The Seattle International Film Festival normally likes to put some of their best movies, or at least the ones with the most allure, in the first time slot of the day. Last weekend, Saturday’s morning screenings included When Marnie was There, Frame By Frame, and Tab Hunter Confidential. Sunday had the new Ozon film, and Georgy Palfi’s Free Fall.
Periodically, this type of attraction can lead to audiences being kicked in the guts out of the gate. On the second Saturday, one screen opened with The Look of Silence (albeit at 1:00 pm). Another opened at 11:00 am with One Million Dubliners, a very visual walk through an Irish cemetery. A third had Faces of Yesler Terrace, a local documentary about gentrification of a specific neighborhood in Seattle.
A fourth screen opened with David Gordon Green’s Manglehorn, starring Al Pacino as a miserable old locksmith, A.J. Manglehorn, who pines after a long lost woman while he chases another one. Told through his letters to Clara, Manglehorn is a lonely old soul who has pushed everybody away through his harder edged persona and dedication to brutal honest with an inability to consider the feelings of others. He pushed away his son, a financial businessman who only calls upon Manglehorn when he needs money. He was hard on a little league baseball player who embraced Manglehorn’s toughness, later to become an entrepreneur with a tanning salon and “massage parlor.” His one human connection is to Dawn (Holly Hunter), a bank teller he visits weekly. But, he also loves his cat.
Manglehorn is a character study instead of a linear story. The progression of the story is emotional rather than narrative. But, Green can’t figure out what he’s saying with Manglehorn. He uses a poetic style that will layer images upon images, slow motion and other abstract cinematic techniques to tell…something. I don’t think Green even knows what he’s saying so much as throwing techniques and metaphorical phrasing at the wall to see what sticks. Maybe its about the dangers of personal isolation. Or, maybe it’s about the damage of the past. The movie reeks of personal inexperience, reminding me of those poems obnoxious kids would write in college where they had nothing to say but a lot of technique with which to say nothing.
In turn, Al Pacino’s Manglehorn is going to be a love it or hate it performance. He’s cast as somebody who acts big in a world that would prefer him to be understated. Some will view the performance as too broad for such a micro-movie, while others will see it as another way in which Manglehorn doesn’t quite fit into his own word. Regardless of the reaction, it’s a performance and a character in search of a story or meaning. With little to back him up, Pacino’s performance is lost at sea.
Justin Kelly’s I Am Michael has an inverse problem: he has a lot to say, but has no technique to say it with. James Franco plays Michael Glatze, a former gay activist, former editor of XY Magazine, and founder of the Young Gay Americans magazine, who has a health crisis and moves from his homosexual lifestyle to become a rabidly Christian anti-gay pastor. Starting from Benoit Denizet-Lewis’ New York Times article “My Ex-Gay Friend,” Kelly embarked on a mission to interview the key characters of the story and construct a film that attempts to understand Glatze rather than judge him. Subsequently, Kelly is so fearful of saying anything too radical or condemning, he ends up saying almost nothing. The key moment where Glatze comes to his conclusion that he needs to take Jesus Christ as his lord and personal savior comes in the middle of the field with Franco furrowing his brow while Kelly swoops his camera 360-degrees around him.
James Franco, or rather Kelly’s direction of James Franco, is no help here. Franco turns in a rather flat performance that is restricted to broader gestures, like a furrowed brow, that doesn’t belie any emotional transformation or belief in Glatze as a character. And, to a point, there is no belief in I Am Michael‘s version of Glatze. Stripped of any extreme emotion, the central mystery of I Am Michael isn’t why Glatze transformed into a Christian but why anybody really cares. What is it about Glatze that draws people to him? How did he become editor of XY Magazine at such an early age? Why did he get into a long term triad relationship with Zachary Quinto and Charlie Carver? What draws a later character to him, despite Glatze’s obvious issues with confusion and condemnation? Because he’s so afraid to paint Glatze with a negative brush, Kelly also misses out on understanding Glatze’s magneticism.
Kelly wants to say something about queer and gay as both a sexuality and as a culture. He opens the film with Glatze counseling a kid to turn away from the gay lifestyle before flashing back 10 years to show Glatze as a bleach blonde ecstasy-taking circuit club activist. This is contrasted with domestic life with Quinto, which is again contrasted by the subsequent rejection of all homosexuality. But, none of this really takes either, as Kelly doesn’t want to step on toes. For a movie about such a radical personality, I Am Michael is too safe, too demure, and too boring. There’s a good movie to be made out of the story, but this isn’t it. (P.S. If you’re doing a period piece, stop shopping at Target to buy your clothing; half of the clothing in the gay sections of I Am Michael are cheap Mossimo t-shirts).
Franco pops up again in Yosemite, the second movie to be made out of his short story collections following Gia Coppola’s Palo Alto. Set in 1985, Yosemite is a coming-of-age period piece about three fifth graders dealing with trauma, insecurities, change, death, and sex. Chris goes on vacation with his father (Franco) and little brother to Yosemite, where he sees the burning carcass of a cow. Joe recently lost his little brother to meningitis, has an absentee geek father, and finds a father figure in the adult rebel Henry. Ted finds his stepfather’s gun and goes off to shoot the mountain lion that was haunting Palo Alto throughout the stories.
Gabrielle Demeestere tries to capture Stand By Me‘s feeling of dread as puberty hits and adulthood begins looking like a scary thing happening to boys. Prayer, ritual, and faith play a large part in this, as things natural and unknown begin happening both to their bodies and to the world around them. Demeestere’s world of Palo Alto is that of a lower-middle class upbringing where kids are given permission to roam the streets and grow up as they see fit. They get into trouble, find ways to do things without consent, and mature into the people they will become. Yosemite suffers a bit from its triptych structure instead of being one naturally flowing story with flashbacks and flashforwards. The dreamy atmosphere that Demeestere creates, with that hazy state of long lost memories, almost requires a stream of conscious narrative to flow with it. I’m not sure that Yosemite adds up to much, but it captures a compelling image of youth long lost.
Alléluia‘s method of capturing a dreamy state of being is grain. LOTS and LOTS of grain. Like grain the size of rice. Quite possibly, this is the grainiest film I’ve seen since The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. The grain is Fabrice du Welz’ attempt to recapture a sense of 1970s grindhouse to fit with the story of two love-struck serial killers. Gloria meets Michel through an online dating service. Before the date, Michel burned a sacrifice to the gods to make Gloria fall for his charms, which turns out to be more true than he knows. After they discover just how corrupt each other can be, they hatch a plan to marry emotionally distressed women, get some money, and then kill them. This is based on the true story of The Lonely Hearts Killers, which also inspired Mike Myers’ dark comedy So I Married an Axe Murderer, as well as The Honeymoon Killers and Deep Crimson.
With a plot as intriguing as that, Alleluia could have been everything. Unfortunately, du Welz agreed and cannot come up with a singular tone. What starts out as a neo-realist film takes a deep dive into neo-giallo which gives way to lesser-Twin Peaks. The story, divided by victim, repeats itself several times over, and each time it feels a bit like that post-reveal James storyline in Twin Peaks where he runs off to live with a woman and fix her husband’s car, only to find he’s the patsy. Remove James, repeat 3 times, and you have the final 90 minutes of Alleluia. Similar to that storyline, du Welz can’t decide if he’s making a wicked comedy or a serious thriller, making half-hearted attempts at both and ultimately landing in neither. Not even the sheer amount of violence could save this one.
Elsewhere, Xenia replayed a Seattle festival. Last seen at October’s Seattle Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, Xenia is a Greek movie where a gay teenager moves in with his brother in a conservative and racist part of town. They rebel and run away in search of their long lost father, who is rumored to be a prominent conservative politician. Crime and freedom ensures.
The glorious part of Xenia is that it doesn’t follow the usual rah rah we’re so gay and its good formula. It also isn’t wallowing in its own neuroses. Instead, Xenia most resembles the New Queer Cinema movement, where homosexuality is a defining characteristic but doesn’t grant the characters immunity from bad behavior. Xenia celebrates flawed characters and keeps them moving through the plot at a rapid pace. So far, Xenia is the best of the queer films I have seen at the festival.
The midnight showing was RoadKill SuperStar’s Turbo Kid, the feature length adaptation of their proof of concept short and rejected entry for The ABCs of Death, “T is For Turbo.” If Bethesda Software OD’d on Cannon Films while making the next Fallout game, and updated the 1950s references for 1980s references, you might get something like Turbo Kid. In a post-apocalyptic world, The Kid is a BMX-riding loner who survives by collecting trinkets of the past and turning them in for water that has been controlled by Zeus (Michael Ironside!). Along the way, he befriends a fellow wastelander, Apple, whom he must eventually save from Zeus’ clutches. Meanwhile, Zeus is making water by using human bodies and converting it to water.
Zeus’ plot is straight-up stolen from Tank Girl, wholesale. The love that fills Turbo Kid permeates all aspects of the film, that the shallow plot feels like a massive disappointment. Since Turbo Kid is a Canada/New Zealand co-production, a deeper analysis of Thatcher’s government would have been nice. Or, since RKSS constantly references Cannon Films among other American productions, even analysis of Reaganite or Bush, Sr. politics would have been appropriate. But, all the political meaning of Turbo Kid has been delegated to 2 scenes the film. In the wake of politically potent films like Cheap Thrills and Snowpiercer or even Sleep Dealer, the absence of political statement is even more pointed.
Even without a deep plot, Turbo Kid is an entertaining film for any post-apocalyptic film genre junkie. RKSS doesn’t let the referential nature of the film get in the way of telling a good story. They get the tone and balance of such a retro future movie exactly right. It’s funny and loving, but rarely satirical. It’s referential but if you miss the references the movie still works on its own. While watching Turbo Kid, you can feel the love that RKSS has for video games and 80s pop culture as you watch them churn through it to make an original piece of art.
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