Encore!

[February 20th, 2008]

The final weekend of the whirlwind globe-hopping that is the Portland International Film Festival offers fresh and juicy material from people you’ve actually heard of before: a wise new immigration movie from the director of The Station Agent, a haunting murder ballad from the director of George Washington, and a great performance by Audrey Tautou as a hustler. (Say it ain’t so, Amelie!) There’s also the much-heralded “Romanian abortion movie”—which isn’t quite so worth waiting for. Still, the three-week festival promises a rich, satisfying finish.

A Gentle Breeze in the Village

[JAPAN] Long, slow, uneventful—this 121-minute children’s movie creeps along with no plot, no believable characters, and no discernible point of view about anything. The movie’s based on a manga, which may account for its disjointedness; screenwriter Aya Watanabe trudges from panel to panel without unifying a story. Her insipid dialogue reaches its zenith when a mother ponders: “Dad? Having an affair? I wish he would—and let me rest.” The film’s humor stems from a pinch-faced, bowl-cut tyke who’s plagued by a frequent urge to urinate. After we’ve endured this, the movie tries to extract pathos from this same little girl’s development of a bladder infection when the older kids make her hold it in. Yuck! N.P. THOMPSON. BW, 6 pm Wednesday, Feb. 20, and 6 pm Thursday, Feb. 21.

Unrelated

[GREAT BRITAIN] Director Joanna Hogg’s Unrelated is a retelling of the classic How Stella Got Her Groove Back—had Stella been British, traveled to a friend’s Italian villa instead of Jamaica and, rather than nailing Taye Diggs, had endured intense, unconsummated sexual tension with her young paramour. Best described as a slow, quiet study in character, Unrelated focuses on Anna (Kathryn Worth) and her choices: hanging out with boring marrieds or having a helluva time with the bright young things she finds herself far too old to bed. All the while, Anna contemplates a failing marriage and her quickly sailing baby boat. A strong performance by Worth completes the story arc in a way that is ultimately realistic but just not as satisfying as the May-November shagfest the film is constantly building toward. SAUNDRA SORENSON. BW, 6:15 pm Wednesday, Feb. 20. WH, 9:15 pm Thursday, Feb. 21.

Still Life

[CHINA] Another gorgeous look at the last days of the Three Gorges. WH, 6:30 pm Wednesday, Feb. 20.

The Year of the Nail

[MEXICO] Coming-of-age stories are the bread and butter of this year’s festival, but none is told in such an innovative form as this entry from Alfonso Cuaron’s son Jonas. The not-quite-romance between an American coed and a horndog Mexican teen is portrayed in a series of still photographs, with voiceovers conveying the internal monologues of the characters. It’s sort of like watching a slide show of somebody’s vacation, but being able to hear what they were thinking at the time. Unfortunately, what these folks are thinking is often banal, but at 78 minutes Jonas Cuaron’s debut is over before the conceit wears thin. AARON MESH. BW, 6:45 pm Wednesday, Feb. 20, and 9:15 pm Thursday, Feb. 21.

The Monastery: Mr. Vig and the Nun

[DENMARK] Jørgen Laursen Vig once made a keen real-estate investment that landed him a small castle in the Danish countryside. In his 80s, solitary and studious, Vig hobbles through this documentary, making repairs to his property and preparing for the arrival of a small group of Russian Orthodox nuns. Without the benefit of voice-over, the endearing Vig toils the land and rips out floorboards while reflecting on the fact he’s never been in love and doesn’t entirely like people, although establishing a monastery in his home has always seemed inevitable. The domineering Russian nun Sister Ambrosija proves to be a combative, late-in-life companion to Vig as they bicker eloquently in English, their lingua franca, in director Pernille Rose Grønkjær’s solid and evenly crafted study of isolation and hospitality. SAUNDRA SORENSON. BW, 7 pm Wednesday, Feb. 20.

In the Heliopolis Flat

[EGYPT] A young man meets the ghost of love. We don’t know what this means, really, but it’s probably profound. BW, 8:30 pm Wednesday, Feb. 20 and 9 pm Thursday, Feb. 21.

Operation Filmmaker

[UNITED STATES] Shots of Prague lend some visual interest to this YouTube-style documentary concerning Iraqi film student Muthana, an overbearing nonstarter whom Liev Schreiber discovers on MTV and hires as a production assistant for Everything Is Illuminated. Filmmaker Nina Davenport’s mise-en-scène is almost as abrasive as her subject’s pouty sense of entitlement. Being from Iraq doesn’t inherently make this wastrel an interesting person (he isn’t); what truly makes this impossible to watch is that Davenport casts herself as Muthana’s victim, when she’s just as much of a media whore as he is. N.P. THOMPSON. BW, 8:45 pm Wednesday, Feb. 20, and 7 pm Thursday, Feb. 21.

Eduart

[GREECE] An Albanian refugee “ends up living as a thief and prostitute until the day he kills a man.” Whee! BW, 9 pm Wednesday, Feb. 20.

Forever

[NETHERLANDS] By turns whimsical or quietly devastating, director Heddy Honigmann’s cinematic walking tour of the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris takes us to the graves of Chopin, Proust, Apollinaire, the Iranian novelist Sadegh Hedayat and other luminaries. The movie draws much of its emotional power from shots of inscriptions: “I shall never forget you, my love,” adorns a heart-shaped black tombstone; a marble slab split diagonally reads, “For the brother that I had.” Sometimes the most casual exchanges in Honigmann’s conversations with mourners and tourists yield startling revelations. An elderly Spanish widow announces that the clergy’s aid to Franco’s regime of terror led to her atheism: “Because if a priest can kill, it proves there’s nothing.” N.P. THOMPSON. WH, 9 pm Wednesday, Feb. 20.

The Art of Negative Thinking

[NORWAY] A paralyzed pessimist wreaks havoc on group therapy. BW, 9:15 pm Wednesday, Feb. 20.

Times and Winds

[TURKEY] Three boys dream of growing up—and killing their fathers. BW, 6:15 pm Thursday, Feb. 21, and 3 pm Saturday, Feb. 23.

Snow Angels

[UNITED STATES] David Gordon Green (George Washington, Undertow) has a problem with plots: He keeps allowing them into his movies. The weak link in the otherwise astonishing Snow Angels is its central narrative, an unconvincing act of vengeance from Stewart O’Nan’s novel. It keeps the movie from being an unalloyed masterpiece, but that hardly matters. Green remains without peer at summoning the intimate feelings in individual human experience: a first kiss, an alcoholic hitting bottom (and the side of his truck), a father trying to explain his philandering to his teenage son. He’s terrific with actors, too. The young Michael Angarano gets his breakout role as a shy high-school trumpet player, while Sam Rockwell has never been better than he is in a strange, transfixing scene where he dances with an old drunk by the light of a barroom pinball machine. AARON MESH. WH, 6:30 pm Thursday, Feb. 21.

Getting Home

[HONG KONG] A man tries to get his buddy’s corpse back to its hometown. It’s a comedy. BW, 6:45 pm Thursday, Feb. 21.

Empties

[CZECH REPUBLIC] A cantankerous old lech takes a job recycling beer bottles at a supermarket, and begins meddling in the lives of customers. Jan Sverák once again directs his father, Zdenek Sverák, in a lead role—last time it was the Oscar-winning Kolya—and the result is another laboriously heartwarming exercise. The implication is “Aren’t old people sweet and funny?,” and at the packed showing I attended, the message seemed to reach its target demographic. As far as I could ascertain, I was the only person in the theater under 40, and the only one not laughing. AARON MESH. BW, 8:30 pm Thursday, Feb. 21. WH, 12:45 pm Sunday, Feb. 24.

Shotgun Stories

[UNITED STATES] A substantial part of Jeff Nichols’ Shotgun Stories involves its characters—the brothers Son, Boy and Kid—having King of the Hill moments: just sitting on the porch, in their Chevy conversion van, or down by the river of their slow-as-molasses rural Arkansas hometown, drinking beers, saying jack squat and contemplating their own respective existential crises. So when they become wrapped up in a devastating, life-or-death family feud, it’s both surprising and strangely captivating. The film hits some heavy dramatic chords but still keeps a healthy sense of humor throughout, striking some great, almost Bottle Rocket-like comic moments. Shotgun Stories is not perfect, but it’s an inspired and impressive debut from a filmmaker we’re sure to hear more from in the coming years. LANCE KRAMER. BW, 8:45 pm Thursday, Feb. 21, and 1 pm Saturday, Feb. 23.

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days

[ROMANIA] Cristian Mungiu’s Palm d’Or-winning abortion drama is easily the best-reviewed movie of the young year; that hissing sound you heard last month was hundreds of elite critics blowing their lids when it wasn’t nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. So I’m not sure how to break this news, except bluntly: 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days left me completely cold. It’s unsparing, to be sure, and highly effective in achieving a mood of agonizing dread. But the acting is uneven, and the motivations of the heroine (Anamaria Marinca) are implausibly selfless. It belongs to the school of European feel-bad filmmaking that equates despair with artistic merit, and thinks that showing a shocking image is the same thing as having something to say about it. It’s not a terrible movie by any stretch, but it’s the most overrated film of 2008. AARON MESH. WH, 6:30 pm Friday, Feb. 22, and 3 pm Saturday, Feb. 23.

The Visitor

[UNITED STATES] As in writer-director Tom McCarthy’s previous film, The Station Agent, strangers who have seemingly nothing in common bond with one another once in close proximity. Richard Jenkins gives a brave, uncontestably fine performance as a drab dud of an econ professor drawn into new life by a couple of Syrian-Senegalese Muslims who, though well assimilated into American culture, reside in New York illegally. The movie pretends to be apolitical but, in fact has much to say about our arcane immigration laws and the human wreckage they foster. McCarthy never overemphasizes his points, allowing The Visitor to unfold in unhurried, almost stately rhythms. Oliver Bokelberg’s crisp interiors and on-location cinematography cannot be improved upon, least of all in the terrific final scene on a subway platform, a shot of djembe busking glimpsed through the windows of a train whizzing by. N.P. THOMPSON. BW, 6:30 pm Friday, Feb. 22, and 5:30 pm Saturday, Feb. 23.

Tell No One

[FRANCE] A morose psychological thriller with a dose of Hitchcockian innocent-man-on-the-run, a little pulp noir and a pinch of Jason Bourne, Tell No One dwarfs most modern thrill rides. Guillaume Canet’s nail-biter about a pediatrician (a terrific François Cluzet) who finds himself the suspect in his wife’s eight-year-old murder mixes old-school suspense with modern, overcomplicated whodunnitry. The result is a controlled and brooding study of loss laced with spurts of action, effectively creepy villains and ample twists. Until it goes overboard in its wrapped-in-a-bow exposition, Tell No One raises the bar. AP KRYZA. BW, 9 pm Friday, Feb. 22, and 8 pm Saturday, Feb. 23.

The Year My Parents Went on Vacation

[BRAZIL] The “vacation” is forced, as a young boy’s parents go into hiding from the military government. WH, 9:15 pm Friday, Feb. 22, and 5:45 pm Saturday, Feb. 23.

Short Cuts V: The Spaces in Between

Go ahead and call me insensitive. But there’s really not much I’d less rather do than re-watch a film like The Butterfly in Winter, a 30-minute handheld, mostly silent 16 mm film of a German woman caring for her 96-year-old mother, feeding her and giving her sponge baths. It’s not like there’s just one or two sponge baths in The Butterfly in Winter. There’s got to be close to a dozen scenes where the filmmaker, Maria Lang, sponges down her naked, aging, wrinkled mother, over and over and over again. I think she’s clean already, goddammit. Heaven help me if I ever get old. Or at least don’t let my daughter become a German filmmaker who makes silent movies about sponging the dirt off my bedsores. (The lineup of avant garde and experimental films also includes time-lapse recordings of the cosmos, a poetic meditation on Hurricane Katrina, and a film about a Thanksgiving family duck-hunting trip in Quebec.) LANCE KRAMER. WH, 1 pm Saturday, Feb. 23.

Priceless

[FRANCE, CLOSING NIGHT] My expectations were low, given that I detested director Pierre Salvadori’s last film, the painfully unfunny Après Vous. What a surprise, then, to discover a near-perfect light comedy. From the animated opening credits, in which paper cocktail umbrellas lend color to black-and-white ocean waves, this movie has an assurance and an internal logic essential to good fluff. Set amid Monte Carlo’s jet-setting “beautiful people,” Priceless features a radiantly tanned Audrey Tautou (never better) as a gold digger, and a sweet, sexy comic turn from Gad Elmaleh as a hotel waiter she inadvertently draws into what might be termed “the hustling lifestyle.” Smashingly entertaining though it is, the movie isn’t without a soupçon of perception. Says one experienced seducer to a novice gigolo: “Don’t you think I know what that look means? I’ve seen it since I was 12 years old.” N.P. THOMPSON. WH, 8 pm Saturday, Feb. 23 and 2:45 pm Sunday, Feb. 24.