Father Geek here with Albert Lanier's report from the 2003 Hawaii International Film Festival that our Pacific Islands Editor Moon Yun Choi just sent in. Looks like he had a great 1st day... annnnd he takes us all along for the ride...

HIFF 2003 STARTS WITH A BANG

by Albert Lanier

Robert Altman's newest drama THE COMPANY may have kicked off this year's Hawaii International Film Festival on Oct. 30 but the next day on Halloween was the first full day of screenings for the festival with a number of tricks and some treats in store for filmgoers.

I actually started off the day by writing a review of THE COMPANY at home and then rushing to the Sheraton Moana Surfrider Hotel to interview Oscar-winning DP Dean Semler who is in town to receive the Kodak Vision Award in Cinematography at HIFF's award ceremony on Nov. 6.
Semler, an excellent DP, won an Oscar for getting the light right on DANCES WITH WOLVES. I especially enjoyed his work on THE ROAD WARRIOR, MAD MAX BEYOND THUNDERDOME, DEAD CALM and XXX.
The Australian cinematographer is also a great interview. Semler raved about Jim Carrey's almost never ending ability to come-up with hilarious comic ideas on the set of BRUCE ALMIGHTY on which he was the DP.

I got over to Signature Dole Cannery theaters (one of three venues on Oahu this year for the fest, the other two are the Doris Duke Theater at the Academy of Arts and the Hawaii Theater Center) to see my first film--the Turkish drama DISTANT at 3:45 p.m.

DISTANT won a couple awards at Cannes this year including Best Actor awards for its leads Muzaffer Ozdemir and Emin Topak.

The 109-minute film focuses on two major protagonists: Mahmut, a photographer who shoots pictures of tiles of a tile factory and Yusuf, his cousin from the countryside who arrives in Istanbul and stays with Mahmut.
Yusuf is looking for work as a cabin boy on a ship. The factory in his small town has closed down laying off hundreds of workers. He makes the trek to company offices only to find that there is almost no work available to him.
Mahmut is largely bored. When he isn't snapping photos in a small room converted into a makeshift studio in his apartment, Mahmut watches dreary art films on TV as well as porno tapes.
Life seems to have come to a crawl for these two. Yusuf's job prospects are minimal and Mahmut seems to go through his paces with a bored look on his face.

DISTANT is the kind of long, slow, observant film that exponents of European art films will love.
I liked DISTANT though. Director Nuri Bilge Ceylan does a fine job of extracting performances from his ac! tors that accurately portray the boredom and lethargy of the lives of its characters. There are terrific, although fairly numerous-slow pan shots. This particular pan shot is spectacular: a ferry ship aground turned on its side as snow falls and Yusuf walks past the vessel on his way to a nearby bridge.

However, DISTANT seems to be as mired in inactivity as its characters are at times. Ceylan is content to focus on inaction and reaction (if indeed deadpan, colorless expressions could be called reaction) than to generate some slight momentum story wise.
Still, I like slow, leisurely paced art films when they are effective and DISTANT is quite good and quite lovely to look at.

Iranian filmmaker Janar Panahi's latest feature CRIMSON GOLD was the next film up for me.
An accomplished piece of cinema, CRIMSON GOLD played in Un Certain
Regard at Cannes this year and features a script by famed Persian director Abbas Kiarostami.

The film opens with two men crowding the camera's field of vision. A robbery is in place and a would-be thief had a gun to the back of a jewelry store manager. The two move aside to reveal the front door of the shop from the interior of the establishment.
The aging manager manages to push the alarm button and a gate with bars slams down from top of the front entrance trapping the robber inside. The thief retaliates to shooting the manager (who is off camera).
A crowd has started to form outside the door since the alarm went off that includes the thief's brother-in-law Ali.
The failed robber named Hussein ends up pointing his gun at the crowd in frustration and taking his shooter, placing closely to the left side of his head and then slides down the bars as the sound of a shot then rings out.

From this botched heist, CRIMSON GOLD then plunges back into the recent past of Hussein (Hossein Emadeddin) as our tour guide in the days leading up to the screwed up robbery attempt.
We find out that Hussein and his brother Ali (Kamyar Sheisi) are pizza delivery drivers and petty thieves (so petty that Ali takes out a purse he swiped from and empties out the content in an indoor cafe in plain sight of patrons).

Panahi takes the viewer on a journey through Iranian society through the eyes of Hussein.
As he did in his excellent previous film THE CIRCLE, Panahi digs through the soil of Iranian society revealing the inequities and realities faced by people of varied socio-economic strata.

The script by Kiarostami drives us to its inevitable conclusionby examining layer by layer why Hussein ends up robbing the store and shooting the manager (who had insulted him days ago by not allowing him to enter the store in street clothes and by conversing with him behind the store's front doors).

Last on my list at 10 p.m. was the Japanese horror film THE GRUDGE, directed by Takashi Shimizu.
The flick centers on the Tokunaga household where a ghastly crimewas committed years ago.
Of course, this fact is revealed later. A young female social welfare center worker is given the task of visiting the elderly grandmother who resides in the house by her supervisor.
However, granny looks completely dazed when the young lady arrives. The house seems to be messy and a young boy his skin covered in white who pops up a! nd startles the shit out of the social welfare center employee and hopefully the audience in the theater.

Actually, the local Honolulu audience found THE GRUDGE quite funny. I heard laughter throughout. Perhaps they found the film cheesy and trite as I did or just thought that the consistent tight close ups of pale spectral faces moving into to pluck victims and thrust them into the underworld was a bit much and awfully cliché and repetitive.

THE GRUDGE turned out to be a disappointment. Takashi Shimizu actually does a skillful job here in building atmosphere and tension but the shocks to the system are too infrequent and end up seeming tired.
The script also written by Shimizu creates a mildly interesting scenario in which the sins of murders past keep revisiting the present. As if the thirst for blood lust! and violence must be quenched and refreshed by terrifying all who come into contact with these deceased agents of terror.

I understand the rights to THE GRUDGE have been bought up for a Hollywood remake. If THE GRUDGE were actually a good film, I would give a shit but it isn't and I don't.

Note to major American film studios: Save your money. Try remaking SUSPERIA or HALLOWEEN if you have the guts.
When it comes to THE GRUDGE, I see dead people...and I wish they would stop their moaning and leave me the hell alone.

Albert signing out…