THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 8, 1995 TAG: 9510060066
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E12 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
DATELINE: MONTREAL LENGTH: Long : 156 lines
THEY START lining up at 7:30 in the morning, grasping bagels and sweet rolls in one hand while balancing a complicated screening schedule in the other. With careful planning, and Herculean physical energy, they can see a half dozen movies each day - a drama from Japan, a sex comedy from Germany, a farce from Mali, a melodrama from South Korea and a romance from Argentina.
But is there any way to work in that political drama from Macedonia? And don't forget the comedy from Iran!
Best keep a sharp eye, too, for folks like Liv Ullman, who has flown over from Sweden, or France's Gerard Depardieu. There even are the two lovable old guys who animated Walt Disney's ``Bambi.''
It's the Montreal World Film Festival - with an emphasis on ``world.'' It delivered up 400 movies, from 68 countries, in 11 days. Serge Losique, the festival's jovial director, claims that it is the most popular film festival in the world. Some 350,000 people attended at least one of the films at this year's gathering.
For two weeks each year, this multicultural city of 3 million people goes film crazy. Local folk get so addicted to the international movie shopping that they customarily take vacation at this time so that they can catch as many as possible of the offerings. Tickets are only about $6 (U.S.).
It's not a game for the weak.
Personally, my record is six films in one day. (That's starting with the opening screening at 9 a.m. and concluding with a midnight showing.) It is not a record I intend to break anytime soon. For one thing, there are too many other things to do.
There are parties galore. Winner for this year's best party award is Japan - a sushi-and-shrimp-tempura gala attended by the stars of ``Deep River,'' a deeply allegorical and spirit-searching film about the Japanese in India. Kumiko Akiyoshi, the appealing star of the film, was much in evidence, accompanied by an interpreter.
Here, an interview can turn into a major dialogue, with just one question. If the star, for example, is from Russia, your question will be translated first into French, then into Russian, with the answer eventually finding its way back to English, always through the French.
Subtitled films can be a real challenge. Spanish, Russian and Asian films often have both French and English subtitles. You have to remember which line is yours. If you're not careful, you'll lose concentration and begin trying to read the French line (which, actually, can be very educational).
The most popular guest was clearly French actor Gerard Depardieu. According to Montreal police, more than 10,000 people showed up, hanging over the railings of a three-story shopping center, to see and hear Depardieu. In Canada to work on ``Bogus'' with Whoopi Goldberg, Depardieu said he had made nearly 100 movies.
``I've lost track on the number,'' he said. ``Making a movie is like having a love affair. It is never dull.'' He dislikes violent films and challenged his fans to find a movie in which he was a violent person. ``I often have violence inflicted upon my characters, but I have never played a really violent character.''
Liv Ullman, the star of many films directed by Ingmar Bergman, was in Montreal to present the three-hour epic romance ``Kristin Lavransdatter,'' which she directed. Sitting in the garden of the Hotel Meridien, the festival headquarters, she called the film ``the `Gone With the Wind' of my country, Norway. It is a book everyone has read. When it opened in Norway, it was the biggest hit in the history of the country.''
Lines wound for blocks around the theater, even for its 9 a.m. screening. Most fans felt, though, that it could easily be cut by one hour, and it has yet to get an American distributor.
Ullman, who had a child by director Bergman, talked freely about her disastrous Hollywood years, when she made things like ``Lost Horizon'' and ``Forty Carats.'' Bergman married another woman while Ullman was in America.
Today, she says she is friendly with the famed Swedish director and his wife. ``She has no life but his,'' she said. She is now directing a movie written by none other than Ingmar Bergman.
``He has found religion now,'' Ullman said. ``He wrote this script especially for me to direct.''
Another woman director, Talia Shire, showed up to unreel her film ``One Night Stand.'' The film, starring Ally Sheedy and Frederic Forrest, was generally not well-received.
There was a special, loving tribute to Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, two of Disney's famed ``Nine Old Men'' who animated films from ``Snow White'' to ``The Jungle Book.''
``It's true that Walt wasn't primarily an artist,'' Thomas said, ``but he was the driving force. He was the story man. He always sparked the stories. Then we would draw them.''
The two were the subject of a documentary called ``Frank and Ollie,'' directed by Theodore Thomas, Frank's son. They received a prolonged standing ovation.
An American actress walked off with the festival's ``best actress'' award - one of the few times it had happened. Suspense built during the festival because there was no sure winner. Usually a favorite surfaces. Last year, for example, New Zealand's ``Once Were Warriors'' was an early favorite and went on to win both the public's award and the coveted Grand Prize of the Americas. This year, it was anybody's guess right up to the moment when it was revealed that the international judging panel had ``Georgia'' on its mind.
The independently produced American film stars Jennifer Jason Leigh as the small-time cabaret singer who is the sister of a successful music star (played by Mare Winningham). Leigh even sings in the film. She was present to accept her award, accompanied by Barbara Turher, her mother, who wrote the screenplay.
``It's difficult to get any film made,'' Leigh said. ``This one was very close to my heart.''
Miramax, which purchased the film for United States release days after the award, plans to push a major Oscar campaign for Leigh. You'll hear more from ``Georgia'' later.
For the most part, though, the ticket buyers avoided Hollywood product. They wanted to see something they couldn't see anywhere else.
The revelation is that plots are much the same around the world.
Take for example, the Russian film ``A Moslem,'' which won a ``special grand prize'' from the jury. (generally considered to be the second-place winner). It is a standard culture-division comedy that might be compared to ``The Odd Couple.'' But consider the setting, and the political implications. The main character, Ivanov, goes away a war hero but returns from Afghanistan as a Moslem. He no longer smokes or drinks and he has a prayer rug he turns toward Mecca five times a day. Most of all, he no longer steals. His mother tells him, ``Son, do you think we don't know that to steal is wrong? But stealing from the state, that is how we survive!'' No one can imagine that the Russians would have made, or laughed, about this subject just a few years ago.
Viewers got hints, too, that the Chinese might have ambitions to enlarge their territory from watching ``A Mongolian Tale,'' a touching story of rural Mongolia, financed partially in Hong Kong. Tengger (who like some of our own rock stars uses only one name) accepted his award for the film's music, not by talking but by singing a Mongolian folk song, accompanying himself on the guitar.
The closing night film was ``Flamenco,'' a film that had no dialogue, just Spanish music. Followed by a gala closing-night extravaganza at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, the film marked the end to a film banquet that was nothing if not excessive.
One thing is certain, though: No matter how many films you see at a festival like this, some other festivalgoer has seen something better.
First, they test you by asking ``Haven't you seen the film from Mali?'' If you haven't, they will promptly tell you it is the most superb, magnificent, unbelievable thing they've ever seen. You can't win in this game because they'll keep asking until they find one you didn't see.
There are moments when I suspect that if they let a fly crawl across the screen, someone would think it was a remarkable cinematic experience.
Every film had its detractors and adorers. People were seen arguing on streets and in restaurants everywhere. The greatest thing, though, was the very fact that these were people of similar purpose gathered together - people who feel film is something that should be shared. In spite of all the videocassettes, the box office indications here are that film theaters will be a place of shared communion for a long time to come.
Unlike the glitzier Toronto Film Festival, Montreal emphasizes unique films rather than Hollywood ones. It proves, if nothing else, that both stamina and strength are required to live through one of these fetes.
Most of all it proves that film, maybe even more than music in the approaching 21st century, is the universal language. A good plot is understood in Sri Lanka as much as it is in Pungo.
And to quote the immortal wisdom of the late Mae West, ``Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
The Spanish film ``Flamenco,'' featuring Belen Maya, closed the
Montreal festival.
by CNB