Josh: We’re well past the halfway point in the moviegoing marathon that is SIFF. Amazingly, I don’t think that any of us overlapped in our selection; so let’s start the check-in on a high-note. What’s at the top of your list from Week Two?
Tony: By relative accident, nearly everything I saw this SIFF block was genre-related, but the one non-genre film I caught last week was absolutely my favorite so far. Uncertain, the feature debut of Seattle-based filmmakers Ewan McNicol and Anna Sandilands, weaves its story of three residents of a small Texas town with the grace and slowly mounting drama of a narrative feature. I’ve already prattled on about its brilliance elsewhere in detail, so I’ll only try to touch on something I didn’t really mention initially—namely, its incredible visual beauty (co-director McNicol also served as cinematographer). When the camera first glides through the mist-enshrouded swamps of Uncertain’s epicenter Caddo Lake with fluid, haunting elegance, you’ll fully understand why the press materials name-check Terrence Malick: It’s that gorgeous to look at.
Chris: A film that made me uneasy, but in a good way, is The Automatic Hate. It is the second feature film from Justin Lerner, and it’s my favorite film I’ve seen thus far at SIFF. I’m eager to share my interview with Lerner and screenwriter Katharine O’Brien (likely sometime next week). The film centers around two cousins (played by Joseph Cross and Adelaide Clemens) who only recently found out about each other’s existence, but develop a mutual attraction for each other. A family secret has kept their fathers estranged for decades and Cross’s Ronald had no idea his father even had a brother. It’s a really riveting film that works as a family drama, a mystery because the two cousins try to find out what the family secret is, and as a love story. Did I mention that the great Ricky Jay plays one of the brothers? And Richard Schiff plays the other?
Josh: Improbably, Noah Baumbach released two new comedies this year; but given my enduring fondness for his films, it’s not a surprise that one of them is among my winners of the week. While We’re Young was good, Mistress America is even better. As in Frances Ha, this one reaps immense benefits from Greta Gerwig’s manic wit and irrepressible energy (both in front of the camera and in writing the screenplay), inhabiting a slightly different kind of thirties-adjacent adult in New York trying to will herself into success through sheer will, unfounded optimism, and a borderline delusional degree of faking it until you make it. Viewed through the eyes of her soon-to-be-stepsister, a new-to-the-city college freshman and literary misfit, her character takes on simultaneously heroic and tragic dimensions in a farce that’s nevertheless grounded in the reality of interpersonal relationships and the different kinds of emotional crises that arise around each decade of life. ( 5⭐️)
Chris: I’ve seen a small handful of SIFF films thus far, but the one I’ve been thinking about the most, and the one that has me most conflicted, is License to Operate. I went to the world premiere screening, which was introduced by Seahawks coach (and executive producer, plus he is featured in the film) Pete Carroll, which was its own blessing and curse. I was glad that it brought so many people to SIFF on a Tuesday night but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a theater so full of people so disinterested in seeing a film.
License to Operate concerns the creation of liaisons in Los Angeles that are made up (largely) of former gang members that work with law enforcement and community leaders to reduce violence in their communities on a personal level. It has proven to be very effective. In detailing this, LTO is quite inspiring and could serve as a model for similarly affected communities. The film clearly has its heart in the right place. But License to Operate goes out of its way to not discuss any of the historical or socioeconomic factors that led to the proliferation of gang and other forms of violence in LA. It may not be a focus of the film, but by being so indifferent to how LA got to that point, it continues to let those business and political and police leaders responsible off the hook. Read this and you’ll understand what I mean. Gary Webb already died for our sins, but need it continue to be in vain?
Josh: My SIFF has been light on documentaries, but the two that I saw this week were both very good. In The Act of Killing, Joshua Oppenheimer filmed leaders of death squads as they re-enacted, genre-style, the killings of ‘communists’ following Suharto’s overthrowing of the Indonesian government. The Look of Silence covers the same territory, from the other side: an optometrist whose brother’s savage murder was gleefully described in the previous film, goes on a quest to look into the eyes of the (literally) bloodthirsty killers and their enablers. Spoiler: he finds no remorse and few excuses. Chilling. (4⭐️)
On an entirely lighter note 808 is a valentine to a drum machine with outsized influence across decades of music. Interviews with almost everyone (unsurprisingly, Kanye never appears to expound on 808s and Heartbreak) who used the Roland TR-808 to great musical success also document the ways that new technologies spread through (and create) multiple interconnected genres. The stories — covering pioneering use by Afrika Bambaataa, the revitalization of Marvin Gaye’s post-Motown, Phil Collins’s love of its robotic consistency, all the way to modern EDM figures — are great. But just as all of the stories start to sound the same, Ad-Rock and Mike D from the Beastie Boys show up and attempt to relate a story about how Adam Yaunch reversed the beats for “Paul Revere”. Their dopily confused arguments and misunderstandings had me rolling in the aisles. (3.5⭐️)
I also saw a couple of fictional takes on reality that honestly might have been better served by an actual documentary. Alleluia is a Belgian update on the Honeymoon Killers (itself, inspired by the true story of the “lonely hearts killers“). This time, online dating brings together a grifting gigolo & a possessive psycho for a murderous match made in hell. Shot in stylishly grainy available light, the movie features a few gory twists and strong weirdo acting, but I’m not sure that I ever believed in any of the characters. (3⭐️) Similarly, I Am Michael, in fell a little flat, perhaps due to the slippery nature of its subject. It’s not entirely clear that Michael Glatze — who goes from a young gay activist to an ex-gay, conversion-therapy-espousing pastor — ever has a complete handle on what makes Michael Glatze tick, so maybe it’s too much to expect that writer/director Justin Kelly or James Franco (who looks the same age despite the two decades that pass in the film and often seems to be relying on Joey Tribbianiesque smell acting) could get a complete handle on this deeply conflicted self-contradictory figure. (2.5⭐️)
Tony: An accidental trip to the wrong venue put me squarely in the middle of a screening of Overheard 3, the third in a series of action thrillers directed by Alan Mak and Felix Chong. It’s reputedly not necessary to see the first one to follow this third installment, but I entered it about 10 minutes late, which may account for my disorientation with the film’s dense narrative. Basically, a recently-sprung ex-con helps betray his former boss via surveillance set up by another boss, and there’s some stuff with labor unions…or something like that. It says a lot that, despite being alternately overstuffed and undercooked in the characterization department, it rocked most mightily. Mak and Chong (the writing team behind Infernal Affairs, the Hong Kong crime flick lifted by Martin Scorsese for The Departed) rocket things along with a style that incorporates the splashy pop-art color of 60’s-era Japanese Yakuza cinema, luminescent 80’s gloss, gut-level CGI-free car stunts, and not one second of gunplay (!). Color me kinda dazzled.
Josh: In terms of wandering into films with low expectations, I enjoyed Yosemite, adapted from James Franco’s short fiction and featuring him as a single father taking his sons for a hike in the park, a bit more. In three interlinked vignettes with exquisite early 1980s period detail (Star Wars bedsheets, an insomniac dad firing up a loud modem to chat on The Well, calculator watches) the menace of an encroaching mountain lion on the ever-expanding Palo Alto suburbs pales in comparison to the quiet dread of observing unsupervised tween boys on their own in the world. (3.5⭐️)
Theeb provided a stark contrast in terms of setting, pace, and stakes. For the boys of Yosemite, “on their own” constitutes unsupervised playtime between school and dinner. In Theeb, though, it’s an entirely more serious matter: Bedouin brothers escorting an errant English soldier through the dangerous desert of the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Facing the terrain, raiders, and revolutionaries, they get into a real pickle. Despite being a movie with a kid at its center, the consequences are very real and no one pulls any punches. It feels like a very old fashioned kind of adventure filmmaking with beautifully photographed locations, harsh desert justice, a horrifying amount of swarming flies, and good acting (from the kid to the camels). (3.7⭐️)
Tony: The only midnighter I caught Memorial Day Weekend was The Astrologer, and honestly I’m still processing what the fuck I saw. The movie’s a self-made 1976 vanity project written, directed by, and starring reputed Astrologer to the Stars Craig Denney. For fans of total oddities, it’s an absolute must. The very meta story follows an astrologer who becomes an international superstar after his movie about an astrologer becomes a giant hit, and Denney demonstrates an incompetence so consistent it crosses over into the realm of cockeyed genius. As a director, he augments his fairly routine rags-to-riches story with heaps of truly WTF touches—rib-tickling dialogue (“You’re not an Astrologer—you’re an asshole!”), an hilariously over-and-under-emoting amateur cast, and constant misguided attempts at experimentation (one five-minute dinner scene unspools in slow motion, the payoff being the spectacle of Denney being doused with a glass of water in lugubrious slo-mo). God help me, I wanna see it again.
Seattle-based producer Brent Stiefel’s name is on a few movies this SIFF, including two of the genre offerings I saw. Circle chronicles the attempts of a group of reluctant prisoners in a darkened room as they try to figure out why an energy bolt is killing one of their number every two minutes. Before too long, they figure out that they can vote on who lives and who perishes, which invariably leads to human nature turning ugly. Yeah, it’s 12 Angry Men and The Twilight Zone sitting on a picnic bench with Cube, but if its characterizations are a little one-note in places, it more than delivers the goods in the tension department. Bonus points for an ending that’s genuinely creepy (even if it’s not entirely unpredictable).
The other Stiefel-produced effort, John Portanova’s Valley of the Sasquatch, follows an estranged father and son to their shanty cabin, where they, said father’s brother, and a jerkweed pal (David Saucedo) are beset upon by a pack of very pissed Sasquatch. The October People (a 2/3 local production company) has made a rep for themselves doing B movies the way they should be made–you know, with some thought to character and quality on a low budget. The characters in this one aren’t as strong as those in The October People’s previous efforts (The Invoking and The Device), but the actors do really good work, Portanova knows how to build suspense, and the movie fully recognizes the value in throwing down the violent Bigfoot retribution with gusto.
Josh: My “genre” offerings were a little more limited. The most bonkers thing I saw was Turbo Kid, which felt like a homemade take on Mad Max, except on BMX bikes and set in the retro-future year of 1997. It felt like two national governments somehow decided to fund a troupe of cosplayers to make post-apocalyptic adventure and most of the budget was split evenly between drugs and geysers of charmingly fake blood. It was funny, but might have been hilarious as a short. (3⭐️) On the far other end of the spectrum: Vincent was a brilliantly executed, if intentionally low-key, French take on the superhero genre that highlights the absurdity of basing a franchise around a strong swimmer. Très charmant, with lots of practical effects from the acrobatic director, who also played the title role. (4⭐️)
Tony: Missing Turbo Kid and Vincent broke my heart. The best genre-film work I saw all week, however, turned out to be Shrew’s Nest, an engrossing thriller set in 1950 Franco-era Spain. Two sisters living in a flat together take in an injured young man, but agoraphobic older sister Montse (Macarena Gomez) has a really, really, really hard time letting him go. Any more kibitzing would broach spoiler turf, but suffice it to say Shrew’s Nest is a dark treat. Co-directors Juan Fernando Andres and Esteban Roel build the creepiness up with surprising restraint (the last 15 gloriously over-over-the-top minutes notwithstanding), and leading lady Gomez gives a bravura performance that combines Bette Davis crazy-woman hysterics with surprising sympathy.
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