THE DARK SIDE

After several months being immersed in undergroud films for Boston Underground Film Festival #7, I would have thought I might seen out more lighthearted fare. After all, films like FAMILY PORTRAITS by Douglas Buck and YOU ARE ALONE by Gorman Bechard were good films but truly downers, as was the Oscar winning animated film RYAN, about a homeless animator. But, since my favorite commercial films of the decade are MILLION DOLLAR BABY, ROAD TO PERDITION and MYSTIC RIVER (one recent blogger named Zach called MYSTIC RIVER the cheesiest film o f the decade - why do Eastwood;s films provoke such wrath?) , what I would go to see and like are predictable. I prefer the Jacobean tragedy elements of MYSTIC and ROAD to most of the feel good movies out there.

In THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO, the Mia Farrow character, struggling through the Depression and an abusive husband, goes to the movies for escape. I still go for cnfrontation. For me, the screen is a mirror, and watching THE SEVENTH SEAL and Fellini's 8-l/2 are like an examination of conscience.

So,. after the intensity of BUFF, I took off to recuperate on the North Schore, and I did some movie sampling. I avoided HITCH, and walked out on Danny Boyle's MILLIONS, which seemed well edited (as usual), but way too benign. I saw a good part of SIN CITY, a stylistic tour de force which wallows in the dark side, sort f a comic book version of LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN. But the film that I skipped HITCH for was the Israeli fim WALK ON WATER, a fairly convincing portrait of a dedicated Israei hit man, whose assignment to find information from the gradchildren of a former Nazi leads him into areas that make him not only confront his wn attitudes, but also his own humanity made for a compelling story. Again, not light stuff.

So I might even miss FEVER PITCH