New films, foreign language:  Frantz (d. Francoise Ozon, France) - Quite captivating. A young German woman is mourning her fiancé who dies in WWI. A Frenchman shows up and places roses on his grave. The story evolves from there. It is shot in black and white but flowers into color when vitality is comes forth out of a character. It is beautiful but a bit distant like a framed painting. It weaves an intimate story in with an inquiry into nationalism. Sometimes Ozon is too calculating for me, but not this time.  Through the Wall (d. Rama Burshtein, Israel) – Skip it.  I had so liked this director’s first film, Fill the Void, but this was like a Julia Roberts chick flick.  Graduation (d. Cristian Mongiu, Romanian) – Quite compelling.  Moral compromise and its intertwinement with institutional corruption, living your life through your children and its effects on love are explored through an intimate drama that feels both specific and universal, which eludes so many filmmakers.  Lost in Paris (d. Dominique Abel and Fiona Gordon, France) – amusing clowns, but with no exclamation mark. Enjoyed these two in the tradition of mimes, Tati, Keaton and Chaplin but wouldn’t go out of my way to see another. Things to Come (d. Mia Hansen-Love, Germany/France) – wonderful unsentimental performance by Isabelle Huppert spiced with philosophy. French in a good way that saves it from being a middle age crisis movie of the week.
     New films, English language: Moonlight (d. Barry Jenkins, USA) – a lyrical ode, touching and captivating. Takes place in a Miami that is has drugs and violence and rich beauty. Told in three parts of a young black man life, it breaks the surface of what could have been cliché with a well earned intimacy. Sully (d. Clint Eastwood, USA) – conventional with effective visceral impact. I wanted it to be more, but Clint satisfied with traditionalism.  Its entertainment.  Upside is New York. Enjoyed Tom Hanks in his panel appearance, maybe more than the film.  He’s a funny and warm man.  Maudie (d. Aisling Walsh, Canada/Ireland) – great performances by Sally Hawkins and Ethan Hawke. They draw you into this portrait of an outsider folk artist who lived in the outskirts of a small Nova Scotia town and her life with another society outcast. Joyful and real. Arrival (d. Denis Villeneuve, USA) – let down.  That is not to say it was a bad film. It is a good film with good performances by Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner….but to create such interesting aliens and language and then sublimate it to enriching a personal journey of an an individual is a let down. So millennial.
     The shorts: I saw two programs of shorts (nine in all), which I enjoyed tremendously. I only highlight two because you might be able to find them. 4.1 Miles (d. Daphne Matziarake, USA/Greece, 22 min) was done for the NYTimes.  It follows a coastguard ship from the Isle of Lesbos as it plucks migrants from the Aegean. It still haunts me and will probably affect my life hereafter.  Le Geoffre (d. Vincent Le Port, France, 52 minutes). Translates to The Chasm and is set at a campsite on the north beaches of France. (Expletive deleted) great brooding atmosphere.
     Oldies: Variety (d. Dupont, Germany, 1925). Silent from the German golden age +a fine femme fatal + set in a circus+live score by the Alloy Orchestra = Jana in bliss.  A special event at the festival this year was a presentation of the restored Pagnol trilogy as introduced by Alice Waters, owner of Chez Panisse in San Francisco, which is named after a character from the trilogy. These were French films made in the 1930s.  I immensely enjoyed Alice's introduction and the first film, Marius, which invites you to enjoy the characters in the seaport town of Marseilles in a very experiential manner with lots of humor. The story becomes more and more melodramatic in the subsequent films, but always delivered some slices of life that gave these characters an enduring immortality in the hearts of many.

Naw, I think the trailer raised my expectations for Arrival. I skipped California Typewriter to see it. Mild regret....I could have waited