I think I may have seen a new TIFF record tonight at the screening of Birdsong (tiff): most walkouts. Maybe not by raw number, but I counted 30 escapees from a theatre that holds 120, maybe 130 people. They weren’t shocked or offended…they were just bored. And probably a little confused.

Here’s the gist: three kings trudge through the desert and mountains to bring their gifts to Jesus. In black and white. With almost no talking, and what talking there was happened to be mainly Catalan. For a long time. There was one shot of them walking away across sand dunes and then coming back that went on for seven minutes. No dialog, no other events…just a stroll. That was it, for the whole film. Oh, and Joseph and Mary sat outside their house and played with a sheep. And Jesus.

I don’t know…some of the photography was beautiful, especially one particular underwater shot, but some of it was so dark you couldn’t even see it. Points for the shots and trying something I’d never quite seen before, but…yeesh.

C-

[tags]tiff, tiff08, birdsong[/tags]