EIFF 2009: Day One

Believe it or not, but this is my first Edinburgh International Film Festival. I know, I know, and I call myself a film buff. The closest I’ve ever come to attending a film at the event was when I was knocked back from a mid-afternoon screening of La Moustache, Emmanuel Carrère’s minimalist homage to the paranoid identity politics of Philip K Dick (I’ve seen it since, and it’s nowt special. But at least it’s not Minority Report). On that occasion, it was off to the pub and back to a mate’s cramped bedsit in Stenhouse. This year, however, it’s all change.

My first day arrived. A long day: quite frankly, there were times when it seemed it would never end. Not at first, of course, as it all began with a 9am screening of Abbas Kiarostami’s Shirin. I’ll be going into more detail about the film in The Skinny, but it sparked off some post-movie breakfast chit-chat about inverting the gaze, representations of Iranian women, and whether Kiarostami should try his hand at a 'Carry On' film. I lower the tone with pride.

And so to issues of length (now that does sound a bit 'Carry On'). The day started getting long during the screening of Robert Byington's Harmony and Me, an irritating indie splurge representing everything that is wrong with the American independent. Just how many more quirky, kooky, kerazy little comedies about eccentric outsiders who aren’t actually outsiders at all who mope around complaining about their comfortable middle-class lives and hang with their shticky chums listening to trendy folk music (available from all good record stores, MySpace and Starbucks) do we really need? Did we ever need them? Will they ever stop? I mean, come on!

The era of the most reprehensible American administration since Nixon has just ended, and all the indie kids gave us were piles of utter bunkum like this! Where oh where are the new Spike Lees, Jim Jarmuschs, Richard Linklaters, Gus Van Sants, John Sayles, Tom DeCillos and Coen Brothers? Who knows, maybe the Obama years will prove better (look at indie cinema under Clinton). Please, please, be so.

Anyway, what seemed like a month or so passed and it was time for a baguette lunch and the loss of my press conference virginity. Sam Mendes, John Krasinski and Carmen Ejogo are here with Away We Go, and they make an engaging trio. The American Beauty director has gone from the boyish looking Oscar night superstar we all remember to a greying, balding, bearded boho type. Finally, he looks like a film-maker. He’s clear about his intentions to move away from the intensity of Revolutionary Road, and spills some interesting trivia, from his stern warning to Krasinski about taking a part in the US version of The Office (how misguided an advisor he turned out to be, he admits) to how the awkwardness of shooting a sex scene can bring out the best in an actor.

Krasinski’s own neuroses about the scene, he tells us, naturally involved a panic about his mother’s reaction. That she wasn’t fazed gave him little relief, but that he’s happy to share such a story with a roomful of complete strangers only adds to his charm. The actor is also surprisingly honest about his reservations about the script’s more seemingly contrived elements, such as the character played by Maggie Gyllenhaal (who unfortunately never made an appearance at the fest - well, unfortunate from the point of view of someone who quite fancies her). Ejogo chats about her Brits abroad bond with Mendes, Krasinski plays down his comedy credentials, and for some reason, one journalist asks the filmmaker’s opinions on Ken Loach and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Mendes, as expected, has nothing to say on the matter. Unfortunately, I never got the chance to quiz them on the Iranian elections, swine flu, gay marriage or that annoying scratch on my mobile phone.

And so the opening gala. It’s my first time walking up a red carpet, and it is, as they said in In the Loop, pretty fucking cool. I’m instructed by colleagues to lead the way, and a few kids take my photo as I lead The Skinny team up the red carpet! How fucking cool is that? This must be how Christian Bale feels (I might as well compare myself, I’ve already sworn twice, haven’t I?). It doesn’t make any sense until someone at the after party tells me I look like “that bloke in the movie.” Then, it’s the film: quirky indie fun yet again, but in the last third it really kicks into gear. 

The party goes well. I catch a glimpse of “her that used to go out with Mark Fowler on Eastenders", a few faces from the past say hello, I guzzle a Red Bull Cola with rum and try and catch Alan Cumming to perform a duet of 'We’re Well Known Faces In Kelvinside'. Doubt he’d have been up for that somehow. All that’s left for me to do is dance the night away (no revellers were harmed in the process) and carry two suitcases to Hanover Street at 2am. Yup, I’m definitely at a festival.