Kenny Begins - Sweden - Directed by Carl Astrand & Mats Lindberg
Synopsis: Kenny Starfighter, Galaxy Hero in-training, accidentally ends up on Earth, just in time to stop evil Dr. Oversmart from gaining superpowers from a crystal hidden on our planet.
A little research reveals that Kenny Begins is the film version of a popular kids' TV show in Sweden, called Kenny Starfighter. I feel a little better knowing that this was originally intended for children, because it's almost excruciatingly stupid. If this were an American production, it'd star some minor SNL veteran like Horatio Sanz, and it almost certainly wouldn't be playing at an international film festival.
I guess seeing even the dumbest comedy in a foreign language can make you feel like you're getting a dose of culture, but, really, this is a movie where one of the biggest jokes is that people on Kenny's home planet of Mylta greet each other with "woolly boolly" instead of "hello". That's barely passable as comedy, no matter what language it's in. There's a sci-fi adventure story at the heart of Kenny Begins that at least keeps things from getting too boring while all the jokes hang silently in the air.
Krabat - Germany - Directed by Marco Kreuzpaintner
Synopsis: An orphaned boy falls in with a group of black magick practicioners at a remote, mysterious mill.
It's easy to describe Krabat as a more occult version of Harry Potter, replacing J.K. Rowling's "abracadbra" style of magic with chalkline pentagrams and ancient Germanic rituals. While the characters certainly share some similarities, I was pleased to find out that Krabat is based on a 1971 novel, one that's already been adapted to film once before, and I shouldn't lump it in with post-Potter cash grabs like The Seeker or Eragon.
The Reader's David Kross plays the title character, a powerful magic user who finds himself torn between the young woman he loves and his loyalties to his sinister mentor and the rough-and-tumble group of boys that operate the mill. For the first hour or so, I was entranced by the movie, fascinated by its realistic portrayal of magic, its unique setting, and the dynamics of the relationships between the young men (all fatherless), and their master. Ultimately, Krabat wants to be a fairy tale, which means it eschews real-world logic for "true love conquers all" fluff. Sadly, that's not the movie I wanted to see, but it's the movie Kreuzpaintner made. To criticize it for not being the movie I wanted it to be is pointless--Krabat works excellently as a dark fable, regardless, and comes highly recommended to fantasy fans.
Burantino, Son of Pinocchio - Estonia - Directed by Rasmus Merivoo
Synopsis: A wealthy businessman wants to use the seeds of Pinocchio's wooden son, Buratino, to rule the world.
Buratino opens with a bang--a bizarro musical number in which a woman longing for a child of her own is impregnated by an enchanted splinter of wood--but the movie never gets any better; it never delivers on the gonzo promise of its first ten minutes. I suspect that Buratino was created for the tween set. It's got a half-baked Romeo and Juliet love story going on, and there are a smattering of upbeat (but pointless) songs sprinkled throughout the film.
Personally, I think Buratino's going to have a hard time finding an audience (which is not to say that it's bad, exactly). It's too weird and cheap-looking for the junior high set, and too safe and witless to form an adult cult audience.
The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus - UK/France/Canada - Directed by Terry Gilliam
Synopsis: Dr. Parnassus uses his Imaginarium, a magic mirror that can conjure a world from pure imagination, to win a contest for human souls in a wager with his rival, Mr. Nick
Too often the term "poorly paced" is used by film critics as a synonym for the word "boring". Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus is never, ever boring, but it is poorly paced. It's the same stop-start rhythm that has plagued too many of director Terry Gilliam's works. I can recognize that Imaginarium feels like Gilliam's most personal film, I can acknowledge that it's a beautiful artistic achievement, but it's also very much a Gilliam film in other, less positive aspects too. It doesn't really have any characters I can relate to. The narrative meanders and stumbles, instead of striding along with total confidence. It's got enough midgets, Dutch angles, and Python-esque bits of humor to almost qualify it as self-parody.
The Gilliam film it reminded me of the most was The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Munchausen is gorgeous, but it's a hard film to re-visit, because everything is always turned up to eleven, and it, too, has pacing problems. Gilliam clearly wants to say something important about religion in Imaginarium, but he takes too complicated a route to find a simple truth, and he seems to confuse and confound even himself by the film's conclusion. It's more than a little frustrating, but still worth watching, mainly due to its awesome production design and enthusiastic acting by the entire cast.