My fourth day at
AFI Fest 2007 brought a close to the first of the two
stints in which I saw films during the festival. (I resumed attending
screenings on the following Friday, during the festival’s
second weekend.) For the most part, I highly enjoyed the
first half of AFI Fest, only having to endure one total
stinker (Déficit) during the four days. On the
final day of the long festival weekend that I invented for
myself (I skipped the one Monday-class that I had in favor
of staying for the Centerpiece Gala), I tried to schedule
light-hearted crowd-pleasers to relieve myself from some
of the heavy-hitters that I had seen in screenings prior.
Unfortunately, only one of the three was able to function
as a work of more than just pleasant cinematic diversion.
My first
screening of the day was Eran Kolirin’s The Band’s
Visit, an understated Israeli picture that juggles
light-hearted comedy and human drama. The movie is wholly
likeable and completely inoffensive, but also neither
treads new artistic territory nor engages the audience
beyond a conventional degree. As I watched the story
unfold, I certainly developed sympathy for its many
characters and was somewhat interested in their plights,
but not once did the film really impress me or teach me
anything new. Sure, The Band’s Visit is a nice
piece of work from first-time film-director Kolirin, but
there is also no reason to seek it out in theatres when it
will be available for low-key home viewing in a matter of
months.
The Band’s
Visit opens with an introductory line of text that
perfectly captures the tone of what’s to come: “Once—not
long ago—a small Egyptian police band arrived in Israel.
Not many remember this... It wasn't that important.”
Indeed, this is exactly what the movie is about; it is a
no-frills character drama of little consequence. Veteran
actor Sasson Gibai plays Tawfiq, the police band’s stern
leader. Tawfiq must take his group to an Arab Cultural
Center, where they have been invited to play. The process
ends up being much more of a chore than he had expected,
however, when the men end up taking a bus to the
middle-of-nowhere town of Beith Ha-Tikvah (rather than
Petah Tikvah, where they are actually supposed to play).
With little Israeli money in his pockets, Tawfiq enlists
the aid of kind local restaurant owner Dina (Ronit
Elkabetz), who offers to help the members of the band find
places to stay for the night and then see them on their
way to Petah Tikvah the next day.
The Band’s
Visit smartly chooses not to try to gain the interest
of the viewer through its rather conventional story.
Instead, it focuses on deriving modest pleasure from its
off-kilter tone. The movie is delivered in an ingeniously
droll manner, dryly coming to win the audience over. In
many respects, Kolirin appears to be channeling the
deadpan style of accomplished Finnish filmmaker Aki
Kaurismäki. This comparison proves apt in that the viewer
comes to sympathize for these characters mainly because
they are lovably pathetic, a common tendency with
Kaurismäki films. Selah Bakri’s Haled is particularly
endearing in this respect. As a means of breaking the
tension in dialogue exchanges, he often asks other
characters: “Do you like Chet Baker?” When they respond in
a perplexed manner, Haled merely proceeds to uproariously
croon Baker’s “My Funny Valentine” in a softly dark manner
that is impossible not to be entertained by.
Clocking in at a
painless eighty-seven minutes, The Band’s Visit is
a tough movie not to like. Still, there isn’t anything
inherently fresh or surprising about it other than its
slick, affably maudlin delivery. Fond as I am of the
movie, I openly recognize that its concept could’ve just
as well made for a good sitcom. In other words, The
Band’s Visit is as forgettable as it is satisfying, an
obliging if ordinary cinematic concoction.
Salif Traoré’s
Faro: Goddess of the Waters proves to be just as
unremarkable as The Band’s Visit, but for almost
entirely opposite reasons. This is a movie with a riveting
setting and central story, but no memorable characters to
express these through (largely due to Traoré’s stylistic
difficulties in developing them). As a result, what
could’ve been a powerful motion picture instead comes
across as an underwhelming, muted work. I wish I could
laud Faro: Goddess of the Waters on the whole
because of the relatively-unknown locale that it turns its
cameras on, but I am unfortunately not able to do so
because of the mediocre manner in which it does this.
Like its fellow
AFI Fest Audience Award competitor, Caramel
(reviewed in my Day Two coverage), Faro: Goddess of the
Waters will prove most interesting for Western
audiences who are interested in learning about the foreign
culture that it depicts. (Unlike Caramel, however,
this film was clearly made for said Western audiences,
meaning that this depiction functions as a credit to
co-writer/director Traoré, not a point of critical
ambiguity.) The picture’s setting is a tribal village in
Mali and its focus is two interwoven subjects: 1) the
native peoples’ strong belief in spirits and its
slowing-effect on modernization in Mali and 2) said
peoples’ poor treatment of so-called “bastard children” in
their society.
Fili Traoré stars
as Zanga, a thirty-something successful government-worker
who was once one of the aforementioned poorly-regarded
bastard children in the village. In the film, he returns
to the village, first claiming that his only reason for
doing so is to find his long-lost father. As he becomes
progressively frustrated in this quest, however, he
reveals another one of his intentions: to convince the
village chief to approve of the building of a
government-financed aqueduct in the bordering river.
Zanga’s proposition is made at the heels of the drowning
of a young villager in this river, which leads the local
tribal elders to believe that his presence has infuriated
Faro, the title-implied “goddess of the waters”. Traoré
uses the central story to meditate on a commonly-discussed
concept in the field of cultural anthropology: is Zanga’s
attempt to “develop” his native village impossible and
exploitive of the village’s culture, or are the villagers
ignorant of the rich social and economic possibilities
that development could bring them?
Traoré’s assembly
of Faro: Goddess of the Waters struck me as being
highly peculiar. The movie’s narrative is told in a
distinctly Western format, using the central plot and the
dilemmas that it encompasses as points of interest for the
viewer. By stark contrast, the characters and themes are
handled in a manner that is indicative of African Cinema,
internally focusing on the people involved and
their accompanying plights. The result is a conflicted
work of stunning blandness; neither style works
harmoniously with the other. Because its story’s structure
is so concentrated on external action, the film can’t help
but seem underwhelming when it has only introspective
emotions to offer. Faro: Goddess of the Waters
looks and feels a bit like what might result if Rob Reiner
tried to direct a script that was written for the late
Ousmane Sembene. Still, the film is able to capture a
substantial amount of the audience’s interest merely
through its wide-eyed depiction of the indigenous Malian
people. This, if nothing else, makes it a moderately
worthwhile viewing.
My final
screening of the day was the festival’s Centerpiece Gala
Presentation of Jason Reitman’s much-anticipated Juno.
While I am not about to proclaim that this is the
masterpiece and surefire Oscar-contender that many reported to
have seen at this year’s Toronto Film Festival, I am
certainly willing to champion it as both a charmingly zany
comedy and a fittingly poignant drama. Director Reitman
also helmed last year’s Thank You for Smoking and,
while Juno is much broader in its approach than
that pointed satire was, the filmmaker has noticeably
retained every bit of his previously-seen
socially-observant style with this effort. In addition, he
has matured substantially, this time injecting his story
with a resonant understanding of human-nature that is as
warmly uplifting as it is bitterly tragic.
Ellen Page stars
as Juno MacGuff, a quirkily identifiable misfit of a
teenager who, in the film’s opening scenes, discovers that
she is pregnant. Juno doesn’t react to the revelation with
the outburst of visible emotional duress that one would
expect to find in a girl of her age. She thinks herself to
be above that, and only expresses such anguish on the
inside. Externally, Juno only shows nonchalant dismay in
her discovery, recanting to the talky convenience store
clerk who sold her the pregnancy-test
(Rainn Wilson), “little pink
plus-sign is so unholy.”
After ruling out
the possibility of having an abortion when she realizes
just how despondent the employees of the local Planned
Parenthood-like clinic are, Juno realizes that she must
inform her father (J.K. Simmons) and step-mother (Alison
Janney) of the presence of her newly acquired, unborn
roommate. “Who’s the father?” her dad questions in
disbelief, only leaving Juno even more humiliated when she
informs him that the boy is Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera),
the high school’s resident nerd of a track-star. Paulie
still sleeps in a kiddy car-bed and applies antiperspirant
to his thighs each morning to prevent him from sweating as
he runs, hardly constituting “father” material. (Still, he
and Juno share a connection that is bittersweet and
wonderful in its own way.) Juno ultimately resorts to
looking for parents to adopt the child in the local
Pennysaver, where she finds Vanessa and Mark Loring (Jason
Bateman and Jennifer Garner), who appear to be a modern
Stepford Couple. Despite not being able to conceive a baby
of their own, Vanessa is determined to raise a child and
Mark is, well, along for the ride.
As comedic as
Juno sometimes is, the main purpose of Diablo Cody’s
screenplay (her first) is not to bombard the viewer with
fits of laughter. In fact, most of the humor naturally
derives itself from the offbeat personalities of the
characters, which come across so genuinely that it is
impossible to of think them as being gimmicky. First and
foremost, this film functions as a beautiful tale about
the human condition. Its best moments come as the
characters realize the people that they need to become
when confronted with the daunting situations that the
script lays before them. Most notably, Cody’s treatment of
Mark and Vanessa’s marital problems is particularly
accomplished in this regard.
Whether
she wins the Oscar or not, Ellen
Page certainly gives an extraordinary performance in the
film’s title role. As off-the-wall as Juno’s personality
and actions may strike us, Page ensures that we are always
able to observe a hint of ourselves in the character. If
there has been a more sympathetic protagonist than Juno MacGruff in a movie released this year, I haven’t seen it.
Also providing a wonderfully accomplished performance in
the film is Jennifer Garner, who here continues her recent
push to take on more challenging material than she is
typically thought of tackling. Garner injects strong
empathy into Vanessa throughout, which is vital to the
audience’s involvement in the character’s beautiful
third-act transformation. Jason Bateman and Michael Cera
also have their charms as Mark and Paulie, respectively,
but they never pretend to attempt to find the level of
emotional complexity that Page and Garner do.
Juno’s
distributor, Fox Searchlight, hopes that the movie will
acquire the widespread commercial success of their 2006
pet-project, Little Miss Sunshine. While I think
that the latter film is a more accomplished work, I hope
that Juno is able to find the same audience
regardless of this. Juno is a wonderful little film
that functions beautifully as a crowd-pleaser, but carries
far more emotional resonance than the average release in
the genre does. I recommend it to virtually every filmgoer
who seeks a rewarding time at The Movies.
And, with that
all being said, I have completed coverage of my first
weekend at AFI Fest 2007 and my first stay in Los Angeles.
Stay tuned for commentary on the eight films that I saw
during the second weekend of the festival.
-Danny Baldwin, Bucket Reviews
(post date: 11.22.2007)
