Film Reviews by Irene Svete
The Seattle International Film Festival is over, but a raft of festival favorites will open in local theaters over the next month or so. Here are a couple to add to your must-see list.
The Fast Runner
"The Fast Runner
(Atanarjuat)" retells an epic Inuit tale of love and jealousy
in a close-knit group divided by an evil spirit. Director Zacharias
Kunuk says he first heard the story from his mother while his
family was living on their land in the Canadian arctic. He carried
it with him through relocation, government schools and a prohibition
on storytelling and drum dancing.
Visually stunning, the movie begins with Atanarjuat (Natar Ungalaaq)
as a child and follows him into manhood as he wins the love of
Atuat (Sylvia Ivalu), thwarting his rival, the camp leader's son
Oki (Peter-Henry Arnatsiaq). His success sets off a tragic series
of events. The vast arctic skies, the movement of the seasons
and the repetitive quality of daily life contrasts jarringly with
the pace of urban American life, demanding that you let go and
surrender to the leisurely rhythm of Kunuk's storytelling.
The first feature film shot by an Inuit cast and crew in their
own language, "The Fast Runner" won Cannes' Camera d'Or
award for best first feature last year. Unfortunately, scriptwriter
Paul Apak Angilirq died of cancer before filming was completed.
Sunshine State
In "Sunshine State," writer-director John Sayles delves
into land politics and parallel lives in small town Florida. Desiree
(Angela Bassett) who left under a cloud 25 years earlier is returning
home with her trophy husband, Boston anesthesiologist Reggie Perry
(James McDaniel). Marly (Edie Falco of "The Sopranos")
manages her father's rundown restaurant and motel, a business
she's despised since high school, and tries to avoid her ex-husband.
The two women's stories cross as a greedy developer plots to replace
a coastal strip of small businesses and cottages with an upscale
resort project.
Sayles' witty dialogue is always a treat, as is the quirky landscape
of this vanishing Florida (What else says "Sunshine State"
like the Weeki Wachee's mermaids and their underwater routine?)
The movie grew out of Sayles' experiences scouting locations for
another production. He quickly discovered that the unique qualities
he remembered from 15 years earlier were being homogenized into
strip malls and generic corporate-owned beach communities. "Sunshine
State" may not maintain the tension of his hit "Lone
Star," but it smartly illuminates corners too few filmmakers
are willing to explore.