DAY 9: Yellow Letters (İlker Çatak) substitutes Germany for Turkey (it even says so) in this poignant story about political repression and the immoral compromises one must do for art – and for life. A well-directed and acted drama and a maverick in taking on the repressive Turkish state…..Dear Lara directed by esteemed classical virtuoso Lara St. John and novice filmmaker (who looks a pro), is a blockbusting pull back of the curtain on the widespread sexual abuse in the classical music industry, as bad as the Catholic church…..The much-hyped Spanish Netflix drama La Bola Negra (Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi), a back-and-forth time machine from the 1930s to today, charts the love affair among three men against the then backdrop of the Spanish Civil War. Too flip-floppy and disparate for me though great production and historical re-creation……
DAY 10: The Siege of Paradise (Gar O’Rourke) is a meditative look at overtourism, this time in Italy’s north coast Cinque Terre, one of those candy-colored hillside villages surrounded by the Med, and a magnate for tourism each summer. But rather than condemn outright the swarming hordes the film depicts ambivalence – the locals swamped by day-trippers yet needing their money to survive; the goal is to find "balance"…..Love Me Tender (Anna Cazenave Cambet) is a French film about a woman who loses custody of her son after becoming promiscuously gay. Her loss is a touching story about a mother’s unrequited love….The much-hyped Club Kid (Jordan Firstman) may be a cute story about a cocaine-addicted Brooklyn clubber introduced to a previously unknown son. But the myriad scenes of raw nightclubbing and drugtaking absolutely turned me off, and the story was predictably shmaltzy…..I wanted to like Russell Goldman’ Sender, a black comedy inspired by online shopping, but it quickly devolved into an unresolved repetitive pattern of menacing occurrences……
DAY 11: Left wing filmmaker Mike Leigh’s Tender Loving Care depicts the POV of social workers, who are usually marginalized in films where the subject matter is the people getting the care. It’s the sometimes whimsical story of two of them and triumphs and defeats on and off the job…..Josephine (Beth de Araújo) was truly one of the knockouts of this fest (or at least of the 35 films I saw), a remarkable acting triumph by eight-year old Mason Reeves in this torrid drama. The Tasters (Silvio Soldini) is the story of a group of women forced to become food tasters at the country retreat of one Adolph Hitler, with decent acting all around but within a milieu, intentional or not, that was claustrophobic to watch…..I couldn’t believe only 40 people showed up for this latest film by the great Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, Bitter Christmas, especially given the 1000+ that piled out of the previous Hollywood flic. But admittedly and I must confess, many of the master’s films strike me as convoluted and about relationships I care little about.
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