Vampires and Guitars at VIFF
The Vancouver International Film Festival ends this week. How'd that happen? Feeling trampled by the onslaught of time (earlier reviews were screeners), I rushed out and caught my first two films since the festival started. Glad I did - both were good in very different ways - and were the perfect antidote to a miserable result in soccer this morning.
Talking Guitars is a documentary about mastercraftsmen, custom guitar-builder Flip Scipio. Dutch filmmaker Claire Pijman took 8 years to compile the footage and cut it with a kind of easy meandering quality as it bounces between Scipio's workshop in New York and stars such as Carley Simon, Jackson Browne, David Lindley, Paul Simon, among others, jamming away for us and talking about the quality of their instruments and what Flip brings to the instruments. One of Keith Richards' acoustic guitars makes an appearance (although not the man himself). Flip, himself, comes across as a thoughtful, modest man, clearly appreciated by his clients and with a serious work ethic. It reminded me a little of the excellent Dutch Light (Nederlands Licht) in mood, with its deep immersion in ideas about the creative process. That said, the film was marred by audio distortion on the Pacific Cinematheque's sound system. VIFF artistic director Alan Franey said afterwards that it was something to do with the screening tape being on HD. Whatever, it was a real shame for a film which relies so much on the soundtrack.
The next film Let The Right One In is very different. A Swedish vampire movie, the story follows a 12-year-old blonde kid Oskar who becomes friends with the girl next door who happens to be a vampire. Quite a bit has already been written about this already (Let The Right One In Film Review). It has a still, clear quality to it. The cinematography lingers on close-ups, and the empty Northern landscapes, such as the snowy urban housing estate where Oskar lives. The performances of the young leads are effectively understated and an uncluttered script makes the most of a good central idea (young love with a vampire). The story has surprising amounts of humour (audiences were laughing with it) and pathos as Oskar goes through classic pubescent rites of passage. Even the gore was tastefully done.