Bohemian Cinema By Jonathan Pacheco

SXSW ‘07: Tuesdays With “Castro”

Tags: SXSW, Arranged, Castro, Documentary

The final day of my short stay at SXSW; that means all of these late posts will be ending soon enough. Was it a worthy finish? Let’s see.

Steal a Pencil for Me

This documentary recounts the story of two Jews whose secret relationship sustained them through the horrors of concentration camps during World War II. Their main form of communication was through love letters.

The two subjects of the film, Ina and Jack, are very candid and very entertaining, and their story is pretty amazing. The whole documentary is interesting and sweet, and it’s great to see something wonderful through all the tragedy. I can’t say much else about this. It’s very skillfully made and the story is pretty remarkable.

638 Ways to Kill Castro

So apparently, there are a lot of people who don’t really like Fidel Castro. And apparently they’ve tried to kill him many times over, never once succeeding; you wouldn’t believe some of the schemes that government or individual assassins came up with. Get this: a poisoned milkshake. Or how about an exploding cigar?

The documentary plays a lot of the assassination attempts for laughs, because honestly, it is pretty pathetic how many times this guy can escape death from the most powerful nation in the world (not without the help of his head of security who seems to be the best at his job). Several prime suspects are openly interviewed, several of them being Cuban exiles who are sick of Castro, and it’s amazing how candidly they speak of wanting to eliminate the Cuban leader. Some have made it their mission in life.

It was definitely an entertaining film, and, if it’s all true, then a somewhat disturbing one. A lot of evidence isn’t given to support the film’s claims, except for the fact that it has several people on camera saying, “I tried to kill Castro,” which for some is more than enough.

Arranged

I had heard good things about this film, so I went to see it.

Arranged is about an Orthodox Jew, Rochel, and a Muslim, Nasira, who both teach at the same school. Everyone wonders if they hate each other because, well, they’re “supposed to.” Soon they’re on the same side in awkward situations, partially because their principal insists on taking them aside and telling them to let loose, let their hair down, and “be their own women.” The ladies become friends, and some of their friendship was found in the discovery of common ground: they both have to undergo an arranged marriage, and they both dread it.

It’s much more entertaining than it sounds. The film tackles familiar territory, but I was pleased to see that it does a solid job of bringing its own angle to it. Particularly, Nasira’s parents, specifically her father, could have been the typical stoic Muslim family, and it appears that he is at one point, but thankfully we see enough of him to see his motivations, and why he will or won’t relent on certain things.

Later on, the film resorts to some broad comedy and convenient storytelling, but it wasn’t nearly enough to dampen the experience. It was sweet, kind of cute, and just plain pleasing.

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I then decided to attend the SXSW Awards Ceremony, just to be able to say I experienced it. It was very informal, very brief, and I ended up seeing very few of the winning films, which was kind of disappointing. Regardless, I felt like I was mingling with people who were just on the edge of stardom. Sort of.

I then decided to head home. More on that later.