by MALCOLM FRASER, MATTHEW HAYS, OMAR MAJEED and MARK SLUTSKY

Well, it’s back—the World Film Festival celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, with more than a whiff of smug triumph after 2005’s depressing New Film Festival fiasco. The festival’s manifesto speaks vaguely of being “menaced by furtive conspiracies,” but, sinister plots aside, there are 215 films from around the world to see at this year’s edition. Here’s a few of this week’s offerings.

Absolute Wilson

The life and work of celebrated avant-garde theatre director Robert Wilson (perhaps most well-known to the general public for the Philip Glass-scored Einstein on the Beach and The Black Rider, his collaboration with Tom Waits and William Burroughs), are the subjects of this entertaining, if somewhat square doc directed by Katharina Otto-Bernstein. The film covers Wilson’s life from his origins as the secretly gay scion of a wealthy Waco, Texas family, to his frenetically busy current existence as a globe-trotting artist and impresario. Though the film suffers from over-earnest documentary conventions (not to mention a terrible title), the footage of Wilson’s work and his articulate presence make it fascinating viewing for the most part. (MS)

Touched by Water

Budapest-born Concordia graduate Tamas Wormser has long had a fascination with the senses and a knack for focusing on the overlooked—in particular, I’m thinking of his 1996 doc Faces of the Hand, which delved into (you guessed it) the hand. With Touched by Water, Wormser goes on a poetic, international journey, one that includes European spas and the Ganges River, to examine the various ways in which humans bathe. Wormser has a way of showing us the beauty beyond what is ostensibly ordinary, while illuminating our intricate relationship to H20. (MH)

My Cultural Divide

Montreal filmmaker Faisal Lutchmedial travels with his mother to his family home in Bangladesh in a doc that explores the personal and the political. Lutchmedial is an unabashed lefty and conscientious consumer, and he’s curious how his ideals stack up in a country where a huge percentage of the economy depends on the garment industry, and by extension, sweatshops. It’s kind of two films in one—a personal journey back home and a well-thought-out doc about the problems of globalization and cheap labour, one that’s aware of the lack of any easy answers. Still, it becomes less and less clear what each film has to do with the other, and a more straight-up treatment of the sweatshop issue might have made for a stronger film. (MS)

Aislados

At one point in this film about two thirty-something buddies house-sitting in sunny Ibiza, the characters complain about boring art films where people do nothing but talk. The joke here is Aislados (Isolated) is exactly that kind of movie. Adrià, a struggling newspaper writer from Barcelona, visits his friend Kike and the two hang out in a beautiful house, discussing games, women, Iranian films, politics and finally, death. All this between eating good food, drinking good wine, smoking grass and lazing in hammocks. What’s the point? No idea. But this testosterone-fuelled gabfest still manages to be engaging. (OM)

Places Everyone

A bilingual comedy from Montreal director Marc Thomas-Dupuis about a pair of somewhat adrift buddies who, after graduating from university, decide to make their mark by directing and producing a feature film. A very Montreal movie with lots of local points of reference, Places Everyone (or Prenez vos places, depending on which subtitles you’re reading) has spunk but suffers a bit from acting and writing that’s a little on the, well, indie side. The filmmakers definitely get props for making a professional-looking film in both languages and with a sense of Montreal pride on a small budget, but the film could’ve benefited from a less stagey, stilted approach. (MS)

Kamome Diner

In this strange and episodic film, a young woman named Sachie opens a “Japanese soul food” diner in Helsinki. An assortment of oddball characters come into the diner’s orbit, like Tommi, a Finnish boy obsessed with the Gatchaman cartoon and Midori, a wide-eyed ex-pat who helps run the restaurant. Like the Japanese food it so lovingly showcases, the film is visually arresting, but sometimes its tone veers towards saccharine sentimentality. Beneath its light and breezy direction, however, Kamome Diner conveys the topsy-turvy sensation of being a stranger in a strange land. (OM)

Camarón

A Spanish film about the legendary flamenco “cantaor,” or singer, José Monge Crúz, who went by the stage name Camarón de la Isla, widely recognized as one of the legends of the genre. Camarón is a fairly conventional biopic, opening with the singer’s impoverished childhood and following his ascent to super-stardom, as well as the diabolical temptations along the way. The music is gorgeous and Óscar Jaenada, who plays Camarón, gives a natural, if guarded, performance that seems appropriate, but those not familiar with the man and his music might lose interest as the film is otherwise competent but uninspired. (MS)

Maria to Callas

Maria to Callas wastes an excellent premise. Jost, a recent widower and a high-profile designer, discovers that his wife, Maria, had a secret e-mail-only correspondence with a mysterious woman. In these e-mails, Maria passed off her husband’s jet-setting life as her own. Instead of writing to the woman, Anni, to tell her about his wife’s death, Jost slips into Maria’s online persona and continues their correspondence. What seems rife for a study in grief and loss soon becomes a tired love story once Jost checks into the seaside inn Anni runs. From there, the film becomes predictably boring, with the usual conventions of every Cyrano De Bergerac-inspired romance. (OM)

La Buena Voz

In this Spanish slice-of-life drama, grumpy old cab driver Pepe (José Luis Gómez) and his long-suffering wife, Catholic martyr Rosa (Pilar Velázquez), are trumping along through late middle age when their routine is shaken up by the unexpected results of a long-ago indiscretion. Their lives are suddenly entwined with angsty gay boy Jordi (Biel Durán), and drama ensues. The story could easily have sunk into a quagmire of soap operatics, but it’s rescued by a strong cast and director Antonio Cuadri’s understated style. Well-crafted but far from dynamic, it’s inoffensive middle-of-the-road fare for the arthouse crowd. (MF)

The World Film Festival runs Aug. 24 to Sep. 4 for info on tix and showtimes, see www.ffm-montreal.org

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