LAFF ’15: In Football We Trust

This is not the Utah we know from coming to Park City for Sundance, Slamdance or maybe skiing. This is Salt Lake City, home to the nation’s largest Polynesian immigrant community. Yes, many of them are Mormon, why do you ask?  Their faith is with the Latter Day Saints, but their hopes and passion are in football all the way. Tony Vainuku (the first Tongan filmmaker accepted at Sundance) & Erika Cohn follow four top high school seniors throughout In Football We Trust (trailer here), which screens during the 2015 Los Angeles Film Festival.

According to Trust, Polynesian prospects are twenty-eight times more likely to make the NFL than any other demographic group. The film also acknowledges the same is not true for Ivy League medical and law schools. This is a problem, but Vainuku & Cohn will primarily focus on other issues, like religion and crime. The former is clearly a positive force for the families profiled in the film, often credited for providing direct assistance, as well as a social network and structure. The latter is never a good thing, but the intrusion of gang violence could well jeopardize at least one player’s future.

For obvious reasons, the filmmakers spend a great deal of time with the brothers Bloomfeld, Leva and Vita, whose reformed father was one of the founders of the Baby Regulators, a notorious Polynesian street gang. Their father might be out of the life, but the life will still come looking for at least one of the brothers.

In intriguing ways, Trust confirms some of our possible preconceptions, while contradicting others. All four POV players seem to be reasonable well accepted in high school (they are jocks after all) and at one least has a popular apparently Anglo girlfriend. It also seems like the Mormon mission call can be a rather handy escape hatch during challenging times.

Unfortunately, through Fihi Kaufusi’s experiences, Trust also raises timely issues of football safety. Kaufusi actually played on both sides of the ball, which is a practice many would have assumed went the way of leather helmets. He will suffer an injury that the team doctor “under-diagnoses,” so you can probably guess what happens next.

There is only so much Vainuku & Cohn can coherently address in a film of reason length. As it is, Trust is like a tighter, more disciplined Hoop Dreams, featuring more proactive, self-aware subjects. Yet, football fans will not shake the feeling the ghost of Junior Seau hovers over the film. The NFL’s inability to deal with concussions and brain trauma becomes especially problematic when we consider how many Polynesian families look to football as their means of economic advancement. Still, these high school players’ ambitions are real and compelling. Recommended for fans of beyond-the-field sports reporting, In Football We Trust screens this Wednesday (6/17) as part of LAFF ’15.

LAFF ’15: Maiko—Dancing Child

For a prima ballerina, Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake is one of the most demanding ballets to perform. You’ve seen Black Swan, right? Well, try dancing the featured role a few months after pregnancy. Maiko Neshino set out to do exactly that. The question is not whether she has the drive or the talent, but whether she has enough time to rebound physically. Åse Svenheim Drivenes follows Neshino through rehab and rehearsals in the intimate documentary Maiko: Dancing Child (trailer here), which screens during the 2015 Los Angeles Film Festival.

It is almost too much, but the name Maiko really means “Dancing Child.” As is the case with truly elite dancers, her talent was indeed discovered at an early age. Neshino’s family made substantial lifestyle-effecting sacrifices to send her abroad to study. Consequently, she understood quite clearly failure was not an option. At the point the film picks up, she has been remarkably successful, maintaining her position as a principal dancer with the Norwegian National Ballet well into her thirties—and then she finally gets pregnant.

This was something she and her husband always wanted but never knew how to schedule, so they do the best they can. Most importantly, they have a happy and healthy baby. However, Drivenes is far more interested in the comeback process than the pregnancy. Swan Lake is the last significant role Neshino has yet to play, so she intends to honor her commitment, but it would be tough even under the best of circumstances.

Ballet is a graceful form of artistic expression, but those who are not part of its exclusive world will be a bit taken aback by the punishing nature of her training regimen. This is not for the faint of heart. Viewers might also get sick of hearing the same musical passage over and over again.

Frankly, it is a minor miracle the dancers never snap from the mind-torturing repetition.

Of course, the camera absolutely loves Neshino. She is elegance personified, so we can well understand why she has become the face of the Norwegian company, while her Horatio Alger-esque background makes her an even more compelling figure to root for. Drivenes also gives the audience an inside peak into to the training and rehearsal process, sort of in the spirit of Wiseman’s La Danse, but in more economical and contextualized servings.

Throughout the film, everyone makes it acutely plain nothing is guaranteed when it comes to ballet. Although it clocks in at a relatively concise seventy minutes, viewers will walk away feeling they have a good understanding of who Neshino is and what sort of professional and artistic challenges she faces. Recommended for patrons of dance and performing art docs, Maiko: Dancing Child screens this Sunday (6/14) and Tuesday (6/16) as part of this year’s LAFF.

LAFF ’15: A Midsummer’s Fantasia

Japan and Korea share a lot of complicated history, but recent films too often reduce it all to wartime rebellion and revenge dramas. However, the sleepy village of Gojo is delighted to have Korean visitors and the Korean filmmakers are quite charmed by their hosts. Frankly, they are not precisely sure what they are looking or whether they find it, but they still find their trip rewarding in Jang Kun-jae’s A Midsummer’s Fantasia (trailer here), which screens during the 2015 Los Angeles Film Festival.

A filmmaker has come to the provincial mountain village of Gojo to research his next film, bringing along his assistant director Mijung to translate. They definitely stand out, but not because they are Korean. Due to economic and demographic factors, nearly all of Gojo’s younger generations have migrated to the big cities, leaving a dwindling elderly population behind. While their stories are somewhat commonplace, the director and Mijung still find them compelling. Perhaps it is just something about their interview subjects’ presence.

Soon, they meet up with Gojo’s most eligible bachelor: a city official who was once an aspiring actor. He will take them on a special guided tour, impressing the Koreans with his choice of more telling, off-the-beaten-path locales. In fact, it might provide the inspiration the filmmaker is hoping for. The resulting film will probably be Well of Sakura, which also constitutes the second half of Jang’s Fantasia, rendered in color, as a change up from the elegant black-and-white of the first segment.

Mijung is now a scuffling Korean actress, who has come to Gojo as a tourist, seeking some sort of spiritual detox. A local persimmon farmer offers to serve as her guide after a chance meeting near the station. As they revisit the sites the film director visited, he becomes rather smitten. Unfortunately, despite their undeniable chemistry, Mijung does not feel free to reciprocate his romantic interest. Yet, she does feel something.

With its parallel structure and ships-passing-in-the-night themes, it is easy to liken Fantasia to Hong Sang-soo’s Hill of Freedom. In a way, they are inverse films, with Hong following a Japanese visitor to Korea desperately searching for the ex-girlfriend he never got over. Hill is one of Hong’s better films, so it is a rather apt comparison, regardless of his rep for mannered and precious filmmaking.

It is hard to describe, but Jang completely captures the sense of summer laziness morphing into something more serious. It is a carefully constructed film, but Jang privileges vibe and atmosphere over narrative, which provides quite a supportive platform for his small cast. As Mijung and Mijung, Kim Sae-byuk is simply incredible, managing to be simultaneously sad and seductive, as well as flirty and wise. Ryo Iwase is nearly unrecognizable as her two very different guides, cranking up the romantic yearning in the second half. Although he only appears in the black-and-white sequences, the distinctive maturity and humanism of Lim Hyeong-gook’s director also wears well on viewers.

In a way, Fantasia gives a slightly postmodern twist to the gentle, bittersweet Local Hero style of comedy, in which city folk take the time to smell the roses while temporarily ensconced in a picturesque provincial community. Yet, even with its gamesmanship, Fantasia is unusually fragile and fragrant, lingering pleasantly as a hazy memory after the initial viewing. Recommended for fans of summer breezes and brief but significant romances, A Midsummer’s Fantasia screens this Thursday (6/11) as part of this year’s LAFF, as well as this Sunday (6/14) during the Korean Film Festival at the Freer Gallery in DC (following Hong’s Hill).