This seems to be a fairly desperate year for the Chicago International Film Festival. What makes me grit my teeth more than lick my lips at the annual prospect, especially ever since the loss of Marc Evans as festival programmer, is the sense of barely contained chaos–chaos in the selections, chaos in the programming, and chaos in determining a coherent vision of why we need this festival in the first place. Operating under an enormous financial deficit, the festival doesn’t exactly inspire confidence when it once again cancels programs that have been announced as confirmed, and reveals, several days after distributing to the public a calendar of events, that ten of the programs at the Music Box were scheduled without the theater’s knowledge or consent. (a fresh press release cheerfully announced, “the Festival is delighted by the opportunity to expand its screening venues to three locations throughout the city’s north side,” with the Three Penny taking over the ten Music Box screenings).
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However, it’s questionable whether the festival can claim to be truly representative of the best that’s going on in film at the moment. On the basis of the 40 or so films I saw in Cannes in May, the close to a hundred more I saw for the New York Film Festival in July and August, and the 40 or so more I then saw in Locarno and Toronto, I can say that a few of the films showing in Chicago represent the cutting edge of what’s happening at the moment–most notably, Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Goodbye South, Goodbye, Lars von Trier’s Breaking the Waves, and Mike Leigh’s Secrets and Lies, the last two of which are scheduled to open soon commercially. But I don’t see any recognition in the festival program of the recent remarkable renaissance in French filmmaking, which includes Olivier Assayas’s Irma Vep, Andre Techine’s Thieves, Raoul Ruiz’s Three Lives and Only One Death, Jean-Daniel Pollet’s Dieu sait quoi, Maurice Pialat’s Le garcu, and Patrick Bonitzer’s Encore. And I don’t see any recognition, apart from Hou’s film, of the comparable upsurge in Taiwanese cinema, which has yielded Edward Yang’s Mahjong, Wu Nien-jen’s Buddha Bless America, and Lin Cheng-sheng’s A Drifting Life.
I realize that some films simply aren’t available to the Chicago festival, even if requested. But let me add the titles of 20 more valuable movies I’ve seen at other festivals since May and would have liked to have seen included here: Mariano Barosso’s Extasis, Alan Berliner’s Nobody’s Business, Edgardo Cozarinsky’s Rothschild’s Violin, David Cronenberg’s Crash, Claire Denis’s Ninette et Boni, Jean-Luc Godard’s For Ever Mozart, Flora Gomes’s Po di sangui, Peter Greenaway’s The Pillow Book, Otar Iosseliani’s The Brigands, Isaac Julien’s Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask, Chen Kaige’s Temptress Moon, Richard Linklater’s Suburbia, Carlo Lizzani’s Celluloide, Bruce McDonald’s Hard Core Logo, Ross McElwee’s Six O’clock News, Yoshimitsu Morita’s Haru, Yvonne Rainer’s Murder and Murder, Ira Sachs’ The Delta, Steven Soderbergh’s Schizopolis, and Susan Streetfeld’s Female Perversions.
First, a few specifics: The Festival runs from Friday, October 11, through Sunday, October 20. Screenings are at the Music Box, 3733 N. Southport; Pipers Alley, 1608 N. Wells; and the Three Penny, 2424 N. Lincoln. Tickets can be purchased at the festival store at Pipers Alley and at the theater box offices an hour before show times; they’re also available (with a service charge) by phone at 337-4840 or 644-3456 or fax at 943-6640. General admission to most programs is $9, ?? for students and seniors, and $7.50 for Cinema/Chicago members. Shows on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays are a dollar less. Discount passes to multiple screenings are also available. For more information, call 644-3456 (644-FILM).
