recommendation #2

first of all, i think i may have to eat my words about death cab for cutie. i bought their new album today at easy street because it was on sale. i'm listening to it right now and, although it's my first listen, i think i like it. a lot, even. in the future, perhaps i shouldn't be so quick to judge something based on its creepy song titles. the award for best lyric about my life is you can do better than me but i can't do better than you. that ben gibbard sure is good at writing depressing love songs.

but here's something i can judge. today, i went to a movie called strangers (it was at the uptown theatres, as part of the seattle international film festival). i first heard about this movie because, a couple of months ago, glen and marketa sang on its title song, which i now think is interesting because strangers and once do share some intriguing parallels. both movies are great at evoking the feeling of living in the moment, but knowing that the moment can't possibly last forever.

strangers is about eyal and rana, an israeli and palestinian, who meet each other during the 2006 world cup finals in berlin. the film actually has lots of funny moments, especially at the beginning, when eyal and rana meet by accident - their bags get mixed up on a subway train and there are a couple humorous scenes of them going through each other's things. during the next few days, they start falling in love (although their feelings are never given a name), but then rana has to return to paris (where she has lived for 5 years) and, despite her telling eyal not to follow her, he does. some other stuff happens - which i won't write about in case someone happens to get the opportunity to see this movie (which you should!) - and it's all set against the backdrop of news reports about bombings in lebanon. even though the film is about the relationship between two people, those two people cannot separate themselves entirely from their political realities. when she first realizes their bags have been mixed up, rana (who has figured out that eyal is from israel because she finds a hebrew book in his bag) hesitates calling eyal because of who he is. later, eyal and rana joke that the palestinians and israelis both have crappy soccer teams because the best palestinians become terrorists while the best israelis join the army. in paris, eyal argues with rana's friends about which side shoulders more responsibility for the war. however, rana tells eyal that, if they got married, she would live in israel (which kind of reminded me of the scene in once when the guy and girl are sitting by the piano talking - dreaming - about moving to london together). can they ever really be together? the ending is pretty ambiguous.

the acting in this movie was GREAT. especially the woman who played rana - i want to see everything else she has ever been in. i love seeing foreign films that i would never otherwise see (everyone reading this should support the seattle international film festival! they have films all year long, not just during the festival).

seattle international film festival: a recommendation

today, i went to see katyn, a polish film playing at the egyptian theatre as part of the seattle international film festival. it was a very good movie (i think it was nominated for an oscar for best foreign film last year), although at times it was confusing and difficult to watch. it was about a historical event that i had never heard of - the killings of polish army officers by the soviets in 1940. the story was told through the eyes of the officers' wives and mothers, whose only news of the fates of their husbands/sons is names read over a loudspeaker by the germans. the movie was sort of confusing because there are a lot of characters, many of whom disappear and reappear throughout the movie. at times it was hard for me to keep the story lines straight, but that didn't bother me because i could follow the general plot.

i think that one of the most frightening scenes was when a university professor goes to what he thinks will be a meeting with a german officer (this also confused me because it seemed a little out of place in the film) the professors (most of them elderly) are told that the university will be closed and that they will be sent to a camp to "think about their behavior." then, nazi soldiers enter and force the professors onto trucks. later, the wife of one learns that he has died.

near the end of the film, a student enrolls in university but is told that he has to delete that his father was killed by the soviets from his resume. he refuses to do that, goes outside and tears a communist poster from a post, and is later killed by soviet (i think) soldiers.

be forewarned: the last five minutes or so of the movie are really graphic. i had to look away.

now i am interested in learning more about poland.

seattle international film festival

it looks like there are some really interesting films this year. here's a few i bought tickets for already:

the five senses
This ingenious drama examines the ways in which seemingly unconnected lives run parallel to each other and even intersect. A little girl disappears in the park, forcing the tenants of a nearby apartment building into contact with one another. The story follows five of these neighbors, each of whom struggles with issues related to each of the five senses.
mainly because mary-louise parker, who i love, is in it. and it sounds sort of lost-esque, which is interesting.

strangers
Montagues and Capulets, meet Eyal and Rana. When an Israeli man and a Palestinian woman fall in love during the 2006 World Cup finals in Berlin, star-crossed complications ensue. Strangers offers an intelligent and complex treatment of the relationship between politics and personalities, and between realism and hope.
okay, this is because glen and marketa sing a song in this film. i admit it. but it sounds really good too.

katyn
Poland's master filmmaker Andrzej Wajda vividly and movingly dramatizes one of the last major World War II crimes to be acknowledged–the mass execution of Poland's military and intellectual elite. For 50 years, the story has been taboo after a cover-up in which the occupying Soviet forces tried to convince the world the Nazis were responsible.

seattle film festival

i seriously doubt i'll see anything as good as once (what is it about that movie?) again at siff this year, but i'm still excited about this:

The 34th Seattle International Film Festival
May 22 - June 15, 2008
The Largest Film Festival in the U.S. Kicks Off With Battle in Seattle
Bottle ShockHighlights Closing Night Gala
418 Films in 25 Days, With 101 Premieres and More Than 600 Screenings


Seattle, WA - SIFF is proud to announce the 34th Seattle International Film Festival, the largest and most highly attended event of its kind in the United States. Running a full 25 days, SIFF will present 191 narrative features, 57 documentary features, and 170 short films from 69 countries, including 43 World Premieres (16 features, 27 shorts), 38 North American Premieres (19 features, 19 shorts), and 19 US Premieres (10 features, 9 shorts). SIFF 2008 will unspool from May 22 through June 15 at multiple venues throughout the city. The full schedule will be available in The Seattle Timesand online May 8 at www.siff.net.

"This year's SIFF is fiercely independent with wide-ranging opportunities for people to explore new ways to look at the world through cinema," says SIFF Artistic director Carl Spence. "Seventy percent of the films in the program are currently without US distribution, offering an array of options for new discoveries and extraordinary film experiences. It is also of note that almost half of the features in the program are from first or second time directors."

The Festival gets underway Thursday, May 22 at Seattle Center's Marion Oliver McCaw Hall with the Opening Night Gala presentation of Battle in Seattle, a gripping dramatization of events that rocked the world when Seattle was host to the World Trade Organization.