* The Tillman Story is a simple and powerful documentary about how the government and military attempted to manipulate the death of Pat Tillman into a supporting narrative for war in Iraq. It’s a story we’ve all heard in bits and pieces, but to have it all laid out, concise and devastating… it should be required viewing.

* I had intended to see Waiting for Superman after The Tillman Story, but it went on rush before I had a volunteer voucher for it. Instead I jumped on a comp ticket to Blessed, one of the features in the Emerging Masters series. I had been intrigued by it thanks to some of the cast, namely Frances O’Connor and Miranda Otto. The film was developed from a play titled Who’s Afraid of the Working Class, and I am under the impression that it changed quite a bit from the source material, moving from being a strongly political piece to one exploring the relationships between children and their mothers, though still those on the fringe.

Everyone in it was fantastic; Kokkinos is clearly gifted at working with child actors. Reef Ireland in particular struck me as one to watch; he’s like a young Ohad Knoller. Just heartbreaking. And Frances O’Connor is currently my best actress of the festival.

After being destroyed by that, I headed up to the Egyptian to volunteer at the midnight of Fight Club. Because I’m crazy. When I left, Ed Norton was still at the theater, watching the film from the balcony. I had thought seriously about staying for the film — I haven’t seen it since the original release — but in the end I decided that walking home at 3am would probably not be smart. So it goes.

Queer film can be hit or miss (and mostly miss, it seems) but I seem to have the best luck if a) I go foreign and b) I opt for SIFF selections over SLGFF. It’s a formula that certainly worked for Undertow, though circumstances outside the movie did everything they could to ruin it.

I really wish it had been presented on film. I don’t know how it was shot, but I am just about over digital presentations. They seem to add a plethora of new ways to fuck up the projection, and it’s not like certain venues *cough*theEgyptian*cough* needed any help in that regard as it was. We were given comp tickets for another screening, which is as it should be, but it was totally unfair to this beautiful, romantic film that it stopped altogether, that it had color issues (trust me, these characters were not supposed to be green), that the sound went out for what seemed like eternity (thank god it was subtitled), and that the version that finally worked included a goddamned *watermark*.

As for the film itself, it’s that rarest of beasts, a fresh coming-out story. Set in a Peruvian fishing village, it’s also part ghost story. Miguel, married & soon-to-be a father, has also been secretly involved with village outsider Santiago. When Santiago dies accidentally, Miguel learns it is much easier to be in a relationship with a man when no one else can see him.

It’s a concept that could go either way, but the characters all had clear emotional cores, and so it was beautiful and heartwrenching. Also, I particularly appreciated the sympathetic & honest portrayal of his wife. Their relationship had its own validity, which is often not the case in this sort of film.

Films I missed the first ten minutes of since they were during a volunteer shift (I almost never choose to go into movies on shift for this reason):

* Secrets of the Tribe, which I would like to seek out at some point to see properly. It’s a documentary on the various studies of the Yanomami Indian tribe, though the title really refers to the tribe of academics who studied them, full of their own secrets, customs, and loyalties. It’s flat-out horrifying to be honest; research of indigenous people is an arena fraught with obvious complications as it is, but these teams almost seemed to go out of their way to do everything wrong, from your basic stupid white person trick of influencing a society through well-intentioned gifts, to the far extreme of disease introduction and of course, sexual abuse.

* Mother Joan of the Angels, which somehow managed to make demonic possession of nuns… boring. Amazing, right? It was so tedious, that I seriously considered not seeing the film after it, a noir by the same director that I had an actual ticket for. I just read that it was banned by the Catholic Church, which figures.

This is also probably the best entry in which to note that this day was one of the weirdest in general at the festival so far. First, about 15 minutes into the documentary, the alarm went off and we had to evacuate the theater. Apparently someone burned something in a kitchen somewhere else in McCaw. Second, the last two films of the night, the Polish double feature as it were, had been scheduled as digital restorations, but when the package arrived meant to contain the hard drive, it was found to contain… strawberry jam. So they had to screen DVDs instead. See? Weird.

* Bran Nue Dae is based on the 90s Australian musical about an aboriginal boy in the late 60s. He’s been attending boarding school with the eventual goal of becoming a priest, but he changes his mind for a few excellent reasons, and runs away, landing in a road movie as he tries to get home.

It’s pretty goofy (especially the final 10 minutes) but it has a huge heart, and I quite enjoyed it. (Also, days later I am still singing about how there is nothing I would rather be than to be an Aborigine. So there’s that.)

I couldn’t help but think, though, especially as the credits rolled by with lists of the various stage production casts, that if a similar film had been made in the States, the producers would have had a serious conversation about casting a white guy with a tan in the lead. And then they probably would have done it. Taylor Lautner, I’m looking at you.

* Night Train was the second half of a Jerzy Kawalerowicz double feature, and one I almost skipped out on because I was so bored by the one about possessed nuns. Thanks to the fact that I am painfully cheap I opted to give it a chance, and I am glad I did. It’s a Polish noir set almost entirely on an overbooked overnight train to the seaside. The cast of characters is great, all your noir staples of mysterious men and blonde bombshells eyeing each other with suspicion, flirtation, or both, and among it all trying to guess if one in their number might be an escaped murderer. It was totally entertaining, and would not at all have been out of place as a Noir City selection.

(Yes, the title of this post is a cheap Truffaut reference. I couldn’t help it. I apologize!)

A highly appropriate choice for Memorial Day, The Dry Land is about the challenges encountered by a soldier returning from Iraq, trying to readjust to life in a small Texas town.

It distinguishes itself from the genre of post-war film by virtue of its fantastic cast, of course, but also by its focus on the here-and-now of its characters. There are a few brief, obligatory questions about James’ time in Iraq (largely the inevitable: did you kill anyone?), but there are no arguments for or against the war, no political debate. The war is a fact we can’t change, and the characters have too many wars at home to fight without worrying about that one as well.

The Dry Land is definitely an intense film, wholly engrossing, beautifully shot, and with strong performances. It also portrayed close male friendship with great emotional truth, contrasting the relationships with the childhood friend versus the army buddy. Good stuff. (Also, maybe this is the place to mention that Wilmer Valderrama grew up HOT. Who knew? Well, to be fair, probably everyone but me.)

The writer/director as well as the cast had a surprising amount of support from the military, and they are giving back, touring the film around bases and military towns, raising awareness and discussion of PTSD. At a recent screening in Idaho, mental health professionals were asked more questions than the director and stars, which is fantastic. The cast seems to be supporting the film in a deeper way than usual as well; it sounds as though Ryan O’Nan & America Ferrera are both accompanying the film to more than just festival screenings, so that’s awesome.

During the Q&A, one fellow asked a question that wound up answering a question of my own — I had wondered why Stewart Stern had introduced the film at its premiere two days earlier. He had come up to me when I was volunteering to ask where he needed to be for the intro, and I managed to not fall all over both of us, even though this is what it was like in my head: “OMG it’s Stewart Stern! I am so grateful I have gotten to hear you speak so often this year! I *adored* Rachel Rachel! Eeeee!” Instead, I showed great restraint and pointed him to my manager. (The answer is that he has known the writer/director for some time, and served as a mentor to him throughout the process of developing the film. Also, he is a sweet old guy, and probably would have been quite gracious even if I had embarrassed myself.)

After that let out, I walked downtown to briefly intarweb as y’all saw, then over to Seattle Center to brave the hoards of Folklife for dinner, and then onto SIFF Cinema for my evening feature.

I know less than nothing about classical music in general, let alone anything specific related to classical pianists, and to be honest, I largely added Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould because I am a fan of 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould. These things happen.

Genius Within is a solid documentary, drawing on a surprising quantity of archival footage of Gould, as well as interview subjects who have only recently begun to open up about their relationships with him. It was an interesting contrast seeing elements it naturally had in common with 32 Short Films being treated in a far more straightforward manner, and it certainly brought home the ideas from that film which had stuck with me, namely his interest in the themes of solitude and loneliness, and the perception that even with those who thought they were close to him, he was really still performing. I identify with that more than is healthy. Unfortunately, I am not a genius, so there’s no compensation.