Okay, it's that time of year again, when all the movies that didn't quite make the cut in Toronto show up at the Boston Film Festival!
Compared to last year, I won't be covering as much - I had a brother to move into college Saturday and a job which will probably keep me from making it back into town in time for more than one or two movies a day. But, I was able to spend a good chunk of the weekend checking out shorts - 22 in all (I missed 6).
I like the shorts part of film festivals. It's stuff you most likely won't see anywhere else, they're seldom long enough to wear out their welcome, and they generally have one neat idea somewhere inside them. The creators are also very accessible, and it's often fun to meet up with them in the theater lobby and listen to them talk with each other.
The BFF is also early enough that I'm not completely POed when Oscar nominations come out and the ones I enjoyed are nowhere to be found (until they run at Coolidge Corner's "We've Got Oscar's Shorts" program and are nowhere near as good as "The Remembering Movies" or "Ocha Cups For Christmas"...). This year, the BFF organizers did a pretty good job of organizing these short films into themed groups, to boot.
Short Package #2 - Okay, I couldn't really find a theme here. I gather it's the ones that didn't fit in antoher category.
"The New Patriots" (documentary, 18 minutes) - Director Robert Richter has a couple good post-9/11 war-on-terror points here, and they connect, but they don't quite reinforce each other. The title refers to veterans who are critical of certain American policies, and how they feel that voicing them does not indicate they don't love their country any less. What keeps the movie from being a self-righteous screed is that the issue Richter confines himself to, the "School Of the Americas" at an Army base in Georgia, does seem like a gigantic piece of hypocricy for a country that supposedly wants to eliminate terrorist training camps. The Latin American soldiers trained in "counter-insurgency" there, the film claims, have killed many times as many innocent citizens as were killed in the WTC attacks.
Richter has an interesting technique here, not raising film's voice, so to speak. His points come off as thought out and sincere, and at least worthy of an intelligent person's thought. The flip side is that they aren't quite as forceful as those coming from someone like, say, Michael Moore, and thus may not stick in the mind quite so well.
¼
"Live Bait" (animated, 7 minutes) - A simple morality tale, animated using stop-motion techniques. A fisherman is knocked out of his boat, and washes up on an island where he finds a trail of food. It's fairly easy to guess where this one's going, and the art itself isn't particularly pretty.
¼
"Are You Feeling Lonely?" (live-action, 14 minutes) - A morbid little piece about a morgue janitor who lives like a parasite off the dead - removing teeth with gold fillings, calling their homes to try and romance the heirs. He's an unpleasant little man, which makes for an unpleasant little film.
"Rotting Woman" (live-action, 17 minutes) - A woman develops a skin condition, leading her to wonder if her relationship with her boyfriend has much going on beneath the surface. Well-acted, with banter that is at first glance playful but upon further inspection shows how much this passion has dimmed.
"Nutria" (documentary, 14 minutes) - A whimsical documentary on the nutria, a rat-like, semi-aquatic animal that inhabits the Louisianna bayous. The reproduce like crazy, destroy crops and cause erosion, but are also a local fixture. There's plenty of laughs to be had from the state's attempt to make use of them (they don't make good pets, for instance, because they tend to greet you by urinating).
¼
"Luminous" (live-action, 11 minutes) - It's tough to find a plot in this short with two teenagers (or early-20s) at a county fair. There's no dialogue, there are a lot of shots of carnies, and the boy and girl are seldom in the same frame, but it still feels like a courtship.
½
Short Package #3 - Kids; all of the shorts here feature young kids in either leading or strong supporting roles.
"Bjargvaettur (Savior)" (live-action, 28 minutes) - A nifty story about a 13-year-old girl in Iceland who is sent to summer camp by her busy parents, even though she's at least two years older than all the other girls, and runs away. Freydis Kristofersdottir is quite good in the lead role, coming across as both petulant and justifiably insulted, and she is totally believable coming into her own.
½
"XP" (live-action, 11 minutes) - Another good kid performance, this one about a twelve year old with Xeroderma Pigmentosa, a genetic condition that makes him extremely sensitive to sunlight. It hits the expected points, but does them well.
"The Silvergleam Whistle" (live action, 24 minutes) - "The Silvergleam Whistle" is a ghost story, and a good one. A mother and her two children stop in a hotel for the night, where the ancient proprietrix (Patty McCormack) tells them about a train that was hit by lightning, electrocuting all on board, only to have the wreckage disappear... You only get time for one or two jump moments in a short like this, and director Mike Williamson makes them count. This is also very elaborate for a short film, with digital effects and very nice props and sets.
¾
"The Vest" (live action, 10 minutes) - A
very funny short, with a relatively high-profile cast. Skye McCole Bartusiak ("24") is great, managing to perfectly walk the lines between cute and saccharine, clever and pretentious, in this story about a girl who gets in trouble after one of her classmates teases her about the homemade vest she wears all the time ("I stabbed her in the leg. I just meant to hit her, but I forgot I had the pencil in my hand.") Plenty of fun fourth-wall breaking, with fun performances by Kellie Waymire ("The Pitts") and Enrico Colantoni ("Just Shoot Me") as her parents, too.
"A.N.I. 1240" (live action, 12 minutes) - Another very slick short, this one a science-fiction story about an astronaut in a virtual reality simulation where the ship's computer takes the part of his wife, daughter, and father in an attempt to convince him to "merge"; the ship's dying and the computer doesn't want to die with it... Of course, downloading ANI into the man's brain will erase what's already there. A good science-fiction story (I'm recommending it for SF/29 in February), although I'd love to see it fleshed out a little more.
½
Short Package #4 - Minorities (although it's kind of a stretch for "Waiting River"
"American Made" (live-action, 25 minutes) - I do like immigrant stories, and this is a pretty good one, as a pair of Sikh immigrants on vacation with their teenage and grown sons (American-born) break down in the desert. At first, their banter is fun, but when younger son Rajit flatly tells his father that no-one will stop "because you look like a terrorist" and older son Jagdesh refers to himself as "Paul" on the phone, father Anant is forced to confront whether he and his family are Sikh, American, or and what others consider them to be. This isn't heavy-handed, though, as it's also a good portrayal of a family that's been in a car together much too long.
¾
"Waiting River" (live-action, 22 minutes) - This is one of those shorts where the line between reality and metaphor is very thin indeed. It may be a ghost story, it may be just a man having an inner monologue... I'm not sure, really. It's based on a piece of Noh Theater, and even if the actual events are fuzzy, the emotions come through.
¾
"Running On Eggshells" (live-action, 14 minutes) - A successful businesswoman (that she's black is of debatable importance) has an appointment with a psychiatrist; she's just learned that she is pregnant and it has forced her to confront what she remembers of her own childhood, specifically how at age six she told her battered mother to run from her father. Well-acted, managing to make Grace's father as frightening, in his own way, as the 9-11 attacks which also affect the story.
½
"Maree" (live-action, 15 minutes) - An Albanian refugee and his son arrive in Venice, where they're not having bombs dropped on them, but the father soon realizes that people have more room in their hearts for a child alone than a father and child. He makes a pair of fateful decisions, but ironically, doing the right thing doesn't have the best results. Pretty good; in a year with fewer polished, nifty shorts, it would probably be more of a stand-out.
"Keys Of Life" (live-action, 12 minutes) - Music video director Jeremy Rall does some very good work here, chronicling a really crappy day for an inner-city locksmith. His girlfriend dumps him, he gets mugged, and his first customer of the day is a pain - and it's because he's so good at his job that he is able to realize that two of these events are connected. A stylish short that could easily be grim, but ends with the locksmith fashioning another key, showing he's got a skill that can't be taken away from him and the ability to create his own life.
¾
Short Package #5 - Relationship crises. Some very unsettling endings in this group, especially considering how jovially most start.
"Selfish Minds" (live-action, 26 minutes) - A man comes home and finds his wife in the arms of another man. He drives away, checks into an inn, and intends to get very drunk indeed. He's awakened by the fighting of a couple who'd seemed so happy the night before, and as he and the woman commiserate, they
don't fall into bed together, but instead realize they're still in love. In one case, though, it's not close to enough. Well-acted and very well edited.
"Calling Gerry Molloy" (live-action, 16 minutes) - A young married couple teases each other, the wife joking about an imaginary lover. But as the tensions in their marriage are revealed, both the audience and husband start to wonder just how imaginary this Gerry Molloy is, escalating to a truly scary final scene.
½
"Delivery" (animated, 8 minutes) - I liked Pat Smith's short "Drink" quite a bit when it came out a couple years ago (heck, I still do), and "Delivery" has the same funky style. It gets much darker very quickly, though, as two roomamtes who were already getting on each other's nerves snap when a package is delivered, and it pushes them over the edge. Even with the cartoony art, an abusive relationship is an ugly thing, and what starts as cartoon violence stops being funny very quickly when the first punch draws blood (the color scheme of which is a whole lot more realistic than everything else). Will probably show up in Spike & Mike; a must for animation lovers.
"Blindspot" (live-action, 10 minutes) - Six-year-old Joe loves his dad, but Dad doesn't live with him and Mom anymore, and he doesn't know why. The audience can see Joe's mother close the shades and bolt the doors when they get home from shopping, and can feel her fear, but the cast and crew also get Joe's perspective across. Another good kid performance, as Joe isn't angelic (and can be somewhat bratty), but is likeable.
¼
"Eastern Son" (live-action, 15 minutes) - This one is kind of weird to watch, since most of the actors involved have North American accents, but the lack of shock at polygamy as one of the plot points suggests an Indian setting. The story itself is about a wife who is unable to give her husband children sets out to find him a second wife. I suspect this would expand easily to feature length, as it uses a couple techniques (the interview montage, for instance) that you generally don't see as part of a short, and it also spans a much longer period of time (at least a year). I'd see the movie, though I suspect the plot wouldn't fly in the US.
"Negative" (live-action, 16 minutes) - After the relentless darkness and conflict of the previous shorts, "Negative" at first seemed like a nice palate-cleanser. A man and a woman meet cute; he is shy, she is beautiful and funny but still human. She's a model; he's a talented photographer whose first major show co-incided with the death of his beloved sister, and he feels it's a karmic price of fame. She convinces him otherwise, they work together, and they fall in love, until... The last scene is sobering, after such a light piece, leaving the audience to wonder whether he's expressing his love for her or exploiting her.
¼
so I have 3 days of potential visits to the theater. I'm also going to try to watch all of the 3 Colours box in that time.
