Page 2
March 20, 2019
First-time writer-
director Qui
Sheng explores
connections
with time and
nature that feel
endangered by
“progress” in his
film “Suburban
Birds” which
plays again on
Wednesday, March
20 at the Portland
International Film
Festival.
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Film Fest is Window to World
o PinionAted
J udge
by
d arleen o rtega
As the Portland International
Film Festival enters its final days,
there are still some noteworthy of-
ferings--and a few of the films that
have finished their festival run are
worth watching for in theaters or
online.
Among the films you can still
see, “Suburban Birds” rewards
the investment of attention and
imagination necessary to appreci-
ate its poetic approach to storytell-
ing. First-time writer-director Qui
Sheng tells two parallel stories,
the first involving a team of land
engineers attempting to investi-
gate a tilt that has compromised
new construction, and the other in-
volving a group of children, in the
same space but possibly not in the
same time. The sensitive man and
boy at the center of each respec-
tive story has the same name and
may be the same person--and in its
enigmatic way, the film explores
connections with time and nature
that feel endangered by what hu-
mans tend to view as “progress.”
It plays on Wednesday, March 20
at Fox Tower.
The screening I saw of “Don-
bass” generated a lot of interest,
perhaps from people who are fans
of celebrated Ukrainian director
Sergey Loznitsa or are more fa-
miliar that I am with the conflict
raging in eastern Ukraine’s Don-
bass region. In 13 shifting set-
tings, the film depicts stories of
corruption and sectarian violence
so disturbing that one feels they
almost belong in a different time.
Journalists, soldiers, people living
in abject poverty and others enjoy-
ing cartoonish wealth, staged fake
news and community brutality
that resembles scenes from Nazi
Germany--it all adds up to a dis-
turbing picture of the lowest hu-
man behavior that made my blood
run cold. It’s playing again on
Thursday, March 21 at Fox Tower.
My favorite film of the festival
so far--and an early candidate for
my list of the best films of 2019,
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