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Snow Bound

Ths year’s Sundance seems like the most promising in a while, based on the quality of the talent assembled, the potential certain movies seem to have, and the movies I’ve seen in advance. I’ll be covering several films for indieWIRE while onsite. I’ll talk about a few films and interviews in later columns, but I’m not going to play the scoop-‘n’-poop game this year. Generally, I’d rather reflect than predict.

I’ve seen several documentaries in advance, and among premieres, there’s a lot to consider in Sam Green and Bill Siegel’s ambitious The Weather nderground, which attempts to capture the political fire of a complicated era. You can read my interview with the directors here.

I also wrote about Steve James’ heartbreaking marvel of empathy, Stevie, for Filmmaker. That piece should be on newsstands in a couple of weeks, and the film opens across the country in March and April.

Wept away

A Japanese Sundance entry that I admire is first-time director Hideo Sugimori’s Woman of Water (Mizu no Onna), which shared a best picture nod at the International Thessaloniki Film Festival. Winner of the 2001 Sundance/NHK International Filmmakers Award, Sugimori’s deliquescent, poetic visual style transcends a potentially risible love story between a woman who brings rain when she’s sad and a pyromaniac drawn to any flame. There are more than several shots of jaw-droppingly precious beauty. Here’s what he told the Venice Film Festival programmers: “Once upon a time, when people lived closely with nature, there were sibyls and shamans everywhere on this planet. . And nowadays, there are people called ‘Rain Man’ or ‘Rain Woman’ in Japan.. In this film, I intended to present the type of Asian heroine who accepts. . What I mean by accepting is compassion and love, never judging or disputing, just the way water accepts everything. Intuitively I feel that is important for humankind in the twenty-first century to shift from getting to accepting.” In Thessaloniki, we spoke a few times and he’s articulate about the directors and films he admires, including Robert Bresson for his use of sound. I also admired his turquoise blue vinyl sneakers. I wonder what kind of brightly colored boots he’ll be wearing in Park City’s powder.

Moonlight meow

I’m also charmed by thrity-two-year-old Jae-eun Jeong’s Take Care of My Cat  (Goyangileul butaghae), which is playing in several cities and will premiere on Sundance Channel in February. (I’ll write a little more about it then.) One of South Korea’s few female directors in that country’s burgeoning cinema scene, her 2001 coming-of-age story about five young women in the working class port city of Inchon struggling against life after high school is a tender delight. A beautifully shaped and observed portrait of the limbo between school and career, Take Care of My Cat is simply one of the freshest movies I’ve seen in a while, contemporary, musical, inventive, touching and utterly without guff or cliches.

Spiked

I’m still getting into cheerfully volatile conversations about 25th Hour. Disney’s been running amusing ads for it in New York City, touting Spike Lee’s latest as being a film by a New Yorker for all New Yorkers, using photographs of the many races who are obscenely derogated in a monologue by Edward Norton’s character. Admittedly, the faces are reprised in an entirely different, tender context at the film’s end. What’s stayed with me in the past week is the film’s ending, a madly spiraling alternative history, and I don’t think I’ve given it enough credit in print for its breathless, romantic, hopeful, sadly impossible rush.

E-me: Does the blanket coverage of Sundance make it seem like heaven or hell?