The Wily Filipino

SFIFF Note #3.

Alexander Sokurov's latest film, Alexandra, derives its understated humor from its narrative premise: an elderly woman from St. Petersburg visits her grandson, an officer stationed in an army base in Chechnya. This, in and of itself, is already humorous in its faintly comic juxtapositions, as we see her barrelling stubbornly through the barracks, handling an AK-47, clambering in and out of tanks, complaining about how the soldiers don't wash. One touching element is how it seems all the soldiers -- all boys, really -- are eyeing her almost hungrily; it's a hunger, all right, but not for generic female contact, but a precisely maternal one.

And so it continues in this quietly funny vein, until there's a jarring scene of the grandmother walking alongside the occupying army's rumbling tanks, and shots of apartment buildings with the ceilings caved in from bombing, and you realize there is a good chunk of the world for which this is normal. At any rate, the film slowly builds up to its inevitable anti-war message, but it's a complicated and ambiguous one like its characters. Alexandra herself is part of the occupation, after all, and even if she feels a kindred sisterly spirit with the Chechen women, she neither receives nor demands absolution -- not from the viewer, in any case.

Barry Jenkins' Medicine for Melancholy is an uncommonly fine film, and easily one of the best I've seen this year so far. Indie romances don't always sit well with me, probably even well before Natalie Portman gave Zach Braff her headphones, precisely because they follow such a well-worn formula. But Jenkins gets the formula -- for his debut film! -- absolutely right (and more): a kick-ass soundtrack (follow the link and you'll see what I mean), two attractive leads, and a beautiful city.

Halfway through the movie, it didn't seem that this seemingly shaky combination of Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise and Rebecca Solnit's "Hollow City" would work. But it's to Jenkins' credit that Medicine for Melancholy -- essentially a "Sunday morning after the Saturday one-night stand" movie -- pulls this off beautifully. (Visually there are some standout scenes as well, like a rapturous carousel ride, and an extended wordless dance sequence at The Knockout.)

On paper it seems iffy: two hungover twenty-somethings stumble out of bed, have the most uncomfortable breakfast afterwards, and go their separate ways -- the girl ("Angela") to the Marina, the boy (Micah) to the Tenderloin. We know they'll inevitably meet up, and they do, and threaded through all this are earnest discussions on race and class. It seems like an academic treatise, and at times it does (notably, in a visit to the Museum of the African Diaspora), but once it becomes clear that Micah's anger is inextricably tied to place, to a city that has increasingly pushed people of color out in another diaspora of its own (particularly African Americans, a frighteningly tiny 7 percent of San Francisco's population), then the film coheres satisfyingly, in ways deeper and more meaningful than indie romantic comedies usually do.

Oh, and did I mention that it's a love story? And no, I'm not talking about the two leads -- Medicine for Melancholy is a rapturous, bittersweet love letter to San Francisco as well.

Posted by the wily filipino at May 5, 2008 12:41 AM