LAFF 2011: THE FATHERLESS

A scene from The Fatherless.

Paternal disfigures

By Ed Rampell 

Written and directed by Marie Kreutzer, Austria's The Fatherless is sort of a cross between John Sayles’ 1980 Return of the Scaucus Seven, Lawrence Kasdan’s 1983 The Big Chill, Mike Leigh’s stellar 1996 Secrets & Lies, the 2000 Swedish commune movie, Together, and the recently concluded HBO plural marriage series, Big Love. 

The story opens with the death of the enigmatic Hans (Johanness Krisch), who owned the house where a very extended family lived collectively during the 1980s. His scattered children converge for the occasion, including Kyra (Andrea Wenzl, giving a standout performance in her film debut), who was mysteriously banished 23 years ago when she was still a child.

At this rather odd family reunion, Mizzi (Emily Cox), who has a strange disability, discovers for the first time that she has an older sister, Kyra. In the wake of their father’s death, they, and the rest of the tribe, try to come to terms with one another and to unravel the many mysteries.

One of the more talked about films at LAFF 2011, The Fatherless is a superbly well acted ensemble film that’s also quite well crafted, as it shifts from the present back to the past. It also probes the nature of communal living in a consumer society where materialism and ultra-individualism are accentuated and valued. With The Fatherless, Kreuzer's debut is the mother of an insightful, thought provoking, family drama squared.    

FILM REVIEW: PASSIONE

Pietra Montecorvino in Passione.

Turturro's take on Naples

By Don Simpson 

Passione is not a documentary and it is certainly not a narrative; Passione is a series of musical postcards proclaiming writer-director John Turturro’s unwavering love for Naples. Whether or not Turturro will convince you to love Naples as he does is totally reliant upon your acceptance of his absurd yet strangely poetic cinematic technique.

Between seemingly random song and dance routines, Turturro directly addresses the camera to recount seemingly random factual tidbits about Neapolitan history. The structure of Passione seems completely nonsensical. At times it plays like a collection of music videos, other times like a cinematic recreation of an opera or musical theater.

The scenic shots of the city are saturated with biased reverence, while some of the musical performances are so absurdly choreographed that Passione seems like it might actually be a form of parody. If Christopher Guest had directed Passione, I would be much more certain that it is a parodic mockumentary; but I am fairly certain that Turturro wants us to take this film seriously.

Turturro describes Passione as “a musical adventure that comes directly out of the people and the volcanic land they inhabit." He obviously loves the Neapolitan music featured throughout Passione, but he is unable to convince me of why? Passione might be better suited for someone who approaches the film with a pre-existing fascination with Naples.

Passione features Mina, Spakka-Neapolis 55, Avion Travel, Misia, Pietra Montecorvino, Massimo Ranieri, Lina Sastri, M’barka Ben Taleb, Gennaro Cosmo Parlato, Peppe Barra, Angela Luce, Max Casella, Raiz, James Senese, Fausto Cigliano, Fiorello, Enzo Avitabile and Pino Daniele.

LAFF 2011: THE SALESMAN

Marcel Lévesque (Gilbert Sicotte) in The Salesman.

A man and his moose head

By Don Simpson

Marcel Lévesque (Gilbert Sicotte) is a 67-year-old car salesman living in Dolbeau-Mistassini, Quebec. But he is not just any car salesman, Marcel has been deemed “Salesman of the Month” for the last 16 years at the dealership where he has spent his entire career. A product of a bygone era of salesmanship, Marcel learned to dress his lies up nicely in order to make his customers happy -- a strategy that obviously still works for him even in Dolbeau-Mistassini’s bleak economic climate.

The town of Dolbeau-Mistassini’s economic backbone is the pulp and paper industry which writer-director Sébastien Pilote’s debut feature film finds in a rapid decline. The one and only local plant has laid off a majority of its workforce -- a complete closure is looming -- and the skyrocketing unemployment rate is effecting all of Dolbeau-Mistassini’s businesses, especially car sales. Nonetheless, Marcel trudges onward through the literal and figurative blizzard, even selling cars to the local plant’s recently unemployed.

Work is such an important part of Marcel’s life that he lives directly across the street from the dealership. Marcel is a widow and, besides work, the only other meaning in his life is found in his daughter, Maryse (Nathalie Cavezzali), and grandson, Antoine (Jeremy Tessier). It is quite obvious that Pilote is determined to challenge his protagonist’s stagnant life.

The Salesman opens with a dead moose and a totaled car yet with no explanation of the relationship between these images and the overall narrative. Being that Marcel sells cars, it seems almost too presumptuous that we will discover that Marcel is tied in some way to this accident. Pilote lays out more than enough clues early on that it becomes quite obvious where this film is going...and let’s just say it is not a happy place.

LAFF 2011: AN ORDINARY FAMILY

A scene from An Ordinary Family.

Out to dinner

By Don Simpson

Seth (Greg Wise) and his boyfriend, William (Chad Anthony Miller), show up at the lake house while Seth's unsuspecting family members are enjoying their annual week-long vacation. Before they announce their arrival, Seth confesses to William that his family does not know they are coming. As it turns out, Seth has been estranged from his family ever since he abandoned working beside his older Christian minister brother, Thomas (Troy Schremmer), and ran away to live with William, whom he met on Chatroulette. The Biederman family presumably does not know that Seth is gay and they certainly do not know that he has been sharing a bedroom (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) with William.

Seth’s arrival with William in tow catches the Biederman clan off guard. The tension -- stemming from the most socially conservative member of the family, Thomas -- reaches its boiling point during dinner. Presumably, Thomas, a straight-laced minister and family man, does not like Seth and William discussing how they met in front of his young and impressionable children, but we know there is more to this story that is fueling his outrage.

The Biederman family comes around to accepting Seth and William fairly quickly, and Thomas remains the only holdout. (Admittedly, I am a little surprised by how quickly their mother, played by Laurie Coker, comes around to accepting Seth.) Mattie (Janelle Schremmer) -- Thomas’ significantly more open-minded better half -- tries to convince him to open his heart to Seth, but it seems that Thomas will never get beyond his homophobic Christian biases.

Seth and Thomas’ sister (Megan Minto) is married to a rotund husband, Chris (Steven Schaefer) and it seems Chris’ primary purpose is to provide some much needed comic relief-- especially when paired with William -- to the otherwise serious family drama.

The chemistry between the real-life married couple Troy and Janelle Schremmer is undeniable, thus contributing to Akel’s obvious desire to achieve cinematic realism. That said -- Akel and Patterson’s script is so well-written that it sometimes plays in detriment to the film’s sense of realism.

Writer-director Mike Akel’s (Chalk) An Ordinary Family conveys the age-old conflict between religion and homosexuality from a relatively unbiased perspective. Akel -- who co-wrote the script with Matt Patterson -- never gets too preachy, though it is quite obvious that Akel is of the opinion that Christians should be more accepting of gays; otherwise the portrayal of the Christian minister is just as favorable as that of the gay characters. Accordingly, An Ordinary Family will be enjoyable for Christians and gays alike -- though there is no denying that its target audience is gay Christians, a niche crowd if ever there was one. I fit into none of these categories yet applaud An Ordinary Family for its open-mindedness and its ability to intelligently discuss (without ever becoming argumentative) the acceptance of gays by Christians without offending either side of the equation. Also, An Ordinary Family is one of the few films that prominently features gay characters in leading roles that I would not consider a gay film, which is something I wish there will be more of in the future.

LAFF 2011: ON THE ICE

Qalli (Josiah Patkota) in On the Ice.

The frozen ones

By Ed Rampell

What if playwright Eugene O’Neill had been an Inuit? His classics such as The Iceman Cometh may have been set in another culture and environment, but their universal themes could still find expression, even in Barrow, Alaska, where most of writer-director Andrew Okpeaha MacLean’s On the Ice takes place. Indeed, the substance abuse that plagues O’Neill’s barflies also ravages Inupiaqs, Natives of Alaska, in MacLean’s feature film debut.

Americanization has been a disaster for many of the indigenous people conquered, swallowed up and spit out by the racist American empire. From the genocide of the so-called “Indians” to the overthrow of the independent Kingdom of Hawaii to the nuclear testing at Bikini atoll, and so on ad infinitum, aboriginal inhabitants have been uprooted and displaced by endless expansionism. Now Alaskan Natives are saddled with that latest affront called “Sarah Palin” -- no wonder those alienated teens at Barrow turn to drink and crack and, like Bristol Palin, contend with unplanned pregnancies.

On the Ice focuses on two Inupiaq teens as they are leaving high school. Qalli (Josiah Patkotak) is preparing to attend college far from Barrow. His stalwart father (Teddy Kyle Smith) is an efficient emergency responder who performs a delicate balancing act, with one mukluk in the white man’s world and the other in the Inupiaq’s realm, which is still dominated by endless vistas of tundra. Qalli’s classmate and close friend since boyhood, Aivaaq (Frank Qutuq Irelan), is a substance abuser with an alcoholic mother; his father died of booze before he reached 30. Aivaaq has also apparently knocked up his girlfriend, and the irresponsible teen can barely be a boyfriend, let alone a blubber-winner and father.

Tragedy befalls the friends during a snowmobile seal hunting expedition. But the story rests more on how they deal with what happened rather than on exactly what did occur. (As conventional wisdom has had it since Watergate, the cover-up is always worse than the original scandal. If you don’t believe me, go ask disgraced ex-congressman Anthony Weiner.)

During a Q&A following Sunday's LAFF screening, MacLean stated that he was half-Inupiaq, Barrow is his hometown and he’s related to about half of the cast, which largely consists of non-professionals. (MacLean, however, went to film school.) They were recruited after a talent hunt that scoured the Canadian and American Arctic in search of indigenous talent at the top of the world.

Truth be told, at first glance MacLean’s depiction of Inupiaqs is unflattering; aside for Qalli’s father, who is eventually ensnared by the misdeeds, noble savages a la Robert Flaherty’s 1922 docudrama, Nanook of the North,need not apply. With its crack cocaine, liquor, ramshackle hovels and blaring rap songs (one number is called, appropriately, "Arctic Thug") the Barrow of On the Ice comes across like a stereotypical ghetto. (Perhaps the film should have been called Soul on Ice?) Talk about the Barrow gang! In particular, Aivaaq comes across as a totally out-of-control loser, jerk and menace to society.

There has been a trend in world cinema for indigenous filmmakers to make their own movies and tell their own stories. But this doesn’t mean that the Native depictions are always flattering.

LAFF 2011: WISH ME AWAY

Chely Wright in Wish Me Away.

Wrightright

By Miranda Inganni

When singer-songwriter Chely Wright decided to come out as the first openly gay country music star, she did so in a big way -- by making the announcement on Oprah. Not only did her fans not know about this aspect of her life, but neither did some family members, most notably her mother.

Making its world premiere tonight at the Los Angeles Film Festival 2011 (although there was a "sneak peak" at the Nashville Film Festival in April),  Bobbie Birleffi and Beverly Kopf's documentary, Wish Me Away, chronicles Wright's rise to fame and her coming to grips with those predictable reactions of what many in her country community considered shamefully behavioral choices.

With one-on-one interviews, archival footage and lots of confessional camera time, the film has an intimate home video feel. Wright's tribulations are heartfelt and raw, and full of tears. Make no mistake about it, this is a woman whose strength is obvious, despite her doubts. 

In addition to the film, Wright has her latest book, Like Me, and most recent album, Lifted Off the Ground to further her message of hope and understanding, especially for the LGBT youth she hopes to inspire and comfort. With the help of her sister, father and her spiritual guide, Wright and the film prove that no amount of wishing something away will make it so. And thank goodness for that.

LAFF 2011: THE NIGHT WATCHMAN

Martin in a scene from The Night Watchman.

Gates of hell

By John Esther

The latest documentary by Natalia Almada (To the Other Side; El General), few films or documentaries laboriously and quietly examine the life of the working poor as well as The Night Watchman (El Velador).

Set in the infamous Cualican cemetery called "El Jardin" ("The Garden"), the night watchman, Martin, and others construct crass gravesites and mausoleums for the victims -- or soldiers ("capos"), depending on how one looks at it -- murdered as a result of the highly profitable narcotic trafficking in the northern Mexico area. Day by day, under the sun, gravediggers, bricklayers, cleaning women, food vendors, etc., do their low-paying jobs as the rich are put to rest. Without visible exception, the ones doing the work have already existed longer than the recently deceased. 

Rather than explore the more visibly sensationalized aspects of drug trafficking, the documentary maintains its focus on the aftermath of violence. Almada never investigates the live and death of the victims or their families beyond the tributes (pictures, personal belongings, etc.) the latter have made at the burial plot. (However, there is one chilling scene where a mother wails over her son's death off-camera as we watch workers continue creating future burial sites.) Instead Almada focuses on the mind-numbing days and nights of Martin and the workers as they earn their meek wages caring por los nuevos ricos muerto, whose extermination brings the trabajadores a little steady income. To put it more bluntly than the documentary does: in this rare incidence, murder is good business for the working poor.

Although there were only about 40 people attending the Sunday night screening at the Los Angeles Film Festival, despite its method of deconstructing some of the destruction and construction due to violence, I only noticed one person leaving this unusually poetic documentary before it was over.