![\"D](\"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/D-and-T-awards-5001.jpg\" "\\"D")
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Paparazzi swarm over the nominees for the Dragons and Tigers Award at the Vancouver International Film Festival.<\/em><\/p>\n Kristin here:<\/p>\n Some final films from VIFF<\/strong><\/p>\n So far Central American countries have produced fewer films than their neighbors to the north and south. So I couldn\u2019t pass up The Wind and the Water<\/em><\/a>, the first fiction feature made in Panama. Made by a collective of fifteen young indigenous people from the Kuna Yala archipelego under the leadership of MIT graduate and first-time director Vero Bollow, it\u2019s a tale of threats to the paradisiacal island by developers who want to build a giant hotel there. It also reflects temptations for young people to desert their traditional lives on the islands for the attractions of nearby Panama City.<\/p>\n The contrast between the islands emerges through a simple tale. Machi, a young man from the islands, goes to the city for schooling and finds it grim and threatening. Rosy, a transplanted native who grew up there, aspires to be a model.<\/p>\n She returns to the islands for her grandfather\u2019s funeral. Confronted with crude latrines and fish-head stews, she is initially miserable but gradually falls under the spell of the area\u2019s beauty. Meanwhile her father works for the group planning to move the islands\u2019 population to a new suburb and build their resort.<\/p>\n The plot is based loosely on that population\u2019s vigorous efforts\u2014successful so far\u2014to fend off efforts of outsiders to gain control of the islands. I was reminded while watching it of the many classic documentaries of the 1930s and 1940s, like Song of Ceylon<\/em>, shot by Americans and Europeans in exotic locales. For decades film scholars deplored the fact that the people who formed the subjects of such films were being portrayed by outsiders. The Wind and the Water<\/em>, though a fiction film, has a strongly documentary thread running through it, but this time it is the local population making a film about their own situation.<\/p>\n In some ways, Ozcan Alper\u2019s debut feature, Autumn<\/em>, is a classic art-house film. Yusuf, a student radical, is released after ten years in prison because he has a fatal lung disease. He returns to his home. He returns to his rural home in the eastern Turkish mountains and settles in with his widowed mother, keeping his illness secret. He tutors a local boy in math and perhaps falls in love with a melancholy prostitute struggling to support her child.<\/p>\n Many of the scenes consist of the hero lying or sitting in the yard, contemplating the surrounding mountains as autumn slowly changes them. David found the lack of dramatic action and the slow pace of the scenes to be overly familiar conventions of art cinema. No doubt the hero\u2019s goals are de-dramatized, as when he promises a bicycle to the student should he succeed in mother or when very late in the film he decides to help the prostitute. There is one central motif that becomes overly emphatic. When Yusuf first notices the prostitute, she is buying a Russian novel; they simultaneously sit alone watching the same broadcast of Uncle Vanya<\/em>; eventually she tells Yusuf that he\u2019s like a character out of Russian literature. The film\u2019s tone successfully suggests this comparison without our needing to have it made explicit.<\/p>\n To me, the success of the film arises from the director\u2019s integration of the landscape into the story. The prominence of the rugged landscape and the care with which the story is linked to the fall of leaves and the creeping of snow down the mountainsides lifts this above standard art-house fare. In this case, the fading of the year, beautifully brought into a central role by the cinematography, becomes linked more subtly to the hero\u2019s plight.<\/p>\n Kill Daddy Goodnight<\/em>, an Austrian film by veteran director Michael Glawogger, starts with a promising premise. The protagonist Ratz hates his father, a cold and critical government minister, and creates a videogame, \u201cKill Daddy Goodnight,\u201d to wreak a fantasy revenge. Summoned by Mimi, a friend with whom he may or may not be in love, he abruptly flies to New York. She wants him to renovate the basement hideaway of her grandfather, a fugitive Nazi war criminal. Initially revolted, over the course of his work he comes to like the old man. Ratz also manages to find a sleazy internet entrepreneur willing to offer \u201cKill Daddy Goodnight\u201d on his website, where it becomes an immediate success. Interspersed with this plot are scenes of an unidentified man (below) recording testimony against and visiting his childhood friend, who had worked for the Nazis during the war and killed his father.<\/p>\n So far, so good. But the film\u2019s already complex plot is overburdened by strong hints of Ratz\u2019s incestuous desire for his sister, a thread that comes to little. Mimi\u2019s motivations are confusing, and it\u2019s hard to sympathize with any of the characters. Perhaps that was the intention, but my sense was that the two intriguing plotlines, which could have fit neatly together, were diffused by distractions and uncertainties.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t get to many documentaries, but being a lover of Vivaldi\u2019s vocal music, I had to see Argippo Resurrected<\/em>. It\u2019s the fascinating tale of how Czech conductor and musicologist Ondrej Macek ingeniously tracked down the lost 1730 opera, which had originally been composed for Prague. He then staged the piece in one of the two perfectly preserved court theaters of the era, the Castle Theatre at Cesky Krumlov, two hours outside of Prague, near the Austrian border.<\/p>\n The other is at Drottningholm, outside Stockholm, where in 1999 David and I had the privilege of seeing The Garden<\/em>, a new opera about Linnaeus. (It was the first premiere at the theater since it was sealed in the 18th century.) The original candles have prudently been replaced by electric replicas of one candlepower each, flickering realistically. The Cesky Krumlov theater still uses real candles to light both the stage and the musicians\u2019 stands. I guess this says something about fire codes in Eastern Europe. I for one would be happy to risk it in order to have a thoroughly authentic experience, especially if a Vivaldi opera was playing.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a complicated story to fit into 62 minutes. Director Dan Krames took a clever and effective approach, starting backwards. He shows the theater first, with its wooden framework, sets, and stage machinery. He then goes on to introduce some of the musicians and singers, in the process explaining the concept of authentic performance style to those who may not be familiar with it. We also get to see some short excerpts from rehearsals, so that we come to know the opera a little. Only then does Krames proceed to the tale of Macek\u2019s search for the original manuscript and his laborious piecing-together of the individual arias. Macek makes an engaging subject, though he is so self-deprecating about his discovery that the film has to include another musicologist to explain just how extraordinary the accomplishment was.<\/p>\n Finally Macek takes us on a tour of Venice, showing the few surviving places associated with Vivaldi, whose life is little documented. Along the way, there are further excerpts from rehearsal for the production shown, featuring a collection of excellent singers. Krames told me that Argippo Resurrected<\/em> should be released on DVD in about a year. In the meantime, a live recording of Macek\u2019s production is available as a 2-CD set<\/a>.<\/p>\n Some final photos<\/strong><\/p>\n Film festivals aren\u2019t just for watching movies, of course. They\u2019re for seeing old friends, meeting new ones, and sharing meals\u2014including the festival’s wonderful hand-made waffles\u2014to talk about what we\u2019ve seen. As usual, David had his camera in hand nearly all the time, as the accompanying images show.<\/p>\n Theresa Ho, Eunhee Cha, and Tony Rayns: Three key players in the Vancouver Festival.<\/em><\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/The-Wind-and-the-Water-2.jpg\" "\\"The")
<\/p>\n![\"Vero](\"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Vero-1501.jpg\" "\\"Vero")
Bollow (right), who initially left MIT to live in Panama and bring digital technology to indigenous people, wrote the script along with the fifteen team members. She attended Vancouver and answered questions, but members of the team will be traveling with the film to other festivals.<\/p>\n![\"Autumn](\"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Autumn-2.jpg\" "\\"Autumn")
<\/p>\n![\"Kill](\"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Kill-Daddy-Goodnight.jpg\" "\\"Kill")
<\/p>\n![\"argippo](\"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/argippo-resurrected.jpg\" "\\"argippo")
<\/p>\n![\"Theresa](\"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Theresa-Eunhee-and-Tony-400.jpg\" "\\"Theresa")
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![\"Chong](\"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Chong-200.jpg\" "\\"Chong")
![\"Liu](\"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Liu-208.jpg\" "\\"Liu")
<\/em><\/p>\n![\"Bob](\"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Bob-Davis-cu-220.jpg\" "\\"Bob")
![\"Noel](\"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Noel-2001.jpg\" "\\"Noel")
<\/em><\/p>\n![\"Lisa](\"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Lisa-Shelly-Peter-4001.jpg\" "\\"Lisa")
<\/p>\n![\"Japadog](\"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Japadog-5001.jpg\" "\\"Japadog")
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