Not sure I have the stamina for watching three films in one day anymore. However, with the sheer unadulterated piffle of STONED still tugging at my angry strings – yesterday’s selection fared way better. I’ve read a couple of reviews of said rubbish that were way too kind and wonder how anyone could have found it other than shite.
Two Swedish movies, Fourteen Sucks (Fjorton Suger) and Popular Music (Populär-musik Fran Vittula) were connected because they appeared in the “certified” section of the festival. This is aimed at a “teenage” audience and on this showing the Scandanavians are shown once again to be way more, not sure if sophisticated is the right word – but it’ll do for now. They don’t gloss that’s for sure and the films resonate more as a result. Fourteen was very much a coming of age piece in the style of Lukas Moodyson and although good, I’m well wide of its target audience.
Popular Music, on the other hand is overwhelmingly recommended to visitors to this journal. Based on Michael Neimi’s Swedish bestseller, it’s much more than just their High Fidelity/Trainspotting/whatever. It recalls the early 60’s in the far north of Sweden when rock’n’roll began to take over the world but isn’t just about music. I hope people get a chance to see this because the pace, look and feel of it is all exemplary. A reminder of what a good film actually is.
The final film of the day was Sugar. This year’s programme entry that was compared to Eraserhead and also to Richard Kern. When I read that sort of thing then I figure it’s a challenge. The guy who “programmed” it introduced the screening and he said it had him on the edge of his seat. Maybe we should have had a scoop of whatever he was on? Anyway, it’s not bad but it’s at least 25 minutes too long. Visually it looks like b&w Lynch. The Foetus er, “music” throbs ambiently in the background and isn’t as unsettling as I’d hoped. I think I drifted off a couple of times during the 82 minutes and was somewhat relieved when it was over. It’s not the kind of thing I could recommend but it had something. An unhinged notion of menace that never quite paid off. But that’s what you expect from “experimental film-making” innit? Aye, really.
To be honest, I’m not big on interpretation and subtext. Irrespective of the genre, I wanna be entertained and when digging through the programme becomes a chore then I think to myself, why? The Festival Director, in my opinion, is a donkey. No disrespect to the four-legged variety but his smug, status-chasing demeanor really chafes me. This undertow serves to fuel my enjoying the event less with every passing year and makes me wonder, is what seems like too much of an effort worth it? When you see something like Popular Music then it is.
No films today, just a slide into the doldrums to celebrate my returning to work after a week off living the relatively high life.
Tomorrow night, a documentary about whistling (Pucker Up) and Grizzly Man. Tuesday, The Aristocrats, Wednesday, Junebug and Friday, The Devil and Daniel Johnston. Will they make it to the finish line?
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