The Portland International Film Festival is underway again -- and The Oregonian is once again covering as many of PIFF's "71 dramatic features, 19 full-length documentaries, and 42 shorts" as the team can manage.
Here's Shawn Levy's introduction to our Week 1 feature package, and here are capsule reviews of 15 opening-week movies by Shawn, Marc Mohan, Stan Hall and yrs. truly.
My three Week 1 reviews are re-posted after the jump.
"The Robber"
This terse adaptation of a novel (based on the exploits of real-life Austrian criminal Johann Kastenberger) is fascinating for how little it chooses to reveal about its antihero. Johann (Andreas Lust) is an Austrian ex-con who strips his life down to exactly two activities: training for marathons and robbing banks. An affair with a social worker (Franziska Weisz) puts a hitch in his rhythm.
By design, director Benjamin Heisenberger tells us almost nothing about the near-mute Johann's motivations. "What I do has nothing to do with what you call life," Johann mutters; a scene where he downloads his heart-rate training data and finds it only spiked during a robbery is the closest we get to a hint. He's an existential shark, and the filmmakers rivet you with his long silences and relentless momentum.
B-plus; Austria; 96 min. (7 p.m. Tuesday, Broadway; 6:15 p.m. Wednesday, Broadway; 7 p.m. Friday [Feb. 18], Broadway; 9:30 p.m. Friday [Feb. 18], Broadway)
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"Circo"
"Circo" is a beautifully shot, profoundly sad documentary about a family-run traveling circus that seems to be crumbling before your eyes.
Documentarian Aaron Schock introduces us to "Circo Mexico" ringmaster Tino Ponce -- who works himself and his family to the bone as he hauls his heartbreaking little circus around the Mexican countryside. The tension is quiet but unyielding: Tino's wife wants to leave the road and educate her overworked, near-illiterate, eerily graceful children; older family members supervising Tino distrust anyone who stays in one place or isn't completely loyal to the family business; and eternal financial pressure keeps Circo Mexico on a desperate, endless tour.
Schock respectfully captures these lives, and gets you thinking hard about the costs of loyalty, youthful choices and early indoctrination.
B; Mexico; 85 min. (8:45 p.m. Monday, Broadway; 5:45 p.m. Saturday [Feb. 19], Broadway; 3:30 p.m. Thursday [Feb. 24], Broadway)
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"Boy"
Writer/director/costar Taika Waititi's charming second feature is a massive improvement on his first, 2007's try-too-hard quirkfest "Eagle vs Shark." Waititi is still telling stories of offbeat, semi-delusional New Zealanders, and he's still sprinkling his work with cartoonish flights of fancy -- but this time he grounds the comedy in a warm, bittersweet story of a boy craving a father.
James Rolleston is terrific as the title character, a Michael Jackson-obsessed 11-year-old who holds down the fort on a houseful of children while his nana's away -- only to get horrible parental guidance when his idiot ex-con father (Waititi) shows up looking for buried money.
Waititi does a nice tonal juggling act, balancing eccentric characters, child-drawn animation and even Maori-inflected re-stagings of Michael Jackson videos with the painful consequences of parental neglect. "Boy" was a huge crowd-pleasing hit in New Zealand. It's not hard to see why.
B; New Zealand; 87 min. (1:45 p.m. Sunday, Broadway; 6:45 p.m. Thursday, Broadway; 6 p.m. Friday [Feb. 18], Broadway; 8:15 p.m. Saturday [Feb. 19], Broadway)
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Around town, around the world: the 34th Portland International Film Festival sets sail (The Oregonian, Friday, Feb. 11, 2011)
PIFF34: Week 1 reviews (The Oregonian, Friday, Feb. 11, 2011)
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