Sarasota Film Festival: Day 2

     Today (4/14) was the first full day of programming at the Sarasota Film Festival. Excitement levels were high and everyone was abuzz over last night's screening of Robot and Frank. To start the day, I saw Frank Langella in the first of the festival's "in conversation" series. Unlike other "in conversations", Langella's didn't follow the chronology of his career, but rather focused on his recently published book. Despite my disappointment with the inappropriate focus, Langella's charm shined through. Then I was off to Hollywood 20 to see my first film of the day...

Oslo, August 31st * * * ½

     Regret. Not deserving a second chance but wanting one. Hopelessness. These are the things that Oslo, August 31st is about. Anders (as sensitively played by Anders Danielsen Lie) is a drug addict who has been ten months sober due to his stay in a rehabilitative home. Soon to re-assimilate into the outside world, he is given an evening to leave the home. The film begins the morning after his evening out and follows him through his day -where he is to leave again for a job interview in Oslo. In addition to attending his interview, Anders uses his day out to see those he loves and hasn't seen since he entered the home. But these visits cause wonder as to whether there is hope for him in recovery on the outside.

    Unlike Sideways or The Squid and the Whale -two very pretentious films populated with very self-important individuals, director Joachim Trier's first film Reprise managed to populate itself with educated, literate characters who seemed absent of pretense or snobbery. He has done the same here (even re-casting one of the leads from his first film), and creates among them tight, realistic, established, and specific bonds -relationships absent of history or backstory, but at once recognizable onscreen. Take Anders' friend Thomas, who clearly loves him and wants him to be ok, but is scarred from (and afraid of the possible reappearance of) Anders' past. Loving-heterosexual-male-friendship is rarely portrayed onscreen. This film brilliantly demonstrates it though, namely in a tender scene where Thomas shares how his life isn't what he expected. Anders' is unexpected too, not because he let it run its' course, but because of his addiction. What will become of him? In one of the best scenes to ever be captured on film, Anders sits in a cafe contemplating this very question as he listens to strangers wonder and hope for what will happen to and become of them.

     Despite an unfitting opening monologue and montage that didn't look, feel, or behave like the rest of the film (until its slightly redeeming reprisal midway), and a closing stretch that abandoned the film's rich and realistic dialogue in favor of sensory-flooding, wordless scenes, Trier's Oslo, August 31st solidifies his unique directorial and screen-writing voice and demands that it be heard.

     Well that's all for now, but check back soon for my review of the other film I saw today: Peace, Love, and Misunderstanding. Tomorrow (4/15) I'll be seeing Polisse, The Big Picture, and Monsieur Lehzar.