Day 1: Bothersome Barley

And... we're off. Not without some complications, of course. Hope this doesnt serve as an omen for the rest of the festival. The Wind That Shakes The Barley was oh.. 10 minutes late in starting. Heck, it was like, 5 to 6pm before the the line started moving.

Completely inexcusable. Its not like there was a film in the Ryerson beforehand, preventing an early entrance. For the first film of the fest, there's no reason why everyone shouldnt be in their seats, 5 minutes before the posted start.

Bothersome Man was even worse. After 3 different people told me 4 different things about which line to stand in, I finally got into the theatre. Where I found out from my seatmate that there was going to be a 45 minute delay due to 'technical difficulties'. Uh. yeah. nice.

I suspect that the print had a roundabout trip to the Varsity.

*sigh*

Lets hope that thats the last of the... issues.

The Wind That Shakes The Barley

Ken Loach's latest film, which happened to win the Palme D'Or at Cannes this year. Not quite sure why - neither Paula or I think that this was anywhere near his best work.

Set in Ireland during the Troubles (1920's version), the film follows 2 brothers as they fight first, for independance from the British, and then against each other - one remains a firm republican, and the other becomes part of the Irish Free State

The film itself is much ... darker than Loach's previous body of work. Even granting that his subject matter isnt always the most chipper (yorkshiremen tossed out of work by british rail, anyone?), there's always a certain amount of upbeat tempo or levity. Not so here, given the lighting and the score, the mood is relentlessly down.

I couldnt really shake the feeling that there was a much better movie trying to get out. Not really character-driven (there's an obvious story arc), the film seems to lurch along, with excellent scenes leavened with long stretches of mediocrity. The female lead was a complete non-entity, while every single scene with a British soldier involved 110dB shouting. Meh.

The theatre didnt help things much. Combine the Ryerson's famous muddy sound-system with thick Irish accents... Well. I could have sworn that the first 5 minutes were in Gaelic. Booming *and* clipping. yay.

Dont get me wrong. It wasnt bad - I did enjoy it. It just could have been much better.

The Bothersome Man

At the risk of making too broad of a generalization, there are certain stereotypes about country's cinemagraphic efforts: Seen any non-kung-fu Chinese movies? Italian movies that didnt have a odd musical interlude? Romanian movies with half-drunk foley artists?

In the case of Scandinavia, they seem to have a lock on the dour absurdist pseudo-comedy. Bothersome Man is no different. Its just plain.. odd. The protagonist spends the vast majority of the film with this dopey dazed-and-confused look on his face, maintaining it even during multiple bouts of coitus. Y'know. Sex. The physical act of love.

He spends the movie in a city whose's inhabitants display a disturbing lack of affect - like an entire colony of Aspergers patients. Everyone seems to be massively unfazed by pretty much anything - a body impaled on a wrought-iron fence attracts the desultory attention of a single guy.

I found it rather enjoyable, tho I'm willing to admit that it wont be everyone's cup of tea. There couldnt have been more than 30-40 lines of dialog in the entire movie.