Seattle International Film Festival
It’s Memorial Day Weekend, which means the Seattle International Film Festival has come around again. I am settling in for four weeks of new, foreign, documentary and independent film.
This first weekend saw the SIFF tribute to Sir Ben Kingsley, the Shakespearean stage actor turned film star whose work includes Schindler’s List, Searching for Bobby Fisher, Bugsy, House of Sand and Fog, Dave, and the Oscar-winning Gandhi. The actor spoke of his craft and many of his roles, providing insight into his work and artistic experiences.
Thus far this weekend we have had the opportunity to screen two of the seven (!) new films Kingsley has coming out this year: Elegy and Transsiberian.
Today’s program included the North American premiere of Elegy, with Penelope Cruz, Dennis Hopper, Patricia Clarkson and Peter Sarsgaard. Based on a novel by Philip Roth, Elegy is the story of David Kepesh, a writer coming to terms with his inability experience intimacy. Long estranged from his ex-wife and son, and unable to commit to a steady girlfriend, Kepesh is openly vulnerable only with a poet friend, played by Hopper. Kepesh will have the opportunity to open himself up to love and be loved only in the shadow of great loss. Screenwriter Nicholas Meyer crafts a story that is tender, at times startlingly honest, heartbreaking, yet ultimately hopeful.
A gripping thriller in the Hitchcock style, Transsiberian follows missionaries Roy and Jessie (Woody Harrelson and Emily Mortimer) on a passenger train from Beijing to Moscow where they are pulled into a web of intrigue by a mysterious young couple, Carlos and Abby (Eduardo Noriega and Kate Mara) and a sinister narcotics cop Grinko (Kingsley) who is searching for heroin and cash that disappeared from a crime scene.
Thus far this weekend we have had the opportunity to screen two of the seven (!) new films Kingsley has coming out this year: Elegy and Transsiberian.
Today’s program included the North American premiere of Elegy, with Penelope Cruz, Dennis Hopper, Patricia Clarkson and Peter Sarsgaard. Based on a novel by Philip Roth, Elegy is the story of David Kepesh, a writer coming to terms with his inability experience intimacy. Long estranged from his ex-wife and son, and unable to commit to a steady girlfriend, Kepesh is openly vulnerable only with a poet friend, played by Hopper. Kepesh will have the opportunity to open himself up to love and be loved only in the shadow of great loss. Screenwriter Nicholas Meyer crafts a story that is tender, at times startlingly honest, heartbreaking, yet ultimately hopeful.
A gripping thriller in the Hitchcock style, Transsiberian follows missionaries Roy and Jessie (Woody Harrelson and Emily Mortimer) on a passenger train from Beijing to Moscow where they are pulled into a web of intrigue by a mysterious young couple, Carlos and Abby (Eduardo Noriega and Kate Mara) and a sinister narcotics cop Grinko (Kingsley) who is searching for heroin and cash that disappeared from a crime scene.
A sense of chaotic restlessness dominates the scenes on the train as Roy disappears and Jessie is drawn into Carlos’s secrets. She makes a series of incredibly poor decisions, and when Roy turns up again she finds herself layering on lie after lie in order to protect herself, and Roy, from suspicion by Grinko, knowing full well the brutality of Russian justice. Transsiberian builds to a chilling, gut-wrenching climax that is both intense and ultimately satisfying.
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