Seattle Sightings: The Seattle International Film Festival (review)

SIFF 44 screened some 250 features over twenty-five days in eleven main theaters (five for the entire time; six in Seattle neighborhoods and nearby communities for shorter periods). France, Belgium, Quebec, Morocco, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Benin supplied this year's selection of twenty-seven films with French connections. Interesting statistics: eight of this group accounted for forty César nominations. 30% of the group were inspired by a literary source (memoire, comic strip, graphic novel, novel). 37% of them were made by female directors, and the same percentage were debut films.

Several SIFF French selections have already entered American distribution. Gauguin, voyage de Tahiti (Édouard Deluc) and Le redoutable (aka Godard, mon amour) (Michel Hazanavicius) craft portraits of two artistic giants—social rebels both—who upended the norms of their chosen forms of creative expression. Beyond the art, both directors address the destruction caused in human terms by such narcissistic prodigies. Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire's Une prière avant l'aube, based on English boxer Billy Moore's memoir of his imprisonment in Thailand for drugs, yields a story of redemption after copious blood and violence. Along the same vein, Coralie Fargeat's debut film Revenge was the opening weekend midnighter. Attendees had mixed reactions: was this a feminist rape-revenge tale, a MeToo call to stand up against sexism, or just another example of New French Extremity horror (done by a woman)?

Claire Denis's Un beau soleil intérieur also divided viewers: take this tale of search for true love seriously or cynically? In either case, searcher Juliette Binoche and voyant Gérard Depardieu earned plaudits. Michael R. Roskam's Le fidèle pairs Matthias Schoenaerts as a bank robber with Adèle Exarchopoulos as the professional-racecar-driver daughter of a crime-connected businessman. These two bond in an irresistible, fateful passion. Even if set realistically in the criminal milieu of late 1990s Belgium and a tale drawing on conventions of the polar français and American film noir, the outlaw robber-lover's final, tragic gesture evokes that of a Romantic hero or a faithful medieval knight.

Always eagerly anticipated, SIFF's archival program contained restorations of two French classics: Luis Buñuel's celebrated Belle de jour (1967) and Jean Renoir's Le crime de Monsieur Lange (1936), which the poet Jacques Prévert helped script.

French schools from the Seattle area helped programming for young viewers by sponsoring Belle et Sébastien 3, le dernier chapitre (Clovis Cornillac) and two animated works. Le grand méchant renard et autres contes (Benjamin Renner, Patrick Imbert), 2018 Best Animation César, imagines a fox hatching a clutch of chicken eggs resulting in chicks who take him for their mother. Comical escapades ensue that keep "maman renard" on the run! The Franco-Belgian Zombillénium (Arthur de Pins, Alexis Ducord) animates De Pins's graphic novel about an amusement park run by real monsters pretending to be fake vampires, zombies, etc. Behind the stunning visual entertainment—tattooed teen apprentice witch Gretchen on her skateboard-broomstick, for instance—the directors include doses of social commentary, from consumerism to social caste and workers' rights, from inattentive parents and unreasonable teachers to pop culture references.

Several character-centered dramas deserve mention. Sashinka (Kristina Wagen-bauer) and Le petit paysan (Hubert Charuel) share several points in common. They are debut features grounded in autobiographical elements drawn from family experiences and feature profoundly interesting, if imperfect central figures. Québecoise Wagenbauer depicts a memorable, bittersweet mother-daughter relationship. The extroverted, emotionally-needy mother, who emigrated from Russia under the illusion of furthering her singing career, re-enters her partially estranged daughter's life like a hurricane. The daughter, a singer on the eve of her big break, is sorely tasked to weather this storm. Charuel's picture (Best Actor and First Film Césars), focuses on thirty-year-old bachelor Pierre, who has taken over his parents' traditional dairy operation. Documentary-like details shot on the director's own family farm...