Apron Strings; or, TIFF, it's been fun

And my festival ends with a... fine.

 My last film was Apron Strings, from New Zealand, about two families.  One family's Sikh (at least in part), and consists of two estranged sisters and a son/nephew.  The other's Anglo, and has a mother, grandmother, and two kids.

At various points, the film seems like it's going to be a food movie.  It starts with lots of shots of three women cooking--one on a TV program, one decorating an elaborate cake, one making... er, squiggly deep fried dough things that look like they've been dipped in a sugar syrup (and are orange).  Desiknitter, any guesses?  There are later scenes of bonding over filling samosas, and stuff like that.

Despite that, I never felt like it was REALLY a food movie in the way that Babette's Feast or Big Night, or, especially, Eat Drink Man Woman are.  I'm not sure I can put my finger on the difference, but the food in this felt more like... well, like a garnish, rather than a main dish, to be cheesy with my food metaphors.

Nonetheless, it was a perfectly nice movie, with some real emotion, even if a lot of the emotional beats were totally easy to predict.

So, even though I didn't end my festival with a bang, I did end it without a whimper.  And I got a sock out of it.  I finished the knitting while in line before the film started, and then bound off once I got home (I still like the sewn bind off for toe-up socks, and didn't have a needle with me).

Actually, I got a lot more.  It was a lot of fun, and I didn't really have the issues with annoying people or lines or elitism that others have complained about on line or in person.  I saw ten movies that ranged from pretty good to very good, which is... well, great.  I had what was for me just about the best possible kind of celebrity sighting.  I had a few nice chats with people.  And even though it was kind of exhausting, it was good exhausting.

I also noticed that I sometime pay attention to strange things in movies.  It almost goes without saying that I particularly notice knitting.  A few of the films had some great sweaters in them, and the grandmother figure in Apron Strings was forever sitting in an armchair with a bunch of knitting needles and wool on the side table next to her (though she was never seen knitting, I think).

I have a habit of comparing foreign actors I've never seen before to people I do recognize.  Thus, I saw a French Matthew Fox in Un Conte de Noël, and an Icelandic Viggo Mortenson and Philip Seymour Hoffman in White Nights Wedding.

And I was uncertain whether to be thrilled or horrified when I noticed that a couple of the hoods in Gomorra drove Mini Coopers.  I can't imagine that Mini paid for product placement there, since would you really want your car known as the preferred ride of the Camorra?  So, was this a directorial choice?  Or do hoods in Naples really drive Minis?

Comments

[Swapna]

Jilebi: http://www.daawat.com/recipes/indian/sweets/jilebi.htm

Or Jhangri: http://simpleindianfood.blogspot.com/2008/03/jhangri.html

[spudsayshi]

Yay, thanks! I think the first one looks right.