SBIFF Charges Ahead: The Art of Doubt and Non-Linear Storylines

Ralph Fiennes Tribute and a Host of Films From Points Near and Far Highlight Day Three of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival

Ralph Fiennes on stage at SBIFF with interviewer Scott Feinberg | Credit: Ingrid Bostrom

Oscar-nominated Ralph Fiennes on the red carpet at SBIFF | Credit: Ingrid Bostrom

The Ralph Fiennes tribute at the Arlington Theatre last night clocked in longer than officially allotted on the schedule, but how could it not? The eminent British actor, whose long list of command performances spans his masterpiece work in Schindler’s List up through his currently Oscar-nominated role in Conclave, is almost ludicrously prolific in both variety and sheer number of roles over the past four decades.

And then there was the fact of Fiennes’s waxing warmly nostalgic about his pre-celebrity days and — as Angelina Jolie did on this stage the night before — lavishing extensive praise on the support of his mother. Hollywood Reporter’s Scott Feinberg, an unabashed fan, led us on a well-researched guided tour of Fiennes’s filmography, with the actor responding graciously and anecdotally about the journey so far.

Fiennes spoke articulately about the differing approaches of important directors he has worked with, and learned from: he appreciated David Cronenberg, with whom he made Spider, for being “wonderfully economical in what he says,” while respecting Steven Spielberg’s “incredible knowledge of film and energy,” and the late Anthony (The English Patient) Minghella’s having “a wonderful way with actors.” He also paid respects to Hungarian director Istvan Szabo, who he worked with on Sunshine, who told the actor, “for me, cinema is about close-ups, the first time an emotion comes across the face.”

The evening’s series of film clips climaxed with the stunning homily scene from Conclave (which gets my vote as Scene of the Year). Few living actors can say so much beyond the words at hand, conveying complex and unresolved thoughts through the face and eyes.

In his humble, artfully dodging response to Feinberg’s assertion that his work in Conclave is something of a masterful summation of what led up to it, Fiennes surmised that “you step into the river and try to do your best.”

Giving the award was Conclave director Edward Berger, who said that “the film took place in your face,” adding, paraphrasing a line from the keynote homily scene, “if you had only certainty, there would be no need for this film.”

In our crazed present moment in history, it’s hard easy to read timely meaning in statements which are not necessarily time sensitive. Take, for instance, the line from the same homily “certainty is the enemy of unity.”

Tomorrow, we go to the movies again.

From left: ‘Conclave’ Director Edward Berger, left, Ralph Fiennes, and SBIFF Executive Director Roger Durling | Credit: Ingrid Bostrom

International Flights

Day by day in the cerebral amusement park that is SBIFF-land, the world tour continues. The festival’s rich pageantry of cinema from countries, including those we are seldom given access to, is once again impressive.

Thursday morning’s itinerary first took us to Indonesia, and specifically a “haunted” crocodile park in the fascinating semi-horror film Crocodile Tears, a surprisingly strong, slowly building thriller (with horror sauce on top, or on the side). In the directorial debut of Tumpal Tampubolon, one of the effective cinematic tactics here is the presence of scaly, primordial crocodiles that are ever in the periphery of a loaded domestic drama involving a sensitive son, his love interest, and a mother whose doting turns potentially deadly with jealousy and scheming.

Like other elements in the premise, including simmering auras of sexuality and familial protectionism, the crocodiles appear in the margins, stately and still … until they aren’t. Toothy savagery may be around the corner. The film always has a sneak sinister sense of humor (watch for the punchline) and a playful way with genre-twisting.

Next stop, Lithuania: Sesės (Drowning Dry) is the most intriguing “filmic film” I’ve yet seen at the festival, in the sense of exploring and experimenting with fresh ways of approaching the cinema medium as a storytelling force. Writer-director Laurynas Bareiša has worked a kind of beguiling cine-magical poetry with this film, ostensibly a tale of a family holiday with potential tragedy in the wings (not unlike Force Majeure).

The first act of the film proceeds with a cool, deceptive slowness, even suggesting a faux cinéma vérité style with no musical score to distract us and casual long takes of two families enjoying a summer retreat at a cabin by the lake. There are tensions afoot, with the two couples connected through sisters, male power games between the husbands — one of whom works in MMA ring — and the “drowning” inference, both real and figurative. Suddenly, the storytelling structure game shifts, in various directions. We care about these characters and their motivations and interrelations, but we are also drawn in by the inventive filmmaking for its own sake.

Bareiša is also the cinematographer here, a critical element in that each shot is carefully composed (festering composure is key here) and woven into a larger narrative logic we learn about in a surprising non-linear maze of chronological design. In a sense, the power of jump cutting between moments in time and fates functions in a way that resembles such films as Pulp Fiction and Memento, but with subtler ends and materials. Our lulled reverie in the calm sections is juxtaposed with leaps of plot requiring us to fill in blanks. Essentially, the end effect is an audience interactive engagement, in ways that only cinema can achieve.

This is the kind of chance-taking cinema that film festivals are made for.

Santa Barbara Documentary Shorts filmmakers | Credit: Josef Woodard

Eye on the Hometown/Ocean

Back very much on home turf, Thursday afternoon also provided a valuable showcase for short Santa Barbara documentaries, turning the camera on — and airing concerns about — the city we love. Some of the most impactful films in the selection apply to the category of documentary as forum for awareness and advocacy in motion, and on a very local level.

The doc quwa’ is a fascinating and revealing film about the ancient Chumash habitat of the Mescalitlan Island, now transformed as part of the Goleta slough and Santa Barbara airport. The doc supplies historical and anthropological background for this once thriving Chumash village, variously developed and leveled in the 20th century and now reduced to a single mound off of Ward Memorial. A Goleta historian describes it as “a chunk of dirt,” but efforts are underway to give land back to the Chumash.

In one tragicomic scene, revered Chumash elder Ernestine Ygnacio-de Soto sits by the mound, presently contaminated by the presence of the sanitation plant on the site. “That’s all we’re good for,” she smirks, “sewage. And that’s the way we view them.” She flashes a wry grin and adds, “oh that wasn’t very nice, was it?” Ygnacio de-Soto got an ovation at the post-screening Q&A.

Efforts to push the land back project forward have been caught in boondoggles and indifference at the governmental level. See an earlier interview with the UCSB student filmmakers here.

Civic government dubiousness is also an underlying subject of Gareth Kelly’s fast, cheap, and just enough in control, guerilla-style documentary Keep the Funk. Count me as a veteran Santa Barbaran perturbed as the un-scrubbed artistic and atmospheric splendors of the so-called Funk Zone becoming displaced by overblown and overpriced developments and tourist-baiting schemes. Not for nothing has the area been nicknamed by locals “the Swank Zone” and “the Drunk Zone.”

Kelly’s film chronicles the rising opposition of the Santa Barbara community to a horrific monstrosity of the 101 Garden hotel proposal, replacing six acres of historic and, yes, funkified property. The film serves both as an affectionate tour of the zone in its purer state, and a passionate account of the uproar and oppositional voices at City Council meetings. Also in the mix is a city council meeting which Kelly says essentially shows officials taking a $500,000 bribe. The story and the funk keeping cause continues. A sequel may be in order.

And what series of Santa Barbara–based docs would be complete without attention paid to our beloved connection to the Pacific Ocean and the unique Santa Barbara Channel? Worthy shorts took on different angles on the love of things oceanic and beachside: Director Adam Ernster’s Battle of the Blues compellingly details the plight and majesty of the blue whales, abundant in the Santa Barbara Channel; The Kelp We Breathe promotes the importance and artistic inspiration of kelp; and director Tess McCormick’s Not Just Water tells the tale of the inspiring inclusive program called Sea League, promoting surfing and water sports for underserved youths.

The most polished film screened was 26,000 Days, by Santa Barbara–based filmmaker Henry Behel, based on itinerant airshow pilot Eric Tucker’s midair gymnastics — often with the engine turned off — and the subject’s charismatic homespun philosophical asides. As Tucker says, “Fear of dying shocks you into the present.” After all is said and testified, a lyrical wordless sequence showcasing Tucker’s aerial acrobatics, with a sentient sound design, lingers in the memory and shocks us into the present.