Jill's Film Festival Diary for Wednesday, April 11

Film: The Kovak Box

Future Screenings: Saturday, April 14, 5PM, Ritz East

After a while, you kind of start to recognize some people in Film Festival audiences. You've seen them at other screenings. You've stood in line together. You might never speak, but it's still a little like seeing a movie with old friends.

The Kovak Box
Film festivals are funny: movies that are quite mainstream in the countries where they're produced sometimes seem to make it to American festivals by nature of subtitles alone. Don't get me wrong: I love me a movie with subtitles. And seeing as two of my favorite films thus far (Exiled and Just Sex and Nothing Else) seemed to fit into that mold, I'm not going to complain about a well-crafted studio film. And The Kovak Box seems to be exactly that, but with a twist: it's a Spanish film produced almost entirely in English, and starring American actor Timothy Hutton. It's also, believe it or not, an exceptionally well-crafted and unconventional Sci-Fi thriller that managed to keep me on the edge of my seat without the aid of special effects, high-speed chases (okay, there was one—kind of), or a futuristic or dystopic setting. Instead, the Spanish island of Mallorca is the beautiful backdrop for this modern-day and well-paced tale of mind control and manipulation. Great performances from the cast, beautiful cinematography (I really want to go to Spain now!), and an inventive final twist make this quite different from your everyday science fiction flick. And it totally sucked me in.
Festival rating: Very Good to Excellent