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If the emergent theme of Day 1 of the 28th annual Vancouver International Film Festival was magical realism, nature and the quest for spiritual transcendence, the operating theme of Day 2 of our glorious, west coast Festival-by-the sea was a decidedly more proactive, celebratory and hard won “running, not ambling, towards an uncertain, but hopeful future.”
First up on a chill autumn Friday afternoon …
La Pivellina (Grade: A): One of VanRamblings’ four favourite films thus far in the Festival, La Pivellina proves to be an absolutely captivating, and utterly original, cinéma-vérité exploration of a tight-knit circus family who come to care for a 2-year-old infant girl who has been left abandoned in a virtually desolate inner-city park. Humane, transcendent in its authenticity it is, throughout, the wondrous “performance” of the film’s central “star” — 2 year old Aia (Asia Crippa) — the ‘la pivellina‘ (the little squirt) of the film’s title, that will render almost any audience, and particularly those who have raised children, to surrender helplessly and in grateful servitude to this at all times magnificent Italian-Austrian co-production. See La Pivellina next Friday, Oct. 9 @ 4 pm, Ridge, or Monday, Oct. 12 @ 9:15 pm, Gran7, Th3, cuz, with no distributor in place, this is one of the 80% of films playing at our glorious Fest that ain’t ever gonna be coming back to Vancouver.
As VanRamblings has said to many (and much to their consternation, we believe) it is the duty of every film critic to fall in love with the actors on screen. This happened early last year with a screening of the Taiwanese short, The End of the Tunnel, when we fell head-over-heels in love with Sandrine Pinna, for us the breakout Asian actress of the decade. And, thus it was that we found ourselves, early on Friday evening, at a screening of …
Yang Yang (Grade: A-): Essentially, an exercise in style, but even more a magnificent showcase for the beautiful and wondrously transporting Sandrine Pinna, the sophomore feature of Taiwanese writer-director Cheng Yu-chieh (Do Over), Yang Yang, with its darkly brooding trance score (which promises cinema-off-the-rails, but doesn’t deliver) is nonetheless an absolutely captivating, melancholic exploration of the life of teenager Yang Yang, the central character, who despite her beauty, humanity and humility, cannot find anything approximating love. Only the running scene at film’s end promises the hope of personal independence and acceptance, and the emerging notion that we must love ourselves first before we may be open to the love of those around us. Trite maybe, but utterly true and transformative. A certain Dragons & Tigers awards candidate, Yang Yang plays once more, next Tuesday, October 6 @ 1:30 pm, Gran7, Theatre 7.
And, finally, to bring Day 2 of the Festival to a close …
The Maid (Grade: A-): Winner of the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize (drama), and a Special Jury Prize for star Catalina Saavedra, at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Chile’s The Maid grips the viewer from the outset, as director Sebastián Silva takes us on a relentless, slow moving roller coaster ride, deep inside the bruised psyche of the film’s central character, the bitter, passive aggressive Raquel, the “maid” of the title, and a wondrous, if sometimes unhinged, character on screen. Again, it is Raquel’s late night run through the streets of Santiago that promises the long sought salvation previously elusive to the film’s woebegone title character. Plays once more, this coming Sunday, October 4th @ 4 pm, Ridge Theatre.
