Wow!  What a day!!  Yes, that is probably how everyone in Maine  felt about Saturday’s weather after the two miserable rain-soaked months that we have endured.  That sunny weather–terrible weather for a film festival–probably contributed to some spotty attendance at the first shows of the day around noontime.  However, the film experiences were very good Saturday and never in my darkened theater did it cross my mind: “Hey, I could be enjoying the sunshine!!”.

I started Saturday in Mexico with 40 Dias (or 40 Days).  Three talented, upscale, and troubled Mexicans–two men and a woman–set off from Mexico on a road trip across America.  The audience is drawn into their lives as they see the sights–Katrina-ravaged New Orleans; Washington, DC; Manhattan, etc.  They argue about the merits of this nation that they see as a modern-day Rome.  Gradually, we get to see some of the personal baggage that the characters carry with them.  One is a filmmaker and–in addition to the film’s perspective–we get his video perspective.  This film is somewhat choppy as the action jumps from episode to episode.  It isn’t always clear exactly what this all means, but–instead of frustrating the filmgoer–it makes one want to see it again to try to take more of it in.  There is a fairly significant plot development toward the end of the film that–in discussions with three other festival regulars–only one of us expected to happen.  Unfortunately, I can not say anything about my prescient awareness.  The film truly does have a tremendous soundtrack.

The next film is my favorite of the day.  In the Loop is a mad-cap journey through the back corridors of government on the way to invading Iraq.  Thankfully, entirely new characters have been imagined for this adventure or–more accurately–misadventure.  The film takes us from London to Washington, back-and-forth, and, eventually, to the United Nations.  The dialogue snaps and crackles and is laced with enough bad language to fill two or three films.  While the effect of this orgy of profanity in the hands of Martin Scorcese or David Mamet can be like being hammered with body blows from a professional boxer, the result here is gleeful paroxysms of giggles.  This film kept the MIFF audience in stitches throughout.  Hopefully, this will get the theatrical release in the United States that it deserves even though James Gandolfini is probably the only widely recognized actor in this almost all Brit cast because there is an infectious quality that a film like this engenders that is hard to duplicate in home viewing.

After my wife and I each chose different films (She watched The Rivals and Ghost Bird) for the afternoon, we joined up in the evening to see the last two, Carousel and Maine native Kyle Rankins’ Infestation.

Carousel (1956) is a product of its time.  This is a story in which the main character Billy Bigelow (Gordon McRea) is a charming  rogue who beats his wife Julie (Shirley Jones).  Current audiences are likely to be a little uncomfortable by how it excuses domestic violence and its reference to being “hit very hard and yet it doesn’t hurt.”  Aside from that, movie musicals of that era tended to be trying to capture the stage  experience on film.  Often this meant that the action was filmed on a soundstage, but Carousel was filmed primarily on location in Boothbay Harbor.  This does help open up the film into a real-life setting even though the style of the musical is quite removed from real-life experience.  Much of the music is quite operatic and doesn’t have the same sound  we associate with popular music or most musical theater.  The film relies on extended dance sequences–the “June Is Busting Out All Over” production number and the beach sequence with Billy and Julie’s teenaged daughter Louise–both last eight or ten minutes of mostly dancing–no dialogue.  They are terrifically executed (Jacques d’Amboise–who had been invited to introduce the film, but was unable to attend–was absolutely fabulous), but this is not something contemporary audiences see because films today tend to want to create a very vivid and real setting.  Dance is a wonderful artform, but not something that one sees in everyday life.  It is also worth noting that contemporary filmmaking has some new tricks to employ in jazzing up the film experience of watching a musical.   The films can employ many more cameras that are  lighter and more mobile than cameras from this era.  This can change the audiences perspective on the action and the editing can quickly cut between these perspectives.  Both increase the sense of movement for the audience.  In Carousel, the camera does occasionally zoom in and there are some crane shots that change perspective, but these are not employed very often.  It should be noted that the film is a restoration of one of the experiments (CinemaScope 55 for which there was a short documentary for which everyone in the audience was grateful there was not a quiz at the end of the screening)  employed to make watching a movie visually bigger and richer than could be experienced watching the new entertainment rival television.  The image quality is glorious which does come across especially in the many exterior shots.  Though Carousel has a much darker story than most musical theater, I have never found Carousel to be one of their most compelling musicals.  There are very few really memorable songs and those–to me–are not among their very best.  Still it is quite an experience to watch this film knowing exactly why “they just don’t make ‘em like they used to.”

The final film of the day was Infestation.  Kyle Rankin along with his longtime collaborator Efram Potelle have presented several of their films at MIFF over the years.  While they have often shared the directorial duties, Kyle has the director’s billing to himself  for this film though Efram was involved both behind and in front of the camera as well.  This film represents their most accomplished work.  It is solidly in the comic horror genre.  Plenty of thrills and chills, but enough giggles to keep potential nightmares at bay.  Yes, I think crawling insects the size of small dogs, flying insects that dwarf birds of prey, and six-legged human insect hybrids could cause nightmares.   The filmmakers had a much bigger budget at ($3 million) than they had at their disposal for their earlier films, though it is still quite modest by film production standards.  The film was shot  in Bulgaria with many Bulgarians in the crew.  The film benefits from having a professional cast headed by Christopher Marquette (an established acting veteran of mostly television at just 24), longtime acting veteran Ray Wise (David Lynch’s Twin Peaks and Rankin & Potelle’s own Pennyweight), and beautiful Brooke Nevin (another youthful veteran with 40 film and television acting credits on her Internet Movie Database filmography at just 26).  The result is a film that  just keeps rolling along and never loses its balance.  The film’s ending positions it nicely for a potential sequel and the characters have definitely not overstayed their welcome on the screen.  This film would definitely seem to have excellent cult following potential.  Audiences in Maine who would like to see this film do have the opportunity to see it in its natural habitat–the Skowhegan Drive-In–on Thursday, July 16th at 8:30 pm.  The film is also scheduled to be broadcast on the Sci-Fi Network.