2008 JHFF Film Reviews

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

By PJH Staff

“Man on Wire”
On one day in 1974, Parisian Phillipe Petit became an instantly celebrated man in New York City after he spent 45 minutes walking, dancing and laying down upon a high wire between the twin towers of the World Trade Center.

“Man on Wire,” a documentary about Petit’s death-defying high wire waltz and the Cloak and Dagger-like tale of setting up the illegal maneuver is, simply put, one of the most remarkable film experiences I’ve ever had.

The film uses a mixture of contemporary interviews, re-enactment and, most stunning of all, reels of archival footage and still photographs shot by Petit’s friends of the time. I think I could be satisfied just watching hours of unedited footage of young Petit and his then ladylove crossing back and forth across a practice wire set up in a pastoral looking field somewhere outside of Paris. To watch Petit high wire walk first between the towers of Notre Dame and eventually thousands of feet above Manhattan, is to witness what must be some of the most sublime and compelling non-traditional performance art pieces of all times. Did I mention I really enjoyed this film?
- Ben Cannon

“Where the Water Meets the Sky”
“Where the Water Meets the Sky,” which won the Audience Choice award for best documentary, is an uplifting film about women living in rural Zimbabwe who are given a chance to empower themselves through filmmaking and story telling.

Living in a region where AIDS runs rampant, and the disease affects women due to incongruous gender rights – male adultery, female prostitution – the film is an uplifting example of how even a little bit of knowledge can plant a seed of confidence. Funded by the humanitarian organization CAMFED, the film is an example of work that can be done to help people help themselves on the ground of some of these issues facing impoverished rural areas in the developing world.

At the start of this film, I hesitatingly checked my male ego at the door and eventually found myself, along with the yoga pant-wearing women sitting around me, wiping from my eyes tears of pure joy and hope.
-Ben Cannon

“Fields of Fuel”
Melodramatic, and explicitly propagandistic, “Fields of Fuel” sure wasn’t going to win any juried prize at Sundance. But perhaps out of a hatred of George Bush, or disdain for fuel prices, it won the Best Documentary audience award at the storied festival.

The film was edifying, but a more fitting title for it could have been “Crude Tactics,” or “How John D. Rockefeller and the Oil Industry Murdered Rudolf Diesel and Later Polluted Louisiana Waterways so Cajuns Could Never Eat Gumbo Again.”

As it turns out, the diesel engine was invented by Adolf Diesel to run on peanut oil. His desire to put money back into the hands of farmers, as the movie reports, added a pleasantly Marxist undertone to the film. But the filmmaker implied that Diesel was murdered, and excluded the fact that Diesel was deep in debt when he disappeared off of a ship in 1913, and was also a chronic sufferer of migraines when under stress.
I still recommend the film, which communicated strong points about our country’s energy policy.

But what I really wanted to learn is how biofuels can change the world, if they actually can. I wanted to learn how biofuels may or may not be responsible for a spike in food prices, and how biodiesel is made, who makes it, and what the future economic implications are for a country who puts their energy dollars into renewable fuels.
-Henry Sweets


“I Love Sarah Jane”
Dude, adolescence is the worst. As if bullies and the awkward trappings of youthful infatuation weren’t enough, young Jimbo, who lives in Australian suburbia, has to contend with the zombie plague in what appears to be a world on the verge of the apocalypse.

Poor Jimbo, whose family has all died from the troubles, has not allowed rampant death and societal collapse to deter his love of one young lady, the lovely Sarah Jane.
“I Love Sarah Jane” is a short film that works on many levels. It’s a flick well versed in the grotesque zombie genre, and scenes of violence involving a captured zombie are intimate and disturbing. But it s also, well, completely entertaining.
-Ben Cannon
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2008 JHFF Film Reviews | Planet JH News Article: General Music Arts and Culture

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