Out of Time, Confession of Pain, The Boss of It All

More SIFFing madness today. I had a very tight connection between movies with a pre-rush hour dash from Pacific Place to Lincoln Square that was extremely close but successful.

Unfortunately, this required that I miss the very last minute or so of Out of Time, a beautifully warmly photographed documentary about four old Austrian businesses that are finding it difficult to compete with new modern businesses which are slowly pushing them out. On one hand, it's a very intimate portrait of the shopkeepers and their personal thoughts about what makes them happy being in their own stores for many years. On the other hand, it's a very sharp criticism about how these wonderful people who take pride in their work and their customers are being driven out. The degree of closeness and heartfelt dialogue that emanates from each of the shopkeepers is astounding, as well as the very decisive photography, which gives the movie as a whole a very narrative feel as if we are watching something scripted. It's an impressive piece of evidence as far as how well the documentary medium can be pushed to be truly produced well, though one has to wonder how this affected the truthfulness of what we see on screen as certainly some parts would have needed choreographing with the subjects.

The movie as a whole is very slowly paced, but even this serves its purpose well in the context of the subject-matter because it sits us down to listen to a time when people were presumably more valued over the contents of their pocketbooks. The older generation may be bitter about the gentrification that is wiping out their businesses and lives, but their thoughts and experiences can still serve as valuable lessons for future generations.

Confession of Pain is an action packed thriller from Hong Kong by the director of the Infernal Affairs trilogy. I enjoyed watching it, and a remake is already in progress, although admittedly this was one of those movies where I had a difficult time at first keeping track of who was whom. The story has a lot of twists and turns that make it exciting to watch but not in a way that's cheesy or where they are blatantly thrown in to extend the story out further. It will be interesting comparing this movie to the remake.

The Boss of It All is an amusing well-written comedy about a company man who hires an actor to play the role of a more senior boss to avoid being criticized. This is the first movie by Lars von Trier I've seen and I really enjoyed it. The editing was a little crazy, with dozens of jump cuts, which is an interesting technique in bringing out more perspective. Apparently the camera movement was entirely controlled by computer assistance, which during the main body of the movie didn't really show much as the camera was still, but during some director commentary could be heard making motor noises.

Audience Watch: Some walkouts during Out of Time although these were towards the tail end and I wondered if this was mainly due to tight connections to other movies. The latter two movies were very well attended, with The Boss of It All being completely sold out.