The hardest of the hardcore festival-goers begin today looking their 20th film square in the eye.  The typical individual might think this was something outlawed by the Geneva Convention, but–yes, we are doing this voluntarily and for fun.  It probably will, however, feel pretty good when we stop.

Today is our John Turturro day at this year’s MIFF.  We will be seeing two of his films back-to-back.   His directing debut MAC (1992) and his latest directing effort ROMANCE AND CIGARETTES (2005).   He will be receive the 2008 Mid-Life Achievement Award during the screening for ROMANCE AND CIGARETTES.

Turturro wrote MAC with Brandon Cole, directed it, and is its star.  He dedicated MAC to his father and it is the kind of personal story that very infrequently becomes the focus of a film.  It is about a working class home builder trying to get a business going with his brothers, earn a living, start a family, and do it with integrity.  Sometimes a film could begin with a character having same the dreams as Turturro’s Mac character, but show how he loses his way due to greed.   For characters of Italian-American background like Mac, the Mafia frequently would end up somehow entering the story.  Turturro chews the scenery as he encounters an unscrupulous employer who becomes a devious business rival, money troubles, careless and even sabotaging workers, money troubles (I know I mentioned that, but it is a recurring theme), and his troublesome younger brothers Bruno (Carl Capotorto) and Vico (Michael Badalucco).  Turturro made the film after becoming an established actor and this probably helped him  give MAC a polish that eludes most first-time filmmakers.

Turturro’s ROMANCE AND CIGARETTES is a terrific, but very unusual film.  It is a working class surrealistic musical about living, loving, and dying.  Despite a fabulous cast headed by James Gandolfini, Susan Sarandon, Kate Winslet, Christopher Walken, Steve Buscemi, etc. (yes, there are well-known stars throughout the cast), this film has had only a limited theatrical release more than two years following its debuts at the 2005 Venice and Toronto Film Festivals.  The film is edgy with language that is raw and definitely banned from polite conversation.  Alas, much that is banned from polite conversation constitutes the richness of life itself.  This film begins as wildly magical and ends as profoundly moving.  The soundtrack would be delightful by itself and frequently soundtracks lose their magic once divorced from the images to which they were attached within a film.  This was the second screening of the film for my wife and I.  The film not only “held up” during a second viewing, but was enhanced by seeing it with the full, very responsive audience at the Waterville Opera House.  This will likely be the true favorite film seen by many festival-goers because usually such tribute films for the Mid-Life Career Achievement Award  recipient have been excluded from the official Audience Favorite balloting.

After the screening, Festival Director Shannon Haines and Festival Programmer Ken Eisen presented Turturro with this year’s ”Moose” that symbolizes the Mid-Life Achievement Award.  After graciously accepting his award, Mr. Turturro answered a variety questions about the film, the role of his family in its genesis, his career, his cousin Aida, and what he is looking to return as in his next life.  This extended Q and A session went on for about 40-45 minutes

Although we had originally planned to see Johnny To’s MAD DETECTIVE , the prolonged Q and A prevented us from arriving for that film (despite my planting the seed for holding the film’s start) until it had already started for 10-15 minutes (Its start was held for 10 minutes when we would have needed about 20 or more).  So we decided to see the Swedish film LET THE RIGHT ONE IN by director Tomas Alfredson and screenwriter John Ajvide Lindqvist. My original plan was to see it as the beginning film on Day 8 and it may have worked a little better then.  This is a slowly progressing foreign-language film set in snowy Sweden.  This is a very unusual film genre that I certainly haven’t seen brought to the screen before.  I don’t make it a point to see every vampire picture that gets churned out, so I don’t believe I had ever seen a boy-meets-vampire love story.  This is all about what happens in a small Swedish community when a cute “12 year-old more or less” vampire named Eli (Lina Leandersson) moves to town and, for loner “12 year-eight months-and-nine-days” old Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant), right into the next apartment.  Mayhem, angst, and love ensue.  I suppose it could become a bit emasculating to have such a powerful girlfriend, but it is awfully handy that she does know how to really thrash a bunch of bullies.