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.
- Genie Davis