What is it? that makes so many people get up and leave the room?
Another dose of carry on screening this morning. Watched Werner Herzog's latest documentary Grizzly Man and hard-hitting documentary Shake Hands With The Devil: The Journey Of Romeo Dallaire.
Herzog's latest concerns the life and death of Timonthy Treadwell. Timothy loved bears with a passion bordering on the fixated and believed he could live with them - doing so for 13 summers until the fateful day he stopped being a 'friend' and became 'lunch' along with his partner Amie Huguenard. It is perhaps wrong to make light of what is a fascinating story, with Herzog probing Treadwell's motivation and character as well as celebrating his often stunning camerwork and examining what led to the grizzly man's demise.
Even more difficult to watch was Shake Hands With The Devil, a film documenting Canadian General Romeo Dallaire's role in attempting to avert the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Sent there by the UN, his mission was horrifically underfunded and unsupported. Director Peter Raymont tracks Dallaire's return to Rwanda 10 years after the massacre, recording his abiding horror that he was unable to stop the onslaught and his attempts to come to terms with the destruction he witnessed.
Head to Park City for lunch in an attempt to lift spirits. Am taken by the name of Loco Lizard cantina - which turns out to be great. Then it's on to The Yarrow for a screening of Live-In Maid, pictured below. I've been a fan of Norma Aleandro since I saw her in the excellent El Hijo De La Novia (Son Of The Bride) - they're remaking it in the US at the moment, but don't pander to them, make sure you watch the original.
Aleandro stars as Beba an upper-class type who is down on her luck. With bills stacking up, she is unable to pay her live-in maid of 28 years Dora (Norma Argentina), who threatens to leave, bringing both of their lives to crisis point. I can't help wondering how the director copes with both leading ladies named Norma. Wonder vaguely if he calls them Norma1 and Norma2 or somesuch. The film is engaging but unlikely to set the heather on fire and is preceded by short film Chamaco (Kid) about a day in the life of a South American street child.
It has been snowing off and on all day, so pretty damp out. Nevertheless we head to Main Street in the event that someone famous has ventured out. They haven't.
While stopping in a bar (to check for celebs, you understand) I hear that Focus Features, part of Universal, have scooped the US rights to On A Clear Day for somewhere in the region of $2million - so things really are going swimmingly for them.
A frosty beverage later and it was time to head back to the cinema for a screening of Crispin Glover's What Is It? That proves to be a very good question. In a film-making sense it is the culmination of ten years' work. In artistic terms, it's hard to say.
Starring a cast of, largely, mentally and physically handicapped people it doesn't pull any punches. Around 15 people walked out of the press screening within half an hour. I can't think what offended them... could it have been the down syndrome copping off scene, the use of swastikas or, perhaps, the song about the "nigger" (yes, really, and that is the film's word not mine), whichever way, the crowd was thinning fast.
There is even some pretentious wank in there - literally - and is, on account, most certainly not for the faint-hearted. I think Glover probably does have a very serious point to make about the way we view the handicapped, but wonder whether lobbing salt on snails (among other things) is really the best method of getting this across.
Allegedly he is ringing around members of the press himself to arrange publicity interviews... must have lost my number.
I have the press materials disk but not sure if I can face it tonight, instead opting to head back to the hotel. Hope dreams will not now be populated by screaming snails.
P.S. No new roadkill.
