IFFR 2006

Thanks all for the informative posts on FLAMING CREATURES and therecommendations of Flower Island – I will give that one a chance.I'm a little behind in my writing about the festival, but anyway,here's a little report on my experiences of Tuesday:

Death Rode out of Persia (Putyi Horvath, 2005)

This Bela Tarr produced Hungarian film was actually quite a lovelyfilm. It deals with a writer who struggles with the memories of hisgirlfriend. There seemed to be no influence by Tarr other than hisproduction, because stylistically this film is quite a bit differentthan Tarr's own films: it uses very nice monochrome color patterns,given each scene a distinctive look and several scenes werebeautifully edited. Performances were OK, although the script tendedto meander sometimes. Not a film to rave about, but sure a nice way to start the day.

Alchemical Dreams (various)

This one was a part of the White Light program, a program which hasdrugs as its central theme. The program promised me a visualizationof the drugs experience, so I thought this could be nice. It wasn't. There were several experimental short films, all of them mediocre atbest. The first film Color Writing me Out (Christelle Gualdi) was not so bad at all, but things rapidly became worse when a slew of films by Canadian filmmaker John Price appeared on the screen. At first, I gave him the benefit of the doubt, but soon I realized these films went nowhere. The promised experience was nowhere to be found, it were just several totally interesting films without any vision or creativity. After a while I really became annoyed by the lack of quality of these films and I realized again what a fine line there is in avant-garde cinema: when it works it's bliss, but whenit doesn't work it is pretentious and often downright silly. Horrible.

Jack Smith & The Destruction of Atlantis (Mary Jordan, 2006)

This documentary about Jack Smith was supposed to have its worldpremiere in Rotterdam, but filmmaker Mary Jordan announced it wasnow presented as a work in progress, because she wants to include footage of Smith's photography, which wasn't ready in time for Rotterdam. Nevertheless, this is a fine documentary. Several clips from Smith's work, as well as plenty of archival footage are combined with interviews with people who had something to do with Smith in their lives (such as Jonas Mekas, Tony Conrad, Ken Jacobs, Gary Indiana, Andrew Sarris, John Waters, to name but a few). It paints a very vivid picture of the genius Smith was, although there are of course several aspects of this multi-faceted man left out, because Jordan has chosen to focus on particular aspects instead. I found her choice of music particularly inspired, with several selections from my favorite composer John Zorn. What was a bit odd however, was that all the interviewees were referred to by their profession (actor, filmmaker, writer etc.) instead of their exact relation with Smith, so it wasn't always clear in what way they have been involved with him (for example, I didn't know Tony Conrad had been Smith's roommate, if it hadn't been mentioned here). But overall I think this film gives a pretty good overview of the phenomenon Jack Smith, something that I needed badly, because I only know this and that about him, missing the larger picture. Now I realize even more what a silly comment that was about a better print of FLAMING CREATURES…

Marie Menken Go! Go! Go! (Menken, various)

This hour long screening of some shorts by Marie Menken was my first experience with her work and certainly a positive one. I really can't say anything of her style or way of filmmaking because the films here were so eclectic that I couldn't make out any connection between the works. I was very disappointed I couldn't attend the documentary about Menken, Notes on Marie Menken, (if only because it features a soundtrack by John Zorn) which was shown after this film, because I would have loved to learn more about this artist and to be able to give these films some kind of context. But these films certainly peaked my interest. Reports from Wednesday and Thursday will follow soon, I hope.