1st day of the fest

I cannot judge films that I don't understand enough to like or hate, so the meaning of the opening film, Egypt's Kiss Me Not on the Eyes (or Dunia) and the accompanying short by acclaimed Malaysian director U-Wei Haji Saari, My Beautiful Rambutan Tree in Tanjung Rambutan, is lost on me. The former is an outright criticism on female circumcision in Egypt, filling itself with bright primary colors and native drums. Its exploration on the female psyche and sexuality means typically capricious and unpredictable feminine behavior (completely lost on this male viewer) on the part of the equally confused female protagonist, yoked together by seemingly random anecdotes regarding the protagonist's blind mentor's search for light and her neighbor's daughter's circumcision. Putting aside its angry feminist stance (which I'm able to sympathize with, but which might not be altogether relevant to this society), the film seems to be about searching for human truth and the ideal in daily life, somewhere between oft-leaden dialogue about finding the center of the universe and extended seduction scenes without gratification. It reminds me somewhat of the equally confusing (to me, at least) feminist movie, One Sings, One Doesn't by Agnes Varda (SIFF '05), which prompts me to wonder if most (if not, all) are designed, whether intentionally or unintentionally, to alienate the male audience.

I'm unfamiliar with U-Wei's previous films, my previous knowledge of him consisting only of the fact that he's the first Malaysian director to be invited to Cannes. His latest short film is some sort of a curiosity - a film about sibling rivalry set in an old colonial-style bungalow creaking with a humid Southern Gothic flavor that eventually trips into dark horror-ish lands. Static, for the most part, and elegantly understated, it uses rambutans as a sort of metaphor for the sibling's playful contempt to each other, but the metaphor seems only to serve as the center of the ending, which, I must say, is quite beautiful in an abstract and poignant way.