Memoirs of a Geezer!
Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth
to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!
This Episode: More than a Film Festival, It's a Feast of Local and National Prominence!
Magnificent images, outstanding selections! A stunning array of spectacular variety. We traveled to Istanbul, Iceland, India, China and Iran. Desert sands and roiling seas, diverse personalities from the Middle East and Africa, cats and the remarkable people who care for them. Movies! Films! An international feast! They play on our emotions, offer glimpses into fascinating cultures and distinctive ways of living.
When it's over, we feel a sense of loss, as if a good friend has come for a welcome visit and then is too quickly gone. A full year will pass before it returns to delight us once again. For
"starters," a kind of appetizer, perhaps, the 2016 Milwaukee Film Festival gave us live action and animated short films for the younger set. It's become an annual tradition. We take our grandkids and their parents, gather somewhere for lunch, and then urge the kids to talk about what they liked best, what they learned from or thought about the short films we all just enjoyed. Bounce was a particular favorite, by consensus!
Sweet Bean! While it may seem like an English translation of a Japanese exclamation, it's a remarkable film featuring a quietly influential protagonist who molds the story and, in a sense, narrates more positive life choices for the other two principal characters. And she does it with a beautiful, nearly palpable skill... and dorayakis to tempt and please the palates of our imaginations.
Keepers of the Game takes viewers to Salmon River High School in upstate New York. This is inspirational filmmaking and storytelling at its very best. The sport of lacrosse is at its center, as the first all-Native-American girls team makes history, crossing cultural and other formidable barriers to win a championship, recognition and even hard-won funding for their sport along the journey. An outstanding documentary film!
We waited in a "rush" line, a first for us, but worth the time and effort to re-visit Istanbul and the beautifully photographed KEDI. The people who care for them, the filming perspectives... Even if you aren't particularly a lover of cats, this is a gorgeous look at an extraordinary city, its ancient treasures, including its finest assets -- the people who live there.
Post film-watching conversations with like-minded devotees are a delicious by-product of the festival. Peter (just to cite an example!) noted how the "aspect ratios" or screen configuration changed between time periods of the epic, Mountains May Depart, a great and at times troubling film that symbolically toys with our notions of freedom.
A beguiling gem from Chinese director Bi Gan, in Kaili Blues we follow Doctor Chen on a circuitous journey that involves trains, cars, boats and motorcycles. The film includes an intriguing, unbroken 40-minute shot, complex poetry and a dizzying conflation of past, present and future. Wonderful stuff, even for those of us lost -- or at the very least befuddled -- in the translation!
Nahid -- a strange but interesting film from Iran -- is described as Kafkaesque. True to its definition, the eponymous character makes illogical and bizarre choices, ultimately designed to retain guardianship of her son.
"Have you seen 'Rams,' " asks our friend, Alan. Naturally we had to take the bait, and found a pair of feuding brothers, amid a starkly beautiful Icelandic backdrop, struggling to keep their precious animals from being slaughtered due to a variant of "mad cow disease." The movie has, at times, a profound sense of isolation encouraged by forbidding mountains that ring their sparsely-populated valley. Upon reading the brief synopsis, and the names of the brothers -- Gummi and Kiddi -- I puzzled, "What? Is this a puppet show??!!" But there's no such whimsey in this grim tale. The brothers reconcile in the end, but perhaps too late as the shivering climax leaves the viewer to wonder. This was another film that demanded analytical conversation, lots of it! Strange and thought-provoking stuff!
One more! Sand Storm from Israel. Bedouin mother and daughter try to rebel against their repressive, male-dominated society. In the main, and in the end, it's a story of selfless sacrifice and acceptance of forces too entrenched, too powerful to overcome. A quixotic fable, maybe? (Just trying to put things into a kind of perspective I might be able to fathom!!)
For those of us who love travel, a pleasure often limited by the restrictions of economics or work or family obligations (Geezerhood, too, maybe?!), the Milwaukee Film Festival is an opportunity to travel in the comfort of padded theatre seats in conveniently located "spacecraft" (airships, maybe, flying machines, low-speed trains...) -- to wit, the Oriental, Downer, Avalon, Times and Fox Bay cinema houses!
We love the Festival, and we support it enthusiastically. As members in good standing, we pay what we can on an annual basis in order to enjoy, not only the Festival itself and reduced-cost tickets afforded members, but the "Super Secret Screening," a highlight of each annual event. And, members can take advantage of the free, monthly member screenings, usually, of outstanding motion pictures, some first-run, some rarely presented in the Milwaukee area, or on a limited basis only.
A somewhat recent change, the monthly screenings are now shown both at 4:00 pm -- perfect for the Geezer Set, you know, people like me! -- and 7:30 pm, great and welcome options for most members. Members need only respond to Email invitations, and then arrive early to secure seating, picking up awaiting tickets in the lobby of the magnificent Oriental Theatre where the "monthlies" are always shown. And there's popcorn too... Wonderful stuff (some would argue nearly indispensable in the movie-viewing experience)!
"Hey, we're waiting! Isn't it time for us members to be let in to the theatre? Come on, now. We've been standing here a long time! Hey, in there! I could begin chanting at any moment! Let us in!!... We need sustenance -- Movies! Popcorn... Dots, maybe too... Junior Mints... !!"
(Special Note of Gratitude: The perpetrator of this blog posting, on behalf of fellow devotees, extends great thanks to Jonathan Jackson, Kristopher Pollard and the entire cast and crew of Milwaukee Film for bringing to our fine community yet another outstanding Festival. May we all enjoy a great many more years of this superior and delicious Feast of Filmdom! Thank YOU!)
When it's over, we feel a sense of loss, as if a good friend has come for a welcome visit and then is too quickly gone. A full year will pass before it returns to delight us once again. For
Keepers of the Game takes viewers to Salmon River High School in upstate New York. This is inspirational filmmaking and storytelling at its very best. The sport of lacrosse is at its center, as the first all-Native-American girls team makes history, crossing cultural and other formidable barriers to win a championship, recognition and even hard-won funding for their sport along the journey. An outstanding documentary film!
 |
| For one who was based in Turkey during one's military service, a return visit to Istanbul -- courtesy of KEDI -- was an added gift of the Festival! |
Post film-watching conversations with like-minded devotees are a delicious by-product of the festival. Peter (just to cite an example!) noted how the "aspect ratios" or screen configuration changed between time periods of the epic, Mountains May Depart, a great and at times troubling film that symbolically toys with our notions of freedom.
A beguiling gem from Chinese director Bi Gan, in Kaili Blues we follow Doctor Chen on a circuitous journey that involves trains, cars, boats and motorcycles. The film includes an intriguing, unbroken 40-minute shot, complex poetry and a dizzying conflation of past, present and future. Wonderful stuff, even for those of us lost -- or at the very least befuddled -- in the translation!
Nahid -- a strange but interesting film from Iran -- is described as Kafkaesque. True to its definition, the eponymous character makes illogical and bizarre choices, ultimately designed to retain guardianship of her son.
"Have you seen 'Rams,' " asks our friend, Alan. Naturally we had to take the bait, and found a pair of feuding brothers, amid a starkly beautiful Icelandic backdrop, struggling to keep their precious animals from being slaughtered due to a variant of "mad cow disease." The movie has, at times, a profound sense of isolation encouraged by forbidding mountains that ring their sparsely-populated valley. Upon reading the brief synopsis, and the names of the brothers -- Gummi and Kiddi -- I puzzled, "What? Is this a puppet show??!!" But there's no such whimsey in this grim tale. The brothers reconcile in the end, but perhaps too late as the shivering climax leaves the viewer to wonder. This was another film that demanded analytical conversation, lots of it! Strange and thought-provoking stuff!
 |
| This photo has nothing to do with the film, Sand Storm (Ref: just above, right!) But, it's a great picture of four beautiful grandchildren taken after a presentation of "Kids Shorts, Size Medium." Aren't they wonderful??!! |
For those of us who love travel, a pleasure often limited by the restrictions of economics or work or family obligations (Geezerhood, too, maybe?!), the Milwaukee Film Festival is an opportunity to travel in the comfort of padded theatre seats in conveniently located "spacecraft" (airships, maybe, flying machines, low-speed trains...) -- to wit, the Oriental, Downer, Avalon, Times and Fox Bay cinema houses!
We love the Festival, and we support it enthusiastically. As members in good standing, we pay what we can on an annual basis in order to enjoy, not only the Festival itself and reduced-cost tickets afforded members, but the "Super Secret Screening," a highlight of each annual event. And, members can take advantage of the free, monthly member screenings, usually, of outstanding motion pictures, some first-run, some rarely presented in the Milwaukee area, or on a limited basis only.
A somewhat recent change, the monthly screenings are now shown both at 4:00 pm -- perfect for the Geezer Set, you know, people like me! -- and 7:30 pm, great and welcome options for most members. Members need only respond to Email invitations, and then arrive early to secure seating, picking up awaiting tickets in the lobby of the magnificent Oriental Theatre where the "monthlies" are always shown. And there's popcorn too... Wonderful stuff (some would argue nearly indispensable in the movie-viewing experience)!
"Hey, we're waiting! Isn't it time for us members to be let in to the theatre? Come on, now. We've been standing here a long time! Hey, in there! I could begin chanting at any moment! Let us in!!... We need sustenance -- Movies! Popcorn... Dots, maybe too... Junior Mints... !!"
(Special Note of Gratitude: The perpetrator of this blog posting, on behalf of fellow devotees, extends great thanks to Jonathan Jackson, Kristopher Pollard and the entire cast and crew of Milwaukee Film for bringing to our fine community yet another outstanding Festival. May we all enjoy a great many more years of this superior and delicious Feast of Filmdom! Thank YOU!)
Humbly Submitted, 10-20-16 -- Joel K.
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