Boston Underground Film Festival: Day 3

Hey, BUFF - you cost yourself six bucks giving us more than advertised!

See, before the Friday night screening of East of Euclid, instead of just saying that "My Father is 100 Years Old" would be playing the next night at the Coolidge as part of Short Program 1, they went and showed it. The thing is, it's fifteen minutes long, and I only had fifteen minutes of wiggle room between Euclid at the Brattle and Pony Trouble at the Harvard Film Archive, so I totally would have seen that, which means I'm using up one more punch on my 10-film ticket, which means that by the time Sunday comes around I'm buying one more individual ticket.

But, nope. Instead, I'm not out of the Brattle until 9:40. I suppose I could have turned around and seen Psychopathia Sexualis, but I wasn't really feeling that. Plus, it was the end of the week, so I was tired, and I hadn't eaten since lunch. It wasn't until Saturday that "edginess fatigue" would start to set in, but that's a topic for the Day 4 posting.

East of Euclid

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 24 March 2006 at the Brattle Theater (Boston Underground Film Festival)

A lot of cities have their own distinctive art scene or music scene. But not many have their own film scene, or at least, not one that outsiders would necessarily recognize. Winnipeg may be on the road to becoming one of those cities, as Jeff Solylo, the production designer for some of Guy Maddin's early films, has made a film of his own, which is similar enough to note influences but has a sensibility of its own.

East of Euclid is set in Winnipeg's North End in the early 1970s, and takes its cues more from film noir than silents. This slavic enclave is home to Villosh The Gambler, a former KGB assassin and (very) small-time gangster who dreams of making enough money to go to Atlantic City and test his luck against the gamblers there. Elsewhere, gossip columnist Natalia (Daina Leitold) romances her paper's ace photographer, Valeri (Brent Neale), who becomes smitten with Villosh's mistress Alexandria (Maria Lamont) at a party. The picture Valeri takes of Villosh there prompts him and his henchmen to deliver Valeri a savage beating. Villosh also kidnaps the star local hockey player, Veli-Pekka (Miles Boiselle).

Read the rest at HBS.

Three days behind already. I was so going to turn over a new leaf here. Stupid festivals with their bunches of movies to watch leaving a body little time to write about them.