Films & Schedules - Sunday, February 27, 2011

Lightly blending quirky comedy and gentle naturalism, Waititi’s heart-tugging story explores the elusive moment when a boy starts to make the choices that determine the man he will become. Inspired by Waititi’s Oscar-nominated short, Two Cars, One Night (PIFF 31), this coming-of-age tale is set in 1984. “Michael Jackson is king—even in Waihau Bay, New Zealand. Here we meet Boy, an 11-year-old who lives on a farm with his gran, a goat, and his younger brother, Rocky (who thinks he has magic powers). Shortly after Gran leaves for a week, Boy’s father, Alamein (Waititi), appears out of the blue. Having...

Lightly blending quirky comedy and gentle naturalism, Waititi’s heart-tugging story explores the elusive moment when a boy starts to make the choices that determine the man he will become. Inspired by Waititi’s Oscar-nominated short, Two Cars, One Night (PIFF 31), this coming-of-age tale is set in 1984. “Michael Jackson is king—even in Waihau Bay, New Zealand. Here we meet Boy, an 11-year-old who lives on a farm with his gran, a goat, and his younger brother, Rocky (who thinks he has magic powers). Shortly after Gran leaves for a week, Boy’s father, Alamein (Waititi), appears out of the blue. Having imagined a heroic version of his father during his absence, Boy comes face-to-face with the real version—an incompetent hoodlum who has returned to find a bag of money he buried years before. This is where the goat enters.”–Sundance Film Festival. (87 mins.)

Selected Filmography: Eagle vs. Shark (07).

Sponsored by KINK.fm.

FILM REVIEW

Interests: Narrative Feature, Global Classroom, Family Fare, Comedy.

Men in general, and especially Finnish men, are notorious for keeping their feelings bottled up. But in the almost dreamlike environment of a steam-filled sauna, Finnish men’s deepest feelings about life, love, and family are easily liberated. Steam of Life allows the viewer to become a fly on the wall as it listens in on (naked) men talking to each other and sharing like girls in the sanctuary of the country’s ubiquitous saunas. From the rusted interior of an old converted camper to beautifully appointed wooden steam rooms and even a roadside phone booth fashioned into an impromptu hotbox, the...

Men in general, and especially Finnish men, are notorious for keeping their feelings bottled up. But in the almost dreamlike environment of a steam-filled sauna, Finnish men’s deepest feelings about life, love, and family are easily liberated. Steam of Life allows the viewer to become a fly on the wall as it listens in on (naked) men talking to each other and sharing like girls in the sanctuary of the country’s ubiquitous saunas. From the rusted interior of an old converted camper to beautifully appointed wooden steam rooms and even a roadside phone booth fashioned into an impromptu hotbox, the stories ring with profoundly universal truth. “The Finnish sauna documentary had a reputation for being a tear-jerker. I didn’t believe it until I went to see it myself, and all the men in the cinema were in tears.”—BBC. (81 mins.)

Selected Filmography: Freedom To Serve (04).

This year’s Finnish submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.

Sponsored by the Finlandia Foundation, Columbia-Pacific Chapter, and the Scandinavian Heritage Foundation.

FILM REVIEW

DIGITAL    

Interests: Oscar Submissions, Documentary Views.

Winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, Kaplanoglu’s film orbits around the fragile early childhood of the autobiographical central character, Yusuf, and his relationship with his father. Seen through the child’s eyes, the father—a wild-honey collector living in an isolated mountain region—is an adored presence who helps unlock the secrets of the forest. Yusuf’s dreamy, interior world is threatened by the reality of school (he suddenly develops a stutter) and his father’s dangerous work. Soulful and visually ravishing, this lyrical film is imbued with a hazy timelessness that slowly unravels along with the boy’s cocooned way of life....

Winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, Kaplanoglu’s film orbits around the fragile early childhood of the autobiographical central character, Yusuf, and his relationship with his father. Seen through the child’s eyes, the father—a wild-honey collector living in an isolated mountain region—is an adored presence who helps unlock the secrets of the forest. Yusuf’s dreamy, interior world is threatened by the reality of school (he suddenly develops a stutter) and his father’s dangerous work. Soulful and visually ravishing, this lyrical film is imbued with a hazy timelessness that slowly unravels along with the boy’s cocooned way of life. “A beautiful meditation on familial love and the mysteries of nature.”—Hollywood Reporter. (103 mins.)

Selected Filmography: Angel’s Fall (05), Egg (07), Milk (08).

Sponsored by Southpark Restaurant.

FILM REVIEW

DIGITAL    

Interests: Narrative Feature.