Sundance 2006

Mmm Sundance.
The smell of the popcorn, the murmur of the crowd, the woman sitting next to me with the heavily perfumed lotion (I know it was lotion because she put it on during the movie -- who the hell wears perfume to a movie?)
Anyway.
It’s Monday and I’ve only hit 10 films. I was far too tired for a midnight on Saturday, what with sinus infection recovery and all. In fact, it’s been more than a week since I’ve had a beer. I wonder if my friends at the bar miss me yet.
So, Friday night I started the festival with “13 Tzameti” (Tzameti means 13 in Georgian). This is a rather violent, but wonderful little movie. The main character is a handyman who obtains a train ticket to Paris and paid hotel receipt that have been sent to his employer, who subsequently od’d. While he’s in the hotel the phone rings and he follows the directions out of curiosity. Let’s just say that people have an amazing capacity for cruelty and will gamble on anything.
This decidedly French film, whose director is Georgian, has a feel of late Film Noir and early French New Wave. The decision to film in black and white was a wise one, it keeps the focus on the story rather than on the blood.
So I guess Friday was my day for violence. My second film was “The Proposition.” Screenwriter/Music director Nick Cave even showed up in Salt Lake for a few minutes along with the film’s director and some cast and crew. They only gave an intro, which it was better than nothing, though a Q&A would’ve been nice.
This historical fiction, set in frontier Australia, is the story of the Burns brothers, who are accused of committing rape and murder of a frontier family. Captain Stanley captures two of them and makes a deal with the middle brother. If he kills or delivers the oldest brother by Christmas (less than two weeks away) the youngest brother, Mike, will not be executed.
This is pretty much a violent horrible story told in a beautiful way. The dust and heat of the bush, the sunsets (ah the sunsets - fantastic even by Salt Lake standards), the relationship between the tired, headachy captain and his beautiful young wife, the hate-love between the two older brothers and their love for the rather simple young Mike.
Of the films I’ve seen so far, this is the one I would be most surprised not to see in a theater near me.

Saturday dawned (at noon) with “Special.” A parking enforcement officer joins a drug study, mostly because he’s bored. His reaction to the medication makes him delusional and he comes to believe that his super hero fantasies are real.
Poor Les. He has a crush on the girl at the corner market, his only friends are two brothers who own a comics shop and the men in the suits really are after him.
Other people I’ve talked to have enjoyed the movie more than I did, and there was nothing wrong with it. I just didn’t care for it. Les didn’t move me. I felt sorry for the poor lonely bastard, I appreciated his motives, but he lacked depth. I was neither engaged nor repelled by him. He’s just someone I wouldn’t want sitting next to me on the bus, even when he’s not in his leather super suit.

Had won ton soup at P.F. Chang’s for a late lunch. Not bad, though a bit bland, a nice warm filling lunch for one.

“La Tragedia de Macario” moved me, proving I’m not cold hearted. Inspired by the true story of illegal immigrants suffocating in a truck in Victoria Texas in 2003, this film pulls hard as desperation leads people to their accidental deaths.
Macario is a day laborer on a farm in Sabinas Hidalgo Mexico. Every night his wife fixes beans and tortillas since that’s what they can afford, they argue when he tries to make jokes and then end up sleeping on the floor. When the boss sells his property, Macario and his friend are at loose ends.
It’s a sad hard world that makes $500 - $800 per month boxing tomatoes in San Antonio, Texas look like a good option for two married men, one with a sick child.
The story is framed with a ballad, telling Macario’s story. Each verse acts like a chapter heading of the style, “Chapter 5 in which Macario prays to the Virgin Mary for advice.” It gives a very foreign feeling to an American viewer, but does not detract from the overall feel of the story. The ballad does not turn the movie into a musical in anyway, it just gives cultural perspective.

Remember how sexy Henry Rollins was twenty years ago?
After a supper break (ran home had a sandwich, not exciting) I hopped in line for “American Hardcore.” Unlike the first punk movement circa 1977, this was a very American musical and cultural phenomenon which ran it’s main course from approximately 1980-86. Based on Steven Blush’s book of the same name, this movie discusses the rise of hardcore American punk through interviews and show footage, I just can’t describe them as concerts. I saw a lot of the bands here in SLC at the Speedway, the Indian Center, the Barf & Swill, pardon, the Bar & Grill, concerts did not happen in those places.
Anyway interviews with members of Bad Brains, Black Flag, DOA, MDC -- you or and early forties and spent some time at places like the Speedway, make an effort and check it out. The film, of course, is not the complete story, for many reasons including not enough time for all the stories to be told, deaths and a few requests for interviews being refused, but it’s a good cross section of what Nancy Reagan wanted us to say “No” to.

I ended the evening with “No. 2.” This is my favorite so far, despite tough competition. (I hate the next adjective, but must use it in this case.) The incomparable Rudy Dee plays a Fijian matriarch in New Zealand who wakes up one morning and decides things are too quiet and she wants a party so she can name her successor as head of the family. She doesn’t want her children there, just her grandchildren and “no outsiders”. She wants dancing and singing and fighting, and her grandsons to roast a pig.
The first problems with the plan is a grandson and granddaughter who want to bring their girlfriend and boyfriend, then the butcher is closed and the pig is delivered live (much to Nanna Maria’s great-grandchildren’s delight), her children start to show up, one grandson (after a lecturer on compassion from the priest) decides the party needs to be bigger and starts inviting all of the family friends.
This is a grand story of family with everything Nanna Maria wanted, dancing, singing, swearing, fighting and a roast pig. It’s one of those grand food movies that makes you not just hungry for food but hungry for life.

As I said, I was too tired for a midnight show and am kicking myself for stopping at four on Saturday.

Sunday was lovely, I could've stayed inside drinking my morning coffee, but instead chose to sit in the sun and watch the first two movies at the Broadway line up while I waited for mine to start.