Seattle Int'l Film Festival 2008

SIFF (www.siff.net) started on Friday and this is the first of 15 or so movies I plan to watch. It was a nice way to kick it off - offbeat, bizarre and very interesting. The perfect film festival movie, not because it was some arty crap, but because this kind of movie never makes it to the theaters.

A prostitute, a retired Turkish immigrant in Germany, his son - a Professor of German, the prostitutes daughter - a Turkish political rebel. The people is this story keep trying to reach out to make a connection but they keep tanatalisingly missing each other, again and again.

The director/writer has written a very clever script and backed it up with excellent direction and the acting is top notch too.

Four friends commit suicide on the same day leaving behind a fifth friend, an ex-girlfriend and their parents. Intense performances by all the actors contribute to a satisfying look at teenage lives.

A well directed thriller set primarily on the Trans-Siberian train line in Russia. An American couple get caught up with a drug trafficker working for the Uzbek mafia, his girlfriend and a corrupt cop. The wife is the most interesting character, complex and frustrating at times. Ben Kingsley does a great turn as the corrupt Russian cop. Good acting all round as well.

An entertaining movie revolving around time-travel and the trouble one man gets into because of his accidental time traveling. The direction is very very good. If you can accept that the protagonist can travel back in time, the plot and the script are exceedingly clever. There's drama, suspense and a bit of dark humour in there as well.

Mediocre sci-fi thriller revolving around a murder investigation. With shades of 'Vanilla Sky' (or the much preferred Spanish original, 'Open Your Eyes'), the movie veers into bizarre territory involving the nature of human memory. The action sequences are intense and the acting is pretty good. Despite all this, the movie lacked any emotional impact though it was interesting.