Post-Sundance Wrap-Up

January 29, 2013 By Lise Quintana in film Tags: awards, Sundance, themes, winners Leave a comment

I’m home and have already done my headlong dive back into my daily life, but a part of my mind is still chewing over the last week. Here’s what I’ve been thinking:

We saw quite a few of the award winners – The Square, which won Audience Award: World Cinema: Documentary, American Promise, which won U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Achievement in Filmmaking, Upstream Color, which won U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Sound Design, Computer Chess, which won the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize, and The Date, which won the Short Film Jury Award: International Fiction.

The last time the Pirate and I went to Sundance in 2007, the impression I came away with was that we had seen a lot of movies about touching sweetness in the face of adversity. The Pool, about a pair of Indian boys who want to better themselves, Eagle vs. Shark, about Jemaine Clement being hideously awkward and Loren Horsley liking him anyway, Once, about a pair of singer-songwriters in Ireland. Every one of those movies was tender and sweet and, despite the problems the characters faced, nobody turned bitter or remained angry.

In contrast, it seems that this was the Sundance of “why is this still going on?” I personally saw a lot of emphasis on race and racial inequality, and I can only think it’s an outcome of the fact that, since the election of an African-American president, there has been an upsurge of overt racism in this country and filmmakers are trying hard to bring that fact to light so that it can be addressed. There were themes of poverty, political disenfranchisement, powerlessness and fear that seem to be products of the climate we’ve lived in since the 2008 collapse of the housing market and the subsequent financial crisis.

The last thing I’m thinking is that the visual theme of this Sundance was arrows. Before every movie, where you would normally see commercials or previews in another venue, there was a sort of screen-saver-y thing of arrows. They came in from different directions, they contained stills from this year’s films, they had a cute video of arrows representing fish and water and rain and trees and mountains blah blah. But it was jangly and loud and rough-looking and I wasn’t impressed. I contrast it with the 2007 visual theme of flames. The screen-saver-y thing then was a complex animation of little people with flames for heads in a little village, creating things and interacting. It was complex and engaging and I looked forward to seeing it again at every film. Step it up, Sundance. You can do better next time.

Film #1: The Square

January 23, 2013 By Lise Quintana in film Tags: critiquing, documentary, Egypt, Occupy, Sundance 1 Comment

The Square (Al Midan) tracked five Egyptian revolutionaries from immediately before the fall of Hosni Mubarek until December of 2012.

Overall rating: 2 out of 4

Early in the film, we are introduced to five different people – real Egyptians, really involved in the struggle for a truly democratic government. One was a woman whose occupation and/or qualifications weren’t clear (we were only ever given her name, and only once). One was an actor whose father appeared to also be involved in Egyptian media (although not 100% certain it was his father, although there was a strong resemblance). One was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. One appeared to be a student, although again, his occupation wasn’t given. One was a soldier who did nothing but toe the party line.

The film followed these people from the day that Mubarek stepped down and many Egyptians thought their revolution was over, to the realization that, although Mubarek was gone, they had not achieved their aims of democracy and freedom. The military took over and began issuing orders to the civilian population, restricting their freedoms and occasionally clashing with them, then, when elections were finally held, many people felt that the results of those elections weren’t indicative of the actual wishes of the people.

The filmmakers literally risked their lives, as much of the footage was taken from sites where the military was attacking civilians. Several of the subjects of the film were wounded in the 2 years of filming during various encounters with the military. The action was certainly dramatic.

The film really fell down because there was no cohesive narrative to tie it all together. We began at a very high point – the deposition of Mubarek, when all the subjects celebrated their first victory and felt that the country had come together to achieve something great. Over the next two hours, though, we went from the emotionally high point of Mubarek’s defeat to the realization that the military leaders were lying to the people and curtailing their freedoms, then to the realization that the revolution had lost its coherent center, then to the point where the Muslim Brotherhood took advantage of the political chaos created by the revolution to step in and seize power. By the end of the film, the people we were following seemed confused and defeated.

I feel that, even in a documentary where you’re filming things that are actually happening and where you may need to film a great deal before you can get a sense of what the “what” really is, you have to have some kind of narrative. Humans, as my own research keep saying, love a pattern. Sadly, war is precisely a breakdown of established patterns, so filming and making sense of warlike events is a special talent. One that, I’m afraid, this director is still perfecting.

Great for understanding what’s going on in Egypt. Certainly thought-provoking for me personally as I equate a lot of what Egyptians are fighting for with a lot of what the Occupy movement is fighting for. We’ll see how it stands up to tomorrow’s offering about Occupy Wall Street.