[The Torino Film Festival just wrapped up - naming Tony Manero it's big winner, a choice that both surprises and pleases me to no end - and our very own Paolo Gilli was present throughout. He weighs in now with his take on events.]
The Torino Film Festival (21-29 November), that closed this past weekend, is probably Italy’s finest Festival, always equally divided between the old and the new, American, Asian and European cinema. This year’s edition, the second under the supervision of actor-director and Cannes favourite Nanni Moretti (Ecce Bombo, Caro Diario, Aprile and La Stanza del figlio), had again an impressive line up, including W (Oliver Stone), Let The Right One In (Tomas Alfredson), Somers Town (Shane Meadows), The Escapist (Rupert Wyatt), festival-winner Tony Manero (Pablo Larrain), Die Welle (Dennis Gansel), Made in America (Stacy Peralta), Religulous (Larry Charles), Hunger (Steve McQueen), Dream (Kim Ki-duk), United Red Army (Koji Wakamatsu) and many more.
But Torino wouldn’t be complete without its traditional retrospectives, covering this time the complete filomgraphies of noir-master Jean Pierre Melville and Roman Polanski (including all of his acting roles). Besides those, there was a third retro, titled “British Renaissance”, a list of 36 movies including everything from John MacKenzie’s The Long Good Friday (1980) to Peter Greenway’s Drowning by Numbers (1988). Even Michael Palin dropped by to introduce Monty Python’s Meaning of Life (1983).
For me, the Festival is always the chance to cover entire filmographies on the big screen, and after John Carpenter, George A. Romero, John Milius, William Friedkin, John Landis, Walter Hill, Robert Aldrich and John Cassavetes (which all had beautiful retros the past years), this time I’ve focused my attention on Jean Pierre Melville’s work.
I had already seen all his movies starting with the great Bob le flambeur (1956), but never his first outputs like Le Silence de la mer (1949), Les enfants terribles (1950), Quand tu liras cette lettre (1953), not to mention his first short Ving quatre heures de la vie d’un clown (1945). To tell the truth, I find that these movies haven’t aged too well (the heavy literary influence of Jean Cocteau, which results in an even more heavy use of voiceovers, is pretty dated) even if some of the contents must have been way ahead of its time, when the movies first were released. Francois Truffaut, apparently saw Les enfants terrible about 25 times and cited it as major influence on his 400 Blows (1960) and Le silence de la mer was one of the most beloved movies by the entire Nouvelle Vague movement. But seen today, I can appreciate them mostly for their historic value. That said, it was nice to see them finally.
Melville’s second phase begins with the aforementioned Bob le flambeur and continues with Deux hommes dans Manhattan (1959), a noir that still betrays the influence of american cinema, that would totally disapper later on. In this one, the director himself is a journalist investigating the disappearence of a french Uno-delegate. After that the Melville made three movies in a row with superstar Jean Paul Belmondo, each of one helped to define his unmistakble directing style. The beautiful drama Leon Morin, pretre (1961), the superior noir Le Doulos (1963) and the road-movie L’aine des ferchaux (1963).
After a three year break his classic Le deuxieme souffle (1966) was a point of arrival in the director’s career and from that point on Melville made one masterpiece after the other. Maybe his most famous one is Le Samouraï (1967, as cause of distribution rights issues it couldn’t be screened), which was followed by the dark WW2 Opus L’armee des ombres (1969), the still incredible Le cercle rouge (1970) - that puts together Alain Delon, Gian Maria Volontè and Yves Montand for one of the most memorable heist-sequences in cinematic history - and Un flic (1972), his flawed, but fascinating last work.
If I’m not wrong, most of his work is available on DVD, but seeing these movies on a big screen is alwayts a little bit different. The importance and influence of Melville on the modern action cinema, (especially Hong Kong’s New Wave movement) is still not mentioned enough, but seeing some of the same shots from The Mission (Johnnie To, 1999) in Bob le flambeur, almost 45 years earlier, says more than thousand words. That is also the central point of Sous le nom de Melville, a still-in-progress documentary from Olivier Bohler, which hopefully will soon find its way to DVD.
I have seen only a small part of the recent movies that were screened, but - if you got the choice - I prefer to see The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967) or Chinatown (1974), in a beautiful restored print like God intended it to be seen, than standing in line for some new flick that probably will come out in few months time. But that’s me.
In any case, Turin being the last big festival of the year, many movies have already been screened on previous occasions and have been covered here more then once.
Made in America: Having loved Dogtown and Z-Boys (2001) and Riding Giants (2004), my expectations for Peralta’s new documentary were pretty high. The story focusing on the rise of Gang Culture in Los Angeles, potentially a interesting subject matter, kicks of great but ends somewhere between tv crap like Gangland and Micheal Moore’s most pathetic work. A let-down. Better next time, Stacy.
The Escapist: Twisty Prison movie with Brian Cox, Joseph Fiennes and Liam Cunningham. Nothing really new, but entertaining if you like the genre.
Die Welle: Grewing up in Germany, every kid in school has to read - sooner or later - The Wave (1981) by Todd Strasser (aka Morton Rhue), a novelization of the tv movie of the same name. Based on an essay by Ron Jones, it is a fictionalized account of the Third Wave teaching experiment by Jones himself that took place in a High School in Palo Alto, California in 1967. Back then, I liked the novel and the tv movie quite a bit, but that was 15 years ago.Going in with no expectations, I must say that the new version works pretty good. The story remains unchanged, apart from a slightly different ending that works perfectly well for the post Columbine generation. A movie that should be screened in schools, at least to start a debate.
Religulous: Sure, it’s funny, but religion (every religion) is an easy target. You laugh, but that’s it.
Before closing, let me just say that McQueen’s incredibly tough Hunger (the almost 20 minutes long dialogue scene without cuts is unbelievable) and ScreenAnarchy favourite Let The Right One In (yes, everything positive you read about this movie is the truth and nothing but the truth), should be on everyone's top ten list of 2008.
Last but not least, here are this year’s winners:
Best Movie: Tony Manero directed by Pablo Larraín
Jury Price: Prince of Broadway directed by Sean Baker
Best Actress: Emmanuelle Devos for Non-Dit (Fien Troch)
Best Actor : Alfredo Castro for Tony Manero (Pablo Larraín)
Report by Paolo Gilli