Neil and I were down in Seattle last weekend to celebrate my birthday. We packed a lot of walking into two days. Friday night, I picked Neil up from Seattle as he hitched a ride from some buddies who were in Seattle to watch a DJ. We drove around Seattle a little before making our way back to Bellevue. On our way home, we stopped at an old drive-in burger joint, BurgerMaster. I had never been to a drive-in, so we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to eat at the old 50s icon. I had already eaten, so I just ordered a shake, but Neil ordered their Burgermaster. It was, by far, the best burger we’ve ever tasted. We meant to go back before we left, but we never made it. For the rest of the night, I drove Neil around Bellevue, showing him the park, its art and a few other spots around town, before we went back to the hotel and crashed after a long week.

Saturday started with a drive to the downtown core. We walked around the historical Pioneer Square with its old buildings and streets. There were flocks of tourists snapping photos as they listened to their guide. We decided to join the mass of tourists the following day for a tour of the underground city. Until then, we just guided ourselves through the busy streets, down to Pier 50. There was activity in the water as a playful seal kept breaking the surface of the water only to dive back down and break the surface several feet from its previous location. We watched him for several minutes before making our way back up the street and to our vehicle in search of another parking spot, closer to Pike Place Market.

We walked a block towards the market before coming across a vibrant back-alley. The back alleys of Seattle are nothing like Vancouver’s. There is no graffiti and there are shops lining the alleys with life in stark contrast to the rat-infested, rubbish-piled, drug-addict-combing back-alleys I’m used to. As we walked the back alleys, we came upon The Tasting Room - Wines of Washington serving wines of six state wineries. We enjoyed several wines and good conversation with the locals before deciding on two reds - a Syrah from the young Naches Heights Vineyard and Grace from the more established Camaraderie Cellars. With our bottles in tote, we continued along the back alley to the front of the next block to find “The Starbucks”, the birthplace of the coffee house on 1st Avenue, Seattle. We ordered a couple of lattes, along with a few mugs and found our way back onto the city streets.

Disappointedly, we arrived at the market just as it was closing. Many of the vendors were shutting down their stations and packing up, so we decided that we would have to return the next day. We searched for a specific dinner location called The Crab Pot and found it on the water at Pier 57. However, with a 45-minute wait, we decided to head back to Bellevue to eat at its Crab Pot instead. We ordered the “The Westport” with its Dungeness crab (my favourite, snow crab, shrimp in the shell, steamed clams and pacific mussles, along witn andouille sausage, corn on the cob and finally red potatoes in their jackets. Having missed lunch, we were famished and barely spoke a word once we dug in, only breaking between shell cracks. It was delicious!

Saturday evening, I was in search of a jazz lounge to listen to some great piano, bass, trumpet and saxophone. We searched all over Seattle, but having left our planning to the last minute, we had missed out on a few great shows. We found an intimate little jam house just north of downtown called Egan’s Ballard Jam House.

Club owner Suzanne Weghorst, a virtual reality researcher at the University of Washington, was motivated to open Egan’s by the lack of appropriate places for young jazz musicians to play and to learn from more experienced artists.

The club had a good mix of young and old musicians jamming together on stage. The trumpeter was the old guy running the show and did so with a lot of passion and fervor. I could have sat there for hours. A few musicians had come and gone throughout the night; at one point there was a pianist, bassist, drummer, alto, two tenors and bass saxophonists, and even a djembe drummer. Their ability to come together as one solid jam unit was phenomenal and kept the crowd fully entertained, tapping their toes to their rhythm. Whenever I attend these sorts of musical sessions, I’m motivated to tickle the ivory or pluck nylon strings, but then never do it. I really miss that in my life and should really invest in a used instrument again. I’m torn between a new lens and a used digital piano; the piano will likely lose out.

After watching “Under The Tree”, Neil and I sought better seats for the next film. We purchased tickets to “Revue” in advance, for that very reason. The film was a documentary that strung together many reels of Russian newscasts primarily from the 1950s and 1960s. The films recorded the Leninist movement towards Soviet Communism and its disdain for Capitalism. The audience laughed at quite few clips; a result of its absurdity. However, I have gained a new respect for those that suffered to build their “Motherland”.

Here’s is VIFF’s description of the film:

Revue
Predstavlenye
[REVUE]
Nonfiction Features of 2008
(Finalnd, Germany, Russia, Ukraine, 2008, 82 mins)
DigiBeta
North American Premiere
Directed By: Sergei Loznitsa
Selected Filmography:

* (1906) Blockade

PRODS: Vyacheslav Telnov, Heino Deckert
ED: Sergei Loznitsa

Director Sergei Loznitsa (Blockade VIFF 06) again employs archival material and newsreel footage to entirely new effect, namely reworking propaganda from the golden age of the Soviet Union. Happy peasants, shining with good health and love for Mother Russia, sing and dance and issue warnings about the evils of Western rock music.

In the style of a modern mashup, Loznitsa has pastiched his way into an entirely new depiction of jingoism. Little girls in starched white pinafores, carrying flowers and cheerful teenagers dancing healthy traditional dances are merely the beginning. While some of the material may seem quaint (to wit: a puppet show warning young Russians about Western-style decadence), given the state of the US propaganda machine, currently running at full-tilt boogie woogie, Revue packs a surprising punch. Loznitsa brings a clarity of vision and depth of intelligence to shaping this material, so that underneath the cheery folk songs and happy dances lurks a lingering malignancy. The notion that we some day look at our cultural products and see the same machinery at work is never explicitly stated, but then it doesn’t need to be. Winner of the Documentary Prize at the Krakow Film Fest 2008.

“The daily life of ordinary Soviet citizens during the 1950s and 60s–from collective farming to Young Pioneer parades–is explored in fascinating fashion… Revue is a commentary-free zone, allowing material to speak simply for itself.”–Variety

Neil and I waited in line for rush tickets for Happy-Go-Lucky, but weren’t so lucky and missed out. Therefore, we decided to walk to the Pacific Cinémathéque a few blocks away to watch Under The Tree. I can’t really explain the plot of the story as it seemed to lack one. There was a young woman who was in search of her birth mother in Bali, while another young woman seemingly follows around an elderly man around the village, mimicking his thoughts and actions. There was a lot of Balinese music, singing and dancing which reminded be of one scene in Baraka (my all time favourite movie). There were a few scenes that left me completely perplexed. I scratched my head as I tried to understand their purpose, but in the end I was left puzzled. There were a few good scenes, but for the most part, I would not recommend this film.

Here is the VIFF explanation:

Under the Tree–A Bali Story
Di Bawah Pohon
[UNDTR]
Dragons and Tigers
(Indonesia, 2008, 104 mins)
35mm
Directed By: Garin Nugroho
Selected Filmography:

* (1995) … And the Moon Dances
* (1998) Leaf on a Pillow
* (2002) Bird-Man Tale
* (2006) Opera Jawa
* (2007) Teak Leaves at the Temples

PRODS: Garin Nugroho, Dinna Jasanti
SCR: Armantono
CAM: Yadi Sugandi
ED: Andhy Pulung Widaodo
MUS: Wiwiex Soedarno, Kadek Suardana
Cast: Marcella Zalianty, Nadia Saphira, Ayu Laksmi, Dwi Sasono, Ikranagara, I Ketut Rina

Indonesian master Garin Nugroho is one of the few directors who hates repeating himself: the form, theme and setting of each of his films is different. So it’s no surprise that he follows the radiant Opera Jawa with a film about contemporary women, or that he sets it in the distinctive culture of the ancient/modern holiday island Bali. He interweaves the stories of three unrelated women, only one of them a Balinese native. The women never meet each other, but their stories add up to a persuasive meditation on maternity, parenting and life/death struggles. The setting, of course, adds incalculable resonance. The superstitious Maharani, who was adopted as a child and knows nothing of her birth parents, comes looking for a mystical understanding of motherhood, but finds herself circumstantially caught up in a baby-trafficking racket. The 40-year-old Dewi is pregnant, but a scan reveals that her fetus is malformed and would die soon after birth; she agonizes over having an abortion. And the airhead teen-celebrity Nian flees to Bali when her father is arrested on corruption charges; she latches on to a surrogate “father” in the person of the elderly artist Darma, only to find that he’s risking his life by performing in a Balinese death ritual. Social realism meets the spirit world, topical commentary meets poetry.
– Tony Rayns

Or Himlens hjärta was the best movie we’ve seen yet. Tonight, Neil and I watched the Swedish movie (with English subtitles) following the dialogue quite easily. It begins with two very close middle-aged couples enjoying dinner together, reflecting on love, life and relationships. The conversation takes a sensitive turn when they start discussing a colleague’s recent choice to leave his wife and two children for a younger woman. One spouse of each couple understands the choice, while their partners are disturbed and taken aback by the understanding. This conversation weighs on the backs of their minds, threatening the health of their relationships as partners and as friends. This movie is a MUST see. It is by far the one I’ve enjoyed most. Although, the first one invoked a strong emotional response, I was much better able to relate to the characters in Heaven’s Heart. It forces viewers to analyze their own relationships and the role they play in making them both successful.

Here are the details from the VIFF site:

Heaven’s Heart
(Sweden, 2008, 92 mins)
35mm
North American Premiere
Directed By: Simon Staho
Selected Filmography:

PROD: Jonas Frederiksen
SCR: Peter Asmussen, Simon Staho
CAM: Anders Bohman
ED: Janus Billeskov Jansen
MUS: Stefan Nilsson
Cast: Mikael Persbrandt, Lena Endre, Jacob Eklund, Maria Lundqvist

Two bourgeois Swedish couples find that a dinner party discussion about adultery has serious repercussions upon their apparent wedded bliss in Heaven’s Heart. A blend of raw emotion, fearless performances, and stylized cinematography (tightly framed close-ups make the characters seem to talk directly to the audience), it plays like an update of Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage laced with Harold Pinter’s Betrayal and a soupçon of Raymond Carver’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.

Lars (Mikael Persbrandt) and Susanna (Lena Endre) and Ulf (Jakob Eklund) and Ann (Maria Lundqvist) have been close friends for nearly 20 years. During a get-together, their talk turns to a doctor colleague of Lars who left his wife and children for a much younger woman. The dialogue brings out questions that most couples will relate to. Is marriage “a wall against solitude?” What’s more important, passion or security? When Susanna and Ulf defend the man, their surprised partners feel a sliver of fear that unruly passion might one day overturn their stable relationships. Unfortunately, they fail to realize that understanding adultery is not the same as acting on it.

Register your number on the National do-not-call list.