Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

Our adventures with the Philadelphia Film Festival continued on Sunday with a noon showing of Family Funimation at The Prince. This was a collection of family friendly animated fare, and it did attract a larger percentage of families than other showings, though not as many children as might be expected.

"The Magic Lion" by Charles Githinji told the story of an African boy journeying to get some medicine for his ailing grandfather. The animation was very crude and looked as if it was done on computer. The story, however, was engaging.

"The Twelve Months" by Jonathan Nix was traditional animation, illustrating a Russian folk tale about a girl who meets a giant in the mountains who helps her meet the unrealistic demands of her abusive mother and sister. That was beautifully done. The same animator also did one called "Hello," which tells the story of a boy with a tape player for a head trying to get up the nerve to ask out a girl with a digital stereo system for a head. He can only talk to her by inserting cassettes that say what he wants, so he seeks advice from a wise old woman with a phonograph for a head, who finds the perfect song that says everything he'd like to say, winning him success. It was lovely.

Another romantic short was by one of my favorite animators, Bill Plympton. Called "The Fan and the Flower," it was a humorous and touching piece about the romance between the ceiling fan in a spare room in an old woman's house and the plant she places in the room and eventually neglects.

"Pet Shop" by Brent Adams was a computer animated short featuring a bad natured chinchilla trying to get adopted by a little boy. It was wickedly humorous.

"Hairy Scary" by Jan Van Rijsselberge was from French television, and it was computer animated, aimed at small children. There was a character who had a lot of hair. An evil guy kidnapped him and tried to remove his hair, but some other characters rescued him. It was very silly, and the kids seemed to like it.

A Disney produced traditional animation, "Lorenzo" by Mike Gabriel, was one of my least favorites. In it, a plump house cat's tail comes alive and tries to kill him. It was inventive and well done, but I felt it was a bit too violent for the children in the audience.

"The Zit" by Mike Blum was a computer animated piece that addresses a problem anybody who's gone through puberty can understand. A boy getting up his nerve to ask someone to dance with him at that night's dance discovers a zit on his face that only gets worse, no matter what he does. It was a little gross but hilarious.

Canadian Paul Morstad directed "Moon Man," which was a fanciful traditional animation piece, done to a Canadian folk song. It moved really fast and was sometimes hard to follow, but it did a good job of illustrating the song in a whimsical way.

One of my favorites was "Welcome to My Life" by Elizabeth Ito, which was not yet completed but was still excellent. The sound track was finished, and the animation was in the pencil sketch stage. It's done as a documentary about what it's like growing up as a monster in America today. I thought this was a clever way at addressing the idea of growing up as a minority. It was thought provoking and gently funny.

"Driving Alone" by Rosangela de Araujo, a traditional animation, enters the imagination of a little boy as he plays with his truck on a busy Brazil street. It was beautifully done and unexpectedly moving.

Another of my favorites was "Skippy" by Amanda Spalinski, which illustrates the rambling story of a small boy about the family dog. It was drawn with a childlike glee and was refreshing and fun.

Our next showing was at the same theater, a classic film, "I Know Where I'm Going," directed by Michael Powell, who also directed "The Red Shoes" and "Black Narcissus." His widow, Thelma Schoonmaker, was there to introduce the film and to participate in a Q&A afterwards.

At the beginning, the representative of the festival said that everyone in the audience must already know who Michael Powell is or they wouldn't be there.

The Gryphon and I chuckled and looked at each other. We'd never seen any of Michael Powell's film but welcomed the opportunity to see a classic film on the big screen.

I Know Where I'm Going was made in 1945 in Scotland and is a romantic comedy about a woman, Joan Webster (Wendy Hiller), who is trying to get to an island off the coast of Scotland to marry her rich employer. A storm prevents her from crossing, and while she's waiting, she falls for a dashing young Scotsman, Torquil MacNeil (Roger Livesey), who is the actual owner of the island, who is renting it to her fiancé. He is a land owner but not wealthy, manly, beloved by all, and ultimately irresistible, try as she might.

The film was nicely done, especially the outdoor landscapes, which were really striking. It was amazing to discover, as Thelma revealed later, that the main romantic lead was participating in a play and so couldn't shoot any scenes on location. They found clever ways around it, using back projection and doubles. I honestly would never have known if I hadn't been told.

Most of the audience members were senior citizens and asked a lot of questions like "Whatever happened to this or that actor," which could have been looked up easily on IMdB. I suppose most of them aren't in the habit of using the Internet to get simple questions answered.

I put my hand up and asked about the choice to contrast the interior scenes, which were often drab, and which was where the fiancé was typically mentioned, with the time she spent getting to know Torquil, which took place in the spacious outdoors. Thelma confirmed that was the intent and reasserted it was amazing how well that worked, given the actor's restrictions on working outdoors.

She told some interesting stories about the making of the film, such as the fact that Michael Powell had himself strapped to a mast to shoot some footage of a whirlpool, which was used on back projection for a dramatic scene on a tossing boat.

Powell had a lot of trouble getting one of the actresses, Pamela Brown, to deliver a line right: "Money isn't everything." This was the response to Joan Webster, who asked her why she didn't just sell her land. She was usually a one-take actress, so he didn't know why it was taking so long to get it the way he wanted. Five years later, he realized it was the line that was wrong, being too cliched. The line should have been, "Then we'd only have the money." When he told the actress this, years later, she hit him.

Apparently, they had also removed a subplot involving her character, Catriona Potts, and intimations of a past romance between that character and the captain. After discussions with his co-producers, he removed the plot, which the partner argued didn't need to be there.

Thelma talked about her work as an editor with Martin Scorsese. There was an interesting synergy here, since The Gryphon and I had stopped in Border's before the film, where I picked up an autographed copy of Lewis Black's new book as well as a CD of Keb' Mo' songs selected by Scorsese.

She talked about her relationship with Scorsese and how well they worked together. Apparently, they have a great working relationship.

Even though there was a Q&A with this movie, it didn't disturb our schedule, since our next movie wasn't until about 9:30. We had plenty of time in between.

We stopped at the Gap in the Gallery because The Gryphon had noticed that The Gap in a different mall had two-piece swimsuits in stock. I thought it would be fun to see what they had and maybe get a suit this year before they're all picked over. But this Gap was smaller and had no swimsuits in stock.

Before returning home to spend some time with my dog, Una, we ate at an Indian restaurant, Passage of India, which has a very nice buffet.

In the evening, we saw a collection of experimental short films by Philadelphia filmmakers. This was held at the International House on the University of Pennsylvania campus. We liked a few of them.

The program started out with something called "Imagine" by Andrew Watson, a hopelessly naive piece that asked the viewer to imagine what the world would be like without cars. It featured a bicyclist riding around empty Philadelphia streets, but it seemed more desolate than peaceful, to tell the truth.

A piece about cicadas, "Periodical" by Sarah Christman, seemed promising at first. Parts of it were animated. It seemed to be looking at what happened the last time the cicadas came out, compared to now. But this was accomplished by having people doing ordinary things while a newscast droned in the background. It didn't hold the viewer's attention enough to achieve what they wanted to achieve, I felt.

"Home" by Nadia Hironaka, who's primarily a visual artist, was a series of images in an apartment, such as a close-up of a plant, a shot of the kitchen as people busied themselves at the table. These images were repeated over and over until they became part of a streaming band of images that turned into static. It wasn't the most entertaining piece to watch, but I thought I understood the concept. I thought it was about how the ordinary things in your life just run together and become a sort of static you don't notice.

My favorite was called "Bossa Nova Scotia" by Nick Ravish. It was really well done, a musical look at a vacation in Nova Scotia. The editing was brilliant, keeping a sense of dance-like movement going.

A forgettable piece called "11/2004" by R.A. Friedman attempts a poetic film by putting images to his attempt at beat poetry.

"Love Birds in Hell" by Francis X. Friel was about two young women in an apartment sharing a cigarette. It was shot in black and white but was pretty muddy. The women clearly seemed uncomfortable as they did things like sat close and put their heads together. I thought it was because they were amateurs who weren't comfortable doing the things they were asked to do. One of them goes into a bedroom and the other goes to join them, but through the magic of editing, ends up leaving instead.

Another beautifully done piece, if mysterious, was "De(ux) Bagettes a Hanoi" by Rini Keagy. In this colorful film, she explores the visual effects created by actors swimming in a pool while fully dressed.

There was an inspired piece about somebody who has obsessive compulsive disorder, "Tragic Irony" by Nicholas G. Safko. It started like a typical short film, with a man walking through bleak city streets, and then it became a musical, as he sings about his problems to a psychiatrist. I felt that it was a brilliant idea and could have simply been improved in the editing room.

The final piece was longer, "The Terror Show" by a group called Termite TV. It was a political polemic which didn't belong in an experimental film showcase. Different filmmakers had done different segments, and then they strung them together. They were clearly trying to be like Michael Moore, combining humor with a political message, but it didn't work together as a whole. Some segments were really good, such as a humorous piece called "Torture for Dummies," satirizing the statements the government has made about torture. But other segments felt like being preached at, such as just using sound from a news source and cutting in images. The main focus was the war in Iraq.

Overall, the showcase wasn't exactly what we were expecting, but there were a few we really liked. I loved "Bossa Nova Scotia," "De(ux) Bagettes a Hanoi" and "Tragic Irony." The Gryphon liked "Lovebirds in Hell." I'm glad there were at least a few that really appealed to us.

And although neither of us were big fans of "Home," we spent a lot of time discussing what it might mean, so from that perspective, the filmmaker was successful. Any time you can get people talking about your film is a good thing.

More musings from the 2005 Philadelphia Film Fest:

April 11, 2005 - Film Style 5+

April 18, 2005 - A Different View

April 19, 2005 - Last of the Fest

Musings on the 2004 Philadelphia Film Fest:

April 12, 2004 - Indulging in Film

April 19, 2004 - Beyond Tragic Consequences

Copyright 2005 by Alyce Wilson

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