PIFF ’16: Man vs. Snake

There was a time when video games got you out of the house and up on your feet. In the 1980s, gaming was done in the arcades, requiring at least some level of human contact. Some people remain nostalgic for old school video games and as is often the case with gamers, a few are still prone to obsession. That could very well be the case when the original Nibbler champion seeks to regain his title. Tim Kinzy & Andre Seklir document his underdog pursuit of retro-gaming glory in Man vs. Snake (trailer here), which screens during the 2016 Portland International Film Festival.

It might take you a while to remember Nibbler. It was sort of like Pac-Man, but it featured a snake with an inconveniently growing tail rather than ghosts. It was not exactly the most popular game in the arcade, but it was attractive to competitive video-game players, because it offered the chance to score one billion points. Tim McVey was the first documented player to reach that milestone. That would be the other, nicer Tim McVey.

For years, he assumed he was still the Nibbler champ, but he comes out of retirement when he learns a player in Italy bested his score. However, he will have competition from a younger player gunning for the title himself. It might seem like a dubious quest, but his indulgent wife supports him. He also has the old school video game establishment in his corner, including the media-savvy Pac-Man champ Billy Mitchell.

Aside from his understanding wife Tina, McVey sort of fits the gamer stereotype. He is somewhat on the schlubby side, working a depressing job and going through life with an unfortunate name. Yet, M vs. S will challenge many of the viewers’ snarky prejudices. Walter Day, the owner of the arcade where McVey set his original record and the leading arbiter of competive arcade gaming is a case in point. Deeply steeped in eastern philosophy, he turns out to have a lot more going on than Nibbler. Yet, they all seem to be pulling for McVey for the same reason they did in the 1980s. He just needs it more than his competition.

Like Wide World of Sports, Kinzy & Seklir capture all the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. Frankly, it all gets pretty epic, but McVey’s earnestness will completely win viewers over. You will come to understand how cruel the snake can be and root for the underdog to have his day. Highly recommended as eighties nostalgia and a sympathetic look at a small but ardent gaming sub-community, Man vs. Snake screens this Saturday night (2/27) during the Portland International Film Festival.

PIFF ’16: Marshland

It is 1980 in Spain—a time when all able bodied men were required to carry moustaches. The nation was also in the midst of transitioning to a more democratic form of government, which was all very nice, but rather inconvenient timing for homicide detective Juan Robles. He has been dispatched to the rural south to find missing twin girls, but finds evidence of a depraved serial killer instead. He would like to cut his usual corners, but his crusading partner and CYA-ing superiors will force him to do things the hard way in Alberto Rodríguez’s Marshland (trailer here), which screens during the 2016 Portland International Film Festival.

Initially, Robles and reform-minded Pedro Suárez treat the disappearance of Carmen and Estrella as a missing person case, but they find their bodies all too quickly. More unsettling, they are soon presented with circumstantial evidence linking the murder of the twins with the deaths or disappearances of several other local girls. They all went missing around the time of the annual carnival and each were somehow linked to the village’s sleazy lothario, “Quini” Varela. However, Varela’s blood type is different from what was recovered from the bodies—and he seems to know it.

As Robles and Suárez pursue Varela’s accomplice, differences in their methods and backgrounds lead to conflict. Suárez is currently out of favor within the police establishment, because of an open letter he sent to the newspapers protesting departmental corruption. On the other hand, Robles’ long tenure of service under Franco makes him highly suspect.

With Marshland, Rodríguez steps up his game tremendously from the disappointingly middling Unit 7. While staying within the police procedural sub-genre, he shows a mastery of mood and fully capitalizes on the lonely but cinematic wetland backdrops. If not exactly a whodunit per se, the particulars of their case are highly compelling. By the standards of Spanish cinema, it is also relatively reserved in its Franco-era score-settling, mostly using the legacy of the old regime to create tension for the reluctant partners.

Javier Gutiérrez is total dynamite as the roguish old tougher-than-he-looks Robles. Wiry like a coiled spring, he might be fun to drink with, but he is all kinds dangerous. Gutiérrez convincingly conveys his charismatic charm and the ruthlessness he can turn on like a light switch. Raúl Arévalo does his best to keep up, but Suárez’s goody-two-shoes persona is no match for Robles’ grand complexities. However, Salva Reina adds some nice salty flavor as Jesús, the rustic outcast who becomes the coppers’ guide through the treacherous marshes.

Unlike the problematically slack Unit 7, Marshland is tight and tense the whole way through. It is a ripping good thriller, executed with stylish bravado. Recommended for mainstream fans of cop-and-serial killer movies, Marshland screens this Friday (2/19) and next Monday (2/22), as part of this year’s PIFF (and by the way, it’s also already available on DVD).

PIFF ’16: The Sky Trembles and the Earth is Afraid and the Two Eyes are not Brothers

Ben Rivers has sort of made the Day for Night of experimental filmmaking (but not nearly enough so). To make matters even more challenging, he did it in the Morocco. That sort of explains why his meta-docu-hybrid turns into an adaptation of Paul Bowles’ short story, “A Distant Episode,” but not really. Regardless, Rivers gets uncharacteristically narrativey in The Sky Trembles and the Earth is Afraid and the Two Eyes are not Brothers (trailer here), which screens during the 2016 Portland International Film Festival.

It all starts out innocently observational as Rivers documents the Moroccan-based Galician-French Oliver Laxe directing the indigenous cast of his upcoming The Mimosas. It is a rough shoot, but apparently there are no occupational safety regulations to slow things down. In its way, the sight of the crews’ land rovers crawling through the desert is not unlike Truffaut’s film crew descending on their location in his ode to movie-making. Things seem to be proceeding well enough, but for some reason Laxe takes an unplanned hiatus. That will be a mistake.

While following one of the Reguibat nomads that so fascinate him, Laxe discovers he was in fact their prey. Like the linguistics scholar in the Bowles story, the director is abducted, has his tongue cleaved from his mouth, and is forced into a surreal form of slavery. Wearing a full burqa suit made of tin can lids, Laxe becomes their dancing bear, performing his weird jig to their percussive music.

On a superficial level, Sky Trembles, etc., etc. operates as an anti-colonial tale of comeuppance. The appropriator now must dance to the tune of the formerly colonized. However, the implications of the Islamic nomads’ violent brutality and their open practice of slavery are hard to skirt. The Reguibat are really just a dehumanized as their victim here. Frankly, it is probably only their reputations as cinematic provocateurs that have protected Rivers and Laxe from charges of racism and islamophobia thus far, so kids, do not try to adapt this Paul Bowles story at home.

Nevertheless, Rivers acting as his own cinematographer captures some stunning images. The desert vistas and the Atlas Mountain backdrops are suitably exotic. It also effectively teases Laxe’s film, which might well prove to be more emotionally-engaging than Rivers’ coldly detached metaness. Yet, somehow Rivers successfully channels the disoriented, kif-clouded nature character of Bowles’ work. It is not for everyone, but it gives the adventurous more hooks to grab onto than Rivers & Russell’s A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness. Recommended exclusively for hardcore Rivers and Bowles fans, The Sky Trembles and the Earth is Afraid and the Title is Not Short screens this Wednesday (2/17) and Saturday (2/20), as part of this year’s Portland International Film Festival.