Patricia Rozema's take on Mansfield Park is by far the more interesting, an ingenious adaptation that weaves Jane Austen's own letters and juvenilia with her fictional study of a poor outcast taken in by wealthy relatives. Rozema missteps big-time in the third act by making explicit Austen's supposed subtext of racial injustice and sexual obsession. That the film can't handle that burden supports my contention that Austen never intended for such a subtext to be read. But her overrated novels aren't at hand here. I'm still not sure whether I fell asleep for a few minutes during the screening or not.
Film festivals are armchair travelogues.
I've never been to the coast of Peru, but I doubt the real thing is as lovely or magical as what's on display in Marianne Eyde's La Carnada . This portrait of a fishing village is so intimate you can almost taste the sea salt and the slices of raw fish that lovers teasingly pop into each others' mouths, and the film's ghostly visitations are handled with equal directness. Maria is a young woman who's bucked tradition by going out to sea with her husband Juan. She's also the most traditionally superstitious person in town, communing nightly with her goddess, the moon, never hesitating to tell Juan when his actions aren't merely misguided but an affront to fate. The village, of course, sees her as a crazy witch, and however much Juan thinks of himself as a supportive fellow freethinker, the pressure's building.