Rotterdam Dispatch.

Arguably, the most rewarding element of travel is the one rarely noted - the time for quiet reflection. In twenty-odd days, taking in festivals in Park City and Rotterdam (and sadly missing Palm Springs and, more importantly, the Berlinale for the first time in years), I was afforded a long overdue opportunity from one plane to another to read Rebecca Solnit's insightful River of Shadows, chronicling the life of Eadweard Muybridge and, by extension, the very birth of this industry in which I find myself... involved. I think particularly of the motion studies that, by their nature, evoke a necessary level of repetition in the movements (like the Zoetrope before them). I've thought it difficult these past five months to properly explain my problems with American Cinema and here, in this book, the problems reveal themselves. Motion pictures, the first new art form to emerge in centuries, or perhaps less an art form than a synthesis of arts already in existence, are returning to their roots. The cinema of repetition.

At least as far as narrative films are concerned, back in September at Telluride, marveling at the splendor of the location, I couldn't help but be disappointed with the selection of films. It wasn't as if the programming team could be faulted with their choices. Capote, Walk the Line and Brokeback Mountain all received their North American premieres at the festival and all three have since been justifiably recognized with awards and nominations for the performances in these films. However, I must stress that exceptional performances can exist in mediocre films. Audiences have found it difficult to detach these performances from the rest of the film. Reese Witherspoon? Fantastic. Heath Ledger? Amazing. Philip Seymour Hoffman? Absolutely impressive. Good movies? A series of good moments, good scenes, and little more. These three conventional, predictable attempts at storytelling are the best that this country has to offer? Visually, stylistically, they emerge from the same juggernaut, fully formed to appear not unlike every other film that is released in this country. One hundred years along and we can do no better?

I exhume Telluride because it explains, in part, similar difficulties that I found with Sundance. Lucky Number Slevin, which I've slagged previously? Slated to be one of the Weinsteins' first releases, scheduled to open in March, but hardly worth the effort. 13 (Tzameti), the Dramatic World Cinema award-winner, is tinged with American influence, wanting desperately to be a latter-day Melville film. It ends up empty, hollow and pointless. These are the best films that the Sundance programming team can find?

After so much disappointment, perhaps you wonder why I bother. Granted, my opinions are clearly in the minority. Most audiences seemingly love these aforementioned pieces of trifle. Still, one makes any festival pilgrimage in the hope of some discovery (and, in my case, for the sake of business). At Telluride, for instance, this pallor of predictability, where even Haneke's Caché and Hou's Three Times seemed to be covering familiar ground (although I still quite enjoyed much of both), provided an opportunity to discover the work of Eugene Green - an experience that made the entire lengthy expedition entirely worthwhile. At Sundance, the redemptive effort was a chance to see new, if not entirely successful, sophomore works by Carlos Reygadas and Christoffer Boe, both experimenting with form in ways that few others of their generation seem willing to explore (and both extremely likeable individuals destined, I wager, to make great films in the years ahead).

Rotterdam, to the contrary, exists seemingly as a showcase for outside work. It therein makes it a must-stop on the annual festival tour. It was, quite literally, the notion that the festival would premiere legendary Czech filmmaker Jan Svankmajer's latest, Lunacy, that pushed me over the "Should I? Shouldn't I?" edge. The fact that Stephen and Timothy Quay's latest, The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes (which I had seen on video a few months earlier out of desperation), and Terry Gilliam's relatively low-budget Tideland would be presented made it an unexpected epicenter of surrealistic visionaries. Yes, but what about the work? Lunacy is Svankmajer's masterpiece, surpassing even Faust in pure inventiveness. Not wishing to spoil the experience, I will spare you any specifics about the plot. The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes, despite rumblings to the contrary, is the Quays' best feature effort to date, expanding on the palate of Institute Benjamenta. While perhaps not as narratively thorough as the latter, Piano Tuner is appropriately dream-like in its construction and realization. Tideland? I tried, but failed, to see it.

A number of first-timers populate the program as well. The Iranian oddity Writing on the Earth deserves an audience if only for folks to stare in disbelief as this hybrid of Paradjanov and Kubrick fills the screen, as if the reels of Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors and The Shining had somehow merged into the same film. If that reads like a criticism, it most definitely is not. The screening I attended concluded with the only heated Q&A I have ever witnessed in the Netherlands. The audiences here are usually so polite.

Sangre, directed by the former AD of Carlos Reygadas (him again, who also produced) was a simple, enjoyable film about a series of deadbeats in Mexico. The resemblance to Reygadas' work is unmistakable but the form is used to different ends.

Much of the rest of the program was devoted to names that you'd recognize or names that you should (or eventually will). Guy Maddin's short, My Dad is 100 Years Old, is written by and starring Isabella Rossellini and about, naturally enough, her father, Roberto. Sixteen unusual minutes for a documentary, but it works. Raúl Ruiz's latest, the biopic Klimt, screened in "distribution cut" and "director's cut" versions. Thanks to a misprint in the schedule, I witnessed the former and was never able to make it back for the full version (which seemingly will disappear after this rare presentation). Regardless, I can only wonder: John Malkovich as Gustav Klimt? I suppose it was necessary for the financing of the project, but he never, otherwise, justifies his presence in the picture. Like any Ruiz film, it has numerous wonderful moments. Unfortunately, like several of his projects, these parts do not unite to make a whole. Perhaps the longer version fares better.

I had high hopes for Citizen Dog after Wisit Sasanatieng's impressive debut feature, Tears of the Black Tiger (sadly better-known in North America as the film permanently shelved by Miramax). It starts well, with the Amélie references in the program not entirely off-base. However, it devolved into a series of incidental and increasingly frustrating vignettes. On the other hand, Apichatpong Weerasethakul's featurette, Worldly Desires, is seemingly a hacked-together piece "for memories of the jungle" (the film's subtitle) collected between 2001 and 2005. It should feel haphazard and forced and yet, like his features, is miraculously engaging from beginning to end. Everyone seems to appreciate Sukurov's The Sun. Except for me. The Russian director continues to be the most uneven and unreliable of contemporary filmmakers, pulling unconvincing, contrived and mannered performances from his actors. Some would argue that is his point. Some point.

Revivals, as well - Mughal-e-Azam, lovely in its restored-and-colorized state, although overlong even by Bollywood standards. The music, however, ranks among the best in any film from this period. Signori Giurati, the lone silent in the program, is a particularly merciless work and would fit nicely on a double-bill with Pandora's Box. Beware the tempting ways of manipulative vamps.

Ultimately, however, I departed the festival still wishing to see a greater quantity of films that I can even count as seen. Old Joy (which I now have the displeasure of missing twice), Mutual Appreciation, The Death of Mister Lazarescu, Interkosmos, The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael, Madeinusa, Takeshis', The Great Yokai War, Les Amants réguliers - the list continues and I haven't even touched on the many shorts, experimental and otherwise. I'll be looking for them, and others, at festivals to come. Meanwhile, I only ask that any aspiring filmmakers that have read this far into a rant to merely quit aspiring to make Hollywood films on Indiewood budgets. Make something else. Anything else. Take chances. It might be the only chance that you have.

Posted by dwhudson at February 5, 2006 4:25 PM