Film Fest Wrap Up

 As the film fest winds to a close, we're torn between film fatigue and the awareness that only a smattering of the films on offer will return later—and it's difficult to say which. We took two days off to do a little camping near the Iowa border and returned to the small screen with renewed enthusiasm.

Here are a few of the films that made the effort worthwhile:

Havel.  This frothy biopic of the Czech playwright and statesman Václav Havel would be largely incomprehensible to anyone who didn't already know he was a famous playwright and statesman. It's full of bohemian drinking, smoking, adultery, minor run-ins with the authorities followed by more serious clashes, prison terms, cloak-and-dagger episodes, and dramatic betrayals that turn out to be theatrical performances. Cinematically speaking, it doesn't quite measure up to the thematically similar The Lives of Others, but it paints a vivid portrait of Havel and his times, which inspired me to scour the basement stacks for my copy of his essay collection, The Art of the Impossible: Politics as Morality in Practice.   

If the Wind Drops. This low-key, moody work follows a French auditor who's been sent to the tiny independent nation of Nagorno-Karabakh to certify that its airport meets the technical and safety requirements for international flights. The country is so small that no other kind of flight could justify building such a facility, and the locals know if the airport is allowed to open, it will increase their visibility on the international scene many fold.

The airport is likely to meet most of the requirements. The only problem lies in the fact that Armenia and Azerbaijan have been engaged in a slow-burn war since Nagorno-Karabakh declared its independence in 1991 to repossess it, and there isn't enough airspace to turn an airplane around in case of changing wind conditions without flying over "enemy" territory.

The local officials are tight-lipped about the exact nature of the fighting in the hills, which we never see, and the auditor can't seem to get an accurate map of the area from his superiors in Brussels to establish where the borders really are. As he checks one thing after another at the terminal, it's as if a surreal, existential fog hangs over the valley, exemplified by the little boy we see repeatedly wandering on the airport runway with large water bottles that he fills in the terminal bathroom and later sells at the local hospital.    

(Though it isn't mentioned in the film, a few months after it was shot, troops from Azerbaijan and Nagorny Karabakh clashed violently. The locals lost and were forced to cede important territories after a ceasefire signed under the auspices of the Russian government, which is planning to take over the airport for military purposes.)

After Antarctica. I've been hearing the name "Will Steger" for about as long as I can remember, but beyond the facts that he's an arctic explorer and an environmentalist, I wouldn't have been able to tell you much about him before seeing this documentary. The film moves back and forth between several points of focus: Steger's historic crossing of Antarctica with an international team of adventurers in 1989; his current solo treks in the Arctic, and personal musings on his checkered personal life and ongoing efforts to sustain an environmental center at his property in the woods north of Ely. Steger comes across as a modest, down home guy with a lot of stamina and an unusually deep-rooted affection for the outdoors.   

I Was, I Am, I Will Be follows an unusual plot-line, as a successful German pilot facing a cancer diagnosis goes on vacation in Turkey with her paramour and takes it into her head to befriend an indigent Turkish gigolo. The film is full of unexpected turns and insights, some of them touching, others not so much, as this unlikely pair negotiates bureaucratic formalities, language  challenges, and social roadblocks together, but from different points of view and with largely different motives.