Review by Sean Boelman
Directed by Katarine Philp, An Elephant in the Room is almost certainly one of the hardest-to-watch documentaries to ever be made, but that is hardly surprising given the subject matter it addresses. Regardless, despite the fact that the film is emotionally exhausting, it is ultimately a rewarding and important watch.
The movie takes a look at a support group designed specifically to help children deal with the grief of a parent or sibling. Almost everyone has experienced grief at some point in their lives, but few are unfortunate enough to have to deal with it at such a young age as those children featured in this film. As a result, their emotional suffering is truly unimaginable. That said, Philp makes sure to also emphasize the hopeful part of this movie. Even though these children have experienced a tragedy at a time in which they aren’t totally prepared to process it, there are organizations like Good Grief to help them embrace their feelings in a way that is normal and healthy. Philp’s main hope with this film seems to be to normalize the grieving process by presenting it in its most unadulterated form. Many of the children presented in the movie don’t understand what is happening to their loved ones, and as a result, don’t know how to react. Some suppress their feelings, while others act out in rage. By showing this range of ways in which children grieve, Philp successfully explores the universality of the process.
There are five main subjects in the film, and Philp’s split approach to the narrative works quite well. Despite the fact that the viewer won’t be able to form an intense personal connection with any of the subjects, that would’ve been emotional overkill, and quite possibly even unethical given the ages of the subjects.
Admittedly, the movie does start to feel a bit repetitive after a while. While the film does consistently resonate, it will wear the viewer down very quickly. Arguably, the movie could have been just as if not more impactful as a short than a feature. Although the runtime is under an hour and a half long, it accomplishes its goal early and feels like it overstays its welcome. On a technical level, Philp’s film is very straightforward but effective. The visual style of the movie is very subdued and somber. In a film as serious as this, there is no need for flashy visuals or ambitious gimmicks. Rather, Philp recognizes that the strength of her movie lies in its narrative, and shoots it in as simple but professional a way as possible. An Elephant in the Room will not leave viewers feeling warm and fuzzy inside, unlike some of the other documentaries that were set to debut at the 2020 SXSW Film Festival. Still, its place in the lineup is earned, as its earnest exploration of something that unites us all is painfully necessary. An Elephant in the Room was set to debut at the 2020 SXSW Film Festival. It is currently seeking distribution. Rating: 3.5/5
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Review by Sean Boelman
With a wildly intriguing story at its core, Jiayan “Jenny” Shi’s directorial debut Finding Yingying starts out as an extremely compelling true crime documentary. However, due to some questionable directorial choices made in relation to the film’s narrative, the movie is ultimately better in intention than in execution.
The film takes a look into the disappearance of Yingying Zhang, a twenty-six-year-old scientist and teacher from China who travels to America to research at the University of Illinois, only to disappear from campus two weeks later. Those who come into this movie hoping for it to be a thrilling mystery will be disappointed, as Shi thankfully takes a much more grounded and emotional approach. Although the film presents the obligatory details following Zhang’s case, the focus is instead on the impact her disappearance had on the people she knew. A majority of the movie follows the Zhang family as they search to bring their loved one home. This allows the viewer a unique perspective on the grieving experience. That said, around the one hour mark, the film introduces a new perspective — that of the suspect’s mistress who plays an important part in the case. This shift is very jarring and ultimately wrecks the arc that Shi has established in the beginning of the movie, especially when this new character hijacks the emotional climax in the final act.
The Zhang family are certainly very compelling. The pain they are experiencing is unimaginable, and Shi does an amazing job of making the audience sympathize with their struggle. Yet by including these ineffective sequences near the end of the film, Shi largely undermines the harrowing and soul-crushing potential of the narrative.
Regardless, Shi does offer an interesting message with her movie. The film’s bleak outlook on the American justice system is evident from the moment the movie begins, but there is still some hope to be found in the narrative. Ending with a picture of Yingying Zhang with arms wide open, “Life is too short to be ordinary,” can be heard, a quote from Zhang’s personal diaries. Shi hopes that, from this tragedy, that people take advantage of the opportunity they are given. On a technical level, Shi’s film is mostly fine, although some unprofessional-looking quirks of the movie will draw audiences out of the film every once in a while. Because Shi was afforded personal access to the Zhang family and Yingying Zhang’s diaries, she is able to tell the story with an effective combination of fly-on-the-wall footage and archive materials accompanied by her own readings of Yinging Zhang’s words. Even though it starts off very well, Jiayan Shi’s documentary Finding Yinging loses its footing part of the way through. There are simply too many leads in this story for Shi to pursue, and she gets overwhelmed as a result. Finding Yingying was set to debut at the cancelled 2020 SXSW Film Festival. It is currently seeking distribution. Rating: 2.5/5
Review by Sean Boelman
Written and directed by Jonathan Jakubowicz, Resistance is a new WWII thriller hoping to bring light to some unsung and unorthodox heroes of the war. Yet despite how extraordinary the real-life people who inspired the film were, the movie is so conventional in its execution that it ends up feeling painfully dull.
The film tells the story of an aspiring Jewish actor who joins the French resistance and works to save the lives of thousands of orphans. The subgenre of WWII movies is certainly oversaturated, so while it is refreshing to see a film that deals with a different front of the war, the story too often falls back on the formula of the genre to be overly impressive. Perhaps the biggest issue with the movie is its lackluster pacing. Clocking in at right around two hours, the film isn’t particularly lengthy for a genre that is traditionally filled with grand epics, but there are still portions of the movie that feel unnecessary. The chief of these is the film’s framing device, a speech being given by a military leader (played by the criminally underused Ed Harris) telling the story to inspire his troops. There is a very positive message in the movie — that anyone can be a hero — but this is a very common trope in this type of film. The more interesting ideas that the movie has are those that explore the idea of hope and how the protagonist gives hope to the children in a time when they so desperately need it. This uplifting portion of the film is what makes the movie stand out.
The film doesn’t do a great job of developing his characters. Although the story is compelling and the characters are obviously very likable, not much is done to develop them outside of their heroism. Arguably the biggest disappointment of the movie is that, even though Marcel Merceau eventually became a famous actor, Jakubowicz did not lean into this as an element of humanization.
Jesse Eisenberg is certainly the biggest name in the cast, and while his performance isn’t terrible, it is nowhere near as strong as some of his finest work. Eisenberg is playing the same type of charming but socially awkward character that he is too often typecast in, and so it ultimately becomes somewhat hard to believe him as the character. Edgar Ramírez and Géza Röhrig have supporting roles but don’t make much of a splash. On a technical level, Jakubowicz’s film is totally competent, but there is nothing spectacular about the movie. The cinematography and production design both do the bare minimum of periodizing the film, but the movie still doesn’t have a particularly unique visual style. With a more dynamic look, the film could have accommodated for its narrative shortcomings. There are some interesting ideas in play in Resistance, but the movie is way too conventional to be particularly memorable. Still, older audiences who enjoy films of the genre will find enough by-the-book thrills for the movie to be moderately enjoyable. Resistance hits VOD on March 27. Rating: 3/5
Review by Sarah Williams
We Don’t Deserve Dogs is a film whose subject matter lives up to its title. All about the good that comes with our canine furry friends, different scales of four-legged kindness are shown. With production travelling eleven countries in just thirteen months, the documentary is an impressive bit of filmmaking with just a two person team (who also happen to be a married couple), director and cinematographer Matthew Salleh, and Rose Tucker as both producer and editor.
2020 seems to be the year of nonfiction and quasi-documentaries about dogs. The festival slate has had plenty about sick and injured dogs this year, so it's a breath of fresh air to see them featured in something more positive. This episode in the domestic dog saga is so filled with love and reverence it’ll surely find an audience, the kind of late night comfort food you put on after a bad day at work. A world tour of dog stories, We Don’t Deserve Dogs has many stamps on its passport. We see how pet dogs help child soldiers in Uganda, the passersby of a pub in Scotland, and hear the story of a dog walker on the streets of Istanbul. There’s working dogs too, some that hunt for truffle mushrooms, some that stand watch, and some that are just there to guide. There’s some love that transcends culture, and that same love transcends species in the ways of the dog.
Not all of the stories are as cleanly shown, and everyone will probably have a least favorite segment, but it jumps around so much you’ll always have something better coming up. Of course, these jumps across the globe do feel a bit disjointed, but it’s usually in more of a montage style than messily stitched together. There’s often not much connecting these vignettes other than the shared love of dogs and what they bring us, so it’s not a film for those who aren’t already animal lovers.
The worldwide array of people and their dogs, and the diverse array of meaningful connections and mutually beneficial relationships is a beautiful thing. The score is gentle yet paces the film along, and it’s shot nicely for a smaller documentary, with some great static shots of the countries visited. The camera often gets down on the eye level of the dogs, and they come close to the camera to look it in the eye. It’s hard not to want to be there with them! We really don’t deserve dogs and what they can do for us. A dog can’t understand everything we say and do, yet they somehow find a way to help anyway. There’s a lot of heart on screen, whether it be from behind the camera, or from the dogs and the people they bring joy to. It’s a lovely interspersing of “hero dog” stories and the mundane roles they take, which prevents it from ever becoming too heavy. We Don’t Deserve Dogs is the feel-good film of a festival that never was. We Don't Deserve Dogs was set to debut at the cancelled 2020 SXSW Film Festival. It is currently seeking distribution. Rating: 3.5/5 [SXSW 2020] THE BOY WHO SOLD THE WORLD -- A Captivating Cautionary Tale on the Dangers of Wealth3/22/2020
Review by Sean Boelman
Directed by Adam Barton, The Boy Who Sold the World is a new documentary about the alternatingly tragic and hilarious rise and fall of one of the world’s youngest tech moguls. Thanks to an absolutely fascinating subject, Barton is able to overcome the somewhat conventional nature of the film to provide some interesting commentary.
The movie tells the story of Ben Pasternak who, at the age of 15, dropped out from high school, moved from Sydney to New York City, and acquired funding to form a new tech startup. Part of what makes Barton’s film so effective is that he is able to combine the tropes of the profile style of documentary with the arc of a coming-of-age story, showing Pasternak as he is faced with growing up at a young age. Although there is obviously something extraordinary about Pasternak and his abilities, Barton does an excellent job of humanizing him. The movie emphasizes that, even though he is doing some very mature things with his career, Pasternak is still young, particularly in the beginning of the film in which he is still a high-school-age kid living alone in an unfamiliar place. More than anything else, Pasternak’s story serves as a phenomenal cautionary tale about the dangers of wealth, especially for someone at such a young age. Similar to other movies profiling young entrepreneurial successes, such as The Social Network, the film allows the audience to come to their own judgements on the personality of its subject.
That said, the movie does suffer from feeling too short. Clocking in at under an hour and a half long, Barton’s film follows Pasternak over the span of four years and explores three separate ventures that he organized. Although it is understandable why Barton opted to provide a general survey of Pasternak’s career, the movie could have been more effective had it focused on one of his accomplishments.
Additionally, the film is largely missing the perspective of his collaborators. There are some sequences that incorporate interviews with people who work for Pasternak, but a majority of this content is about their opinions of Pasternak. While Pasternak is the main force behind his ventures, the movie doesn’t adequately acknowledge the contributions of others. Barton shoots the film in a fairly typical fly-on-the-wall way, but it works relatively well, as it allows the personalities of the subjects to speak for themselves. There are some very visually interesting shots, but a majority of these don’t serve much purpose in relation to the narrative or emotional arcs of the movie. Adam Barton’s documentary The Boy Who Sold the World is very compelling, and even though it does have some parts that aren’t fully developed, it succeeds in conveying its intended message. Pasternak is such a compelling subject that the film is basically irresistible. The Boy Who Sold the World was set to debut at the cancelled 2020 SXSW Film Festival. It is currently seeking distribution. Rating: 4/5
Review by Sean Boelman
The directorial debut of actress-turned-filmmaker Lynn Chen, I Will Make You Mine is the conclusion to a trilogy of films starring indie musician Goh Nakamura. A satisfying low-fi indie romance, the movie ultimately tries to juggle a bit more than it can handle, but it works due to Nakamura’s charisma.
The film tells the story of three women who struggle with trying to understand the complexities of life while reflecting on their past relationships with the same man. The movie’s biggest weakness is that it tries to incorporate too many storylines into a short period of time. Although each storyline has some extremely compelling moments, the film is only an hour and twenty minutes long, so there isn’t enough time for all of them to be fully explored. This is certainly a very low-key movie, with very little cinematic happening apart from one mini-climax for each of the storylines. Still, even though the movie isn’t particularly exciting, it is nice to see a sweet slice-of-life romance like this, especially since the leads of the film are all so charming. While it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, this movie will certainly have its fair share of fans. Thematically, the film has a lot going on in its head, but that is because each of the three storylines has their own message. Although there are some interesting things happening in each of the storylines, the movie cuts between them in a way that doesn’t allow them to have their full emotional impact, and as such, the film feels somewhat shallow.
The character development in the movie also isn’t as deep as one would hope. Although all four of the leads are compelling, having four main characters in a film this short is problematic for obvious reasons. As a result, some of the storylines feel stronger than others. Chen’s character Rachel arguably has the most compelling arc of any of them, but there are still some great moments in the rest.
Chen is obviously great in her role, getting to take the director’s reins after playing the role twice before. Nakamura is also excellent, which is expected given the fact that the character is a fictionalized version of himself. Yea-Ming Chen also plays a fictionalized version of herself, and is good but somewhat underused. On a technical level, Chen’s movie is mostly strong. The film is shot in black-and-white, giving it an even more evident indie feel. The more impressive part of the movie, though, is its incorporation of music. Obviously, music plays a big role in the film given the fact that its central character is a musician. The soundtrack of the movie, particularly the eponymous song, is pretty great. I Will Make You Mine is a sweet little indie dramedy, and while it could have spared to be a bit longer, it’s still infectiously likable. Fans of the indie pop scene will certainly want to check this film out. I Will Make You Mine was set to debut at the cancelled 2020 SXSW Film Festival. It hits VOD on May 26. Rating: 3.5/5
Review by Sarah Williams
Freeland is probably the gentlest stoner movie you'll see, and it's deeply rooted in emotion. Devi (Krisha Fairchild) is an aging weed farmer desperate to sell this year’s harvest, which may be her last due to the increasing restrictions that come with legalization. Unlike most films about drugs, it’s serene and unaggressive, instead portraying the ageless counter cultural spirit. A quiet, meditative examination of one woman’s struggle to adapt, it’s a backwoods look at changing times.
The easiest way to describe the film is that it feels like a stoner Kelly Reichardt film. The wilderness compositions are stunning, with a hazy fog rolling in at times, and a beating sun making the treeline glow gold at others. Mario Furloni and Kate McLean’s film is one with the world it is in, and their personal, almost documentary-like style is able to cover a limited story and sparse script. One of the film’s most stunning shots shows Devi popping her head out from underwater in a lake, perhaps reborn into a world she has been trying to avoid for years. Frequent Trey Edward Shults collaborator Krisha Fairchild is devastating to watch here. Her character, and her soon-to-retire partner (John Craven) are part of an older generation often considered more uptight and conservative about these matters, but she is part of a subset that is the last to be truly free. She didn't have to discover this natural world for herself, she began with it, and has stayed apart from the rules of the world. Losing her farm is an unwelcome force from society, one that begs her to integrate in a world she has never belonged to. For everyone else in the farm, this is a devastating loss of their lifestyles, but for Devi, this has always been her life. Certain Women breakout Lily Gladstone has a minor role, but is fantastic as usual. She adds a layer of warmth to her alt-hippie character, who is part of Krisha's band fighting against the industrialization of their livelihood. It’s a shame she doesn’t get more screen time, one of the aspects that could have been much more fleshed out in a longer runtime. Freeland is a story of found family beneath Devi's legal struggle. It's a cobbled-together group who've learned to care for each other out in the wilderness. They blend in with their surroundings just as much as the deer darting around the plains, camouflaged because they've learned to trust nature. This unbroken territory is their freedom, and the farm is the tether to the real world that allows them to have it. The eighty-minute runtime is almost completely set within this tight-knit group, a smart decision in limiting the film's scope.
To them, this harvest is what keeps their freedom, and legalization is taking their world away more than it gives them any leeway. Marijuana is one of the most tightly regulated crops in places that allow it to be grown and sold, and the tight-knit clan the film follows is not used to all the legal struggles that come with it. The ever-shifting industry is pushing them out in favor of corporate newcomers, and this strikes Devi heavily.
Issues that may come from making a film about a mainly white group of people in the industry are staved off by showing pre-legalization hippies. They aren't the ones directly coming in to gentrify in cities and sell expensive synthetics, they're just a found family who feel connected to the land, and this plant has been their life long before talk of legalization. They operate in a realm separate from this commercialized drug industry, so they're exempt from most of the discussion. Opening credits of warm, grainy home movie footage set a precedent for what is to come. This is a film that feels like a family memory, one telling the tale of how their lives changed. Conflict is only at the fore when Devi lets down her guard as she tries to shut it out, and in these moments we are let inside a legal battle to keep their lives. It’s so calm yet grounded in the desire for independence that the short runtime is nowhere near enough. It could reach a full two hours with flowing nature shots and calm gatherings, and fit perfectly into the world of slow cinema as an American entry. The appreciation for the outdoors is one of the strongest points, and drawing this out, along with more time to develop side characters, would make it an absolute knockout of a film. Freeland was set to debut at the cancelled 2020 SXSW Film Festival. It is currently seeking distribution. Rating: 3.5/5 [SXSW 2020] TFW NO GF -- A Visually Innovative but Narratively Uneven Dissection of Online Culture3/21/2020
Review by Sean Boelman
Directed by Alex Lee Moyer, TFW NO GF is a new documentary exploring one of the most infamous memes in the history of the internet. However, after a few minutes of really intriguing commentary on the dangerous potential of the world wide web, it soon becomes obvious that the film wants to be more important than it actually is.
The movie explores the movement of incels and their unofficial mascot, the meme character “Wojack”. With her film, Moyer promises to explore some of the darkest corners of the internet, but fails to offer much substantial material on the social impact of what is being discussed. Instead, the movie comes off as an attempt to capitalize on the moment. That isn’t to say that there is no depth to the film — certain segments are really interesting — but more often than not, the movie feels like it doesn’t live up to its potential. There is a portion of the film that addresses some of the violence and threats of violence that have been inspired by this culture, but not enough of the runtime is devoted to this topic. Part of this movie’s issue is that it doesn’t have a total grasp of what it wants to be. On one hand, it is trying to be a topical and harrowing documentary on the toxicity of the internet, but it also wants to be an entertaining movie about a viral sensation. With the film having such a short runtime, there simply isn’t enough time to accommodate both of these tones.
Furthermore, the development of the subjects in the movie is not effective at all. There are so many people interviewed in the film that it is difficult to form a connection with the subject matter. By trying to explore the movement as a whole rather than a smaller subset of its followers, no emotional reaction (in either direction) is elicited.
That said, perhaps more problematic is that Moyer takes no real stance on the people she is interviewing. To the average viewer, these people will likely come off as off-putting or even annoying. However, because the movie has both comedic and serious elements, it is never clear whether or not the viewer is supposed to take the film seriously. The main success of this movie is its visual execution. A majority of the film is told via animations featuring Wojack, with narration from the interviews accompanying it. For a movie that is based on such a modern phenomenon, it is fitting that the style is so innovative and unique. The visual style of the film is certainly very energetic and lends the movie a lot. TFW NO GF has a lot of really interesting ideas at its core, and a great style, but unfortunately, the film is too short and unfocused to have much impact. Still, those interested in learning about some unique aspects of internet culture may enjoy the movie nevertheless. TFW NO GF was set to debut at the cancelled 2020 SXSW Film Festival. It is currently seeking distribution. Rating: 2.5/5
Review by Sean Boelman
It would hardly be an overstatement to call Marnie Ellen Hertzler’s experimental documentary Crestone one of the most unique and unorthodox selections that was set to premiere at this year’s SXSW Film Festival. And while it certainly won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, Hertzler’s film is able to prove in a mere seventy-three minutes the immense range that film has as both a visual and an aural medium.
Though the film lacks a strict narrative, the movie takes a look at the lives of a group of musical artists living together in Crestone, Colorado as they live together getting high and making music to be posted on the internet. Although one wouldn’t expect a documentary about SoundCloud rappers to be as innovative and well done as this, Hertzler defies all expectations. Unlike most films that don’t have an obvious through-line, Crestone moves along at a solid pace thanks to the narration provided by the subjects and Hertzler herself. Hertzler introduces herself into the story at the beginning as a former high school friend of the subjects who decided to reunite with them in order to document their lives and use that footage to make a movie about them. However, Hertzler frequently blurs the line between reality and perceived reality in what is shown on screen. There is complete honesty as to the way in which the characters are portrayed on screen, but Hertzler plays with the audience’s mind by distorting the viewer’s view of the world, creating a similar disorientation to that experienced by the subjects.
Perhaps Hertzler’s biggest success with this movie is that she is able to draw the audience into the world of the subjects with ease. The film almost has a tongue-in-cheek nature about it as it explores the unusual lifestyle that these self-promoting rappers have created for themselves. Viewers will be endeared to the players in the movie through their unique personalities and senses of humor.
Hertzler had her start as a maker of experimental shorts, some of which have found success on the festival circuit, and that avant garde style is clearly evident in the visuals of her feature debut. There is something gorgeous about this film’s hypnotic and surreal visuals, juxtaposing the harsh and unwelcoming environment of the desert with the playfully poetic interactions happening in the foreground. Even more impressive, though, is what Hertzler is able to do with the movie’s soundscape. Of course, the soundtrack is composed of songs written and performed by the film’s subjects, and their quality will be dictated by personal taste. That said, the objectively intriguing part of the movie’s sound design is the way in which Hertzler uses the soundtrack and other sound effects to create the feeling of a not-quite-real world. With Crestone, Marnie Ellen Hertzler experiments with documentary techniques unlike anyone else ever has before. By refusing to limit herself with the confines of traditional narrative, she has successfully crafted one of the most perplexing films to come out in quite a while. Crestone was set to debut at the cancelled 2020 SXSW Film Festival. It is currently seeking distribution. Rating: 5/5 Review by Sean Boelman Feeling like a combination of Sorry to Bother You and Wild, Noah Hutton’s ambitious directorial debut Lapsis is the type of sci-fi satire that the festival circuit was built to discover. Thanks to a creative premise and witty dialogue, Hutton has delivered a film that is both entertaining and thought-provoking. Set in an alternate present day, the movie follows a group of gig workers as they are hired by tech companies to hike trails linking complex computer systems via cables. Arguably the biggest strength of this film is its world-building, as the movie does not feel too far off from something that could happen in the real world, but Hutton still does an excellent job of immersing the viewer in the dystopia of the film. At its core, the movie is a stark criticism of the modern economy and the way in which labor is exploited by corporations led by billionaire CEOs. Although a majority of the film’s substance is delivered through dialogue that is admittedly quite dense, the script is focused enough to provoke the viewer’s thought as opposed to spoon-feeding the audience. The script’s pacing is admittedly the weakest part of the movie. While there are moments that are quite funny throughout, the film uses much of its best material early on. The first half of the movie, as the audience is being introduced into the world of cabling, is much stronger than the second half, in which Hutton really starts to drive home its message. That said, the film consistently works thanks to excellent character development. By making the protagonist of the movie an everyday guy, Hutton has used this story as a symbol of the struggle of the working class as a whole. Many members of the eclectic cast of supporting characters that Ray encounters along the way are amusing, but ultimately serve the greater purpose of making the protagonist more relatable and believable.
In his feature debut, Dean Imperial is absolutely wonderful as the protagonist. His dryly sarcastic approach to the character makes the film all the more likable and enjoyable, as he absolutely nails the comedic timing in the script. Madeline Wise is probably the biggest standout in the supporting cast, as her chemistry with Imperial is great. On a technical level, the movie looks great because Hutton takes advantage of the film’s luscious green setting. A majority of the movie takes place in forests and wooded trails, allowing cinematographer Mike Gomes to create an immersive atmosphere. The warm liveliness of the backgrounds often contrast with the cold and robotic nature of the actions happening on screen, creating the intended discomforting sci-fi feel. Lapsis fits the very definition of an independent film, complete with big ideas and quirky style despite a limited budget. However, first-time writer-director Noah Hutton brings a script so undeniably intriguing to the table that the movie is impossible to ignore. Lapsis was set to debut at the cancelled 2020 SXSW Film Festival. It is currently seeking distribution. Rating: 4.5/5 |
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