Tuesday, December 04, 2007

AIFF - No Place Like Home

Steve and Johanna called out to me as I walked into the Bear Tooth theater and I invited myself into their booth. Afterward Steve told me this film was made in 1975 and then was lost for 30 years and recently completed. The program says it's the sequel to The Harder they Fall.

Actually there are a number of stories that get crunched into one movie
  • The making of a shampoo commercial at a Jamaican beach and waterfall
  • A New York woman film maker staying an extra few days and getting her groove on as she learns about the friendly, laid back, community life or rural Jamaica, but also about
  • The capitalist pressures to buy up the beach front and kick out the villagers who live there and the Jamaican mafia working this process.
The shampoo commercial took way too much time as the excuse to get the film maker to Jamaica. What I liked about the movie was its unhollywood pace and makeup. The sky was generally overcast, the jungle was green, but not hollywood GREEN!!!! We spent time driving along the back roads, rocking in a hammock next to the beach, meeting various locals that you wouldn't meet on a tour. This was similar to the experiencing of a different world that we had Sunday night in Vida de Circo's (Circus Life), portrayal of the everyday life at an Argentine circus as they set up the tents, fed the animals and the people, talked about their sexual conquests, and performed their dancing and acrobatic acts. Saturday night's Joe Strummer movie also pulled us into a different world. But these two were documentaries, where No Place Like Home, was a feature.

There was one magical scene - a thunderstorm explodes and the night rain becomes an abstract animation in perfect sync with the Jamaican music. And I can't forget the great music throughout. The video I've posted below is lame. I was running out of battery and didn't get much footage, but I do like the way you can see, barely, the seats and tables in this theater where every other row of seats was replaced with tables and your dinner is delivered to your table.

1 comment:

  1. My husband just took me to the Bear Tooth. It wasn't a movie, just for food. We are doing this next year for the films.

    ReplyDelete

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