Sundance founder Robert Redford began this year’s opening press conference on what seemed a rather defensive note. After admitting that the festival had indeed, become bloated by the acquisitions war and industry bigwigs, he heralded a return to the pioneering, cinephiliac spirit of its very first incarnation. A symbolic testament to this were the countless buttons decorating the Park City venues, emblazened with the slogan “FOCUS ON FILM.” In this spirit, my first blog entry about this country’s most media-saturated, celebrity-laden film festival will focus not on the bling and the buzz, but on the very best films I had the opportunity to see during my 10 exhausting days there.

AWAY FROM HER directed by the inimitable Sarah Polley:
Ever since I saw her in Atom Egoyan’s EXOTICA , one of my favorite films of all time, I have been infatuated with Sarah Polley. Something in her very essence reflects an old soul, a wisdom well behind her years or even beyond this era. So I was not surprised that her directorial debut was a story of absolute maturity focusing on an elderly couple and the deterioration of a decades-long relationship due to the ravages of aging. The ever-stunning Julie Christie stars as a woman who begins to suffer from Alzheimer’s disease and must make the decision to check into a care facility. Gordon Pinset, a fine Canadian actor previously unknown to me, stars as her husband, a retired professor whose love and respect for his wife is not unaffected by the guilt of certain past indiscretions. That a woman in her late twenties (two years my junior, I am humbled to admit) would focus with such respect on an elderly couple, is truly a gift. It is the rare married couple who age at exactly the same pace, and story of one individual in a married couple deteriorating before the other is a common one. It is a brave and devastating film that Polley has crafted, with with only one misstep of which I can think (and that is merely a question of musical taste.) I would beg everyone to see this film for themselves.

Another review to come in my next post!