Sundance Film Festival: Suggestions for dramas and documentaries to watch

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Sundance Film Festival: Suggestions for dramas and documentaries to watch

Transcript¹

The festival, which is an all virtual event this year, wraps up this weekend. NPR's Steve Inskeep talks to film critic Kenneth Turan, who reveals his favorite dramas and documentaries.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Hey, the Sundance Film Festival wraps up this weekend. And for the second year in a row, the showcase of independent films was all virtual, which means that our film critic Kenneth Turan was watching from home. Hey there, Ken².

KENNETH TURAN, BYLINE³: Hey, Steve. How you doing?

INSKEEP: OK, does this mean you did not get to walk the red carpet?

TURAN: (Laughter) There's rarely a red carpet in Sundance. It's not that kind of a place.

INSKEEP: I see. I understand. But you're on your couch, actually. Is that where you're watching when you're at home, by the way? I want to know 'cause you're an important critic. Are you on a couch or some other kind of...

TURAN: I'm on a couch. But I have a very big screen, so it dominates the room.

INSKEEP: Great.

TURAN: So I'm getting a big-screen experience even though I'm at home.

INSKEEP: So on that screen you're watching, among other things, dramas. What stands out to you?

TURAN: Well, there's one film - you know, one of the things that's both the hope and the dread⁴ of film critics is that you fall in love with a film that's so crazy you don't know if anyone else is going to like it. And I had such a film with this festival. It's called "Brian And Charles." It starts with Brian, who's this wacky inventor, kind of a Gyro Gearloose-type inventor. And he's lonely in rural Wales, and he invents a robot. Charles is the robot - oddest-looking robot you've ever seen, 7 feet tall. His body is a washing machine. His head is a mannequin head just stuck on top of the washing machine. And these two people have adventures. You know, they get into trouble. There's some dark things that happen. But this is like a warm, sweet, completely wacky film. It's the least cutting-edge film imaginable. And, you know, I just fell in love with it.

INSKEEP: Let's listen to a little bit of this.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BRIAN AND CHARLES")

DAVID EARL: (As Brian) That head you see there I found in the back shed in a sack. And I knew I had a couple of levers in the bedroom. And then snap, crackle and pop, put them together. Hey, presto⁵.

CHRIS HAYWARD: (As Charles) You built my body.

EARL: (As Brian) Built this body, and we've been friends ever since.

HAYWARD: (As Charles) Yes.

EARL: (As Brian) Yes. Yes, we have.

INSKEEP: It sounds like "Frankenstein" if it was made by Disney.

TURAN: (Laughter) It's more like "Frankenstein" made by Monty Python. I mean, it's charming, you know? I mean, if you go with it, which I did and which I'm hoping other people will as well, it's very sweet. It just - it's a pleasure to watch. It's unlike anything I've seen in a long time.

INSKEEP: You also wanted to highlight a remake of 1950s Japanese film that's been shown at Sundance. What is it?

TURAN: Yes, that's called "Living." It's a remake of a classic from the 1950s - Akira Kurosawa's "Ikiru." And in the title role and the real lure⁶ of this film is Bill Nighy, who's a wonderful British actor. He mostly does comic roles. People may remember him from "Love Actually." He's got a role in "Pirates Of The Caribbean." And he plays a kind of a fossilized bureaucrat⁷ who's been kind of a cog in the machinery⁸ for decades. And all of a sudden, he gets a diagnosis⁹ that he has less than a year to live, and he gets this urge to do something with his life. And it's a very nuanced film. It's a very impeccable performance by Bill Nighy. And the other thing about this film that's notable is that the screenplay was written by Kazuo Ishiguro, the Nobel Prize-winning author, adapting Kurosawa's screenplay.

INSKEEP: Any great documentaries at Sundance, as there often are?

TURAN: Gosh, always. I mean, really, in some ways, the documentaries are the heart of Sundance and the thing that I look forward to most. But the one that's really on everyone's mind is a film called "Navalny." This was a last-minute addition to the program. And it's about Alexei Navalny, who is the key opposition¹⁰ figure in Russia...

INSKEEP: Wow.

TURAN: ...Who was nearly killed, apparently¹¹ by Putin's people. And the filmmaker kind of managed to embed¹³ himself with Navalny while he was in Germany recovering from being poisoned. And the heart of the film is that there's an organization called Bellingcat, which does a lot of investigation¹⁴ through computers of all kinds of information. And a journalist from Bellingcat figures out who the people were who tried to kill Navalny, the actual operatives. And Navalny gets one of them on the phone and kind of bluffs¹⁵ him and doesn't tell him who he is, makes believe he's someone else and gets the guy on the phone to basically provide all the details of how he was nearly killed.

INSKEEP: Wow.

TURAN: To hear that is just an astonishing moment of kind of cinema, just a really gripping moment. And the film is really quite, quite fascinating.

INSKEEP: Well, that's a documentary that's about as on the news as you could get right now. There's another documentary, though, I think you wanted to talk about.

TURAN: Yes. It's called "Downfall: The Case Against Boeing." It's by Rory Kennedy, a veteran documentary maker¹². And it explores the crashes of the Boeing Max 737 that people might remember. Twice in five months this plane crashed - 346 fatalities¹⁶. And this is a step-by-step - it's almost like a police procedural why this happened, how it happened, what the human factors were, what the mechanical factors were, what the cultural factors were. If it's something you kind of vaguely¹⁷ know about, this will tell you everything you need to know, and it will really hold you in your seat and won't let you go.

INSKEEP: Ken Turan, our film critic on MORNING EDITION, always a pleasure talking with you.

TURAN: Likewise, Steve. Thank you.

INSKEEP: He's telling us what's at the virtual Sundance Film Festival on MORNING EDITION from NPR News.

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 ken   

n.视野，知识领域

参考例句：

• Such things are beyond my ken.我可不懂这些事。
• Abstract words are beyond the ken of children.抽象的言辞超出小孩所理解的范围.

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 dread   

vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧

参考例句：

• We all dread to think what will happen if the company closes.我们都不敢去想一旦公司关门我们该怎么办。
• Her heart was relieved of its blankest dread.她极度恐惧的心理消除了。

5 presto   

adv.急速地；n.急板乐段；adj.急板的

参考例句：

• With something so important,you can't just wave a wand and presto!在这么重大的问题上，你想挥动一下指挥棒，转眼就变过来,办不到！
• I just turned the piece of wire in the lock and hey presto,the door opened.我把金属丝伸到锁孔里一拧，嘿，那门就开了。

6 lure   

n.吸引人的东西，诱惑物；vt.引诱，吸引

参考例句：

• Life in big cities is a lure for many country boys.大城市的生活吸引着许多乡下小伙子。
• He couldn't resist the lure of money.他不能抵制金钱的诱惑。

7 bureaucrat   

n. 官僚作风的人，官僚，官僚政治论者

参考例句：

• He was just another faceless bureaucrat.他只不过是一个典型呆板的官员。
• The economy is still controlled by bureaucrats.经济依然被官僚们所掌控。

8 machinery   

n.(总称)机械，机器；机构

参考例句：

• Has the machinery been put up ready for the broadcast?广播器材安装完毕了吗？
• Machinery ought to be well maintained all the time.机器应该随时注意维护。

9 diagnosis   

n.诊断，诊断结果，调查分析，判断

参考例句：

• His symptoms gave no obvious pointer to a possible diagnosis.他的症状无法作出明确的诊断。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做一次彻底的调查分析。

10 opposition   

n.反对，敌对

参考例句：

• The party leader is facing opposition in his own backyard.该党领袖在自己的党內遇到了反对。
• The police tried to break down the prisoner's opposition.警察设法制住了那个囚犯的反抗。

11 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。

12 maker   

n.制造者，制造商

参考例句：

• He is a trouble maker，You must be distant with him.他是个捣蛋鬼，你不要跟他在一起。
• A cabinet maker must be a master craftsman.家具木工必须是技艺高超的手艺人。

13 embed   

vt.把…嵌(埋、插)入，扎牢；使深留脑中

参考例句：

• The harpoon struck but did not embed.鱼叉击中了但并没有插入。
• This photo showed us how did the root of plant embed the soil deeply.这张照片显示植物的根是如何深入到土壤里去的。

14 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

15 bluffs   

恐吓( bluff的名词复数 )； 悬崖； 峭壁

参考例句：

• Two steep limestone bluffs rise up each side of the narrow inlet. 两座陡峭的石灰石断崖耸立在狭窄的入口两侧。
• He bluffs his way in, pretending initially to be a dishwasher and then later a chef. 他虚张声势的方式，假装最初是一个洗碗机，然后厨师。

16 fatalities   

n.恶性事故( fatality的名词复数 )；死亡；致命性；命运

参考例句：

• Several people were injured, but there were no fatalities. 有几个人受伤，但没有人死亡。
• The accident resulted in fatalities. 那宗意外道致多人死亡。 来自《简明英汉词典》

17 vaguely   

adv.含糊地，暖昧地

参考例句：

• He had talked vaguely of going to work abroad.他含糊其词地说了到国外工作的事。
• He looked vaguely before him with unseeing eyes.他迷迷糊糊的望着前面，对一切都视而不见。