Festival Archives: 2002 Features
All The Queens Men
Inspired by a true-story during WWII, this comedic drama illustrates just how far some soldiers are willing to go for their country. American Special Agent Steven O'Rourke (Matt LeBlanc) has come dangerously close to pulling off several high stakes intelligence operations. His latest mission, a nearly successful attempt to steal an Enigma machine (the secret coding device used by the Nazis) ends in a skirmish with British soldiers who destroy the Enigma and place him under arrest.
While serving his sentence in a British military prison, O'Rourke receives orders to cross enemy lines and steal yet another Enigma machine by infiltrating the factory in Berlin. There's one small catch, the Enigma factory is staffed exclusively by women. O´Rourke and his team will have to carry out their mission dressed entirely in drag. O'Rourke's fear of being caught dead in a dress, combined with the motley squad assigned to him--Archie (James Cosmo), the aging desk jockey, Johnno (David Birkin), the naive genius code cracker, and Tony (Eddie Izzard), a transvestite who's seen more action in the cabaret than in combat--are almost enough for him to turn down the assignment. Nevertheless, with the alternative being prison, he reluctantly agrees. After a hilarious crash course in cross-dressing and combat, the team is off to Germany. And the motley crew departs on both a comic and suspenseful journey that proves that war makes all men equal, even women.
Dir. Stefan Ruzowitzky, 2001, USA, 35mm, 105 mins.
Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner
The Fast Runner is a masterpiece. It is, by any standard, an extraordinary film, a work of narrative sweep and visual beauty that honors the history of the art form even as it extends its perspective. The Fast Runner also abounds with humor and sensuality. The combination of dramatic realism and archaic grandeur is irresistibly powerful. The Fast Runner includes some unforgettable sequences. The most astonishing scene has already become something of a classic, a word that will quickly be bestowed on the film as a whole. - A.O. Scott, The New York Times
Winner of the Best Picture at last year's Cannes Film Festival, The Fast Runner is the first Inuktitu language film. Evil in the form of an unknown shaman divides a small community of nomadic Inuit, upsetting its balance and spirit. Twenty years pass. Two brothers emerge to challenge the evil order: Amaqjuaq, the Strong One, and Atanarjuat, the Fast Runner. Atanarjuat wins the hand of the lovely Atuat away from the boastful son of the camp leader, Oki, who vows to get even. Oki ambushes the brothers in their sleep, killing Amaqjuaq, as Atanarjuat miraculously escapes running naked over the spring sea ice. But can he ever escape the cycle of vengeance left behind?
Dir. Zacharias Kunuk, 2001, Canada, 35mm, 168 mins. In Inuktitut with English subtitles.
Bark!
In this Sundance favorite Kasia Adamik, makes her directorial debut with this absurdly comical yet surprisingly touching story of unconditional love. A playful canine twist on Kafka's Metamorphosis, BARK! depicts one woman's nightmarishly funny escape from a day-to-day reality with which she can no longer deal. Peter (Lee Tergesen) is a devoted husband who suddenly finds himself out of his depth with a mysterious malady that afflicts his wife: she thinks she's a dog. Earlier in their marriage, Lucy was a tender spouse and a gentle animal lover. Over time, she has chosen to abandon all human forms of communication and retreat into her seemingly safer world. As Lucy's condition worsens, Peter's desperation drives him to seek the help of others, including his loser best friend (Hank Azaria), a high-strung psychiatrist (Vincent D'Onofrio), and an offbeat veterinarian (Lisa Kudrow). Between this collection of misfit "experts" and his hysterically self-absorbed in-laws, who are also summoned with the hope of aiding his wife's bizarre predicament, Lucy's refusal to continue as a human may not seem so crazy after all. Adamik has concocted a clever theatrical style to present this altered reality, keeping it flush with absurdities so it can be taken more than literally and presenting a world in which logic is only partially enlisted.
Dir. Kasia Adamik, 2001, USA, 35mm, 94 mins.
Elling
Laugh out loud funny!. In the running for 2002's most uplifting movie! - Jack Mathhews - New York Daily News
Academy-Award nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, ELLING is a gentle, good-natured comedy from Norway about two discharged mental patients, Elling and Kjell, who are assigned as roommates in state-funded housing. Each gradually learns to navigate in society: painfully shy Elling becomes a secret poet, stuffing short verse into sauerkraut packages at the supermarket, and the overgrown virginal oaf Kjell finds an outlet for his sexual fantasies in the form of his pregnant neighbor. As the story progresses, the urban landscape becomes less and less threatening to them, although the telephone still hilariously confounds Elling. Without resorting to cliché, the film tells the often touching --yet always humorous-- tale of these two middle-aged men, whose friendship forms the basis of their recovery. ELLING is an entertaining romp that transcends language and cultural borders, with standout performances from Per Christian Ellefsen and Sven Nordin - the Lenny and George of Norwegian mental institutions. The film lends a whole slew of comic twists and turns at every point and expertly avoids the "miserabilism" expected of European cinema. Dir. Peter Naess, 2001, Norway, 35mm, 89 mins.
Between Two Women
"One of the true finds of the year. If this movie were made in Hollywood the title Between Two Women" would be synonymous with the word Oscar..." - Free Press Toronto
Against the backdrop of a sleepy, industrial town in 1950’s Northern England, first friendship, then forbidden romance develops between Ellen and her young son’s attractive art teacher, Kathy. Ellen’s predicament isn’t so easily resolved in a different era in which divorce and single motherhood, not to mention lesbian longing, were practically unheard of. Between Two Women is a powerful film that renews your faith in love and your sense of pride. Dir. Steven Woodcock, 2001, Great Britain, video, 82 mins.
Boomerang
A funny and endearing film that defies true characterization. A Romance story? A Mob Movie? An uproariously funny comedy? Actually all the above. Set in Belgrade after the fall of Milosevic, this screwball comedy is a caustic homage to Balkan wackiness. The film's plot lines are all intertwined: A sexy chick steals cocaine from slick-haired pushers and proceeds to give it away. Then she meets and falls in love with a young slacker, who sells his family's heirlooms for cash to the same dealers. These two weirdoes get married in, like, two seconds--but the dealers shoot the bride. (Don't worry: It's not fatal.) Everyone's stories connect in BOOMERANG as life's grandest events--love, sex, marriage, birth, death--are played out breathlessly, spiraling toward a dizzying climax of song, dance and gunfire. BOOMERANG is a likable look at learning how to live and love in a time of new found peace. Dir. Dragan Marinkovic, 2001, Canada/Yugoslavia, 35mm, 92 mins. In Yugoslavian with English subtitles.
