A Meditative and Engrossing Vision

LEVIATHAN
11/04/12 - Chinese 2, 7:15 p.m.

By Brad Franklin 

LEVIATHAN is a film that is both unique and indefinable. It is easier to say what it isn’t than what it is. It is not a typical documentary. Its subject is commercial fishing off the New Bedford Coast of Massachusetts, but it does not treat its subject as a documentary would. There is no narration. There is no (discernible) dialogue. The only non-visual communication between the filmmakers and the viewer is a biblical quote from Job (made ominous with a scary font) that elucidates the film’s title and an endnote honoring the countless vessels and crew lost in the very waters where they filmed. These are not negatives. These stylistic choices are what make the film a truly immersive experience in a way that no IMAX documentary could.

In essence, it’s a visual diary portrayed in hyper-realistic terms. The directors employ an essentially raw form of filmmaking by simply shooting the environment of a fishing vessel with cameras placed at impossible-seeming angles from improbable perspectives, leaving their intent equivocal. Sharp cuts interrupt uncommonly long scenes that encourage the viewer to absorb the full spectrum of emotion and information that the camera captures, which involve all facets of life and death on the boat. The camera is not passive; it is always interfacing with what it’s shooting. A single scene can illuminate the brutal and transient nature of life, and evoke awe and wonder at the glory of creation.

Despite its raw, HD video aesthetic, directors Lucien Castaing-Taylor (SWEETGRASS, AFI FEST 2009) and Véréna Paravel (FOREIGN PARTS) have crafted a beautiful and arresting record of modern life at sea. LEVIATHAN presents a common-seeming vocation as an encounter with the sublime. This is complemented with an artful eye toward edits. It is not always clear if an edit has been made, if the camera jumped or if something in the environment changed. When a clear cut does come along, you are usually transported to a completely different sphere of life on the boat, which is always jarring yet is part of the mechanism that keeps the film truly engaging throughout.

Most shots are extremely intimate, as the camera has no regard for personal space. It pushes in uncomfortably close to the fishermen’s faces and stays there, watching. It is literally left to languish on the deck with the dead or dying fish and is lowered down into the sea as it is passed between ships. Often, shots are upside down or so dark they are indecipherable, but this does not detract from the potency of the atmosphere; it creates it. Certain shots transcend their initial surface quality and take on a foreboding, almost frightening tension, partly due to the lack of a guiding voice, but also because of their length. In this way, LEVIATHAN stands with the QATSI trilogy in its meditative and engrossing stream-of-consciousness staring, albeit limited to the realm of commercial fishing.

If LEVIATHAN does have a thesis, it’s that documentary filmmaking needs neither narrative, identifiable characters or a clear message to engage an audience, as these things are discoverable without guidance.  

Brad Franklin is a writer based in Los Angeles.

3 November 1 Permalink

A Drama of Restraint

BARBARA
11/04/12 - Egyptian, 6:15 p.m.
11/07/12 - Egyptian, 4:00 p.m.  

By Brad Franklin

Set in the German Democratic Republic in the ’80s, BARBARA begins with the struggle of the titular character’s (Nina Hoss) attempt to exit the misery of provincial life-in-exile. Shipped off to a small country hospital for applying for a visa to move west, Barbara maintains a formal manner and keeps to herself as she bides her time, waiting to escape. However, the kindness of her colleague, Andre (Ronald Zehrfeld), begins to warm her, creating a conflict between her present and future lives. As the film develops, it becomes less and less likely that Barbara will find the escape she seeks.

Though not a thriller in the traditional sense, BARBARA delivers a sustained tension as the plot unfurls. The narrative is not heavy-handed; instead, it builds the story around the action. Back-story and character motivation fall into place quietly without distracting from the thrust of the narrative. Who she is, how she came to be desperate to escape and who the strange men are that come to her apartment to abuse her all become clear without direct explanations.

Hoss delivers a great performance that is remarkably restrained. You can feel the conflict in Barbara and the anxiety behind her stiff facade (particularly in regards to those who can hurt her) but with her patients, she shows a remarkable, almost uncharacteristic depth of compassion.

Zehrfeld’s Andre draws out this side of her further through his own empathy and shy, yet open, longing for her. His performance brings vibrancy to an otherwise tedious world — by design, as many of the characters have little to be chipper about. Mirroring Barbara’s character, the film itself never becomes too sincere or sentimental. When any scene might become trite or romantic, it retreats and reverts to its previous dispassionate alignment or “apologizes” for its indulgence, generating tension and creating an atmosphere of dulled, remorseful pleasure.

The story serves to paint a fairly accurate picture of life in the GDR. The director/screenwriter (Christian Petzold) has a personal connection to the period and locale, and he made sure to maintain strict attention to detail, going so far as to ensure that the clothing was factually from the period. Everything is vintage; no reproductions were used. He wanted to be sure everything looked, worked (or didn’t work) and moved as it would have during that time. 

BARBARA won the Best Director Silver Bear at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival and will be Germany’s entry for Foreign Language Film at next year’s Oscars®.

Brad Franklin is a writer based in Los Angeles.

2 November Permalink

HITCHCOCK Recaps

Our Opening Night Gala, HITCHCOCK, was a resounding success!  In addition, ALL the free ticket holders and all of the Rush Line got in last night — so don’t hesitate to come out for tonight’s Gala, LIFE OF PI IN 3D.

We’re also getting a lot of good press. Be sure to check out these photos galleries and coverage from last night:

Los Angeles Times: “No Suspense Here, HITCHCOCK Enthralls AFI FEST Crowd”

The Wrap: “Party Photos: ‘Good Evening’ - HITCHCOCK Opens AFI FEST 2012”

Hollywood.com: “HITCHCOCK Premiere at AFI FEST: A Classic Hollywood Tale of Love and Horror”

2 November 3 Permalink

Youth in Transformation

ELECTRICK CHILDREN
11/02/12 - Chinese 1, 10:00 p.m.
11/05/12 - Chinese 5, 4:30 p.m. 

ONLY THE YOUNG
11/03/12 - Chinese 3, 1:30 p.m.
11/05/12 - Chinese 3, 4:45 p.m. 

By Annabel Campos

AFI FEST 2012 offers great films in the Young Americans section. Two films I recommend are ELECTRICK CHILDREN and ONLY THE YOUNG, which share similar themes about young people and their insecurities and transformations.

In director Rebecca Thomas’ ELECTRICK CHILDREN, the main character, 15-year-old Rachel (Julia Garner), who is pregnant, escapes her fundamentalist Mormon community in search of someone she thinks is a God-sent singer on a cassette tape. The documentary ONLY THE YOUNG by Jason Tippet and Elizabeth Mims, features three teenagers who grow from immaturity to the beginning of adulthood.

Both films have a high-caliber of talent, both on- and off-screen. The cinematography of ELECTRICK CHILDREN is brilliant, from the earthy, prairie grassland colors to the soft, fluorescent, neon-lit faces in Las Vegas. The film contrasts the atmosphere of peaceful pastures versus the chaos of noisy streets; we soon find out that places that look safe might actually make for a miserable life.

One evening, Rachel and Clyde (Rory Culkin) share food in the kitchen of his parents’ suburban home; she asks if they can move in together, little aware that he has sneaked them into the house in the middle of the night because he’s prohibited from living there himself. Clyde later reveals that living with his parents feels like juvenile hall. His life seems screwed up, but he decides to take care of Rachel and her baby and we see Clyde change; he goes from being a lost garage-band boy to being a man.

Early on, ELECTRICK CHILDREN introduces a symbol of transformation: a red mustang horse that Rachel imagines running up and down grasslands, and more abstractly, she associates with the excitement of the outer world and the music she hears on a cassette tape.

Read More

1 November 1 Permalink

FEST+, A Google Hangout On Air

JOHN DIES AT THE END

Join AFI FEST in an online conversation celebrating our Midnight movies and one of our New Auteurs, Brandon Cronenberg.

AFI FEST programmer Lane Kneedler and Fangoria Magazine Editor-in-Chief Chris Alexander will lead a conversation with the filmmakers behind ABCs OF DEATH, JOHN DIES AT THE END and ANTIVIRAL.

The best part — you get to be a part of the conversation! Just sign on via Google+ and join the chat LIVE as we dispatch from the heart of Hollywood.

Want to ask us something? Tweet @AFIFEST and we’ll respond on air!

In addition to Cronenberg, the chat will feature JOHN DIES AT THE END director Don Coscarelli, and a team of filmmakers from ABCs OF DEATH, including Simon Barrett, Adrian Bogliano, Marcel Sarmiento, Jon Schnepp, Marc Walkow and Adam Wingard.

When: Saturday, November 3, 3:00 p.m.
Where to Watch: Circle in @AFIFEST on Google+ or find @AFIFEST on YouTube
How to Join: Anyone with a Google+ account can circle in and ask a question. A Google Plus Account is not required just to watch. To join Google Plus, visit the tutorial here.

Fan Station Broadcasting Live from the Box Office! Anyone can join just by hopping over to the fan station at the AT&T Box Office on the 4th Floor of Hollywood and Highland and interact live with our digital panel. Stop by, get your tickets, and join the conversation!

1 November Permalink

It’s Opening Night!

AFI FEST begins today with our HITCHCOCK Gala Screening! Starring Anthony Hopkins as Alfred Hitchcock and Helen Mirren as Alma Reville, his wife, collaborator and the love of his life, HITCHCOCK reveals the untold story behind the director’s darkest masterpiece, PSYCHO.  

The details:

Grauman’s Chinese Theatre
6925 Hollywood Blvd.
Hollywood, CA 90028

Media check-in:  5:30 p.m.

Red carpet arrivals:  6:30 p.m.

Screening:  7:30 p.m.

Scheduled to appear: director Sacha Gervasi, James D’Arcy, Richard Portnow, Kurtwood Smith, Michael Stuhlbarg, Michael Wincott, producers Alan Barnette, Joe Medjuck, Tom Thayer, Tom Pollock and Ivan Reitman, composer Danny Elfman, cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth, editor Pamela Martin, make-up department head Julie Hewett, author Stephen Rebello,  and additional guests including Avi Arad, Eric Balfour, Timothy Blake, James L. Brooks, Jennifer Coolidge, Cameron Crowe, Frances Fisher, Peter Fonda, Robert Forster, Dennis Haysbert, Thomas Jane, Ed Lauter, Cloris Leachman, Kasi Lemmons, Robert Loggia, Steve Ludlow, Jerry Mathers, Michael Nouri, Brett Ratner, Mimi Rogers, Gavin Rossdale, John Savage, Kevin Smith, Andrew Sugerman and Zoe Kazan.

1 November 1 Permalink

Exploring a Labyrinth

ROOM 237
11/04/12 - Chinese 1, 9:00 p.m.
11/07/12 - Chinese 3, 1:15 p.m. 

By Dennis Cozzalio

When I first saw Stanley Kubrick’s film of THE SHINING back in the summer of 1980, one of the many questions swirling around in my head as I stumbled out of the theater into the midday sun was, Why would Kubrick change the number of the sinister hotel room from 217 (as it was in Stephen King’s book) to 237? It seemed like such a random choice, but it gnawed at me, right along with the many reservations I had about the movie itself. My own efforts to contemplate Kubrick’s motivation never moved beyond the rudimentarily mathematical, not to mention the absurdly inconsequential — “Is the director saying his movie is better than King’s book by, um, 20?” — before I gave up altogether.

It’s been 32 years since the movie came out, and over the course of subsequent summers the movie — which got very mixed reactions from critics and audiences at the time — has been embraced by many as yet another Kubrick masterpiece. But it turns out some people never gave up wondering about that room number, and scores of other mysteries apparently buried within the text of the movie’s visual and aural design.

Rodney Ascher’s delightful, nimbly directed, perplexing but never condescending ROOM 237 allows that freeform wonderment a postmodern sort of forum, charting the conspiratorial theories of five people who have poked at the carcass of THE SHINING for decades, each unearthing wildly divergent, improbable, thought-provoking and, of course, conflicting conclusions.

The movie, blessedly talking heads-free, uses plenty of fair-use justified clips from Kubrick’s movie as a sort of an illustrative guide, functioning as an exhibit of evidence to support the various claims made by its multiple narrators, alongside scores of found footage and clips from other films, some directed by Kubrick, some not.

If ROOM 237 never allows the viewer the luxury of “getting to know” the folks who have submersed themselves so profoundly into Kubrick’s methods, then the very nature of their obsessions provides clues for further psychological archaeology. One man claims the movie as a treatise on the genocide of the American Indian, another on the Holocaust. There’s a woman who tracks with three-dimensional precision the lay of the Overlook Hotel (Ascher cleverly places us inside her maps) and the meaning taken on as the various characters move through it. And two different observers focus on how Kubrick apparently used the nascent trend of technological manipulation of imagery (originated in the groundbreaking effects of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY) to his own end — one weaving an elaborate theory involving that changed room number and Kubrick’s involvement in the faking of the Apollo 11 moon landing, the other postulating that the simplest answer to why the movie is so packed with seemingly random information might be the most reliable — Kubrick was bored.

ROOM 237 has been criticized for elevating the nitpicking mania of marginalized viewers to the level of film criticism, and it is true that there’s a certain similarity between what goes on here and the sort of geeky-smart exegesis found in modern video essays, ones produced by reliably intelligent writers as well as the kookier fringes of the fanboy brigade. But what Ascher does here hardly negates 32 years of serious consideration of a movie that by no means holds a consensus of quality either among critics or the public.

Some of the defensive railings against the film from reputable critics imply a presumption that Ascher lends credulity to either the notion that the theories in his film belong on the same platform as traditional film criticism, or to the veracity of the ideas themselves. But what makes Ascher’s approach admirable is his refusal to editorialize about his subjects, to use his movie to demonstrate a hipster’s directorial aloofness, a constant invitation to chortle at the plausibility of what’s being offered. The invitation is not to award these theorists the credibility of seasoned film critics but instead to allow the audience the luxury of deciding for themselves how to process the wildly conflicting information, a method strangely similar, if the interviewees are to be believed, to the one which Kubrick employs in his own film.

Ascher’s clever and illuminating movie ends up offering a road map into the consciousness of obsession not only of those who have plumbed THE SHINING for its secrets, but also into that of any cinephile who has ever found a measure of passionate derangement in whatever their cinematic obsession might be, film critics included. To a certain degree it is to Kubrick’s THE SHINING what Les Blank’s BURDEN OF DREAMS is to Werner Herzog’s FITZCARRALDO, a demented wrinkle on the traditional “making of” promotional documentary, with a particularly obsessed and gesticulating portion of the audience taking up the mantle of a notoriously reclusive director who is in death only marginally more reluctant to pontificate on his motivations than he would be if he were alive to see ROOM 237 for himself.

Dennis Cozzalio writes for his Los Angeles blog Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule.

1 November 1 Permalink

A Patchwork of Farce and Tragedy

THE LAST STEP
11/03/12 - Chinese 2, 9:15 p.m.
11/04/12 - Chinese 2, 1:45 p.m.

By Katie Datko

In much the same way that a quilt is formed of seemingly random shapes and fabrics that up close appear disjointed and unrelated, Ali Mosaffa’s THE LAST STEP is a fractured narrative — snippets of flashbacks chronicling the protagonist, Koshrow’s (Ali Mosaffa) death.

Loosely combining Joyce’s “The Dead” and Tolstoy’s “The Death Of Ivan Ilyich,” the film takes us through Koshrow’s untimely demise piece by piece. What at first might seem like a disjointed plot thread becomes carefully interwoven into the narrative in such a way that each seam joins with one another, creating a fuller — yet still questionable — picture of the story.

Koshrow, planted firmly in a middle-class Iranian existence, has hemmed himself into a plodding and meticulously curated life. Married to an actress, Leili (Leila Hatami from A SEPARATION, AFI FEST 2011), he’s a character with the sort of unwaveringly mediocre personality that obsesses over measurements and minute details. Yet even so, he can’t seem to get it right. Just like the ‘last step’ in his house that is higher than the other, his fixations cause him to trip up — with fatal consequences.

As THE LAST STEP opens, Leili, on a theatrical stage and in period costume, succumbs to uncontrollable laughter and repeatedly fails to deliver her lines: “I cannot even recall your face,” she explains. “As if you’d never existed.” A cut to Koshrow skateboarding down a hilly street maintains this lighthearted touch. With each acrobatic fall and narrow escape, it’s easy to think this is a story about middle-aged Iranians-turn-hipsters, until the voiceover of Koshrow’s ghost kicks in: “It was actually the day before his death…it seemed he’d wished for it.” Throughout the film, the dead Koshrow’s narration alternates between a distant, objective detachment and an all-knowing, shared intimacy.

There’s some ambiguity about what precipitated Koshrow’s death, whether it was an accidental blow to the head or a psychosomatic reaction to a diagnosis given by Amin (Alireza Aghakhani), an old family friend who is also a doctor. The more we glimpse the interplay between the three characters, the more questions we are left to ask about their motives, their relationships and their true connections with each other. At the heart of this triad lies Koshrow — in spectral form — who binds them in death but who seems almost inconsequential even while he’s living.

Even though the focus in this film is on death, it’s really about life — the choices one would make if he or she knew there was only a limited amount of time left. There is a sense that perhaps Koshrow would’ve been able to wake up to the reality of his life mired in the middle class, best illustrated by Mosaffa’s clever use of hands and gestures. While driving on an isolated country road to his homeland, Koshrow spontaneously sticks his hand outside his car, catching the breeze. It is perhaps this sort of insight into what he might have become that makes THE LAST STEP traverse the border between farce and tragedy.

Mosaffa’s THE LAST STEP is refined, focusing on the trappings of middle class life instead of the more typical gritty and realistic portraits and political statement that are usually part of the film festival circuit, and affirms the sophistication of Iranian auteurs.

Katie Datko is an LA-based writer who has written for the LA Weekly, DailyOm.com and the LohDown on Science.

1 November Permalink