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JUSTIN TANNER REVIEWS THE 2023 SONOMA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL MY FIRST FILM FESTIVAL
The 2023 Sonoma International Film Festival was held March 22-29 in the small bucolic Northern California village known primarily for its ‘outstanding’ wines, vineyards, organic produce and sustainable farming. Having never been to one of these things before, I was initially excited. The slate of movies looked promising. In Napa, I could stay in the house of a close friend. The trip could be accomplished on a relatively small budget. So. I pored over the schedule, purchased tickets to thirteen films, gassed up the Prius and drove the 409 miles to the idyllic, verdant location, fully prepared for a weekend of cinematic delight. What I hadn’t anticipated was the shoddiness of the various screening locations, seats that barely met the limited standards of comfort, a casual relationship to the idea of ‘projection’ and the absolute, dead-eyed disinterest from 90% of the audience, at least at the screenings I attended. If it hadn’t been for the quality of the films themselves, the experience would have been a total wash. Still, the fact that such works of art — near masterpieces in some cases — could be presented in so cavalier a fashion, and taken in with such obvious disdain, was monumentally disheartening to say the least. Friday, March 24 Yesterday, after a six and a half hour drive, I arrived in Napa, changed into something slightly dressy — my first mistake, since the de rigueur uniform turned out to be jeans and quilted parkas — and headed over to Sonoma for dinner. I’d googled “best restaurant”, which led me to the high-end Portuguese “LaSalette” — located in historic ‘Sonoma Plaza’ — and ordered the whole Branzino, roasted in a wood-fired oven and served over olives, tomatoes and fingerling potatoes. This turned out to be the best decision of the weekend; I had the distinct impression, as I was eating dinner, that it was absolutely the best meal I’d had in a long, long time. Then I headed over to my first screening: "Pornomelancolia", Manuel Abramovich’s somber and frank tale set in Oaxaca about a lonely sex addict who only comes alive when playing a character in one of hundreds of self-filmed sex videos he uploads to Twittear, the Spanish language version of Twitter.
Sonoma is a very conservative little town of about 10,000 people. This movie screened at a local cineplex in a shopping mall. There was a band of little old ladies manning the door. NOBODY would mention the title of the film. I was one of about fifteen older men who showed up, like the raincoat crowd at a porn theatre in the Tenderloin, to see what was a provocative drama with plenty of full frontal nudity and simulated butt sex. The group of festival 'judges' in attendance, who seemed like good, God-fearing Culture Christians — men and women in their sixties who looked as if they hadn't had a good time in a few decades — sat in the front row and took in the movie with stony silence. But their derisive response was palpable as soon as the lights came up. The experience of watching this mature, serious, sad and extremely wise film — that unblinkingly and explicitly dealt with penetrative gay sex — in the company of NorCal conservatives and silent old queens was a bit like being caught watching porn by your next door neighbor. But despite the chilly atmosphere emanating from the audience — and the badly projected image which rendered the left half of the screen bathed in an obtrusive light — I applauded loudly when it was over, and when asked to vote for the audience award I gave "Pornomelancolia" high marks. And yet I couldn’t help wondering: where were the gays? I had fully expected a contingent of supporters to show up since the festival itself was having what it called a “Gay-LA” with a selection of LGBTQI films and a big disco dance party. Apparently no one got the memo but me. Saturday, March 25 Yesterday I had four movies on the schedule with just enough time for lunch. The first, Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s critically acclaimed “The Beasts”, a recipient of nine Goyas — the Spanish version of the Oscars — was shown at Andrews Hall, a cold, boxy auditorium with the acoustics of a handball court. Even worse, the only available seats were positioned well below the screen so that the only way to watch the movie was with my head tilted back as if checking the ceiling for spider webs. This caused my neck to seize up after half an hour, so by the time the movie was over I was nursing a monumental crick. The movie itself, even when shown under these horrific conditions, proved to be a marvelous, searing examination of toxic masculinity; An utterly involving story of escalating conflict between a French couple living in a small village in Galicia, and their vindictive neighbors.
And again, here was a richly detailed narrative, one that managed to obliterate the reductive binary of good and evil found in American cinema, and replace it with a subtly shaded balance of justified rage and vain attempts to make peace; where even the worst characters were softened by the cruel mitigating circumstances of their hardscrabble lives. So, of course, with no clear villains to hiss or heroes to applaud, the capacity audience of blank-eyed Sonomans was predictably nonplused. A representative POV was expressed by the woman who commented loudly to her friend in the lobby afterwards:
As I headed to Tasca Tasca for a lunch of tapas — which included Portuguese Mac’n’Cheese and lobster croquettes — I checked my phone and realized that “The Beasts”, which had been advertised as 97 minutes, had actually been 137 minutes. This meant I had a choice of eating or racing to the next location to see the much awarded Israeli film “Kareoke.” I decided to nurse my stiff neck and, regrettably, gave “Kareoke” a pass. Lunch was delicious, by the way, but for the next film, “Ajoomma” — a much celebrated award winner from Korea — my view of the screen was curtailed by the massive head of the tallest man in the world. As it turns out, the film’s director was in attendance and a post-screening Q&A was promised. But I was unable to read the subtitles without constantly moving my head from side to side. And though I searched for another seat, the poor design of the theatre — and limited options — guaranteed a partially obstructed view no matter where I sat. So, after twenty minutes of frustration, I left. The last screening of the day was of Saim Sadiq’s Pakistani comedic tragedy “Joyland,” an epic trans romance, and the first Pakistani film ever to play in Cannes.
It was playing at the Sebastiani Theatre, a stunning 1933 movie house with the most uncomfortable seats on Earth: Narrow, cushionless instruments of torture with sharp wooden arm rests that bit into my elbows every time I moved. And there’s nothing quite like watching a movie about Trans lovers with a bunch of kind hearted but dismally dim NorCal rubes. Two beige-haired women sitting right behind me never stopped talking:
Despite the constant idiocy from every corner of the audience — could these people really be that out to lunch about the difference between 'top' and 'bottom'? — I was emotionally wrecked by the time it was all over. Luckily, Oscilloscope has picked up the distribution rights and will be releasing it later this year. See it, but bring the tissues. Sunday, March 26 I saw two forgettable films early in the day: “Last Dance” — a French comedy with a ridiculous premise about an ungainly old man joining a modern dance troupe in order to honor his dead wife — whose main purpose was to attempt to invoke belly laughs by showing a fat man dancing on his tip toes like the hippos in “Fantasia”. And of course the audience ate it up like free candy. It seems the Sonoma crowd finally found their groove: toothless, frictionless, meaningless slapstick that transitioned abruptly into mawkish sentimentality. I fully expect an American remake starring Jack Black. Later I watched “Other People’s Children”, a perfectly serviceable French movie starring the utterly delightful Virginie Efira. Like most of the International films I saw, the lines between hero and villain were blurred in a decidedly un-American way. The premise, about a childless woman falling in love with her boyfriend’s young daughter, kept threatening to deepen, but never did, choosing instead to swim defiantly in the shallow ‘Lifetime Channel’ end of the pool. Then disaster happened again. At a very packed screening of Paul Schrader's latest film, "Master Gardener" at the Sebastiani, I arrived early to get a good seat, then right before the movie started this woman with her hair in a huge top knot decided to move directly in front of me. Before I realized it I was saying out loud "You've gotta be kidding me. Again!?" The woman definitely heard me, clutched her husband and whispered in his ear. He turned back and gave me the stink eye. I smiled at him. Luckily there was a seat open to my right so I shifted over. I can't wait to get back to Los Angeles. At Alamo Drafthouse no one can block your view because of the heavily raked house. And nobody can talk or text without being ejected from the theatre. Last night I heard a woman behind me say after twenty minutes into the film "This is just not interesting." And top-knot lady kept "boredom-signaling" in a very obvious way by sighing and checking her phone every ten minutes. One thing that turned out to be fun, however, was watching a fully packed audience of beige people — whose tastes clearly ran more towards Nora Ephron comedies and Ron Howard dramas — being forced to sit through a tenaciously distancing movie experience. Schrader doesn't care how you feel. He will take his sweet time with every step of the plot. He will add a strange dreamlike sequence near the end — prompting Lady Chatter-ly to comment "Well that was different." To which her friend replied "I don't know what the hell's going on." Being in the center of a room of about three hundred people with defiantly pedestrian tastes — most of whom were squirming in discomfort because the movie wasn't telling them exactly how to feel — turned out to be a hoot. When it was all over, I applauded loudly while derisive laughter exploded from every corner of the theatre. So what the hell is this Film Festival doing in Sonoma? It's like these people believe they're performing penance by trying to sit through art that's well beyond their ability to comprehend or enjoy. World Cinema is their hair shirt. And now they can go back to their lives with the certainty that big budget Hollywood makes the only movies worth watching. Indies are for Liberals and queers. International films are for Intellectuals and anarchists. I know I'm being reductive. But I honestly don't know how much more of this I can take. Shitty screens, terrible seats, ugly Americans. And some fantastic movies where I'm the only person in the audience who seems to be having a good time. Oh well, at least there's food. Monday, March 26 I’m back home a day early. Here’s what happened: Yesterday I woke up disgusted and ready to leave. I had four more movies on my agenda and yet I couldn’t bring myself to get excited by any of them. What misery would face me today? Back crunching seats? Shitty acoustics? Tall talky cretins? Badly-projected images? I was looking forward to seeing “The Eight Mountains”, Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch’s Cannes Jury Prize-winning film about a life long friendship set in a remote Alpine village. But that would mean two and a half hours back at Andrews Hall painfully stretching my neck just to see the screen. There was also Cristian Mungiu’s “R.M.N.” and Steven Frears’ “The Lost King”, but that would mean returning to the Sebastiani and I wasn’t sure my back or elbows could take the abuse. The deciding factor occurred when I walked into a coffee house in Napa, ordered a blueberry scone, pulled out my wallet and realized....I’d lost my credit card. In no time I had raced home, stripped the bed, done laundry, packed the car and was headed out the door. By the time I got the call from a Sonoma restaurant telling me they had my Visa card I was already on the road. And by this time I was more than grateful to have an excuse to be on my way home. So what’s the takeaway? Sonoma doesn’t deserve the riches it so casually squanders. Maybe it was a fun idea back in 1997 to have a festival of food, wine and movies; to invite Francis Ford Coppola to lend credibility to what is, in effect, a meaningless exhibit of unexamined brilliance. Without suitable venues to show the appropriate respect to the works of art on display — or an audience of adventurous cinemaphiles to actually take them in — the Sonoma International Film Festival is an exercise in futility, like buying a lithograph because it’s fashionable and then storing it out of sight, in the basement.
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