Middletown's International Film Series

Common Ground 2017, this year's 9th Annual Middletown International Film Series, is sponsored jointly by Russell Library, Wesleyan University, and Middlesex Community College, and it's what people like me have longed for in a town like Middletown (let's make that in a state like Connecticut), where foreign film venues are relatively few.

Unlike Seattle, my former home town, Middletown has no small, atmospheric film venues--Seattle has many, some with only 20 seats. And some of the small theatres in Seattle are for foreign film only. Seattle has a community of knowledgeable and ardent fans of foreign film, and they are very active. Seattle's small theatres have been thriving for years--since the time of the early Beats. The film culture there is exciting. People anticipate new releases (as well as older classics), see them with their friends, stay around afterward for coffee and to discuss the film. A satisfying leisure activity.

Middletown now has this wonderful International Film Series. Remote Control, was shown last week (unformately, at the same time as Dar Williams's appearance at Wesleyan-R.J. Julia Bookstore), at Wesleyan's Center for Film Studies. Remote Control presented a slice of life in Mongolia--whether inner or outer Mongonia, isn't clear--but most of the action takes place in Ulan Bator, Mongolia's capital. The audience numbered maybe 20 people.

I found Remote Control thoroughly engaging. A young man from the countryside takes refuge in the city, creates a leanto-home for himself, a rooftop squat, and finds amusement watching with a telescope as neighbors go about their lives behind the windows of their adjacent mid-rise apartment building. One apartment's large-screen TV, which has its own remote control clicker, faces the young man's rooftop. And as he becomes emotionally involved in the life of a young woman there and  purchases his own remote, he finds a way to interact with her. It's a rather light-hearted vignette--nothing like Rear Window, Alfred Hitchcock's sinister take on a voyeur.

This story plays out against exotic trappings of Mongolian culture--Buddha images, art featuring characters from Mongolian myth, the delivery of milk door to door from a milk pail with a long-handled measure. In a setting where Western material culture that encroaches--cars, city-scapes, city lights, high-rise buildings, TVs, and clothing, the background of Ulan Bator and Mongolia makes for a visual feast--a smorgasbord that is at once familiar and foreign.

It's all there--the foreign film experience and a cafe within walking distance. It's all there for the looking, on these beautiful autumn evenings; and all for the taking--it's free: the Common Ground 2017, 9th Annual Middletown International Film Festival. Four more films will complete the series on the next four Tuesdays: The Salesman (Iran, 2016), Rams (Iceland, 2015), Difret (Ethiopia, 2014) and The Kind Words (Israel, 2015). 

Take a look at Russell Library's website Common Ground 2017 for the scheduled venue. All screenings are on Tuesday at 7p.m., with guest lecturers at each screening. Free admission, free parking, and accessible venues and seating. Dinner downtown and an international film, all near by. Cultural diversity--the otherness that enriches and refreshes.