TriBeCa part 2 - narratives

I went much safer with narratives than I intended to; at this time only one of the films I saw doesn't have a distribution deal, and half of them have familiar actors involved (which probably has something to do with the first point). For the most part I avoided movies I could see pretty soon; Good Kill and Far From Men interested me but both have May release dates. Unfortunately, due to bad timing or just plain exhaustion there were a few I wanted to see and regret not doing so. Cronies and Lucifer came highly recommended; they were both featured on the festival website for cinematography and Latin American films (which Ives seen almost none of.) The Survivalist had its world premiere at TriBeCa, and it's always nice to see some speculative fiction, and I was looking forward to some oddball dark comedy in Applesauce and Mickey Rourke in Ashby. There's only so much one person can do though, so here's what i actually did see:

I've been torn on Sworn Virgin, because its subject matter is extremely interesting and the cinematography, but I wasn't entirely feeling this film. The title refers to a practice in rural Albanian towns where gender roles are extremely rigid and women have little agency. The 'sworn virgin' is a woman who takes a vow of celibacy and lives her life as a man to gain similar rights to a man. The film follows Mark, who, after growing up in the Albanian mountains, leaves to live in Italy with his sister, who ran away instead of going through with an arranged marriage. It intercuts Mark's struggle with his identity and ambivalence about his hometown and sister with their upbringing in Albania, when he was Hana.

The cinematography is beautiful; long takes where the actors wander across an expanse, whether an empty pool or the cold, rough Albanian wilderness, and smooth camera movement. The scenes in Albania can be a jarring change from those in Milan, and while I'm sure that's intentional, I don't think it was the best choice. Mark/Hana's scenes in the present are about her observing and ever so slightly relaxing from the rigid patriarchy she grew up with, and it's almost too subdued. The director described it as Mark thawing out, and I think that's a perfectly apt description. Unfortunately, the ice melting is not nearly as engaging as it freezing; the flashbacks in Albania showing Hana and her sister Lila' s upbringing and the culture they live in are riveting.

 I'm not even sure if some of my qualms are actual flaws or if I'm just getting ornery about subdued, quiet films. It's definitely worth watching, and it's entirely possible on another day I would have loved it. But when I saw it? Not so much.

I also just have to share a choice quote from a guy's question to the director - "we all know lesbians sleep with men..."  Because you know who knows the most about fluid sexuality and gender? Middle aged men.

The next film I saw was something I was really excited about; Jackrabbit sounded like the most science fiction-y film at the festival, with some retro-cyberpunk flavor. It takes place in a city only known as City Six, after an apocalyptic event where all modern electronics ceased to work. In the film's present, humanity has begun to rebuild technology, but computer parts from the 80s and Walkmen are premium. I wish the characters and/or plot were even half as developed as the setting; the world building is fascinating, but there's no real sense of urgency or really even clarity on what our main characters are looking to find. It wants to be a film that doesn't give you all the answers, but it fails at asking the questions in the first place. It takes forever for some real stakes to be set up, and even then, there's little payoff, emotionally or story wis.

Mojave was definitely my favorite out of what I saw at the festival. The best way to describe it is a western that takes place in the desert and Hollywood. Weird shit happens in the desert; people can get away with stuff you wouldn't in normal society. Weird shit happens in Hollywood; people can get away with stuff you wouldn't outside of the industry. Garrett Hedlund and Oscar Isaac play Thomas and Jack, two men who meet in the Mojave desert; one is a bigshot actor/filmmaker looking to find himself (or kill himself) in the desert, the other a mysterious malcontent who (sometimes) claims to be the devil. When the two meet and have an altercation, the Jack tracks Thomas to Hollywood to settle the score, and fits in surprisingly well.

The great thing about Mojave is that it flirts with being a Hollywood satire, but ends up poking fun at the idea of the movie industry satire. The barbs are there, but Mojave is at heart a revenge story, eventually showing that the privilege to bend the law that Thomas has is nothing compared to the lawlessness of the desert. Oscar Isaac gives a stellar performance, switching effortlessly between menacing and hilarious. The only major flaw is the very last scene, which is warm and fuzzy to the point of schmaltz, a jarring tone change from the dark comedy of the rest of the film. I forgive it though, since the rest of the film is just so much fun.

Also Garrett Hedlund is shirtless pretty often and Oscar Isaac walks around wearing a pink speedo and holding a puppy, so there's that.
 

The last two I saw on the last day of the festival, and I ended up with a bit of regret. Though I had been looking forward to Backtrack, a psychological horror where a psychiatrist starts hallucinating and has to return to his hometown to figure out why, it was picked up for distribution a few days beforehand (the Variety article is dated Friday the 24th, although I swear it was earlier), and after seeing it, I really could have waited. The mystery in the first act is solved too quickly; we're only allowed to be creeped out for a few minutes before it's regrounded in reality. There's good stuff in there, but it's pretty uneven until the spectacular third act twist. Like Mojave, it somehow ends on a treacly note, wrapping up a bit too neatly, but the ride to the conclusion is thrilling.

And then there's Sleeping With Other People. It had shown at several festivals already. It has distribution. It's coming out in June. I don't usually like romcoms. I had absolutely no reason to see it, much less at a film festival. But it had good reviews and was one of the few screenings that day not on rush, so I got a ticket and gave it a chance. I saw Beyond the Lights on a whim and realized that I actually like love stories sometimes, so it could work. And besides, is it really fair to have an opinion on an entire genre?

...yeah, sometimes it is. I could write about what was good and what wasn't so good and the dialogue and plot blah blah blah, but the bottom line is that an important part of the premise is 'men and women can't be friends; if you're close to someone of the opposite sex, you probably are in love with them', and I hate hate hate that idea. Despise it. So it really didn't matter that Allison Brie was pretty great and her character really had nuance, or that the obligatory already married friends were charming, because that theme sours everything fun. It's not a bad movie by any means, but I definitely regret seeing it instead of potentially something more surprising.

Is it okay to write off an entire genre? Generally, probably not. But with so many choices at a festival, along with a time limit, I probably shouldn't waste my time with something I know I probably won't be into. It's one thing to stumble along a free screening (I didn't like The Theory of Everything or The D-Train, but I don't regret going to IFC member screenings of them), but another to know I could have made a more interesting choice.