Slamdance 18: Fish Bones

Hana has Jekyll and Hyde part-time college jobs. She puts in hours at her family’s Korean restaurant and she does a little fashion modelling on the side (she is played by super-model Joony Kim, so we can buy into it). These two radically dissimilar gigs represent her internal clash of cultures. However, Hana really gets confused when she starts exploring a romantic relationship with a more worldly and confident Latina hipster in Joanne Mony Park’s Fish Bones (trailer here), which screened during the 2018 Slamdance Film Festival in Park City.

This is an uncertain time for Hana. She has come home from college to help her brother Peter care for their ailing mother and hold together the family restaurant. Initially, she was just staying during break, but now she is not sure when she will return to campus. Nico’s energy has been refreshing and her attention has been flattering. In fact, they have many common interests, particularly music. Yet, it is hard to tell if they really have a future together. After all, Hana has kept her modeling a secret from her family, so we can only assume how they might react to a lesbian relationship.

It turns out Kim is one of those models who really can act. She and Cris Gris (a.k.a. Cristina Tamez-Rodriguez) are terrific as the tentative couple. There is real chemistry between them—halting, but palpable. Frustratingly, Park’s self-consciously oblique approach often undercuts their efforts. She seems to have a pronounced Bruce Weber influence going on, which is way too on the nose for a film about a model (full-time or part-time).

Regardless, Sheldon Chau’s black-and-white cinematography is lovely to look at. There are also some rather distinctive and milieu-appropriate indie-alt tunes on the soundtrack. If ever a film had a Slamdance vibe, it would be this one. However, Park is a bit too coy when it comes to narrative gamesmanship and conversely a bit too manipulative when it comes to Hana’s sexuality. The film would have been more potent and intriguing if we weren’t really sure where her orientation truly falls. Instead, we are hemmed into another morality tale of potential closeted sacrifice, for the sake of familial acceptance.

Nevertheless, Kim and Cris Gris are quite good together. Altogether, it is rather middling, but it is sure to pop up at many subsequent Asian and LGBT festivals. Not very memorable or significant to any great extent, Fish Bones premiered at this year’s Slamdance Film Festival.

Slamdance ’18: Instant Dreams

The Polaroid camera was the original “selfie” device, but it was better. It used physical chemical film, so each shot meant something. Polaroid film was killed by the digital revolution, but it rose from the dead because people were not ready to let go. Instant photo-chemical film gets its due in Willem Baptist’s quasi-experimental docu-essay, Instant Dreams (trailer here), which screened during the 2018 Slamdance Film Festival in Park City.

Chris Bonanos wrote the book on Polaroid. It is called Instant: The Story of Polaroid. He will provide some traditional documentary background and context, including the creation story. Bonanos is also a Polaroid user, which meant he was a film hoarder, as well. Stephen Herchen is the chief technology officer of the Impossible Project, who led an effort to reverse engineer Polaroid’s one-minute development project. Stefanie Schneider is one the artists who specialized in Polaroid photography (there were more than you maybe realized, such as Elsa Dorfman). Ayana JJ is a Japanese musician and artist, who would appreciate the immediacy old school Polaroid, but must make do with Polaroid-like pictures produced on a printer featuring the voice of Werner Herzog.

That is not the only weird cameo in Instant. Udo Kier makes an uncredited appearance in one of Schneider’s shoots. That is enough to forgive some of the film’s slow patches. However, what will really wins viewer hearts and minds is its unabashed analog love. Let’s be honest: digital sucks. Willem’s experts make that point pretty clearly.

In fact, there are some rather provocative ideas in the film, like the contention Polaroid was demonstrably ahead of its time, at least in a cultural sense. It is also rather mind-blowing to see a promotional film from the 1970s, in which company founder Edwin Land pulls a thin black iPhone-looking wallet out of his pocket, claiming someday every will have a camera that size, at their finger-tips.

There is nostalgia in Instant Dreams, as well as an appreciation for Schumpeterian creative destruction. Baptist has a keen eye for visuals (especially the Tokyo nightscapes) and a cool cerebral aesthetic. (Weirdly, some of the most banal looking sequences capture Schneider’s photo-shoots, which include brief nudity.) Regardless, it is a thoughtful, good-looking film that should have many more stops on the festival circuit following its screenings at this year’s Slamdance.

Slamdance ’18: The Troubled Troubadour (short)

The troubadour movement flourished in Europe during the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, but the Black Plague put a real damper on things. Ever since then, itinerant musicians and Death have been constant companions. Just ask Robert Johnson about that. An aging Japanese musician traveling across the southern coast of Korea has a fateful appointment to keep, but he will do his best to finally level his karma along the way in Forest Ian Etsler & Sébastien Simon’s The Troubled Troubadour (trailer here), which screens as part of Narrative Shorts Block 3 at the 2018 Slamdance Film Festival in Park City.

Somehow, the landscape the musician and his silent but still surly manservant travel is recognizably modern-day Korea, yet still exists outside of time. Essentially, it is a reflection of the Troubadour himself. Indeed, the pack of forest-dwelling children they encounter would not look out of place in A Midsummer’s Night Dream. Mistaking him for the Mountain God, they bring him to cure their ailing Princess. Fortunately, he has the power of music. However, he will have to travel deeper into his subconscious before he is ready to make his final journey.

Troubadour sounds ridiculously New Age, but it is actually weirdly grounded, especially due to the passive aggressive tension shared by the Musician and his “boatman” servant. The young kids also manage to be both mysterious and cute, but never cloying. Etsler and Simon have a keen eye for visuals and they hopscotch back and forth between the modern world and the inner dreamscape quite effectively. Plus, cinematographer makes it all look highly cinematic and big screen worthy.

Indeed, Troubadour is “spiritual” in a sophisticated and earthy kind of way, featuring a not inconsiderably degree of ribald humor. As the musician, accomplished ukulele player Hachi Kasuga looks like a troubadour worthy of an epic song and his music is wonderfully wistful (here he is covering Jobim). Very highly recommended, The Troubled Troubadour screens again on Wednesday (1/24) as part of this year’s Slamdance Film Festival.

Slamdance ’18: Fake Tattoos

Some stoners are actually sensitive kids. Believe it or not, it is not impossible for them to fall in love, under the right circumstances. This is even true in French Canada. When Théo meets Mag (short for Marguerite), the timing is either utterly awful or absolutely perfect. Regardless, their rapport develops at warp speed in Pascal Plante’s Fake Tattoos (trailer here), which screens during the 2018 Slamdance Film Festival in Park City.

Initially, Mag and Théo meet awkwardly rather than cutely after a hardcore gig. She starts busting on him for sporting a temporary tattoo, but then admits his artistry with eye-liner is quite impressive. Aside from some comical guilty pleasures, they mostly have the same taste in music. They are also unhappy outsiders, so a bond quickly forms. Even a ragingly uncomfortable morning after cannot derail their mutual attraction. However, their affair must presumably be finite, because Théo’s mother is relocating them in two weeks, from Montreal to his grown sister’s provincial digs.

Tattoos is sort of like a grungy, slacker teen Éric Rohmer movie, mostly in the best ways. Plante takes time to develop his primary characters and gives them scrupulously realistic but consistently meaningful dialogue to chew on. Plante recreates the same breathlessly intimate vibe and uses music to devastating effect, but as is sometimes the case with some works from the master of the Seasons and the Moral Tales, it is debatable whether Tattoos adds up to much when it is all said and done.

Still, Anthony Therrien and Rose-Marie Perreault rather brilliantly keep us focused on the present moment, every second of the way. They are utterly unaffected and completely believable as the young nearly-lovers, but it would be a disservice to suggest they are just playing themselves. Most eighteen or nineteen-year-olds lack this kind of emotional maturity. Their chemistry is also quite real and potent.

On some level, most folks will easily identify with this tale of underdog outsider romance. It is a small film, but it gets its hooks into viewers, evoking memories of summer love and missed opportunities. Recommended as a nice sleeper, Fake Tattoos screens again this Thursday (1/25), as part of this year’s Slamdance.

Slamdance ’18: Manila Death Squad (short)

Rodrigo Duterte, the karaoke crooner, might not approve of the Flying Ipis’s punk rock “My Way” (although he should, because it is pretty awesome), but a lot of what goes on in this sleazy after-hours joint he would be perfectly fine with—allegedly. A Filipino-American journalist hopes to get the scope on vigilante killings from the horse’s mouth, but she might end up part of her own story in Dean Colin Marcial’s short film, Manila Death Squad (trailer here), which screens as part of the Anarchy shorts block at this year’s Slamdance Film Festival in Park City.

The last person the death squad wants to talk to is a journalist, but she invites herself to join their party anyway. She knows who they are and she wants an exclusive from them. Their hardnosed leader tries to use drinking games to dissuade her, but she can think on her feet and hold her liquor. Ultimately, she wants an interview with their boss—and wouldn’t you like to know who that is. Maybe we will find out if MDS gets expanded into a feature.

There seems to be able room in this ripped-from-the-headlines world for a full feature treatment, but you have to wonder if Marcial can keep up the dizzyingly nervy breakneck energy for such an extended period. Even the subtitles in MDS are hip and stylishly noir, but the threat of violence is palpable and ever-present.

Somehow, Marcial also recruited a cast worthy of mainstream studio features, reuniting Annicka Dolonius and Sid Lucero from The Apocalypse Child, as the reporter and the death squad leader. Dolonius is totally on the money, playing the journalist tough, smart, and vulnerable. However, Lucero’s sinister fierceness is a bit of a pleasantly frightening surprise. They are both terrific playing off each other, plus the Flying Ipis totally rock the house.

Marcial also helmed the spooky Midnight Service webisode docs, so he clearly has a talent for making potent shorts. Manila Death Squad packs a mean punch, but its characters and circumstances would easily sustain a more extended film. Regardless, it represents some wildly impressive filmmaking. Very highly recommended, Manila Death Squad screens again tomorrow (1/22), as part of the Anarchy shorts package at the 2018 Slamdance Film Festival.

Slamdance ’18: AniMal (short)

It is time for a little body horror, but at least it is for a good cause. A dissident desperate to escape will take on the appearance and characteristics of a bighorn ram. It is a crazy scheme, but it might work only too well in Bahman and Bahram Ark’s short film AniMal (trailer here), which screens as part of the Anarchy shorts block at this year’s Slamdance Film Festival in Park City.

Making a break for the heavily patrolled chain-link border is a low percentage move, as viewers quickly see for themselves. It is worth noting in passing, this border wall is designed to retain freedom-seeking citizens imprisoned within, rather than keep outsiders out. Regardless, the well-armed guards mean business—and they seem to enjoy their work. However, the would-be immigrant has a plan to disguise himself as a ram, capitalizing on his hunting and taxidermy skills. To make it look convincing, he will binge-watch old nature documentaries on VHS. What could possibly go wrong?

The Arks are distinctive filmmakers, who have crafted a gritty and slightly macabre character study. Although we should be judicious in our political readings, the fact that they are Iranian is not insignificance, especially in light of the many recent Iranian films that address the challenges of (mostly legal) immigration, such as Goodbye and Melbourne. In this case, the man’s extreme circumstances force him to resort to extreme measures. It is a powerful sight to behold, but unfortunately, there are two rather obvious O. Henry-esque endings this story can take—and the Arks duly opt for one of them.

Nevertheless, you have to give all due credit to Davoud Nourpour’s performance as the “animal,” because it is truly fearless, in many ways. Thanks to his convincingly animalistic performance, some enterprising programmer ought to pair AniMal up with Rune Östlund’s The Square, featuring the ape-like Terry Notary.

AniMal is a film that just might hold equal appeal for art-house cineastes and unruly cult movie fans. Highly recommended, AniMal screens again tomorrow (1/22), as part of the Anarchy shorts package at the 2018 Slamdance Film Festival, which is having a really great year for short films.

Slamdance ’18: Love After Time (short)

Taiwan is a democracy with the world’s fifteenth largest economy, but the UN and global diplomatic community wants to pretend it doesn’t exist. When nuclear disaster ravages the Other China, they just carry on ignoring, like business as usual. Radiation and isolation make things pretty dystopian, pretty quickly for the survivors, but life maybe has a way of hanging on in Henry Tsai Tsung-han’s short film Love After Time, which screens as part of the Anarchy shorts block at this year’s Slamdance Film Festival in Park City.

There is a new policy: only survivors with a clean health certificate are now eligible for emergency food relief. That does not sit well with the mystery woman. She sparks a riot and then shrewdly uses as a distraction to steal food. That doesn’t sit well with the officer overseeing the distribution. However, when he corners the thief in her makeshift shelter, he finds she has his number, in multiple ways. She happens to be surprisingly confident and seductive. She also realizes he is a mutant, just like her.

LAT might have the most bizarre sex scene you will see in Park City. Some survivors start growing organs in nontraditional places, if you get the picture. Eventually, we learn even the circumstances of reproduction have been affected. In some ways, LAT covers similar ground as Antonio Pandovan’s short film Eveless, but it has a more humanistic perspective. In fact, Tsai passes up many opportunities to gawk at the mutated deformities, preferring to focus on the evolving ways humans relate to each other—and whether such a term still applies to mutant survivors.

Nana Lee Chien-na also must be the spriteliest wasteland waif you will see in a month of apocalypses, but there is no denying her charisma. The Taiwanese pop idol-actress is an unusually big-name celebrity for a scruffy nuclear Armageddon short film, but good for her. Her courtship with Lee Hong-chi’s Army Officer is definitely intense and he looks pretty darned freaked and conflicted during the aftermath.

LAT directly addresses the question what does it mean to be human, which is a big theme for any film, of any length. Tsai creates a convincingly grubby dystopia that is worlds removed from his previous teen TV work. Highly recommended, Love After Time screens again tomorrow (1/22), along with Philippe McKie’s very cool Breaker, as part of the Anarchy shorts package at the 2018 Slamdance Film Festival.

Slamdance ’18: Circus Ecuador

They say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Apparently, it also runs through the hardscrabble Wishi community in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Two novice filmmakers decided to document the construction of a much-needed school for the village, but instead, they witnessed chaos, confusion, and moments of sheer terror. Ashley Bishop & Jim Brassard are still not sure what exactly went down, but it was definitely a mess judging from the footage they assembled into the unintentionally gonzo doc, Circus Ecuador (trailer here), which screens during the 2018 Slamdance Film Festival in Park City.

Admittedly, Elizabeth Gray was a tireless fundraiser around Albany, convincing the entire community to invest in the Wishi Project. Bishop and Brassard were so impressed, they dropped out of grad school to chronicle her efforts, even though the did not speak Spanish (or Shuar, the indigenous language spoken in the Wishi community). Unfortunately, as soon as they arrived in-country, her leadership started to flag. After one meeting with some self-appointed community leaders, the filmmakers believed they were in grave danger of being abducted—and it was all downhill from there.

While Brassard and Bishop were fearing for their lives, Gray seemed content to play Lady Bountiful with her favorites in the village (not that you could really call it a village). Just when they think the project will finally have some adult supervision with the arrival of Greg Sheldon from Gray’s fiscal sponsor, he starts talking about UFOs and ancient civilizations. However, they start to get some lowdown from “Canada” and “CIA Chuck,” two local “business partners” suspected of representing the CSIS and CIA, respectively, at least until Chuck starts changing his story. Regardless, everyone seems to agree there is gold in the nearby river.

According to their voice-overs, it took Bishop and Brassard quite a bit of time to figure out what they should do with their footage. Obviously, this would not be the sunny, feel-good film they were envisioning. What they ended up with is frankly mind-blowing, combining the unvarnished expose of the human cost of unintended consequences found in Mark Grieco’s A River Below with a staggering lack of self-awareness, worthy of the docu-mocker, Kung Fu Elliot.

If nothing else, Circus acts as a withering corrective to the idea we can simply shower money on a struggling community and everything will be fine. There is no substitute for proper due diligence. For instance, we eventually start to question whether Wishi is really even a community, when evidence surfaces it might just be a semi-organized group of squatters, hoping to steal a claim on lawfully titled land.

By the time Bishop and Brassard run out of footage, we can only shake our heads at the massive folly of it all. Yet, the biggest punchline isn’t even in the film. According to the University of Albany’s website, Gray is now Assistant Dean of the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security, and Cybersecurity. You have to wonder what the board will think of this film. At least Brassard and Bishop salvaged a film that holds great value, albeit of a cautionary variety. Very highly recommended for general audiences, Circus Ecuador screens again this Monday (1/22), as part of this year’s Slamdance.

Slamdance ’18: Rock Steady Row

It is like The Road Warrior, but with bikes and paddles. The good news is if you survive four years and keep your grades up, you will leave Rock Steady University with a college degree, but that is a big “if.” The key to survival owning a bike. That allows you to have a puncher’s chance of pedaling through the crime-infested campus unmolested. As usual, this new Freshman has his bike stolen on his first day, but he is more resourceful than the typical victims in Trevor Stevens’ Rock Steady Row, which screens as part of this year’s Slamdance Film Festival in Park City.

As the leader of the Kappa Brutus Omega frat, stealing bikes is Andrew Palmer’s thing. The Kappas control the bike trade on-campus, thanks to their regular kickbacks to the corrupt Dean of students. Their only rivals are The High Society, an upper-crust house led by the elitist Augustus Washington III.

Like Yojimbo, the Freshman will try to play the frats off each other, in hopes of breaking their hold on power and recovering his bike. He really liked that bike. Fortunately, his roommate Piper (Rock Steady is extremely coed) is an aspiring campus journalist, who can give him insight into how the crooked system works. She also has some embarrassing history with Palmer.

It is impossible to easily convey the tone of RSR. It is not really retro in the style of The Turbo Kid, despite all the Huffys and the Freshman’s mysterious old school Walkman. Nor is it a horror film, like Motorrad, but together those three films would be quite a bike-centric triple feature. It is nowhere near as mean-spirited as Hobo with a Shotgun either, but the world of Rock Steady functions in a very similar manner, with respect to logic and the causal acceptance of violence.

It is similarly tricky to pin down the Freshman. He is not exactly a hardnose or a slacker or sad sack or a sociopathic drifter, but he has elements of them all. Whatever that note is, Heston Horwin manages to hit it. Diamond White is terrific as the reasonably proactive Piper, while Logan Huffman is appropriately Skeet Ulrich-esque as the oily, psychotic Palmer. Plus, Isaac Alisma and the great Larry Miller really ham it up as Washington and the Dean, respectively.

I don’t know about you, but right now, I’m glad I went to a Lutheran school. There are no safe spaces at Rock Steady, that’s for sure, but it is what we’ve been asking for, by putting the barbarians in charge of higher education. Regardless, you won’t find any ideologically tinged satire in RSR. It is all about chaos, anarchy, and bikes. Despite their gleeful mania, Stevens and screenwriter Bomani Story create a weirdly self-contained and dramatically functional world. Enthusiastically recommended for cult movie fans, Rock Steady Row screens again this Monday (1/22), as part of the 2018 Slamdance Film Festival.

Slamdance ’18: Whales (short)

This isn’t the sort of work the Private signed up for, assuming he had any choice in the matter, which is doubtful. Regardless, no soldier wants to be assigned duties within their own country, especially not as a body-fisherman. These are not immigrants, so do not jump to conclusions, but they do say something about their Iranian homeland in Behnam Abedi’s Whales (trailer here), which screens as part of Narrative Shorts Block 1 at this year’s Slamdance Film Festival in Park City.

Seven bodies have washed up in the shallows, so it is the Private’s job to drag them ashore, while his commanding officer busts his chops. It is a bad business, even before he recognizes one of them. He cannot place where, but it still personalizes the grim proceedings. Frankly, most locals will be happy to hear the people in question are dead. Like the hunter who first called in the body sighting, they have their reasons. Nevertheless, the Private and the Officer will still find themselves in a moral dilemma.

Whales is not exactly a genre film per se, but it is loaded with eeriness and foreboding. As is often the case with many distinctive Iranian films, the ambiguity of Whales feels like a deliberate strategy. There is certainly space in the film to ask who wouldn’t be crazy living in an oppressive environment like that. Karma also plays a role in the film, in ways that are both obscure and pointed.

As the Private, Majid Norouzi is not just the film’s anchor. He really makes it what it is. More than merely a resentful subordinate (although he is definitely that too), Norouzi projects an existential confusion that expresses the essence of the film. Abedi is also a wildly impressive filmmaker, who uses a full, wide frame to artfully compose each shot. Admittedly, Whales demands the viewer’s full attention, but when granted, the film delivers some unsettling surprises. Very highly recommended, Whales screens again Monday (1/22), as part of Narrative Shorts Block 1 at the 2018 Slamdance Film Festival.