Secret Festival, Dust, The Song of the Sparrows

This year's SIFF has gotten off to an amazing start. I've already doled out a few 4's in my movie voting, compared to the usual "blah" of the 3's that tends to dominate my overall experience every year. I'm not saying that's neccessarily a bad thing -- in fact, I think the "1"s and the "2"s can be amazingly educational -- but there needs to be those movies that hold steady as "not great but okay", so that an amazing knockout can occasionally stand apart from the crowd.

That said, I gave all 3 movies mentioned here a "4" -- that's inclusive of the Secret Fest which I can't really talk about.

The first film, DUST, was a documentary on dust. That doesn't sound particularly exciting I realize, but it's quirky concept attracted me to want to see it. I've been a bit iffy on the experimental films at Northwest Film Forum but constantly try to include some in my schedule each year because I think they are worthwhile and challenging to my own perceptions. I wouldn't say DUST was experimental at all, however. It was a very straightforward documentary with narration and some talking heads. So why would something like this propel beyond just a meager "3" for me? I think a large part had to do with the very well done photography. From the very beginning, the composition was incredibly planned and executed, and the movements were highly precise and direct. I imagined the same dialogue and sets in the hands of an inexperienced layman with a cheap DV cam and immediately began to think what a horror it would have been to sit through 90 minutes of shaky handheld and subpar audio quality of people talking about dust. At times, DUST felt more to me like a narrative, with long sweeping pans and the occasional quirky character commenting obsessively about something unashamed of the camera lens.

But then at other times, DUST went too over the top. Long scientific monologues, though interesting and educational, weakened its pace. Occasionally the camera doubled over an area again, panning as if it were simply out of visuals or correcting a prior attempt, or possibly afraid to stray too far away from the subject for fear they may do something interesting. These little things detracted from the movie overall. Despite that, it had a very similar feel in tone to Out of Time, a SIFF documentary from last year which I rated very highly. It was no surprise then to discover the same programmer picked up both movies. (Thank you, Andy Spletzer!)

THE SONG OF THE SPARROWS was a solid narrative, humorous and touching with a great flowing script, and an exceptional cast. There was some symbolism involving an ostrich searching for freedom and a man searching for the ostrich, but I'm not really sure how to interpret it as of yet. I'm happy to see another great movie from Iran, and especially happy to see another movie that features more of the urban big city life of Tehran. I hate to judge a movie by politically motivated factors, but it's very refreshing to that side rather than a bunch of families huddled in caves way out in the desert, which while important, is less easily related to by american audiences.

I did not think SPARROWS was amazing enough to be one of the best, simply because it didn't really break any new creative ground, but there's a scene involving a group of boys tripping over a bucket of water and spilling a massive amount of goldfish they had saved up for since the beginning of the movie that really broke my heart and almost tipped me over to the "5".

AUDIENCE WATCH: One person in the audience at SPARROWS felt the need to vocalize at certain moments, one of which was when one of the characters did something rude to another, they exclaimed, "jerk!"