NewFest ’11: My Last Round

Boxing and love can both cause severe brain damage. There is no question which is riskier. Get serious, it is obviously boxing. A fighter can be irreparably hurt in the ring. It could even be the death of one gay epileptic pugilist in Julio Jorquera’s My Last Round (trailer here), which screens during the 2011 NewFest.

Octavio Palooka is decent fighter, but he never really had his shot. A man’s man around the gym, he attracts the attention of ostensive ladies man Hugo. However, the younger kitchen worker initially panics when Octavio puts the moves on him. Eventually though, they launch into a furtive relationship. When Octavio’s latent epilepsy surfaces, the fighter is forced to retire from the ring. In a way, this clears the way for the two men to start a new life together in the big city of Santiago, where people mostly keep to themselves. Unfortunately, Jennifer, the daughter of Hugo’s new boss, is not one of those people. Yet, perhaps Octavio’s desire for one last Rocky moment will be a greater obstacle to their happily ever after.

Round desperately wants to be likened to Brokeback Mountain, but it bizarrely lifts the mournful circular ending from Milcho Manchevski’s Before the Rain, almost lock, stock, and barrel. It made perfectly tragic sense in the context of the Balkans’ endlessly repeating cycle of violence. In Round though, it is just kind of weird.

Arguably, Round works best when steeped in the grungy atmosphere of Octavio’s provincial gym. Jorquera’s focus is sharper and sensation of place is quite strong, whereas the big city scenes descend into rather plodding melodrama.

Perfectly cast as Octavio, Roberto Farías’ slow burning and deep yearning are quite compelling stuff. Conversely, Héctor Morales is just sort of okay as Hugo, presumably intended to be something of a cold fish and a cipher. However, Manuela Martelli brings out some human dimensions in the disruptive Jennifer.

Farías’ hardnosed intensity is impressive, but there is no question about the overall direction Round is heading, notwithstanding the concluding miscue. While it begs comparison to a number of A-list films, like The Fighter and The Wrestler, it just is not in their league. Pretty inescapably average overall, Round screens Sunday (7/24) at the Cinema Village as part of this year’s NewFest.

NewFest ’11: One Night Stand

It sounds like a drama school drinking game. Some of Broadway’s top talent were divided into teams and given twenty-four hours to write, score, rehearse, and perform four original short musicals, with all the proceeds going to charity. It turns out to be a somewhat stressful undertaking (even without the added challenge of mounting inebriation), recorded for posterity in Elisabeth Sperling and Trish Dalton’s behind the scenes documentary, One Night Stand (trailer here), which has its world premiere this Sunday evening at the 2011 NewFest.

Stand has a fool-proof inherent dramatic device—a ticking clock. Indeed, there is not a lot of time for anyone to get diva-ish, but neuroses will definitely be let loose. It starts with the book writers and composers, who pretty much go with the first workable concepts they come up with. Dr. Williams lampoons hospital soap operas in gleefully broad and ribald terms. A bachelorette outing goes somewhat awry in Rachel Said Sorry. Multiphobia stages a mini-revue inspired by exotic fears, while Islands chronicles a zoot-suited Madoff’s quest for sanctuary on Staten Island. Given the abbreviated gestation time, the music is surprisingly memorable, downright catchy in cases.

Though none of the final products are what you would call polished, they are mostly quite entertaining. Of course, the professional cast definitely helps make it all work, the biggest names probably being Alicia Witt, Cheyenne Jackson (recognizable as Mark Bingham in United 93), and Richard Kind (quite good as a replacement in the Broadway production of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels). Jackson in particular really nails his numbers, despite struggling with the material during rehearsal. Of course, he was hardly alone.

Granted, Stand follows a somewhat predictable arc, watching the four teams flounder through rehearsal but more or less pull it together at show time. Yet, the scruffiness of their creative processes is quite engaging. Frankly, Broadway remains strangely under-explored by documentary filmmakers, aside from a handful of docs like Dori Bernstein’s perfectly solid Showbusiness and Stern and Del Deo’s truly outstanding Every Little Step. Stand probably falls someplace in between the two, which is a rather respectable place to be.

At least two of the 24-Hour Musicals, Dr. Williams and Rachel Says Sorry, have songs that lodge in the head, which is certainly saying something. The rather hot choreography designed for Mary Poppins’ Scarlett Strallen also makes Stand another good NewFest selection for straight guys. Briskly energetic and thoroughly appealing, Stand is highly recommended when it premieres this Sunday (7/24) at the SVA Theatre as part of the 2011 NewFest.

NewFest ’11: Mary Marie

They could make Tennessee Williams do a double take. Even by the standards of the most affectionate sisters, they have an unsettlingly close relationship. Yet an interloping man could come between the similarly named women in director Alexandra Roxo’s Mary Marie (trailer here), evidently a tight-knit collaboration with her co-star and co-writer-producer Alana Kearns-Green and producer Rachel Earnest (also credited with “additional direction”), which screens during the 2011 NewFest in New York.

Marie is the sexpot, Mary is the sensitive one—and how. Following the death of their mother, the two M’s return to enjoy one final summer at their childhood home before their grandfather sells it. Much to their surprise, he has arranged for Peter the handyman to spruce up the place before putting it on the market. He is immediately taken with Marie, while Mary is rather taken with him. Though she makes a show of her aloofness, Marie clearly appreciates the attention, despite the pain it causes Mary. In what often seems like the mature thing to do but always turns out to be a big bitter mistake, the three try to hang out together like pals during the long hot summer. Right, good luck with that.

Mary Marie is the strangest amalgamation of genres, blending elements of the dysfunctional indie family drama, Zalman King-style soft core with pretensions, and Southern Gothic by way of Upstate New York. That it works to the surprising extent that it does is a credit to cinematographer Magela Crosignani whose gauzy, day-dreamy look perfectly suits the characters’ feverish languor.

Frankly, it is a bit difficult to understand what either Mar could see in the scraggly handyman, but they themselves are both certainly attractive. Without question, Marry Marie is definitely the pick of this year’s NewFest for straight men. In fact, it is a rather surprising selection for the festival, considering the problematic nature of the wink-wink lesbianism viewers are lead to suspect, but here it is nonetheless.

Roxo helms with a sensitive touch, wisely underplaying the closing twist, while exhibiting particular screen presence as Marie. Though the third act gets a tad melodramatic, it is never so excessive as to risk breaking the weird sexually charged atmosphere. An intriguing (if somewhat creepy) mood piece with two fine codependent leads, Mary Marie screens this Friday (7/22) as part of this year’s NewFest.