Reykjavík Grapevine - 08.04.2005, Síða 40

All the Art House You Can
Handle
I Heart Huckabees
The film is a poor-man’s Wes Anderson movie. Directed by David O. Russell
(Three Kings), Huckabees is at times witty, but unfortunately more often
than not the humor feels contrived. But everybody who’s anybody is in this
film, including Jude Law who, as Chris Rock joked when he hosted this year’s
Oscars, is now in every damn film that has ever been made.
Film fans tired of the celluloid crap
Hollywood churns out year after year
should set aside time for the Iceland
International Film Festival, running
in theatres across Reykjavik through
April 30th.
What you won’t see at the Iceland
International Film Festival are duds
like Crocodile Dundee or anything
starring the Olsen Twins. What
will be screened are films such as
the wacky Napoleon Dynamite and
the disturbing Kevin Bacon vehicle,
The Woodsman. Various films
categorized as World cinema will be
screened, including the epic House
of Flying Daggers, and there will
be a special collection of Icelandic
movies. (Yes, 101 Reykjavik, and
the Oscar-nominated Children of
Nature.)
And what would a festival be
without a Robert De Niro film. No,
not Fock the Fockers or We’re No
Angels. I’m talking about the classic
Taxi Driver.
In addition to the 40-plus films,
event organizers have also managed
to entice some of the talent to
Iceland, including director Walter
Salles, who kicked off the Festival
on 7 April at Háskólabíó with a
screening of his film The Motorcycle
Diaries (see review below).
For more information on the Festival,
log on to www.icelandfilmfestival.is
GRAPEVINE GUIDE TO IIFF
Garden State
When you leave a film thinking,
“Wow, what a great soundtrack,”
the movie’s in trouble. But Natalie
Portman’s quirky performance as
Sam is nearly worth the price of
admission; she’s the perfect tonic
to writer-director Zach Braff’s (the
guy from Scrubs) brooding Andrew
Largeman who returns home for
his mother’s funeral after years of
estrangement from his family.
Door in the Floor
Based on the first third of the John Irving novel A Widow for One Year,
Door in the Floor (written and directed by Tod Williams) fails to live up
to other Irving adaptations, like Cider House Rules. Jeff Bridges gives a
strong performance as the philandering children’s author Ted Cole, who
uses women to ease the pain of his family’s tragedy. The Mrs. Robinson
relationship that develops between Cole’s sultry, yet grieving wife Marion
(Kim Basinger) and the young writer’s assistant Eddie O’Hare (Jon Foster)
has few sparks.
Kinsey
Long before the transcendental Salt ‘n’ Pepa annoyed us with their “Let’s
talk about sex, baby” there was Alfred Kinsey (Liam Neeson) who in 1948
published Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. Imagine the bugaboo that
caused in the conservative Eisenhower-era US. With Laura Linney (Oscar-
nominated for Actress in a Supporting Role), Chris O’Donnell, Timothy
Hutton, John Lithgow and Peter Sarsgaard. Directed by Bill Condon.
Beyond the Sea
Not to be outdone by Ray Charles,
Howard Hughes, J.M. Barrie, and
Che Guevara, there’s Beyond the
Sea, a biopic about Bobby Darin,
played by Kevin Spacey who also
directed the film. Who’s Bobby
Darin? He’s the guy who sang “Mack
the Knife” and hooked up with
Sandra Dee (Kate Bosworth).
Don’t Move
Spanish actress Penélope Cruz
learns Italian and de-glams to play
Italia, a destitute woman from the
slums who has a violent encounter
with Timoteo (Sergio Castellitto,
who also directs). From then on,
the married Timoteo and Italia are
irresistibly drawn to each other.
Maria Full of Grace
Newcomer Catalina Sandino
Moreno’s breakout role as Maria,
a bright teenager who, looking to
escape her impoverished life in
rural Colombia, becomes a drug
mule en route to the United States
with swallowed pellets of heroin.
Moreno’s impassioned performance
earned her an Oscar nomination for
Best Actress. Written and directed
by Joshua Marston.
Zen and the Art of Che
Guevara
Despite being dead since 1967, Che Guevara is hotter
than ever, even in Iceland, which isn’t surprising
considering the same jokers running the government
have been in power for going on 15 years. This place is
ripe for revolution. (For the funniest Che in Iceland, see
the bar Castro in Keflavík, which features an image of
Che on it’s sign and caters to people who make money
from the NATO base.)
Conservative Hollywood studios would never consider
a film about the iconic figure who hung out with
everybody’s favorite dictator, Fidel Castro. So leave
it to maverick filmmaker Robert Redford to produce
The Motorcycle Diaries, which chronicles the journey
Guevara (Gael García Bernal) and his friend Alberto
Granado (Rodrigo De La Serna) took across the South
American continent back in 1952. Based primarily on
Guevara’s memoir, the film is a coming of age story,
examining Guevara’s political awakening as he traverses
the continent that he wound up dying for.
The Motorcycle Diaries is, at its heart, a road movie.
And there are few directors better equipped to expose
South America to audiences than Walter Salles, who
directed the Brazilian film Central Station, a tender, yet
disturbing movie that follows a cynical old woman and a
young boy from the slums of Rio de Janeiro, across the
vastness that is the Brazilian countryside.
“…It is about a journey to discover not only one’s
identity, and one’s place in the world, but also about the
search for what I think we could call a Latin American
identity,” Salles has said about The Motorcycle Diaries.
A journey, however, is not worthy of a film unless the
trip transforms those who undertake it. Who wants to
watch a movie about a character that remains the same
the entire 90 minutes? But anytime characters gaze upon
the Inca ruins at the heights of Machu Picchu you know
there’s going to be transformation.
Edward Weinman is a journalist and screenwriter. He
cowrote A Little Trip to Heaven with director Baltasar
Kormakur and is currently working on an adaptation of
Arnaldur Indriðason’s The Moor.
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