KSanders writesUnsung Heroes: Insightful Documentaries at the Chicago International Film Festival

by Kyle Sanders

In the turbulent times we're currently living in, sometimes it helps to travel back to the past for comparison.

Every time I read a news article these days, it's like my heart can't help but sink, letting go of any shred of hope I had left in this lifetime. But then I think back to when my parents were kids, experiencing the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

It helps me to understand that no matter how many bad things take place on this earth, it never stops the world from turning. My parents thought the world was ending after Kennedy's murder, but here we are, almost sixty years later, still spinning--yet still wondering if the end is nigh. 

Apologies for such a bleak beginning to this post, but it leads me into something good: documentaries! This year, the Chicago International Film Festival has provided us with dozens of documentary features and shorts to choose from. You've got your pick of profiles ranging from Pete Buttigieg, Julia Child, and The Velvet Underground, to a four year adventure chronicling the life of a bovine named Luma (Cow).

These informative documentaries span a multitude of topics as well, anything from explorations of gay sexuality (Acts of Love), post-prison probation programs (Any Given Day), the dangers of escaping Taliban rule (Flee), and the ecological threat of disappearing indigenous tribes (The Last Forest).

Two documentaries I had the opportunity to check out were not only profiles on history makers, but were also included in this year's Black Perspectives program at CIFF. 

The first one is about tennis star Arthur Ashe, aptly titled Citizen Ashe. Known for becoming the first Black man to win the U.S. Open, Wimbledon, and the Australian Open, Ashe not only broke barriers during the Civil Rights Movement, but became a symbol of hope, fighting oppression in the U.S. and South Africa.

Citizen Ashe

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KSanders writesTell Me Lies: Drama and Romance at the Chicago International Film Festival

by Kyle Sanders

I love that scene in A Few Good Men when Jack Nicholson's character takes Tom Cruise down a peg with his famous "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH" speech. It's the sort of movie quote that gets overwhelmingly referenced in other matters of pop culture, but also, it ain't no lie. 

Dramatic films often include characters that bend themselves over backwards to find out the truth about someone or something, going to extreme lengths even if it means alienating themselves from friends, family, their job, or their sanity.

And the truth can especially cut like a knife when it wedges itself between two lovers. Here at the Chicago International Film Festival, I found two films where the idea of truth serves as the main plot device, causing a tormented man to pointlessly chase after it and a demure woman to construct it to her own advantage. 

Winner of the Best Screenplay at this year's Cannes Film Festival, Japan's Drive My Car opens on a loving married couple: stage actor/director Yusuke (Hidetoshi Nishijima) and his screenwriting wife, Oto (Reike Kirishima). The pair seem happily married, but Yusuke discovers cracks beneath their picture perfect relationship.

Drive My Car

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KSanders writesChicago International Film Festival Highlight: “The French Dispatch”

by Kyle Sanders

The French Dispatch
Dir. Wes Anderson

It makes sense that filmmaker Wes Anderson would direct a movie about an editor of a cultural magazine that "brings the world" to its readers. Every single characteristic that makes up a single frame of his films is so periodically meticulous and exact, that the aesthetic and witty repartee always abounding within view could only be sympathized by someone who oversees the look and content of an ongoing periodical.

There's an obsessive control element, picking apart words and visuals and choosing what stays and what goes. It's a task too tedious for some, but has to be done to maintain familiarity with the audience yet keep them anticipating what comes next. The French Dispatch, Anderson's tenth film, is familiar in tone and content, but offers us something new to keep us from getting bored.

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KSanders writesThis Woman’s Work: Female Perspectives at the Chicago International Film Festival

by Kyle Sanders

The "Women's Picture" is universal, yet I often question if Hollywood is really progressing in its depictions of female characters.

It's not just the lack of films featuring women over 30 or leading lady action stars (though that seems to be changing thanks to Marvel and the like), but there's often very little support behind films involving complex women in the spotlight: those "women of a certain age" who aren't just the vapid love interest or the villainous bitch, but have complicated dimensions that can inspire sympathy and disdain at the same time. That's why it's always refreshing to see several titles at the Chicago International Film Festival that center around women.

This year the festival mixes high profile titles like Spencer (an account of the tragic life of Princess Di) and Julia (a documentary about legendary cookbook author and TV personality Julia Child) with smaller fare like Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (a social satire about a female Bucharest school teacher whose graphic sex tape goes viral) and Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (a trio of charming vignettes from Japan focused on three very different women). There are nearly 30 films at this year's fest about women, and all are worth our undivided attention.

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