Look out! He's got a knife!

Film Fest so far

I used to go to film festival movies all the time. In recent years I have not, for whatever reason.

This year I've already doubled my score from last year: I've seen two.

The Valet was a French comedy from the mofo who wrote & directed The Dinner Game and The Closet. I haven't seen those, but my lovely companion informed me that it made funny references to those movies. It was a sweet and charming comedy with some laugh-out-loud moments.

The plot involved a parking valet who is paid to pretend to be the live-in boyfriend of a supermodel, to save her actual boyfriend (an extremely weasly and corrupt factory CEO) from an expensive divorce; he plans to use the money to pay the mortgage of the woman he actually loves.

The only actor I knew was Kritsen Scott-Thomas, wonderfully bitchy as the wife, who's one step ahead of everyone for most of the movie and seems to enjoy the whole set up as a game she knows she'll win. Every character except for the CEO is fundamentally decent and likable, and everyone gets what they deserve in the end.

Water was an Indian movie made with Canadian money - one of those foreign-language movies that's pretty damned good but seems to reflect the co-production country at least as much as the place it's supposed to be set in terms of filmmaking aesthetics. Which is OK 'cause I love Canadian movies.

This was set in the '30s and was about seven year old girl whose husband has died shortly after their arranged marriage, at which point she's packed off to a home for widows so her family doesn't have to feed her. It's all based around the Hindu idea that a woman is a part of her husband, and when he dies her life is basically over unless she marries his younger brother, so she may as well just jump on his funeral pyre and end it all so she doesn't have to live a life of miserable poverty and head-shavenness.

It's not quite as downbeat as that sounds, and there's lots of genuine laughter and joy in the movie. Not all of the widows are victims, and one in particular has no qualms about manipulating the others to make her own life easier. There's also a lot of hypocrisy among the more "liberal" Indian men, and one character who is much too good to be true. The ending seemed a little desperate, as if the filmmakers couldn't quite face up to the incredibly depressing ending the movie seemed like it was going to have and compromised.

So that's two for two. I'm gonna try and sneak off to see Dave Chappelle's Block Party on Wednesday, now that my charming festival companion has given it two thumbs up and converted from hip-hop hate to love (now that she sees it's not all about guns and hos). Hurrah!

Posted by pearce at July 24, 2006 7:25 PM