Sundance 2010

DAY 1 -- COMIC TERRORISTS AND A HORRIFIC FATHER

My 8th year in a row at Sundance got started a bit late -- I missed the first 4 days. But I'm going to make the most of my 6 days here. I got lucky this time in the online ticket lottery with 10 movies I'm especially interested in (I rank all ?150 movies the best I can after reading their Sundance-inflated description, often neglecting the films I think are most certain to show up in theaters back in L.A.). And I don't hesitate to participate in the waitlist lines for 2-3 hours, although they've maintained last year's welcome innovation of giving the waitlist numbers out two hours before the screening so you can go relax somewhere for awhile before returning for another half hour of waiting to see if there's room. (Today, I got a nap in during that little interval! The new Temple Theater, a synagogue in real life, is right across the dangerous, dark, icy highway from the Catholic rectory where I stay. Bob, the pastor, is his usual hospitable self. There's another filmmaking priest staying here, Willie Raymond from Family Theater Productions, as well as two of his co-workers.)

Okay, but what did I actually see yesterday? First, a hilarious comedy about four terrorists called FOUR LIONS. They are jihadists (three Pakistani Brits and one Anglo), but they don't seem especially religious. And I was on the edge of my seat wondering if violence was really going to happen. If it does, can it still be funny? If it doesn't, will it ridiculously make light of the problem? Also unnerving are the scenes of the less buffoonish leader with his adoring boy and charming, liberated wife, who is blithely supportive of his suicide mission. Apparently director and co-write Chris Morris is a big hit in the U.K.

I'm glad the waitlist volunteer wasn't successful in talking me out of seeing DADDY LONGLEGS, which really wasn't far up on my list to begin with. From yet another pair of brothers, Benny and Josh Safdie (I recently saw the Dardenne brothers' last film Lorna's Silence, as well as Daybreakers and Book of Eli, by a couple other pairs of brothers), this movie's bumbling father was a simultaneously sympathetic and maddening character. This divorced father tries so hard to make the most of his limited time with his two young boys but unintentionally puts them in danger. The father is brilliantly, so convincingly played by Ronald Bronstein, a nonactor who made the film Frownland, a dark comedy so downbeat I just couldn't finish it. I don't know if I can say I enjoyed Daddy Longlegs, but it really got under my skin. Now that I think about it, one of the brothers introduced the movie by saying he hopes we "have a reaction." Oh, and the movie is semi-autobiographical. What was their father's reaction? He was pleased. And their mother somehow felt vindicated at the same time. Daddy Longlegs is also part of a new Sundance project that tours eight films and (simultaneously?) offers them video-on-demand.

For filmmakers: I also went to a panel discussion of filmmakers creating live events for their films. I thought it was going to be all filmmakers who are simply distributing their traditional, feature-length films by going on the road with them, making their screenings into events in some way and having extended Q&A sessions. But most of the panelists are actually performance artists of one kind or another. I don't see myself going that direction, but I am drawn to the idea of touring with my films. The director of For the Bible Tells Me So, a film about Christian parents finding out their son or daughter is gay, has personally screened his film at 80 colleges. And it's been shown at 5,000 churches! It turns out that if your film is a big hit at a church convention or college conference of some sort, word gets out.

DAY 2 -- TWO CASES OF DNA GONE AWRY

I saw one of the "Midnight" movies at noon and enjoyed it quite a lot. SPLICE is about a couple who's experiment with DNA goes awry. Lots of great twists and reversals. The clunky dialogue was a bit distracting, especially before the fun (and sometimes ?intentionally funny) craziness kicked in. A couple reversals were just too abrupt to be plausible, which keeps this morally probing horror flick from greatness. My hero Sarah Polley and the solid Adrian Brody give the film some heft. Vincenzo Natali is the writer/director. He was at Sundance over ten years ago with his very cool mindbender Cube.

ME TOO comes much closer to greatness. Speaking of DNA, it's about a Down's Syndrome university grad (played very naturally, intelligently, and often humorously by the world's only Down's Syndrome university grad) who falls for his co-worker, played by the glowing Lola Dueñas. This Spanish film has a touch that reminds me of Almodovar's Talk To Her, one of my all-time favorites: both films incorporate dancing performances beautifully. Me Too uses performances from a real live company that includes dancers with Down's Syndrome. The film is by yet another duo: Alvaro Pastor and Antonio Naharro share both writing and directing credits. One of them cast his sister with Down's Syndome in a supporting role, and she was quite good. I didn't get to sit with my dear acting and directing teacher Deborah Lemen because her combo bus and running trek got her to the theater a little late, but she loved the film as well. She told me about an 8-year-old student of hers who never speaks publicly was able to get up and perform a scene in class the other day.

I was going to wait for the 8:30 p.m. movie in the same theater, but was able to get in the next (5:30) show instead. Wrong choice. OBSELIDIA is a talky, preachy film with self-congratulatory cleverness. It wasn't an unpleasant experience: a fairly charming couple in beautiful Death Valley. But I was bored with its need to convince me that we need to save the planet, that we also need to live each moment fully in case we don't save the planet, and that when something is loved it doesn't go obsolete. Great ideas. Not much of a movie. (Post script: Obselidia won the prize for science screenplay. Science lecture, maybe. Why not Splice, the DNA thriller?)

After that preachy film, I waited for that 8:30 film, the much lauded Winter's Bone, about an Ozark teenager's quest to save her family. The couple with waitlist numbers 77&78 were really upset they lost their place in line because they didn't return a half hour before the film started, but they were finally able to walk away peacefully when they realized their numbers weren't good enough anyway. I hope I didn't get your hopes up, but I didn't even have a number, so I also didn't get in. But in line I enjoyed chatting up an Irish couple. His brother is the producer of HIS & HERS, a series of interviews with 70 females of all ages from the Irish Midlands about their relationships with males. Sounds delightful. (Postscript: His & Hers won the world doc cinematography award.)

DAY 3 -- HEADACHES, HATE, AND HURT -- WITH HUMOR


In FIX ME, Palestinian documentarian Raed Andoni follows his philosophical quest to free himself of his "tension headache" through art therapy and conversations with family, friends, and fellow political prisoners from his youth. The moments of offbeat humor (especially from his mother) bring great insight but came too infrequently to keep me awake during this fascinating, meditative piece. A great look at a Palestinian's attempts at defining himself beyond the war with Israel.

LOVERS OF HATE has fun moments, especially when the lead character sneaks around the house where his estranged wife is having a dalliance with his brother. But I didn't like any of the characters, who were all so self-interested. Note to filmmakers: Before the screening, one of the actors was handing out cool little booklets of interviews and sketches that he'd put together himself.

3 BACKYARDS is Eric Mendelsohn's pretty successful experiment in using atmosphere and mood to get inside the experience of one day in the lives of a little girl, an estranged husband, and a bored woman. Edie Falco is terrific in her highly awkward scenes with her town's visiting movie star. Mendelsohn said in his highly articulate Q&A that he was trying to do a kind of nature documentary about people (it's not a documentary). But the filmmaker's hand was a bit heavy with a couple too many nature montages with the otherwise satisfyingly assertive and evocative score. (Postscript: Mendelsohn won the U.S. dramatic directing award.)

BLUE VALENTINE rides on the gut-wrenching performances of two of my favorites, Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams. (I believe I wrote in my Sundance journal a couple years ago, after seeing Half Nelson, that Ryan Gosling is a god.) The film takes us through a couple days in the life of a struggling couple. Filmmaker Derek Cianfrance successfully uses an old device (which I don't want to give away) in an extensive way to deepen our understanding and experience of these people. But in a way the film was the beginning and end, without the middle -- just what is the couple's main challenge? But that's sort of what the movie is about -- their lack of clarity about their challenges and their inability to communicate about it. It was during Sundance last year that Heath Ledger died. I'm assuming this film was shot before that, because I can't imagine Michelle Williams being able to immerse herself in this role right after the father of her child died so suddenly and tragically.

DAY 4 -- ABORTION AND ABORIGINES

I had eagerly anticipated 12TH AND DELAWARE, about an abortion clinic and anti-abortion center directly across the street from each other. The counselors at both places were inadequately trained. The Catholic anti-abortion counselor takes advantage of the appearance of pregnant girls and young women who mistakenly think they're at the abortion clinic. She keeps them in her office for hours, trying to get them to reconsider and giving them an ultrasound that ends with the screen message "Hi, Mommy and Daddy." While this counselor manipulates these girls and women to save the child, the counselor on the other side of the street, while perhaps less ideological and faithfully asking her clients if they're sure they want the abortion and aren't being pushed into it, seems a bit too eager to relieve their anxiety with an abortion.

An L.A. Times interview seemed to indicate that filmmakers Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing were heavily biased against the anti-abortion center, with its manipulation of the clients. Indeed, they set out to document only the anti-abortion center but decided that some coverage of the abortion clinic was needed. But I believed they were sincere when they said that they have even more questions than they started with. At any rate, they somehow achieved amazing access to the counseling sessions.

Not a lot of art here, and a bit of melodrama, especially with the constant appearance of the inexplicably noisy, bright yellow Mustang to "inconspicuously" transport the abortion doctor, covered by a white sheet. There is also coverage of the protestors outside the abortion clinic, who are sometimes joined by the anti-abortion counselor. The lost soul, tough-guy protestor and stalker of the doctor disappears as suddenly as he showed up. The filmmakers suspect he fell off the wagon.

On the thankfully much lighter side, BRAN NUE DAE is a wacky musical comedy following teenage Australian Aborigine Willie's escape from a German-run seminary and his attempt to get back to his true home and true love. Mostly quite fun and has some decent music and dancing, but it's a bit episodic. Director and co-writer Rachel Perkins is apparently known for her political documentaries about Aborigines. She deftly includes a bit of political in the midst of the wacky. We went out singing: "There's nothing I would rather be than to be an Aborigine."

DAY 5 -- PRAYER AND PARANOIA

I scored a ticket to Jessica Hausner's LOURDES, the film I most wanted to see because the catalogue promised a sophisticated and sometimes humorous look at this fictional young woman's brief stay at the famous Catholic healing site. And it delivered. The young woman, a quadriplegic, says she goes on these pilgrimages mostly to get out and that she prefers the more cultural destination like Rome. The thorough questioning by the characters about the nature of miracles and healing would have been a good model for the writers of the preachy Obselidia. The ending of Lourdes is frustratingly, marvelously ambiguous, inviting the audience to continue discovering the truth of these people and miracles. A terrific lead performance by Sylvie Testud. This is my favorite film so far. (By the way, there is a presumably agreed-to cameo by Los Angeles' Cardinal Mahony leading benediction.) (Postscript: SYMPATHY FOR DELICIOUS, which won actor Mark Ruffalo a special directing jury prize, is also about healing: recently paralyzed DJ "Delicious" Dean turns to faith healing and gets more than he bargained for.)

Johan Grimonprez' DOUBLE TAKE is a kind of art, documentary, fiction piece all in one. It juxtaposes footage from the Cold War and Hitchcock films. But it doesn't stop there. The film makes Hitchcock himself a character. Accompanied by a very clever voiceover that sounds quite a bit like the man himself, he comes face to face with his double and can't remember if you're supposed to kill your double or if your double is destined to kill you. Is it the same dilemma when Nixon meets Khrushchev, when the U.S. meets the U.S.S.R.? Although I dozed a bit (probably partly because it was the middle of the afternoon), Double Take is fascinating.

I preached at the evening mass 1 Sundancians 13, about the struggle to love that I've seen in the movies this year.

DAY 6 -- FOUR!!! AWARD-WINNING FILMS

The last day's screening of the award-winning films is always my favorite day of the festival. I had tickets to all four screenings at the big Eccles theater. None of the filmmakers were still in town for Q&A, but it was still a very rewarding day, bringing my two favorite films of the festival.

David Michod's ANIMAL KINGDOM from Australia became my new favorite. It won the jury prize for best world dramatic film. It's a slow-burn suspense story about an orphaned, aimless teen taken in by his drug-dealing uncles. Will he find his spine and stand up to them? The last twenty minutes are hugely compressed and jumble chronology in order to dole out the information in an even more suspenseful way (and it is very suspenseful), so I had to talk it through with a few folks after to make full sense out of it. The performance by Jacki Weaver as the boy's grandmother is extraordinarily rich.


RESTREPO won the jury prize for best U.S. documentary. It accompanies a small troop of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan and follows up with the survivors. While the interviews of the traumatized soldiers back at home are important and moving, especially the montage of their sad, lost faces accompanied by guitar music (played by their dead soldier Restrepo?), and while the interviews of the soldiers while they're in Afghanistan are also interesting, the most enlightening scenes are of the soldiers interacting with each other during rest, work, and battle. The doc doesn't have as strong a narrative thread as I would have liked, and it isn't particularly artful (the main reasons I prefer fiction films in general), so I suspect the jury was trying to make a political statement with this award. But what's the statement? I suspect the film will be liked by anti-war and pro-war viewers both. It might have helped that one of the filmmakers is pretty high profile, Sebastian Unger, who wrote The Perfect Storm.

I was so glad to have the chance to see Debra Granik's WINTER'S BONE since I'd been hearing so much praise for it. And I wasn't disappointed. It became my second favorite. It won the U.S. dramatic jury prize. An Ozark teen who has to raise her little brother and sister and take care of her emotionally unstable mother fiercely marches through the woods from one scary relative's shack to another to find her crank-cooking father and make sure he shows up for court because he put their house up against his bail bond. I suppose I made that sound almost silly and cliché, but young Jennifer Lawrence's strong performance and the gradual escalation of the stakes had me on the edge of my seat. The supporting actors look awfully convincing as rugged woods people. (The military actually comes off pretty good in the balance when a recruiting officer gives the girl -- only 17, but eligible with parent permission -- the straight scoop on the $40,000 signing bonus and encourages her to carry on with her difficult task of taking care of her family.)

The audience favorite in the U.S. dramatic category: happythankyoumoreplease -- but since I've been putting the names of the films in all caps, HAPPYTHANKYOUMOREPLEASE. It's a delightful and often quite clever romantic comedy about three friends looking for love, but a central implausibility and a few lesser ones, as well as the less interesting and less connected third story, make it far from an award-winning film for my taste. It was nice to see the very appealing actress Malin Ackerman go beyond her typical cutesy. And writer/director Josh Radnor is also enjoyable as the lead.



My ranking of the films I saw, beginning with my favorite (I liked all but the last two):
1. Animal Kingdom
2. Winter's Bone
3. Lourdes
4. Me Too
5. Four Lions
6. Blue Valentine
7. 3 Backyards
8. Splice
9. Fix Me
10. Daddy Longlegs
11. 12th and Delaware
12. Restrepo
13. happythankyoumoreplease
14. Bran Nue Dae
15. Double Take
16. Lovers of Hate
17. Obselidia

Films I'd still like to see:
Armless
Bilal's Stand
Boy
Buried
Catfish
Contracorriente (Undertow)
The Dry Land
The Extra Man
Family Affair
Freedom Riders
Frozen
Grown Up Movie Star
Hesher
His & Hers
Holy Rollers
Howl
The Imperialists Are Still Alive
The Killer Inside Me
The Man Next Door
The Oath
The Perfect Host
Please Give
A Prophet
Son of Babylon
Tucker & Dale vs. Evil
Welcome to the Rileys
Women Without Men

Others I might like to see:
All My Friends Are Funeral Singers
The Company Men
Douchebag
Enter the Void
The Freebie
Get Low
I Am Love
Jack Goes Boating
The Last Train Home
Lucky
New Low
Nowhere Boy
Nuummioq
The Red Chapel
The Runaways
The Shock Doctrine
Southern District
Sympathy for Delicious