I arrived
super-early for this year’s first screening, trying to avoid last year’s rush.
Instead I wound up waiting an hour and a half before the doors were opened. Once
inside, I gulped coffee and munched mini-bagels from the breakfast set-up.
Everybody looked around for familiar faces, and I said hi to Graham Leggat, who
was busy manning the press office.
S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine, directed by Rithy Panh, is a
documentary about the survivors of Cambodia’s 1970’s genocide. The material was
really interesting and featured multiple levels of psychology – grown men who'd
been indoctrinated as kids to kill people for the government were interacting
with former political prisoners. There was a tremendous scene where one of the
former prison guards demonstrated how brutally and mechanically he treated his
wards. He reenacted it with an eerie enthusiasm.
Unfortunately, the movie dragged. It featured no definable structure. No
narration. Few cutaways. It was essentially a lot of seemingly raw footage of
these people talking about their pasts and visiting the prison they all used to
inhabit.
It has a great concept and great footage to work with, but I didn’t feel like it
was a finished work. I believe a really compelling film lies in that footage.
The crowd picked up for the afternoon screening of The Kids Are Alright.
It was a special screening to commemorate the new DVD release of this The Who
documentary, as well as a marker of their 40th anniversary as recording artists.
Seeing the old concert footage on that big screen with surround sound blasting
all around was a formidable experience. That was the moment in time when they
were rock gods, before Keith Moon croaked. I think everyone in the audience got
a little sentimental about rock n’ roll. Cause nobody remembers the last time
they heard any!
The live moments were candy. But the film itself was overlong and repetitious,
and played more like a sloppy blow-job to The Who than anything else. There were
several moments when I thought it was over (like after the second rendition of
My Generation), but it just kept going. The showing afterward of the DVD short
feature Quintrophenia generated a solo boo
from somebody who’d been worn out by the music.
Richard Pena hosted the press conference afterward with director Jeff Stein and
his producers. Stein looked like he was still living the rock n’ roll dream,
with frazzled hair and sunglasses. He talked about how it took him seven years
to raise the funds to make the film, and that he was thrilled to be honored for
his work 25 years later at Lincoln Center.
TOMORROW:
A Thousand Months
Dogville
Copyright 2003 Jamie Stuart