Father Geek here posting another perspective on the wonderful ROTTERDAM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, just a little something to breakup all of Elaine's great coverage for you...

If you can use this, feel free.

I've now survived two days of the Rotterdam Filmfestival barely avoiding collapsing into a catatonic state, since watching five or six movies a day and then spending the night trying to get some sleep above a bar with live concerts until 4 am will do that to you, but in case you're interested here's my take on what's going on.

Monday, my first day of the IRFF doesn't start well. As anybody living in the Netherlands knows, the railway system is completely fucked up, one might as well call it anglophied, so it starts with part of the train, about to leave in Amsterdam, not being able to close the doors, so if we would please alle move to the front cars. I'm not panicking though, since I came prepared or was cynical enough to expect something like this to happen, so I had 15 minutes to spare to meet my friend in Rotterdam, so ok, these 15 minutes now were gone, but hey what else could possibly go wrong? Oops, shouldn't have thought that, come to think of why is this train going so goddamn slow? After keeping everybody in the dark for the next half hour the hammer drops and it is announced that due to a technical problem and safety procedures the train isn't allowed to go any faster than 30 miles an hour. I was stunned and then very, very pissed off, because I knew then that I was going to miss the first movie for that day "Butterfly Smile". Reading Elaine's rather negative report on that one, seems I didn't miss much but of course I didn't know that then.

Anyway, my first movie then became one already seen in the states 4 months ago, but not overhere: "Donnie Darko". Man, I loved this movie, what a way to start the day. It's funny, scary, surreal and utterly entertaining. Jake Gyllenhaal as Donnie Darko is a revelation in this audacious movie dealing with 80's teen angst as well as an interesting take (I hesitate to call it a study) on paranoid schizophrenia. Kelly shows amazing self-confidence and talent and it seems the US now have another great talent. I'm not going to rehash the story, since it's already been out in the US for quite a while, so let me finish to say, that I can't wait to add this gem to my collection. Next was Bill Morrison's "Decasia", which was quite a trip. This was a very experimental 70 minute piece with music by Michael 'Bang-on-can' Gordon in which Morrison basically used footage in various stages of natural decay and added Gordon's music to it. The decay caused very surreal effects and turned this movie into a Koyaanisquatsi on acid kind of experience, which was fascinating in itself and when it was all over and done with I decided I liked it, though I probably wouldn't want to watch again anytime soon. Ah well, so I had my experimental movie for this festival and I'll try anything once, well most things anyway, but now I was hungry again for a real, uh I mean narrative, movie (oops, sorry Bill), but first I was simply hungry so I got in line for a cheese-ham sandwich, waiting to be served by this very neurotic woman, who still couldn't remember any of the prices of the stuff she was selling and kept looking back on the self-made board that listed them and kept giving people back the wrong change, sometimes to her advantage, but just as often to her disadvantage. Poor thing, she must have forgotten to take her medicine that day.

After what for lack of a better word I call 'lunch' we went to see a Mexican movie mysteriously called 'Japon' which is supposed to mean "Japan" even though it's set in Mexico and not a single Japanese person is in it or even a mention of Japan for that matter. The link might have been this: for undisclosed reasons a 50 something man has decided to kill himself, but first he wants to reach a state of calm and purity and he thinks he can find that somewhere in a canyon in a little village. The village is populated with simple people and our hero takes up residence up in a mountain in the barn next to the house of an old widow. This is all filmed at the speed of a snail braking in a sharp turn with very bad cinematography which is a shame, since the vistas are potentially beautiful if they weren't so completely ruined by an inapt cameraman that ruins every single panning shot which gives you headaches and make you long for a brief relief with a static shot. Anyway, our hero gives deep meaningful looks in the camera and goes for long walks in the mountains. A subplot (?) of the movie is the old widow's nephew that wants the stones of the barn and so plans on tearing it down to which the woman agrees, but the main character strongly objects to, since he feels she's being conned, which of course she is. It's enough to put you off killing yourself, well, here at least it is enough to botch the job, even though the barn still gets torn down. Another aspect draws him away from death and back into life: all the way up there in the mountains, with nothing but goats and an eighty year old woman, what's bound to happen indeed happens: he gets horny and since the goats aren't able to verbally consent or object to the proposal of indulging in carnal pleasures, our man turns to the old woman and asks her to have sex with him, to which she surprisingly says yes. Alas, it doesn't work out and the man is even more in despair now, well, wouldn't you be? Then the barn gets torn down and the stones moved down to the village, while he alone stays behind. The tear down crew as well as the widow, who joined them has an accident and they all die by a train hitting them. It is suggested that through their deaths the man is swayed from his own path of doom and joins the living again. This is a very pretentious movie and very slow with its 143 minute length. A lot of use of clasical music (Bach) and to me at least it seemed he ripped off Tarkovksy or ate least tried to but nevertheless are gimmicks that completely fail to raise this movie to the transcendent level it strifes for and ultimately fails in achieving.

Some soup and bread later we started the evening with Ken Loach's "The Navigators" and the great social and political conscience of Brittain was there himself as well and gave a great introduction to the movie. I loved this movie from the first 'til last minute. It's made with a very documentary style which adds to the realism of the film and reveals the the absurd and tragic consequences of the privatisation of Britsh Rail, especially for the people working on the tracks. There's a lot of humour in the film, but that just makes you care for the characters even more and when tragedy hits some of them, it hits you so much harder. Lives are literally put at risk since safety precautions were thrown out the window as not being cost efficient. It was very moving to see the solidarity between these people and therefor heartwrenching when it gets crushed in some cases and damaged in all cases caused by the absurd management policies of the companies that try to turn it into a commercially succesful business no matter the cost and as we know now, they still failed and now British Rail is back in government hands, so these lives that got lost or destroyed in what form whatsoever were done so completely pointles, which is quite a sad thing to realize. Very impressive and moving film by Loach.

Last film of the day for me was the French movie "Coment j'ai tué mon père" ("How I killed my father") with the excellent and famous actor Michelle Bouquet as the father. Basically this movie is a subtle psychological drama about a father and a son that have barely had any contact during their lives since the father took off and went to work as a doctor in Africa, causing a lot of resentment in his son Jean-Luc (very well played by Jacques Fieschi) who is now a succesful doctor in a small but rich suburb of Paris.When a garden party is organized in his, Jean-Luc's honour for his achievements as a doctor, his father unexpectedly turns up and worms his way into the family and opens up old new wounds while inflicting new one's. Jean-Luc's brother who barely remembers their father tries to become close to him and Jean-Luc's wife is enchanted with him, while Jean-Luc distrusts his father completely and as the movie progresses he more and more seems justified in doing so. It all ends with a final confrontation between father and son when the truth between them is forced out and at last explicitly verbalized by both of them. The acting is low key but very effective since it causes you to feel the constant undercurrent of tension and friction between the protagonists. Solid drama with a great cast.

After a sleepless night due to the aforementioned live concert in the pub underneath me until 4 am, I went back the next day to catch "Ljubliana", a movie about the young generation growing up in the Slovenian city, "Take care of my cat", the Korean movie rumoured to be one of the festival hits, "Kali Salwaar", an Indian movie about life in the slums and underworld of Bombay, "One fine sping day", another gem from Korea, already reviewed by Elaine and "Weekend plot", a Chinese mystery drama about a group of young people on a weekend outing trying to figure out the meaning and author of a mysterious note they found. But I'll write about that tomorrow.

VoxMillennium