Last night I went to the Tribeca Film Festival to watch Yes, a film by Sally Potter and staring Joan Allen and Simon Abkarian. The story is of a Irish-American married woman and a Middle-Eastern man and their unlikely love affair. The film was also entirely in poetic verse, which I don't think I've seen in any non-Shakespearean movie before. While impressive, this proved to be the most difficult part of the movie to grasp. The performances by the whole cast was great. The passion conveyed between Allen and Abkarian was beautiful, making the love in the story truly believable.

After the movie, Potter, Allen and Abkarian answered some questions from the crowd, which can be one of the nice features of going to the Tribeca Film Festival. Potter said she started writing the screenplay on September 12, 2001 because of the hatred that spawned from the tragedies. From the Yes website, Potter explains, "I felt an urgent need to respond to the rapid demonisation of the Arabic world in the West and to the parallel wave of hatred against the United States." Also interesting was how they planned to film the movie in Beirut and Cuba, but because of situations out of their control, they had to turn to other locations. The scenes in Beirut were actually shot in Cuba and Allen's scenes in Cuba were filmed in the Dominican Republic.

When I watch any movie with accents, it's hard for me to adjust. Combine multiple accents into a movie with rhyming and one might miss a lot of the dialog. Throw in some soft speaking by a character or two and you have a mess. That said, Yes is a movie that everyone should check out for it's unique dialog. The New York and Los Angeles release date is June 24th. Just go in ready for rhyming and well rested.

Also at the screening were Tim Robbins, Juliana Margulies, Gina Gershon, and Michael Musto. Gina, if you want to go shoe shopping, call me.

More information:
- Yes (official movie website)
- "Yes Diary" by Sally Potter while working on Yes
- Yes entry on IMDB

Posted by tien mao in Movies at 8:04 AM