Well, Wednesday was all kinds of disappointing. We were supposed to have a press screening of Norwegian Wood (which was really the main reason I went to the press screenings in the first place), but the copy they showed didn't have subtitles. Gee. Thanks. Second movie was okay, but the third movie (which was supposed to be Spud got replaced by a movie I wasn't really interested in seeing. So instead of seeing 5 movies that day, I only saw 3. Most vexing.

Lys - This movie is crazy short! It was preceded by a short film called Roman's Ark which I found vaguely interesting visually, but not particularly interesting (or even exactly clear) as a film, short or not. Siiiigh. Lys likewise felt a bit incomplete and lacked a great deal of explanation. A new power plant, using a supposedly clean and renewable energy source called Anima, suddenly starts having catastrophic failures resulting in massive blackouts at the same time that a mysterious girl is found in the reactor chamber. Quickly it becomes clear that they do not have control over this energy source, which may be far more volatile than they initially realized, and for better or for worse it appears that the strange girl, Lys, might be the either the key to understanding this new mystery, or a weapon to bring about their destruction.

I think this the first time I've ever felt that a movie at the festival should have been longer, but this one really needed a little more beef along with its bun. Too many questions left unanswered, too little actual plot or character development. It needed more and, honestly, I think there could have easily been more to it. Characters were dreadfully two-dimensional, some utterly arbitrary, and as a result it was difficult to feel engaged in the film. Told in a series of flashbacks, there is also a distinct lack of a clear timeline, which really would have added to the clarity and possibly even the tension of the story. Rumor has it that this is the director's thesis project and, despite all of my complaints, it was still interesting and well made. In the end, however, I was more interested in what it could have been with some more time and more money, rather than in what it was.

Germany, 2011 (52 minutes, 76 minutes total)
Director: Krystof Zlatnik
Cast: Hanna Schwamborn, Horst-Günter Marx, Marc Hosemann, Catherine Bode Ecki Hoffmann

Director Krystof Zlatnik scheduled to attend.

Festival Screenings
9:30 PM Fri, June 10 Neptune Theatre
11:00 AM Sat, June 11 Neptune Theatre

My Afternoons With Margueritte - One of Gerard Depardieu's better roles in a long time, but the film still felt very inconsistent. A hard working, simple man, struggles against the abuse of his past and his present, against the fact that nearly everyone takes him for a simpleton and an idiot. Everyone, that is, except Margueritte, a charming, friendly and erudite woman he meets in the park and becomes friends with, bonding over literature. Okay, okay, it's not fair to say that everybody picks on him - he has a surprisingly lovely and loving girlfriend. It's a charming little film about the value of a person and how worth is made up of so much more than simply the intelligence that one possesses. It wasn't quite as delightful and wonderful as I had hoped it would be, but it was perfectly pleasant, with moments of true grace and beauty from time to time.

Fuck My Life - Wheeeeee, this was fun! This film fully embraces the technology of our time, with texting, Facebook, and cell phones being one of the primary forms of communication between individuals, whether it be calling out for help or asking for dating advice. Interestingly enough the actual title of the film is Fuck Your Life, which embodies more clearly the attitude of many of the characters who feel that their friends and lovers have done them wrong. The lead character realizes what he has lost after he dumps his girlfriend and spends the rest of the movie trying to win her back, despite everyone's advice that he move on and forget her. It's very much a "he said, she said" sort of movie, where characters are "interviewed" and often give very differing accounts of the various actions of our protagonist. In the end, though, every character feel very real and believable, even when the situations are ludicrous or highly coincidental. It's a playful, silly, wry, clever, and yet also utterly spot on about people and relationships.