CIFF – Two Should Have Stayed Home

There were two films shown at the Chicago International Film Festival that were extremely artisitic in their cinematography and metaphorical usage but totally failed as a meaningful films – The Daughter orig. La Hija from Argentina and Crosscurrent orig. Chang jiang tu from China.  I stayed after each viewing to listen to the directors explain their film.  Both made it clear that their approach was somewhat avant garde and that their film relied heavily on the culture of their country.  Hence foreign viewers, such as us in the U.S. were left struggling to understand the various symbolism.  Narrative was at a minimum in both.

The following excerpt from a New York Times review by Jeannetter Catsoulis (Oct. 27, 2016) nicely conveys the dilemma:

            “Buckling beneath the weight of its director’s ambitions, Yang Chao’s “Crosscurrent” is spectacular to look at and a devil to decode. Cramming fantasy and mysticism, faith and history into a single                    riverboat journey, this dirgelike meditation on China’s painful economic rebirth dispenses with narrative in favor of semiotics.”

The Daughter’s writer-director Luis Sampieri explained that while normally one leaves a film feeling good he intentionally wanted to make sure that viewers left his film feeling bad.  He stated that much of the symbolism reflected his country and that the vewer needed to understand the culture.  Similarly Yang Chao, Crosscurrent’s director, said he wanted to make a film that was opposite of what one usually found in China.  I was left wondering if any of the characters were real or themselves were just symbolic dreams.

I give both directors credit for expressing their artistic angst much like modern art painters.  Both films had some great beauty, political messages and a search for being.  But I left the theater each time with my primary reaction being confusion.  One could easily say that both of these films should have stayed home but I and others attend an international film festival to be exposed to creativity from other lands.  There is always something to learn.