At WIFF - when an audience doesn't get a film

What happens when an audience doesn’t “get” a film? You have what happened last night – the final night and one of the last screened films – at the Windsor International Film Festival (WIFF), If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (Mary Bronstein, who stars as Dr. Spring). The Chrysler Theatre was two-thirds full and sometime after the film started various laughs could be heard, quite inappropriately I thought, for very dramatic moments in the film. This went on continually for the picture’s entire length, in some cases huge guffaws at otherwise poignant, heartfelt and searing moments. One guy near the front was continually guffawing. A woman a few rows back couldn’t contain her laughter. I couldn’t understand it and the constant tittering became annoying. If I was near one of them, I wanted to admonish “don’t you understand this is a serious moment!?” The plot: Linda (Rose Byrne), ironically a therapist, is dealing with an overload of family problems – a sick daughter hooked to an IV, a “mansplaining” husband (Christian Slater) away on a business trip and not facing familial problems, an apartment roof that crashes in forcing mom and daughter into temporary motel quarters. It’s quite apparent that Linda can’t bear this alone and is emotionally coming apart at the seams. Even her therapist (Conan O’Brien) doesn’t understand. It’s Diary of a Mad Housewife (Frank Perry 1970) brought up to date. Yet at various turns in the movie, which were not comedic at all, a good number of audience members laughed or giggled, apparently oblivious to the nature of the scenes before them. I’m not quite sure why this was. I have my theories. Many audience members are only used to “Hollywood” films or comedies and confronted with a more intense probe into the human condition, can’t grasp it or default into thinking it just has to be comedic. Another is simply not believing what they’re seeing in front of them – of course someone can’t be suffering as badly as that, strangely unaware that countless women undergo these problems every day. Another is simply not having an ability to understand something more complex. One idiot after the film let out a huge “hoot” to mock what he saw. This is the first time in all the years I’ve attended the festival that I’ve witnessed this kind of audience reaction. Not very sophisticated or even smart, folks.  

If this audience didn’t get If I Had Legs…what would they have done with a film like Marianne (Michael Rozek) – slit their throats? For not only is this an hour and a half monologue by one actress on her living room couch and talking directly into the camera, it deals with themes that, shall we say, are a little complex? And ironically, mocks the very type of films those audience members would probably love. When I saw the actress was Isabelle Huppert, my favorite working today, I of course jumped at seeing it. But admittedly it is difficult and the urge to turn one’s mind off during the first half hour is strong. But if you hang in there it has some rewards and is certainly a film I thought about afterwards. The character (Huppert) is eviscerating the current state of movie making – vapid escapism for boffo box office returns - and at one point tells the audience – attention laughers at If I had Legs... - to “wake up!” 

I also caught famed director (Z, The Confession, Missing) Costa-Gavras’s Last Breath. I had been expecting a straight up philosophical discussion among characters about the subject of death, something rarely addressed in popular media, reminiscent of a film like My Dinner with Andre (Louis Malle 1981). In fact, this is a drama about a philosopher, Fabrice Toussaint (Denis Podalydès) and a palliative care doctor (Kad Merad) and his team caring for patients literally on their death beds.  Toussaint follows the doctor on his rounds gathering material for a book but leading him to confront his own future. I won’t say the film was scintillating but it competently depicted a slice of life - or end of life – that is rarely shown, especially as all of us are aging.

I was interested in watching Kristin Scott Thomas’s My Mother’s Wedding if only because I’ve been a big fan of KST and wanted to see what she could do behind the camera in her directorial debut. In fact, she’s also the “mother” in the film. Other appealing cast were Scarlett Johansson, Sienna Miller and Emily Beecham. But the story is less about the mother than the daughters – one in particular – and wasn’t much different from umpteen “chick flicks” about mother-daughter relationships replete with laughter, whimsy and drama, albeit set in the beautiful English countryside. The audience was 90 per cent women.