We’re just under a week into SIFF, with almost three weeks of film festival to go! Be sure to check the SIFF updates page to see which films are already sold out or are selling fast. Individual tickets for most films cost $11 for the public and $9 for SIFF members. Matinees are a bit cheaper ($8/$7) and those who are more willing to commit can consider all sorts of passes still for sale as well as slightly discounted packs of tickets in bundles of 6 or 20.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at what SIFF films those of us at The SunBreak saw so far this week as well as the films that we’re most looking forward to seeing over the next couple days. Note that this week marks SIFF’s residency in Everett with a gala presentation of Young Goethe in Love on Thursday night ($25, includes party and film).

WHAT WE SAW:

Josh: My week included a trio of imperfect but interesting films that made use of science fiction premises as an excuse to play out thought experiments, with varying degrees of success. All three ditched (or couldn’t afford) flashy special effects, instead striking contemplatively moody tones, employing muted color palettes, and focusing tightly on a couple of characters.

I think that my favorite of the three was Womb, in which Eva Green’s rekindled romance with a childhood crush is cut tragically short. In whatever future they’re inhabiting on the stormy German shores, though, she has the option of gestating his clone and raising him as a son. The results are predictably creepy, but Hungarian director Benedek Fliegauf doesn’t lose sight of the dark humor potential in his exploration of the taboos at play. Reckless driving is also the catalyst for a moral quandary in Another Earth, in which the surprising appearance of our planet’s twin in the night sky both indirectly induces a tragic accident and serves as a long-shot for redemption. The ever-looming planet increasingly becomes a distraction from would have been an interesting and strongly-acted character study on how (not) to deal with post-prison life by inserting yourself into the survivor of the people you killed. While the main character is working through her issues with ever-questionable behavior, the absence of global terror about the clone Earth wreaking havoc with the tides, the potential for planetary destruction upon their collision, the challenges of interplanetary travel, and the motivations of our only recently desynchronized neighbor loomed. For those determined to see everything at this year’s SIFF with Ewan McGregor and Eva Green, there’s Perfect Sense (final screening today, 4:30 pm at the Egyptian). Set in approximately modern-day Glasgow but infused with dispassionate outside-of-time Galadrielesque narration, it charts the rocky romance between a chef and an epidemiologist who have the misfortune of finally finding each other just as the world’s population is losing its senses one violent episode at a time. That the population would greet the global loss of smell with a “life goes on” attitude was plausible, but as the other senses line up to make their exit without much intervention from the medical establishment it begins increasingly difficult to invest in the syrupy romance in a world where cyanide tablets would be a hot commodity.

Audrey: I liked all three sci-fi lite films (Another Earth, Perfect Sense, and Womb) more than Josh, but that’s due more to lowered expectations than anything else.  All three have a strong premise, and sometimes, that’s all it takes–based on a good starting idea alone, these films were granted a little more leeway with their use of allegory and/or “poetics.” Womb in particular imparted several important life lessons: don’t sleep with a dumb mousy girl if you’ve got a Eva Green as your MILF; teach your child/lover early on to love you and only you, but have some simple explanations/lies at the ready; and look both ways before stepping out into the street.

Josh: In less apocalyptic news, there’s the struggle of print newspapers to survive in bad economic conditions and increasing competition. In particular, with Page One: Inside the New York Times Andrew Rossi chose a particularly interesting year to profile the nation’s paper of record. Viewed mostly through the lens of the paper’s Media Desk, this loosely structured documentary begins at the approximate time that several newspapers across the country (including our own Seattle Post-Intelligencer) were closing down or ceasing print operations. From there, we watch as the Times contends with massive layoffs in its own newsroom, WikiLeaks bombshells, and the photo-op end of combat operations in Iraq. Although many staffers are profiled and plenty of talking heads pontificate, the primary narrative follows the cantankerous and charismatic David Carr as he contextualizes the paper’s relevance in the face of emerging trends in social media and investigates the collapse of another old media empire. (today, 7:00 pm @ Neptune; May 28, 11:00 am @ Egyptian; May 30, 3:30 pm @ Everett).

MvB: Honey (all showings past) immerses you in the sights and sounds of a young Turkish boy whose father is a wild beekeeper. It’s part of Semih Kaplanoglu’s “Yusuf” trilogy, and it’s amazing for its recreation of youth’s fascinations and half-understandings, but also a touching portrait of a father-son bond deepened by the father’s epilepsy and the Yusuf’s ferocious stutter. Its leisurely pace derives from the rural lives it chronicles.

Win/Win (May 30, 6:30 p.m. @ the Egyptian; June 1, 4:30 p.m. @ the Neptune; June 10, 7 p.m. @ Kirkland Perf. Ctr.) is filed under Black Comedy and Make Me Laugh, but I can’t say I smiled all that much. It’s mostly an affecting drama from the Netherlands about a young stock analyst with more than a hint of Asperger’s about him, who has a knack for picking winners on the fly. His rise within his firm, contrasted with the the financial sector meltdown and the cut-throat practices of his trade, eventually precipitates a nervous breakdown.

Josh: I also caught the last screening of Microphone, a jumbled hybrid between narrative and documentary that follows a guy who returns to New York to find his long-ago love leaving town. In his ships-in-the-night depression, he floats into the lives of underground bands, street artists, and skaters. Like his attempts to pull together a showcase for their unrecognized talents, the plot doesn’t really go far, but it’s still an interesting glimpse at the streets and attitudes of pre-revolution Egypt and its youth.

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION:

Wednesday:

• You Are Here If director Daniel Cockburn’s debut is as playful and wonderfully strange as his acclaimed video art and short film work, this surrealist feature film should make for a fun journey (9:30 p.m. @ Harvard Exit; tomorrow, 4:30 p.m. @ Harvard Exit)
  
• Steam of Life Spend an hour and a half with men who use the sacred Finnish space of the sauna to spill their emotions. (4:30 p.m. @ SIFF Cinema; also May 26, 7 p.m. @ Egyptian, June 7, 6:30 p.m. @ Admiral)
• Page One: Inside the New York Times As mentioned above, highly recommended for news junkies; media reporter and online wunderkind Brian Stelter is scheduled to attend tonight’s screening. (today, 7 p.m. @ Neptune; May 28, 11 a.m. @ Egyptian; May 30, 3:30 p.m. @ Everett)
• If A Tree Falls uses archival footage and interviews to re-visit the Earth Liberation Front, their extreme actions (including against the University of Washington), and the government’s prosecution of them under domestic terrorism statues. (7 p.m. @ Harvard Exit; May 29, 6 p.m. @ Kirkland)
• Natural Selection arrives in Seattle theaters with Rachel Harris as a Christian housewife hitting the road to track down her sperm-donating husband’s drug-addled ex-convict son. (7 p.m. @ the Egyptian; May 27, 4 p.m. @ the Egyptian)
• Silent Souls MvB recommended this melancholic Russian road trip meditation on love, culture, and identity surrounding the funeral rituals of the Merjan for those who want to travel without leaving home. (7:00 p.m. @ Pacific Place; June 12, 6:15 p.m. @ Kirkland)
• Outside the Law sounds like Once Upon a Time in America done Algerian–a really exciting prospect from this end. (9 p.m. @ the Admiral)
• Apart Together in this family drama, lovers separated in 1947 by China’s civil war reunite and an invitation to relocate from Shanghai to Taiwan proves complicated. (9:30 p.m. @ SIFF Cinema)

Thursday:

• Backyard a concert documentary set in, you guessed it, a Reykjavik backyard where pizza, pancakes, and a few flyers lead some of Iceland’s brightest talents. No Sigur Rós, but at least Mùm turns up. (4 p.m. @ Neptune; May 29, 8:30 p.m. @ Admiral)
• Pinoy Sunday factory workers try to smuggle a shiny red couch from the street to their rooftop. (4:30 p.m. @ Pacific Place)
• The Thief of Baghdad The 1924 Thief of Bagdad is an antiquated but pretty terrific 1924 adventure, and if the Re-Imagined graft of ELO songs to the film takes, this could be a kick and three-quarters. (7 p.m. @ Neptune)
• Treatment Local superhero Sean Nelson (actor, musician, former flagpole sitter) makes his debut as a feature film screenwriter and co-director with this story or a clueless filmmaker, his long-suffering best friend, and their scheme to cast an A-list celebrity in their movie by following him into a posh rehab facility under false pretenses. (9:30 pm @ Egyptian; May 28, 11 a.m. @ Neptune)
• Nuummioq Another shot at Greenland’s first narrative feature film. (9 p.m. @ the Admiral)
• John Carpenter’s The Ward Tony deemed this locally-filmed horror “not half bad.” (9:30 p.m. @ the Neptune)