Another Hamptons International Film Festival, 2018 edition, has
begun today Oct 4 2018. For me, a surprisingly good shorts program,
‘Please Don’t Tell’ was my first show. ‘Provence’ was the first of 5 movies,
Beginning with lovely elegiac music the camera pans down from
summertime sun through the trees in ?Provence to the river below
where several children are playfully walking. The colors and contrasts
are beautiful, as the story progresses of a girl Camille and her older brother,
who becomes enticed by two attractive Dutch girls. The film was created
by Belgian Kato De Boeck, and subtly makes an unexpected secret
statement to climax the film. One remarkable scene of a lizard staccatoedly
climbing up yellow/green stone steps in hot still air added a spacey interlude
as the plot proceeded. GREAT Movie!!!
https://filmguide.hamptonsfilmfest.org/films/provence/
‘Fauve’ is a Canadian short that was an award winner at this year’s Cannes
Film Festival. It’s about two boys playing a game of one-upsmanship, keeping
score, just roaming around a changing landscape, going where they shouldn’t
go. Powerful climax to a masterfully acted tale!!
https://filmguide.hamptonsfilmfest.org/films/fauve/
‘Cross My Heart’ is a tightly woven Jamaican film about two 15 year-old female cousins,
one returning to the island, one still not recovering or telling anyone else about
her Brett Kavanaugh moment, perpetrated by her father’s brother. Timely for us
Americans right now! . . . But, Please Don’t Tell . . .
https://filmguide.hamptonsfilmfest.org/films/cross-my-heart/
‘The Field’ is an Indian short, pertaining to a field of corn that is not quite ripe for
the anticipated scheduled harvesting. There is love and intrigue, a small poor
family, tension in the overgrowth of the field, plus alternate romance. Beautiful
colors and cinematography in this film too.
https://filmguide.hamptonsfilmfest.org/films/the-field/
The fifth film was titled ‘My Dead Dad’s Porno Tapes’ and was the weakest of these
other stellar shorts. Too private in my estimation, too many cousins and relatives
who do we care to know about? More like a home movie. But well told. But
it does not deliver on the title: we do not see any of the so-called porno tapes,
just some talk around them. Maybe they should have named this film ‘Dale’
for the Dad’s mother who ran the family like it was a “ship.” Most dramatic
tidbit is Dad never learning about his ?crazy grandfather stabbing Dale through-
and-through her forearm with a knife when she was only 8 years old, this and other
such acts possibly affecting the family dynamics thereafter under the reign of Dale.
https://filmguide.hamptonsfilmfest.org/films/my-dead-dads-porno-tapes/
The other show I viewed was the enthralling ‘The Serengeti Rules’ about ecosystems
and the scientists who observe and study them. This so crucial in our world today,
as unadulterated-by-man locales and the species populating them are changing and
disappearing. Six scientists who I doubt any of us really have heard of or about,
have their tales sung here, with fantastic nature shots of otters and orcas and
wildebeests and zebras and lions and sea urchins and kelp and radical waves,
with explanations of their interactions, and what predators do to stabilize these
ecosystems. The film tracks what happens when whales were slaughtered in
the Pacific Northwest, and what that did to populations of seals and otters
who fed upon the whales. Fascinating movie, presenting the importance of
nature’s balance to us, as we greedily destroy the planet taking and taking,
without understanding how importance the balance of land, sea and birds is
all one on our tenuous Earth.
https://filmguide.hamptonsfilmfest.org/films/the-serengeti-rules/
I have five shows for tomorrow, about which I hope to share with you.
(C) 2018 Claude Mayers