We viewed four films today including three enlightening Q & A’s. Tomorrow will mark the first time we try the “second run” feature, each of these were premieres.
Starting with my favorite film, this evening’s premiere of the Swedish psychological thriller, Knocking, was a succinct, riveting portrayal with a terrifically fulfilling conclusion. Director Frida Kempff gives us a compact, beautifully shot film in which protagonist Molly, upon emerging from a stay in a psychiatric facility, is thrust into a real-or-imagined rescue. Played with intense focus by Cecilia Milocco, both character and film are haunting and haunted, leading to a deeply suspenseful film under 80 minutes. According to Kempff, the taut film was shot in an equally succinct 18 days, but the visual style is nonetheless riveting.
So too are the images from the surreal-tinged In the Earth, a horror thriller set in an English wilderness. Already acquired by Neon, director Ben Wheatley’s tale of magic, madness, and terror shifts gears with ease throughout, aided by lush visuals and an ominous score. Scientist Martin (Joel Fry) and ranger Alma (Ellora Torchia) are beset by the dark magic of a rogue scientist and her mad husband, played by Hayley Squires and Reece Shearsmith. If the film runs on a bit long and devolves a bit into the psychedelic, that can be forgiven; it’s a gorgeous film that does not ignore the current pandemic but nor does it pander to it.
The fine international production of Human Factors, from sophomore German writer-director Ronny Trocker, is a Roshomon-like story with weaving perspectives from son, daughter, husband, wife, and even a pet rat, peripherally revolving around a would-be robbery, but more pointedly around a disintegrating marriage between two advertising professionals. It also examines political extremism, and how that can come into play in a crumbling personal relationship as well as a socio-political one. Trocker embraces his ambiguous ending, revealing in a Q & A that it was “up to the viewer” to interpret and dissect; it fits the tense, threatening ambiguity throughout the film. Fascinating and discussable.
At the bottom of my viewing barrel was a film I wanted to love but simply could not, the comic end-of-the-world-by-comet fable, “How It Ends.” Set in LA and filmed during the pandemic, it’s comically beleaguered heroine, along with her “metaphysical younger self” traverse the streets of the Hollywood Hills along with a few other random Los Angeles locales looking for closure from parents, lovers, and friends. Zoe Lister-Jones and Daryl Wein’s film gives the protagonist (Lister-Jones) an on-foot to-do list of reconciliation that regrettably doesn’t do all that much. Some “high” comic moments – particularly a cameo by Nick Kroll – aside, this just didn’t click for me despite its whimsical nature.
And we are back with some more film festival joy with a trip to Sundance on opening night. Rather than snow in Park City, there’s rain in LA, and we are watching on the biggest screen in the house along with front row seating from our cats.
Tonight we began with a screening of Coda, a feel good coming-of-age movie with plenty of heart, music, and a protagonist who hears music with her soul. This is despite coming of age in a family in which she is the only hearing member. Mom (played by Marlee Matlin, the only deaf performer to have won an Academy Award to date), dad, and brother Leo – all in stellar performances – are deaf.
The film, including a sweet boy and girl meet in choir practice story might’ve been predictable if it wasn’t so couched in a loving realism – the generational fishing industry in Gloucester, Mass.; the warmth of family life; the dependence on protagonist Ruby Rossi for the family’s ability to move more easily through a hearing world.
Emilia Jones is an absolute standout as Ruby, and anchors the film with both joy and heart. Compellingly directed by Sundance vet Siân Heder, you can smell the salt air and feel the strength of the hugs, and enjoy a tearful moment or two at film’s end.
Entirely different is the arthouse take on horror and filmmaking itself of Censor, the debut feature for director Prano Bailey-Bond. This film, too, features a bravura performance by its lead, in this case Niamh Algar as British film censor Enid, who is drawn into strange parallels between a horror movie she’s looking to rate and edit for her job, and the long-ago disappearance of her sister.
Her descent into madness is uncertain, and the riff on whether or not the 80s-era “nasty” horror she is expected to pass judgement on is to blame or whether she has “always been that way” is part of the fun. The film reminded me a bit of In Fabric, which I viewed at the Mammoth Lakes Film Festival in 2019. That film was more over-the-top from the outset, whereas this began as grounded in realism, but soon passed into the realm of distorted fantasy.
We are left a bit hanging as to the reality and dimension of tortured Enid’s terrible deeds (did she have something to do with her sister’s disappearance?), but no matter, the astute combination of the gritty “video nasties” era and family trauma still shape this into is a scream worth making.
Despite some streaming issues off and on at the start of Coda – could be my internet, could’ve been overloaded server – the viewing process and switch to Zoom for the q and a was otherwise crisp and seamless. Full day tomorrow and Saturday, which we will be covering toward the end of the weekend. It’s not too late to pick up tickets; passes are sold out for Sundance 2021, even if you can’t go skiing between films.
Mammoth Lakes Film Festival presented its winners on Sunday of the two day festival, as the 2020 virtual iteration of the always exciting fest concluded with an awards ceremony.
The conclusion was as happy an occasion as it is in person, where it is always a joy to talk to the filmmakers one last time and see first-hand the enormous satisfaction of being chosen as a winning contender.
But prior to the fest’s conclusion there were plenty of other stellar viewing experiences to be had, each of which translated just as powerfully on my lap top, phone, and TV as they did at the festival, because utterly unique cinematic experiences are enormously involving no matter how they are viewed. For opening night, Thursday, and Friday coverage of the five day festival, visit our earlier article, here. Now, welcome to the weekend.
Saturday began with a perfect panel, an hilarious conversation with and tribute to the creators of Airplane! The seminal comedy celebrated its 40th birthday this year, and MLFF director Shira Dubrovner moderated an informative talk with directors Jim Abrahams and David Zucker, followed by a Q & A with attendees. Abrahams and Zucker were joined by a surprise guest, actor Robert Hays.
Asked if they could make the film today, Zucker shook his head “Only without the jokes. People who do this type of movie and do puns, it wouldn’t be funny today.” Discussing the way the film came together, Abrahams said “There was something special about having dramatic actors like Lloyd Bridges doing comedy…it was unique.”
Why was there no Airplane! 2? Zucker says the reason was simple “I couldn’t think of any jokes to do on a plane. I went to Paramount with the idea of [characters] Bob and Julie going to meet his family, and they’re like characters in The Godfather. Paramount loved the idea, but Coppola wanted to do Godfather 3 at the time, and so he said no.”
After the rollicking conversation, it was on to the films. Both Shorts Block 4 and 5 had some terrific works; they were followed by a screening of the moving doc Acasa, the very surreal Revolution Laundrette, and a lively Zoom Disco Dance party (below) which gave attendees not only a sense of the fun at the festival’s usual-in-person dance party, but a glimpse of participants’ pandemic homes.
Shorts Block 4 gave viewers Nero, an intimate and darkly comic portrait of a man creating a product made literally from the sweat of his labor.
Le Coup des Larmes offered a somewhat terrifying, always fascinating, look at an actress immersing herself in a role, and a confrontation with a former lover.
The Fourfold (above) Lushly and glowingly animated, the film unfolded a somewhat cryptic tale of gods and myths set against the backdrop of environmental crisis.
A grubby dairy farm and the relationship between worker and boss – and the woman who lights the match that burns them – fill the bleak but mesmerizing Sinful Pleasures.
And the Israeli film Touch provides an amusing look at the burgeoning relationship between an internet troller and her would be beau – who almost meet IRL.
In Shorts Block 5:
Marriage Counseling for Friends Episodes 1&2 gives viewers an amusing look at two platonic friends who look for a way to enrich their relationship with a marriage counselor’s help.
A Living Sculpture looks at the relationship with a muse – as artists connect and disconnect in a wry short from the U.K.
The Star Sisters (above) are nothing if not playful and chatty – but their past is dark, and this involving short was both sad and sweet. This is a story of overcoming – or perhaps simply attempting to – an epically bad backstory with heart and eccentric verve.
In the Still Night – in a film both surreal and haunting, an art curator enters a mysterious new realm in an empty museum.
Now 2 also dove into the surreal, but in a different way entirely, with an animated look at the macabre underbelly of suburban life.
Between examined the lives of middle schoolers with grace, while Love at 48 presented a wistful and rich look at a couple on a date that went nowhere through a path in the woods.
As to the features: Acasa took viewers into the life of a displaced gypsy family in Romania, a story that was as suspenseful as it was mournful. Depicting the passing of a way of life, the film chronicled the lives of the Enache family—nine kids and their parents— who spent 20 years living in a shack in an abandoned water reservoir eventually reclaimed by the authorities as parkland. Uprooted, they are resettled in an apartment, and it was not a happy transition.
Revolution Laundrette was a fever dream of images and events, taking protagonist Tomo into various unusual subcultures and a final uncovering of the purely and existentially bizarre. Definitely not a conventional film, its visualization and involving surrealism was a cinematic experience it would be difficult to find anywhere but MLFF.
On Sunday, the documentary Democracy on the Road to Savah was followed by Shorts Block 6, the dry comedy of Tapeworm, and the bold vision of the documentary Pier Kids.
Democracy on the Road to Savah offered biting humor it its portrayal of political campaigning in Tehran, proving that politics are, well, politics – no matter where they’re taking place. Dark and funny, the documentary film offered an interesting look at life in Iran.
The narrative film Tapeworm was a restrained, ironic comedy set in Winnipeg, taking us among the lonely loser lives presented in a series of emotionally linked vignettes as amusingly bleak as the setting.
Documentary Pier Kids (above) was a stand out for its riveting, heartbreaking look at transgender youth on the streets, ushering audiences into a world of both friendship and loss.
In Shorts Block 6, viewers were also treated to a vibrant series of films. Take It and End It was a poignant look at the life of a Greek butcher asked to slaughter his pet lamb for veal. His moral conundrum was thoroughly involving in a film with visuals reminiscent of the work of Old Masters in lighting and palette.
Kikokids of Paris was also moving: a look at homeless girls having a “holiday” together on the streets in the City of Light.
And I Need A Haircut offered a brief but comically harrowing look at stressed women in a short well-suited to these pandemic times.
Rio was another favorite of mine. The initially elliptical film was lonely and mysterious as it took a look at two young women working at a Russian border hotel; the arrival of a stranger changed everything, creating an emotionally intense experience with a burst of sudden action.
Wild Game was equally harrowing; a bleak Czech film about a woman caught in a nightmare when three uninvited men show up at her door.
Not to be forgotten were shorts that played exclusively before feature-length films during the festival. These included: Lover, an Iranian film depicting a necessary killing of a wolf; Wash, a deeply dark Swedish film about the terror of childhood and horror of abuse; the comedic Ava’s Dating a Senior which depicted the controversy of a younger girl dating an older boy who may not be her true love after all; and the fraught but superficial relationship between frenemies in Ding Dong.
The award winning Huntsville Station (above) gave viewers an insightful and absorbing look at incarcerated men as they are released from prison; Mason presented a heartbreaking look at a small child experiencing the toughest of love from his grandparents. And finally, debauchery doesn’t bring true pleasure in Buck; while the French film Hors Champs lets viewers participate vicariously in a strange daily ritual involving tourists, the police, and migrants.
And that brings us to awards night, Sunday evening, the conclusion to the eager devouring of 56 feature and short films by film fans.
The Jury Award for Best Narrative Feature, went to Residue ,directed by Merawi Gerima; and the Jury Award for Best Documentary Feature, to Feather & Pine directed by Star Rosencrans and Michael James Beck. Narrative dramatic film honorable mention went to my personal fest favorite this year, Marlene, directed by Andreas Resch. The Jury Honorable Mention for Documentary Feature was given to Democracy on the Road of Saveh, from Turaj Kalantari.
Marjorie Conrad’s Desire Path (above) won the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature; the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature, went to The Wind, directed by Michał Bielawski. Both are powerful films.
This year the Special Jury Award for Bravery, a prize awarded for a documentary film that goes above and beyond in taking risks, was won by Pier Kids (dir. Elegance Bratton).
Jury Award for Best Narrative Short was taken by Elinor Nechemya’s Follow Me; honorable mention: They Won’t Last from Portlynn Tagavi.
Jury Award for Best Documentary Short, Huntsville Station (dir. Chris Fillippone and Jamie Meltzer).
Jury Award for Best Animation Short, went to Fourfold (dir. Alisi Telengut). Honorable mention was claimed by Bryan Lee’s Cage Match.
New this year was the festival’s first annual screenplay competition. Screenwriter Matthew Dixon was selected for his screenplay, Fish Story. It’s already time to submit for 2021.
Image above created by Beau Bardos
Whether submitting or attending, or both – don’t miss Mammoth Lakes Film Festival in 2021 whether it stays virtual one more year or goes back to real life. Either way, it’s a film lover’s dream.
Clovis Blackwell works in layers of color, thematically focusing on redemption and transformation amid apocalyptic images of change. If you haven’t quite grasped that, all you need to do is look at lovely yet unsettling works that Blackwell says were “inspired a lot by my childhood during the late Cold War, when the fears of nuclear war collided with sci-fi/fantasy and 80’s pop-culture.” He adds “A lot of the way I was exposed to this reality around me was through this rehashing of heroic myths often in a post-apocalyptic setting. In grad school I was exposed to Joseph Campbell and began to employ this apocalyptic imagery to my explorations of suffering/transformation.”
His layers of screen printing are inspired, he says, by William Burroughs and his use of the cut-up method. “There may be some differences between our intents, but that process has stuck with me since learning about his work during my undergrad.”
Blackwell’s work has evolved over the years, but one constant is his sense of being deeply connected to his art, and through it, seeking to express an idea important to him personally. “In the early 2000’s I began [to be] pretty ill with rheumatoid arthritis, and then had some other family losses over the next few years. It was an intense and painful time for me, and the work that came out of it was exploring suffering, and the feelings I had of being incapacitated or even incarcerated in my own body. That work was self-portraiture using pencil drawing and gold leaf inside of found boxes.”
He terms those images “heavy and sincere” but relates that it didn’t capture is complete persona. During graduate school he began to explore ideas of invincible superheroes and super villains, which he saw as Super-Clovis and Anti-Clovis. It was an exploratory phase in his work, as he examined everything from “commerce/commercialism, Jungian psychology, comparative mythology …all still rooted in coming to terms with how I dealt with suffering. Like the previous body of work, I was employing my own body/image, but doing so in a wide variety of media: screen printing, internet art, photography, performance art, sculpture, installation, merchandise.”
When his son was born, Blackwell saw another significant change in his life, and while he joked that his own world had ended, he stopped using his own image and turned to work that had more commonality with viewers, yet still examining the idea of suffering or loss leading to transformation. “This coincided with further reading of Joseph Campbell and a more detailed examination of my childhood, trying to make sense of growing up during that unique time. In 2010, I started working with the mushroom cloud by drawing it in bright floral colors. That year I also began teaching screen printing at a local university and so I focused my creative efforts into this discipline in order to improve my mastery of it,” he attests.
Most recently, he’s begun to mirror his printer layers either “on a vertical axis, or by adding more and more layers to further obscure the image. I really enjoy the ‘Rorschach effect’ that happens from the symmetry, and especially the response from my audience—I love to hear what people see into the work,” he attests.
He has also worked images using a lush complexity of beads, a medium he attests that he loves, and plans to use again.
He hopes that through his work, he can guide viewers to “reach conclusions that were helpful to me. That we sometimes go through painful experiences, but that we are not alone in this, that it is a universal experience, and that if we are open to it, we can change and grow through it. I try to make my work pretty for this reason. To make it easy to look at.” Ultimately, he’d like those viewing his work to be able spend time with it, and “absorb the idea of transformation into a daily routine.”
Blackwell thinks of his art in cycles. “I might at times explore the highs or the lows of transformation and redemption both equally important parts of a cycle. Joseph Campbell wrote about Emanations and Dissolutions, and I’ve included these terms in the titles for my pieces. I define them in this way: Emanations are things coming into being, and Dissolutions are things coming undone. This cycle may be as small as a delicate flower, as large as the universe itself, or it may be our own lifespan. This gives me lots of room to play while staying within these thematic bounds.”
Using images of flowers and nuclear explosions are both lovely and potent takes on apocalypse and change. Blackwell explains these choices as something he feels compelled to make. “When I started working with the mushroom cloud image we seemed to be at a low point with nuclear proliferation, but then things heated up with Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China…so that changed the context of already very loaded imagery. This may have factored into my use of that vertical symmetry, which obscures the mushroom cloud imagery a bit.”
Despite expressing fervent hopes for lasting and positive changes in society, he is aware that the world has to some extent caught up with his art. “Now we’re in what feels like an actual apocalyptic event, and so I suppose there’s some potential for timeliness. I do hope that we can come out of this as a society and make some lasting and positive changes.”
Blackwell’s work is immersive and dream-like, a blend of dreamy evolution and a transition point from nightmare to positive awakening. He thinks of himself as an interdisciplinary artist despite a focus on screen printing.
“I’m really driven by process and learning new ways to make art, and the specific contexts each disciple brings, is always exciting to me. Screen printing keeps challenging me though, so I keep going deeper. Honestly, no other medium has held so many continuous surprises for me.”
Blackwell’s compelling, redemptive work can be viewed in an upcoming solo show in 2021 with Shoebox Projects; don’t miss.
