This year at Sundance was a blur of films. We were able to take in almost 10 films in only 4 short days. The stand outs for me were "Boy" directed and starred in by the New Zealand producer who gave us "Eagle vs Shark." Another great film was "I am Here" a dramatic short we saw on Saturday morning directed by Spike Jonze that tells the story of two robots exploring selfless love and the extreme sacrifice it brings. Here is the list of films we saw followed by a brief description and my personal thoughts/opinions (for what they are worth).
1)The Man Next Store
WORLD CINEMA CINEMATOGRAPHY AWARD: DRAMATIC
Leonardo, a successful industrial designer, lives with his family in an architectural wonder, a midcentury Le Corbusier home. One morning, he wakes to an irksome noise and is appalled to discover that workmen next door are constructing a large window that faces directly into his home. Leonardo protests, using a number of excuses (privacy, building codes, his wife), in an attempt to coerce his neighbor, Victor, into scrapping his plan. But Victor just wants a patch of sun to catch some rays. Thus, one man’s light is another man’s blight.
Enamored of architecture, the film is meticulously designed. Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat give it a carefully crafted weirdness as well as a figurative quality. Its caustic humor comes in contemplating why the window completely undermines Leonardo. Does it reveal his arrogance, affectation, and lack of compassion; or dispel his bourgeois illusion of power? The Man Next Dooroffers a biting critique of moral shallowness—and what happens when thou dost not love thy neighbor’s window.
This film was beautifully shot, and although it began a bit on the slow side the characters develop and draw you in to afast paced emotionally charged ending. This film was a pleasant surprise for me full of heart and rich colorful characters.
2) Zoe/ODDSAC
Animal Collective’s music is a glittering mix of pop rock, experimental noise, and horror-movie soundtrack. Perez’s visuals mirror that, incorporating intense scenes of vampires, campfires, and screaming prophets to form themes and a distinct vision, rather than following a traditional plot and dialogue. The characters are interlaced with flicker effects that mimic pressure phosphenes, the magic colors produced by rubbing your closed eyes. A true physical experience, ODDSAC turns the theatre into a sensory submarine
ODDSAC is a journey into a landscape of intense, abstract visuals paired with a pulsing soundtrack provided by Animal Collective. If you are a fan of the bands earlier EPs then you will appreciate this soundtrack. They definitely bring out the shadows in this dark and moving body of work. The instensity that Perez and Animal Collective reach is held in balance by the tongue in cheek humorous at times horror sequences. This is a beautiful artistic not-for-the-faint-of-heart horror film.
3) Boy
It’s 1984, and Michael Jackson is king—even in Waihau Bay, New Zealand. Here we meet Boy, an 11-year-old who lives on a farm with his gran, a goat, and his younger brother, Rocky (who thinks he has magic powers). Shortly after Gran leaves for a week, Boy’s father, Alamein, appears out of the blue. Having imagined a heroic version of his father during his absence, Boy comes face to face with the real version—an incompetent hoodlum who has returned to find a bag of money he buried years before. This is where the goat enters.
Inspired by his Oscar-nominated short, Two Cars, One Night, Taika Waititi offers a charming, funny, and earnest coming-of-age story where everybody has some coming of age to do—particularly Alamein (affably played by Waititi himself). Never short on humor, Waititi’s story is ultimately about three boys (one grown) reconciling fantasy with reality.
Inspired by his Oscar-nominated short, Two Cars, One Night, Taika Waititi offers a charming, funny, and earnest coming-of-age story where everybody has some coming of age to do—particularly Alamein (affably played by Waititi himself). Never short on humor, Waititi’s story is ultimately about three boys (one grown) reconciling fantasy with reality.
Boy was by far my favorite film of Sundance this year. It had a way of disarming you with humor setting you up for the realities of growing up in a dysfunctional world. I enjoyed the themes of living up to ones potential and finding one's self in the midst of difficult circumstances. This was a warm and heartfelt movie, but never landed into cheesy territory it dealt with hard and sometimes sad topics, but kept a light heartedness through it all. I also really enjoyed the director of this film in the Q&A sessions, it was 8:30 in the morning and he was genuine and approachable which was refreshing.
4) Blue Valentine
Blue Valentine is an intimate, shattering portrait of a disintegrating marriage.
On the far side of a once-passionate romance, Cindy (Michelle Williams) and Dean (Ryan Gosling) are married with a young daughter. Hoping to save their marriage, they steal away to a theme hotel. We then encounter them years earlier, when they met and fell in love—full of life and hope.
Moving fluidly between these two time periods, Blue Valentine unfolds like a cinematic duet whose refrain asks, where did their love go? Framing the film as a mystery whose answer lies scattered in time (and in character), filmmaker Derek Cianfrance constructs an elegant set of dualities: past and present, youth and adulthood, vitality and entropy. The rigor of his process is visible throughout the film. Eliminating artificial devices, he has only the truth of the characters to work with. Because Gosling and Williams bring amazing intensity and emotional honesty to their roles, the experience of connecting to these two souls becomes truly moving.
On the far side of a once-passionate romance, Cindy (Michelle Williams) and Dean (Ryan Gosling) are married with a young daughter. Hoping to save their marriage, they steal away to a theme hotel. We then encounter them years earlier, when they met and fell in love—full of life and hope.
Moving fluidly between these two time periods, Blue Valentine unfolds like a cinematic duet whose refrain asks, where did their love go? Framing the film as a mystery whose answer lies scattered in time (and in character), filmmaker Derek Cianfrance constructs an elegant set of dualities: past and present, youth and adulthood, vitality and entropy. The rigor of his process is visible throughout the film. Eliminating artificial devices, he has only the truth of the characters to work with. Because Gosling and Williams bring amazing intensity and emotional honesty to their roles, the experience of connecting to these two souls becomes truly moving.
This movie was an absolute heart-breaker. Ryan Gosling did a great job portraying a man whose life is unravelling around him and has no clue how to keep it together. It was incredibly uncomfortable to watch him say and do the completely wrong thing over and over again, driving the nails deeper into the coffin of his terminal marriage. The juxtaposition between their falling in love and falling apart served the purpose well. You were constantly torn between the joy of discovery and the tearing apart of time. I have to say that I liked it, and at times hated it, but overall I left feeling like that was the point. It was a heart wrenching and un-resolving film and with that in mind, it was well made and beautifully painful.
5) Shorts Program 1
This is the one about love: love, greed, misery, and tearing the whole thing down. Yes, in it you will find a salacious proposition, some massive corruption, and a whole bunch of betrayal. Plus the xenophobia, the robots, and maybe also the end of civilization (or at least the part that's in Los Angeles). But through all of it, remember one thing: this is the one about love.
Seeds of the Fall | Patrik Eklund 2009
- I'm Here | Spike Jonze 2010
6) Please Give
Nicole Holofcener infuses her story of love, death, and liberal guilt with a rare balance of humor and complexity that stems from her uncanny ability to understand people—their motivations, interactions, and contradictions. Her characters go to great pains to navigate a world of moral confusion; we want to feel good about ourselves, but we never feel quite good enough. In avoiding judgment, she offers a funny and philosophical reflection on the give and take of modern life.
7) Exit Through The Gift Shop
In the late 1990s, a hybrid form of graffiti began appearing in cities around the world. Enlisting stickers, stencils, posters, and sculpture and spread by the burgeoning Internet, it would be labeled “street art” and establish itself as the most significant counterculture movement of a generation. Los Angeles–based filmmaker Terry Guetta set out to record this secretive world in all its thrilling detail. For more than eight years, he traveled with the pack, roaming the streets of America and Europe, the stealthy witness of the world’s most infamous vandals. But after meeting the British stencil artist known only as “Banksy,” things took a bizarre turn.
Sundance has shown films by unknown artists but never an anonymous one. Banksy turns the tables on the only man who has ever filmed him, creating a remarkable documentary that is part personal journey and part an exposé of the art world with its mind-altering mix of hot air and hype. In the end, Exit Through the Gift Shop is an amazing ride, a cautionary modern fairy tale . . . with bolt cutters.
Sundance has shown films by unknown artists but never an anonymous one. Banksy turns the tables on the only man who has ever filmed him, creating a remarkable documentary that is part personal journey and part an exposé of the art world with its mind-altering mix of hot air and hype. In the end, Exit Through the Gift Shop is an amazing ride, a cautionary modern fairy tale . . . with bolt cutters.
8) Awards Ceremony Reception
Blake Edwards scored us some tickets for the awards ceremony reception from a friend at the festival HQ. It was a fun night. I heard The Black Eyed Peas were there.
9) Space Tourists
Anousheh Ansari has dreamt of going into outer space since she was a child. A number of years and $20 million later, with the help of the Russian space program, her dream is realized—Ansari becomes the first female space tourist. In recent years, a number of private citizens like Ansari have been willing to endure rigorous training in Star City, Kazakhstan, and part with significant funds to spend time aboard the International Space Station.
Director Christian Frei (The Giant Buddhas, Sundance Film Festival 2006) explores the impact of space tourism in the heavens and on Earth by adeptly weaving together multiple strands: Ansari’s joyous experience in orbit; the efforts of local villagers to claim black-market rocket debris; the observations of photographer Jonas Bendiksen; and the training of the next space tourist in line. Space Tourists examines the intersections of human enterprise and commerce in the final frontier.
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