The AFI Fest does a good job of getting film-makers to town to attend their screenings, which is how we were gifted with an extra titbit of info from Quentin Dupieux about his film Rubber. He directed it in the nude, wearing one black glove.

Of course he didn’t. His movie is absurd. He was accompanied on stage with a tire, the star of the film: it opens in fine surrealist fashion, as a car slowly knocks down chairs on a desert road and a sheriff gets out of its trunk in order to deliver a straight-to-camera disquisition on, and homage to, the concept of “no reason”. Suitable set-up to the film’s cheerful rejection of reason: a group of spectators with binoculars have gathered in the desert to watch a “film” – somewhere in the distance, a tire awakens from a junk-heap sleep, achieves self-locomotion and discovers first a will, then a telekinetic ability, to kill. Heads explode.

Continue Reading

Every three years or so, one can get genuinely excited about the Palme d’Or winner, and with Apitchatpong Weerasethakul’s previous work  looming large in best-of-the-decade lists, and now three major Cannes prizes on his mantlepiece, it was particularly welcome news that his Uncle Boonmee should be coming to the AFI Festival (Saturday 6 Nov. at 8.45 in the Mann Chinese 6).

Over the course of six features in the last ten years, Weerasethakul has been searching for a new kind of cinema, a new way of engaging with an audience, something like a dream-state. Uncle Boonmee is more immediately accessible than much else of his work (though it certainly contains its share of mysteries) and in some ways that is what makes this his most successful experiment yet.

Continue Reading

One of the things I like about the AFI Fest is that I know I’ll get a fix of Argentine cinema which, for my money, bears the rare distinction of producing the best films in the world right now, in both mainstream and independent spheres. The international resurgence about ten years ago (with Nine Queens et al) resulted in a healthy state-funded production system, which in turn spawned a reactive and fertile counter-cinema (centred round Mario Llinás). Both are thriving. This year’s offering, Carancho, is one of the former, and it plays at the Mann’s Chinese 6 theater on Monday 8 at 9.30. For free!

Continue Reading

It’s coming.. From November 4 through 11 the AFI takes over Hollywood with what is traditionally a fine selection of movies from around the world. Big names from the international festival circuit appear alongside less-heralded movies diligently sought out by the programming team, with plentiful US premieres. The festival is under new management this year, but the programme remains as intriguing as ever and best of all, like last year’s flagship initiative, all of the tickets are free. Yes, free. They go on offer to the general public on October 28 (27 for AFI members) so get ready.

Continue Reading

And so the 2009 American Film Institute Festival has, as all good things must, come to an end. A smaller selection of films than recent years, showing mostly in one screening only, was offset by the remarkable fact that in conjunction with its sponsors, the AFI was able to present the entire festival for free. This is obviously a good thing, and it would be remarkable if viable in the long term. The drawbacks, however, are that about two thirds of the screenings I attended had empty seats despite advance ticket “sell” outs, and some of the late-night screenings had a back-row contingent of the Hollywood blvd demographic looking for anywhere warm inside at that time of evening. A nominal dollar or two fee would perhaps take care of these issues, but the aura and allure of the free ticket remains unmatchable.

Continue Reading

One of the AFI Fest‘s exclusive screenings in its final two days’ removal to Santa Monica was Portugese João Pedro Rodrigues’ acclaimed transvestite drama Morrer Como Um Homem. From the war-paint-as-make-up opening, followed by a terrific sex-change origami demonstration, to the musical afterlife-view finale, Rodrigues glides smoothly and unhurriedly through the story of aging transvestite Tonia (Fernando Santos), scared of the butchery implied in the final transformation, secure in her inner identity but undeceived by the outer, and slowly dying from the very things that help make her what she is (leaking breast implants).

Continue Reading

The AFI Fest moved on Friday from its Hollywood home to the westside, coinciding with the start of Santa Monica’s American Film Market. This occasioned the welcome replay of a handful of titles, as well as some screenings exclusive to the new location. One of the former, widely-praised after an appearance at Cannes, was the Politist, adj., Romanian Corneliu Porumboiu’s follow-up to his 12:08 East of Bucharest.

The plot, such as it is, concerns provincial cop Cristi trailing a schoolboy suspected of selling hashish. The boy does very little at all as Cristi follows at a discrete but purposeful distance, and as the camera in turn does likewise. This is not thrilling stuff – we get to watch as Cristi eats his lunchtime soup and even the policeman hired to consult on the movie found the first part too boring on first viewing – but Porumboiu’s careful long-take camera is as concentrated in its attention as Cristi’s and compels the same from the engaged viewer.

Continue Reading

The AFI fest continues to support and expose new Argentine cinema with El Secreto de sus ojos by feature and TV director Juan José Campanella. It is essentially a legal eagle murder mystery movie; Campanella has been behind the camera for several episodes of Law and Order, and the TV form is intermittently evident here, but it’s to his credit (he also adapted the source novel) that it plays rarely like a feature-length small-screen piece, and more like a fully-fledged good old-fashioned movie.

Continue Reading

So the deal is that Edward Pressman, producer of Abel Ferrara’s original Bad Lieutenant, owns the rights to the title and decided the time was right to reuse it with an eye to kick-starting a franchise (he is also currently planning Wall Street 2, and a reboot of The Crow.) He wanted someone unexpected to direct and eyebrows were certainly raised when news filtered out that it was to be crazy German arthouse-favourite Werner Herzog; and in star Nicolas Cage, Herzog may just have found a worthy replacement for his erstwhile muse, the late, great and certifiably insane Klaus Kinski.

Continue Reading