Steady Diet of Film

Hot Docs 2009

 
Inevitably at the end of every big film festival I go through the same parallel Kubler-Ross process of reconciling all of my new experiences, knowledge and feelings. In one week at Hot Docs, the largest documentary film festival in North America, I've been amazed, infuriated, saddened, shocked and ultimately hopeful when I see the incredible drive, determination and creativity in this business we call show. Even as the odds seem to exponentially mount against our industry, film-makers are finding new methods and frontiers for documentary story-telling. The emotional, intellectual and physical reaches film-makers go to tell new and important stories never ceases to amaze.

One film that keeps coming to mind as I watch the screaming talking heads of cable news is Ian Old's (Occupation: Dreamland) Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi. The film recounts the story of the kidnapping of an Italian news team that ended in the negotiated release of a western journalist and the murder (by decapitation that was then broadcast on the internet) of two Afghans including 24-year-old Naqshbandi. Similar to Werner Herzog's 2005 doc Grizzly Man the film relies heavily on a wealth of informally shot footage by an American journalist who partnered with Naqshbandi six months prior. The story encapsulates the seemingly impossible road to forming a national identity facing the Afghan people.

Documentary film has the unique power to take the viewer places they didn't even know they wanted to go. For instance, this year into the dark psyche of convicted rapist/heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson in James Toback's new film Tyson. Entirely comprised of archive footage and a no-frills, staring straight into the camera interview with its subject, the film is an oddly engaging meditation on masculinity, poverty, violence, misogyny and how the insularity of wealth can worsen mental health issues.

Read the rest of my coverage of Hot Docs 2009 at Doc360.

Review: Pixar's Up

Since Pixar has already racked up artistic credibility, top shelf awards and inevitable cash payout from Disney, many of us sit with baited breath, wondering how Pixar will next choose to spend their political capital. It’s not so much from interest in their work, but more to see what the biggest fish in a vast ocean does next. The Incredibles was a jab at superhero nostalgia way before it was the cool thing to do. Ratatouille had germ-phobic Americans cheering for a rat in a kitchen. And Wall-E won an Oscar despite having almost zero-human presence, encouraging kids to identify with a silent, trash-collecting robot.

Pixar's latest film Up raises the bar even further in its focus on Carl Fredricksen, an elderly, childless, embittered and recently widowered man. Carl declines an enormous cash payout for the land on which his house sits. Instead chooses to move his home (via helium balloons) to the jungles of South America, where he and his wife had once talked about visiting before debt and illness made it untenable.

What makes Up so remarkable is the ways director Peter Docter (Monsters Inc.) makes the film so inherently disagreeable to its key audience. The grimy color palate, the jungle doing everything in its power to eject white people, corrupted heroes and the attention paid to mundane, truthful details makes Up feel less like children's entertainment and more like an addition to the catalog of gritty seventies American cinema. There’s plenty to enjoy about Up without having any knowledge or concern of its predecessors. However, a film this carefully crafted will certainly ensure future generations of dutiful film lovers. As someone who spent years (and many relocations) clinging to battered VHS copies of Taxi Driver, Targets and Apocalypse Now, it's a relief to know these traditions will carry on after we're gone.

Carl has spent the majority of his life singularly defining himself as a husband. Once his wife passes away, he has nothing but resentment for everything and everyone in the world trying to encroach upon him with their petty notions of progress. An affable construction worker is played as a dope, a wealthy land developer appears to be based on Agent Smith from The Matrix and an indifferent judicial system responds to a terrible misunderstanding with a draconian invasion of privacy. The only moment of peace Carl achieves is as his house floats away from the racket of civilization and he drifts into peaceful slumber.

But the sweet escape is interrupted by Russell, a young neighborhood Eagle Scout trying to earn a merit badge by assisting the elderly. Russell, you see, has accidentally tagged along for the ride. The beginning of their relationship is particularly fascinating because Carl feels no immediate paternal responsibility towards the child. (In the dialogue-free expository montage of his marriage it's pointedly made clear that Mrs. Fredricksen couldn't have children. This impacts Carl only insofar that he is deeply empathetic to his wife's grief.) Carl briefly fantasizes about dropping Russell from the house as they float thousands of feet off the ground, but dismisses the idea with a joke.

Upon arriving in the jungle, Russell befriends a speechless, tropical bird (possibly modeled on the bold and breathtaking designs of British fashion designer Alexander McQueen). The creature is both child-like and, as we eventually learn, a mother to three young chicks. In an oddly exciting twist on gender expectations, Russell continues to call the bird "Kevin" even after learning of her gender. Kevin is being hunted by Charles Muntz, an explorer whose inability to demonstrate his discovery of this new bird has turned him into a grizzled, dead-ender. Muntz, once a childhood hero to Carl, is now living in a cave, obsessing over his increasingly infrequent Kevin sightings and perfecting the training techniques of his only companions. . .an army of servile talking dogs.

Even after learning of the doomed fate of the three young chicks (Kevin is a single mother), Carl can only be compelled to intervene on their behalf after receiving a belated message from his wife's deathbed that she wants him to pursue his own adventures, a call he responds to with a boldness unseen up to this point. Carl is transformed once he's made the decision to confront Muntz’, whose pursuit of a singular obsession has ruined him to the point of total isolation and insanity. At one point Carl even states, "Imagine, you finally get to meet your hero and he turns out to be a jerk."

It's a simple enough message, that our capacity to learn and grow is only determined by our desire and will. It's also interesting that Russell's long-absent father is specifically not permitted to become a last minute hero (thank goodness for autonomy from Disney, eh, Pixar?). While we see the emotional devastation this causes the boy, we see the larger lesson of the film mirrored in the child's experience: it's okay to let go of painful expectations and move on. It's an extremely elegant pivot from the empty validation so many children's films traffic in these days, dismissing hard work or innate talent in favor of a protagonist simply believing they are special (paging: the adorable but ultimately toxic Kung Fu Panda).

Unfortunately, the 3-D animation feels like an afterthought. At its most detectable, the background images appear to almost be breathing in the jungle scenes. It's creepy and effective enough but lacks dazzle and falls short on the promise that 3-D will revolutionize the theater-going experience. Coraline may have been glib and overly morbid, but it embraced the form to its fullest extent. Nor is Pixar doing much to alleviate its gender problem by having all three female characters in the story be mute.

Up's selection to open the 2009 Cannes film festival was a rarity for an American film and unheard of for an animation but perfectly understood after seeing the film. Just don't bother shelling out the extra bucks for the 3-D experience.

Review: Brothers Bloom

For Brothers Bloom, Rian Johnson's follow up to his film noir as high school dramedy Brick, comparisons to Wes Anderson will come easily but are nevertheless deserved. From the self-conscious 70s soundtrack (despite present day setting), the issues with absentee fathers, the obsessive cuts to macro shots every ten minutes, absurd levels of exoticizing any non-white characters and the exhaustingly baroque settings (and clothing) for wealthy people to reside in while wearily contemplating the futility of it all; this film feels like a facsimile of something that stopped being interesting 10 years ago.
Stephen and Bloom (move a bean onto the James Joyce spot of your Goto Literary References bingo card now) grow up with their knack for grifting honed by a brutalizing foster care system and a universe of gullible peers. As adults, older brother Stephen (Mark Ruffalo) sees himself as a refined artist of literary adaptations, who just happens to steal people's money in the process. Younger brother Bloom (Adrien Brody) serves as the protagonist for Stephen's work. As we join the story, Bloom is having a mid-life crisis concerned that playing Stephen's games for so long, has made rendered him unable to develop an identity of his own. Stephen convinces Bloom to do one more job, seducing the beautiful, isolated heiress Penelope Stamp (Rachel Weisz) before they go straight. Having already mastered the arts of chainsaw juggling, Lamborghini crashing, pinhole cameras and every known musical instrument, Penelope is easily convinced to join the world of antiquities smuggling. She joins the brothers on a trip to Prague and begins to fall headlong for Bloom. But the plan turns foul when Bloom begins to develop feelings for Penelope but can't be sure if he's really falling for her or just really good at his own con. A very convoluted plot ensues, complete with double crossing, international evasions, explosions, shootouts and surprise appearances from the Blooms lost-lost father Diamond Dog.

Brothers Bloom is a film that wants to have it both ways, a madcap caper when plot holes require it to be a little implausible, an epic romance when its characters are short on motivation and sentimental hokum when it finally just needs an ending. What takes the film from being a well-meaning failure to ridiculous, impotent, art nerd fantasy is a scene halfway through when the hyper-sexualized (yet virginal, natch) heiress has an orgasm for no apparent reason other than it's raining (seriously) and Bloom wills it to happen. The only explanation we receive is her moans of "I'm so horny" which elicited the only laugh the film got at my screening. The moment is so childish and atonal that it hovers over the rest of the film waiting to either be explained or matched in its earnest stupidity.

Brody and Ruffalo are in fine form here. Each has a charming, easy screen presence that lends itself well to playing brothers. Rachel Weisz again being cast in a poorly written role as an ineffable creature of endless patience and allure (see also: The Fountain, The Shape of Things, Constant Gardener) does her best but her presence is simply to provide motivation for the con happening around her. We are never invited to understand anything about Penelope or her relationship with Bloom. One early scene where the two discuss the balance of lies in photography is supposed to demonstrate their growing affection, but the scene is so empty of feeling (and so full of jargon) it sounds more like an undergraduate seminar on Susan Sontag.

The supporting characters don't fare much better. The legendary Maximilian Schell (Judgment at Nuremberg, A Bridge Too Far) plays the Blooms' child molesting, double-crossing, con man father (complete with dandy, bedazzled eyepatch. Why not?) who for some reason is continued to be invited into their schemes. Rinko Kikuchi (nominated for an Oscar for her work in Alejandro González Iñárritu's Babel) plays a voluntarily mute Asian femme fatale. It's a caricature so worn at this point it can't possibly be unintentional, but Johnson does so little to critique or even poke fun at the stereotype it comes across as a joke too lazy to even have a punchline. And Robbie Coltrane (Harry Potter's Hagrid) continues the work left off by Fat Bastard from the Austin Powers franchise as a flatulant Belgian who happens along whenever the story requires some levity. And by levity, I mean fart joke.

It's very nice to see the production actually went to many exotic locales: Serbia, Montenegro, Czech Republic, Romania and the Adriatic Sea are each lovingly filmed here. And I imagine it was a difficult battle to convince an American film studio to not just pay for a second-unit crew to do the actual traveling while keeping their actors in front of green screens in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, high production values does not a movie make. 

The Hottest of Hot Docs meme

I've been tagged by Pamela Cohn to participate in Danielle DiGiacomo's post-Hot Docs meme. I reckon Pam and I are now even for getting us kicked out of a party that had a strict media blackout.

1. The film that pulled at my heart strings the most: This is a tough call, but part of the Alanis Obomsawin (interviewed by Pamela here) retrospective has haunted me since seeing it my first day at the festival. Incident at Restigouche covers a conflict that occurred in the 1980s between Quebec provincial government and the native population over fishing rights that turned violent. In a scene where Obomsawin (years after the fact) interviews the state official who ordered massive arrests of fishermen becomes so overwhelmed by his cavalier attitude towards the fate of her people she breaks the appropriate "interview tone" and angrily confronts him. It's a shocking scene that completely changes the tone of the film and for ethical reasons, should probably not be duplicated in a lot of work. But for Incident, the standoff ties together the themes of lack of government accountability and cultural understanding in a brilliant, searing way.

2. Strangest cinematic experience: Listening to an audience member complain bitterly about the use of still images in John Lehmann's Man Behind the Log then watching as the entire auditorium turned on him, booing and reassuring Lehmann. Also, every single moment of Cooking History. Peter Kerekes's documentary about the history of war in the 20th century through the stories of people who prepared soldiers' food is surreal, intelligent, thrilling and maddening.

3. Best party: British Drinks at Supermarket, definitely. It was the day the Hot Docs population seemed to increase 10-fold, going from a sleepy little festival to a frenzy of pitches, parties, meetings and schmoozing. Everyone was jet-lagged, exhausted and/or recently robbed but ready to have a good time and so excited to be there. Great job, Charlie!

4. Overall high point: At the risk of getting a little cornball, it was the totally renewed sense of excitement that I left with. I know our business is in enormous transition, but when I see how much creativity and drive there is in the documentary world I can't help but be excited for what comes next.

5. Favorite pitch: Sandra Whipham (producer) informally gave me her pitch for her two documentaries that are in post-production. One about the history of the Khmer Rouge with an on-camera interview with one of the top general's in Pol Pot's army; the other about a homeless family living in Las Vegas whose downward spiral mirrors the larger financial crisis in the States. Both films hold great promise, with films like Afghan Star, Burma VJ and No End in Sight Whipham has demonstrated a great knack for matching talent and story.

TAG: Agnes Varnum, Neil Sieling, AJ Schnack, Charlie Phillips, Alissa Creamer.

Review: Just Another Love Story

Just Another Love Story

Rating (out of 5): ***

Just Another Love Story opens on three rapid-fire scenes of couples in various states of romance, danger and despair. In the first, a wife sobs over the dying body of her husband (our protagonist). We then see an earlier, happier moment of this pair tenderly discussing their diminished sex life. And a scene of a much younger couple arguing with a gun. Cut to black. Gunshot. The corrosive effects of desire and deception on human connections is quickly established in director Ole Bornedal's (helmer of the 1997 American re-make of his own Nightwatch) self-conscious but thoroughly entertaining re-work of classic film noir tradition.

Jonas is sleep-walking through his life. He dislikes his job as a crime scene photographer, he's disgusted by his co-worker's crass jokes and dreams of a life photographing pastoral landscapes. His wife has become so consumed with the minutiae of maintaining their middle class lifestyle that he feels neglected. And child-rearing two adorable moppets has not proven to be the enterprise of endless fulfillment that the Hallmark cards promised. Psychological lethargy has taken hold and he desperately searches for deeper meaning and signals for action in his mundane daily existance.

Read the rest of this review at Greencine.

Hot Docs 2009, pt. 1

 

Nauru, An Island Adrift / dir: Juliano Ribeiro Salgado / France

Nauru, a tropical island with a population of 14,000 located off the coast of New Zealand, is a fascinating and gruesome cautionary tale. In 1907, its rich phosphate reserves were discovered by British industrialists. Phosphate, an inorganic chemical used for manufacturing, became the nation's chief export and sole source of revenue. The island was quickly strip mined, creating a boom/bust atmosphere that saw its per capita wealth go from one rivaling Dubai to complete and total financial collapse over the course of 60 years. And at a time when one can't open a newspaper without reading about increasing financial disaster, it's difficult to see once middle-class people discuss having their savings wiped out in a nationwide bank collapse and not feel your stomach sink a little.

Predictably, the most adaptable segments of the population are the elderly and the very young. Older people remember the time before the windfall and retained some skills of survival, including, as we see demonstrated, hunting octopuses with a screwdriver. The young people, never having experienced the once great wealth and luxury their parents discuss bitterly, dismiss the stories as silly nostalgia.

 

Remote island populations are fated to be stuck in time, but Nauru's rapid rise and fall has left its national identity in a lurch. Everywhere you look there are remnants of the once immense wealth. Abandoned jetliners from the now long gone Nauru Airlines litter outgrown landing fields, sedimentary run off has killed much of the local marine life and 70% of the population has been diagnosed with diabetes after the immediate intake of rich food prompted abandonment of native diets.

The film could be a little tighter with its explanation of the role colonialism (the sovereignty of Nauru was traded back and forth between six countries) vs. independence played into its undoing. When Nauru achieved full independence in the mid-1960s, phosphate production was ramped up exponentially. But it's hard to imagine that Germany or Britain would have taken much of an interest in maintaining the health and well-being of the Nauru people had the phosphate run out on their watch, regardless of the efficiency of the production.

Director Juliano Ribeiro Salgado has made two choices that could be barriers for some viewers. First, he shot with a consumer-grade digital camera that led to some very grainy images being over-corrected in post-production. Second, the audience has to endure a ponderous twenty minutes before getting enough of an explanation about Nauru to understand what happened. There's an excellent postscript that details dates, facts and figures. Why not use this as the beginning of the film? However, there's something to be said for a director who managed to get to Nauru (a topic that is never discussed). Sadly, these images of a paradise squandered will likely outlive the native population of Nauru.

• See also: This American Life - The Middle of Nowhere a recent story on the current state of Nauru.

Zombie Girl / dir: Justin Johnson, Aaron Marshall, Rick Mauck / United States

Perhaps I was a bit hasty. When I saw in the opening credits that Zombie Girl listed three people as director, I immediately hunkered down for what was sure to be a complete clusterfuck of a story but Justin Johnson, Aaron Marshall and Rick Mauck have created a touching portrait of an aspiring artist and the parents who love her.

Emily Hagins is a 13 year old girl who is making a feature-length zombie film. Growing up in Austin, TX, a hotbed for DIY film-making, she has aww-inspiring parents who, with some mild amusement and exhaustive determination to help her succeed, support her creative endeavors.

As in most film-making ventures, the real antagonist in Emily's story is life itself. The bevy of adult mentors who have advised and tutored her along the way are quick to point out not that she presents any great level of innate talent for film-making but that her determination and enthusiasm (and preternatural gift to network) is hard not to cheer for. But emphasizing the need for organization and preparation and the danger of getting caught up in frustrations is a difficult message to convey to film-makers twice Emily's age. As the obstacles begin to pile up (stars being grounded, falling behind on homework and ceaseless technical problems), we see that the greatest barrier to film-making may be finding the wherewithall to finish a project at all.

 

The directors pay due respect to the spectacle of a 13 year old girl directing a feature-length zombie film. But once the precociousness is established, Zombie Girl becomes a smart, surprisingly emotionally engaging story. It is as much about quixotic film-making ventures as it is about the relationship between a mother and daughter at a time when the child begins to pull away. Viewers are privy to the complicated feelings of pride and despair that can result, especially for the parent of an only child. There's some editing acrobatics done at times to make Emily's mother Megan seem somewhat villainous, but she later speaks with such candor about her love of child-rearing that I found myself getting a little misty as I noticed the girl's growth spurt halfway through the film.

The film is bolstered by an extremely keen eye for visuals (Johnson and Mauck are also listed as cinematographers). As well as a charming and energetic set of titles, which update the viewer on the passage of time by using blood-soaked stuffed animals that gaze helplessly at the viewer. The directors also clearly established an excellent rapport with the actors and crew of Emily's film. Many times child subjects in documentaries can have their raw enthusiasm reduced to naive inarticulateness, but even in their brief screentime, each participant comes across as a strong voice in the process.

 

65 Red Roses / dir: Philip Lyall, Nimisha Mukerji / Canada

65 Red Roses follows Eva Markvoort, a young woman with cystic fibrosis and the relationships she's formed online with two other teenagers battling the disease. Because super-viruses can develop in compromised immune systems, CF patients are forbidden to interact with one another face to face. Yet since they are statistically destined to be dead by the time they're 19 years old, it's hard to imagine who else could provide better emotional support than other people experiencing it. The film at times feels oddly nostalgic for the 90s, when stories about the power of the internet to connect people still seemed hopeful, rather than having a predatory tinge.

The horror of the draconian treatments available to people with this vicious disease has to be seen to be belived. In a hundred years, how will the medical community view practices such as shoving tubes down patients' noses and throats for weekly mucous-suckage, vibrating vests patients are assigned to wear at home or making very sick people run on treadmills until they vomit to test oxygen levels in their lungs? It boggles the mind that these are the best treatments available today.

 

Ultimately, 65 Red Roses is very smart documentary about the medical implications of class that never stoops to activist language like "socio-economic" or "access to healthcare". At a time when the film community is arguing about the Neo-Neo-Realist happenings in independent narrative film, a movement driven by a handful of films depicting life on the margins, I'm grateful someone like working class Meg Moore in Portland, OR (with its state-subsidized healthcare programs falling cruelly short in comparison to middle-class Eva's treatment in Vancouver, BC) get to tell her own story.

Meg is stuck in a cruel, downward cycle. Because she is poor she only has access to lower quality health care. She is poor in part because she has no family in her life. And because she doesn't have a strong emotional support system, she doesn't care enough about her future to put her name on the transplant list. It's a depiction of the psychological scars of poverty that is so unmistakable and intimate it would seem crass in narrative form.

65 Red Roses will likely push a lot of the same buttons as Nanette Burstein's high school documentary American Teen. There are at least two scenes that are incredibly stage-y (if are not outright reenactments), providing only unnecessary melodrama. Leaving aside this largely academic controversy, however, this film matters. It certainly deserves to be picked up for distribution.