Dramas shine at Palm Springs festival
February 13th, 2008, 3:16 am Hobbies Ideas
Although it was the documentaries that soared at this year’s chilly Sundance Film Festival, two weeks earlier at the sunny Palm Springs Film Festival, it was the very fine and very varied array of dramatic films from around the world that were most often on people’s lips.
Not that documentaries didn’t play a big part at Southern California’s 12-day January fest as well; there were, in fact, three documentaries in particular that were right up there at the top of almost everyone’s list: “Hollywood Singing and Dancing,” “The Pixar Story” and “Autism: The Musical.”
Watch for “Hollywood Singing and Dancing” when the extended three-hour version is scheduled to play on PBS this coming March. Hosted by Shirley Jones and accompanied by sparkling interviews with such stars as Debbie Reynolds and Liza Minnelli, it follows the Hollywood musical from presound days, through Busby Berkeley’s black-and-white yet kaleidoscopic dance spectacles, through the heyday of “Singin’ in the Rain” and other ’40s and ’50s favorites, right up through Bob Fosse’s “Cabaret,” Rob Miller’s “Chicago” and the recent knockout, “Dreamgirls.”
For once, musical numbers are seen in their entirety, such as Fred Astaire’s breathtaking tap dancing up the wall and across the ceiling and tiny Shirley Temple mimicking her beaming old black partner as they cleverly tap dance up the wooden staircase and back down again. And if you’ve never seen or forgotten the jaw-dropping woodsman in “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” doing modern dance while brandishing a heavy ax, this is just one more thing in “Hollywood Singing and Dancing” that’s definitely not to be missed.
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“The Pixar Story” is a fascinating documentary of how the three-dimensional and highly detailed animation of today began and how it has developed. What fun it is to watch Tom Hanks and Tim Allen at their microphones doing the voices for Woody and Buzz Lightyear.
“Autism: The Musical” is an eye-opener and a guaranteed heart-warmer. It’s uplifting to watch Elaine Hall dedicate her life to helping youngsters with varying types of autism find themselves and learn to cope in the world around them. And when an otherwise awkward and somewhat gooney-acting girl becomes transformed as she maturely, beautifully and flawlessly sings a Joni Mitchell song, you’ll find yourself weeping with joy and wonderment.
And there were other enlightening documentaries such as “Black and White Plus Gray,” chronicling the relationship between photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, promoter Sam Wagstaff and singer/poet Patti Smith; and “As Seen Through Their Eyes,” recording the personal paintings and testimonies of survivors of the Holocaust.
But there were several fictional films at Palm Springs, especially those from Eastern Europe, that packed a wallop as powerful, as immediate and as real as any documentary. Topping my own list were “The Trap” from Serbia, “12″ from Russia, “It’s Hard to Be Nice” from Bosnia, and “A Time to Die” from Poland.
The electrifying film, “The Trap,” concerns a struggling father who, desperate to come up with enough money for a crucial operation for his little boy, is offered the full amount, providing he will kill someone. And “12,” the gripping Russian remake of “Twelve Angry Men” with the famed and multitalented Nikita Mikhalkov (”Burnt by the Sun”) not only directing but also playing the 12th jury member, is an out-and-out masterpiece.
“It’s Hard to Be Nice” also glues you to the screen from beginning to end, as a taxi driver who, after working undercover for a gang of thieves, makes up his mind to change his life for the sake of his wife and baby boy, yet meets one earthshaking obstacle after another. And Poland’s artists of cinema, Dorota Kedzierzawska and Arthur Reinhart, have once again come up with a real gem, the beautifully shot in crisp black-and-white “Time to Die” focusing on the last days of an old woman, superbly played by the 91-year-old actress Danuta Szaflarska. Brilliant filmmaking.
The immensely charming and offbeat “Duska,” by Holland’s very clever and original Jos Stelling, will stay with you for a long time, for it’s not only focused on one of the oddest friendships you’ll ever come across, but no one can do more without dialogue than the ingenious master of Dutch cinema.
And from just a little farther northeast, in Sweden, came another burst of fresh air. The equally clever and extremely inventive Roy Andersson’s “You the Living” proved to be a welcome delight for Palm Springs filmgoers. And for anyone who knows and admires Andersson’s masterful and prize-winning “Songs From the Second Floor,” this latest highly unconventional gem will surely be something you won’t want to miss.
And there were many many more gems from around the world, especially “Getting Home” from China, “Jar City” from Iceland, “XXY” from Argentina, “Short Circuits” from Slovenia, “Eduart” from Greece and Germany, “Conversations with My Gardener” from France, and certainly Estonia’s devastating but amazingly professional and realistic film, “The Class,” inspired by the Columbine tragedy, Belgium’s “Ben X” about an autistic boy whose life is colored and distorted by video games, and Macedonia’s very intriguing and thought-provoking film, “Shadows,” from Milcho Manchevski, the prize-winning director of 1994’s “Before the Rain.”
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