It’s only once a year after the closing night of the Maryland Film Festival that I take some time to write down a few little movie commentaries. And then I find myself struggling to write something more meaningful than “I like it (or not)”, so I normally just avoid writing about the films I watch throughout a year. But once in a while I discover a film (like Together or The Fall) that leaves such a strong impression on me, I have to mention it, even if it’s only to create a record of its existence.
Yesterday I watched such a film: Vozvrashcheniye or The Return, by Russian director Andrei Zvyagintsev. What a brilliant, unforgettable movie. Wow…although it was his debut directing a full-length feature after working with commercials before, it instantly found a place in my list of top-favorites. I find The Return essential and give it a rating of 10/10. This film is a masterpiece.
I can only hope that Andrei Zvyagintsev continues his path. He might be worthy to become Tarkovsky’s, Truffaut’s or Ingmar Bergman’s successor.
I don’t even know what to say…everything was as close to perfection as it can get. The photography was just beautiful, the camera work outstanding. The actors, especially Konstantin Lavronenko were
fantastic. The music (as well as the silence) was wonderful, the mood and setting, psychology, characters and story, the ending, the complexity within the minimal, the unexpected…
I have to keep an eye on him. I can’t wait to see what his next projects will be like. After The Return he also directed a film named Izgnanieor The Banishment, released in 2007, also starring Konstantin Lavronenko. I have to watch it as soon as it becomes available.
Thank you Andrei Zvyagintsev for enriching cinema with The Return. I can highly recommend this film.
Today I learned about the Rally for the River which will take place in Baltimore this Sunday, September 21st, from 8am to 2pm. One lane of 83 will be closed to traffic and open for cyclists, hikers, runners, walkers, skaters, for kids and adults to play. Riding or walking on a highway…that’s a rare opportunity you wouldn’t to miss. There will also be games, displays, food, beer, and music. Check out the JonesFalls.org site for more details and photos from last year’s Rally on Flickr. That looks really fun–I wonder why I didn’t know about it before. I’m already looking forward to this!
When I browsed Jones Falls Watershed Association to register for the Rally I also spotted the Wild and Scenic Environmental Film Festival which is actually a national festival that started off in Nevada City, CA and celebrated its 7th anniversary last January. During the year a selection of films makes a round on tour through the US. See also their tour dates for more details. The festival will reach Baltimore in October and will be hosted by the Jones Falls and Herring Run Watershed Association. Find more details on the Herring Run site. It will take place on October 16 from 7pm-9:30pm at the MICA Brown Center (map). I’m curious about the selection of films and looking forward to this event as well.
“One house: one revolutionary; two open straight marriages; three gay people (maybe four); three children; two carnivores and eight vegetarians; there’s only one way they’re going to make it… together.”
Last Thursday we saw Lukas Moodysson’s “Together”, a funny and beautiful story of a Swedish commune in the 1970s. To keep it short, I just loved this film…for all the individuals and their differences, troubles, compromises, solidarity and being real. Although I’m normally not a fan of happy endings, I thought it worked really well in “Together” considering how they all influenced each other and developed over the course of this film. The American trailer I found on YouTube is really bad and doesn’t reflect what I have seen on Thursday at all, but I can highly recommend this wonderful piece of Swedish cinema.
Unfortunately, it was the last film of the free series at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Despite two years of great screenings of visionary films from all over the world with an average attendance of 150+ people, the BMA has decided to stop the funding. Anyone who enjoyed this series in the past and wants to ask the museum to reconsider their decision can reach them at: programs@artbma.org
I’m looking forward to Ulrich Schnauss at the Metro Gallery next Saturday, but I am not going to post something about it every day now — This is the last post, I promise However, I thought the following clip is worth mentioning. I don’t know why, but I was very surprised to find all these favorites combined in a single video mix. I mean, what are the chances that somebody’s taste would so closely match my own all across the board from François Truffaut’s French 1959 classic Les Quatre Cents Coups (The 400 Blows), Darren Aronofsky’s black and white indie-math-thriller Pi and his brutally disturbing Requiem For A Dream to Ulrich Schnauss’ Stars?
Alice and I ran across Johnny Berlin on the Documentary Channel last night and just loved it. I tried to write while it was on, but I had to stop and listen to Johnny’s fascinating monologue. I didn’t know Jon Hyrns aka Johnny Berlin before, but found out that he wrote and played in Woodpecker, which was in the line-up for this year’s Maryland Film Festival. We were looking at it but it collided with something else we wanted to see. We will have catch up with Woodpecker later, especially now after we saw Johnny Berlin last night.
The first documentary was created back in 2005, but I have never seen it before. Last night we followed him into a dumpster in the new Johnny Berlin Part 2.
“With a dry wit and self-effacing humor, as well as an endearing eccentricity, Jon Hyrns gives voice to his life and dreams in Dominic J. DeJoseph’s hour-long documentary, narrating a journey that traverses much of the West Coast by 1930’s Pullman car. The camera is silent witness to a monologue delivered by 40-something Hyrns, whose job as a porter on a dying breed of luxury train endowed him with his nickname, Johnny Berlin. A sad-eyed wanderer with a quick tongue, who counts punk rock and pilgrimage among his main influences, Johnny still hasn’t figured out what to do with his life. In trying to do so, however, he has managed to do quite a bit, which he describes as he goes about his never-ending tasks of changing sheets and battling dust. Johnny is engaging on just about any topic, from his love for strawberry milk to his somewhat-lacking love life, and his tales of get-rich-quick schemes are particularly hilarious: a deadpan Johnny details the slightly morbid story of once trying to increase his father’s life insurance plan to garner himself a more robust inheritance.
With big dreams of finishing his novel about a man who decides to roll across the United States, Johnny is a gravel-voiced, diamond-in-the-rough character, assuming literary proportions of his own. The low-fi, talking-head documentary style of the piece allows the charismatic, melancholy central figure to take center stage.” (from IndiePix Films)
“JOHNNY BERLIN PART 2: NOTES FROM THE DUMPSTER, picks up where JOHNNY BERLIN left off, right after Johnny’s tour of duty as a porter aboard a luxury train ended. In PART 2, we find Johnny lying in a hotel room bed, talking about how he gambled away almost all of the money he had saved for his trip while working on the train, and thus ended up destitute in Phnom Penh where he had visions of leaping off of a bridge into the Mekong River.
Filled with profundity, existential crises and anecdotes like the one above, JOHNNY BERLIN PART 2 is the continuing story of an oddball’s mid-life crisis and his attempts to overcome his dark obsessions in his own humorous, and often enlightening, fashion.
The film follows Johnny, alone, as he travels from Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia where he searches in vain for the graves of his uncles, Benjamin Franklin Simpson and Thomas Jefferson Simpson, to New York City where he goes on a failed job hunt. Along the way, he talks about his grandfather’s lost novel, “Autobiography of a Failure,” muses about finding himself after reading a New Yorker article by Tom Robbins on Buddhism, and ends up in a dumpster on the street filled with used books reminiscing about his homeless older brother whom he lost contact with years ago.” (from the Johnny Berlin website)
Back in May I wrote about our time at the Maryland Film Festival. We had to leave the Narrative Shorts program early and missed the ending of Paul Harrill’s Quick Feet, Soft Hands. In my blog I mentioned that I was very interested in the rest of the story, and shortly after posting it I received an email from Paul mentioning another screening at the Rosebud Film & Video Festival in Arlington, Virginia. Being relatively close to Baltimore I thought this sounded like a great thing to do on a Saturday. So we took a zipcar yesterday and spent some very enjoyable hours in Arlington.
The Rosebud Film and Video Festival was founded in 1990 and celebrated its 18th anniversary this weekend. Rosebud is an annual competition open exclusively to DC, Maryland, and Virginia film and video producers. It seeks to honor the innovative, experimental, unusual, and deeply personal in creative film and video making. Twenty independent films were selected for the Nominee Showcase that took place yesterday. A panel of judges chose five winners including one Best of Show. The five winners will each receive a $1000 cash prize. The Best of Show winner will also receive $500 of video products and services.
The winners are announced today at the awards ceremony and party that begins at 7pm. Unfortunately we won’t be able to attend because we had the car for only one day, but we watched all 20 candidates yesterday, most of which I enjoyed a lot. Before getting to my conclusion I can already say upfront that this was a fantastic little film festival with a really nice and diverse choice of short and medium length films. We both were glad we could come. All of the films were nice for one reason or another, so I will try to make it shorter this time. I especially liked the “deeply personal” and the “unusual funny” candidates of the following films we saw yesterday:
Cause
documentary (57 minutes) by Denise Prichard – Washington DC
“Meet four Americans who have dedicated their lives to a cause — putting their ideals on the line, every day, every hour.
Britt, the Minuteman, living his life out at the U.S.-Mexico border, defending his America from invasion; Kayla, the PETA Activist, exposing the plight of animals, while sometimes exposing herself; Dennis, the Pro-Life Minister, crisscrossing his way through the country spreading his truth about abortion; and Concepcion, the Peace Activist, maintaining her twenty-six year long anti-nuke vigil just steps away from the White House.
This film, entitled “CAUSE”, peels back the layers to uncover the personal histories and motivations that make these individuals who they are, and what drives them to behavior some would call extreme. Going beyond the labels and what initially meets the eye, their stories weave together to form a collective thread and reveal that they have more in common than one would think.” (from the official website)
Vignette
experimental narrative (17 minutes) by Dustin Thompson – Forest, VA
Quick Feet, Soft Hands
drama (25 minutes) by Paul Harrill
“Set against the backdrop of our national pastime, Quick Feet, Soft Hands follows a young couple trying to pursue the American Dream.
Greta Gerwig (Joe Swanberg’s Hannah Takes the Stairs) stars as Lisa, a young woman whose hopes of moving up are tied to Jim, a minor league baseball player.
As Jim falls deeper into a batting slump, the couple must cope with the day-to-day realities of being young and poor. And they must confront the prospect that they may never make it to the big leagues.” (from the official website)
I was quite amused to find that we actually missed only a minute or even less when we had to leave the screening back at the Maryland Film Festival. It was nice to see this film again, and I still have the same good impression. It’s a sad but very realistic slice of life applicable to many individuals, couples, relationships, hopes, dreams and failures.
Rogue Gnome
animated music video (5 minutes) by Stephen Guidry – Arlington, VA
Richard Wants a Nickname
drama (9 minutes) by Julie Haberstick – Arlington, VA
Nunna Mia e la Barca
documentary (13 minutes) by Jacob Dodd – Richmond, VA
“Nunna Mia e la Barca is a short film about an Italian grandmother, Nunna, who endured the sinking of the Andrea Doria in 1956. Despite living 50 years in the U.S., Nunna continues to preserve her Italian heritage. Through the act of preparing a meal and selflessly giving of her time, Nunna passes on the heritage to her grandchildren.” (from the official website)
Alchemy
experimental (2 minutes) by Victoria Hanabury and Joshua Rachford – Charlottesville, VA
Birds
drama (17 minutes) by Mark Betancourt and Marc Ryan – Washington, DC
I really liked this short film and its conclusion. They packed quite a large emotional spectrum into the 17 minutes. It was humorous and thrilling, personal and serious, and also very wise at the same time.
Mexico Painting
video art (3 minutes) by Vin Grabill – Ellicott City, MD
Lustig
drama (16 minutes) by John Black – Gainesville, VA
“Lustig, set in the years after the end of WWII, tells the story of a man’s solitary journey for redemption. Carrying haunting memories from time spent in a concentration camp, the man seeks out the family of a friend he knew there. He brings a secret to their doorstep that only the strength and courage of the deceased allows him to reveal. In admitting his own cowardice, he creates the heroic legacy of a man. A man a young son will always remember.”
The title “Lustig” is not the German word for “funny” here, but the name of the main-character in this film. It actually is a true story about Branko Lustig, a Croatian Jewish survivor of Ausschwitz, who produced a number of movies including Schindler’s List. He was the inspiration for this short film. I liked this film which was very moving, personal and very well made. John Black chose to have all dialog in German, but only the mother (played by Ilka Fischer) spoke German fluently without an American accent. While I could believe that the Croatian visitor wasn’t fluent, I didn’t buy her son’s and the Nazi commander’s accent. I found this a little distracting. That’s a shame because I really liked this film otherwise. I thought it might have been a better decision to keep the dialog in English instead.
Dance Party: The Teenarama Story
documentary (57 minutes) by Beverly Lindsay-Johnson – Washington, DC
Untitled No. 9
comedy (5 minutes) by David Butler – Annapolis, MD
“This short film shows where you might end up if you let your life be guided the philosophy found in pop lyrics. Some of the philosophers quoted in this film include Paul McCartney and Wings, Janis Ian, Elvis Presley, Paul Simon, Don McLean, Bob Dylan, Three Dog Night, Melanie, Simon & Garfunkel, Don Henley, Carole King, Bread, The Rolling Stones, The Romantics, U2, The Beatles, Petula Clark, The Talking Heads, 10cc, Elton John, ABBA, Tracy Chapman, Bryan Adams, John Cougar Mellencamp, Jimi Hendrix, Harry Nilsson, Bruce Springsteen, The Drifters, Billy Idol, Rappers Delight and Baha Men.”
Oh how I loved this film! It was one of my very favorites of the day. What a fantastic idea to tie all these song lyric fragments together to a “lyrical meditation on life”. And what a brilliant camera-work and delivery. I really liked Mark Redfield in this and would love to see more of him. It made me think of Bill Murray in Lost in Translation and Spalding Gray in Steven Soderbergh’s Gray’s Anatomy which I loved. But Untitled No. 9 was still different and very clever. I wonder what Untitled No. 1-8 may be like? David Butler’s site is butlerfilm.com.
My Best Friend Mark
personal narrative (5 minutes) by Renee Shaw – Washington, DC
Las Historias Mas Sexy del Mundo No. 2
comedy (15 minutes) by Eric Cheevers – Washington, DC
This was another of my favorites. Brilliant, funny, cool, hot, surreal, mesmerizing, fascinating, sexy…a kind of 70s Swedish soft-core porn meets Quantum Physics meets Matthew Lesko (the infomercial questionmark-suit-man played in this film) meets David Lynch’s red room meets a weird but great music performance by The Raveonettes. I read that the predecessor, Las Historias Mas Sexy del Mundo No. 1, won the Rosebud Film Festival in 2004 and I think No. 2 might win again this year. Unfortunately I didn’t find a clip on the web, but here is an an interview with Eric Cheevers and Scott Mueller, also also a few pictures. I loved it.
Unraveling Michelle
documentary (85 minutes) by Michelle Ann Farrell – Bel Air, MD
I loved Unraveling Michelle. I haven’t read any reviews or watched any trailers before we watched it at the Rosebud Festival. I didn’t know anything about it at all. So the documentary started with a very funny guy working on indie-horror-comedy type movies. He just announced something like “I want to be a female filmmaker” and it sounded as if he wasn’t really serious about it. It could have been just another example of his wicked humor. The clips that portrayed the old filmmaker Joe O’Ferrell and his history looked too crazy and unbelievable to be true. There you saw the athlete, the addict, the film-maker and businessman, the dude and manly man. At first I wasn’t even sure if I was looking at the same person or just different actors representing him in his different life stages. I thought it was all staged, and that what we were about to see was a funny kind of mockumentary, but not a serious documentary about a sex change.
The first facial surgery approached. It was again very funny, in a similar dry Tom Greenish humorous kind of way, as he leaves the hospital looking painfully awful and his head wrapped in bandages, but still making jokes about it. When they lost their way he moved over to the driver’s seat in the state he was in, with bloodbags hanging off his face… and I still thought, that has got to be a joke… after all he is in the horror-comedy industry.
But as the story continued it became more and more clear that his/her journey was very real, and that the male Joe O’Ferrell was really about to become the female Michelle Ann Farrell. The documentary followed the transition from the beginning to the end and revealed so much in addition about her past and present life, the problems and challenges without losing a healthy sense of humor. I couldn’t believe how many really extreme changes she went through in her life. If I trace back my own life of the last 20 years I can find many drastic visual and physical changes that make it sometimes hard to believe the person from back then was really me. But Joe’s and Michelle’s roller coaster history exceeds everything I could ever imagine. I have to admire the strength and courage she was able to bring up and transform her life through all these stages.
This documentary was about a journey of a sex change, but there really was so much more. It was a very personal portrait of an extraordinary, interesting, humorous and very likable individual. It was also a milestone for both: Joe’s final masterpiece and best work in his filmography, as well as Michelle’s debut, marking the beginning of a great future. Very impressive — I just loved everything about this film… the film itself and its flow…it was really well done…the deeply personal portrait…the very unusual history with all transformations…the humor, and of course, last but not least, Michelle herself.
Headache
experimental (8 minutes) by Robert Parrish – Arlington, VA
This film was entirely made with public domain clips taken from archive.org. I loved how cleverly it recycled old footage to tell a completely new and different story. We once saw a short film at the Maryland Film Festival that made use of public domain footage and thought it was such a great idea. Headache was very well done, but unfortunately I couldn’t find anything on the web.
Signage
drama (12 minutes) by Rick Hammerly – Washington, DC
“A receding hairline, the beginnings of crow’s feet, and a chance meeting with a young shirtless deaf man in a bar, force Lex to confront getting older in a youth-conscious world.”
I loved signage — “when life calls the last shot” and the way it touched this internal battle of aging, self-doubts and insecurities that tend to increase proportionally with the gap between oneself and the youthful generation you still might like to be a part of or at least connected with. I loved how main character/writer/director Rick Hammerly made his story turn even more personal and internal, as there really is nothing wrong with him. He looks just fine and not old at all, and yet there are these self-doubts.
Freedom Dance
animation (28 minutes) by Steven Fischer – Crofton, MD and Craig Herron – Baltimore, MD
“A cartoonist keeps a diary in cartoon form during his adventurous escape from the deadly 1956 Hungarian Revolution.” (from the official website)
tar guys
video poetry (5 minutes) by Cathy Cook – Baltimore, MD
Widow’s Meal
drama (8 minutes) by Arnon Shorr – Baltimore, MD
Conclusion:
When we arrived in Arlington Alice and I both were very surprised to find a very empty and dead-silent building. The garage was empty, all stores inside the building were closed, and at first we seemed to be the only visitors to a private viewing. Eventually a few more people showed up, but the theatre never filled up. I thought it was a real shame. The Rosebud Festival has already been around for almost two decades. The film selection was wonderful, and I couldn’t see why it couldn’t attract more independent film lovers. At only $8 for an all-day pass it was a real bargain and I’m already looking forward to Rosebud 2009. Thanks to everyone who made this festival possible, and thanks to Paul for the recommendation.
I’m curious to find out who won this year, but the winners haven’t been published yet. I will follow up with another blog as soon as I find out.
Written by Dan Gilroy, Nico Soultanakis, Tarsem Singh, and Valeri Petrov (1981 screenplay)
With Catinca Untaru, Justine Waddell, Lee Pace, Kim Uylenbroek, Aiden Lithgow, Sean Gilder, Ronald France, Andrew Roussouw, Michael Huff, Grant Swanby, Emil Hostina, Robin Smith, Jeetu Verma, Leo Bill, Marcus Wesley…
Released in 2008
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When I received the last issue of the Friends of the Maryland Film Festival newsletter about a screening of The Fall, my interest and excitement was at first a bit damped after I read that is was made by the same director Tarsem Singh who created The Cell. Although The Cell was visually interesting, I still remember how disappointed I left the theatre after watching it back in 2000. I expected so much more than this film was able to deliver.
However, before I decide not to watch a movie I always give its trailers a chance to spark my interest. When I watched the trailer to The Fall I was intrigued and decided to find out a bit more about it. The first thing I noticed in the trailer was that it was presented by David Fincher and Spike Jonze. “The Trailer? Or the Film?” I wondered. And why were neither of them mentioned in the details of Internet Movie Database entry?
David Fincher has been one of my favorite directors with such wonderful and psychologically dense films like Se7en, The Game or Fight Club. Spike Jonze created some great films with Being John Malkovich or Adaptation as well. So I was even more curious about what The Fall was about.
Later I read on a David Fincher blog that Tarsem Singh financed this film fully out of his own pocket and shot over a period of four years in 24 countries around the world. The Fall never found a release until David Fincher and Spike Jonze decided to arrange at least a limited US-release beginning in March 2008.
David Fincher described the film as “what would’ve happened if Andrei Tarkovsky had made ‘The Wizard of Oz’”. This quote in addition to the incredibly mesmerizing trailer helped to free me of any doubts I might have had in the beginning based on my experience with The Cell before. I knew I would have to see this film as soon as it was out. I knew I had to find out what Tarsem Singh would create without any marketability constrains — and I’m absolutely thankful for this opportunity to watch this film at the Charles today.
The Fall takes place in a hospital in Los Angeles of the 1920s. Alexandria, a young girl with a broken arm (played by Catinca Untaru) befriends a bedridden stuntman Roy Walker (Lee Pace) who tells her the vivid, imaginative tale of an Indian, an ex-slave, an explosive expert, a masked bandit and famed evolutionary biologist Charles Darwin who joined together to fight their common evil enemy, Governor Odious. Being paralized and having lost faith in life Walker plans to commit suicide. He begins to tell Alexandria this marvelous story in pieces to make her provide him with Morphine and other pills.
This story is actually based on a Bulgarian film from 1981 titled Yo Ho Ho, written by Valeri Petrov and directed by Zako Heskija. It also reminded me of an important Swedish movie in my childhood: Bröderna Lejonhjärta (The Brothers Lionheart). Astrid Lindgren’s story was about two brothers one of whom suffered from tuberculosis and knew that he was dying. The older told his younger brother a fantastic fairy tale to comfort him and give him hope that one day they will meet again in the fantastic world of Nangijala. This film treated the sad reality of death with great sensibility. The reality of death is also inherent in The Fall: Roy Walker’s death wish and suicide attempt, the death of the beloved monkey, the death of all the heroes… Another thing both The Fall and The Brothers Lionheart have in common is how the line between reality and imagination blurs. People that surround them in their everyday lives become characters in the fantastic world of the fairy tale… which of course makes me think of Wizard of Oz as well.
Visually, The Fall was absolutely stunning – the imagery and transitions were just beautiful and breathtaking. I think it can’t get any closer to perfection than what I have seen today. Every scene was composed with such an undescribable eye for detail and aesthetics. Interwoven into the imagery and superior story-telling there also was a nice tribute to the greatest films in cinematic history. From the earliest silent movies, the Whirling Dervishes and the Balinese Kecak dance in Ron Fricke’s Baraka to swimming elephants in Gregory Colbert’s Ashes & Snow. The magic of my childhood, the Persian tales of One Thousand and One Nights, the Czech and East European stop motion/animation and fairytale tradition, and even a brief hint of Pirate stories found a place here in The Fall. All those moments flow into a fascinating story that blends elegantly and brilliantly from reality into imagination, back and forth with the freedom to adjust and tweak as the story unfolds. Catinca Untaru’s performance was fantastic and stunningly natural. I am sure she will have a long and great career ahead of her. And what music would be more appropriate to a masterpiece like The Fall than the wonderful Symphony No. 7 Allegretto by Ludwig van Beethoven. I get teary-eyes just watching the trailer.
Absolutely phenomenal… this film is essential. I can only urge everybody to go and watch it as long as it’s still playing in the theatres. Nowadays you will not be able to find a lot of movies of such a superior quality. Not a lot of film-makers can afford to transform their vision without a focus on financial and marketability requirements which destroy cinema as an artform. I wish there were more filmmakers courageous enough to create films without having to make compromises, but I hope many will follow Tarsem Singh’s example.
I immediately fell in love with the magic of The Fall and have to watch it again soon. On IMDB I’m happy to rate it 10/10. I’m usually very selective about which films to own on DVD, but The Fall is definitely one I will have to purchase as soon as it becomes available. I’m still spellbound…:)
About a week ago we watched our last film at the 10th annual Maryland Film Festival, and it took me about a week to write down some of my impressions. If you read any of my last blog entries: I hope you enjoyed reading them and could discover something you might enjoy as much as I did.
This year’s line-up was fantastic. Not only the feature length movies turned out to be great, we also saw a lot of excellent short films. As in all our previous years at the film festival we didn’t manage to watch everything we were interested in, but I plan to keep an eye on these films and rent them as soon as they become available on video. I was very interested in
But I was unable to fit them into our schedule this year. Hopefully they will be available on video one day. Unfortunately, we also could not make it to the closing night screening & party, which has been another tradition next to the screening in 3-D, John Waters’ selection, the silent movie with live music and the opening night. The tent village schedule again included several interesting presentations, including topics like how to get your movie into film festivals, distribution tips, how to budget a film, documentaries and proximity to subjects, copyrights, how to get started with your first film, and much more. This year there also were two free outdoor screenings of Yellow Submarine and William Castle’s Strait-Jacket.
So many great things to see, learn and choose from, so many opportunities… this is what makes the Maryland Film Festival such a wonderful and exciting one. But this also is what makes it so challenging and difficult for us when we try to compile our weekend schedule every year. After our previous years at the film festival I should have gotten used to the impossibility of seeing everything that sparked my interest–but I haven’t; and sometimes I wonder if a duration of a full week could make it any easier. Hm, probably not…because a full festival week would include even more greatness and just make it even more challenging in the end.
As far as I am concerned, the Maryland Film Festival was a milestone of the year and a great success again, even without doing something special for its 10th anniversary. It was especially nice to offer the all-access passes at a reduced price, which was close to what we normally would have paid for single tickets. The all-access passes made it so much easier for film-junkies like us, because we didn’t have to print a whole stack of tickets ourselves anymore, had more freedom to make last-minute decisions about films we were going to see or not, and we didn’t have to wait in lines (most of the time) which was a plus, too. It felt as pleasant, casual and relaxed as in our first years of joining the festival.
Not only the festival weekend, but also the Friends of the Festival program throughout the year was very attractive again. It kept us in the loop of things and featured a number of very interesting screenings at the MICA again, including Helvetica, Off The Grid and Everything is Cool, which we both enjoyed a lot. Many thanks and hats off to everybody who made this film festival and the program throughout the year possible!
My Top-5 festival favorites and films I definitely want to watch again sometime:
Our next film festival will take place in Arlington, Virginia on Saturday, June 14, 2008. The 6.5 hour Rosebud Nominee Showcase will present 20 films beginning at 12:30PM at the Spectrum Theater, 1611 North Kent Street, Arlington, VA. It is a showcase of the best work made in Virginia, Maryland, and D.C. and will also include Quick Feet, Soft Hands by Paul Harrill. I’m already looking forward to this. I will probably attempt to write more about this event and the films later in June. Thanks Paul for the info!
Again, thanks to the Maryland Film Festival, the Friends of the Festival, everybody who made it possible, and thank you for enduring my writings.
With Mary Bronstein, Amy Judd, Greta Gerwig, Sean Williams
“Do you go to the movies for stories that distract you from the problems of life — light-hearted romps in which familiar, likeable characters share some laughter and good times as they topple the obstacles between themselves and their goals? If you answered yes, director Mary Bronstein’s debut feature Yeast is NOT the film for you.
Yeast comes from much of the same team that brought us 2007’s confrontational and claustrophobic Frownland – arguably the most controversial film from last year’s Maryland Film Festival. And as with Frownland, Yeast takes viewers outside their comfort zone with its often-unpleasant characters, its unconventional approach to storytelling, and its uncompromising aesthetics.
Yeast begins by throwing us into an awkward situation — a young woman, Rachel (Mary Bronstein) rousing her disheveled roommate Alice (Amy Judd) for a camping trip they’ve planned with Gen (Greta Gerwig, star of MFF 2007’s Hannah Takes the Stairs). Alice refuses to come, and at first we’re struck by her seemingly unmotivated surliness towards Rachel. But as Rachel and Gen venture into the woods, what slowly emerges is a warts-and-all portrait of a manipulative person who compulsively undermines the people in her life — and the also-imperfect friends who’ve decided they’ve finally had enough.
For that discerning viewer who will revel in an honest portrait of the vicious, grotesque little ways human beings mistreat each other, Yeast provides a special treat. It’s a bold and edgy film that probes complex psychological ideas we may have never seen onscreen before — and in doing so articulates a strong belief in the ability of film culture to keep moving forward. (Eric Allen Hatch)
About Mary Bronstein and the cast and crew of Yeast:
Director and star Mary Bronstein co-starred in MFF 2007’s Frownland. Yeast, which debuted at SXSW 2008, is her feature-film directorial debut.
Assistant director and editor Ronnie Bronstein directed Frownland.
Star Greta Gerwig also appears in the MFF 2008 features Baghead and Nights and Weekends (which she co-directed), and the short film Quick Feet, Soft Hands. ” (from the filmfest-guide)
Ingmar Bergman is dead. Long live the Bronsteins! — I think I might have found the two young and modern film-makers worthy to become Bergman’s successor, and I foresee a great future for both of them if they manage to continue the unique path they stepped on with masterpieces like Ronald Bronstein’s Frownland and Mary Bronstein’s Yeast.
When I first saw Frownland last year it quickly became one of my favorite films of the festival. It was very impressive how this film managed to involve me emotionally and create such an authentic, realistic, unpleasant reflection of a group of people with all their social ineptness and loneliness. It was as rough, ugly, unpolished, unpleasant and claustrophobic as life itself beyond the shiny and sugarcoated front one usually gets to see.
Yeast was a another very precise, uncomfortable, moving and authentic character study, this time of a group of friends and the painful dynamic that evolved from some point in their lives when they found together to distance and separation. Every image, every dialog and every non-spoken sequence contributed to a very dense and successful portrait of the complexity of friendships and how friends can treat or mistreat each other.
Although Yeast dealt with female friendships and how aggressive and physical they can become, I thought this film didn’t necessarily apply to female friendships alone. I experienced similar dynamics in our old clique and a similar course of outspoken and unspoken aggression, mistreatments before we all separated one day and continued our lives into new directions.
In the movie database entry for Yeast I noticed the keyword mumblecore which I haven’t heard about before. Wikipedia defines it as “an American independent film movement that arose in the early 2000’s. It is primarily characterized by ultra-low budget production (often employing digital video cameras), focus on personal relationships between twenty-somethings, improvised scripts, and non-professional actors.” If other films in the mumblecore genre are anywhere as great as Frownland or Yeast, I will definitely have to watch more soon.
These films may be ultra-low budget productions with non-professional actors, and highly improvised, but they are some of the most intelligent and accurate psychological portraits I have seen in a long time. Frownland was great last year, but I thought Yeast was even more successful. Absolutely brilliant - I have to applaud Mary Bronstein and her husband. I sincerely hope they will continue producing many more films in the future. As a new fan, there is no other imdb-rating than 10/10. Too bad there is no 11
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Yesterday I watched such a film: Vozvrashcheniye or The Return, by Russian director Andrei Zvyagintsev. What a brilliant, unforgettable movie. Wow…although it was his debut directing a full-length feature after working with commercials before, it instantly found a place in my list of top-favorites. I find The Return essential and give it a rating of 10/10. This film is a masterpiece.
