One of the things I’d decided for this blog was for it to be largely celebrating things that I enjoy (not uncritically mind) rather than just trashing things I didn't. What makes it tricky when you’ve picked out a load of unknown films from a film festival and set yourself the task of reviewing them all, is that you’re likely to come across films you don’t like. I still try and find something positive to say about them films I don't like as well as acknowledging that the things I enjoy might not be perfect (hence The Good / The Bad format) but there are some I struggle with. There’s plenty of negativity out there and I’m not completely happy about doing a full blog review of Honeymood when I didn’t enjoy it so I’m going to bundle these two together. It means that I haven’t just ignored them but equally they haven’t had a full blog to themselves.
Siberia
Dir. Abel Ferrera / Dur. 92 mins
Strand:- Dare
In A Nutshell:- Willem Dafoe has a bar in Siberia and goes off and does...some stuff?
The Verdict:- Willem Dafoe is always great and I’ll watch him in anything (given that last year’s festival featured featured him as a stranded lighthouse keeper, I’m beginning to think that my festival spirit animal is Willem Dafoe In Extreme Circumstances) and I also love films that fully embrace the surreal (big David Lynch fan) but this just didn't do it. I found the whole thing incoherent, unpleasant and annoying with some truly dreadful dialogue and, if I hadn’t been watching it as part of the festival, I'd have just switched it off.
A Common Crime (Un crimen común)
Dir. Francisco Márquez / Dur. 96 mins
Strand:- Dare
In a Nutshell:- A woman ignores the late knocking at the door of her housekeeper’s son and must deal with the effect this inaction has on her…
The Verdict:- I get that this was a slow burn study of one woman’s deterioration following her choice to not intervene and that it highlights some of the injustices and class/wealth disparity problems prevalent in modern day Argentina but I just found the whole thing to be so slow and lacking in much resembling any incident that I spent almost the entire deathly bored. Elisa Carricajo’s performance is great but she literally has nothing to work with. Again, if not part of the fest, I wouldn't have stuck around with this one.
OK, a couple of disappointments out of the way - let’s get things back on track next time.
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