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Week Of June 12, 2006 - Mon / Wed / Fri
June 14, 2006
SIFF: Third Watch
Back from Seattle for a couple of days and, I have to say, I miss it. There were certainly more films and more DVDs to watch and there is a relaxing vibe about the whole thing that was a real pleasure. (It may be a little less laid back starting tomorrow, when 43 guests arrive for the final weekend.)
You can take a look at some of the people and images from the fest here if you like.
Sturla Gunnarsson, the director of Such A Long Journey - which is one of my favorite films, thanks to Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival and which is almost impossible to buy now (though you can rent it on Netflix) - was up at SIFF with his newest film, Beowulf & Grendel, that's about to be released into a few selected theaters through the summer. (More details on that in ROTD below.)
I hadn't seen Sturla in about 5 years… really since his last film, Rare Birds, premiered at the Toronto Film Festival on 9/11/01. Ouch. So it was great to see him up in Seattle and I was shocked to find that he was not the only one in Seattle for his film. Turns out that a high school group drove over three hours to be at one showing of the film - they were studying Beowulf at school - but even more amazing was the parade of Gerard Butler fans who are following the movie from city to city and screening to screening, thrilled by the movie and their most beloved film star. Really, this was Valentino stuff. I was told by the festival that Beowulf & Grendel was one of only two movies to sell out in under 10 days of tickets going on sale.
The movie leaps right into the action, explaining the first part of the story about how Grendel came to a deadly hate of the Dane King. Beowulf will come to protect the Danes and will learn much more about Grendel than he expects.
This is the territory of sword and sorcery, but that's not what Gunnarsson is up to here. The magical elements of the film are not a stylized abstraction, but a way into an exploration of very human characteristics. Grendel is a grown up hurt child. Beowulf is a hero who finally has to confront that what are heroics to him may not be heroics to other. The Dane King is a depressed lush, fearful of what he doesn't know, with an ultimate fear that he and his kingdom really deserve to fall. And Selma, the witch, is a woman with a history, earning her sensitivity the hard way.
In the meanwhile, the background of Iceland is rather spectacular. At one moment, it evoked An Inconvenient Truth for me, as a peak over a hill showed an area covered in green right next to an area covered in ice. Gunnarsson evokes the world as a place where territories went as far as the eye could see and not much further… a world so small that one death can change everything… a world of heroes whose heroics are truly beyond comprehension.
I quite liked the film. For me, with a career of really wonderful work, this is one of my favorite performances ever by Stellan Skarsgard. He isn't using any of the professional tricks we are used to seeing him pull out of the hat. That voice and his height are both diminished as he plays a man stripped of his usual power. And Sarah Polley does some of her best work here. Polley's sensuality, which always seems tamped down when I run into her in public, flies freer here than I have really seen before. It is an adult sensuality and it is not because she is glammed up or trying to be sexy. She is the smartest person in the film and the most in touch with her deepest feelings (aside from the near-silent Grendel, perhaps), though she carries a lot of pain. Once she finds herself capable of choice, she seems unwilling to ever do any less than to exercise it. Another wonderful performance.
I quite liked Gerard Butler as well, though I have to say, for me, it was not a very special performance. But life as the hero rarely has many layers. His role is a bit thankless, though he is strong and handsome and appropriately emotional. Solid.
The only thing thing missing from the movie for me was an opening sequence of Beowulf as the Uber-Hero, unstoppable and righteously reveling in victory. Setting Beowulf up more dramatically would make the awareness he is forced into all the more powerful. But still, a very strong, unexpected experience. It ain't Lord of the Rings. But it really doesn't want to be.
OSS 117: Nest Of Spies was this year's find at Seattle. The film, which I had no idea until doing some research, is based on a series of French books, just like Bond, that inspired a series of movies, just like Bond. But not like this one. This one takes the straight play on Bond and turns it upside down into one of the funniest movies of the year.
It's interesting. Because when you see the French trailer for the film, some of the jokes are there, but the major silliness of it all is barely touched on. The director, Michel Hazanavicius, who was in Seattle, told me that he was actually surprised by how much the Seattle audience laughed at the movie, particularly in the third act. Perhaps we were more prepared to have a good laugh at the expense of a classic hero figure.
The film tells the tale of OSS Agent 117, who is played by French TV star Jean Dujardin, who has more than a little resemblance to Patrick Warburton, though he is the thinner, prettier version… aka, more the real Bond than a mock Bond. But Dujardin has that same dumb self-assured smile and deep rolling voice.
Hazanavicius, his cinematographer, Guillaume Schiffman, and his production designer Maamar Ech-Cheikh do a spectacular job recreating the look and feel of the 1960s international spy films. But this is not Austin Powers… much closer to the vest. And that is a big part of why it is so funny. This really feels like early Pink Panther, which wasn't as broad as the later films. It's not parody, it's satire. But the comedy is also broad enough and old-fashioned enough (aka, no real sex or hard violence) that kids could be a major audience for it as well (as we recently saw in the release of the new Steve Martin-starring Pink Panther movie).
In addition, this is a film that could, because of its tone, make perfect sense as a dubbed release. Any studio smart enough to jump in the movie would have to make the decision that it is a real potential hit and not just a throwaway that critics will love… because it's funnier than that. Of course, the first instinct will be to remake it in English. Hazanavicius has no interest in remaking the movie in English. But he doesn't own it. Gaumont does. The one thing protecting him from that fate - which the Weinsteins have pulled on a number of terrific foreign films that sat on ice while they preserved a market for a remake that would never happed, or did with Shall We Dance - is that it is nearly impossible to cast the right lead. A Warburton would be too broad. The only one I can see in an English remake would be George Clooney. And if Steven Spielberg wanted to direct… well…
But this film should be released domestically, by a major studio, probably dubbed, and probably grossing between $30 million and $75 million. Or it could be a sensation that goes even bigger. It may be in French, but it more mainstream than any comedy I've seen here this year, and that includes both Nacho Libre and The Break-Up.
The magnificent Bérénice Bejo plays the female lead in the film… and, nowadays, in Hazanavicius' life. We didn't discuss it in detail, but I can assure you that this fine director was the envy of both men and women in Seattle. Berenice plays the smart sidekick in the movie - much smarter than 117 - and she has that old school sharpness and a beauty that is ostentatious in its lack of ostentation.
Berenice was once chasing the Hollywood dream, back when she was cast as the female lead of A Knight's Tale. Unfortunately for her, the studio was not happy with her accent and cast near look-alike Shannyn Sossamon. She still was in the movie, but in a much smaller role. She returned to France and has worked quite a bit. But Berenice is the kind of woman who openly admits that she is now 30 (she's 25 on imdb), jokes unselfconsciously about not being busty, and is interested in more than movie stardom.
But back to the movie...
It's damned funny. The laughs go from smirks to soda spitters, but one can't avoid giving Michel Hazanavicius enormous credit for never milking a joke to the point of disappointment. He just hits it and hits it and hits it and hits it. And Jean Dujardin is just dead funny. He's got a broad shouldered muscularity that works with his shirt off, but no actor who isn't very smart can do dumb quite this brilliantly. It's not Sellers because he doesn't seem to be pushing himself as far away from self. He is a broader comedian, as shown in another recent French release, Brice de Nice. But he does plan on doing a drama soon, with Monsieur Hazanavicius, actually. They might do it before or after the now-greenlit sequel to their OSS 117: Nest Of Spies.
And did I mention the sensational score by Ludovic Bource and Kamel Ech-Cheik? They really get the whole range of the piece, though unlike Michael "The Incredibles" Giacchino, they don't have to do the "big movie" score thing in addition to the delightful light work. Still, just great.
And the funniest thing is, I was so expecting to be disappointed. Joy has been in short supply at the movies lately. And OSS 117: Nest Of Spies was a sheer delight.
READER OF THE DAY: Sue Da Fed writes: Actually B&G is opening in limited release in all of the major cities of the US by Landmark and Quad Theaters. The backstory is interesting as this movie gains some momentum - it has been blacklisted by Hollywood as, in Hollywood fashion, it creates it's own big budget cartoon about Beowulf (still in the thought process but enough to keep this movie off of major distribution - the cartoon is directed by an A-list director and stars Angelina Jolie). Fans of Gerard Butler and the movie, from the US, actually rented buses and traveled to Canada where it was showing in wide distribution. It has been successful in Canada and is in the top 5 pre-ordered (prior to distribution on DVD) DVD's on Amazon. It is also listed on IMBD as 'truly independent'. Is that a new category? Thanks for taking the time to read this,
S.F.
Fan of Gerard Butler and the movie Beowulf and Grendel
p.s. Butler's next movie is 300, big budget from Warner Brothers -guess we will get to see this one on the big screen in our small town in Colorado mountains.
SEATTLE - Opens June 16 - Varsity Landmark Theater
SAN FRANCISCO - Opens June 30 - Opera Plaza Landmark Theater
NEW YORK CITY - Opens July 7 - Quad Cinema
CHICAGO - Opens July 14 - Century Landmark Theater
LOS ANGELES - Opens July 28 - Westside Pavillion Landmark Theater
BOSTON - Opens August 11 - Kendall Square Landmark Theater
DENVER - AUGUST 4 - 11 - Denver Film Society
MONTANA, WHITEFISH - September 8 - 10 - Whitefish Theater Co.
E Me: Are you ready for a funny Bond?
Week Of April 3, 2006 - Life In the Bubble - Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of April 10, 2006 - List Week - Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of April 17, 2006 - Review Week - Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of April 24, 2006 - Overlooked Week - Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of May 1, 2006 - Mystery Week - Tue / Wed / Fri
Week Of May 8, 2006 - How We Watch Week - Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of May 15, 2006 - Premature Week - Oscar Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of May 22, 2006 - B-13 Mon / Inconvenient Wed / Fri
Week Of May 29, 2006 - Wed / Fri
Week Of June 5, 2006 - 666 Tue / Iraq Doc Wed / Seattle Fri
