TAZO invites you to celebrate the opening night of the festival. After the screenings, join the party in the Sunken Ballroom in the Portland Art museum North wing.
Opening Night Film & Party:
$15.
Film Only: $7
SCREENING ON OPENING NIGHT:
Laurel Canyon (United
States)
Lisa Cholodenko
"Recent Harvard graduates Sam (Christian Bale) and his fiancée
Alex (Kate Beckinsale) move to Los Angeles, determined that no parental
influence will impinge upon their new, adult life. Sam's mother, Jane
(Frances McDormand), has loaned them her house outside the city and promised
that she will not darken its doorway. However, when Sam and Alex arrive,
there she is-and this hard-living, rock'n'roll record-producing housemate
is the first of many surprises that shake the couple. As their lives fill
with ever more troubling visitors, their easy sense of their own identities
begins to crumble. Their unconventional family dance explores refreshingly
diverse forms of affection, attraction and antipathy. A powerful character
piece, Laurel Canyon is finely crafted, intelligently acted and full of
rich observations about human nature. It is also an aesthetic delight.
McDormand's vast talents shine brilliantly through Jane's sharp retorts
and delicious unpredictability, while music by Folk Implosion and Craig
Wedren seduces the ears. The films humour grooves with its cynicism, and
a spirited rock'n'roll beat drives this complex, dizzying, highly entertaining
spectacle."-Toronto Film Festival. (105 mins.) Print courtesy of
Sony Pictures Classics.
Filmography: High Art (99).
Showtimes: 2/14, 7pm WH and 2/20, 7pm GU.
Grill Point (Germany)
Andreas Dresen
Winner of the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at the Berlin Film Festival,
director Andreas Dresen collaborated with his ensemble cast to develop
the story, pacing, and dialogue that create a lively roundelay of shifting
marital mores. In the German city of Frankfurt an der Oder, near the Polish
border, two couples in their late 30s have become unknowingly set in the
banality of their relationships. Chris, a drive-time radio dee-jay, is
mildly distanced from his second wife, Katrin. His friend Uwe, owner of
the bar and grill of the films title, has become neglectful of his wife,
Ellen. When Chris and Ellen develop a little "thing" on the
side and get caught in the act, the four characters become shaken from
their stupor. Concerned with the small and intimate moments that make
up life, Dresen's tragicomic film recalls is at once funny, painfully
honest and deeply affecting. Winner of numerous German film prizes including
the German Film Critic's award for Best Film. (105 mins.) Print courtesy
of Bavaria Film.
Selected Filmography: Silent Country (92),
Night Shapes (99).
Showtimes: 2/14, 7:15pm and 2/19, 8:45pm BW.
The Magdalene Sisters
(Northern Ireland/Great Britain)
Peter Mullan
Peter Mullan has firmly established himself as a vital presence in British
cinema. Having worked as an actor with such maverick talents as Loach,
Figgis and Winterbottom since his own darkly comic directorial debut Orphans,
his new film confirms that he is certainly worthy of inclusion alongside
them. His subject is potent and controversial. For over 150 years, the
Magdalene Laundries existed to punish young women who had fallen foul
of Irelands strict adherence to Catholic doctrine. Generations of women
were hidden from society and deprived of their freedom because they had
become pregnant out of wedlock, because a parish priest decreed they were
in moral danger, or just because they were poor. With nuns acting as
virtual jailers, the girls were cut off from their families and endured
slave labour conditions, brutalized and bullied in an institution sanctioned
by Church and Government. Many spent their lives there, to be buried in
unmarked graves. The last laundry closed as recently as 1996, and only
since has the true horror of conditions in these institutions started
to emerge. Set in the 1960s The Magdalene Sisters dramatizes the lives
of three women sent to a Magdalene Laundry as punishment for their sins.
With exceptional performances throughout, it is an indictment of a system
that put religious dogma before the rights of its children. Mullan skilfully
manages to avoid preaching or handwringing, and the real strength of the
film is that he manages to deliver a powerful statement with such admirable
restraint.London Film Festival. (119 mins.) Winner of the Golden Lion
for Best Film, Venice Film Festival; Discovery Award, Toronto Film Festival.
Print courtesy of Miramax Films.
Filmography: Orphans (97), Fridge (96).
Showtimes: 2/14, 7:30pm and 2/17, 6:30pm BW.
The Man Without a Past (FINLAND)
Aki Kaurismäki
The Grand Jury Prizewinner at the Cannes Film Festival, The Man Without
a Past
finds Finland's most famed director, Aki Kaurismäki, returning to
expressive color, dialogue and dead-pan, Chaplinesque humor after his
luminous black-and-white, silent offering, Juha (PIFF 23). Attacked by
thugs and left for dead, M (Markku Peltola) miraculously regains consciousness
at the hospital, but with no memory of who he is or from where he came.
Back on the streets of Helsinki, M must rely on the kindness of strangers
to survive and takes up residence in a container on the docks with an
assortment of other world-weary souls. With the help of Salvation Army
worker Irma (Kati Outinen, Cannes Best Actress prizewinner), he reconstructs
a life and his fortunes begin to mount. In the end his past will catch
up to him, but will his new life have to be left behind? Both touching
and funny, Kaurismäki's idiosyncratic B-movie fairy-tale/melodrama,
the second of a trilogy on unemployment, is rich with humanity, warmth,
humor and morality. (97 mins.) Print courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.
Selected Filmography: The Match Factory Girl (89), I Hired a Contract
Killer (90), Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses (94), Drifting Clouds (96),
Juha (99).
Showtimes: 2/14, 7:15pm and 2/16, 2:45pm GU.
