job of putting us inside the skins of these beautiful, quietly desperate losers as they pass the time drinking in bars, talking about soccer and politics, making stupid mistakes and dreaming of something better. For all the obvious injustices with which the film concerns itself, the tone here is not one of anger, but one of compassion and bittersweet hopefulness. This little gem is Spain's official Academy Award nomination for last year's Best Foreign Language film, and the winner of five well-deserved Goyas (Spain's equivalent to the Oscar). (TIFF, Apr 13, 8 p.m., Channelside, )
For more information on the Tampa International Film Festival, visit the website at http://tampafilmfest.ut.edu or call 813-253-3333, ext. 3425. For more information on Ybor Festival of the Moving Image, check out the website at www.yborfilmfestival.com or call Carolyn Kossar at 813-253-7674 or David Audet at 813-935-9232.
Film Critic Lance Goldenberg can be reached at lgoldenb@tampabay.rr.com or 813-248-8888 ext. 157.
This article appears in Mar 26 – Apr 1, 2003.