FILM REVIEW: EMOTICON ;)

Elena (Livia De Paolis) and Hanna (Carol Kane) in Emoticon ;).

Connections

By Don Simpson

Elena (Livia De Paolis) is fascinated by modern means of communication but she cannot seem to wrap her head around how to develop that interest into a graduate school thesis. But then Elena finds herself fully immersed into the very modern worlds of her significantly older boyfriend Walter’s (Michael Cristofer) adopted teenage kids, Amanda (Diane Guerrero) and Luke (Miles Chandler). This allows Elena to gain firsthand insight on how these two particular teens utilize different types of technology as existential tools to better understand themselves.

Though many of Emoticon ;)‘s comments on modern communication are annoyingly obvious, De Paolis’ directorial debut works well as a subtle contemplation of family that intimately observes how adoption and divorce may affect family units. Not only is there a natural generational divide between Walter and his kids, but they are not intrinsically bound by DNA. With sole custody of the teenagers, Walter has adopted a laissez-faire approach to parenting, focusing his time on teaching and dating. Having very little parental oversight, Amanda and Luke are forced to learn everything for themselves. Elena’s keen interest in their lives is resisted at first, but that tide turns quickly. Starving for parental support during their existential struggles, Amanda and Luke latch onto Elena. Not quite old enough to be their mother, Elena’s understanding of technology allows her to form an intimate connection with the Amanda and Luke, becoming their friend and confidant, something they have seemingly never experienced with a parental figure before.

Emoticon ;) also addresses the role that race may play in adoption. While Luke was able to easily adjust to his adoptive parents and their neighborhood (Gramercy, Manhattan) because he is Caucasian, Amanda basically had to ignore her Mexican roots and assimilate herself into their white, upperclass world. Once Amanda meets her first “brown” friend, her life is changed forever. Amanda is driven by the desire to learn about the biological past that has been hidden from her thus far.

De Paolis’ refreshingly feminine perspective is most apparent in her handling of unplanned pregnancies, specifically in the way the female characters are affected by these situations. Emoticon ;) serves as a perfect example of why we need more feminine directorial voices in the world of cinema.

LAFF 2011: BAD INTENTIONS

Cayetana de la Heros (Fatima Buntinx) in Bad Intentions.

Death to the bourgeoisie

By Don Simpson

Writer-director Rosario Garcia-Montero’s The Bad Intentions is a coming-of-age story which centers around a quirky-yet-morose nine-year-old girl, Cayetana de la Heros (Fatima Buntinx). Cayetana’s parents (Katerina D'Onofrio and Jean Paul Strauss) are divorced -- which, as she learns at her Catholic school, means they are going to hell. Cayetana is raised primarily by the servants (Liliana Alegría, Tania Ruiz, Melchor Gorrochátegui) at her Valium-popping mother’s bourgeois home in Lima, Peru. Whenever Cayetana does spend time with her mother, she devises new and interesting ways to play torturous mind games with her. And though Cayetana’s father seems too preoccupied with life -- especially attractive young women -- to pay her much mind, Cayetana idolizes him nonetheless.

As her surname suggests, Cayetana is obsessed with heroes. It seems most of Peru’s heroes are losers and Cayetana is specifically interested in their heroic deaths. Cayetana’s fascination with death, especially violent deaths during battle, lends her the morbid air of a Peruvian Wednesday Addams. Death’s allure becomes even more personal when Cayetana suddenly -- and quite irrationally -- concludes that she will die on the day that her pregnant mother gives birth. Cayetana is not very worried about dying, but she seems utterly frightened of being rendered invisible.

Of her entire family, Cayetana’s most sane and rewarding relationship is with her cousin, Jimena (Kani Hart). When Cayetana becomes too much for her mother to handle, she is sent to spend the summer at the beach with her cousin. When Jimena becomes mysteriously ill, Cayetana is snapped back into reality. Death is more than just a magic realism-tinged dream; death becomes real for Cayetana.

The Bad Intentions takes place in 1982 and the brutal guerrilla attacks of the Maoist group, the Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso), hover around the periphery of the narrative. The terrorists always seem to be lurking around the corner; as the violence creeps closer to Cayetana, her mind is catapulted into more frequent and fervent daydreams about Peru’s past war heroes.

Garcia-Montero’s film functions as an absurd allegory for bourgeois feelings of ambivalence towards an uncertain future. The invisible yet always-present threat of death has warped repercussions in the mind of a nine-year-old child; Cayetana is riddled with Catholic guilt, consciously for her parents’ unholy divorce and subconsciously for being a part of a bourgeois household that is quite similar to the colonialists that her favorite revolutionary heroes fought against.

SXSW 2011: SMALL, BEAUTIFULLY MOVING PARTS

Sarah (Anna Margaret Hollyman) in Small, Beautifully Moving Parts.

Techno tot

By Don Simpson

Sarah Sparks (Anna Margaret Hollyman) loves the small, beautifully moving parts of technology. She takes a pregnancy test and discovers that she is pregnant, however she is significantly more interested in the quality of the disposable pregnancy test than the baby in her womb. Even when it comes time to have her first ultrasound, Sarah is fascinated by the realistic quality of the image rather than the fact that the image is her baby. Sarah realizes that something is wrong with her preference for technology over her own baby, and she is fairly certain that her estranged mother is to blame.

The baby's daddy, Leon (André Holland), is incredibly grounded and supportive of Sarah, even when Sarah’s sister, Emily (Sarah Rafferty), convinces her to visit Los Angeles for a baby shower with a bunch of mothers Sarah doesn’t even know. Leon knows from the get-go that it is a bad idea, but Sarah will need to discover that on her own. Sarah’s entire visit with her sister’s family is uncomfortable, but the baby shower quickly escalates matters to unbearable levels with the increasingly loud chorus of screaming kids and complaining mothers.

From Emily’s house, Sarah drives her rental van to her father’s (Richard Hoag) house. This is the man who turned Sarah on to technology in the first place, but now that he has retired it is becoming apparent that he is having a difficult time keeping up with the times. His dilemma when Sarah arrives: a Skype malfunction. Like Sarah, he too has a warped prioritization of things. He Skypes daily with a Brazilian love interest, but they have never talked on the phone, not even when his Skype was down...because they do not exist on the phone plane yet.

Soon, Sarah is on the road to the Arizona desert to have coffee with her mother (Mary Beth Peil) who is currently living “off the grid”; the other option was to hand write a letter (too analog, too retro) since at the time she did not know that her mom is able to send/receive faxes. Along the route to her mother’s, Sarah’s GPS goes haywire and she winds up in Las Vegas, where Leon’s sister (Susan Kelechi Watson) is attending massage school. Leon’s sister discovers that Sarah’s animal spirit is a lizard with a light bulb head (sounds like a Robyn Hitchcock song) -- reflecting just how deeply technology has been ingrained into Sarah’s innermost being. When Sarah eventually arrives at her mother’s, she encounters a semi-primal existence (featuring concepts like meditation, vows of silence, and a labyrinth); but luckily a baby monitor (a gift from the baby shower) helps Sarah break through to her mother. If it were not for the crutch of technology, Sarah may have never confronted her mother.

Co-writer-directors Annie J. Howell & Lisa Robinson opt for an offbeat yet profoundly thoughtful approach in telling Sarah’s coming-of-parenthood story in the postmodern age of technology. Small, Beautifully Moving Parts discusses Sarah’s trials and tribulations in dealing with the existence of a baby in her womb while also coming to terms with her own motherless upbringing. Sarah knows that this baby will represent significant changes in her life and she is incredibly curious about how technology can fit into the equation. Sarah does not want to be anything like her mother and it becomes incredibly obvious that her mother’s negligence will provide Sarah with a relentless drive to do the complete opposite of her mother. I have a feeling that Sarah is going to be a great mother.

The secret to this relatively simple story is Hollyman’s portrayal of Sarah. I know a lot of people who will read the first paragraph of this review (or even the film’s published synopsis) and immediately come to the conclusion that Sarah is a horrible person. These people will say: “Who would dare to care more about technology than their own child?” On paper, I agree; but it is very difficult not to feel sympathetic towards Hollyman’s Sarah. Hollyman molds the quirky and eccentric version of Sarah from the script into a multidimensional human being and suddenly all of Sarah’s idiosyncrasies make sense... She is not a bad person after all.