Day Three of the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas is winding to a close—some folks are still watching the final minutes of a midnight showing of the early cut of Sam Raimi’s latest as I write—but I’ve yet to post a word of coverage. Why, you ask? Well, even though I’m already 15 movies into the fest, before this post I had not a spare moment in which I felt like opening my laptop and banging out reviews. If you’re in Austin, chances are you’ve already decided on what you’re seeing, so the only purpose my coverage will serve is to offer recommendations to the masses when the movies are released theatrically. Given this, I’m content in finishing the reviews up at my own pace as the festival progresses and, as necessary, after it’s over. (After all, this is my Spring Break vacation.)
I’ve already caught a few of the festival’s big offerings—I Love You Man and Sin Nombre to name a couple—but you’ll have to wait for my reviews of those because I’m going to write about the movies in chronological order.
To start, I’ll post capsules on the five movies I caught on screener DVDs before leaving Los Angeles. They’re already quite relevant to you, the reader abroad, because distributor IFC is innovatively releasing them to cable OnDemand systems while the festival is on. Even if you aren’t in Austin, you’ll be able to play along with the rest of us and get a small taste of SXSW.
It’s easy to dismiss Joe Swanberg’s Alexander the Last as the kind of pointless exercise in anti-narrative moviemaking that only film-school students drool over, but I’ve never actually met a film-school student that might fall for such a dull effort. Swanberg, known for inconclusive and meandering micro-budget stories (Hannah Takes the Stairs, Nights and Weekends), here turns his camera on love he conveys to viewers as complicated by using a lot of long stretches without dialogue. Alexander (Teeth’s Jess Weixler) is a stage actress rehearsing for a racy play with co-star Jamie (Barlow Jacobs). Jamie doesn’t have a place to stay and bunks on Alexander’s couch while her husband (Justin Rice) is away playing in his band. This gives way to sexual tension, which is further complicated by the love triangle established when Alexander tries to set her sister Hellen (Amy Seimentz) up with Jamie.
The above description reflects far more narrative cohesion than anything you’ll see in the film itself. Yes, its skeleton is essentially what I’ve described, but the plot moves from Point A to Point B without any clear sense of purpose. Characters embody everyday situations that are painful to watch because they don’t provide the viewer with any insight into these people’s personalities. Generally, the reason to abandon a traditional narrative in the first place is to explore emotions outside the confines of an expected arc. Swanberg, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to show any regard for story or feeling, leaving Alexander the Last quite the empty experience. The one positive: it runs only 72 minutes. 1 Bucket out of 4. Screenings remain on Thurs., Mar. 14 at 11 a.m. at the Alamo Lamar and Sat., Mar. 21 at 11:30 a.m. at the Austin Convention Center.
In the first scene of Medicine for Melancholy, Micah (Wyatt Cenac) and Cassandra (Melissa Bisagni) wake up next to each other on the floor of a party where they apparently shared a drunken one night stand. She tells him a fake name and tries to push him away, but he still pursues her, talking her into coffee and then a cab ride home. She leaves her wallet in the cab. He finds out she’s made up the alias when he peaks at her I.D. He scours the streets of San Francisco to find her, and he does. She begins to take an actual interest in him, or is she just confused? They may end up spending another night together.
Medicine for Melancholy is ultimately held together by the connection between its leads. Wyatt Cenac and Melissa Bisagni make their characters’ ongoing episode—it seems inaccurate to call it a romance, although there are moments of supreme sexual tension—highly believable. And it’s this authenticity that keeps the viewer captivated by the characters, neither of whom is particularly likable or admirable. (Micah whines about class-oppression in native San Francisco while he voluntarily wastes away as a fish-tank installation-man and Cassandra freeloads off her always-out-of-town boyfriend.) The movie merely conveys a moment in time and catches the viewer up in said moment, resulting in a connection with the material that’s as unexpected as it is indefinable.
The only time the movie falters is when director Barry Jenkins indulges Michah’s socio-political beliefs too much, implying that he agrees with the character’s fringe viewpoints and thereby bringing the viewer out of the moment in making Medicine for Melancholy a statement-piece. Other than that, the experience is supremely captivating and, with beautiful grayscale cinematography infused with traces of color, a pleasure to gaze at. 3 Buckets out of 4.
Anchored by a virtuoso lead performance from newcomer Jeanne Kaspar, Joe Maggio’s Paper Covers Rock is such an effectively raw, intimate drama that you’ll never realize it was shot over a mere ten days for only $6,000. It opens shockingly—perhaps signaling a more exploitative movie that it thankfully never becomes—by showing a young girl getting herself ready for school in the morning, only to go to find her assumedly late-to-rise mother (Kaspar’s Sam) with a plastic bag taped around her head, barely alive. Fast-forward months later: Sam, still largely a mystery to the viewer, is leaving suicide-watch at a mental hospital to move in with her sister Ed (Sayra Player). She reveals many obsessive tendencies, namely folding saran wrap and storing it in her pockets. (Her sister manifests some of the same compulsions in different ways: her loft is in immaculate condition and she freaks when anything is dirty or out-of-place, providing Sam detailed instructions on how to fold up and store her pullout-bed sheets every morning.) The rest of the movie tracks Sam as she reintegrates into the world, sometimes encouragingly and sometimes painfully—trying to get along with Ed, to build relationships, and more than anything to reunite with her daughter on terms she can handle. Kaspar doesn’t provide any easy answers as to why Sam acts the way she does, but as viewers we can’t help but try to understand out of want for her to succeed. This sense of sympathy isn’t merely a trivial response to a woman in pain, either; Sam is depicted in complex fashion by Kaspar and the script and we can connect to the inherent authenticity because we know people like Sam are grappling with similar problems in the real-world. While Paper Covers Rock is technically proficient for a picture with such a small budget—certain shots are strikingly textured for digital—viewers will remember the film for its riveting central character. 3 Buckets out of 4.
Matthew Newton’s Three Blind Mice offers the latest take on the anti-Iraq War movie, this time an Australian portrayal of Sydney seamen pledged to the conflict. Unsurprisingly, the film is just as tired and cartoonish as most of the American projects on the topic, ineffectively attempting to leverage a ludicrous plot-point as a means of emotionalism and statement-making. Writer/director Newton, who also stars, first humanizes the central trio of sailors about to ship off to the Persian Gulf with off-putting, humorous small-talk. He only does so to lull viewers and thereby heighten the shock of a later conflict that recalls a scandalous act these characters were involved in. The result is the opposite of what Newton clearly intended; the revelation is handled in such a miscalculated and overwrought manner that it verges on laughable. As such, the film built around it proves neither effective as a drama nor a statement on the dehumanizing nature of modern warfare. The only bright moments come from Aussie actress Jody Kennedy, who is luminous as the obligatory supporting love-interest. When Kennedy is onscreen, one wishes Three Blind Mice had been about her character, which I suppose is a better reaction than that one has when she’s not: hoping the film will end. 1 ½ Buckets out of 4. Screenings remain on Sun., Mar. 15 at 5 p.m. at the Alamo Lamar; Tues., Mar. 17 at 10 p.m. at the Alamo Lamar; and Fri., Mar. 20 at the Alamo Ritz at 3 p.m.
Unlike its comparatively-heavy fellow IFC offerings, Javor Gardev’s Zift represents disposable entertainment at its finest. Sleekly shot in black-and-white that’s at once gritty and beautiful, the movie tells a complicated, Bulgaria-set 1960s story about recently freed prisoner Moth (Zachary Baharov), whose long-ago participation in a botched diamond heist puts him in danger now that he’s on the outside. The plot is cohesive enough to gel with the audience as it plays, but it won’t leave much of a lasting imprint. Nonetheless, the narrative’s forgettable nature can be forgiven because the movie’s stylized action is so impressively distinct. (Note to Guy Ritchie: the reason I don’t say this about your films is because the stories are incoherent to begin with.) Zift resembles a noir film of the 1940s—not-so-coinsidentally the time when Moth was sent to prison—but has quite a few modern visual tricks up its sleeve, a striking infusion on the part of cinematographer Emil Hristo. Adding to the stylistic bravura is Baharov’s great physical lead performance, which is particularly engrossing in the extended chase sequences. The opening credits of the film inform us that the title is slang for “shit,” making Zift one of the few occasions in which a movie not living up to its name is a good thing. 3 Buckets out of 4. One screening remains the night of Thurs., Mar. 19 at the Alamo Ritz at Midnight.
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It’s nearly three in the morning and in less than six hours, I’ve got to wake up for Day 4 of the festival, which for me begins with a “Super Secret Special Screening” at 11 a.m. Hopefully, tomorrow will allow me enough time to at the very least write about my first official day of SXSW, when I saw I Love You, Man and Exterminators. Until then, you’ve got Medicine for Melancholy, Paper Covers Rock, and Zift
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