AIFF 2009 - Brief Post on Know Your Mushrooms and Son of the Sunshine
The Canadian Consul hosted a wine and cheese party after the Canadian film Son of the Sunshine tonight. It got late, so I'll just post a minimal post. Know Your Mushrooms was not a great film, but it was fun and lots of information on mushrooms - their contribution to the decomposition on earth, relationship to religion, health aspects, and psychedelic aspects. A very laid back movie.
Then there was a fairly long break so I got this video so that people who didn't make it to the festival can see the main venue for the feature films - the Bear Tooth Theater and Pub.
I'm still digesting Son of the Sunshine. Below right is Writer, Director, and lead Actor of the movie talking one of the film goers. It was a difficult movie, in part because so many of the characters were not terribly likable and we only really got to know enough about the main character to get a sense of his strangeness. Plus, he could be extremely sweet and caring. But the others - Ariel, the mom, etc. - were there but we didn't, at least I, didn't know who they were enough to fell sympathetic towards them. But difficult doesn't mean bad, it just means you have to work harder to process it. And I'm not there yet. 
Australian Neil Mansfield's film Streetsweeper was last year's best feature. It too was a difficult film because it didn't follow any of the conventions of film making. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but others thought it was awful. While Son of the Sunshine was difficult, it had a much more traditional structure. Perhaps it was easier with Streetsweeper because it was so different, whereas with Sunshine, it's close enough to standard film genres we know, that some people may think that's what he was doing, but it didn't quite work. He wasn't doing that. He wasn't telling a story as much as conveying a feeling, a feeling that wasn't always comfortable. 
After the wine and cheese and most of the people were gone, some locals and some visiting film makers moved into the Bear Tooth Grill for more conversation. 
So, please excuse this sorry post. It's late and I'm past my bed time and hoping to get up early tomorrow morning.
