Take Two

The fantastical imagination of "Wind Man"

When Wind Man appeared on the SFFS Screen at the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas’ schedule, moral crisis ensued. I’d seen and loved this big-screen directorial debut by veteran Russian screenwriter Khuat Akhmetov last year at the Montreal Festival du Monde, reviewing it for the trade magazine Variety without ever imagining it would find any berth (at least in North America) outside the fest circuit. I mean, when was the last time an earthy parabolic whimsy of the once internationally-popular Soviet Block (think Parajanov, Jakubisko, etc.) surfaced on U.S. arthouse screens? Er, 1970? Certainly long ago—long before the Iron Curtain fell.

Yet here is Wind Man, such a throwback it feels like the rediscovery of an exotic, presumed-extinct species, now unexpectedly perched for a week at the Kabuki. And its arrival trumps my capacity for the informative neutrality I’ve been asked to use in my approach to films on the SFFS Screen, which is programmed by the publisher of SF360.org, the San Francisco Film Society. Forgive me, but this will be a rave.

topics: russian cinema, sffs screen at the sundance kabuki