Directed by Adrian Sitaru, Romania / Hungary

Best Intentions has been dubbed part of the categorical oeuvre “Romanian New Wave.” The movie is about the hospitalization of a woman and the coping of her family and friends. I walked a half-hour late into the screening and felt like I didn’t miss anything. The story is formal and very straight-forward; the son cannot overcome his anxiety over his mother’s health, even as she is about to be discharged. But it’s the imaging of story which counts in this film.

There are broad stylistics which qualify “Romanian New Wave,” most of which pertain to camerawork and condensed, isolated events — seemly ‘ordinary’ — which are narrative vessels for the camerawork. It can be a very effective approach showing an almost profound “slice of life’. But the attempt at import and interest fails in this movie, mainly because the characters aren’t that interesting and the scenario of the chance, non-critical hospital admittance doesn’t develop into a captivating story.

In lieu of Best Intentions, I recommend googling “Romanian New Wave” and choosing from Wikipedia’s listed titles. That is, if a phrase like ‘new wave’ generates any affinity at all, either historic, aesthetic, or just plain curious.

Seen at Chicago International Film Festival 2011

Directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Starring Muhammet Uzuner, Yilmaz Erdogan, Taner Birsel
Turkey

Once Upon A Time In Anatolia is a film from Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan, a name some film buffs may recognize. The movie depicts a night-long search for a body in the hills of Anatolia (the Steppe of Eastern Turkey). The police chief, medical examiner, region prosecutor, and, of course, the arrested man–who leads authorities in the direction of a body–are a crew of epistemological travelers. I say travelers in a literal and figurative sense, because the movie is concerned with the assumptions and understandings that characters make and question over the course of one night. The movie progresses linearly and is crouched within the fairytale, “once upon a time” vocabulary.

The film’s narrative is in part a search for truth, fact, and justice, and in part about the impossibility of ontological truth. Examination and explication are attract and repel consistently throughout the film, and this tension is magnificently depicted in a visual and lyric beauty. The characters are human—unexceptional, even—which I think allows the film to pose questions on a profound (and impossible) scale. At the end of the Once Upon A Time In Anatolia, I kept asking myself, what is the Doctor thinking, what does he see? I don’t know, and I can only suggest and surmise, and continue to think and wonder. Once Upon A Time In Anatolia possesses an inherent intrigue, and is a subtle, masterful work, worth many viewings and good conversations about meaning.

– George Schaefer

Directed by Joe Maggio, Starring Dennis Farina
United States

A couple hours ago–6pm CST to be exact–somebody–an intern, a volunteer, a professional carpet tacker–somebody–rolled out the red carpet to start the 47th Chicago International Film Festival. It was humming with excitement over on East Randolph at the Harris Theatre, as fans and press and associates ushered in the kickoff screening The Rites of Joe May. Or I can only imagine, because I wasn’t there. But director Joe Maggio and star Dennis Farina were slated to show, and I’m sure there were some other guests of note. My press pass doesn’t cover the red carpet, so I watched the screener last night, and I’m okay with skipping Joe May on the big screen.

The movie makes sense as the festival opener. Set and filmed in Chicago, it was produced by Steppenwolf Films (the film arm of the renowned Chicago-based theatrical company), and it stars local veterans of the stage–Farina and Gary Cole.

It’s great to see a locally based and produced flick. Joe May captures the cold, bleak atmosphere of Chicago in the winter, and shots of its streets incite both pleasure and empathy. Watching Farina walk around with his coat collar up, huddling on the CTA seats, waiting for the 8 as the snow cuts into his face–an all too familiar displeasure–grounds the film in my own sensation of the city. The grey, cold, unabating winter is one of Chicago’s distinctions, and my attraction to the aesthetic quality which captures this feeling is no doubt a product of my current sense of place. Similarly, I have never been to Archie’s Pub, but I have been to bars like it, justas I’ve seen grizzled, old faces like Joe May’s with collars drawn up to the shield the elements.

The familiarity of appearance and setting, along with the loose narrative association of the gangster film, lends Joe May a shade of nostalgia. But it is this shade of nostalgia for a character and personality–which we no doubt have seen in movies and perhaps have also encountered in our daily lives–which supplies the movie with an immediacy and presence coinciding with the reality of lost dreams and, ultimately, a wasted life. The good old days of the quick hustle are gone. Joe’s visions of ‘being something’ are as vacant and shit-ridden as the empty pigeon coop which awaits his return from the hospital at the film’s opening. Nostalgia and aspiration equal nothing for Joe.

Joe gets his chance at redemption when a single mother, Jenny (Jamie Anne Allman), and her daughter, Angelica, take him in. But even here, it’s an odd phenomena. Joe is stubborn and egotistical to a degree where he deems everyone else as wrong, everyone else as at fault, be it for the towing of his car, the loss of his apartment, or the loss of his pigeons. His openness at moving in with Jenny and Angelica has more to do with the shared past–that is, his apartment of 40 years–than with the explicit opportunity offered by Jenny. Certainly, Joe does develop a bond with Jenny, and there is a genuine adoration between him and Angelica. But the film can’t erase the fact that Joe is a bastard. And maybe that’s a good quality to the picture as a whole. It certainly complicates the film’s humor; at the beginning of the film, Joe learns that his old lodgings are no longer his and he says to Angelica, who is playing in the hall, “Life is shit kid.” I laughed because the exchange is funny, and indeed many of the exchanges between Joe and Angelica are laughable like this. But when I got to thinking about that line later, I found it terribly unfortunate; maybe it is this unfortunate nature existing in and about the characters which drives The Last Rites of Joe May. Certainly, it provides the psychological and thematic context for the film’s conclusion (no spoilers there–read the title).

So the callous upshot is that I wasn’t overly moved or concerned with the kickoff movie. Dennis Farina is really good, and the peripheral characters do a good job of establishing the distances and contiguities between the past life of Joe May and the one we are witness to. I appreciate The Last Rites of Joe May as a film about a man’s final descent and disillusion.

Seen at Chicago International Film Festival 2011

Interview by Alex Gonzalez.

Karl Krogstad (picking up my copy of I, Fellini): I would think Fellini would be a very difficult interview.

Alex Gonzalez: You think so?

KK: Oh, yeah, because he calls himself a liar and he proves it in his interviews. I think it would be very hard
interviewing Fellini.

AG: I love that Antonioni has a blurb on the back of the book.

KK: What does he say?

AG: “Brava, Charlotte Chandler!”

KK: Antonioni was an idiot, by the way…

AG: No he wasn’t. Are we going to start bashing Antonioni, now?

KK: Umm…

AG: Most people I know have never even seen an Antonioni film. Maybe they’ve seen Blow Up and not even realized they were watching one of his films. You, on the other hand… You have seen them. And what…? You find them boring?

KK: I don’t find him quite boring. I find the entire neo-realism-Italian thing boring, no matter who handles it – no matter who touches it. And whether you call his stuff that or not, a whole lot of it is. And you go

“Huh?” Even films like The Passenger, where people just think it’s brilliant … you know, if you see The Passenger without turning on…. first of all, I never turn on the special features to hear the actor or director drone their way through their own film. But if you do it with The Passenger, you can appreciate The Passenger. It’s the only film [for which] I think it’s worthy of doing. If you don’t do it, then you’re just sitting there in front of the screen, going, “Huuuhhh? Why doesn’t he just get up and walk out of the room now?” Just crashingly boring. Antonioni was very clumsy with English and I don’t think Jack Nicholson has much of a temperament towards trying to deal with Italian-speaking people. So, you know, I think Jack was just dealing with it in his own special way and answering his own special questions and he made it work. But for me, “making it work” doesn’t work unless you hear Jack explaining it in the commentary as we see him doing it. And then that poor, fabulous girl that was in it… I think that was after Last Tango in Paris and then she tried to kill herself. And then you go, “Wow.” And then there is Bertollucci. Same thing. He made one film in his entire life that is any good at all.

AG: Last Tango in Paris.

KK: And it is literally one of my favorite films. It is a drop-dead brilliant film. And then what happens to Bertollucci? Well, apparently nothing, in my book.

AG: [Rummaging through notes]

KK: Well, time’s up! Thank you for dropping by.

AG: There is a chapter in Chandler’s book called “Making films is more exciting than seeing them.”

KK: Ah! A lot of people believe that.

AG: You’ve talked about that.

KK: That changes. When I was younger I believed that, and now that I’m older I don’t believe that.

AG: Didn’t you say that it is the process that you love? And sometimes the film is just a kind of “byproduct”?

KK: Yes, it’s the fetus. The aborted fetus is the film itself! But again it depends on where your love falls… I am growingly disinterested in going into production. I find it to be more painful than I have ever found it before, and I’m certain that that’s because of aging. Due to that, I’m not too interested in the process anymore. But I used to be totally with that argument – that the process was everything.

AG: Are you talking about pre-production or the shooting of the film itself? Under the lights and all… You don’t even like that part anymore?

KK: No, I don’t like it much anymore.

AG: Really? Then which part do you like the best?

KK: There is no part I like the best now! (laughs) That’s the problem!

AG: So it isn’t just the editing that you hate.

KK: The editing is the graveyard of films. But it’s just that production has to keep you engaged or else you get bored. I’m not so sure that right now you could put enough balls in the air so that I wouldn’t get bored. I remember shooting one film where I had everything. I had a huge crew, and we were shooting in 35mm. It

was one day only in a big studio with anything I wanted. I mean it was all HMI crap. And I went “wow!” And I caught myself in a dressing room in the middle of the afternoon. It was like I was almost talking to myself. I asked myself “Are you happy, now?” And I could hear myself say, “No. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be here.” And I’m the director! You know, I’ve got everything in the world in front of me. It’s like I hit the lottery. And I’m going, “I hate this. I want to get out of here.” Oh, dear. That’s a problem. If you’re a film producer / director, that’s a problem. I didn’t want to go through the process. I didn’t want to deal with all these fabulous people anymore on that day and I was bored. I could see what was coming. I call the shots. I know what is supposed to happen and I know how long it takes to go between the shots. I mean, what was I supposed to do? Walk in circles? I wasn’t cooking. I couldn’t cook there. Usually if I’m on a fairly big production, I can always go into a kitchen and I can start cooking for people. Even if it was food that would come out later in the day. That would keep me occupied. That would keep me busy.

AG: When you were standing there in that dressing room wishing you where somewhere else, were you also picturing the thing you would rather be doing? Writing? Producing something else…?

KK: No! That’s the problem. You know, I have a dream life. I’m a painter. I’m a successful painter. I’m a filmmaker. I’m a successful filmmaker. In my own level, I’m a champion at filmmaking. I often times ask myself what I would rather be doing. Today when I get up, because today I can get up and do anything I want, I ask myself what it is that I want to do today. And I say, “I don’t know.” It’s really a nightmare. I just don’t know.

AG: You’ve got a real problem.

KK: I’ve got a problem! And it would take two years of serious therapy at two hundred and fifty dollars an hour to even begin to touch the problem. Curiously enough, I live with a psychotherapist, but she’s not there for this. We’ve sort of said that we are not going to talk about this (laughs.) “This is your damn problem, leave me out of this. I just married you. That’s all I’ve got to do with this!”

AG: In 1998 I was sitting in the audience at the Seattle Art Museum for the premiere of The Gigabyte Trilogy. It was a huge turnout and during the Q&A, someone asked you what was next for you. You went into great detail about the “Albatross” film you were planning. That concept would later become Poet of the Night. But it would take you more than ten years to get there. Are these ideas floating around in your head for years at a time, or do you tend to go with what inspires you at the moment?

KK: [French poet Charles] Baudelaire’s Albatross idea is part of a feature-length film called Poet of the Night, which I know I’ll never make. At some point, not too many years ago, I thought that I ought to do is just one scene. I can’t do the last scene. The last scene would have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. But I thought that I could do a scene right before the last scene. And it does involve the Albatross. I knew I had the people to do this, and I even knew I had the location to do this. So I thought, ok, I should actually write it up, get the gang together, and make a short film that we will call Poet of the Night. It will have nothing to do with the feature, really, except this one little scene. It’s out of context. So, you know, we have our main character and he’s “Uncle John” in the movie. I always thought it would be Donald Sutherland, who would be great for Uncle John. Uncle John is a religious fanatic, so there is this one line, which of course I can’t cut because it’s in the actual film. He says, “Don’t blame God.” And you go, “Where does this come from?” I mean this guy hasn’t been talking about God, this has nothing to do with God. But this is what the big movie deals with, and this is the finite scene for this character. So I decided I was not going to cut the line. I’m going to leave it in. So it is in the actual short film Poet of the Night. I didn’t want to completely give up on the idea of making the feature film without at least making a short version of it. I don’t like that approach. I think it’s a very wrongful approach. It wasn’t like it was a way to try and get money for the feature. I knew that was out of the question. Nevertheless, I wanted to just try and do this. To try and put some, just a wink, of Poet of the Night on film.

AG: The last film that you’ve made that even resembles a feature is Great Uncle Jimmy, at least in scope and in the size of the production. Swing dancers, cars on fire… And that was ten years ago.

KK: That’s a 46-minute film. That was a scene that we were going to cut radically down. Those were the characters that were going to be in the feature version of Great Uncle Jimmy. I think we were going to cut it down to 5 minutes. Sadly, I think we would have lost the ‘car shot.’ The car battle at the end is comedy and the film itself is not comedy. The feature is not funny.

AG: Did you set out to shoot a feature and then it got cut down?

KK: Oh, no. I was shooting a short film. I was shooting a 46-minute film. What I wanted was to make that film, the short version, and then I knew that if we actually went on to make the real film, we would keep those characters. But we would cut down the events in the short version to about five minutes worth in the feature version. We would have had ‘the party.’ Jonona (Miles) would not have been in it. And maybe even Amber (Landry) would not have been in it in the end. It was pretty much just about the two great friends, the two guys who go to this party. And along their journey… It’s just this incredible screenplay. This is just a little stop at the party. It’s just a little, teeny stop in the story. I once again tried through connections in Los Angeles to try and front the idea that this is a feature film. I had the screenplay. Some people loved the screenplay. Some people hated the screenplay. And I said, “What is to hate in this screenplay?” It’s like Patrick Swayze in Ghost; it’s incredible. It’s like… Its like, what did I…? Oh, yes! Field of Dreams. The story of Field of Dreams. Shoeless Joe. They went around and they tried to get Shoeless Joe made. And year after year, studio after studio – they all said, “No. This sucks.” And then they make Field of Dreams out of something that every studio had turned down. Well I went through all of that of course, but I don’t have the wherewithal. I don’t have the power behind me. I just couldn’t plug away for the next eight years trying to find someone who would say, “This is an incredible screenplay and I want to throw the money in your face and see what you can do with it.” So I just decided okay, that’s it. I’ve got a nice little short here, and I’m just not going to fight further because I don’t know how to fight further. It’s very tough unless you are literally part of the industry. If you’re not in the industry it would be very, very hard to know what would be the next step. I have often gone to Los Angeles; I have often been there for thirty days at a time fighting for something. And at the end of thirty days it’s always failure. Every single time. I am not part of the industry, and the industry does not want me to become part of it.

AG: Will you make a feature film again?

KK: No. There is no feature that I can think of. I only have two features. I have Poet of the Night and I have Great Uncle Jimmy. Those are the two that are scripted where I can go into production. But I don’t see myself making a feature. If somebody were to knock on my door and say, “We want you to make this film. We’ve got the budget. We think you are the guy. Let’s talk.” I would say, “Okay, let’s talk.” I’ve generated two great screenplays that people don’t like. Those are the two that I want to do. So it would take somebody coming to me. And that is the pipe dream that never, ever happens. And people, particularly people in film school – any kind of film school – they have no idea that never happens! They think that some way, someday, somebody is going to come knocking on their door and say, “We think you’re brilliant. We are going to take you seriously. We want you to make a feature film.” And it never happens.

AG: (Jim) Blashfield says that he is now more aware of who his peers are. The ones who still make short films because that’s what they love to do. What he was talking about was that, for some people, the short film is no longer a kind of art form unto itself. For some, it has become a kind of calling card or demo for guys that are really wanting to shoot features.

KK: I think the whole idea of a short film as a kind of “calling card” is a completely bogus idea. Who do you know…? Name one person that has made a short film [who has] shown it to somebody and that person goes, “Hey! You should make a feature for me! And look, I’ve got a script just waiting for you!” The calling card idea is as bogus as anything I’ve ever heard of.

AG: And Blashfield loves what he does. Clearly, he loves making short films.

KK: That’s how I see my work now. Initially I had no distinct plan as to how I would get into features. I tried a few things along the way towards making that happen. But it wasn’t like a driving… It wasn’t like an end-all idea. I just assumed it would happen. We came very close on several occasions and it didn’t happen. Then suddenly, I realized that I wasn’t sure that I even liked it all that well. I just assumed that that was the only way you could become Billy Wilder. You’ve got to make features to inherit the Earth. But look, I’ve made seventy-films now. Once you’ve made that many films… it’s like, “Actually, I’m kind of happy of the way I’ve handled it and what I’ve done.” The future is based on that same kind of thinking. If you can’t get out of that kind of thinking then you cant get to making Field of Dreams. At this point, I am not going to try and start making Field of Dreams. So, okay, what a pity. There are certain kinds of movies that I’d like to make that I really just can’t do. That’s just… life moves on and you loose the zeal, the interest. I mean, I never had the zeal or the interest to pursue feature films. Same thing with Blashfield. Blashfield was the king of all music videos. I mean, this guy owned the Earth. He liked doing it. He was damn good at it. And so, to think that he doesn’t want to go into feature length films… Okay. Good for him. Same thing with me. The films I want to make, generally speaking, are not feature length.

AG: How much in common do you have with other American filmmakers or artists that are roughly your same age?

KK: I only know a few that are my age. Almost to a person… Jim Blashfield being a good example, Chel White being a great example. These people have done short films and then they also made a living doing commercial shorts. They have found a way to turn what they do… David Russo is the same thing. He’s this brilliant shorts filmmaker. And he’s now doing some of this extremely commercial… which is now in the format of a longer film. And so you go, “Okay.” I’ve never done that. I have never taken my short films into a commercial venue. In fact, I have consistently denied doing commercials. I don’t like commercials. When they’re good, I think they’re funny. I like Aflac’s. I like the duck. If someone would have come to me and said, “Do the duck.” I would have said, “I can do the duck!” But short of that, who’s going to come to me to do the duck? I think you need to do a bunch of Buick commercials before you get to do the duck. So, its not like its an easy path. And it’s not one that I really want to pursue because I don’t like the end product. I don’t like commercials.

AG: Do you think launching into one of your feature productions would be easier if you had a stable of great actors you could instantly pull from? Do you consider casting as a kind of obstacle?

KK: No. That’s Orson Welles thinking. That’s ancient thinking. That’s 1939 thinking. Casting is not easy. You have to pay for it. Casting is the key to doing anything. If you have Johnny Depp, you get a movie. If you can line him up, and he says yes – and you can pay him – then you’ve got a movie. Then the picture is already sold. Short of that, you can’t make a movie. It’s wonderfully stupid as to how many young people think they can make a feature length film with nobody in it and make it work. It’s fascinating how people believe that! It’s like they’ve read a couple of press clippings of somebody who has done it. And you know who I’m talking about. There are several out there that are just ridiculous. Ok, that’s one in a million. That’s interesting. It’s not going to happen to you, Bozo! That’s not the way it really works. It’s very, very difficult to align yourself with people that can actually sell your movie. Now, more than ever before, you have to have those two basic elements. You have to have the actor and you have to have the screenplay. Again, Field of Dreams. If you have those two things, they will come! It’s incredible. If you walk through the door and say you’ve got Jeff Bridges and this incredible screenplay, they’ll say, “Holy crap; we can’t turn this down.” You know? Imagine walking through the door with Johnny Depp?

AG: Terry Gilliam did that. Johnny Depp, Jean Rochefort… If he didn’t have those names attached to what he was doing, that project could have sunk much quicker.

KK: Are we talking about The Man Who Killed Don Quixote? Don Quixote is a twelve-hundred page book. Orson Welles failed at this, too. But Gilliam could have made it. He’s the guy. If he hadn’t had names involved in the project, he wouldn’t have got through the door in the first place. But the horrors of nature… He had 30 million dollars, which now seems like a joke figure for a Terry Gilliam film. Nevertheless, he had 30 million bucks in the bank. He’s all set. And then nature turned on him in every possible way it possibly could (laughs.) It’s like the Devil had come out of the desert and said, “Terry, you’re screwed!”

AG: I’ve had that happen to me (laughs.)

KK: Well, it happens. I’ve sort of had that happen, but not like that. Not like that.

AG: How old were you when you first read Scuppers the Sailor Dog?

KK: I don’t know. I can’t remember the first time I read Scuppers the Sailor Dog. It was read to me, of course. My mother read it to me. It’s a children’s book. I had to be fairly young. Along the way, I kept reading it (laughs.) In the end, I read it to myself. I realized that this is my career. I am Scuppers. Scuppers is based on efficiency. Scuppers the Sailor Dog comes into any number of adversities, and at the same time, he puts his hat on his peg for the hat. He hangs up his coat on the peg for the coat. He crawls into a warm bed whether he’s shipwrecked or not. He snuggles, goes to sleep, wakes up; he takes off his hat from the peg that holds the hat. And blahdy, blahdy, blahdy… It’s entirely how you make films. It’s based entirely on efficiency. There is a lot of responsibility involved with Scuppers, too. Okay, these are early lessons for me. But it’s a timeless book because it did teach me things. I teaches you a lot of thing about how you get through life. So, that’s Scuppers.

AG: The book also says that he was “…born in the teeth of the gale.” That’s epic.

KK: Well, that’s being a Norwegian… or a filmmaker! You can’t really escape it. It’s like a form of destiny – which I don’t believe in. But nonetheless… Do you understand the ending? “He’s set free. He’s sailing the great, deep, green sea. He’s a Sailor Dog where he ought to be. He’s sailing the great, deep, green sea.” And you go, “Wow.” This is epic. It’s like Arthur Rimbaud. It is. It’s like French poetry. It’s Mallarmé. It’s Baudelaire. It’s a children’s book. And you go, “Holy shit!”

—

about karl krogstad

Krogstad has been called the greatest filmmaker the Northwest has ever known, producing and directing more than 65 shorts and feature-length films of every type – animation, live action, documentary and found footage collage. He has won 30 awards from most major film festivals around the world and his unconventional expressions on celluloid have attracted legions of fans around the globe. He is also the subject of his own documentary, an untitled work currently in post production.

Gromozeka is, in the words of my cohort, “very Russian.”
Gromozeka is, in the words of my other cohort, “odd.”

This odd, very Russian film is not for everyone. It’s probably not even for 75% of film-going patrons. There’s a plotline — kind of — but it’s comprised of a series of mostly disconnected vignettes. Some vignettes are poignant (a grown man being cradled by a frustrated prostitute), some endearing (a father and son sharing identical mannerisms when eating), some depressing (a man cramming barbituates into a bottle of bourbon). Quite a few are brief and almost pointless (a man ramming the back of his head once onto an elevator door, for instance).

But Gromozeka is, in my words, “a grower.”

Its atypical humor, which lies somewhere between awkward and black, is a rarity. Not quite laugh-out-loud funny (except to a select maniacal few), Gromozeka‘s brand of chuckle-under-your-breath, scoff-at-the-ridiculousness-of-it-all funny strikes people in vastly different ways. When one watches the film with a captive audience, its peculiarities quickly become apparent; few jokes in Gromozeka receive collective riotous laughter, but all jokes receive acknowledgement from at least a few individuals, with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

Much like a balding uncle who scratches himself at the dinner table or a childhood teddy bear that has begun to rot, Gromozeka is equally adorable and painful. Its storyline follows the lives of three middle-aged Russian men, all of whom are failing at life in some regard, either through work mishaps, health problems, family issues, or a combination of those factors. All three have difficulties dealing with the women in their lives; all three are humongous cowards who take the path of least resistance, to detrimental ends.

The tales would be unbearably depressing if not for director and screenwriter Vladimir Kott’s impressive grasp on life, careful attention to detail, slow pacing, and charming character development. As the film continues, one begins to warm up to all of its light-hearted quirks. Slight, weird jabs of humor keep one from pitying the main characters despite their difficult situations. With a keen eye and a flair for unconventional humor, Kott subtly reveals the beautiful humor sometimes found in man’s most downtrodden times.

Seen at Seattle International Film Festival 2011

Directed by Evan Glodell
United States

Artists unavoidably inject themselves into their work. Their personality, their characteristics, their likes, their prejudices, their fetishes, all these things are skin deep in any sort of artistic endeavor. Displaying your work is an inherent form of self-exposure, unavoidable in its necessity. But it’s true artistic talent that knows how to mitigate their own narcissistic influence, and to offer a statement that stands apart from the person behind it.

Bellflower, the debut film from Evan Glodell, is not one of those success stories. This indie Action Drama races through its 106 minute runtime without a hint of irony, and a lot of excess fire, whiskey, burnt rubber and orange lens filter. Glodell stars in his own film as Woodrow (who is basically Evan), a Midwestern boy who spends his days building stuntman gear with his best friend Aidan for their own amusement. At night they proceed to get blackout drunk and eat grasshoppers live to impress girls. The second date with these girls consists of conversation gems like “remember when we ate those cockroaches?” and “I am so drunk.”

Look at these assholes.

For the entirety of the film I was wondering “This has to be a joke, right? This movie gets intelligent somewhere. It has to.” I was thinking that maybe, by introducing me to these unlikable, insufferable characters that I can’t relate to, the payoff would be that they were all going to kill each other in some brutal, Battle Royale-like fashion. I was almost certain, after the fifth dialogue exchange about how drunk they were or the umpteenth awkward encounter between the romantic leads that this would all lead to their inevitable doom, or at least some sort of sleight of hand that would make me feel like “ok this movie was at least on my side.” No. The movie was never on my side. It was trolling me the entire time, laughing from the darkness, totally oblivious to the meaninglessness of its own existence.

All suspicions were confirmed during the post-screening Q&A sessions. The story and script had come from “a dark time in his life,” Aiden’s character was based on Evan’s best friend, they thought that this scene was “super cool” and that scene was “rad” and for the most part, failed to offer any real insight into what the hell just happened on the screen. That’s because Glodell doesn’t know what happened, it’s just what is going on in his head and he makes no attempt to question it.

Despite all the “horrible” and “dark” things that happen to Woodrow in the movie, you can’t help but feel like it’s still all just a Bro Wet Dream. Get dumped? Fuck her best friend. Burn her shit with a flamethrower. Put flames on a car and burnout in the middle of the street. Get drunk. Fire shotguns. Dude. Bro. Sweet. (Cry.) All the things in this movie, good or bad, rotate around Woodrow, and by direct proxy, Evan. And they all serve to place him in these larger-than-life situations that are really small and unimpressive. It’s definitely masturbatory, with plenty of misogyny and a sociopathic streak going right down the back.

Long story short, if you like this movie I don’t think we can be friends. I know too much about you already.

Bellflower was screened at the 2011 Seattle International Film Festival and was terrible.

Here’s a smattering of reviews that are up way too late for you to take advantage of, but nonetheless you should know about (for better or for worse). All these films were screened at the most excellent so far 2011 Seattle International Film Festival.

Vallanzasca – Angels of Evil (2010)
Italy, Directed by Michele Placido

Biopic of Italian mobster Renato Vallanzasca has plenty of flair, but is possibly a little too fast paced. Kim Rossi Stewart makes the slick-talking Regato easy to fall in love with. Unfortunately, it’s hard to care about anyone else. Renato is wry, everything else just kind of happens. Also, the music almost never fits. The suits they wear are very nice, though.

Terri (2011)
USA, Directed by Azazel Jacobs

Funny without resorting to goofy. Sad without resorting to pathetic. Excellent performance by Jacob Wysocki a misunderstood teenage kid with too much on his plate (literally). It’s nice to see John C Reilly not playing a complete idiot. Surprise guest appearance by Tim Heidecker.

Tilt (2010)
Bulgaria, Directed by Viktor Chouchkov Jr.

Bulgarian movie draws strong comparisons to Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting, and for good reason. Kinetic drama that’s not overly jumpy. Sprawling plot tied together with a strong cast of characters and centered around a convincing love story. A Bulgarian friend of mine says that growing up there was “exactly like that.”

Late Autumn (2010)
Korea, Directed by Kim Tae-Yong

First half is thinly scripted Seattle tourist porn. Let’s go to Pike Place Market! Let’s Ride the Ducks! Let’s go to the Fun Forest (whoops)! The second half is actually a compelling movie, and the film ends on a pitch perfect note, which allows you to forget how boring the first 40 minutes were. Leads are good but have no chemistry with each other.

The Sandman and the Lost Sand of Dreams (2010)
Germany, Directed by Jesper Mollem, Sinem Sakagolu

Sandman tries too hard to be so, so precious. Ends up making no sense to adults and boring children to tears. Even without the atrocious dub this movie wouldn’t work right. Makes you really value what Pixar and Miyazaki have done to ensure that children’s films aren’t just brainless puppet shows.

Win/Win (2010)
Netherlands, Directed by Jaap van Heusden

This is not the Paul Giamatti movie, which I have not seen. Ivan leans slightly to the right on the autism scale. But he is also a stock market superhero, faster than a dropping economy and able to leap entire probability tables in a single bound. He also really likes this girl’s feet. He doesn’t like feeling real world responsibility about his long-shot gambles. And of course, that’s what happens.

Kirkland Performance Center – June 10^th 7:00 PM

The Destiny of Lesser Animals (2011)
Ghana, Directed by Deron Albright

This is a film about Ghana, shot in Ghana. It feels like two movies at once. The first is one of a man, chasing his dreams and a pickpocket who has stolen them. The second is about Ghana and it’s redemption. Both are interesting stories on their own, don’t necessarily mesh together all that well.

Harvard Exit – June 11^th 7:00 PM
Admiral Theater – June 12^th 3:30 PM

Directed by Shunji Iwai
Canada 2011

The line on Shunji Iwai’s English-language debut, Vampire, is “Don’t worry. The film is really not about vampires,” which is true. There are no mythical shenanigans; no supernatural mystique artificially injected into this story about a serial killer and his travails. However, the title of the movie does not mean to mislead. Iwai’s Vampire is definitely fantastical, and like Lily Chou Chou and Swallowtail Butterfly before it, requires a persistent state of suspended disbelief to truly shine. And by toeing the line of surrealism so expertly, Iwai, like a filmmaking Dracula, puts the view under a spell, allowing him to fully control (and subvert) one’s expectations.

The story follows Simon, an attractive young biology teacher who lives with his Alzheimer’s afflicted mother. His hobbies include grousing, being a shut-in, collecting lab equipment, and draining blood from suicidal women. He finds the women on websites, and uses a plethora of excuses to get them to go along with his plans. Some he tells he’ll participate in a suicide pact. Some he tells the blood is for medical research. All are lies. Simon has no plans to die.

Simon is surrounded by a colorful cast of characters. Mina, a quiet, morose Japanese exchange student, desperately seeks Simon’s attention. Renfield is a maniac wannabe, a vampirism fanboy who wants nothing more than to have his own lengthy Wikipedia page and maybe some rape charges. And at the top of the heap is Laura (Rachel Leigh Cook), Simon’s stalker/girlfriend, who might be even more sociopathic than Simon (“she grew up rough” her step-brother explains). Compared to some of these characters, Simon’s madness may be more or less reasonable.

Kevin Zegers (Gossip Girl) does an incredible job as Simon, balancing the character’s complexities without appearing psychotic. Cook is thoroughly enjoyable as Laura, and Adelaide Clemens is an absolute revelation as the Lolita-esque Ladybird. But in the end, the true star is Iwai and his gorgeous direction. His shot selection is superb, the pacing is riveting (some would say breakneck by Iwai’s standards), and he’s able to seamlessly shift gears at will. In fact, there are a couple scenes in the movie that might be too beautiful, if not juxtaposed with some genuinely macabre context.

Vampire may not be a vampire movie, but it probably does more for the monster than Twilight ever could do. It’s a case study of a mythological creature, an origin story of legend using a subject that might hit closer to home than any Edward or Jacob could. This beast is a man, and the things he does, as appalling as they might be, are still in the realm of human experience. Never has the trope “the monster is inside of us” been expressed so clearly.

Vampire will screen at the 2011 Seattle International Film Festival at the Admiral Theater on June 5th at 8:30 PM.