They gave us ballots we could use to rate each film we saw, 1 being the worst and 5 being the best ratings we could give. I gave films a three if I thought they were merely average, four if I would have recommended them, two if I would not have recommended them. I saved one for films that I would have warned people not to see, and so far I haven’t rated any film a one.

And I saved five for films that I would say you must see. Of the eleven films I’ve seen so far, the only one that rated a five was A Matter Of Size. B not only gave it a five, she went on-line immediately after we left the movie theater and tried to buy a copy of it but, alas, it hasn’t been released on DVD yet. If this isn’t voted best movie of the festival, I’ll lose a little of my faith in humanity.

The story sounds a little goofy at first: Herzl is a man with a weight problem, or so he thinks. He’s a chef at an airport restaurant until his boss asks him to work in the back because customers complain about his appearance. He’s in a weight watchers program but gets kicked out by the program manger who verbally beats him up all the time.

Then he gets a job in a Japanese restaurant, where the kitchen staff watch sumo on satellite television, and Herzl starts to get the idea that not everyone thinks being big is bad.

After that, the movie’s a little difficult to describe without making it sound crazy: Herzl learns sumo from the Japanese owner of the restaurant. He gets his friends to form a team. His girlfriend wants to learn sumo, too. If I had about a week to write more than a brief summary I might be able to make it sound as good as the director made it look, but that’d be reinventing the wheel. This movie didn’t hit a wrong note anywhere. It was serious, it was funny, and it had a love story that brought out quite a few hankies from viewers’ pockets. Really, you’ve got to see this movie if you love a good film. If we ever manage to buy a copy, we’ll lend you ours.

Chega De Saudade is the story of love and desperation, set in an old-fashioned dance hall in São Paulo. B was hugely disappointed in this movie because she was expecting a warm, happy dance movie, something like Strictly Ballroom. “It was seedy and awful,” she said afterward. “I don’t think a porn movie would feel that seedy.” She gave it a two.

She was mostly right, the characters in it were seedy and raw, but I thought the whole point of the movie was to paint a picture of older people desperately grasping at their lost youth, which it did exceptionally well. I gave it a four.

Baraboo brought together an ensemble cast to tell the stories of people who appear at first to be simple country folk but are quickly revealed to have much more complicated pasts than their surface reveals. It reminded me of stories by Flannery O’Connor or Carson McCullers. Four stars.