Sound of Violence (2021) SXSW 2021

When Alexis was ten she regained her hearing in the aftermath of a family murder. Two decades later, as she works at a college and works on her experimental music Alexis finds she is addicted to the sound of violence since it triggers a physical reaction with in her.

For the early part of its running time SOUND OF VIOLENCE is a deeply disturbing film. The story of a young woman chasing her own sort of high it takes us into places most films have never done before. By placing a seemingly normal young woman at the center of the action the film asks us to ponder the various things we all do to get an endorphin rush. Films don't usually give us young women, especially young woman of  color, as killers in the realm of Hannibal or Jigsaw. They are victims not perpetrators. I was bothered because all my years of cinema going had me thinking one way.

Unfortunately as the film moves along, and especially into the second half things get out of control as director Alex Noyer jumps from real world violence and into the realm of Jigsaw from the SAW franchise. Noyer missteps as he gives us musical kill machines that are just suddenly there and an ending that is completely off the WTF table.(And he never explains how she could afford or have to build these machines of death when she is poor and always pressed for time) Nover makes a series of really bad moves that takes the stunning early turns and throws them out the window. What was a unique and brilliant horror film becomes a silly badly done retread. 

As much as the second half disappoints SOUND OF VIOLENCE is might be worth a look, if only for it's use of an unexpected killer and a chilling first third.

See You Then (2021) SXSW

Pooya Mohseni and Lynn Chen are excellent as the former lovers who looking for different things in Mari Walker's thought provoking "two" hander.

Years after  abandoning Naomi and after she transitioned Kris reaches out to her her old girlfriend to try to talk about what happened between them. What follows is a night of more and more intimate discussions.

This is an evening of uneasy travel for everyone as the conversation of the shared past gives way to revelations of real pain. Along the way there is plenty of discussion regarding being trans, being male versus being female, relationships, art, family as well as many other things. Its a heady mix that makes you think while it moves your emotions. 

This isn't an easy film. A great deal of this film clearly comes from a real place. There is a sense that some of the conversations aren't made up, but transcriptions of things that happened. You know things are going to be tough from the outset as we see things are awkward to start. Neither of the women has seen each other in years and ty aren't sure how to start. Things get occasionally difficult as long ago events are brought up as a means of trying to find a better connection but they are revealed to be a sore spot. And then things get worse as long buried emotions and secrets come to light. I felt rocked.

Despite running a seemingly brief 75 minutes I came out of SEE YOU THEN feeling as if I'd been with the two women the whole evening. There is a great deal here and to be honest I know I need to go through the film another time or two to catch it all. This is a film that is a full meal.

While I really like the film a great deal and I love the sense that we are watching series of moments in time, I would like to quibble with one thing and that is the film tries a little too hard to get every possible revelation into the film before the end credits. I think my quibbling is not so much with what happens but how it happens  with the final pieces seemingly more  stage managed into happening just then.

Quibble aside SEE YOU THEN will rock you. Recommended at SXSW or wherever you can see it.

Brief word on We Are As Gods (2021) SXSW

This is a look at  Stewart Brand founder of the modern environmental movement, one of Ken Kesey's merry pranksters and creator of the the Whole Earth Catalog. We follow his story from childhood to  his present attempts to clone extinct animals.

This is a good look at a man who influenced  our world but who most people have no knowledge. Its a loving portrait of a man who just wants  to make to the world a better place.

I suspect this is going to end up on PBS 

Fruits of Labor (2021) SXSW 2021

FRUITS OF LABOR is a great film about the daughter of immigrant farmers struggling to finish high school as ICE raids increase  in her neighborhood, threating her family and her desire to go to college. 

I really loved this film a great deal. 

This is a wonderfully a typical film that isn’t like similar films which tend to be a bit distant and more about issues than people. FRUITS is firmly about the people, with subject Ashley Solis listed as a writer on the film. The result of this is we fall in love with them with everyone on screen because the film is structured to give us an emotional connection to everyone. Normally films like this aim for a cinematic distancing and objectivity that keeps us outside of the events, but  the FRUITS crew does the opposite, they lean into people they are documenting. In doing so they open up our hearts to not just Ashley and her family, but to everyone on screen and everyone who is living a similar life.  

Documentaries ideally need to do more than just show us life, they should connect us to it and make us feel things emotionally. However FRUITS OF LABOR doesn't just connect us to life and make us emotional, but rather it makes us feel and become part of the life on screen in ways that few films of any type ever do. We are there with Ashley. We are going through the things she goes through to the point where by the time the film ends we truly feel as though she and her family have become part of ours.

In a weird way I feel like this is not a film but a family album, a record f the things we did together, despite never having met before.

Highly recommended FRUITS OF LABOR is one of the unexpected joys of SXSW and a must see.

WHO WE ARE: A CHRONICLE OF RACISM IN AMERICA (2021) SXSW 2021

 

WHO WE ARE is must see film. Normally that is said it’s hyperbole, but this time it’s honestly and truly meant- as a living breathing human being you owe it to yourself and humanity to see this film.

An examination of the history of racism in America it is largely made up of a lecture that Jeffrey Robinson gives at New York City’s Town Hall that is mixed with footage of Robinson speaking about his life as well as his visits to various places important to the story he is telling (for example the film begins at the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King was shot). It is a film that puts the last 500 years of American  history into perspective.

Actually what the film does is explain what we think and why we think it. The film beautifully lays out the changing way that race and slavery was viewed over time. By showing us what people were thinking, really thinking, at certain points in history  Robinson grounds our thinking. We get a better idea of why we think and feel as we do. More important by ordering the history of  hatred he explains why racists and bigots feel as they do.  I would like to hope that any racists  or bigots who see the film will change their minds, however as Robinson explains early in the film some people who know that the facts don’t support their prejudices are too entrenched to change their minds.

I was rocked by the film.  I think I was rocked more by the film than if I would have been if I had just seen the lecture at Town Hall. I say this because the film opens things up. I mean that not just because of the locations but because we see Robinson engaging with all sorts of people which makes his words something more than things that are spoken to us as a lesson, but as something more real and concrete. He is showing us his ideas in action.

My words fail me.

Honestly all I have is “ holy shit” which I mean in  the best way possible.

WHO WE ARE kicked the legs out from under me. It kicked me in the chest and made me think and feel. While I knew a great deal of the history that was related, this was the first time that I saw it all threaded together in such away as have a true emotional and intellectual response. I say that as a person who was trained as a historian. I viewed events coldly and cleanly as a series of events- but WHO WE ARE brings it all to life.  Watching the film you can’t hold the facts and figures at arm’s length, rather they come alive and bite you on the ass and force you to engage on the most basic human level.

While I may need to see the film a couple more times to get all my words together, I can easily call it  one of the very best films of 2021 and possibly its most important as well.

The film just premiered  at SXSW and is a must see

Learning Tagalog With Kayla (2021) SXSW 2021

Kayla's first lesson teaching us Tagalog spirals off into unexpected ways as she spins us a story of her day.

Life in quarantine (which is implied but never specified) and the boredom that it brings is revealed in this wicked little short. By turns funny and uncomfortable, Kayla clearly is cracking, the film forces us to react since a year into Covid we can relate to what Kayla is experiencing.

A small quite gem, it is one of the few Coivd films I will recommend because it is a film that transcends the now to be a film that will stand up tomorrow.

 

Executive Order (2021) SXSW 2021

 

In a dystopian Brazil of the near future anyone with any sort of features which might have come from an African ancestor are to be rounded up and sent back to Africa.

This is an uneven polemic about race, specifically about Brazil but applicable in the United States and else where. This is a film that ponders what would happen if we tried to send everyone back "to where they came from. Part of the film is a discussion of race and part of the film is a thriller as the characters struggle to rebel against the governmental deportation

I had problems with the film early on. Part of the problem is the film either tries to explain too much or not enough. With the opening sequence of an old woman going to get money for reparation's had me feeling as though I was coming in from left field. This was followed by several sequences where there there are lng discussions about this dystopian world and how we got there. It was both too much and not enough. I found I kept wanting to stop the film and call the director and ask him why there was so much exposition. I'm not sure how much of this is "bad story telling" or simply not understanding Brazilian society and politics.

I lost interest early and while I hung in to the end I never felt connected.

SXSW 2021 Shorts: LOVE IS JUST A DEATH AWAY and PLAY IT SAFE

 LOVE IS JUST A DEATH AWAY
Two caterpillars fall in love.

Feral and disturbing animated film that is by turns gross, disturbing, sad and moving. Part of me absolutely loves this film and pat of me never wants to see it again. It bothers me in the best sort of way.

Highly recommended. It will put images in your head that will never leave you

PLAY IT SAFE
A black student in a drama class is given a stereotypical hoodlum to play.

Biting short film says a great deal about prejudice in society and the arts. 

Its a kick in the chest. Recommended. 

ISLANDS (2021) SXSW 2021

 

A Filipino man pushing 50 has never left home. He desperately wants to find someone because he doesn't want to be alone. When his mother dies, he has quit his job to become a full time caregiver  for his father. Help comes in the form of a cousin from the Philippines. Will she help him open up his world?

This is a good little gem of a film. Its a nicely acted film that feels real. Having experienced situations similar to what's in the film I can attest to the fact that the film gets a great deal right. There was a lot of things in this film I could relate to. 

What I really like about ISLANDS is that it doesn't go for the sensational. For example it doesn't do anything crazy with the relationship between the cousins.  I also love that the film doesn't shy away from the difficulty of dealing with an ill parent. We see the toll it takes on everyone. 

And while the film shows us the difficulties and awkwardness of it all, it also reveals the hope for ultimately this is not a film about a man caring for his parents but coming to or back to life. This is a film about a man finding away through some tough times in order to be happy.

While ISLANDS may not move the pillars of heaven but I was moved. I think you will be too.

Recommended 

Luchadoras (2021) SXSW 2021

 

LUCHADORAS is a portrait of three female wrestlers living in and around Ciudad Juárez Mexico. The town is notorious for the much too large number of women who are kidnapped and/or killed each year. We follow the women as they go through their days, wrestle, and try to make it safer for the women in the area.

This is a good but slightly uneven film that is often an intriguing portrait of a way of life alien to most people.  It is not a wrestling doc, but a film about women in a specific place and their lives. Wrestling is merely the means by which the women connect to each other and find empowerment  where they can help make things better for the other women.

The unevenness that I mentioned is from the fact that while the everyday life part and the wrestling part are absolutely part of the same story there is a sense at times that this could almost be two films. The story of the lady wrestlers is a subject ripe for expansion while the story of the town where so many women are being murdered is perfect for another.  Truth be told I would love to see a film just on the missing and murdered women since there's clearly something wrong there and it should be highlighted so that the authorities are forced to act. 

Quibble aside this is a very good little film. It is a wonderful portrait of three great women and the people in their lives