I bring this up because two great filmmakers, Germany’s Fatih Akin and Italy’s Ferzan Ozpetek have their latest films playing at SIFF this year (Akin’s Soul Kitchen, Ozpetek’s Loose Cannons) and neither effort is what you’d expect from the acclaimed auteurs. Yet these character-driven comedies show two directors attempting to expand their range and test their creative metal, and for my part I can’t help but love them even more because of that fact.
It does sadden me a tiny bit to admit Akin’s Soul Kitchen is easily the less successful of the two efforts. Thankfully, that still makes it a solid 3-star effort and a movie I’d urge people to rush out to see immediately even with its somewhat annoying third act missteps. The story of German-Greek restaurateur Zinos Kazantsakis (Adam Bousdoukos), the movie ends up being a foodie delight of family, friendship and love. While the outcome isn’t ever in much doubt getting there is such an emotionally madcap amount of fun the story’s predictability isn’t a huge issue, the movie such a rapturously enjoyable exercise in mayhem I almost couldn’t help but enjoy myself.
Is it as profound as Akin’s 2007 masterwork The Edge of Heaven or is beautifully nuanced 2004 modern classic Head-On? No, not at all, the director not showing near the same confidence dealing with slapstick comedy as he is when handling more dramatic and weighty issues. But just because that’s so still doesn’t mean he can’t find success, and like his previous winners by keeping things grounded in complex and interesting characters he manages to make even the silliest misstep palatable. More, watching him expand his range while also lightening his touch is a joy, and if Soul Kitchen doesn’t do a single thing else it makes me even more excited to see what enticing curiosity the director has up his sleeve next.
As for Ozpetek’s Loose Cannons, already a big winner coming out of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival this stirring familial comedy is another outright sensation for the Steam: The Turkish Bath and Facing Windows (2003 Golden Space Needle Award-winner) director. Concerning a Italian family whose successful pasta company has brought them wealthy and notoriety, the movie revolves around Gay son Tommaso (Riccardo Scamarcio) who has returned home from Rome to come out to his conservative and image conscious father Vincenzo (Ennio Fantastichini). But he is beaten to the punch when his older brother Antonio (Alessandro Preziosi), who also runs the family’s pasta making factory, does it first, giving their father such a start he ends up having a heart attack but not before he angrily disowns the elder son and sends him packing.
This sounds like the makings of a cold and emotionally devastating drama but that’s not what’s on Ozpetek’s mind at all. Instead the film morphs into a beautifully nuanced and highly unusual comedy of mores and mistaken identities where love doesn’t necessarily conquer all and the past can play as vital role in the future as the fractious present can. The narrative is so light on its feet watching the myriad of characters, so many of them I can’t go into them all here, play one of the other is utter perfection, and the more I laughed at was going on the more the emotional weight of everything that was in play began to move me to honestly earned cascades of tears.
But it is the fantastic final act where Ozpetek finds true success. The last twenty minutes held me positively captivated, the director showcasing a Fellini-like talent for surrealism that suits the material absolutely perfectly. I was blown away by where he was taking things, amazed at both the honesty and the creativity of these penultimate moments. This movie made me smile in euphoria while at the same time I was reaching for handfuls of Kleenex, and when all was said and done Loose Cannons ultimately ranked as one of the most rhapsodic I’ve had the pleasure to enjoy sitting in a theatre in all of 2010.
As for my first festival update, I’m running up to Chinese director Lu Chuan’s Najing melodrama The City of Life and Death right now while eagerly anticipating my screening of the Duplass Brothers’ latest effort Cyrus later tonight. In-between I’ll be spending some time with a couple of men behind the glorious B-movie horror effort Tucker & Dale vs. Evil so make sure to check back later to hear from them.
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