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May 5, 2006

The 49th San Francisco International Film Festival ended with Robin Williams dry humping the glass wall of the 2nd floor VIP suite at the closing night party, offering the large crowd downstairs something that they probably would want more than they wanted RV last weekend.

But hey, it's San Francisco...

I've only been here for the last three days of the 14 day long festival, so I can't vouch for every moment of the event, but as a festival veteran, I can tell you that by those last three days, you can tell when a festival has run out of steam. And the biggest story out of SFIFF this year, which will pale in comparison to the 50th anniversary next year (the first major American film festival to hit that landmark), is the happy honeymoon with Graham Leggatt, whose maturity and experience in New York has given him the tools to not just deal with his board and sponsors, but to embrace them and to get them all the way behind him. He says, "My entire life was leading to this," and you can't help but to think, he may be right.

Another non-starter in Leggatt's world is drooling over the success of other, bigger festivals, and aiming for those same goals. He is anxious to make this festival the best film that can happen in San Francisco, which includes a homegrown high tech industry that he has not yet really integrated into the fest. One big conversation here this week was competition with the Tribeca Film Festival, which has been far more aggressive about competing with SFIFF, LAFF and other domestic festivals between Sundance and Toronto than anyone else, making exclusivity demands and focusing on endless hype with its massive budget. Many of the filmmakers premiered their films at Tribeca and then came, days later, to San Francisco. One, whose film I will write about in a minute, started in Tribeca, came back to SF, and is now back in NY for more Tribeca fun. (Ironically, Tribeca's Peter Scarlett still sits on one of SFIFF's boards.)

Leggatt is no kid, but he is young enough (and shaved bald enough) to do the hip thing and still hold down the fort and still seem ready to do this for a decade or two.

Closing night here was, for instance, A Prairie Home Companion, while Tribeca was gorging itself on Mission:Impossible 3... which frankly, I consider an embarrassment to a film festival that wants to be taken seriously... and would even if I thought it was a great action movie.

In any case...

Two fascinating movies in the last two days were Seeds of Doubt and Beyond The Call. Both films, as so much of the current crop of indie films seems to, speak to internationalism and the issues that the closeness of all of that creates.

Seeds of Doubt, which was made for German television, but has excellent production values and an original title of Consequential Damage, which is much better in describing the film. The movie is about a German couple. He's Arab. She's native and as blonde as a Nazi promotional photo. They have a young son and a still-vibrant marriage.

But in a post-9/11 word, he is suspect. He's become used to being looked at funny and feeling the cold shoulder and has learned to let it roll off his shoulders. She doesn't seem to think much about it. But when a series of coincidences occur at the same time and the police take interest, all the players in the life of this family are forced to reevaluate how they feel.

I don't want to walk you through the ups and downs of the story, but you can imagine some of the twists. Is he really a terrorist? Is there something he's not telling his wife? And can the relationship - should the relationship - survive?

This is a film that walks the line between intelligent political conversation and soap opera very effectively. Everytime you think it's about to tip over, it seems to slow down and right itself. The couple here is impossible beautiful and blissful, as is there son. Steven Spielberg would have done well to have seen this film before finishing Munich, where there is a similar sex scene that has a similar subtext to the closing sex/flashback scene in Munich, but this one leaves no one laughing.

The post-screening conversation was also interesting in that the director, Samir Nasa, talked about the evolution of the screenplay and how it slowly turned from being a movie told almost exclusively from the point-of-view of the German Arab under pressure to being primarily about the wife, who is feeling pressured to think about her husband in a way that she never before considered and wishes she didn't have to when confronted. The emotional pressure is much greater on her because he knows for sure what he has or has not done.

And none of this is hurt by the find of the lead actress, Silke Bodenbender, who is one of the most beautiful, relaxed screen presences I have seen in quite a while. She has the look of Tea Leoni, but without the excessive thin, trying-to-hard feel. She looks like a real woman... albeit an amazingly beautiful one. I never quite bought her as a mother in the film. But she knows how to turn the emotional switches and can deliver a wide range of emotions through her eyes without speaking a word.

The second film is one I caught at the last second because I finally looked a little closer at the program and saw that it was directed by Adrian Belic, one of the Belic Brothers, who gave us the terrific Genghis Blues seven years ago. I was a big fan and supporter of the film and was excited to see what the guys would come up with next. Their drive to make "the next film" was slowed, sadly, by the loss of their father as sea, as he attempted to cross the Atlantic in a small sailboat.

Beyond The Call is an extraordinary portrait of men who live with much the kind of spirit of the Belic paterfamilias. The film focuses on three men who have, on their own, chose to go on missions of generosity to war-torn areas across the globe, delivering food, medicine, supplies, and shelter to people in places where the local governments, the UN, and the U.S. have failed to deliver.

Each of the trio has a story of being an outsider, but finding a place in the world through their own personal ingenuity. One is a cardiologist, another a farmer, and another a farmer. They met through the Knights of Malta, which is part of the cement of their brotherhood. But while that might sound elitist, you soon learn that the only thing that matters to these men is doing good for those who cannot do that good for themselves. Their lives are at risk. They break rules, particularly American rules about traveling to places like Afghanistan. And they are as flexible as they are relentless.

The film joins films like Born Into Brothels, with the theme that one person can change the world, one person at a time. All they need is to be committed enough and brave enough.

Neither of these films is textbook brilliant. But both of the films have a lot to say and the will to say it and to say it with conviction. Both dare us, as the audience, to feel things we aren't sure we want to feel. Should we be doing more? Can we trust the way we one did? What is really important to us?

These seem to be major themes of the entire SFIF Festival this year. I'm glad I came up.

E Me: Are you interested in being challenged at the movies?

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