The live and in-person Cinequest winds up today. Here are the films in the program that I hadn’t posted about yet:
- Dead Man’s Switch: In this atmospheric Spanish film, a woman’s husband disappears into thin air, and she goes searching for him. Exceptional black and white cinematography accentuates the crescendo of dread we feel for her as she strides alone down dark streets, into uncaring bureaucracies and into the bowels of the subway (she is a subway driver). Will she find out what has happened to him – and will it be even worse for her if she finds out? Not sure that the payoff is worth the 107 minutes of unrelenting gloom. World premiere.
- Fanti: A young woman is obsessed with building her social media presence and feels entitled to a movie acting career; she hasn’t actually done anything to prepare for any career other than being famous for being famous – despite having a mother who has actually worked as a screen actor. When she catches a break and starts climbing into the world of an ingenue, it seems that someone is stalking her on-line. The strength of Fanti is the insider peek into the Vietnamese movie industry. Its weakness is that it’s hard to care about the main character. Winner of Best First Feature Film at the 2023 Vietnam Film Festival. US premiere at Cinequest.
- Three Brothers: The best two things about this Argentine drama are that it brings us to an unfamiliar place – the rugged mountains of Patagonia – and photographs it exquisitely, The titular thirty-something brothers have inherited a saw mill on a large tract of land, and they face the global warming consequences of wildfires and flooding. But Three Brothers is really about their unresolved childhood issues and the challenges each faces to his sense of manhood (and one’s challenge to his anatomical manhood). None of them can communicate with the others about feelings, and they all have a fairly bestial view of women (except their sainted mother). There’s a spectacular flood scene at the climax, but, by then, the audience is tired of these unpleasant and unrelatable guys.
- Eden: This documentary introduces us to a couple who has worked tirelessly for forty years to build a failed winery into a renowned producer of fine wines (Mount Eden Vineyards in Saratoga). It’s time for them to retire, but one adult kid may not have the aptitude to take over and the other may not have the interest. It’s a visually beautiful and dreamy film, romantic about winemaking. I personally thought it was 20-30 minutes too long for the content, and too reverential about the family. World premiere.
Selected films from the program move to Cinequest’s virtual platform, Cinejoy from March 21-31.