"For the love of film." That's a nice slogan for a filmfest, and
the folks who run the Miami Film Festival--now in its 13th year--appear
to love an admirably wide range of movies, including some more challenging
than you might expect to find in a city known mainly for its sunshine-and-frolic
scene. Although it's often mentioned as a lightweight event with regional
rather than national importance, I found the latest edition of the Miami
festival surprisingly substantial in its programming and in its lineup of
seminars (one of which I was invited here to speak in) on topics as varied
as film criticism, new technologies for the movie business, and the amazing
work of Kenneth Anger, a veteran avant-gardist whose presence lent the affair
an extra touch of slyly subversive class.
After commencing with Fernando Trueba's new Hollywood picture, "Too
Much," about which I heard scarcely one positive word, the festival
tried again for a crowd-pleaser with "A Midwinter's Tale," the
new Kenneth Branagh comedy about an actor who tries to resuscitate his tenth-rate
career by directing a production of "Hamlet" with a low budget,
an equally modest talent pool, and a middle-of-nowhere church for a theater.
Branagh got his start in filmmaking with the badly overrated "Henry
V" and has gone pretty much downhill ever since, with undistinguished
efforts like "Peter's Friends" and "Frankenstein" scuttling
his short-lived reputation as an Orson Welles clone who could write, produce,
and star in just about anything. Wisely if belatedly, he's been scaling
back his schedule lately, participating only as an actor in the current
"Othello"--where I concur with the majority opinion that he's
sensationally good--and limiting himself to writing and directing "A
Midwinter's Tale," which is a tad more engaging than his earlier offerings,
portraying an often-overlooked cranny of the theatrical world with what
seems to be real and thoughtful affection.
The theater world also provided the backdrop for Fina Torres's bouncy "Celestial
Clockwork," starring Ariadna Gil as a Venezuelan singer who flees her
fiance in Caracas and heads for Paris with dreams of becoming an opera diva.
I found it less than irresistible, but the Miami audience loved its quick-moving
melange of Verdi, salsa, and the Cinderella story.
Lest anyone think Miami leans too far toward amiable confections like the
Branagh and Torres pictures, festivalgoers got to experience "Hate,"
by young French auteur Matthieu Kassovitz, who does for Paris what John
Singleton and the Hughes Brothers have done for American cities, showing
the sadly dehumanized lives of kids stuck in a rotten housing project. Spectators
not sufficiently depressed by this French nightmare could also indulge in
"Underground," the semidelirious film about former Yugoslavia
that captured the grand prize at Cannes last spring. Yugoslavian native
Emir Kusterica's epic comments on recent Balkan history via the wild and
woolly tale of several families who scurry into hiding during World War
II, and find themselves surrounded by chaos every time they venture out
of their cellar during the next 50 years. Trimmed a bit from its original
hubristic length of more than three hours, it may yet arrive on commercial
screens. Stay tuned, because it's worth a look despite its many flaws. As
is Kusterica's best movie to date, the 1989 comedy-drama "Time of the
Gypsies," which also screened at Miami.
Other items on the program included Carlos Saura's superbly expressive "Flamenco,"
an exhilarating compendium of Spanish songs and dances; Eliseo Subiela's
plodding Argentine fantasy "Don't Die Without Telling Me Where You're
Going," which spoils a whimsically written screenplay with overwrought
acting and directing; and "The Voice of the Moon," an overheated
comedy distinguished only by the fact that it was Federico Fellini's last
film. Plus a welcome showing of "The White Balloon," a charming
Iranian comedy that's now arriving in American theaters. Not a bad bill
of fare for a festival that offers sun and surf as well.
Copyright 1994-2008 Film Scouts LLC
Created, produced, and published by Film Scouts LLC
Film Scouts® is a registered trademark of Film Scouts LLC
All rights reserved.
