Towards the middle.

{Almayer's Folly}


{Shadow Dancer}


{Chicken with Plums}


{Faust}


{Beyond the Hills}


{Bad Blood}


{11 flowers}


{War Witch}


{Miss Bala}

And so we reach the stage where words become hard at the near-to halfway mark. Lest I embarrass myself with ill-considered word choices, I turn to the list.
 
I have seen 22 films.
In 9 days.

I have seen:
Almayer’s Folly (Director: Chantal Akerman)
Shadow Dancer (Director: James Marsh)
Chicken with Plums (Co-directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud)
Faust (Director: Alexander Sokurov)
Beyond the Hills (Director: Cristian Mungiu)
Bad Blood (Director: Leos Carax)
11 Flowers (Director: Wang Xiaoshuai) (At a stranger's recomendation)
War Witch (Director: Kim Nguyen)
Miss Bala (Director: Gerardo Naranjo)

I have visited Iran in 1950s, Paris in the 1980s, Ireland in the 90s, China during the Cultural Revolution, the yellow-green of Malaysia, the Mexican border city of Baja… back and forth, zigzagging through time and place, and finding the world a dark, great place.
 
I have found that it is unlikely, relatively early in the piece I grant you, that I will see in the festival a film more brilliant than Sokurov’s Faust. What a spectacle to behold! What a visual ride with fantastical scenes that make you feel like into a painting you've stepped. Followed beautifully, this dance with the devil, with a visit to an Orthodox monastery in rural Moldavia where once more the devil, it is believed, plays his part. (Mungiu’s Beyond the Hills draws upon a reported exorcism case at a Moldavian monastery.) What a journey, oft harrowing, and, in the case of Chicken with Plums, beautiful. I have followed behind child soldiers in Africa (War Witch) and been thrown in with Mexican drug cartels (Miss Bala). Is it any wonder I am exhausted and disorientated as I exit the cinema by the slow-shuffle fire exit stairs, listening to fragments of conversations overheard by fellow cinema patrons?

I am no good at lists.
I am bound for bed.