Can't films be therapeutic?

Waltz with Bashir (Folman, 2008)

Initially I wasn’t sure if I liked the animation style because it seemed a bit choppy. There was something disturbing and awkward about the way the images moved. (Perhaps it’s just because the opening sequence damn near terrified me.) It didn’t take long for me to change my mind about that, though. The animation brings the story to life in a way that seems appropriate to its thematic issues: just as Ari Folman’s memory of his involvement in the war in Lebanon is sporadic and incomplete, the characters move in fits and starts, stumbling through the background Folman has created for his subconscious. I love documentaries, and I’ve seen quite a few particularly interesting and personal ones already this year (Dear Zachary and My Winnipeg come to mind); perhaps this makes me more invested in the notion that film can be powerfully cathartic for those dealing with traumatic memories than most viewers. Regardless of my personal investment in the form, though, I think Waltz with Bashir stands out as a disturbing, frustrating, and gripping account of the effects of war, the fallibility of memory, and the power of film.
Rating: 4/5

ELFF Redux

I Love Trash (Brown, 2008)
I had intended to see this one at the film festival, but decided that I’d avoided work quite enough for one weekend, so I bought the DVD (which cost the same as what my roommate and I would have paid for tickets) instead. I’m still not sure what to make of it. The filmmakers—-David Brown and Greg Mann—-embark on a three-month experiment in which they attempt to live solely off of what they find dumpster diving. They move into an empty apartment with nothing but the clothes on their backs and their camera, and the space is soon filled with furniture, clothes, food, and luxuries all collected from various dumpsters. Their efforts to convince me that my fear of germs and diseases are nothing but bourgeois illusions would have gone over much better had David and Greg been a bit more likable. I realize that’s a terrible thing to say and shouldn’t be the basis of how I judge the film itself, but I found them irritating for much of the film. I wanted to hear about the practical aspects of dumpster diving (Did they talk to store owners to find out when they dump their unsellable food? What criteria did they use to determine what they’d take and what might not be safe?), and I wanted to see more of what they’d done with it (Greg was so excited to find paint that I wanted to know what he painted!). Alas, much of their footage consisted of repetitive shots of them taking food out of the dumpster or lying on the floor of the apartment. This repetition made a fairly short film feel like it dragged on far too long, despite its interesting premise.

Rating: 2.5/5

ELFF, Day 2

Treeless Mountain (Kim, 2008)
So Yong Kim’s Treeless Mountain takes the problems of children quite seriously. Granted, they are fairly unusual problems: when their mother leaves town, sisters Jin and Bin are sent to live with their aunt—a woman who lacks the motherly affection and ability to provide for them. As Jin and Bin cope with the bleakness of their situation, they rapidly mature, doing all they can to bring their mother home. With a fairly minimalist style, the film beautifully captures both the loss of childhood innocence and the simplicity of childhood fantasy. I was especially struck by the claustrophobia of the extreme close-up shots of people’s faces as contrasted with the very open landscape shots. The story and style are simple yet powerful. An amazing and beautiful film.
Rating: 5/5


My Winnipeg (Maddin, 2007)
Surrealism tends to distance viewers rather than draw them into the film. I’m not against such distancing, and it can certainly be enjoyable, but it’s not usually so much fun. Guy Maddin’s surrealist documentary My Winnipeg, however, is just that—sheer fun. Maddin endeavors to explain what makes it so difficult for people to escape from his hometown of Winnipeg. In order to explore the lasting effects the city has had on him personally, Maddin hires actors (and his mother) to re-create memorable scenes from his childhood so that he can study them in the hopes of understanding why they stand out in his memory. The film is intensely personal and yet entirely universal in its treatment of childhood and nostalgia. This was the first of Maddin’s films that I’ve seen, and it’s a testament to how much I enjoyed it that I immediately went home and added the rest of his films to my Netflix queue.
Rating: 5/5

The Edge of Heaven (Akin, 2007)
The situations and plot are obviously quite contrived, but the characters are interesting enough that the film doesn’t feel overly forced. In fact, the first two of its three main sections begin by announcing the death of a character, yet these deaths are still startling and saddening. The characters feel utterly real, and the film succeeds at making viewers understand them and to some degree sympathize with them, even when we don’t want to. I felt completely drawn in if only because I wanted to know what each character would do next and how he/she would handle the latest devastating obstacle. Though the pacing is a bit slow, for the most part this works to showcase the characters and give us more time to get to know them. The Edge of Heaven is a solid and alluring film, and a good way to close out an incredible day of film-viewing.
Rating: 4/5

East Lansing Film Festival (ELFF), Day 1

Trouble the Water (Deal and Lessin, 2008)
If you’ve been avoiding this one because it’s a documentary about Katrina and therefore serious and depressing, I feel sorry for you. Of course, I feel sorry for anyone who doesn’t think documentaries can be entertaining and fun, but that’s neither here nor there. Trouble the Water is both serious and entertaining. Most of the footage is shot by aspiring rap artist Kimberly Rivers Roberts and her husband Scott, who survived Katrina by hunkering down in their attic with their extended family members. Kim introduces us to her neighborhood in the 9th Ward with a humorous and confident outlook tinged with uncertainty: she assures us that they’ll all come out of the hurricane okay because they have no choice—no transportation out of the city. Laughing and filming in the face of the disaster, Kim’s attitude won me over early in the film and (to employ an empty and over-used phrase) gave the tragedy a human face. The courage and compassion shown by Kim, Scott, and their family throughout the film provided a moving account of true heroism. As much as the film critiques the government and military for their failure to act both before and after the hurricane, it also left me with the feeling that we’re looking in the wrong places for help. Trouble the Water is a powerful example of the strength of community organizers and the resilience of communities. This film was a great way to kick off my film festival experience.

Rating: 4/5


The Pool (Smith, 2007)
I have the sense that I might have enjoyed this film more if I hadn’t been exhausted from a long day of teaching and emotionally drained from seeing Trouble the Water. It didn’t help that the seats in Wells Hall are anything but comfortable. So I think it’ll take a second viewing before I can really give this an accurate rating. That said, I did rather enjoy the film. Although I felt that it lagged in places, I suspect this was due to the circumstances in which I was seeing it, rather than the film’s pacing and flow, which work to introduce us to its characters and their world. The friendship between Venkatesh, a boy working in a hotel in Goa, India, and Jhangir, who works in a restaurant, is allowed to unfold quite naturally. While the slow pace initially built up my suspense as to why Venkatesh was so obsessed with the pool of a nearby house, eventually I no longer cared why the titular object was so important because I was so drawn into the relationships surrounding it. Though The Pool offers a relatively simple story, these relationships seem quite deep and moving.

Rating: 3.5/5

Spring Break Movie Binge

What I watched on my spring break...
Monday:

Zack and Miri Make a Porno (Smith, 2008): I liked the earlier film The Amateurs (Traeger, 2003), which has the same basic premise but an older cast, much better than this one. Somehow the story seemed more believable, and the side storylines were better developed throughout. Once the romance plotline of Zack and Miri comes to a conclusion at the end, the plotline involving the porno and the other characters pretty much drops out. We don’t get detailed characterizations of the supporting characters, leaving the whole plot feeling like a rather awkward vehicle for a typical romcom plot. This is a shame because Rogen and Banks just aren’t that funny in the title roles. In fact, I was left wishing that Justin Long’s character had a more sustained role to play, as he was the funniest one. Rating: 2.5/5


Lars and the Real Girl (Gillespie, 2007): I can’t really describe what I felt was missing from this film, but I was left with the feeling that it had great potential and didn’t quite live up to it. There were some solid performances, the premise is fairly interesting, it didn’t devolve into absurdity, but it didn’t stand out much either. Solidly acted and constructed, but not all that compelling. Rating: 3.5/5


Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son about His Father (Kuenne, 2008): The filmmaker sets out to make a documentary about his friend Andrew, who was murdered by his ex-girlfriend Shirley. While Kurt is in the process of filming, Shirley flees to Canada, avoiding arrest for the murder. As the extradition process drags on, Shirley announces that she is pregnant with Andrew’s child. At this point, Kurt decides to make the film a letter to the unborn Zachary so that he will have something to know his father by when he grows up. That’s as much as I knew about the plot going into it, having refused to read more detailed reviews: Kurt keeps aspects of the story hidden until the end, and I suggest you don’t read about them. The way information is revealed is part of the power of this film, which makes you work through the stages of grief with Andrew’s family and friends. With no pretense of objectivity, this is the most emotionally intense movie I’ve seen in quite a while. You should see it, but only if you're willing to surrender a few hours to raw emotions. Emotions aside, I thought it was fairly well done. I liked Kuenne’s style of editing and use of home movie footage. The style is over-the-top, but so is the situation, and thus I thought it worked well. Rating: 4/5


Man on Wire
(Marsh, 2008): After 15 minutes or so, I considered turning the film off. The black and white re-enactments seemed heavy-handed and distracting, and I scoffed at the film’s attempt to turn its key event—a man walking a wire strung between the towers of the WTC—into a thriller. But it did work as a bit of a thriller by the end. The suspense that captured my attention, though, didn’t come from wondering whether or not Philippe Petit and his crew would succeed (for they clearly did) or whether or not he would fall (he obviously didn’t), but from wondering just how Petit (who comes across as a bit of a playful yet arrogant bastard) convinced so many people to help with the endeavor. Why were so many people willing to help Petit achieve his bizarre goal? Where did they get the time and money required for the equipment and the several trips across the Atlantic? The film doesn’t fully answer these questions, but it did leave me with one more: Where do any of us get the drive, motivation, time and nerve to pursue our goals? Rating: 4/5

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (Gordon, 2007): Deceit, treachery, injustice—the world of competitive video gaming is filled with outrageous scandal. Or so The King of Kong would have us believe. Indeed, the film succeeds so well in exaggerating the drama of rivalry that I absolutely hate Billy Mitchell—the world Donkey Kong champion and “villain” of Gordon’s documentary. This is not to say that I unconditionally rooted for Steve Wiebe, the film’s “hero,” as he challenged Mitchell for the world record either. In fact, some of the most poignant moments of the film, I thought, were critiques leveled at the competitive gaming culture by Wiebe’s own children. Wiebe’s daughter remarks that she didn’t realize the Guinness Book of World Records was such a big deal, and he tells her that “a lot of people read that book.” Her response critiques the seriousness with which the film has us treat its subjects: “A lot of people ruin their lives trying to get into it too.” Even as the film critiques its subjects, though, we can’t seem to shake our investment in the dramas of gaming culture. When it comes down to it, it’s fun to submerge ourselves in that drama. So much so that after the film, I checked the Donkey Kong records on Twin Galaxies and was quite dismayed to see the title back under Mitchell’s name. Damn you, Kong! Rating: 3.5/5

Thursday/Friday – Foreign Films:

Withnail & I (Robinson, 1987)
Country: UK
Convinced by his roommate that they need to escape from their apartment—and the drug-induced ennui that goes with it—Withnail asks his Uncle Monty if they can stay in his cabin in the country for a while, but doesn’t realize that Monty will be dropping by unexpectedly. Will Marwood escape the clutches of Monty—a “raving homosexual”? Or will the Jake the poacher murder them all as they sleep? Watch as hilarity ensues. Thanks for the recommendation, Julia! Rating: 4/5

Chungking Express (Wong, 1994)
Country: Hong Kong
I finally got around to seeing this, and it’s simply beautiful. I’m not sure how to explain the beauty of this movie, but if you enjoy the visual and kinetic aspects of film (and aren’t too turned off by somewhat incoherent narratives), you should see it. My three favorite shots are: the pager clipped to the fence, the model airplane resting on the woman’s shoulder, and the flip-flop floating in the water. Out of context these probably don’t sound very enticing, and I’m likely not doing a good job of convincing you to see the film. But the film moves at such a rapid pace that when it slows down for a bit and lingers on a shot, it nearly takes your breath away. Rating: 4.5/5



4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (Mungiu, 2007):
Country: Romania
The story is simple, and the style minimalist, leaving viewers trapped in the dark mise-en-scene and unrelenting long takes to experience the horrors of life in Communist Romania along with the film’s two central characters—Gabita, a college student trying to procure an illegal and quite dangerous abortion, and her roommate Otilia, who takes care of all the gory details. If this sounds stark and depressing, it is, but in a very powerful and moving way. I wanted to be trapped in the world Mungiu creates longer and was disappointed when it ended. Rating: 4.5/5