SXSW Day Three: Letters to the President, Garbage Dreams, Sin Nombre, Women In Trouble, and Drag Me to Hell

This day started with me not being able to get to the Almo South Lamar in time to see ExTerminators at noon, and continued to nearly three in the morning before walking back to the hotel, so you'll forgive me if I fell a little behind. The time waiting for Letters to the President did give me a chance to write up a review of Objectified in my little festival notebook, so you can go read that.

I must confess, I'm not totally proud of my behavior vis-a-vis Drag Me to Hell. I sort of cut in line in front of a few hundred people when Jason Whyte stopped me while I was following it to the end, and then, when Sam Raimi came out to introduce it, I sent a text message to my brother who won't be able to see this for a couple of months so that he knew just where I was and what I was doing. Of course, since it was about 2am EDT for him, he probably just slept through it.

Letters to the President

* * * (out of four)
Seen 15 March 2009 at the Austin Paramount Theater (SXSW Special Screenings)

Letters to the President is somewhat difficult to review as a film because it does its job so well. It is trying to give the audience a snapshot of the relationship Iran has with its populist president, and it does so with so little pretense that I'm initially more interested in the facts than the filmmaking.

Iran's current president is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he's the highest ranking elected official in the country, after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He was born in a village of 2,000, though his father moved to Tehran where Ahmadinejad was a child. He would later become a university professor and the mayor of Tehran before being elected President in 2005. He is extremely popular with the people, both for his religious faith, his commitment to nuclear power, and his unusual accessibility. His proximity to people in public appearances would give the USA's Secret Service nightmares, and he encourages the people to write him with their problems.

The latter is the film's stated topic, and it's not hard to be impressed by the scale of the undertaking. Nine to ten million Iranians have written since his election, and an official tells us that 76% have received a response. Ahmadinejad can't do all that personally, of course, so we get looks at the bureaucracy put into place to handle it. The response is also not always positive, as a thoroughly frustrating interview between petitioner and official demonstrates.

Full review at EFC.

Garbage Dreams

* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 15 March 2009 at the Austin Paramount Theater (SXSW Documentary Competition)

Mai Iskander has made a fine documentary in Garbage Dreams, the type that is about people first, and does a fine job of being issue-oriented without hammering away at buzzwords like "globalization". For all that, I must admit that one of the most memorable things from the movie is a simple number: Eighty percent.

That is the amount of residential waste that the Zaballeens of Cairo are able to recycle. That's a fantastic number - most developed nations manage something in the twenties - and as might be expected, it comes through unconventional means: Though Cairo is a city of eighteen million, the largest in the Arab world or Africa, it had no official city-wide garbage collection program, instead relying on sixty thousand independent garbage collectors (the Zaballeens) who are paid a pittance for their services. Entire communities are built around garbage collection and recycling.

The largest is Mokattam, and Garbage Dreams focuses on three teenage boys and one young woman from the area: 17-year-old Adham collects garbage to support his family as the man of the house with his father in jail; 18-year-old Nabil has been working since the age of seven and has twin dreams of marrying and opening a can-recycling shop; and 16-year-old Osama is kind of a screw-up, unable to hold a job even though his father is pushing him to do something with his life other than root through other people's trash. Then there's Laila, a local social worker who tries to keep the people in her neighborhood healthy. She also finds herself fighting for the neighborhood's very survival when the city hires several European companies to handle trash collection.

Full review at EFC.

Sin Nombre

* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 15 March 2009 at the Austin Paramount Theater (SXSW Spotlight Premieres)

An impressive first feature, this is. Cary Fukunaga has made something that feels larger than its relatively short running time, depicting the difficult crossing across Mexico from Guatemala to the U.S., made more difficult by a gang member marked for death. Tense as can be, with moments of really shocking violence.

Women in Trouble

* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 15 March 2009 at the Austin Paramount Theater (SXSW Spotlight Premieres)

A thoroughly entertaining comedy, with ten women given a chance to do broad, crude comedy that somehow comes around to something vaguely heartfelt without it seeming too terribly ridiculous. Carla Gugino and Connie Britton get the meatiest roles and play well off each other, but the standout is probably Adrianne Palicki, who does great things with the dumb blonde role.

Director Sebastian Guiterrez said during the Q&A that the film was shot with a skeleton crew in something like twelve days, with the sequel (which focuses more squarely on Gugino's character) already finished with photography. I'll be looking forward to it next year; hopefully if it's nearly as much fun as this one.

Drag Me To Hell

* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 15 March 2009 at the Austin Paramount Theater (SXSW Special Screenings)

Can you believe it's been over twenty years since Evil Dead 2? Considering how much of Sam Raimi's fame and career is built on that movie and its particular style, one would think he'd done more like it, but in fact he's ranged pretty far afield. Even Army of Darkness was something rather different, more PG-13-ish Ray Harryhausen tribute than combination of horror and slapstick comedy.

Drag Me to Hell, thankfully, is the Evil Dead 2-iest thing he's done in a long while, and a real blast to watch. He tosses Alison Lohman around like a ragdoll, heaping all the abuse that used to be handed out to Bruce Campbell. It's a fun combination of slapstick comedy and no-kidding-around horror, and it's a real treat to see Raimi back in this sandbox.