Tribeca 2008: The Good, The Bad, and The Couscous

Though it's still very much in search (and need) of an identity, this year's edition of the Tribeca Film Festival is the first one that hasn't left me with a case of agita. Is this a sign of a newly improved festival, or is it simply that I've finally learned how to filter out the noise and distractions while finding the needles hidden within the haystack of self-promotion and corporate ubiquity? Logistically, there was a vast improvement over past years, which had the press office centrally located to nothing, and screenings held in all corners of the city. Having everything within a few block radius in Greenwich Village made it much easier to dash out a screening, get some work done in the press lounge, and then quickly partake of corporate-sponsored snacks and booze in the beyond-surreal Target filmmakers lounge that left you feeling as if you had stepped into a living advert or twisted performance art piece. But what of the films? Of the seventeen titles I caught at the fest, eight ranged from meh to great, which is a respectable average for any festival. However, of the bad films, many were of the how-the-hell-did-this-wind-up-in-any-festival quality. That's not something I've experienced in Berlin, where the films I've walked out on are merely typical second-rate festival fodder. At Tribeca, the disparity is shocking. The reduction in the number of titles this year has no doubt helped the situation, but more needs to be done to remove the quantity over quality mode in which the festival functions. Though films such as War, Inc., The Auteur, and Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-Itchyfooted Mutha might have some redeeming qualities (well, excepting War, Inc. which might be one of the most embarrassingly awful films ever made), they have no place in a festival that is hoping to attain a position equal to those held in other major cities of the world. Some argue that they are striving to avoid the (perceived) elitism of the New York Film Festival, but I don't buy that. It is possible to program a 100+ title festival without the inclusion of absolute rubbish – that is, if you let go of the mandate of having n world premieres. I'd much rather see Rotterdam, Berlin, or SXSW titles that have little chance of finding distribution than an insulting, unfunny, Hilary Duff vehicle. On the plus side, there were some truly wonderful films to be found, and whereas most years I walk away with (maybe) one great experience, there were several unexpected surprises this year, including a few that may end up among the best of the year. There's not much I can say about Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg or James Marsh's Man on Wire that hasn't been said elsewhere, but both exceeded my expectations. I've always been a fan of Maddin's films, but in recent years his aesthetic has overshadowed the content, and more often than not I've walked away feeling cold. That's not the case with My Winnipeg, where Maddin, no stranger to autobiographical flourishes, creates something entirely new with this "docufantasia" about the city he calls home. Seamlessly blending fact and fiction with footage both found and fabricated, it's his most personal work to date, and also his funniest. Though I was only eight years old when Philippe Petit performed his illegal walk between the Twin Towers, it was an event that friends and I discussed non-stop for days afterwards. Man on Wire, which unfolds with all the suspense of a heist film, lovingly recalls a New York City that is no longer – a more innocent time when the punishment for committing a criminal act such as Petit's was little more than a slap on the wrist. Though the film (wisely) avoids any mention of 9/11, it's almost impossible to watch Petit and his crew plan their WTC adventure without drawing a parallel to another group for whom the allure of the towers was the antithesis of Petit's. Yet as good as those two films were, the real find of the festival was Abdel Kechiche's nearly-perfect The Secret of the Grain. The latest film from the Tunisian-born auteur (whose  L'Esquive was one of the best films of 2003), The Secret of the Grain is a nothing short of cinematic poetry – a tribute to the director's father and a eulogy to the North African working-class of southern France. Slimane, a sixty-something shipyard worker with an ex-wife and several grown children, struggles to survive the changing economic landscape, where long-term immigrant workers are being replaced by inexperienced newcomers who work for a fraction of the price. Not content to spend the rest of his days living off his measly pension, he decides to take the great leap into entrepreneurship (There Will Be Couscous), though he must fight a system that by design is working against him. At over two-and-a-half hours, Kechiche's drama is an incredible slow burn that takes over an hour for any semblance of a plot to appear. Yet during that time we are deeply immersed into the world of Slimane and his family through a series of lengthy vérité sequences that introduce us to the myriad of characters in Slimane's life. Kechiche loves language and the power of the spoken word (a theme of L'Esquive) and the epic dinner sequence, which has family members discussing everything from the price of diapers to the marital indiscretion of one of the sons, is reminiscent of Cassavetes – not only structurally, but in its unyielding, infinite humanism.  Though on the surface the film becomes a question of whether or not Slimane will triumph over adversity, it does so with resorting to cheap theatrics or melodrama. It remains lodged somewhere between documentary and neo-realism, and its various digressions into social critique, political commentary etc. are more significant than its plot progressions. An extremely balanced work, Kechiche doesn't romanticize the bonds of the community, nor does he allow the film to get lost in a naive optimism.  I'm intentionally being vague about the plot, for I feel it's best to walk in knowing as little as possible. At the same time, I feel I need a second viewing before being able to discuss it in greater detail. However, I can state, without any hesitation, that the final half-hour contains one of the sexiest, most erotic sequences I've ever seen on film. And it's not even a sex scene. There isn't time at the moment to write about other highlights of the fest, though I'm hoping to find some in order to shower praise on three other wonderful discoveries: Somers Town, Guest of Cindy Sherman, and the odd but unforgettable Milky Way Liberation Front.