Susanne Bier's AFTER THE WEDDING

Plus Year of the Dog and some rants & raves about Janus Films at SIFF Cinema (Week 6)

AFTER THE WEDDING
SIFF Cinema was the place to be Tuesday night as SIFF Group hosted a benefit to raise money for SIFF. Movie-goer's were treated to some wonderful pre-movie treats (strawberries, chocolates and more!) prior to a special screening of Susanne Bier's very powerful Danish drama After The Wedding. If you love deeply serious drama, done well, then this is a film for you. I saw Susanne Bier's prior film Brothers at SIFF a couple years ago and enjoyed it quite a bit, and After The Wedding is even better (and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Film). Thanks to great performances by the entire cast (and great direction from Biers) After The Wedding successfully touched the hearts of the SIFF audience (with quite a bit of sniffling overheard throughout much of the film). The SIFF audience also gave the film a healthy ovation at the end of the screening. Biers succeeded in drawing the audience completely into the film by using many extreme close ups during the movies more dramatic moments, sometimes so closeup that all you can see is a character's eye. There seemed to be lots of closeups of eyes. Human eyes. And some animal eyes too. It almost creeped me out! YIKES!
After The Wedding stars Mads Mikkelsen (who played the villain in the latest Bond film Casino Royale) and opens at the Egyptian Theater in Seattle on 4/20.

YEAR OF THE DOG
Pacific Place Cinema was the location for a sneak preview of Mike White's directorial debut, Year of the Dog. This quirky comedy drama stars Molly Shannon as a very stray woman whose life undergoes drastic changes when she becomes involved with stray dogs. While not really a great movie (although the audience did applaud at the end) the real joy of this film for me was watching Peter Sarsgaard, Laura Dern and John C. Reilly really sinking their teeth into their kooky, oddball roles. That plus a lot of beautiful doggies who also star in the film.
Year of the Dog premiered at the Sundance Film Fest on January 20th, 2007 and opens in Seattle on 4/20 at the Uptown Cinema in Queen Anne and the Guild 45th in Wallingford.

JANUS FILMS at SIFF CINEMA (Week 6)
The celluloid celebration of Janus Films 50th anniversary continues at SIFF Cinema! This week France, Denmark and Spain were represented with four classics......Children of Paradise, Cria Cuervos, Jules and Jim and Day of Wrath.

From 1976, director Carlos Saura's Cria Cuervos is an extraordinary, mysterious drama about a young Spanish girl (and her two sisters) whose father is a general in Franco's army. An amazing, unsettlingly realistic portrait of youth.
The screening of Cria Cuervos I attended was slightly disrupted by some guy making a loud crackling noise during the film as he ate God knows what....and of course it happened during a tremendously quiet and important moment in the film....one member of the audience (who was close to "noisy wrapper guy") actually had to get up and move to another seat...and it seemed this guys snack went on forever! I wondered if he'd wrapped up an entire Thanksgiving dinner to eat during the damn movie! OK.....that may be an exaggeration, but noisy wrappers should be banned from the movies, I say!

The second Janus film this week, Day of Wrath (from 1943), is an emotionally powerful film from director Carl Theodor Dreyer, that examines faith, religion and witchhunting in 17th Century Denmark. A stunning cinematic masterpiece filmed in beautiful black and white, Day of Wrath held the entire SIFF Cinema audience helplessly under it's spell.

The third Janus film this week lured quite a few Seattle film fans to SIFF Cinema on Easter Sunday afternoon to see a true cinematic epic. From director Marcel Carné, Children of Paradise is one of the greatest romantic dramas of all time. This film enthralled the SIFF Cinema audience for it's entire 3 hours and 10 minutes with it's amazing cast of marvelous characters, it's grand style and it's poetic grace.

The fourth and final Janus Film screened this week was Francois Truffaut's beautiful Jules and Jim. I sat in the very front row of SIFF Cinema and was swept away by Truffaut's widescreen romantic drama about Jules, Jim and Catherine (played by the wonderful Jeanne Moreau). Still magical 45 years after it's initial release.

On a non-movie note, I journeyed to Tini Biggs (corner of 1st & Denny) to see if their offer for a free appetizer was genuine. All you have to do is show your Janus pass (or two tickets or ticket stubs) and a free appetizer is yours. I skipped by the chicken wings and mini-burgers and went straight for the yummy macaroni and cheese (with chunks of chicken). I felt kinda bad being a complete mooch, so since it was happy hour I ordered an orange-infused vodka for $4.00. My total bill....four bucks and some change. Yummmmmmmmm. Tini Biggs you ROCK!

Week 7 of the Janus Film series has already begun and features such masterpieces as Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes, Roman Polanski's Knife in Water and Nicolas Roeg's Walkabout. Hope to see you there!

PS. Carol Reed's The Third Man starts at the Grand Illusion for a week run this Friday.
Also Hitchcock's Lifeboat is at MOHAI tonight ONLY. Hitchcock loved to do brief cameo's in most of his films, and his brief appearance in Lifeboat is his cleverest and my all-time favorite.
What a wonderful week for movie fans in Seattle!