SIFF-ting through cinema: Week 1

Created
Sun, 14/05/2023 - 10:45
Updated
Sun, 14/05/2023 - 10:45
The 2023 Seattle International Film Festival is running now through May 21st, featuring 264 shorts, docs, and narrative films from 74 countries. I’ve been bingeing all week, and thought I’d  take a breather and share a few reviews. Hopefully, some will be coming soon to a theater (or a streaming service) near you! A Disturbance in the Force (USA) *** – I missed “The Star Wars Christmas Special” in 1978…but after seeing Jeremy Coon and Steve Kozak’s documentary, perhaps that’s for the best. Leaving viewers and TV critics aghast, the unintentionally kitschy one-off has since garnered cult status (George Lucas initially OK’d the project but disowned it following the broadcast). The backstory is recounted in a cheeky and entertaining fashion. Warning: this film may trigger nightmares about Bea Arthur tending bar at the Mos Eisley Cantina. Chile ’76 (Chile/Argentine/Qatar) *** – Echoes of Graham Greene’s The Honorary Consul permeate this examination of the moral, ethical, and political dilemmas presented by life in a totalitarian society. Set in 1976 during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, actress Manuela Martelli’s debut feature (co-written with Alejandra Garcia) centers on a bourgeois Chilean woman (Aline Küppenheim). Although she trained as a nurse at med school, she has opted to let her physician husband bring home the bacon. Busying herself by taking care of their luxurious beachfront home and doing volunteer work for her church, she is largely sheltered from the harsh realities of the regime. However, when her priest talks her into helping a wounded…