With an abundance of high-profile premieres and buzz films to see, there's always the danger that in going to a festival you miss out on the diversity of the programming. The Edinburgh International Film Festival has always provided a range of delights for cineastes, and this year is no exception. There is a focus on authors and screenwriting at EIFF '07, including a retrospective of films written by the inimitable
Anita Loos. Though probably most famous for her involvement with
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and
The Women (which is currently being remade), Loos also contributed intertitles to
D.W. Griffith's seminal
Intolerance, which screened today.
Seeing Griffith's classic was a rare treat, especially given that it was the original roadshow version of the film, now reconstructed, with live piano accompaniment. Though
Intolerance has inevitably aged somewhat in the 91 years since it was first released, it still packs an incredible punch. Griffith tells tales of, yes, intolerance in four stories across the ages: the destruction of Babylon, Jesus Christ's crucifixion, the massacring of the Huguenots, and a contemporary story of misguided reformists. Though it is impossible not to comment on the scale of Griffith's film - the huge, extravagant sets, the thousands of extras, the huge historical sweep, and the epic three-hour running time - what is most fascinating to filmwatchers today is the magnificent modernity of Griffith's editing. Rather than tell the four stories in sequence, he tells them all simultaneously, letting thematically similar moments sit side by side. Because audiences at the time were less sophisticated, the parallels are often stressed rather heavyhandedly in the intertitles (with the word "intolerance" appearing all too often), yet as the film progresses the integration of the story strands becomes seamless. As the film reaches its climax, the two main stories - the modern reform story, and the fall of Babylon - sometimes combine to become one. At one point we see a train thundering down the track, carrying the hero's stay of execution, as a sea of Persians descends on Babylon, intent on destroying the city. Juxtaposing good and ill, Griffith unites the two images, two unstoppable waves, and it's magic to watch.
Canadian director
Catherine Martin's
in the cities is the kind of film you stumble across at film festivals, are transfixed by, but usually never get to see again due to the current state of distribution. But the reason film buyers aren't turned on by films like Martin's is exactly the same reason it is so powerful and compelling: it is understated, original, and refuses to sugarcoat its message.
Martin essentially eschews a conventional narrative approach, instead choosing to organically move from one small incident to another, with the emotions slowly building one on top of the other rather than the usual progression from plotpoint to plotpoint. The four characters, a tree surgeon (
Hélène Florent), a blind man whose hobby is photography (
Robert Lepage), a depressed bookstore clerk (
Ève Duranceau) and a unmarried old woman (
Hélène Loiselle), all live lives of quiet desperation, failing to truly connect with anybody. In the course of the film their paths cross, yet rather than them being able to meaningfully help each other, their contact seldom makes anything but a fleeting impact.
Though the characters are depressed, the film itself is not depressing. Shot with restrained beauty, its images and emotions are transfixing. Martin has previously made documentaries, and there is an intimacy and an ability to capture the humanity in small moments that has carried over into her fiction filmmaking. The performances from the actors are so heartfelt and unmannered that we never feel as if there is a scrap of artifice to what they are doing.
in the cities is symphonic, transformative and ultimately deeply moving; though a poetic and innovative approach to cinema may not be thriving in the mainstream, Martin's film gives us hope of its survival.
# posted by Nick Dawson @ 8/16/2007 11:06:00 AM
Comments (0)
