AFI FEST 2009: A SINGLE MAN, THE SINGULARITY
Colin Firth, Julianne Moore in A Single Man (top); Steve Evets, Eric Cantona in Looking for Eric (bottom)
AFI FEST 2009 highlights on Thursday, Nov. 5:
- Robert Barry Ptolemy’s The Singularity sounds fascinating: Futurist Ray Kurzweil discusses the just-around-the-corner impact of human technology, which has been growing exponentially. Imagine a world without death, hunger, disease. (Well, I’m assuming all those great things will happen if humans don’t self-destruct first. After all, all lab studies indicate that human imbecility is growing even faster than the species’ technological advances — talk about a scientific paradox; someone should come up with a documentary about that.)
- Directed by Tom Ford, A Single Man stars Venice 2009 winner Colin Firth, who’ll quite likely receive an Oscar nod come next February. Julianne Moore, Matthew Goode, and Nicholas Hoult co-star. Set in Los Angeles in the early ’60s, when homosexuality was still considered a mental illness and homosexual acts were illegal (now it’s only gay marriage and gay groping in public places that are illegal — talk about progress…), A Single Man revolves around one day in the life of a gay college professor whose lover has unexpectedly died.
- Former soccer star Eric Cantona means nothing to me — I’d never heard of him until I read about Ken Loach’s Looking for Eric. But perhaps one doesn’t need to know Cantona or be a soccer fan to appreciate Loach’s fairy-tale about a postal worker (Steve Evets) whose down-in-the-dumps life makes a turnaround after he gets visited by Guardian Angel Cantona.
- Zhao Liang’s Petition shows how vicious people in power can be: Set in China, the documentary depicts the plight of those protesting the ruthless actions of Chinese authorities.
Schedule and film information from the AFI FEST website:
The Singularity
Mann Chinese Theater 6 – 4:00 pm
Are we poised at the precipice for a new stage in human evolution? This is the theory proposed by inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil, the central and deeply complex subject of Robert Barry Ptolemy’s debut feature. In his non-fiction bestselling The Singularity Is Near, Kurzweil posits that human technological advancement is moving forward at such an exponential rate that the human experience will soon be incomprehensible to those living today. His central idea, “The Singularity,” imagines humanity approaching a post-human phase. In the near future, we will no longer be slaves to disease, hunger or even mortality. Though post-human society has been depicted in science fiction, Kurzweil realistically examines the possibilities and consequences of advanced AI, genetics research and robotics. While meticulously observing Kurzweil the man, who is all too mortal, Ptolemy also grants voice to his critics. His film offers a compelling model of scientific inquiry as played out in the popular arena. –Lane Kneedler
A Single Man
Graumann’s Chinese Theater – 7:00 pm
Unfolding on a single day in Los Angeles in 1962, at the height of the Cuban missile crisis, this story follows George Falconer, a 52-year old British college professor (Colin Firth) who struggles to find meaning after the death of his long time partner. Dwelling on the past and unable to see his future, George is consoled by his closest friend Charley (Julianne Moore), a 48-year-old beauty who is wrestling with her own questions about the future, and stalked by Kenny (Nicholas Hoult), a young student coming to terms with his own true nature. Based on Christopher Isherwood’s novel, and featuring splendid performances and precise, gorgeous design on every level, Tom Ford’s acclaimed debut is a romantic tale of love interrupted, the isolation that is an inherent part of the human condition and ultimately the importance of the seemingly smaller moments in life.
Looking for Eric
Mann Chinese Theater 1 – 7:00 pm
Working-class hero Ken Loach makes a surprising shift to a light, even fanciful mood in his new film about Eric, a bedraggled postal worker (the winning Steve Evets) who is watching his entire life slip away from him. The realist, street-level setting and Eric’s messy domestic world is absolutely Loachian, but for this serious and politically committed director, there’s something joyously new here. Eric, at the end of his rope with a wife who no longer seems to love him and a pair of stepsons who have no time for him, begins imagining that he’s visited by Manchester United soccer star Eric Cantona (playing himself), and poof: Cantona appears, providing Eric with just the kind of frank, colorful guidance that he needs to turn his life around. Loach taps into his inner Frank Capra, and serves up a hero for our recessionary times. –Robert Koehler
Petition
Mann Chinese Theater 6 – 7:00 pm
Zhao Liang filmed this documentary, without permission, over more than a decade, building a harrowing testimony of suffering on the part of Chinese citizens who spend years of their lives appealing various injustices and abuses committed by Chinese authorities. Zhao used hidden cameras to record the plight of these petitioners—farmers expelled from their land, citizens whose homes were destroyed without compensation, a fierce widow who has sacrificed her daughter’s education to pursue her quest for justice. Filming continued until the eve of the Beijing Olympics, when the image-conscious Chinese government destroyed their dwellings and displaced the petitioners. Activist filmmaking at its most courageous and tenacious, PETITION conveys the idealism and struggles of a vast population seeking a new moral center, while the culture around them strains under massive economic shifts.–Rose Kuo
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Tags: A Single Man, AFI FEST, AFI FEST 2009, Colin Firth, Eric Cantona, Film Festivals, Gay Interest, Ken Loach, Looking for Eric, Los Angeles Screenings, Petition, The Singularity, Tom Ford
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