Before revealing my Top Ten (of 31 films/programs) at the 2014 Wisconsin Film Festival, I need to tie up some loose ends. But if you’re tired of my blabbing after 10+ posts previewing or reviewing the Wisconsin Film Festival, feel free to skip to the list of all 31 films at the end of the post. The list provides links to my long and short reviews here at Madison Film Forum and at Isthmus/The Daily Page.
First, I mis-tweeted my film count, which I only mention because the Festival was kind enough to “Favorite” that tweet, so I want to make sure that endorsement is properly earned. My 17 films during the 10 days of the Festival by itself nearly meets my April quota for the 214 Club.
Second, I came close to writing at least something about all of the films that I previewed or attended during Festival week, so I want to say a few words about the remaining films. Domestic took me several days to write about, but 20,000 Days on Earth was churned out the morning it was posted, so I plan to revisit these after some time has passed to see which posts were effective and useful and which ones seem like filler. (Any positive or negative feedback would be much appreciated.) As I mentioned earlier, I want to revisit one of my favorite Festival films, Crimes Against Humanity, for a longer post in the near future. As you’ll see below, there are a few more films from late in the Festival that I will need to return to as well. But there’s only one film that I decided that I don’t want to bother writing about: Godfrey Reggio’s Visitors. Luckily, Sean Weitner’s review of Visitors hits many of the points that I would bring up if I took the time to do so.
Rat Pack Rat: Todd Rohal Selects»
I went into the screening with mixed expectations, because I had a mixed reaction to my preview of Rat Pack Rat, despite being a fan of Rohal’s The Guatemalan Handshake. But the program as a whole was easily one of the Top Ten programs of my Festival experience, as my eyes were opened to some filmmakers that I had never heard of, and two of the shorts were very interesting companion pieces to the Festival features by David Gordon Green (Joe) and the Zellner Brothers (Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter).
One highlight was Matthew Silver’s Mother & Son (1997) which played like a George Kuchar film on crack. Silver’s uncle and grandmother give manic but incredibly focused performances as Silver’s camerawork and editing creates a spellbinding rhythm. Apparently if you want more from Silver these days, you need to find him performing in a subway station around Union Square park. Both John Bryant’s Oh My God! (2005) and Mikey Goodwin’s Smashin’ It Up (2001) were one joke/one note short films, but the jokes were pretty damn good. Rohal points out that “no one dislikes” Oh My God!, and indeed it is hard to dislike a film with such genuinely playful comic energy. Smashin’ it Up, on the other hand, is like Harmony Korine’s Trash Humpers without any artistic pretense, just smashing fun.
The earlier work by two 2014 Festival filmmakers shows how the seeds for greatness can be found in similar one joke/one tone films. The success of Zellner Brothers’s Foxy and the Weight of the World (2005) depends in part on how funny you find a subtitled Scottish accent to be. But in it you can see the genesis of their combination of seriousness and absurdity that finds fuller form in Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter. David Gordon Green’s Will You Lather Up My Roughhouse? (1995) is exactly what it looks like: a student film class assignment. It reminded me of many Communication Arts projects shot in Studio D in Vilas Hall produced in the early 1990s. But as haphazard and unpolished it might be, you can also see Green’s budding interest in eccentric characters and loose, rhythmic quasi-improvised dialogue. It would be interesting to play scenes from Roughhouse next to scenes from Joe, like when Joe (Nicolas Cage) gives the butcher lesson, or when G-Dawg gets yelled at for slacking off work.
The entire program gave me a context to appreciate Rat Pack Rat much more than when I previewed it by itself. Watching it alone, I think the over-the-top Steve Little performance distracted me from how essential Eddie Rouse’s performance is for Rohal to create an interesting mix of tones. I’m usually not a fan of filmmaker-curated programs, but this one was well thought out in a way that illuminated each of the films.
Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter (2014, David Zellner, USA, 105 min)»
This is another post-weekend Top Ten film, so I hope to return to it for a more extended review in the near future. For now, let me just share some thoughts that might not fit into a conventional review when I get around to it.
Kumiko features many stylistic decisions that are deceptively simple. A key example would be Kumiko’s red hoodie, which is utilized to create several subtle staging and pictorial effects. My favorite was a long shot of Kumiko walking towards the camera in the middle of a crowded Tokyo sidewalk. This is a typical long-lens shot of a crowded sidewalk, so the space is flattened and it is hard to distinguish the actual distance between Kumiko and the camera. But we always know where she is, despite the fact that she is often obscured by the crowd, because it is very easy to pick out her red hoodie in the otherwise more reserved color pallette.
The Zellners push how far they can go with Kumiko making bad, selfish decisions but still make her completely sympathetic. In another kind of film, people would be yelling at the screen when she gets off the bus to walk in the Minnesota cold only wearing a hoodie. Perhaps we keep rooting for her because she is living in a dream logic that is similar to the one that organizes the film itself.
The best example of this is the way Kumiko decides to deal with her pet rabbit before leaving Japan for her quest in Minnesota. We have two or three emotional responses simultaneously as we watch her execute a very poorly thought out plan. This simply designed scene is funny, infuriating, and very sad all at once. Perhaps we don’t know how to respond to it because we can’t imagine anyone making a similar decision. Gently walking the line of verisimilitude, the scene simply takes us somewhere we never expect to be, which is often a starting point for great cinematic moments.
Dangerous Acts Starring the Unstable Elements of Belarus (2013, Madeleine Sackler, USA, 76min)»
This is a strong documentary, but it lacks one thing that for me undermined its effectiveness as a political documentary. It needed at least one interview, if not more, with audience members who might give a sense of how the performances of the Belarus Free Theater affected them. This seems more vital for the performances in the small space in Minsk, where we shots of audience members react to performances, but the audience members are never given a voice. Without this, the documentary feels like a one-way conversation when it could have conveyed how the community of the theater extends beyond the troupe itself.
The Dance of Reality (2013, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Chile, 130min)»
The last of my late-week screenings to make my Top Ten, so again I will return to this for a more formal review at some point. For now, I’ll just say that this was the most pleasant surprise of the Festival. It was not a surprise that I would like it, but it was a surprise that I was genuinely moved by it. Sure, Jodorowsky does pull out some shocking images from his old bag of tricks. But The Dance of Reality also introduces a gentle nostalgia and genuine affection that took me by surprise.
Jodorowsky is still a master of the concise, vivid, and wildly imaginative image. Without spoiling the moment, the best example of this is the death of Jodorowsky’s grandfather, which is surprising, audacious, violent, funny, and beautiful.
While Jodorowsky presents his family in very broad terms—his Stalin-wannabe Father insists on his son being manly in every way, and his amply-bosomed Mother operatically sings all of her lines—he also finds way to introduce some gentle affectionate moments. Jodorowsky himself appears occasionally behind his younger self, in a technique that might seem contrived in most other films (see image above). But here we see Jodorowsky drawing on his theater experience and understanding the impact that bodies moving together and touching can have. My favorite moment in the film is very simple and quiet: as young Jodorowsky looks out towards the sea, the older Jodorowsky guides his hands in a very simple series of dance-like movements. Jodorowsky’s voice over contemplates about the fact that the younger and the older selves can never truly know each other. It’s a lovely moment that broadens Jodoowsky’s filmmaking palette.
Sure, not all of the plot tangents are equally entertaining or interesting, and some of the violence seems gratuitous. But Jodorowsky’s stumbles here are more interesting and vibrant than many filmmaker’s successes, and I hope he won’t wait as long before he shares another vision with us.
Macaroni and Cheese (2013, Sophie Letourner, France, 75min)»
Macaroni and Cheese is a pretty harmless, entertaining romp through the world of film festival fuck buddies, where we learn that festivals are really all about sex. Sure, I, um, knew that. The good news is that the woman I was rooting for did indeed end up having sex at the film festival. The bad news is that we follow three women at the film festival. I’m not always convinced that the women like each other, let alone whether we’re supposed to like them. Your reaction of the film will likely be driven by your tolerance of the women, which is unfair to the skill with which director Letourner establishes and maintains a breezy, bouncy pace. Framing the plot as a flashback where the three women recall the stories that they seem to already know gets a bit irritating at times. But I would not turn down a press pass to their film festival next year.
Rich Hill (2014, Tracy Droz Tragos, Andrew Droz Palermo, USA, 91min)»
I previewed Rich Hill with the full intention of writing about it before the Festival began. But I still haven’t in part because I’m having trouble getting my head around my reaction to it. There’s no doubt that it is a fine film, and several friends have cited it as a favorite this week. But like many documentaries where there is an obvious social and economic gap between the subjects and the filmmakers, I sometimes felt uncomfortable with the degree to which the film aestheticized the conditions in which these kids live. And I’m not sure if the film has a clear position on the relationship between poverty and mental illness that seems so crucial to understand in some of the families. That said, the film does have many striking, memorable sequences, and more often than not it is completely heartbreaking. And without trying to do so, it is probably a more effective argument against fast food than Super Size Me ever hoped to be.
Jimbo’s 2014 Wisconsin Film Festival List, With Madison Film Forum and The Daily Page Links
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