Comments on Walkabout

Ideally SIFF would have a volunteer at each venue who would track down and interview the walkouts, not for the goal of eventually programming "friendlier" films, but so that those who are curious about the walkouts can finally get some good answers. Maybe they hated the content, the pacing, or maybe they just had some bad fish earlier in the day.

I went to Red Road after hearing some good things about it and because it fit it with my schedule that day. I throughly enjoyed the film. However, I've heard that it was described/marketed as a thriller and perhaps some people who went were expecting something along the lines of The Bourne Identity.

The ticketholder to my left though became bored pretty quickly and sighed more than once. The passholder to the my right fell asleep on here and there.

At the midnight Severance showing last night a ticketholder dude in front of me walked out after 15 or 20 minutes. I'd like to know why. Maybe it wasn't gory enough or maybe there was too much humor. Not knowing the cause of walkouts is frustrating to me.

I agree with you about Red Road. My friend Gillian said the same thing. I guess you could describe it as a psychological thriller, but it certainly doesn't fit the usual definition of the phrase. Highly recommended to fans of Lynne Ramsay, Carine Adler, and Catherine Breillat.

I saw Life in Loops on Saturday. Six people walked out in total, and determining why wasn't hard. The first couple left during a scene in bloodily slaughtered chickens. The second couple left during a sex show (filmed in either Mexico City or Brazil, I'm not sure which). The third couple left during a scene where a young Japanese man is showing off his manga-porn video game (CGI female ejaculation: hilarious!). Maybe these people didn't see all this graphic content coming, but they missed out on a lot of great scenes after those!

Thanks for your comment, Justin. I'd love to know what other films are causing walkouts—or standing ovations (I haven't encountered the latter so far this SIFF). Some of my favorite fest selections of years past have sent audience members packing right from the start. Case in point: Happy Together, which begins with a rather aggressive sex scene (starring Leslie Cheung! and Tony Leung!). I thought it was pretty sexy...

Hiya Kathy,

Greetings from an old friend who grows wistful for Seattle this time every year. I'm always glad to see your SIFF reflections -- they tend to come in handy six months later when a few selections trickle down to Atlanta!

One of these years I'm going to make it there for the festival, and I'll hope to see you there. In the meantime, keep up the great work, and drop me a line if you get a chance.

There were a number of walkouts at Hong Sang-Soo's Woman on the Beach last night. This was slightly surprising, as it is far less demanding than anything else Hong has done (not a criticism--I loved the movie, and for once the central female character is not simply an object of male desire--I mean, she's that, but much more). But the only reason I mention it is that towards the end, "Director Kim" storms out on the titular woman with the words "I'm leaving!" at which point the couple in front of me got up and muttered, "we're leaving" and were met with laughter and applause that accompanied them all the way out of the theatre! Actually the biggest response anything in the movie received. (There was less than 10 minutes of the movie left, too. I guess it was over two hours long, but it felt much shorter to me--I think it's his fastest paced movie, as well.)Hong has always expired walkouts, but since the audience was rather small, I expected that most of the people there knew what they were getting themselves into.

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