Smaller films caught my eye today.

NINE SONGS

He thinks about her skin and her taste as he makes his way over the Antarctic. The cold weather and barren landscape mimic the lonely places of his heart.

NINE SONGS is a short feature from Michael Wintersbottom that plays effectively with dirty looking digital video and unique narrative style. The story is essentially one note: Lisa (Margot Stilley) and her boyfriend Matt (Kieran O'Brien) have sex and go to concerts in London. The graphic (I mean very explicit sex scenes) are broken up by live concert footage including bands Primal Scream, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and Franz Ferdinand. The result in engaging but with only limited audience appeal. This film will unlikely appear in middle American theaters and given its short length and sexual content will likely have the same problems being seen experienced by THE BROWN BUNNY.

What I liked about NINE SONGS is that the script gives us a very good look at the one place only hinted about in other dramatic features concerning young love: the bedroom. We've seen hundreds of films about the development of young love that only devotes one or possibly two R rated scenes to sex between the two attractive lovers. Often time is spent where the lovers talk artificially outside the bedroom. Both before and after sex the most intimate things are discussed, even if those things are so intensely personal that they have meaning only to those participating in the act. Winterbottom certainly understands this and his NINE SONGS is intimate and real.

A WHALE OF A TALE

This documentary starts with a bone found in Toronto in 1988 and searches for its origin taking us on a fascinating journey. One person interviewed observes that, "a Bone is all that's left; there is not much of mammal that's left" after the years have their way with the creature.

Director/Writer Peter Lynch starts by telling us that he was working on a narrative feature when he began research on a mysterious whale bone found during street excavation in Toronto. He was always interested in archeology as a child and decided to capture his research on film then realizing the potential for a documentary.

Lynch introduces us to bone collectors and scientists and side show performers. We learn how great whales were hunted and displayed throughout the country in years passed as a circus attraction. The bone collectors are a varied lot, some with extensive education and others with just a keen interest in the largest thing in the sea. One collector's wife is said to have purchased the skeleton of a whale for her husband as an anniversary present.

Lynch's search for answers reveals the limitations of traditional scientific methods of dating and the oddness of those who devote much of their lives to the study of old bones. The collections are so amazing, however, that you must admire them. And WHALE OF A TALE never loses audience interest as we work with Lynch to decipher the bone riddle.

ON THE OUTS

We have seen this film before: inner-city youths using and selling drugs and paying the price for it. ON THE OUTS starts familiar and builds interest as its three subjects trip through mistake.

Co-Directors Lori Silverbush and Michael Skolnik give us a gritty look at youth in the poor part of a big city, the story focuses on three young women: Suzette (Anny Mariano), the youngest whose mother is strict and intelligent; Marisol (Paola Mendoza) a junkie single mother who lives with her ailing aunt; and Oz (Judy Marte) a tough as nails drug dealer or pusher whose own mother is a user and whose brother is mentally retarded.

OUT THE OUTS is methodical is its approach to the story-line which we've seen in one manner or another before (none, perhaps, as realistic as Luben Omaski's little seen RAW NON-FICTION). OUTS is very well acted with a standout performance by Judy Marte. The frustration of the characters who seem trapped by their own environment and their ignorance of the system that disciplines them is felt by the audience.

MOOLAADE

So far, my favorite film of the festival, MOOLAADE rarely missteps in its story of civil disobedience by women in a small village in Africa. Writer/Director Ousmane Sembene it seems has captured real events surrounding the perils of female circumcision. His cast is peerless.

MOOLAADE we learn means protection or asylum. Early in the film, four young girls come to see Collé (Fatoumata Coulibaly) seeking her protection from the group of women seeking to cut them in some sort of female circumcision ritual. Collé agrees to grant the girls protection and publicly declares Moolaade. It is a civilized and peaceful form of civil disobedience at first in which Collé stretches a colored rope around the foot of the entryway to her home daring anyone to cross. The fact that the women performing the circumcisions of small children do not cross the line early and attempt to negotiate is intriguing. This is a side of Africa we have rarely seen.

In time, Collé's husband returns and he demands that she end the Moolaade. His struggle with his wife (he has three) and his other wives is moving. There is also a believable subplot in which the King's son (it is a small village run by a king of sorts) returns from being educated in France and desires to marry Collé's daughter who has not been circumcised. Ousmane Sembene sets his cast of characters in a tiny village that in the past converted to Islam and has some misconceptions of what that means; one group feels that female circumcision is required by Allah and others are not so sure. Technology plays a role is bursting many misconceptions and the scenes in which the women listen to the radio is a testament to the power of technology (this was also true is another Africa film I saw earlier in the festival, HOTEL RWANDA).

Aside from the amazing cast, there is a scene of intensity involving Collé's disobedience that may bring you to tears.

WAVELENGTHS SHORTS PROGRAM 3

This collection of three silent short film experimenting with film and visual approaches is a nice change from the typical festival fare. After seeing the first program, I managed to catch the third at a public screening. The two longer pieces were the most entertaining but Lynn Marie Kirby's GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE: POISED FOR PARABOLAS is perhaps the most stimulating because of the technique employed in its creation.

The third program included GOLD GATE BRIDGE from Kirby; BOUQUETS 26-27 a 3 minute short from Rose Lowder; SKAGAFJORDUR a 33 minute landscape experience from Peter Hutton; and the classic LINE DEVIDING A CONE a 30 minute black and white piece from filmmaker Anthony McCall.

GOLDEN GATE was created by exposing 16mm film to light without the use of a camera. The result is the spilling over the frame of the image. Filmmaker Kirby then converted the film to video which in a sense re-instills a sense of frame to the film. We get a series of colorful images and video artifacts that is fine to observe in the 5 minute running time.

BOUQUETS 26-27 is two short films shot in Southern France displaying flowering fields that pass quickly in front of the camera. BOUQUETS is brilliantly colorful.

SKAGAFJORDUR is a unique landscape experience shot in Northern Iceland. I likened it (without cheapening it) to slides that have come to life. The filmmaker Peter Hutton traveled to the beautiful Icelandic countryside and set up his camera to capture the incredible vistas. His camera does not move in its wide angle shot of a mountain, a sunset (or sunrise), the mist on a valley or an island, and others. Purely a sight for the eyes, Hutton's intention is clearly to encourage us to gaze and gaze. It's a chance to visit a place without traveling there physically.

Filmmaker Hutton spoke to the audience and told us that something happens atmospherically in Iceland at high elevation that is mysterious and cinematic. The landscapes are so extraordinary in Iceland, according to Hutton, that a camera is unnecessary to feel like you are in a movie. He told us an Icelandic story about perspective that involved a Viking ship captain manipulating his sails to appear to be heading in another direction. This perspective enabled the ship to escape. Hutton has given us some really stunning perspectives with SKAGAFJORDUR.

LINE DESCRIBING A CONE required the audience to leave the theater and travel to another building. In a large room filled with artificial smoke (through the use of a haze machine), we were greeted by a film projector that started by projecting a tiny beam of light and slowly over 30 minutes expanding that beam into a line and then into a circle. With the aid of the artificial smoke, the circle becomes a bright cone of what was called "solid light." The audience was amazed and was encouraged to stand in the center of the projected cone and even play with the various strands of seeming solid light images. This interactive experience was unique and memorable.

Tomorrow look for interviews with Christophe Barratier the writer and director an excellent film called LES CHORISTES. In addition, I will interview Emily Mortimer about her film DEAR FRANKIE.

For more information about the Festival visit the festival website: http://www.e.bell.ca/filmfest/2004/default.asp

Jonathan W. Hickman