Sundance Film #10: Once

Once
A Dublin busker, who ekes out a living playing guitar and repairing vacuum cleaners for his dad's shop, meets a young Czech immigrant who sells roses on the same street. She likes his song, and what's more...she has a broken vacuum cleaner! They soon find themselves playing music together in a nearby music store (since she can't afford a piano, the owner lets her play his floor models). Over the course of a week, they form a musical rapport and, newly inspired, decide to record an album.

Once may loosely be classified as a musical, but it has a refreshing verite inflection. Conceived by director John Carney as a "video album," it sports a scrappy, unembellished naturalism. Carney took a risk in choosing professional musicians over professional actors, but Glen Hansard (of the well-known Irish band the Frames) and Marketa Irglova (a Czech singer/songwriter) are not only remarkably charming together but they're equally adept with the more melancholy shades (Hansard's lonely soul, stuck on an old flame, Irglove struggling to support a mother and daughter). Burdened and brokenhearted, their musical bond is the heart of the film and their love.

Great music aside, what makes this film special is how little effort it seems to exert. If it's possible to be blindsided by simplicity - a light touch, Once does it.
(John Nein, 2007 Sundance Film Festival catalog)
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Once again, John Nein sees WAY more in a film than I did. I have to admit, I'm always wary of romantic films. I don't like people acting unnaturally in the name of "love," but I'm happy to say that it didn't happen here. Irglova was charming in the way that children can be charming - insistent in drawing Hansard into a good time that he looks like he desperately needs. The romantic tension of their initial first "date" is broken by the fact that she's dragging her broken vacuum cleaner behind her like a boxy blue dog.

I put "date" in quotes because this isn't a love story as such. It's obvious that the characters find each other attractive and they are obviously musically compatible, they never actually kiss and they don't end up together. Essentially, we have a very sweet story of two people who get together to make an album. That's the beginning and end of it.

Our tickets were for the World Audience Award for dramatic film. When the program director who introduced the film got up, she said that this was the first time she had ever seen an audience give a film a standing ovation. Between that and the fuss made about the outstanding music, I knew to be on my guard.

Sure enough, at the end of this sweet but not outstanding film, two of the folks in the row in front of us jumped to their feet during the applause. The Pirate leaned over and said "This is worse than San Francisco," referring to the tendency of San Francisco audiences to give a standing ovation to anything with a spotlight, including a drug deal on a well-lit streetcorner.

Besides the non-love story (with which I was perfectly okay), the music wasn't really my thing. It was the same kind of whiny-boy music that just makes me want to scream. It would have been okay if there had been a lot of varied sound, but they played the same single song over and over. It was during that song that I realized that two days ago, as the Pirate and I were walking from one film to another, we walked by two street musicians. At the time, I was surprised at what a huge crowd two unremarkable street performers had gathered. Now I realize that it was them, staging a performance for...I don't know what. I thought the song sounded sweet, but it wasn't enough to make me want to stop and listen. And that kind of sums up how I felt about the movie, too.

The Pirate says: Predictable, whiny music, otherwise unremarkable. It wasn't some fantastic thing, but it wasn't really horrible.

Sundance Film #9: Enemies of Happiness

Enemies of Happiness
In September 2005, Afghanistan held its first parliamentary elections in 35 years. Among the candidates for 249 assembly seats was Malalai Joya, a courageous, controversial 27-year-old woman who had ignited outrage among hard-liners when she spoke out against corrupt warlords at the Grand Council of tribal elders in 20003. Enemies of Happiness is a relevatory portrait of this extraordinary freedom fighter and the way she won the hearts of voters, as well as a snapshot of life and politics in war-torn Afghanistan.

Amidst vivid, poetic images of Joya's dusty Farah province, the film tracks the final weeks of her campaign, when death threats restrict her movements. but the parade of trusting constituents arriving on her doorstep leaves no doubt that Joya is a popular hero. Among her visitors is a 100-year-old woman who treks two hours to offer loyalty and herbal medicine. King Solomon-style, Joya acts as folk mediator and advocate, adjudicating between a wife and her violent, drug-addicted husband and counseling a family forced to marry off their adolescent daughter to a much older man. Protected by armed guards, Joya heads to poor rural areas to address crowds of women, pledging to be their voice and "expose the enemies of peace, women, and democracy." In the presence of her fierce tenacity, we can imagine the future of an enlightened nation.
(Caroline Libresco, 2007 Sundance Film Festival catalog)

preceded by the short Make a Wish
A young Palestinian girl will do anything it takes to buy a birthday cake.
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Just as the short that preceded Offscreen should have warned me that the coming film would be disturbing and bizarre, the short Make a Wish warned me that the coming feature would be sweet and heartbreaking. Make a Wish showed two little girls trying to buy a birthday cake. What they endure trying to buy the cake is positively post-war Italian in its sadness, and when they come home triumphantly with their cake, their worried-out-of-her-mind mother grabs the older girl by the arm, making her drop the cake. Crying ensues, but at last we see why the cake is so important as the girls and their mother all sing happy birthday around the cake with the lit candle and the oldest girl whispers to the picture of her dead father "Make a wish, papa."

You'd pretty much have to be made of stone not to cry at that.

About Make a Wish the Pirate says: It was very sweet.

My face was still wet when Enemies of Happiness started. Our ticket was for the World Documentary Grand Prize, and although they released the names of all the prize winners at eight o'clock and we were in line for the film at 8:15, nobody knew what film it would be.

Enemies of Happiness starts with footage of the speech that got Malalai Joya banned from the Grand Council two years earlier, then shows her in the present during the few weeks right before the elections. I was really afraid that we'd see her, get attached to her and then watch her gunned down or blown up in front of us, and I was thankful it never happened. In the Q&A after the film, the director said that Joya, whose district is an outlying one in the south of Afghanistan near the Iranian border, has moved to Kabul and is still working hard in parliament for the rights of women and against the institutionalization of the kinds of laws enacted by and for the warlords who have controlled Afghanistan for so long.

The speech she made in 2003 gave Joya a great deal of credibility with her district, and she becomes the neutral third party that many people come to with their problems. We get to see her mediating on behalf of several people, and she comes across as trustworthy even though she never tells anyone "I can solve your problem for you."

In politics, she's very passionate and I worry that she won't heed the advice of one man who told her "you can't chop down a tree with one stroke. You have to take a branch off here and a branch off there and that's how you do it." Joya is all for ridding the country of the warlords who control huge private militias in one fell swoop and her passion has already made her a target. I'm excited to see her working so hard to make a difference, but I hope that she sees that she can make more of a difference as a live politician than as a dead martyr.

The Pirate says: Inspiring. It was a really good documentary of a politician in a difficult circumstance.

Sundance Film #8: Chicago 10

Chicago 10
As one of the seminal political events of the 1960s, the Chicago Seven trial seems to come from another era, but filmmaker Brett Morgen, in his third trip to the Sundance Film Festival, has created a film that is much more than a look back. Indeed, Chicago 10 takes a stylized, innovative approach that gives contemporary history a forced perspective. He boldly mixes original animation with extraordinary archival footage to explore the buildup to and unraveling of the infamous conspiracy trial. Set to the music of the revolution then and now, Chicago 10 is a parable of hope, courage and challenge as it portrays the struggle of young Americans attempting to confront an oppressive and armed government...their own.

The 1968 Democratic Convention was a watershed event in the ongoing opposition to the Vietnam war. Protestors clashed with Chicago police, and the ensuing battles were witnessed live on television. In an effort to find a scapegoat, eight protestors were charged. The trial became a circus, and the abuse of individual liberties made this event one of the era's most significant.

But this is not the focus of either the film or our choice to have it open this year's Festival. Chicago 10 is much more than mere historical drama, and its creative artistry and inspiration are at the core of what makes this documentary and its subject as relevant today as it was 40 years ago.
(Geoffrey Gilmore, 2007 Sundance Film Festival catalog)
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From an early age, I have always had a taste for history that wasn't limited to wars and political boundaries. I like knowing how normal people lived, what they thought, and how the events of the time affected them. Chicago 10 set the events surrounding the 1968 Democratic Convention and the trail of the Chicago Seven in the context of the people in and around Chicago and other places where Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin spoke to people. At one point, in a piece of archive footage, a reporter asked a young black woman how she felt about the events going on uptown (the Yippie protests were held in Lincoln Park in Chicago, not in the poorer [and more predominantly black] south side), the woman squinched up her face and expressed her opinion that she was glad it was happening in someone else's neighborhood, and that she didn't feel sorry for the white guys getting beat up by the police.

The director apparently went through hundreds of hours of archival film and audio and tens of thousands of pages of court transcripts, but because the courtroom portions of the movie are stylized animation, it's hard to tell how much is true and how much is "dramatized," especially since Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin were pretty dramatic already.

Abbie Hoffman, being the biggest clown of the group, ends up getting the most screen time in both real archive footage and animated footage. He said more than once that politics, and his trial in particular, were theater - this movie took his words and turned them into performance art.

I want Peaches to see this movie, just to give her some context in American history that she probably won't get otherwise. The Pirate and I had a long discussion (on our way to the next movie) about what lessons were learned as a result of the events of the late 60s, and much has changed - but for the worse. Democrats and other people more liberally inclined have decided to try taking the moral high ground - not once are you going to hear Barack Obama yelling "Fuck you!" at Bush or any of his supporters - but they've also decided that they have too much to lose by speaking out. Tom Hayden was carted off to jail at least once, and every protestor in Lincoln Park knew that they had a very real chance of being taken out of the park by force, and they accepted that. In the trial, the Chicago Seven were labeled as terrorists, but after the trial every day they left the courtroom without guard, boarded planes, and went on speaking engagements.

If the same sort of thing were to happen today, there would be no public trial because they would have been branded "terrorists," making them "enemy combatants" and stripping them of their legal rights. They would have been held in jail while their trail by military tribunal went on without them, and they would have been unable to tell anyone about what they were going through. Knowing that, liberals today cluck their tongues at the antics of the current administration and talk in hushed tones about how they could do better.

If Abbie Hoffman were still politically active in the same absurd way today, he would point at the current regime and say loudly for all to hear that not only does the emperor have no clothes, but that he thinks it's a great idea and everyone should join him. And then take off his pants for the camera.

The Pirate says: It was interesting, engaging; it made the whole thing very exciting.

Sundance Film #7: Offscreen

Offscreen
Christoffer Boe's delirious psychological drama is an adept deconstruction of modern self-absorption and a trenchant commentary on the supposed utopia of readily available digital technologies in the modern media atmosphere.

The plot is straightforward: actor Nicholas Bro asks friend and director Boe for help with a documentary about his strained relationship with his girlfriend, Lene. Boe lends Nicholas a digital camera, along with the offhand advice to film everything he can. Nicholas takes this advice absolutely literally, exacerbating his domestic troubles with the intrusive camera until Lene walks out on him for good. Friends and acquaintances also evacuate the sweep of his omnipresent lens. The fragile, egomaniacal actor, fixated on fictionalizing his quest to win Lene back, slides into career ruin and psychological disintegration with shocking consequences.

Bro adroitly portrays Nicholas's decline in a terrific feat of self-parody as Boe explicitly (and cagily) interrogates the vapidity of a DIY media culture that raises egocentrism to a supposed art.
(Shannon Kelly 2007 Sundance Film Festival catalog)

preceded by the short Induction
The unexpected meeting of a shaman, a lonely woman and a young boy, whose paths cross and slip away in a labyrinthine world of unresolved mystery.
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The irony of this whole thing is that prior to hitting the theater, the Pirate and I stopped off at the Starbucks and got some hot beverages. We had an hour or so to kill, and while the Pirate waited in line I was listening in to the conversations of both the two women at the table on my right and the four women at the table on my left. On my right, the conversation was about what each had done the day before (skiing, eating out) and on my left there was a long and involved conversation about a woman not at the table who had just "gotten the ring," but whose relationship was being dissected in a pointedly unkind way.

The shallowness and vapidity of the conversation were making me edgy, and as the Pirate was sitting across from me wondering why I was looking unhappy, I finally whipped out my phone to send him a text message expressing my feelings. We moved over one table and started discussing something else entirely. Although I felt much better, we were both awestruck at the self-absorption of the ladies at the table.

Enter the short feature, Induction. Ten minutes of shots of a naked black man, a white woman in her underwear, a kid in sweatshirt and jeans, and various incomprehensible shots of blurry trees, blurry leaves, upside-down rooms and a shot of sheep running across a field shown upside down and backward. If Nicolas Provost, the director, was trying to portray "a labyrinthine world of unresolved mystery," he failed utterly. What he showed was some bad cinematography and some all-too-common sexual hangups.

About Induction, the Pirate says: So what?

Offscreen is in the "New Frontier" category which "celebrates experimentation and the convergence of film and art as an emerging hotbed for new cinematic ideas." While I am not even going to pretend that the preceeding sentence is anything but a lot of solipsistic nonsense, the category fits this film beautifully - solipsistic in the extreme!

For the first quarter of the film I identified with the main character, Nicolas, as he films everything. At one point, he's standing over his wife as she sleeps and whispering into the camera about how beautiful he thinks she is and how she's the best thing that ever happened to him and how he's really doing this for her. But when she leaves him because he's unable to turn the camera off, when he not only films her leaving but, as she sees the camera and asks incredulously "You're filming?" and he LIES TO HER, vehemently denying something she can see with her own eyes, he lost my sympathy. From there it was an uncomfortable forced march as Nicolas decayed before us.

The pain and discomfort I felt as a viewer weren't just in his more "public" moments - when his filming gets him into trouble with his friends and co-workers. There was a scene right after his wife's parents come to get her passport because she's moving out of the country and she doesn't want to go herself. Nicolas is broken-hearted at her leaving and after the in-laws leave, he films himself at the kitchen table and sobbing as he literally chokes down slice after slice of pizza, cramming them into his mouth as he cries.

By the end, when he loses touch with reality entirely, I was scared and wanted to leave, but it was obvious that we were near the end. After the movie, the Pirate and I ended up doing a lot of talking just to outprocess the horror of the movie. No, you're not like that. No, you'll never be like that. Yes, that guy was a sick fuck and although he was sweet for the first fifteen minutes of the movie, it didn't make him any less of a sick fuck.

The Pirate says: It was creepy and it was horrifying, but it was very well done. And if you really liked The Vanishing, you'll love Offscreen.

Luckily, the voting is over because awards are being presented tonight. The movie was amazingly well-acted and well-shot. The story arc was brilliant and it was thought-provoking, but I was deeply disturbed by it and would have no idea how to properly score a movie like this one.

Other Sundance Stuff

So, we've done six movies in three days. We've also shopped for prezzies for the group at home, gone to the grocery store about nine times and I've fielded eight inquiries about my hair.

A friend from work was here last week, and she said that one particular day, the high was 3 degrees. It was pretty chilly when we got here, but today, I'd say the high had to have been close to 40. The snow is melting in rivers all over the place. It seems like every time we go out, there's a little more sidewalk showing.

At this point, more than halfway through our movie-viewing saga, the movies are starting to blur into each other. At one point during the second movie today, I was thinking "Did you hear when that guy said 'No one can take knowlege away from you?'" except that was the previous movie.

While we will be seeing 10 movies, there are a bunch we're not going to get to see. You can't walk five feet in this town without being beseiged by ads for them, and here are a few that've caught my eye:

In the Shadow of the Moon: "Seamlessly melding the wonders of science with the drama of the human quest, filmmaker David Sington has crafted a nostalgic and inspiring cinematic experience that provides unparalleled perspective on the fragile state of our planet."

Drained: "Palpable, intimate, and vibrating with vivid textures, Drained has a delightfully simple narrative that overflows with metaphors that maintain a singular sense of dark humor."

Black Snake Moan: "In a small Tennessee town, two unlikely souls meet at the sticky crossroads between rage and love. Lying beaten on the side of the road is Rae, who has developed a reputation for an insatiable 'itch' for sex. Her rescuer is Lazarus, an ex-blues guitarist who is used to life's relentless refrains of trouble and sorrow." (The fascination comes from the postcard - Lazarus is Samuel L. Jackson in a wife-beater holding up a length of chain, to which is clinging a Daisy-Mae-looking Christina Ricci.)

Tanju Miah: "Tanju Miah opens in a misty landscape in rural Bangladesh, where a young boy waits for his mother. "I'm about eight or nine," he says in voice-over. "When I grow up I want to become a rich man, by singing." He waits and works, and sometimes sings.

Worth looking up.

Sundance Film #6: Reves de Poussiere (Buried Dreams)

After traveling across the vast desert expanses of northeast Burkina Faso, Mocktar, a Nigerian peasant, arrives in a mining camp looking for work. Racked with grief from a past tragedy, he takes a job mining gold for the camp's unpitying boss. Carrying small hand picks, the miners crawl through dangerously narrow shafts leading hundreds of feet down, then haul bags of rock back up. Although Mocktar has clearly chosen to lose himself here, he befriends Coumba, a young widow raising her daughter. Like all the castaways, she also waits desperately for a nugget of gold and a better life.

The characters in Laurent Salgues' entrancing debut feature occupy both a literal and a figurative netherworld. Pulling amazing textures from the windswept wasteland, his widescreen images are hypnotic. But it's the camera's evocation of people that is most striking. Salgues is more interested in showing us inner landscapes - and the dignity of these souls that seem to erode before us. For the rest, it's cruel irony that they are so close to gold but so far from happiness.

In in amazingly stoic performance, Makena Diop conveys an entire journey of self-discovery. We have only a vague sense of Mocktar's wounds, but it's clear that riches will not salve them.
(John Nein, 2007 Sundance Film Festival catalog)
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I don't know what movie John Nein saw, but what I saw was punishing, depressing and mean. I have to say, the acting was fine, the cinematography was swell, it was technically a very competent film, but after the effervescent hope and love of The Pool, Buried Dreams was like waking up from a nightmare to find that you're still in prison and your cellmate hates you.

The characters in Buried Dreams are living not just in the desert of Africa, but in the moonscape of a gold mine where the shafts have been dug by the short-handled picks of countless men. Mocktar, the main character, comes into the camp as a man who doesn't drink, doesn't do drugs, and looks bewildered at the madness around him. But without any kind of acknowledgement, he slips into the same life as everyone else.

In Buried Dreams, everyone is after a fortune, but everyone who's made one has lost it. One man went home and was beset by "cousins" who moved in and spent all his money. One man gave all his money to his father who was then killed and the blame laid on him. One man had just gotten his fortune and was on his way to his hometown, but his body was found in the desert. It didn't matter what kind of person you were - nobody got ahead, nobody got any happier, there was no redemption or hope anywhere in sight.

We didn't stick around for the Q&A, but if we had, I'd be curious about what exactly Salgues was trying to say. The reviewer for the catalog obviously saw a great deal more in the film than I did, as did the person who introduced it. It feels to me like someone did a really good job of selling this to a committee somewhere. I can't count how many times I've written a piece and showed it to someone else, only to have them not get it because I'd left out key information.

If you have to explain it, it's just not a good movie.

The Pirate says: *groan* It's bleak. Depressing enough it could be Italian. Umberto D. in Africa, only not as upbeat.

My score: 3
The Pirate's score: 2

Sundance Film #5: The Pool

The Pool
A filmmaker who returns to Sundance in a new guise is a familiar-enough occurence, but to return with gifts as unique as Chris Smith reveals in The Pool is rare in any year. In the same vein as his latest documentary work, Smith's creative acumen focuses on the gulf between the rich and poor, sharing insights, observations, poignancy and truth in a deceptively simple narrative.

The Pool is the story of Venkatesh, a "room boy" working at a hotel in Panjim, Goa, who sees from his perch in a mango tree a luxuriant garden and shimmering pool hidden behind a wall. In making whatever efforts he can to better himself, Venkatesh offers his services to the wealthy owner of the home. Not content simply to dream about a different life, Venkatesh is inquisitive about the home's inhabitants, and his curiosity changes the shape of his future.

Remarkably cogent and affecting, this is inspired storytelling distinctive for its ability to transmit a complete world view in just a phrase or brief conversation. Working in Hindi with young actors in a country obviously not his own, Smith has nevertheless created a superbly incisive portrait that will take its place on the global stage.
(Geoffrey Gilmore, 2007 Sundance Film Festival catalog)
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"Imagine I gave you a hundred rupees, and I gave your sister a hundred rupees and told you to buy whatever you want. You buy a shirt, she buys a dress. But how would you feel if she opens her bag and you see that she bought you a shirt, and you bought her a dress. You'd still have a shirt, but that feeling - that feeling that comes from giving. No one understands that anymore."

Before we even got to Park City, the three ladies in the car with us told us that "The Pool" had a lot of buzz going on, and we heard the same thing at one other venue. The Pirate said he picked it because it somehow reminded him of The Life of Pi, although the only the only similarities are the presence of a swimming pool and Indian boys. Like The Life of Pi, this movie showed resourcefulness, courage and faith that made it the best movie I've seen so far.

One of my favorite things about it is that the two boys, Venkatesh and Jhagir, are played by two boys named Venkatesh and Jhagir. I'm almost afraid to say much more, because I guarantee that this film will be screening everywhere soon and I want everyone to go out and see it. The most surprising thing is that it was made by an American, but it didn't show some kind of idealized or stereotypical India. It showed two boys, eleven and eighteen, who work at menial jobs in Panjim. They make spare pocket money by selling plastic bags to shoppers in the market place, and then spend the money on bottles of soda. Venkatesh sleeps on the floor of the lobby of the hotel where he works, and Jhagir pulls what looks like a tablecloth over his head and sleeps on a table at the restaurant where he works. Both would like to rise higher than menial labor, but the outlook is pretty bleak. You never once see the Taj Mahal, there isn't a quasi-religious glow over everything, and you never see the setting sun through eighteen tons of red dust while sitar music twangs in the background.

Please. Go and see it. You won't be sorry.

The Pirate says: Great movie. The only thing it lacks is a wiggly song and dance number.

My score: 5
The Pirate's score: 5

Sundance Film #4: Acidente

Acidente
Inspired by the evocative names of 20 cities in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, filmmakers Cao Guimarães and Pablo Lobato uniquely meld a cinematic poem and an atypical travelogue in their film Acidente. Guimarães and Lobato visit each city and unobtrusively film slices of life, from a religious procession in Virgim da Lapa (Virgin of the Rock) to the nighttime activity at a lone gas station in Olhos d'Agua (Watery Eyes), to women sweeping the road in Entre Folhas (Between Leaves). These individual picture postcards from a larger tapestry revealing the diversity of the people, locations and cultures of the region, while the place names gradually unite to become a literal and expressive poem on the screen.

As the title suggests, much of what is filmed happens by chance, highlighting the unpredictable nature of life, even as the portraits of the various cities palpably reflect their names and their assimilation into the filmmakers' lyrical structure. Purpose and accident, and text and image merge to explore different facets of life in these cities, where a great deal takes place off camera in the margins of the frame or in the shadows. Local music and alternating film and video footage further individualize each city, creating a strong sense of place.

Acidente rewards the viewer with the joy of discovering not only Guimarães and Lobato's poem as it comes together, line by line, but also the people and places of Minas Gerais, city by city.
(Bill Tsiokos, 20007 Sundance Film Festival catalog)
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This was our third film of the day and our second back-to-back; I was fully prepared to nap during the entirety, but it was so gripping that napping never happened.

There is precious little "action" in Acidente, but in the Q&A afterward Lobato (who spoke no English, but when someone's purring in Portuguese, that's easy to forgive) said that he grew up in a small town in Minas Gerais (although not one of the towns featured) and wanted to give a sense of the way that time passes differently in these towns.

One of the questions afterward was about how they filmed - did they give themselves a time limit in each town, or did they just stay until something happened? Guimarães, the director who spoke English, said that they didn't have a lot of time to spend, but they spent as much time as they needed in each place, although as he answered the questions about different parts of the film it seemed like nearly all of the segments were things that happened while they were drinking or looking for a place to go drinking or after they'd been drinking for a while. Listening to him talk, it was easy to believe.

The visual was rich and varied due to both the use of different filming techniques and the fact that each city had something different to offer. Some segments lasted only a minute or two and had no human sounds whatsoever, others focused very clearly on the interactions among or between people. The buildings, machineries and tools of the cities shared equal time with plains, forests and endless trees.

This is one of my hands-down favorite kinds of movies - it was rich and varied and engaging, but in a quiet way that encouraged the later conversation about "wasn't that part incredible?" and "didn't you love how that did that thing where...?"

My single criticism is that the sound mixing isn't quite right. There were places where the sound was physically painful - both loud and high-pitched - and I had to cover my ears. Apart from that tiny flaw, it was perfect.

The Pirate says: Beautiful. Slow in spots, but beautiful.

My score: 5
The Pirate's score: 4

Sundance Film #3: Cocalero

Cocalero
Recently the U.S. has directed its war on drugs against Bolivian coca-growing regions, and the Bolivian government has attempted to eradicate coca crops, devastating the livelihood of indigenous people who cultivate it. In response, the farmers formed a powerful union. Their leader is the Aymara Indian Evo Morales, and in 2005, this unwavering, unpretentious socialist made an historic bid for the presidency.

A lively story about geopolitics, people's movements, indigenous culture and one man's impressive determination, Cocalero closely follows Evo's campaign, getting up close and personal with the candidate and the union organization backing him, while presenting critical views of both. What makes Evo so fascinating is how unlikely a candidate he is. A relaxed 40-something bachelor who sports blue jeans and sneakers and lives in a one-room house, he drinks beer with his cronies and goes swimming in his underwear. Yet he moves effortlessly from formal fund-raising dinners to mass rally, charismatically proposing the redistribution of wealth, renationalization of industries and legalization of coca products.

Not surprisinly, Evo's populist platform elicits strong responses. After he addresses Venezuela's Hugo Chavez as "Commandante," Bolivian TV questions whether Evo is on Chavez's payroll, and his presence at the airport elicits racist epithets. But Evo, defender of Bolivia's first people, wins by an unprecedented majority. Cocalero offers fresh insight into big political changes afoot in Latin America.
(Caroline Libresco, 2007 Sundance Film Festival catalog)
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I've seen the president of Bolivia in his underwear.

This film follows Evo Morales on the campaign trail during his bid for the presidency, and the only thing it proved to me is that politicians - regardless of their nationality, their stance on issues, their personal credo - are all the same guy. Morales, like every other politician in the world, talked endlessly about himself - about his opinions of things, about what other people were saying about him, about how much other people were willing to do for him. He surrounded himself with sycophants who said things like "sure, we have a law against a president serving for more than two terms, but it shouldn't apply to him."

The dialog was entirely in Quechua, Aymara and Spanish, and the subtitles were awful. If you saw Lost in Translation, you'll remember Bill Murray listening to the Japanese director going on at length, and the assistant translating his 45-second long speech into "More intensity, please." Bill Murray kept asking "Is that all he said?" In Cocalero that is most assuredly NOT all he said, but that's all you're getting of you don't speak Spanish.

Much of the film used a handheld camera that bounced and joggled and washed out all the color when the candidate went outside, and I ended up feeling a little carsick in places. The principal characters - the vice-presidential candidate, Evo's driver, the local union leader from Evo's hometown - were re-introduced in every single scene, an unnecessary distraction.

Another distraction was how very much Morales and his party hate the U.S. and its policies. Their official party slogan ends with "Death to Yankees!" It made me wonder what kind of reception the director was hoping for. It's hard to sympathize with a guy who wants to kill you.

The Pirate and I were scheduled for two films back-to-back, and the way Sundance works is that the line starts forming almost an hour before the film starts, so we ended up having to leave before the movie actually ended. The director was standing outside and spoke to us as we were handing in our ballots, and he complained that we were going to miss the end of the picture. I said, "He wins!" and the director, Alejandro Landes, whines "No, it's very special!" (a term he used for everything).

To satisfy my own curiosity and because I knew I would miss the Q&A after the film, I asked Landes "Does Evo own a tie?" Not once during the entire film do you ever see Morales in anything more formal than a polo shirt, and normally he's in a t-shirt and jeans. Landes laughed and said "You should stay for the end! The end of the film is all about your question!" It turns out, he does not ever wear a tie.

My curiosity having been satisfied, I don't feel the need to see the end. This was Landes' first movie, and I think he has some rough corners to knock off.

The Pirate says: As a film, it was obviously a freshman effort, and as a political documentary it was a little less interesting than the documentary of Clinton's first presidential run.

My score: 2
The Pirate's score: 2

Sundance Film #2: Eagle vs. Shark

Eagle vs. Shark
Which is the more dangerous predator: an eagle or a shark? That's a trick question. Don't try to answer it. You'll have your own opinion by the end of Taika Waititi's deliciously tangy, deadpan feature debut about two colorful misfits thrown into each other's orbit.

Lily is one of those weird, sweet-natured girls with stringy hair who is quite lovely and charismatic under a surface of shy awkwardness. But most people don't have enough vision to notice, and the truth is that Lily isn't looking to change. She cashiers at a fast-food joint and pines for Jarrod, the self-aggrandizing, clueless geek from the computer store across the way. Fiercely optimistic, Lily crashes Jarrod's animal/video-game extravaganza, impressing him enough with her shark suit and gaming prowess to score a hookup with Eagle Lord (Jarrod) himself. Soon Lily and her brother are driving Jarrod back to his hometown to confront his childhood nemesis. but here Jarrod's self absorption blossoms so mightily that it may drive even the most adoring of girlfriends away. As Jarrod prepares to exact his revenge on the past, Lily's quiet power gathers force as well.

With so much subltety and precision in Loren Horsley and Jemaine Clement's straight-faced, oddball performances, Lily and Jarrod's attempts to reach each other are hilarious and excruciatingly real. Meanwhile, Phoenix Foundation's charming, moody score perfectly reflects lopsided hearts as they stumble through the uncomfortably transformative terrain.
(Caroline Libresco, 2007 Sundance Film Festival catalog)
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If you liked Napolean Dynamite and Love Actually, Eagle vs. Shark is your film! Unfortunately for me, I was one of the two people in the theater who hated both Napolean Dynamite AND Love Actually.

I've talked before about The Castle, a sweet little movie that's so loving and kind about its quirks that it's a joy to watch. The characters are quirky, but they love each other, so we are encouraged to feel the same. In Eagle vs. Shark, the characters are just as quirky, but rather than loving each other, they bite and snipe and pick, encouraging the viewer to laugh at them the way all the kids on the playground laughed as the bully beat up the dweeb that nobody liked.

The same awkwardness in Eagle vs. Shark characters was there in Napolean Dynamite, but in N.D., the camera is neutral. If Napolean wants to dance and his brother wants to train to be a cage fighter, the viewer is left to decide how s/he feels about it - their clumsiness isn't held up and ridiculed by anyone onscreen.

The main character, Lily, redeemed the movie from utter meanness. She was dorky, but she held her dignity the entire time she watched with improbably huge eyes as Jarrod makes a fool of himself, and she not only refuses to mock him, she refuses to stop liking him. Not entirely logical, but beautifully admirable nonetheless. Maybe it's telling of my own life that my mind filled in the "what happened next" with "Jarrod is never going to stop acting like a dick and when she sees that, she'll get a real boyfriend." I just hate to see nice people hooked up with anyone who doesn't treat them well.

I think that most people who watch this movie will think it's hilarious. They'll see it and think about some kid they knew in high school and laugh at the both simultaneously, or they'll remember their own loserhood and laugh on the outside, flinching on the inside (I went right ahead and just flinched on the outside). The audience in our auditorium certainly thought it was a giant larf-fest. But there will be a few people who will watch it and think to themselves, "I want to be like Lily."

Okay, maybe it'll just be me thinking that.

The Pirate says: Bah.

My score: 3
The Pirate's score: 2

Sundance Film #1: Crossing the Line

Crossing The Line
In 1962, Private James Dresnok, a 19-year-old American border guard in the notorious Korean DMZ, deserted the U.S. Army by crossing over into communist North Korea. As one of only four American soldiers who defected to North Korea during the height of the Cold War, he was noticeably a stranger in a strange land. Although Dresnok was unsure about his future in the highly secretive communist country, the North Korean government found they could use his unusual circumstances in their propaganda campaign against the United States. Dresnok soon became a film star, playing the evil American again and again.

Crossing the Line expertly provides an in-depth portrait of the last American defector still residing in North Korea after 40 years. Director Daniel Gordon skillfully counterpoints Dresnok's own testimony against stark archival footage of the People's Republic and a haunting soundtrack. Further historical context is provided through interviews with his former commander and fellow soldiers, as well as a childhood friend who still awaits his return.

Crossing the Line is the unprecedented and complex story of a man who left the native country he felt unconnected to and found himself living in an alien nation he came to call home.
(Lisa Viola: 2007 Sundance Film Festival catalog)

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I have to admit, this movie was a little slow to get started. We are treated to many shots of Joe Dresnok leading his normal life in North Korea (which he refers to throughout as "DPRK") - taking the bus, shopping, fishing. He appears happy, although his smile shows a mouthful of gold teeth.

We go back to the beginning of Joe's life - his start with parents who didn't like each other and didn't want him, a feeling that no one truly cared about him. After his parents abandoned him, he was left on his own and eventually ended up in a foster home. At 17, he joined the Army and before he was sent to Germany for 2 years, married. When he came back from Germany, his wife had found someone else, and Joe was once again abandoned. His luck was no better once he shipped out to Korea. Joe fell for a local prostitute, and one day, after his commander told him that he couldn't have leave to go into the village to see her, he forged a pass and went anyway. When the commander found out about it and told him to report in for disciplinary measures, Joe decided that enough was too much. He defected to North Korea that day and what happened to him was a complete Cinderella story.

He defected to the North, where he made his career doing propaganda for North Korea. First, he did the Miss America circuit - showing up at events and large gatherings to wave, smile and receive flowers and applause. Later, he showed up in Kim Jong Il's 30-part movie series "Nameless Heroes," a serial about the noble cause of the war of liberation. Dresnok and his fellow-defectors all have recurring roles as evil American characters. At the end of the film, Dresnok is shown greeting some old men who call him "Arthur," the name of his character.

Joe did not shy away from some of the flaws of North Korea, saying that "everyone has to adapt to his own life," but said that he'd been treated exceptionally well. Even during the famines (the "Long March of Austerity") where hundreds of thousands of North Koreans died of starvation in part because of Western aid embargoes, he said that he continued to get full rations. He seemed both baffled and extremely grateful that even though Korean citizens were dying, the government continued to care for him - an "American bastard."

Joe's own words paint a picture of a man who had been looking for love, dignity and a measure of respect all his life, but had been denied that in a democratic society. He found all of those things in Korea, where he married and had two sons who are now attending college. He rightly pointed out that if he were living in America as a worker with his education, he wouldn't be able to send his sons to a prestigious college - it's not impossible, but it's highly unlikely. I walked out of the movie feeling like Joe was the very kind of man that communism was made for - the kind of man who's willing to work, who doesn't want his past held against him, who wants to be valued for what he can do, not shamed for what he can't.

In the Q&A later, Daniel Gordon said that he and his British film crew were granted "unprecedented access" to North Korea, partly thanks to his producer who has lived in Beijing and traveling regularly to North Korea on business for 13 years. I was pleased that despite the many "How do you feel about..." questions afterward, Gordon was able to focus on "I want you to draw your own conclusions." Afterward, I was moved enough to feel almost schmoozy and talk to someone! I told Gordon "great job!" He was becomingly grateful for the compliment.

My conclusion is that I feel lucky to live in a world where everyone, even Comrade Joe, is able to find what makes them really happy.

The Pirates view: It's a darned fine movie. Everyone should run out and see it.

My score: 5
The Pirate's score: 5

I Won't Dance - Don't Ask Me

For the next few days, I'll be writing from Park City, Utah, where the Pirate and I are attending Sundance. We've got 10 movies to see in five days, and I'm gonna tell you about them!

Today's our first day at Sundance. The trip here was great - utterly without incident for us. On the other hand, before we've even stepped foot into a theater, we've already seen one comedy and one drama.

Before we even got on the plane, there were two ladies ahead of us who had obviously primped long and hard for this event, and were ready to have a good time. They were made up, sprayed up and being the sort of loud, boistrous people who assume that everyone loves them and wants to participate in their deal. Of course, they were in our shuttle to Park City from Salt Lake.

First, the loud blonde with the weird topknot insisted that the unassuming snowboarder guy, who had been told to take the front seat, sit in the back so that her friend could take the front seat because "she gets carsick!" Said friend spent the entire trip turned toward the back of the van looking at her friends and reading her email from her Blackberry (gosh, I wonder why she's carsick!). Then, before we left, the same loud blonde told the Pirate (who is 2 meters tall) to sit in the back so that her friend could sit in our seat because "she's almost 6 feet tall!" He laughed and shook his head, saying "I'm pretty tall." If she'd been looking, she would have seen that he's so tall that even in this seat where we supposedly had plenty of legroom, he had to sit with his legs spread wide because there wasn't enough room for him to put his knees together in front of him.

They asked us if we were film makers, and when we said no, they asked us if we were film watchers to which we said yes. These were the only two classes of people these women were interested in. The Pirate and I did not say that are a Netflix employee and a writer; instead we looked at the scenery, responded to direct questions and generally kept to ourselves while these three ladies kept up a very loud and animated conversation that was the verbal equivalent of a Jack Russell terrier, although not as smart. However, since we were dropped at our hotel first, the three ladies enthusiastically wished us a very good time, promising to see us at some point during the festival. And if we see them, we'll smile and act like old chums, I'm sure.

Once we landed we were STARVING, so we walked off the lethargy of the plane ride by heading into town. We headed for La Casita, a nice little Mexican place (with real Mexicans!!) downtown, and sat at a table by the front window. I was facing the window, and the Pirate could tell when something interesting was going on outside by my face.

Outside, a man wearing a poncey hat and big glasses and the ubiquitous pass-on-a-lanyard (if even we have those, they can't be that big a deal) was angrily gesturing toward and yelling at a woman who looked like either his fed-up assistant (who would at least be getting paid for his abuse) or his even more fed-up girlfriend (who presumably would not). He finally ended up gesturing toward the restaurant and then walking toward it while she hurried to catch up. To his credit he *did* open the door for her, but within five minutes of their walking in together, she walked out alone.

The Pirate and I were both pretty happy about that, even though we don't know either of them.

Our first film will be tonight: Crossing the Line, about a man who defects *to* North Korea. I'll also be talking about some films that we won't be seeing but look interesting.

Writing: Blessing or Curse?

I know people who are writers, and I know people who *want* to be writers. The distinguishing characteristic in my mind is the quality of bitching between the two groups.

People who *want* to be writers complain that they can't get inspired. They're "blocked," they can't figure out what to write, they have a great first sentence or setting or ending but they can't do anything with it. They write endless blog entries complaining that they don't have time to write. I met one person who, in her late 20s, thought that she'd start writing "as a way to make some quick money." Her plan was to sell a few articles to Reader's Digest "because they'll take anything," before moving on to "real" writing. It seems sometimes like a lot of people who want to be writers want that because they don't believe that it takes any special skill or talent.

People who *are* writers tend to complain about the things they have to do that take time away from writing. They seem to always be spinning off ideas and trying things out and writing up outlines and sketches and scenes and characters. They've always got something lurking at the back of their minds, tucked away for a time when it's needed.

I think that's part of what attracts people to writers and writing - they see people with a lot mentally going on, people whose imaginations are teeming with stories and plots and worlds, and they want to be that. They want to have access to that kind of imagination and the ability to live more than one reality at a time.

I guess I can't blame them. To be able to look at anything that is and know a thousand things that might be is to be blessed.

Writers of a Feather

I know a fair number of people who are also writers. Their genres are different than mine (whose isn't?), their methods are a little different than mine, but they also tend to hang out with other writers.

The problem is that, while I have a few other friends that write, I don't really "hang around" anyone. I have one dear, dear friend with whom I do some weekly writing, but other than that I'm pretty much a loner.

It makes me wonder if I shouldn't be working harder to shmooze the writer crowd. Seriously - I don't link to any other writer's blogs, I don't eagerly eat up the written word as falls from the pen of this popular writer or that popular writer. Years of being a Buddhist have left me with the impression that I can't place full faith and credit in anything I haven't experienced for myself, so reading about someone else's experience of writing or the publishing industry really only has the effect of making me curious about my own experience of it.

But perhaps it's time. Perhaps now is the time to start reaching out to some other writers - to start making more of an effort to get myself and my stuff out there. I mean...you know...moreso than I am now.

December Slump

It happens every holiday season. During November, I'm going great guns, cranking out my November novel and feeling that this year, it's one of my best (yes, I feel that way every year, even 2004) and then come December, I think "it's time to take a little breather." And I pause to do a little gift shopping and visit family. I fully intend to take up my pen again and finish the masterpiece I've started, but it just never seems to happen - sometimes not until months and months later.

I still haven't found why I'm a freakin' dynamo in November and a complete slug the rest of the year. My first year, as many people know, I lost my job and had a death in the family in November. I had to travel out of state for the funeral, keep doing my regular job AND look for a new job and STILL managed to write over 100,000 words in 30 days.

Granted, I'm not the best person to ask. During all the time I was doing these things I have no memory of washing a single dish, preparing a meal, running a load of laundry or seeing either my husband or my children. I'm sure that they were in the house during November, and that they ate from clean dishes and wore clean clothes. I'm just not sure I had anything to do with it.

Over the years I've figured out how to better integrate writing with the rest of my life so that my family doesn't necessarily have to suffer for me to get stuff done, but it has meant that my productivity has taken a bit of a hit.

What eats at me in December, the busiest month of the year for the people where I work, is that all the people that I know who are successful writers have become successful because they were able to quit their jobs and concentrate entirely on their writing. For a ton of reasons, I'm not going to be able to do that for quite a while, but it's something that, in my fantasies, I'd love more than anything.

I guess the only thing for it is to continue to steal the odd hour hear and there and finish what I can. One day, this will all pay off and December won't be the slowest time of my writing year anymore.