•My Brother Is an Only Child falls into the same fantastic line of Italian storytelling as The Best of Youth and last year's PSIFF entry, Crime Novel -- the latter of which shares the main leads from My Brother.
Director Daniele Luchetti guides the telling of the life of fierce and willful Accio, played at different stages by Vittorio Emanuele Propizio (younger) and Elio Germano (older). A natural thug, he finds himself stepping in line behind the Fascist mindset at an early age in the 1960s. His brother, Manrico (the handsome Riccardo Scamarcio) is a Communist who fights for the local workers. While working through opposing ideals, a hard life soon makes them acknowledge what they will risk and what is most important.
•In a rare treat, Frank Borzage's silent film Seventh Heaven was screened, accompanied by live music. A prolific early filmmaker (directing 107 films between 1913-1961 and starring in 116 between 1912-1957), Borzage's 1927 film won him his first Oscar. In fact, it was the first Directing Oscar ever given. Janet Gaynor won the first Best Actress Oscar (in credit to this role and her roles in Street Angel & Sunrise) and Benjamin Glazer won the first Adapted Screenplay Oscar. The film was also nominated for Best Picture & Best Art Direction.
It follows a story of two people who have been left in the gutters -- Chico (Charles Farrell), who works in the sewers but has higher aspirations because he is a "remarkable fellow," and Diane (Gaynor), who has literally been beaten into the gutters by her drunk and abusive sister. Through a twist of fate, they are forced to pretend they are a married couple, and of course slowly and sweetly fall in love.
Paul Gilman composed the live music (playing against his pre-recorded self) and admitted he had finished at 4:30 a.m. that morning. Well, unfortunately it showed. As Chico is cleaning the sewers, the music sounded very oceanic (possibly taken from his own Ocean Odyssey music?) -- a bit mismatched, and in other spots there were holes with no music. I realize that it's a hefty task to compose a score for nearly two hours of silent film, but it seemed a little insulting to finish it the night before.
•Werner Herzog (Rescue Dawn, Grizzly Man) presents his latest documentary, Encounters at the End of the World, in a style unlike other documentarians. After traveling to Antarctica, he focuses on the unique people that have been drawn there. An ice bus driver who was a banker, a geologist who describes himself as a vagabond floating on the ocean, a filmmaker who tends to the Frosty Boy machine, a journeyman with a royal Incan heritage, a linguist who tends veggies -- all fascinating members of a unique society.
If an interviewee tends to drag on, Herzog will speak over them and sum up. If they don't talk enough, he'll speak over them, conjecturing their intentions. When scientists describe the inorganic sounds that seals make under the ice (and they truly do not sound animal), he has them lie on the ice to listen. The views above and below the ice are oddly beautiful, the creatures straight out of a sci-fi flick (again, which he makes the scientists watch for his benefit). Herzog tends to focus on a subject's face longer than comfortably allowed, creating an awkward sense of space. He provides his interpretation or disappointment through vocal interference. But this is Herzog, who tends to film whatever the hell he wants to. And knowing that, it's all good. How boring would it be if all directors followed the same rules?
•Getting Home is director Yang Zhang's lovely story of a man who exchanged promises with his coworker that if one should die, the other would take his body back to his home village. True to his word, he carries his late friend on his back, with a wheelbarrow, and in a tire all in an effort to find his way to the Three Gorges home of which his friend spoke. No car or address, just loyal determination.
Sparsely used film actor Benshan Zhao (Happy Times) alternates between quiet determination and momentary exuberance during his long journey. The people that he meets are initially offset by his traveling companion, but once they hear his story are immediately affected by his sense of loyalty. Most are of meager means themselves, and though they must scrape by for their own survival, they will often help an honest person in need. At times quite funny, ultimately there is a touching underlying connection between each person along this long stretch of road that traverses such a diverse country in a search for home.