Austin power!
By Don Simpson
My thirteenth year of attendance at the South by Southwest Film Festival (launched in 1994) proved to be my most exhaustive (and exhausting). Despite being turned away from countless sold out screenings (there was a drastic increase in badge holders this year – a good problem for SXSW to have but for frustrated attendees this is a serious concern that SXSW must address and solve prior to SXSW 2011), I viewed just shy of 50 feature films (including several advanced screeners) which allowed me to have an unparalleled look at the great breadth of films that SXSW had to offer in 2010.
It would be difficult not to take notice of the strong presence of Austin filmmakers at SXSW 2010 – four of my five favorite films were made by Austin directors (Earthling, The Happy Poet, Lovers of Hate and Mars). There was also a significant international contingent and a plethora of independent filmmakers. Aside from Kick-Ass, MacGruber and The Runaways, SXSW 2010 shied away from mainstream Hollywood releases; and apparently there is a converse relationship between festival attendance and film budgets.
Here is a selection of my favorite films from SXSW 2010.
A Different Path -- Director Monteith McCollum knits abstract animated images with the stories of Richard Dyksterhuis, Michael Johnson, Dan Hughes and Miguel Cameos. Dyksterhuis is a car-less senior citizen stranded in the suburban strip mall wasteland of the Lesser Outer Seattle Territories ("LOST") who wants a way for fellow senior citizens to get around without having to drive cars. Johnson – a trumpeter, avid bicyclist and community activist – leads a community group (Streets for the People) whose objective is to reclaim the streets of Toronto for the people. Cameos, from Portugal, once read about a New Yorker named Dan Hughes who kayaked across the Hudson River to travel between his apartment on the Upper West Side and his office in Edgewater, New Jersey; Cameos decided to do the same. The interviews steer clear of the conventional talking head format as much as possible, preferring to use carefully crafted yet somewhat random images whose intent is to captivate rather than bore the viewer.
Audrey the Trainwreck -- Frank V. Ross’ Audrey the Trainwreck is a story of two people caught in repetitive routines: an ATM parts purchaser named Ron (Anthony J. Baker) and Stacy (Alexi Wasser), an express mail courier. They meet via an Internet dating service (Stacy is one many dates that Ron attempts) and they eventually, albeit awkwardly, fall for one another. Audrey the Trainwreck encapsulates the boring and monotonous lifestyle that people can easily fall into – working jobs that they hate during the day, hanging around the same friends every night.
Beijing Taxi -- Beijing Taxi commences two years prior to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. The old city and communist lifestyle of Beijing has all but disappeared; a new city of skyscrapers, pillars of capitalism, is quickly rising from the rubble. As Bai Jiwen, a 54-year old Beijing taxi driver, studiously observes: “The pace of change has sped up, taking bigger strides. To welcome the Olympics! The whole country is supporting Beijing. Faster construction; faster environmental changes.” Bai is one of three primary subjects whom writer-director Miao Wang follows in order to chronicle the effects that the 2008 Olympic Games (and capitalism) have on working class Beijingers; the other two subjects – Zhou Yi and Wei Caixia – are also taxi drivers. The three characters are perfect examples of how education (or lack there of) can determine a person’s fate, especially in a capitalist economy.
Crying with Laughter -- Fueled by cocaine and booze, Joey’s (Stephen McCole) comedy is brutally violent and emotionally raw. We meet Joey as he appears on stage, bloodied up with a massive shiner that looks like it stings like a mother-fucking bee. Rather than his usual comedy routine, Joey begins to recollect the chain of events that delivered him in this sorry state. Where is Joey going with all of this? Where is the punch-line? Patience my dears; Crying with Laughter is told in flashback from this point onward, so you will just have to sit back and enjoy the ride… Written and directed by Justin Molotnikov, Crying with Laughter is (to paraphrase Joey) about “abuse, kidnap, torture; just the average Saturday night in Scotland.” Crying with Laughter is also about revenge; whether one is willing to resort to violence (even murder) in order to punish someone for past deeds or if the past can truly be forgiven, maybe even forgotten. Crying with Laughter is by no means an easy film to watch, but several of the plot’s twists and turns are executed quite masterfully and McCole’s lead performance is chillingly sincere.
Cyrus -- The Duplass brothers’ first two films – The Puffy Chair and Baghead – were my favorite films of SXSW 2005 and SXSW 2008 respectively, so I entered the SXSW 2010 screening of Cyrus with unbelievably high expectations. Armed with a significantly larger budget than their first two features and a marquee cast (Jonah Hill, Marisa Tomei, John C. Reilly and Catherine Keener) to boot, Cyrus could easily be a sell out, but it isn’t. Actually, by casting an everyman (Reilly) as the romantic lead, Cyrus intelligently comments on and works in opposition to the traditional rom-com genre. The Duplass brothers’ also retain their established directorial style. The camera zooms in and out, refocusing when necessary, in total randomness as if they were still marking out the scene. The scenes linger for a few beats longer than typical Hollywood fare, catching subtle changes in facial expressions after the actors finish with their lines.
Earthling -- Throughout this film festival I heard some people say that Earthling was one of the best films of the fest, while others were bored and just did not get it. Well, I got it – and it was my favorite film of the festival. I understand why some people might be confused by the slow and quiet nature of Earthling – the pacing and atmosphere are very reminiscent of The Man Who Fell to Earth. (Earthling also owes a lot to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the short-lived television series Invasion, Solaris and early David Cronenberg.) Grounded on Earth, with special effects and make-up that are done in true B-movie fashion, writer-director Clay Liford’s brand of sc-fi is purely cerebral.
Erasing David -- David Bond (the titular subject of this documentary) lives in one of the most intrusive surveillance countries in the world – Great Britain. (Bond purports that Britain ranks third behind China and Russia as the most heavily surveilled societies in the world). Upon receiving a letter regarding a recent security breach that may have exposed some of his personal data, Bond begins to think about information security and what information is “out there” about him and his family. (The Orwellian tagline for the film reads: “He has nothing to hide, but does he have nothing to fear?”) Bond enlists two private investigators to track him as he goes “off the grid” in an attempt to prove just how simple it is to get private data on any individual or family and how damaging that data can be. To support that he is not just a wacky lone conspiracy theorist afraid of Big Brother, Bond intertwines interviews to drill home his messages: other people (respectable, intelligent people) share Bond’s fears; real people have been adversely affected by bad data. For better or worse, Erasing David also exemplifies just how paranoid and delusional even the most innocent of people can become by having their privacy invaded.
The Happy Poet -- Writer-director-actor Paul Gordon’s The Happy Poet is a perfect example of a writer-director knowing their own strengths and range as an actor. Bill (Paul Gordon) is looking for a job. He decides to borrow the very small amount of cash that his bank will loan to him in order to buy a hot dog cart and convert it into a health food cart. The dryly comedic The Happy Poet quickly evolves into an intelligent political and social commentary as well as a metaphor for the economic situation in the United States. Bill’s overhead and debt is too high, his customer base is too small and his prices are too low in order to remain competitive with his fast food competitors. Essentially, Bill is penalized by capitalism for wanting to provide healthy eco-conscious food.
Haynesville: A Nation’s Relentless Hunt for Energy -- In 2008, 96 townships in northwestern Louisiana were informed that they were sitting on top of an energy goldmine, the Haynesville shale – a natural gas field that is estimated to contain 170 trillion cubic feet (the equivalent of 28 billion barrels of oil). Haynesville tracks three people with varying perspectives of the discovery of the Haynesville shale. The first, Mike Smith, loves guns, hunting and freedom. His 300 acres of land transforms Mike into an instant millionaire. The second, Kassi Fitzgerald, is a single mom who becomes a community activist upon learning that one of her uninformed neighbors was ripped off by an oil company. Thirdly is Pastor Reegis Richard, whose church and ministry benefits greatly from the Haynesville shale because his congregation has more money to donate. Director Gregory Kallenberg keeps everything in perspective – especially in relation to the U.S.’s energy dependency – by utilizing a wide array of respectable talking head environmentalists and energy industry experts, who one after another explain why the U.S. must wean itself off of oil and coal and how natural gas may represent a “bridge” between the “dirty” energy of the past and the clean “renewables” (wind, solar) of the future.
Helena from the Wedding -- Alice (Melanie Lynskey) and Alex (Lee Turgesen) have invited some of their friends to a snowy cabin to celebrate New Year’s Eve with them. The titular Helena (Gillian Jacobs) – one of two single people at the party – is a model whom Alex has had a crush on ever since he met her at a wedding. Alice, Alex’s wife, is none too happy with the way Alex looks at Helena. But Alice and Alex are not the only couple whose relationship is shaken not stirred but this wintry getaway. Everyone purports to be happy with their lives, but as we spend more and more time with the characters we realize just how unhappy they all are.
The Loved Ones -- It is not long before The Loved Ones drastically switches gears from a coming-of-age drama about a psychologically scarred teen, Brent (Xavier Samuel), attempting to cope with life after his dad’s death to one hell of a blood thirsty torture film. Every time you think things cannot get any creepier, the creepy quotient is increased tenfold. The amazing Robin McLeavy is pitch-perfect as the psychotic Lola – a preemptive incarnation of DePalma’s Carrie (Lola does not wait to be teased before she goes psycho). The other acting performances are precisely perverse. The horrors done with forks, knives, hammers and drills alone are enough to make even the most adept horror film aficionado shriek like a little girlie mouse. The Loved Ones, a brilliantly creepy feature-length debut from writer-director Sean Byrne, is sure to please some of the more discerning horror fans out there with its brains, creativity and visual panache. From my estimation The Loved Ones is prone to become a “midnight movies” cult favorite ala Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead trilogy and Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive and Bad Taste.
Lovers of Hate – There was a lot of buzz around Austin after the premiere of Lovers of Hate at Sundance and its distribution deal with IFC – and the reaction from the SXSW screenings proved that it deserves every little bit of the buzz that it has generated. Lovers of Hate is a beautifully written and acted film about two brothers (played by Chris Doubek and Alex Karpovsky) who do not get along very well. Besides their age difference, their divide seems to be rooted in the fact that the older brother is (by some definitions) a failure and the younger brother is (by some definitions) very successful; and then there is the woman (Heather Kafka) who comes between them. The film, especially the plot, is relatively simple – yet Bryan Poyser’s direction is relatively unconventional, especially his honest portrayal of nudity and sex (Poyser seems to have found a kinship with Joe Swanberg here).
Mars -- Writer-director Geoff Marslett’s Mars is a low-budget animated rom-com which is brilliantly disguised as a sci-fi film. It follows Charlie (Mark Duplass), Casey (Zoe Simpson) and Hank (Paul Gordon) as they travel to Mars in search of two lost robots – Beagle II and ART – and to finally answer that age-old question of whether there really is life on mars. Gordon’s dry comedic monotone playfully duels with Duplass’ heroic cockiness and Casey’s sexy smarts. Somewhat crudely animated over the actors’ live action performances, the highly color-saturated Mars resembles a very low-budget graphic novel version of Waking Life…but in a good way.
Micmacs – Bazil’s (Dany Boon) father is blown to bloody bits while dismantling a landmine in the Sahara. We find Bazil years later – an unabashed cinephile – working as a clerk in a video store. One night while mimicking the The Big Sleep verbatim, Bazil is caught in the crossfire of a shootout. With a bullet lodged in his head, Bazil’s surgeon is left with two options: remove the bullet reducing Bazil to a vegetable or leave the bullet risking that Bazil could die at any time. A coin toss determines Bazil’s destiny – the bullet will remain in Bazil’s brain. To revenge his father’s death and his own shooting, Bazil and an eccentric crew of les petites gens from “Tire-Larigot” pit the directors (André Dussollier and Nicolas Marié) of two evil armament manufacturers against each other. Every scheme goes one step further than the previous one, until they have the two men giving penance and pleading for mercy on YouTube. Micmacs effectively conveys the greedy, amoral and reckless mentality of arms dealers and government, but it is difficult to determine whether or not Jeunet is actually interested in the politics or economics of the arms business. As absurd and surreal as Micmacs is, there is an underlying seriousness (if not sadness) which Jeunet repeatedly reminds us of – Bazil could die at any time.
Pelada -- Co-directors Luke Boughen and Gwendolyn Oxenham were once collegiate soccer stars with dreams of going professional. When they realize that their dreams are not going to be recognized, they decide to travel the world looking for pick-up soccer matches – known in Brazil (the first country they visit) as pelada (which means "naked" in Portuguese). They travel to 25 countries in all, playing pick-up soccer matches with locals in alleys, side streets, dirt fields, prison yards and concrete courts. The universal language of soccer thus opens doors for Boughen and Oxenham to immerse themselves into even the most foreign of cultures.
Presumed Guilty -- Directed by Roberto Hernandez and Geoffrey Smith, Presumed Guilty can easily be seen as a sequel to Hernandez’s previous documentary, El Túnel (a 20-minute film about the absence of due process fundamentals in the Mexican judicial system). We are bombarded by staggering statistics such as: 93% of defendants never see a judge; 93% of inmates are never shown arrest warrant; 95% of verdicts are guilty; 92% of verdicts are based on no physical evidence. Presumed Guilty focuses on Jose Antonio Zuniga Rodriguez (a.k.a. “Tono”) who was incarcerated in 2005; accused of killing someone he did not even know, who was never linked to him in any way. Hernandez and Smith prove Tono’s innocence beyond a shadow of a doubt. The question remains: is the film convincing enough for the Mexican judicial system to release Tono? (If the answer to that question is yes, I can not think of clearer proof of a documentary’s success.)
Putty Hill -- The setting is a poor, working-class suburb of Baltimore that descriptive adjectives such as decrepit, depressing and boring seem to fit best. This, dare I say, “white trash” community – of tattoos, dreadlocks, torn clothing, skateboarders and BMXers, graffiti, paintball and video games, and drugs – seems like something Harmony Korine would have concocted for the silver screen; but, in the sympathetic hands of writer-director Matthew Porterfield, Putty Hill brims with subtle neo-realism. The multitude of interconnected characters that do not communicate very well, most of the characters only speak when asked a question (sometimes those questions need to come from off camera – from Porterfield – in mockumentary fashion); but the heart of Putty Hill is what the actors do when they are not talking, when they are doing nothing. The focus of importance is on the space between the lines of dialog; the quiet after the action.
Skeletons -- To synopsize this film in one short paragraph will be practically impossible, so instead I will keep this entirely superficial. Bennett (Andrew Buckley) and Davis (Ed Gaughan) are exorcists who remove the proverbial skeletons from people’s closets. After a few routine business calls, they find themselves at Jane’s (Paprika Steen) house where they are assigned the task of finding her missing husband. Skeletons is a brain-teasing comedy with highly intelligent dialog and a plot that requires some mental gymnastics on the part of the viewer.
Tiny Furniture -- The winner of the SXSW Narrative Feature Film Jury Award and SXSW Chicken & Egg Emergent Narrative Woman Director Award, Lena Dunham’s Tiny Furniture was nearly impossible to get into during SXSW 2010. Aura (Lena Dunham) arrives home with a film theory degree and no job prospects to her mother’s (Laurie Simmons) Tribeca artist loft as her 17-year old sister (Grace Dunham) prepares to pick which college she will be attending next fall. (With unbridled self-reflexivity, Dunham, her mother and sister all are essentially playing themselves.) Aura meets Jed (Alex Karpovsky) – a semi-famous You Tube celebrity who is visiting NYC to negotiate a deal for a new television series. Jed is either truly poor or just a moocher; nevertheless, Aura invites him to crash at her mother’s place. Tiny Furniture could be superficially interpreted as a film about a bunch of privileged white people complaining about how difficult their lives are; but in true ethnographic style Dunham cleverly withholds any judgments of her own, allowing the viewer to examine the characters’ motives and decisions on their own.
War Don Don -- The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) under Foday Sankoh started The Sierra Leone Civil War in 1991. During the 11-year conflict, tens of thousands died and more than two million people were displaced. The civil war was officially declared over in January 2002. The title of this documentary – “war don don” – translates to “the war is over.” In 2004, the Special Court for Sierra Leone (an international war crimes tribunal) began its trial of Issa Sesay, who was deemed the Interim Leader of the RUF after Sankoh was jailed. Director Rebecca Richman Cohen’s documentary takes a comprehensive and critical look into the Special Court for Sierra Leone and attempts to prove that it is highly disputable that Sesay ordered the crimes that he was found guilty of committing. War Don Don was the runner-up for the SXSW 2010 Documentary Feature Film Jury Award.
