Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Jason goes to SFJFF--Day 7

A month ago Wednesday. Two movies.

THE ARMOR OF LIGHT tackles a very interesting, important, and timely subject--how in the world is "pro-life" consistent with "pro-gun rights?" Okay, that was oversimplified, which gives the wrong idea about this smart and thoughtful movie. As is the hero of this movie, minister Rob Schenck, a devoutly pro-life (also spoiler alert--born Jewish, hence it's inclusion in the festival) activist who has a crisis of faith/culture about the pro-gun tendencies in his flock. Taking a hard stand against abortion while justifying gun violence just doesn't sit with him, and so throughout the movie he goes on a sort of spiritual quest and then (the beginnings of) a political fight to be pro-life and pro-gun control. In the Q&A afterwards, director Abigail Disney (granddaughter of Roy Disney) talked about rolling out both the movie and the political/religious message. So look for more to come of this soon.

And then THE LAW, probably not programmed the same night by accident. It's a French thriller about...the legislative process. In particular, the 1975 French law that legalized abortion, and Simone Veil, the Health Minister and Holocaust survivor who shepherded it through the legislative labyrinth. Emmanuelle Devos gives a fantastic performance, and the end result is surprisingly tense, exciting, and even sexy...for a film about getting a law passed.

Total Running Time: 177 minutes
My Total Minutes: 404,944

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