Seattlest at Sundance: Take Three

Absurdistan is an allegorically rich comedy care of witty German director Veit Helmer and filmed in the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Azerbaijan. In the tiny titular land, a war of the sexes break out when the local aqueduct ceases to work, and the men are too lazy to fix it. The women declare a strike--no water, no sex--and two childhood sweethearts find themselves feuding instead of consummating their long-standing love. Looks like it's up to the kids to fix the water pipe and get everybody laid. Helmer directs this charming, mostly dialogue-free little film with childlike wonder, with shades of Jeunet in his use of fanciful contraptions, like a gondola on pulleys flying over the town.

Swinging from one extreme to another, we saw A Complete History of My Sexual Failures, a navel-gazing documentary about exactly what you think. British filmmaker Chris Waitt has been dumped by every woman he's ever dated, and the man-child is looking to find out why. So he contacts his exes to appear in his project, as well as going on numerous dates with new women (also on camera), asking them all to explain what exactly is wrong with him. We could've saved him the trouble: Chris, you're crazy. Dude's so crazy he doesn't even realize there's something wrong. As in, he's never had a real job, lives like a pig (unless his mom comes over to clean his place), and will actually go up to women on the street and ask if they'd like to have sex with him. Well, at least he's honest. The film is hilariously painful to watch, as Chris attempts to learn relationship lessons from his exes and gets rejected again and again. One major issue: we have a problem believing that all this reality was totally real. A few scenes seemed to be scripted and we didn't buy the ending at all. Maybe we're completely off-base, but we think we smell a rat. An entertaining rat, but rodential nonetheless.

Our last film for Tuesday was Nerakhoon (The Betrayal), another documentary, but one with a serious subject, a Laos family's struggles after the U.S. secretly started bombing the country during the Vietnam War. Once the Communists took over, Dad was sent to a re-education camp for aiding the bombing effort, while Mom and the kids escaped to America, only to encounter a whole other set of problems in New York City. Their story is a remarkable one, and with the talents of award-winning director of photography Ellen Kuras, the film is in more than capable hands. Following the family for 23 years, Kuras co-directed and wrote Nerakhoon along with Thavi Phrasavath, the family's eldest son, so they're not just the film subjects, they're also active participants, a nice democratic touch.