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TracyGIFF 2008 - HERZOG, SUICIDE AND KID ART
January 27th 2008 23:16
As you know I attend the Gothenburg Film Festival 2008, and so far it's been quite entertaining.
The last couple of days, Saturday and Sunday, I saw two documentaries and a very low budget movie from Chile. The idea with festivals is to catch movies that you regularly never would've had the chance to see, at least on the big screen.
So the first documentary is made by a director I'm sure most of you know about, Werner Herzog. The man behind Grizzly Man which was Oscar nominated and collected quite some buzz, both mouth to mouth and in the media. His new film, and the one I saw, is called Encounters at the End of the World [IMDB].
In Encounters at the End of the World the director himself, Herzog, travels to Antarctica in order to capture the unique landscape and learn more about the people living there. I wanted this to be at least as good as Grizzly Man, but unfortunately that hope resulted in a tiny bit of disappointment. Not to say it wasn't good, but far too plain. No emotions or wow-experiences. However, some really nice images makes it worth watching and definitely renting. If I had to rate it from 1-10, it would get a 7.
The next film is not a documentary, but a movie from Chile/USA. It's called Take the Bridge, by Sergio M. Castilla [IMDB]. I actually only saw this due to lack of other interesting screenings, but I'm glad I did. Not least because of the fact that the director attended and was able to make a Q&A after it.
Take the Bridge is about four youngsters who try to commit suicide, fail, and meet in the hospital where they become friends. Well out of there, they share their dreams and talk about the adventures they sometime wanna make. The layout of the movie is pretty original here, cause I couldn't separate any clear plot, it was more "follow the kids as they do normal stuff and just add some spice for the sake of the movie". Luckily, and this is the part I really enjoyed, there's a woman in between scenes commenting what's going on, and what she says is completely improvised but oh so fun! Take the Bridge is the definition of independent film, but it sadly was done in such low budget that it quickly became boring from a technical point of view. The colors, the image quality and even the acting didn't reach far enough to become a great experience. In a scale from 1-10 I would give it 5.
So we arrive to today, Sunday. I only had the ability to watch one film, because of my schedule, but I'm happy this is the one I saw, My Kid Could Paint That [IMDB]. If you live in the USA or UK you might have heard about the genious paintings of 4-year old Marla Olmstead that sold for over 25.000 dollars each.
If you haven't seen it there was a big discussion going on back in the days this happened, 2005-2006, if the paintings actually were done by Marla herself or if her father helped her or even made them completely. What's interesting and unique with My Kid Could Paint That is that the director himself gets personally involved in this whole story and his own film.
All began with the promise to document the success of this very young girl painting beautiful abstract artwork, and in the middle of it everything changed and became a huge conspiracy. The filmmaker didn't know what to do, depict what he himself thought or listen to the parents pleads about making the documentary into something that could clean their name? The director made a wise decision and simply let the audience decide by showing all evidences from both sides, always with honesty and reality.
I think everyone should see this, especially those who make films as a living or hobby, because it's more than just a story about a girl who made expensive art. It's also the issues of documentaries in general. To what extent will you let yourself get involved in the lives of these people, that you after all follow for months and months? The rating from 1-10 would be 8,5.
All in all I caught 4 movies so far (the first one was Lars and the Real Girl). Tomorrow I'm gonna see Funny Games, an American horror remake.
Until laters!
//peeker
The last couple of days, Saturday and Sunday, I saw two documentaries and a very low budget movie from Chile. The idea with festivals is to catch movies that you regularly never would've had the chance to see, at least on the big screen.
In Encounters at the End of the World the director himself, Herzog, travels to Antarctica in order to capture the unique landscape and learn more about the people living there. I wanted this to be at least as good as Grizzly Man, but unfortunately that hope resulted in a tiny bit of disappointment. Not to say it wasn't good, but far too plain. No emotions or wow-experiences. However, some really nice images makes it worth watching and definitely renting. If I had to rate it from 1-10, it would get a 7.
Take the Bridge is about four youngsters who try to commit suicide, fail, and meet in the hospital where they become friends. Well out of there, they share their dreams and talk about the adventures they sometime wanna make. The layout of the movie is pretty original here, cause I couldn't separate any clear plot, it was more "follow the kids as they do normal stuff and just add some spice for the sake of the movie". Luckily, and this is the part I really enjoyed, there's a woman in between scenes commenting what's going on, and what she says is completely improvised but oh so fun! Take the Bridge is the definition of independent film, but it sadly was done in such low budget that it quickly became boring from a technical point of view. The colors, the image quality and even the acting didn't reach far enough to become a great experience. In a scale from 1-10 I would give it 5.
If you haven't seen it there was a big discussion going on back in the days this happened, 2005-2006, if the paintings actually were done by Marla herself or if her father helped her or even made them completely. What's interesting and unique with My Kid Could Paint That is that the director himself gets personally involved in this whole story and his own film.
All began with the promise to document the success of this very young girl painting beautiful abstract artwork, and in the middle of it everything changed and became a huge conspiracy. The filmmaker didn't know what to do, depict what he himself thought or listen to the parents pleads about making the documentary into something that could clean their name? The director made a wise decision and simply let the audience decide by showing all evidences from both sides, always with honesty and reality.
I think everyone should see this, especially those who make films as a living or hobby, because it's more than just a story about a girl who made expensive art. It's also the issues of documentaries in general. To what extent will you let yourself get involved in the lives of these people, that you after all follow for months and months? The rating from 1-10 would be 8,5.
All in all I caught 4 movies so far (the first one was Lars and the Real Girl). Tomorrow I'm gonna see Funny Games, an American horror remake.
Until laters!
//peeker
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