Film & TV

What Did You See at SIFF This Weekend?

 

Believe it or not, with Memorial Day behind us, we are now a full twelve days into SIFF, sitting right at the midpoint of the fest. All of us here at The SunBreak weigh in with our picks and pans of the films shown at the festival over the weekend.

Before heading to Sasquatch, Josh checked out Senior Prom: a high school movie by high schoolers, which received a hero’s welcome at its world premiere. “A” for effort.  (June 1, 4:30 p.m. @ SIFF Cinema)

Morgen saw Every Day, a very real look into dealing with elderly parents and how that brings out the midlife crisis in all of us. Throw in a gay son and a job writing for a raunchy tv show with over-sexed coworkers, and you’ve got a recipe for a dark, tearjerker drama.  (June 11, 7 p.m. @ Kirkland Performance Center)

Tony: Friday’s Midnight Adrenaline presentation of RoboGeisha packed the Egyptian and gave that crowd all the blood, guts, hyperkinetic action, and over-the-top absurdity it could’ve asked for. For once, the trailer doesn’t even come near capturing all the pulp looniness on display. (June 8, 10 p.m. @ the Neptune)  Speaking of Midnight Adrenaline, I saw the Belgian giallo-inspired fever dream Amer for a second time, and its sensory-stimulating, color-saturated pocket universe was even better the second time around. I’m officially in love.

 
Also took in three solid-to-great music docs: The gospel overview Rejoice and Shout was rough going for its first 15 over-preachy minutes, but the treasure trove of archival clips from early pioneers like The Swan Silvertones, Mahalia Jackson, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe more than made up for it. Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould painted an intriguing but naggingly incomplete portrayal of classical music’s most charismatic mad genius. Best of all was Wheedle’s Groove, Jennifer Maas’ joyful and loose-limbed examination of Seattle’s overlooked funk and soul scene of the 1970s.
 
Last but certainly not least is Marwencol, another great documentary. It’s about the victim of a near-fatal, memory-wiping assault, and his attempts to exorcise his demons by constructing an intricate pulp WWII world entirely from GI Joe toys. What could be sniggering or condescending becomes surprisingly affecting and inspiring thanks to director Jeff Malmberg’s compassionate but level-headed touch.

Audrey:  Of course, Cane Toads: The Conquest was just as informative and fun as expected, with great campy use of amphibian-centric 3D.  Meanwhile, to call Winter’s Bone “stark” is a vast understatement.  Debra Granik’s Ozark drama feels organic and real, and is definitely amongst the best I’ve seen at SIFF this year.  On the other hand, When We Leave is probably my least favorite film at SIFF thus far, but that’s not because it’s poorly made.  Blame in medias res.

Life During Wartime is typical Todd Solondz: uncomfortable and molestery.  A quasi-sequel to Happiness (with different actors in all the roles), it won’t win sad-sack Solondz a mainstream audience, but if you’re already a fan, it should keep you awkwardly satisfied. Brownstones and Red Dirt is a documentary about the pen pal friendship that develops between kids in middle schools in Sierra Leone and Brooklyn.  These are children way too familiar with violence, who nonetheless continue to reach out to the world and each other. The Dancer and the Thief is ostensibly a heist movie, but by the time you’ve gotten to the heist it’s almost an afterthought, compared to seeing the dancer put poetry in motion.  (June 4, 4 p.m. @ the Neptune; June 9, 9:15 p.m. @ the Neptune)

MVB: Night Catches Us is an indie film portrait of black life in Philly in ’76, focusing on families dealing with recent Black Panther past, and the promise of middle class integration. Shot in only 18 days, it’s mostly successful and affecting, though a little pat in a covering-all-the-bases, costume-drama way.

Establishing an outpost named Restrepo (named for a KIA unit member), perched above the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan, is the signal accomplishment of an Airborne unit before they cycle out. This crazily dangerous documentary seems to feature daily firefights, and stays mainly with a grunt POV. For them, the war’s goal is securing a road’s safety, but you also see the boys learning to kill. (No future festival showings, but it’s opening in theaters in Seattle come July.)

An Iraq War vet returns to Texas with amnesia and PTSD in The Dry Land, which becomes a buddy movie for about a third, and James and a combat buddy road trip to check on a third member of their unit still in Walter Reed. Flashes of humor, but the moral that the soul-destroying effects of war can’t be put off just by returning home is not exactly news. 

The Trotsky is essentially Rushmore transplanted to Montreal, Quebec. The twist is that the lead character believes he’s Trotsky reincarnated, so there’s tons more social activism and Marxist history, as he goes about reeducating his apathetic new public schoolmates. Hidden in the Wes Anderson homage is a more serious movie about the cost of revolution. (May 31, 5:30 p.m. @ Everett Performing Arts Center)

The over-heated documentary Gerrymandering takes on redistricting reform. While it certainly makes the case that politicians can redraw voting maps too easily to suit themselves, it doesn’t present a clearly compelling reform option. I didn’t get how a “non-partisan” redistricting board would actually become or stay that way, for instance. Too many anecdotes from 30-second talking heads, and over-caffeinated editing let me laugh more than think.