Sundance ’19: Sister (short)

If you have a solid grounding in recent history and global politics, you should be able to guess the devastating twist that comes at the end of this stop-motion animated short film. A grown man looks back on his childhood, growing up with the little sister who was born four years after him in China, during the early 1990s. If you don’t get it by now, you certainly will be the end of Siqi Song’s beautifully rendered Sister, which screened during the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

It is only eight minutes long, but it packs quite an emotional wallop. There is no question Sister is a highly personal statement from the Chinese-born, Los Angeles-based Song, who is credited as director, producer, screenwriter, animator, cinematographer, editor, and art director. Still, she did not do it alone. Her collaborators include Bingyang Liu, who performed the sensitive voice-over narration and Karen Tanaka, who composed the classy score.

As the film opens, the narrator fondly remembers his bratty little sister, who often brought their parents wrath down on him with her own mischief. Yet, something seems a little off with this picture. Eventually, all will be revealed—and it will be a painful revelation—even for viewers who were expected it. (As a final hint, Nanfu Wang’s documentary at this year’s Sundance also addresses the same topic.)

Ultimately, Sister does indeed indict the Chinese government’s recent policies, but it is still essentially a deeply humanistic family drama. Song’s animation is quite skillful and her visuals are sometimes surprisingly fanciful, but that does not dilute the power of her message. Very highly recommended, Sister screened during this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Sundance ’19: The Lodge

Step-parenting is always a tricky proposition, but it is especially so for Grace. As the sole survivor of a suicidal death cult, she has sort of already lost one “family.” Her prospective stepson and stepdaughter are less than thrilled to welcome her into their family. It is hard to form a conclusive judge about them or her in Veronika Franz & Severin Fiala’s The Lodge, which screens during the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

Grace’s father was the charismatic leader of an apocalyptic Christian cult that committed mass-suicide Hale-Bopp-style. She was left behind to tell their tale, like the characters left standing at the end of Shakespeare’s tragedies. Should that make us trust her more or less?

Regardless, Richard fell for her hard while writing a retrospective piece on the cult. Aidan and Mia were already seriously unhappy with his decision to take up with Grace, but when their mother Laura is suddenly ushered out of the movie, Grace becomes the focus of their hard feelings. Hoping to bring peace to their awkward family unit, Richard books a getaway vacation at an isolated mountain lodge. Right, what could go wrong—aside from Richard getting called back to work just before a severe storm cuts off Grace and the two resentful children from the outside world?

Maybe Grace is a victim in all this, or maybe not, but either way, her cult backstory is massively creepy. Franz & Fiala frequently return to images of the mass suicide, which are especially disturbing, because they deliberately emulate news footage of the Heaven’s Gate cult. It is arguably exploitative, but undeniably effective.

In fact, The Lodge is consistently unsettling because of its uncertainties, starting first and foremost with the true nature of Grace’s character. Riley Keough’s subtle, ambiguous performance gives viewer plenty to support any interpretation. Likewise, as Aidan and Mia, Jaeden Lieberher and Lia McHugh make two of the most suspicious and intense kids to appear on film since the off-the-rails twins in Franz & Fiala’s Goodnight Mother.

If you want to get technical, there are probably some serious logical issues within The Lodge, but Franz & Fiala’s command of mood and atmosphere is so strong, we don’t even notice in the moment. The chills are further heightened by Thimios Bakatakis’s appropriately icy cinematography. However, the recurring use of a dollhouse motif is probably a mistake, because it automatically brings to mind comparisons to Ari Aster’s Hereditary. Recommended for fans of high-end horror, The Lodge screens again today (2/2), as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Sundance ’19: Abe

If only they had more fusion cuisine at Taba, maybe then there would be peace in the Middle East. Or perhaps not. A thirteen-year-old aspiring chef in Brooklyn tries to bring his mixed Israeli-Palestinian family together with food, but their divisions might be too deep for his culinary efforts to heal, despite some help from Brazil in Fernando Grostein Andrade’s Abe, which screens during the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

Abe prefers “Abe,” but his family calls him Abraham, Avraham, Avi, or Ibrahim, depending on which side is doing the talking. His mother and her parents are Jewish Israeli, his paternal grandparents are Palestinian Muslims, and his father is a “plague on both your houses” atheist. As you might guess, family gatherings are super awkward. Frankly, they bicker so much, they never enjoy Abe’s cooking.

For a thirteen-year-old, Abe is pretty good at the basics (or so he thinks), but he needs a bit of coaching when it comes to more ambitious creations. Chico Catuaba is the chef he has in mind to mentor him. The Bahia native once had his own restaurant, but now sells his unique brand of Brazilian-Jamaican fusion cuisine in his pop-up kitchens throughout Brooklyn. Initially, Catuaba is suspicious of Abe and the potential child labor legal problems he might bring, but the young teen’s sincerity wins him over. However, he will make sure Abe pays his dues first, before giving him real kitchen responsibilities.

Andrade’s film boasts a lithe and lively Brazilian soundtrack, featuring co-star Seu Jorge on two tracks (“Imigrantes” and Veloso’s “Meia Lua Inteira”), Tulipa Ruiz on “Sal E Amor,” and musical supervisor Jaques Morelenbaum’s solo cello arrangements of Jobim’s “Brigas Numcas Mais” and “Samba de Uma Noto So.” It sounds fantastic and the food looks delicious, so it is easy to forgive the formulaic aspects of Lameece Issaq & Jacob Kader’s screenplay. In fact, Andrade executes the culinary coming-of-age tale with a light touch, dialing down the obvious clichés and potentially fraught politics as much as possible. Instead, he focuses on the diverse, likable ensemble of characters.

Noah Schnapp from Stranger Things is appealingly energetic and earnest as Abe. However, the perfectly cast Seu Jorge frequently steals the show as Catuaba. Anyone who has seen him perform knows he has serious charisma and a voice that could take work away from James Earl Jones, but he also wields a kitchen knife with authority. As Abe’s parents, Dagmara Dominczyk and Arian Moayed also convincingly look and sound like a loving couple, whose relationship is under strain and stress. As a bonus, the great character actor Mark Margolis adds some crusty flair as Abe’s Jewish grandfather, Benjamin.

Abe is a very nice little movie with a terrific soundtrack. The notion of refracting the Middle Eastern conflict through the microcosm of a Brooklyn family might sound like a ham-fisted, finger-wagging cinematic lecture, but Andrade mostly makes it work, by not forcing it too hard. Recommended for fans of foodie movies and Seu Jorge, Abe screens again today (2/2) in Park City, as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Throat Singing in Kangirsuk, Bootstrapped, Dispossessed and Quarter Life Poetry at Sundance 2019

Throat Singing in Kangirsuk
Beautiful music video made by two singers who throat sing. Its gorgeous and lovely and a great way to spend three minutes.

Bootstrapped
Two women working out of their garage convince some coders to help them with their new fashion app. Shows like this are the reason I’m hesitant to really review a series based on one episode. Containing some good characters and moments I’m unsure of where it’s going to go beyond the one episode. While there is enough potential here that I can imagine it all clicking, but I’d like to see more before I commit to the show.

Quarter Life Poetry
FX series is based on a book of poems for “the young, broke and hangry” is a series of half hour shows where the poems have been turned into vignettes. With some sections working better because of the nature of the poems and the pieces bult around them, this is an interesting idea for a series. There are moments here that actually make you sit up and really take notice. The question for the filmmakers is how long do they think they can make this work without it seeming to become one note. If they can keep the creativity high there is a good shot they can attract a loyal audience.

Dispossessed
Interesting and strangely dreamy portrait of Hazari, a faith healer in Kashmir. Insisting that he heals everyone who comes to him, Hazari says that many people are possessed by jinn. This is wonderful look at another way of looking at the world.

Sundance ’19: American Factory

It is sort of like the Ron Howard movie Gung Ho, but the new management is Chinese instead of Japanese. That leads to even greater culture clashes with their American workforce. Arguably, both sides have legitimate points, but it is hard for them to find common ground. Documentarians Steven Bognar & Julia Reichart observe the growing tensions in American Factory, which screens during the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

Until the late 2000s, the GM plant supplied hundreds of good paying jobs to Dayton area workers. In 2014, Chinese auto glass manufacturer Fuyao announced their intention to refit and reopen the shuttered factory, but it was difficult right from the start. Blame Sen. Sherrod Brown. At the ribbon cutting ceremony, he offered an unsolicited declaration of support for unionization of the factory, immediately making Fuyao executives, especially billionaire founder Cao Dewang, suspicious and defensive.

With productivity lagging behind Chinese standards, all the American executives of Fuyao USA are axed a few month later. Attitudes become entrenched, with the Chinese resenting American workers aversion to overtime and the Americans growing increasingly concerned about comparatively lax safety measures.

The frustrating thing about American Factory is the legitimacy of the concerns of both parties and their mutual unwillingness to look at issues from the other side. Frankly, Bognar and Reichart really bury their lede and then pave it over with concrete when concerned workers discuss the factory’s practice of illegally dumping chemicals. That goes beyond the scope of regular workplace grievances. It puts the company in huge risk of regulatory fines and sanctions.

In fact, the American Factory doc could be used a case study to illustrate the respective strengths and weaknesses of the American and Chinese models of labor relations and industrial organization. It is frustrating Bognar and Reichart never think to compare and contrast worker productivity, economic growth, workplace safety, and pollution figures in each country, because the numbers would be telling. There could have been some constructive policy recommendations coming out of the film, aside from never inviting Sherrod Brown to a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Throughout American Factory, it is clear what happens at the Fuyao plant will have serious repercussions on the lives of the American workers and the very junior Chinese executives tasked with making it work. By and large, they are all decent people, which is why it is so depressing there is nobody in a position to effectively mediate between them.

American Factory captures a lot of drama, but we wish it had delved further into the really fundamental issues involved. It is compelling in its own terms, but it is too limited in scope to offer any kind of firm conclusions. Recommended for MBA candidates studying US-Chinese co-ventures, American Factory screens again today (2/1) in Park City, as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Sundance ’19: Miles Davis—Birth of the Cool

There are plenty of good reasons why Miles Davis remains one of the most influential jazz musicians of all time. He led the jazz parade for nearly every new style developed since Bebop, including Cool Jazz, modal Hard Bop, Fusion, and what you might call 1980s commercialism. If he didn’t do it, one of his famous former sidemen probably did. Rather impressively, Stanley Nelson manages to condense his remarkable career into a nearly two-hour documentary without any glaring omissions. The beauty of his music and the irascible nature of his personality come through clear as day in Nelson’s Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool, which screens during the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

Miles Davis never had the pyrotechnic chops of a Dizzy Gillespie or a Clifford Brown, but he made a virtue of his limitations by developing his own muted, lyrical sound earlier in his career. As his reputation grew, he formed one of the most acclaimed ensembles in jazz history, featuring a then-little-known John Coltrane on tenor. Yet, Davis was only getting started.

Together with his friend and soul-mate-arranger Gil Evans (who gets his due credit in the doc), Davis led the Birth of the Cool sessions, which had a formative influence on West Coast Cool Jazz; recorded Kind of Blue, one of the best-selling jazz albums of all time and a trail-blazing example of modal improvisation; formed his even more exploratory “Second Great Quintet;” kick-started the fusion revolution; and disappeared and then re-emerged with some of his most commercial work ever. Nelson covers all these major turning points, getting all the important stuff right.

Nelson interviewed many who knew Davis well, but the most notable by far is the late Frances Taylor Davis, the musician’s first wife, who is widely considered Davis’s great love and most significant muse, based on published comments. She rarely discussed her celebrated husband after their divorce, so her participation is a real coup. Close friend and frequent cover artist Cortez McCoy also contributes highly personal memories of Davis. Plus, we hear from jazz giants Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock, Quincy Jones, Jimmy Cobb, Lenny White, Mike Stern, Marcus Miller, and Jimmy “Little Bird” Heath.

It is dashed ironic Nelson’s film took its title from the 1949 and 1950 sessions collected on the Birth of the Cool album, because it represents a rather short-lived period in his career and helped inspire the Cool style, which Davis frequently dismissed with contempt. Of course, the Cool school was largely associated with white musicians, like Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan (who played on all the Birth sessions), whose success rankled Beboppers and Hard Boppers, like Davis. Still, it has the ring of something fresh and grand and historically significant, so here it is.

Regardless, Nelson packs quite a bit into the film. The soundtrack incorporates so many Davis recordings, even hardcore fans will lose track of whether or not their favorites were included. Nelson can’t cram in everything (we have always been partial to his soundtrack and acting work in the film Dingo), but editor Lewis Erskine shoehorns in all the milestones, while maintaining clarity and a brisk pace. Very highly recommended, Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool screens again tomorrow (2/1) in Park City and Saturday (2/2) in Salt Lake, as part of the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

Sundance ’19: Light from Light

Ordinarily, psychics and “paranormal investigators” are con artists by definition, because obviously. However, Sheila is different. For one thing, she does not accept any fees for her services. Furthermore, she readily admits she is not even sure she has any psychic abilities. Nevertheless, she will try to help a grieving widower find some closure, perhaps by contacting his deceased wife’s ghost in Paul Harrill’s Light from Light, which screens during the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

Sheila’s real job is working behind the counter of an airport car rental agency. She has some experience investigating hauntings, but all the gear belonged to her very ex-boyfriend. Nevertheless, she agrees to get back into the game when asked by the kindly Father Martin. He heard her on the radio discussing the possibly predictive dreams she had during childhood and concluded she might be able to help the recently widowed Richard.

After begging and borrowing sensors and cameras, Sheila presses her son Owen into duty as her assistant, but she gets his not-quite-girlfriend Lucy as a bonus volunteer. Together they wire up Richard’s converted country house on edge of the Smoky Mountains, where odd things have been afoot, like flickering lights and objects moving of their own accord. The three not-really-Ghostbusters genuinely hope they can help the earnest fishery warden, but the initial findings will be ambiguous—and complicated.

Frankly, Light is not exactly a supernatural genre film, at least not in a conventional sense, but the ghostly plot points ultimately give it a powerful, bittersweet kick. Yet, minute-by-minute and scene-for-scene, Harrill’s main focus are the fleeting connections humans manage to forge. Every flesh-and-blood character in Light is a good person, whom we come to care about quite a bit. That very definitely includes Father Martin, possibly the most sympathetic man of the cloth to appear on-screen in years. Harrill also penned one of the most touching, yet realistic and grounded mother-son relationships you will see on film in many a blood moon.

Marin Ireland invests the working-class Sheila with genuine grace and dignity. She forges ambiguously poignant chemistry with Richard, played by Jim Gaffigan in what might be his career-best work. It is a quiet and restrained performance, but he makes the widower’s pain and confusion immediately palpable. Atheena Frizzell is shockingly touching as lovesick Lucy, while David Cale gives it all a tinge of compassionate gravitas as Father Martin.

Light is a big, muddy river of a film. It is quiet, but it runs deep. It also looks terrific, thanks to Greta Zozula’s striking cinematography, which captures the mysterious lushness of the Smokies. It is sort of like a rural Personal Shopper, but it is subtler and more humanistic. Very highly recommended, Light from Light screens again this afternoon (1/31) and tomorrow (2/1) in Park City and Saturday (2/2) in Salt Lake, as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

N. SCOTT MOMADAY: WORDS FROM A BEAR (2019) Sundance 2019

Portrait of Native American author N. Scott Momaday told through his words, his art and the words of his friends and admirers including Joy Harjo, Robert Redford, and Jeff and Beau Bridges.

Solid American Masters film will open your eyes to a great literary and cultural voice. Personally I had never run across Momaday prior to seeing the film so I had no idea what I was getting myself into. The man himself is a real charmer. Blessed with a storyteller way for words and voice you'll want to listen to all day this is a film that isn't something you'll think of informative but as simply a great story.

Along the way we see Momaday's influences on popular culture and how me connected the Native American stories of life with the present day. For anyone not Native American his winning of the Pulitzer Prize sudden brought an entire culture to life. Momaday's words opened up possibilities that had never seen before.

While Momaday's words and person make this a must see, I wish the presentation had been a little bit more special. Yes, this is my own foibles, but I wish this hadn't felt like a typical American Masters film.

Regardless of my nitpicking N. SCOTT MOMADAY:  WORDS FROM A BEAR is a must see, more so if you're like me an never encountered the man before.

Sundance ’19: We Are Little Zombies

Technically, they are not zombies in the Walking Dead sense. They are zombies like the “She’s Not There” British invasion rock band. Of course, they are a kiddie band, but they have grown up awfully fast. Death has brought them together and death might just be what breaks them apart in Makoto Nagahisa’s We Are Little Zombies, which screens during the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

Death will be their constant companion. As fate dictates, the four youngsters meet at the crematorium hosting their parents’ funerals—that’s right, all eight of them. Yet, strangely, they feel little emotion, which even they find somewhat odd. Instead, they band together, trashing their apartments and taking refuge on the streets. They have contempt for the future, living only in the now.

Of course, their stories are uniquely awful. Hikari Takami’s parents died when their tour bus had a fatal collision. They had been hoping to save their marriage by taking a strawberry lovers’ tour (at least they managed to avoid a divorce). Yuki Takemura’s parents committed suicide to escape their creditors. Shinpachi Ishi’s parents were killed in a gas fire at their greasy wok restaurant. Ikuko Ibu’s ‘rents were murdered by her stalker music teacher, because he thought she wanted him to do it—and maybe she did. Ibu is the oldest of the four, so naturally the boys all develop a crush on her.

Yet, it will be Takami who leads their band, “The Little Zombies,” filtering his Gameboy soundtracks through old school synthesizer modulators. Their street performances go viral, launching them to pop idol status, but you can guess the path of their career trajectory.

Little Zombies is not a horror movie, but it is definitely a massive cult film. With its intrusive 8-bit soundtrack and seizure-inducing rapid-editing, it is like an all-out assault on the senses. It is an exhausting film, but you have to respect Nagahisa’s ability to maintain the breakneck lunacy. Even if it makes your eye-sockets bleed, it is a heck of an accomplishment. As an added bonus, Nagahisa’s screenplay is riddled with clever, postmodern breakings of the fourth wall and self-referential wackiness.

Frankly, it is pretty amazing how deadpan Keita Ninomiya, Satoshi Mizuno, Mondo Okumura, and Sena Nakajima remain, despite the maelstrom of insanity swirling around them. It is a different sort of performance, maintaining stoic discipline rather than emoting, but they fulfill their duties faithfully. Recommended for fans of Sion Sono at his most out-there, We Are Little Zombies screens again tonight (1/28), Thursday (1/31), and Saturday (2/2) in Park City and Friday (2/1) in Salt Lake, as part of this year’s Sundance.

Sundance ’19: One Child Nation

From 1979 to 2015, there was a regime very much like that in The Handmaid’s Tale, but instead of prohibiting abortions, they mandated them—along with involuntary sterilization (of mothers, not fathers). When China’s notorious One Child Policy was in full effect, the Communist government relentlessly intruded into bedrooms and families’ lives. The draconian mandate has been relaxed to a “Two Child Policy,” but the guilt and emotional pain persists for the parents who were forced to comply. Filmmakers Nanfu Wang & Jialing Zhang expose the resulting trauma, both on a national level and within Wang’s own family throughout One Child Nation, which screens during the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

As a poor rural family, Wang’s parents were allowed to have a second child, as long as they were at least five years apart, but it was still strenuously discouraged. She quite pointedly remembers the shame she felt in school when it was discovered she had a sibling. However, when Wang had her baby boy, she started to reconsider all the propaganda she had been fed during her youth.

As the New York-based Wang starts to ask questions of her Chinese family, she discovers unknown cousins who were abandoned (ultimately, to their death) and a profound sense of shame amongst nearly all her relatives. Being good documentarians, Wang and Zhang do not stop there. They follow the trail, interviewing the village headmen and family planning apparatchiks who enforced the policy. They also challenge preconceptions of the human traffickers who effectively saved thousands of abandoned infants by “selling” them to orphanages, which supplied the lucrative Western adoption market.

One Child Nation addresses a lot of hot-button issues, including the role of human traffickers in China, the pervasiveness of state propaganda, the overwhelming cultural gender preference for boys (and the inequalities that come with it), and the systematic deception of Chinese orphanages that lied about the background of their charges and often split up twin siblings. Yet, every topic arises organically out of the filmmakers’ investigation. This is a tight, focused film—it just happens to have an awful lot to say.

Wang’s Hooligan Sparrow might just be the gutsiest documentary ever made, so it is a heavy statement to call One Child Nation a worthy follow-up. It might sound like it is old news to the half-informed now that the Communist Party is flogging its Two Child Policy, but she and Zhang make it crystal clear how profoundly the One Child Policy damaged China’s social fabric.

Frankly, this is sometimes a difficult film to watch. The images of cast-aside fetuses and babies will surely break your heart and possibly turn your stomach (wisely, these are incorporated sparingly—just enough to establish the truth). Very highly recommended (especially for Women’s March participants), One Child Nation screens again this afternoon (1/28), Thursday (1/31), and Friday (2/1) in Park City, as part of this year’s Sundance.

Sundance ’19: As Told to G/D Thyself (short)

Some jazz is traditional and old fashioned, but it is also the music of the Space Age. In fact, one of the greatest band leaders ever, Sun Ra, hailed from Saturn (you’d better believe it). The inspiration of the Arkestra and Sun Ra’s classic science fiction blaxploitation film Space is the Place is clearly quite pronounced throughout the Ummah Chroma collective’s short film, As Told to G/D Thyself, which screens as part of the New Frontier shorts program at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, in Park City.

As Told has a little bit of everything, but first and foremost it showcases the music of jazz composer and tenor saxophonist Kamasi Washington, part of Ummah Chroma, along with Oscar nominated cinematographer Bradford Young (for The Arrival), Terence Nance (director of the collage-like Oversimplification of Her Beauty), Jenn Nkiru, and Marc Thomas. The comparison to Sun Ra is particularly apt, because Washington can play funky inside and explore more freely outside. Not surprisingly for a tenor player, you can also hear a Coltrane influence, manifesting itself in plaintive, spiritually searching tones.

Yet, As Told is no mere music video. It shares a kinship with Space is the Place and Afro-Futurism in general, but you can also see echoes of Nance’s Oversimplification in the cosmic animated segments. Ironically, the music school segments might remind some jazz fans of the cover to Wynton Marsalis’s Black Codes from the Underground, but that was probably unintentional.

So, what is it all about? It is about twenty-four minutes. The narrative is rather loose, but it broadly encompasses man’s search for meaning in the universe and our collective relationship to the sacred. There is also a good deal of wood-shedding.

Regardless, Washington’s passionate music is more than enough reason to seek out Ummah Chroma’s film. There are sizable extracts from ten of his originals (“Journey” also features original lyrics penned by Patrice Quinn), as well as covers of Freddie Hubbard’s “Hub-Tones," Stan Vincent’s “Ooh Child,” and “Fists of Fury” (from the Bruce Lee soundtrack). Highly recommended, As Told to G/D Thyself screens again tomorrow (1/28) in Salt Lake and Tuesday (1/29) and Friday (2/1) in Park City, as part of the New Frontier shorts program at this year’s Sundance.

Sundance ’19: Obon (short)

Technically, Akiko Takakura and the rest of Hiroshima were warned to leave the city, but they would not have been allowed to act on the leaflets dropped by American planes, even if they believed them. Nevertheless, somehow Takakura survived to this day, despite her close proximity to the blast. Filmmakers Andre Hörmann & Anna Samo give her an opportunity to tell her story in the animated short documentary, Obon, which screens as part of the Animation Spotlight shorts program at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, in Park City.

Takakura is a survivor in the strictest sense, but it is clear from the nightmare sequence that opens the film just how profoundly she has been affected by the Hiroshima bombing. Yet, her memories of that day, particularly the tragic death of her friend and co-worker Satomi Usami (who is obviously joyously full of life seconds before “Little Boy” was dropped) are even more horrifying. However, Obon is also beautifully life-affirming when it depicts the sudden outpouring of affection from her formerly stern father during the immediate aftermath of the bombing.

Obon is an absolutely beautiful film, both in terms of its visuals and the emotions it stirs up. Inspired by traditional Japanese woodcuts, Samo’s animation perfectly matches the 92-year-old Takakura’s oral history. In fact, Obon would be a fitting short to precede a screening of Takahata’s Grave of the Fireflies, but despite its elegiac tone, Hörmann & Samo’s film is not a downer—quite the contrary.

This film is welcome proof that even nonfiction documentaries can be a work of art. Both documentarians and animators should watch Obon, because it will encourage them to raise their games. Very highly recommended, Obon screens again tonight (1/27), tomorrow (1/28), and Thursday (1/31) in Park City, as part of the Animation Spotlight short film block at this year’s Sundance.

Sundance ’19: Photograph

If you think Hollywood endings are unrealistic, trying living up to a Bollywood ending. Happily-ever-afters a simply beyond the reach of a poor, marginalized street worker like Rafi. Ostensibly, the educated Miloni has more advantages, but she is also restricted by social norms and her family’s expectations. Yet, maybe, just maybe, they can make some kind of connection in Ritesh Batra’s Photograph, which screens during the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

Rafi sort of gets by working as a street photographer, selling souvenir photos to tourists at the Gateway of India. One day, he takes Miloni’s picture, but she disappears to avoid her overbearing family before Rafi can complete the transaction. He repurposes her photo, sending it to his grandmother Dadi, hoping to allay her fears he will never marry. When their paths cross again, Miloni agrees to pretend to be his fiancée, for the sake of his Dadi.

As you might expect, Miloni and Rafi start to develop some kind of feelings for each other during the course of their play-acting. Of course, the radical differences in their respective life-experiences lead to complications, but this is not a farce or even a rom-com. Very little is played for laughs. The narrative itself is pretty simple and straightforward. Instead, Batra’s screenplay is all about discrete, fleeting moments of beauty—and the pain that comes later.

Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Sanya Malhotra will make you absolutely ache for this almost-couple. They have real, heart-felt chemistry as Rafi and Miloni, but their relationship is so chaste, it hurts. There is so much left unsaid between them, because it can’t be said—and it doesn’t need to be verbalized for us to understand it. They are the film, but Farrukh Jaffar ratchets up the poignancy even further as Rafi’s loving but shrewd Dadi.

Batra also makes canny use of the Mumbai locales. Much like the worlds of its characters, the city sometimes looks grand and stately and other times appears to be grubby and desperate. Batra does not exactly wrap things up in a neat little bow, which seems to have divided those at yesterday’s screening, but that is how life goes. You just have to focus on the good parts while they last.

Honestly, Photograph is about as bittersweet as cinema can possibly get. It is a classy film, with Peter Raeburn’s elegant score heightening the wistful vibe. Very highly recommended for mainstream audiences, Photograph screens tomorrow (1/27) and next Saturday (2/2) in Park City, Tuesday (1/29) in Sundance Mountain Resort, and Friday (2/1) in Salt Lake, as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Sundance ’19: Memory—The Origin of Alien

1979 was a great year for movies, pound for pound. They were not all masterpieces, but in general, the films that year were remarkably re-watchable. We are talking about perennials, like Life of Brian, Rocky II, The Warriors, Love at First Bite, Apocalypse Now, and most of all Alien. Ridley Scott’s science fiction-horror classic still holds up, even when you know what’s coming. To mark its fortieth anniversary, Alexandre O. Philippe takes a deep dive into the mythos and influences of Scott’s most iconic film in Memory: The Origin of Alien, which screens during the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

Alien took Scott’s career to a new level, but screenwriter Dan O’Bannon is the hero of this origin story. O’Bannon co-wrote and co-starred in Dark Star, but it wasn’t what he had hoped it would be. Having fallen out with John Carpenter, O’Bannon started scripting a much darker alien encounter film, but he was blocked on page thirty-nine. It was a heck of a place to get stuck, because that scene would become the most memorable—some would say notorious sequence in Alien. You know the one. John Hurt is in the center of it.

Memory became Star Beast and finally morphed into Alien. O’Bannon hired his old colleague from Jodorowsky’s aborted Dune movie, H.R. Giger to create character designs (out of his own pocket), but his work freaked out the studio, who fired him. However, when Scott came on board, he got it and hired Giger back.

There is a good deal of this kind of interesting behind-the-scenes stuff in Memory (the doc), but Philippe really digs into Alien’s mythological and cinematic forerunners, likening the aliens to the Furies from Greek mythology and drawing parallels with earlier films such as It! The Terror from Beyond Space and The Thing from Another World (produced by Howard Hawks). The analysis of Philippe’s talking heads takes a decidedly archetypal Joseph Campbell-esque turn, but their contentions are quite grounded and well-reasoned. Some viewers might be disappointed by the absence of many original cast-members, but at least Tom Skerritt and Veronica Cartwright are present and accounted for.

Memory is not at all a case of all Giger, all the time, but there is still plenty of the Swiss artist’s macabre imagery, so his fanatical admirers should not feel cheated. Frankly, even fans who have seen the original Alien dozens of times might be surprised by the depth of Memory. It is definitely Philippe’s best documentary to date. In fact, Memory echoes our sentiments regarding the significance of genre films as a measure of society’s collective neuroses. Enthusiastically recommended, Memory: The Origin of Alien screens again this Tuesday (1/29) and Friday (2/1) in Park City, tomorrow (1/27) in Sundance Resort, and Saturday (2/2) in Salt Lake, as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Sundance ’19: Apollo 11

It might be necessary, but it is a shame the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum’s Apollo to the Moon exhibit is currently closed to the public. These days, we desperately need the kind of idealism and optimism it inspires for the Space Program. Fortunately, an important new documentary will serve a similar role by chronicling the Moon landing step by step through newly rediscovered 65mm films and audio recordings. Forget the recent American flag-averse movie. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins play themselves in Todd Douglas Miller’s Apollo 11, which screens during the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

It is amazing how well documented the Apollo 11 mission was—and equally amazing that this footage was essentially forgotten until Miller and a team of researchers recovered it from NASA’s archives and the National Archives. The color video is still so vivid, viewers will feel like bystanders in Mission Control. Visually, the film is crisp and pristine, while reflecting the looks and textures of its era.

Aside from some occasional graphics charting the flight of Apollo 11, Miller’s doc consists entirely of this restored footage. There are no talking heads and no dramatic recreations. Yet, Miller, serving as director, editor, and a co-producer, seamlessly assembles a full and compelling narrative of the triumphant Moon landing. None of the history-making moments are missing, but Miller often shows them from a different perspective.

Along the way, the Apollo documentary also conveys a sense of the three crew members’ personalities and captures the electric mood of the nation. There is even a little sly (albeit dark) humor when developments in Ted Kennedy’s Chappaquiddick misadventure briefly manage to break through the wall-to-wall Apollo coverage.

Frankly, there is no reason to watch First Man, because Miller’s Apollo 11 presents the real events as they really happened, with the real people (SPOILER ALERT: they make it safely to the Moon and back). Idiot conspiracy theory-trafficking basketball players will probably continue to deny the Moon landing happened, but now they have no excuse. Apollo 11 is a super-accessible film that will eventually air on CNN, since it will be co-distributed by CNN Films.

Most importantly, the film recaptures a sense of how the Apollo Program inspired the nation. It was a time when we celebrated risk-taking, rather than demonized it. Sadly, it is doubtful we could successfully undertake a comparable endeavor as a nation today. That is why this film is so refreshing. Patrons in Park City should make it a priority—and check their cynicism at the door. Very highly recommended, Apollo 11 screens again today (1/25), Wednesday (1/30), and Thursday (1/31) in Park City and Saturday (1/26) in Salt Lake.

Maiden (2018) Sundance 2019

This is a repost of the review that we ran when the film played the Camden International Film Festival in September. 

MAIDEN is one of my favorite films of 2018.

This is the story of Tracy Edwards and the crew of women she put together to compete in the Whitbread Around The World Race. While women had been part of crews, Edwards herself had been one, they were always reduced to being cooks and not sailors. Edwards wanted an al women crew so there was no doubt that they could do it without men.

An amazing story that begins when Edwards happens to meet King Hussein of Jordan on a boat where she was working. When he asked what she would rather be doing she told him about the race. He then convinced her that it was something that she had to do. It was a struggle but Edwards fielded a crew and made the race…and it’s one hell of a tale.

The is the story of a grand adventure told in grand style. As much as I and my fellow critics may bitch about how a documentary is put together, more often than nor not we’ll complain if the film doesn’t do something new or exciting with a story, sometimes if you have a great story and great people telling it then you can just let the story tell itself. In the case of Maiden, director Ale Holmes has a group of characters who are master storytellers and he simply lets them talk. They spin one hell of a tale just by telling what happened. What takes the film to the stratosphere is the fact that the stories are supplemented with footage of the events. It’s amazing and it makes this a must see on the big screen because the shots of the ocean will make you wonder what sort of crazy person would do that.

I don’ know what else to say. I was held on th edge of my seat from start to finish. And when the finish came I was just as misty as the people on screen telling the story simply because I felt like I went too and shared the trip.

Highly highly recommended. It is not only one of my favorite films but easily one of the very best films of  2018 and a must see