San Sebastian Dispatch. 2.

Two unique gems were on offer on the restless second day of screenings in San Sebastian. The competition section presented an unlikely pretender in the form of the one-of-a-kind pop-porn film Nine Songs from the maverick British director Michael Winterbottom. It's been widely regarded as a shocking film in which a couple has sex, goes to some gig, then has sex, goes to some gig and so on. Such a plot summary, though not entirely unattractive, doesn’t do justice to a true cinematic challenge, a pure and perceptive depiction of these two people's lives. We are permitted see everything - the little, dumb words, the ridiculous dances, the dialogue of the eyes, and also, yes, the sex, in all its spiritual and carnal strength, all its life. We’re permitted to see everything invisible and visible. Everything. And when the end comes, the pain is almost unbearable.

San Sebastian's Zabaltegi section is reserved for discoveries from other festivals, and one of the highlights is a co-production from New Zealand and Great Britain, In My Father's Den. Writer-director Brad McGann's film was recently hailed at Toronto and it's easy to see why. It’s sweeping, liquid cinema, navigating back and forth in time with the fluidity of Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter, showing a great care for framing and creating a trance-like sense of hypnosis. And the story is not just an excuse for aesthetic exploration, but a dense, hot-blooded account of a group lives held as prisoners to the past - and eventually victims of it. Imagine Mystic River set in Twin Peaks and you're almost there. I didn't want the movie to come to an end. Emotional bliss.

Posted by dwhudson at September 19, 2004 11:24 AM