Today in unintentional themes, the power of pop music. Cold War lights up when "Rock Around the Clock" plays on a jukebox, Rafiki opens with a sort of poppy score that probably had me liking the movie as a whole a lot more for the good mood it put me in. Shoplifters, too, for that matter - the heist-movie music at the start was the soundtrack to a playful movie, which isn't what it wound up becoming, but that moment was still fairly fun. And, of course, it's Vox Lux's whole deal.
It was good Rafiki was such a buoying force in the middle, because I kind of didn't love Shoplifters and kind of didn't really like Vox Lux, which could have made for a long day. It didn't, though, because even though those movies didn't really click with me, I can't exactly say they were bad, or that the filmmakers didn't put a lot of interesting material into them (see also Wildlife), just that there was some part of them that kept them from fully connecting to me in the way that the filmmakers likely hoped.
It's the sort of thing that has me wondering whether I should have star ratings on my reviews or not, at least here and on Letterboxd, in part because, on the one hand, what I'm writing doesn't match the rating. On the other hand, It's probably worth noting that sometimes the merits and demerits of a film that you can break down with precise words don't match your in-the-moment reaction.
So, anyway, read the reviews, hopefully pull out more than just "he liked it/didn't like it" from them. Movies like these sometimes have reactions that take more than four characters.
Zimna wojna (Cold War '18)
* * * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 20 October 2018 in the Brattle Theatre (Independent Film Festival Boston Fall Focus, DCP)
Pawel Pawlikowski's Cold War is not quite so good as his previous film Ida, perhaps because it often seems so ambivalent rather than focused, even as a grand love story. Everyone goes back and forth, alternately toward and away from their goals, creating their own obstacles despite positioning the conflict as what's between them. There's tragedy in that, the sort that even those who don't have as complicated a relationship with a nation and its repressive government as the person they love can attest to, though not always the most cinematic drama.
The film opens in 1947, with a team from the new government in Poland traveling the countryside to record traditional folk music. Wicktor (Tomasz Kot) and Irena (Agata Kulesza) are the experts, while Kaczmarek (Borys Szyc) reports back to their masters. The end result is "Mazurek", an academy and performing company dedicated to promoting Polish music and communist values, and while Zula (Joanna Kulig) is not the most talented student in the initial class, she's clever and ambitious, probably what initially drives her to get close to Wicktor. It seems to develop into something more, but as Kaczmarek shifts the company's focus to propaganda from preservation, Wicktor and Irena become disillusioned. Wicktor sees an opportunity to flee during a concert in Berlin, but Zula isn't quite so certain this is a good idea for her.
Pawlikowski based this film on his own family history, and this maybe explains him being somewhat protective of it, as he and co-writers Janusz Glowacki and Piotr Borkowski let it meander and sometimes focus on interesting anecdotes rather than streamlining it and clarifying motives to keep it more pointed in a specific direction. It's a decision that can make the film feel loose and shaggy at times, but also explains why some elements get a little extra time - Wicktor working on a film score is meaningful to Pawlikowski, for example. The opening stretch of Wicktor and Irena traveling through Poland to collect its traditional music feels like it could be a film itself, or at least something that serves as the backdrop all the way through one, but serves its purpose well here.
Full review at EFC.
Rafiki (aka Friend)
* * * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 20 October 2018 in the Brattle Theatre (Independent Film Festival Boston Fall Focus, DCP)
We need more films from Africa hitting American screens in general, and not just because it's the corner of the world that often seems least represented. The poppy colors, general attitude, and rhythms of the language on display in this movie are like nowhere else, and even those of us without much personal connection to Kenya richer for experiencing them, and it being a fairly charming little story about two Nairobi girls in love doesn't hurt at all.
The first is Kena Mwaura (Samantha Mugatsia), a wiry and athletic teenager who trades barbs with guys like motorcycle cabbie Blacksta (Neville Misati), lives with very religious mother Mercy (Nini Wacera), and works in her father's convenience store. That father John (Jimmy Gathu) has another baby on the way with another woman has him the subject of gossip but hasn't really slowed his election campaign against wealthy incumbent Peter Okemi (Dennis Musyoka), which is how Kena meets Ziki (Sheila Munyiva), as Okemi's outgoing daughter with the pink and purple hair feels the need to apologize when her friends rip down some of John's campaign posters. Something sparks, but this isn't necessarily a place where two girls necessarily want to advertise that they're more than friends.
"Friends" is how the film's Swahili title is translated, and the film is a chaste enough romance that it probably wouldn't take all that much effort to reconfigure it into a story about unlikely friends supporting each other's independence and ambitions, and how that sort of solidarity cam frighten people, if the fights with various censor boards began to seem unwinnable. That Kenya is apparently at a point where the reception is so uncertain is baked into the film itself - a bill to legalize gay marriage is an issue in the campaign, and neither Kena or Ziki ever expresses much doubt about their attraction, but there's also a lot of overt homophobia that can be whipped into a frenzy without much effort. Co-writer and director Wanuri Kahiu makes it clear that this is not entirely split on age and class lines, but does do a nice job of making it clear that Ziki has perhaps been sheltered from everyday prejudice in a way that Kena has not, without spelling it out in words.
Kahiu has a nice eye for small details, like Ziki taking her shoes off before getting into an abandoned van because she immediately recognizes it as someplace that can feel like home, or how pervasive gossip and homophobia is in the community, making it properly overwhelming not by doing a conventional montage but by having the picture quickly jump between different people, suggesting how this juicy info will move around without really breaking from Kena. She thankfully doesn't over-commit to the Romeo & Juliet story, letting it hang there as a starting point without having it blot out the rest of what's going on.
Full review at EFC.
Manbiki kazoku (Shoplifters)
* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 20 October 2018 in the Brattle Theatre (Independent Film Festival Boston Fall Focus, DCP)
After last year's experiment in telling a more conventional, plot-oriented story, Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda hs returned to the sort of decentralized look at an unusual or makeshift family that has long been his forte, and once again he's clearly at home telling a story this way. It's a specific sort of boutique-house dish that he makes better than most, and maybe not quite so abstract as it looks.
It opens with Osamu (Lily Franky), a day-worker of late-middle-age, and ten-year-old Shota (Kairi Jyo) doing a bit of evening petty theft, getting the supplies their family needs but can't afford. That family includes Osamu's wife Nobuyo (Sakura Ando), peep-show girl Aki (Mayu Matsuoka), and grandmother Hatsue (Kirin Kiki). There's not really room for another, but Osamu and Shota come upon five-year-old Yuri (Miyu Sasaki) left alone on a porch on a cold night, looking hungrier than they are… The next morning, it's almost lucky for them that she's got bruises and apparently nobody looking for her, because the shoplifting isn't the only thing about this group that's not on the up-and-up.
That there's a little more going on here than just a poor but tight-knit family is fairly clear from the beginning, and the way Kore-eda drops scraps of information leading to the rest is alternately masterful and maddening. On the one hand, the scraps of information are just tantalizing enough to keep a viewer who likes having some sort of puzzle to play with from checking out without ever pushing the more observational material to the background, and when bits of foreshadowing do finally pay off, it fits together in very satisfying manner. On the other, it often seems as if his moments of misdirection are a bit too precise, especially in a movie where characters are not often trying to fool anybody but the audience. The conflict between the film playing as observational and deliberately holding back can be frustrating as one watches it, even if, ultimately, it is ultimately about the conflict between these people's openness and secrecy.
Full review at EFC.
Vox Lux
* * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 20 October 2018 in the Brattle Theatre (Independent Film Festival Boston Fall Focus, DCP)
Huh. I have apparently aged to the point where I am incapable of distinguishing pop music from a parody of such. That makes this one difficult to figure; writer/director Brady Corbet gives his story of a pop star's rise and potential stumble a heightened presentation and occasionally absurd details but otherwise plays things almost completely straight, cutting off the easy routes to mockery or earnest appreciation. It's an interesting set-up, but one which often leaves its characters and audience in an in-between spot.
Something that really does the movie no favors is the split into two very distinct halves. In the first part, a teenager (Raffey Cassidy) is the sole survivor of a shooting on the first day back from school in January of 2000, and the song she sings at the memorial service, written by her sister Eleanor (Stacy Martin), captures the heart of the country, with a canny manager (Jude Law) offering to guide her through her introduction to show business. It turns out she's a natural, and in fact, it's kind of unnerving how easily Celeste takes to show business after surviving a horrific act of violence.
The satire is sharp in this first act, although sometimes in obvious ways - it's got a perfect narrator in Willem Dafoe, and Corbet gives him dry lines to say about Scandinavian producers and teenaged girls flying around the world chaperoned only by an older sister who is, perhaps, not quite the responsible young woman everybody thinks her to be. The grainy photography that looks like home movie footage of a much earlier vintage doesn't just make it feel like it's slightly anachronistic, though, but makes the whole segment an extension of the opening which comes from the perspective of the shooter and plays like a recreation, and not shifting the style up almost makes Celeste trying to become a star into continuing trauma or rehab.
Not that Raffey Cassidy necessarily plays it that way; as much as we see her as sweet and kind during the shooting that, when she thinks she's about to die and there's no point in putting on an act, there's a set of fierce and frightening instincts underneath. Cassidy puts an occasional quaver into her voice that could be innocence or simply inexperience, and doesn't try to make it sound deeper or fuller even when she's highlighting how assured Celeste is, although she never sounds tentative or weak. It's a performance that encapsulates the paradoxical nature of this sort of teen idol - their appeal comes from being pristine and separate from adult concerns, but they don't even make their first step into the spotlight without incredibly driven and often unsentimental - and that tug-of-war skewers the industry as well as anything could.
Full review at EFC.
Showing posts with label Kenya. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kenya. Show all posts
Saturday, November 03, 2018
Tuesday, February 13, 2018
Short Stuff: The 2017 Oscar-Nominated Live-Action Shorts
Every year that I write one of these wrap-ups, I point out that it's an awful shame that this collection of Oscar-nominated short films is the best chance many will get to see this kind of production which isn't expanded to a commercially-viable length and can be tremendously focused as a result. It can be tough to talk oneself into the short programs at a festival, if that's even an option, and traditional means of exhibition don't exactly have room for these subjects, especially now. It's a tremendous boost to them to get this nomination, and if the Oscar Shorts programs are playing near you or are on your cable system's On-Demand menu, these five films are a heck of a package.
That these nominations are a big deal is something the film makes explicit, as four of them include images of the filmmakers, cast, and crew hearing their nominations and being blown away, well-aware that what just happened may be life-changing, and if they actually win… Well, they probably can't imagine that, although given the subject matter of many of these shorts, they'll have a couple minutes further to both get their movie seen and plead the cases of something so important that they would spend a lot of time and likely more money than they can recoup to make a film of it.
Although, it's worth noting, these things are thankfully getting easier to see - even if the package doesn't show near you, think back on this list a few months - I've found that, as I have been fixing some broken links on this blog, a surprising number of short films can be found on Amazon, Vimeo, and other streaming services, including many nominees from past years. They often require even more digging than their feature-length cousins to discover - nobody streaming movies online has come up with something as easily and enjoyably browsable as a video store - but they are available in ways that have not been the case in prior years. Even if you can't catch this year's nominees before the ceremony, why not use the reminder that there are great short films up for awards to catch up with those from years past?
"DeKalb Elementary"
* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 11 February 2017 in Landmark Kendall Square #1 (Oscar-Nominated Shorts, DCP)
The first of the films nominated this year, "DeKalb Elementary" from filmmaker Reed Van Dyk, is a terrific little real-time thriller predicated almost entirely on the threat of something happening: As the school day begins, a man (Bo Mitchell) comes into the office, asking to make a phone call, but while the people at the front desk aren't paying complete attention, he pulls out a rifle, and soon the situation has shrunk to just him, administrative assistant Cassandra Rice (Tarra Riggs), and the muffled voice on the other end of the 911 call she makes, relaying his confused, aimless instructions.
Basing his film on an actual 911 call, Van Dyk structures his film as a contrast between confusion and capability, with Bo Mitchell giving a sweaty, nervous performance as the gunman while Tarra Riggs projects a fascinating sort of forced calm. There is never an easy interplay between them, but the way that they interact is fascinating. At the most obvious surface level, the audience is struck by the fact that Rice is used to dealing with children, and she approaches this man in the same way, carefully, slowly, aiming for clarity rather than confrontation - and it's clearly the right choice to make. Van Dyk's use of the elementary school as the background is canny, whether in how he chose the story or wrote the script, as it's not a cheap multiplier but an examination of how to best handle this sort of crisis. It's also worth noting that the two main characters are a white man and an African-American woman, and while this isn't something Van Dyk ever has characters remark upon in the film, it seems pointed - everybody that the audience sees at the school is black, and doesn't really question when this guy saunters in and asks to use the phone before he casually takes hostages, with Rice required to empathize with him rather than vice versa. It's an extreme sort of entitlement that is downplayed enough as to be taken for granted.
It may just be a quirk of casting, something not considered beyond trying to be faithful to the real-life participants (which, we should remember, is not something that filmmakers always bother much with), but it's also something that has the ring of truth, as does the increased tension and thoroughly believable reactions in the last few minutes - as good as Riggs has been through the rest of the picture, she's even better at the end. That density of detail is a large part of what makes "DeKalb Elementary" worthy of a nomination; it's a very well-done story in the most basic, functional sense, but shows even more truth as a viewer looks closer.
"The Silent Child"
* * * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 11 February 2017 in Landmark Kendall Square #1 (Oscar-Nominated Shorts, DCP)
By contrast, "The Silent Child" puts things a little more in the foreground in its story of Joanne (writer Rachel Shenton), who has just taken a job as the tutor to Libby (Maisie Sly), a severely hearing-impaired four-year-old whose parents Sue and Paul (Rachel Fielding & Philip York) seem to mean well but are not truly prepared for the disruption tending to her needs can be, both in terms of expectations and a life that is already busy with two teenagers (Sam Rees & Annie Cusselle) and Paul's ailing mother (Anna Barry). The film has a lot of information to deliver on its way to closing title cards about how most deaf children are born into families that aren't truly ready for these unique challenges.comes across as both
This information that they want to communicate lets Shenton and director Chris Overton do a fair job of working the two sides of the story in different ways. They are not shy about being straightforward with the uplifting teacher-student story, and why not? Shenton writes herself a part that is well within her skill set, and she's got a pretty terrific part in young Maisie Sly, who gives Overton and the crew what they need to show how miserable and frustrated Libby can be at an age where a lot of kids might not get more nuanced than "bratty". This material lets the part of the story that is more individual to this family unfold, and while the filmmakers don't shy away from highlighting the pieces that Joanne is going to piece together, they don't spell it out with a fight, either.
It's not necessarily the most interesting narrative; a lot of it seems fueled by Sue being jealous of the pretty younger woman who can get through to her daughter, which is the sort of thing that feels simultaneously true-to-life and regressively cliched. It's good work that the film winds up far less focused on that sort of melodrama than it could, injecting just enough to give color and humanity to an easily-dismissed situation.
"My Nephew Emmett"
* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 11 February 2017 in Landmark Kendall Square #1 (Oscar-Nominated Shorts, DCP)
As soon as many see the title of this film and the caption stating it takes place on 28 August 1955 in Money, Mississippi, they'll feel a tension even if they came into this short blind and don't remember the exact date and location of Emmett Till's lynching; it's an event that has grown in infamy in the subsequent decades, enough so that viewers may worry that they're getting a mere recreation of it, which can seem exploitative even if many, living under better circumstances, could probably use the jolt of horror that simply reading the facts cannot deliver.
Writer/director Kevin Wilson Jr. delivers that, using the very fame of this case to let the audience watch dominoes fall from far away, as when a discussion at the local watering hole has Emmett's uncle, preacher Mose Wright (L.B. Williams), knowing that the 14-year-old kid may be getting himself into trouble he can't predict, let alone handle. It's heightened later on when white men come to his house, with early emphasis on how the borders of a black man's home are not respected, from the flashlights shining into bedrooms at 2:30AM to the utter entitlement the invaders feel to cross Mose's threshold. The confrontation is staged like a standoff but still emphasizes the powerlessness Mose feels.
It's what actor L.B. Williams does leading up to that sequence which makes the film truly memorable, though, as Wilson shows Mose at the end of a long day and life in general, the sort of situation where you've got to go down to the river and pump a few buckets of water just to take a relaxing bath. Williams is wiry and makes Mose move without limp or hesitation but without hurrying too much; he's learned how to keep things steady and not make a lifetime of wear obvious. It's the stance of a survivor but one who is not so ideally strong that he can't fold, a dignity that is pushed to shame later on. It's a contrast to Dane Rhodes, who plays the man knocking at his door - just big enough to have had an extra meal while still clearly insecure enough to push his black neighbors down, with a hint that he can be pretty likable among his peer group until the slurs start coming out of his mouth. It's a pair of terrific performances that slot into Williams's singular perspective on a story that is often used as a stand-in for all lynchings exceptionally well.
"The Eleven O'Clock"
* * * (out of four)
Seen 11 February 2017 in Landmark Kendall Square #1 (Oscar-Nominated Shorts, DCP)
The set-up for "The Eleven O'Clock" is simple enough that the audience can see ninety percent of it sliding into place as it happens and then spot just how useful the other ten is as it's coming into play, and while it's not always great for a thing that plays as a well-oiled machine to give the viewer to have such a clear view of the mechanism in question, it works here as it sets up Terry Phillips (writer Josh Lawson) as a psychiatrist confronted with temp Linda (Jessica Donoghue) instead of the usual receptionist and being informed that his first patient, Nathan Klein (Damon Herriman), has "grandiose delusions"... of being a psychiatrist.
It's a straightforward gag that works in large part because Lawson and Herriman have play the duelling "analysts" so as to both tap into the ego that they need to presume they can solve others' problems (but which patients resent) while coming at it from different directions, one stuffy and one manic. Lawson's script calls for lots of back-and-forth banter that goes from snappy to snippy, especially once word-association begins and Linda being roped in and hung up upon frequently threatens to send things careening in another direction. Director Derin Seale and his crew keep the pacing quick, and do interesting things with space, as a giant lobby makes Linda feel even more trapped in her tiny alcove, while the office seems to rapidly shrink around Terry and Nathan, with the point of view flipping back and forth in a way that is sharp but not jarring.
"The Eleven O'Clock" is the only comedy of the quintet, which always seems to be the way, like the collectie Academy knows that one of the things shorts do best is this precision timing that lasts just as long as the joke, but still can't help but give more recognition to the ones that focus on something important.
"Watu Wote" ("All of Us")
* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 11 February 2017 in Landmark Kendall Square #1 (Oscar-Nominated Shorts, DCP)
And sometimes that "more important" can also overlap with "not as well-reported as it should be in the West". That's the case with "Watu Wote" (given an English title of "All of Us"), which opens with text describing the tensions between Christians and Muslims on the border between Kenya and Ethiopia, in particular noting the large number of attacks by terrorist group Al-Shabaab. That's the reason why Jue (Adelyne Wairimu) asks whether the bus from Nairobi to Rhamu will have a police escort in the more dangerous areas; she's also visibly - and sometimes vocally - unnerved by the number of Muslims on the bus. Of course, when the journey reaches that homestretch, the police car overheats and is unable to follow.
The incident that follows seems to have been something of a notable one in that region of Africa, but it's noteworthy that director Katja Benrath and primary screenwriter Julia Drache do not exactly play it up as revolutionary or necessary even unusual. Jua's rosary beads have been exchanged for a head covering almost before the audience realizes what has happened, and teacher Salah Farah (Abdiwali Farrah) pushes back against their attackers without dramatic pauses between his words or a dramatic swell to the score. This pivotal, climactic scene is not necessarily more tense for how the filmmakers play it; it may actually let a bit of the air out. I'm curious as to whether this was a conscious choice on their part to position the actions of Salah and Jua's neighbor as not primarily heroic but what should be expected of people whether they consider themselves brave or not. It's an intriguing realignment of the aspirational true story that emphasizes not just that ordinary people can and should resist violence, but that they must.
It's a message that gets across in large part because of how Benrath has her cast play the scenes leading up to it; both Adelyne Wairimu's Jua and Abdiwali Farrah's Salah often come off as abrasive and prone to suspicion of others' motives, and the actors convey that well; they're also given material that lets them show the characters as having more to them before being thrown in the crucible. The locations shooting is beautiful as well, and never fails to capture the right combination of vibrance and danger.
If I were a betting man, I'd put it on "My Nephew Emmett", and I'd have a hard time arguing against it as the most award-worthy of the bunch. The whole package is well worth checking out, of course, whether before or after the awards.
That these nominations are a big deal is something the film makes explicit, as four of them include images of the filmmakers, cast, and crew hearing their nominations and being blown away, well-aware that what just happened may be life-changing, and if they actually win… Well, they probably can't imagine that, although given the subject matter of many of these shorts, they'll have a couple minutes further to both get their movie seen and plead the cases of something so important that they would spend a lot of time and likely more money than they can recoup to make a film of it.
Although, it's worth noting, these things are thankfully getting easier to see - even if the package doesn't show near you, think back on this list a few months - I've found that, as I have been fixing some broken links on this blog, a surprising number of short films can be found on Amazon, Vimeo, and other streaming services, including many nominees from past years. They often require even more digging than their feature-length cousins to discover - nobody streaming movies online has come up with something as easily and enjoyably browsable as a video store - but they are available in ways that have not been the case in prior years. Even if you can't catch this year's nominees before the ceremony, why not use the reminder that there are great short films up for awards to catch up with those from years past?
"DeKalb Elementary"
* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 11 February 2017 in Landmark Kendall Square #1 (Oscar-Nominated Shorts, DCP)
The first of the films nominated this year, "DeKalb Elementary" from filmmaker Reed Van Dyk, is a terrific little real-time thriller predicated almost entirely on the threat of something happening: As the school day begins, a man (Bo Mitchell) comes into the office, asking to make a phone call, but while the people at the front desk aren't paying complete attention, he pulls out a rifle, and soon the situation has shrunk to just him, administrative assistant Cassandra Rice (Tarra Riggs), and the muffled voice on the other end of the 911 call she makes, relaying his confused, aimless instructions.
Basing his film on an actual 911 call, Van Dyk structures his film as a contrast between confusion and capability, with Bo Mitchell giving a sweaty, nervous performance as the gunman while Tarra Riggs projects a fascinating sort of forced calm. There is never an easy interplay between them, but the way that they interact is fascinating. At the most obvious surface level, the audience is struck by the fact that Rice is used to dealing with children, and she approaches this man in the same way, carefully, slowly, aiming for clarity rather than confrontation - and it's clearly the right choice to make. Van Dyk's use of the elementary school as the background is canny, whether in how he chose the story or wrote the script, as it's not a cheap multiplier but an examination of how to best handle this sort of crisis. It's also worth noting that the two main characters are a white man and an African-American woman, and while this isn't something Van Dyk ever has characters remark upon in the film, it seems pointed - everybody that the audience sees at the school is black, and doesn't really question when this guy saunters in and asks to use the phone before he casually takes hostages, with Rice required to empathize with him rather than vice versa. It's an extreme sort of entitlement that is downplayed enough as to be taken for granted.
It may just be a quirk of casting, something not considered beyond trying to be faithful to the real-life participants (which, we should remember, is not something that filmmakers always bother much with), but it's also something that has the ring of truth, as does the increased tension and thoroughly believable reactions in the last few minutes - as good as Riggs has been through the rest of the picture, she's even better at the end. That density of detail is a large part of what makes "DeKalb Elementary" worthy of a nomination; it's a very well-done story in the most basic, functional sense, but shows even more truth as a viewer looks closer.
"The Silent Child"
* * * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 11 February 2017 in Landmark Kendall Square #1 (Oscar-Nominated Shorts, DCP)
By contrast, "The Silent Child" puts things a little more in the foreground in its story of Joanne (writer Rachel Shenton), who has just taken a job as the tutor to Libby (Maisie Sly), a severely hearing-impaired four-year-old whose parents Sue and Paul (Rachel Fielding & Philip York) seem to mean well but are not truly prepared for the disruption tending to her needs can be, both in terms of expectations and a life that is already busy with two teenagers (Sam Rees & Annie Cusselle) and Paul's ailing mother (Anna Barry). The film has a lot of information to deliver on its way to closing title cards about how most deaf children are born into families that aren't truly ready for these unique challenges.comes across as both
This information that they want to communicate lets Shenton and director Chris Overton do a fair job of working the two sides of the story in different ways. They are not shy about being straightforward with the uplifting teacher-student story, and why not? Shenton writes herself a part that is well within her skill set, and she's got a pretty terrific part in young Maisie Sly, who gives Overton and the crew what they need to show how miserable and frustrated Libby can be at an age where a lot of kids might not get more nuanced than "bratty". This material lets the part of the story that is more individual to this family unfold, and while the filmmakers don't shy away from highlighting the pieces that Joanne is going to piece together, they don't spell it out with a fight, either.
It's not necessarily the most interesting narrative; a lot of it seems fueled by Sue being jealous of the pretty younger woman who can get through to her daughter, which is the sort of thing that feels simultaneously true-to-life and regressively cliched. It's good work that the film winds up far less focused on that sort of melodrama than it could, injecting just enough to give color and humanity to an easily-dismissed situation.
"My Nephew Emmett"
* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 11 February 2017 in Landmark Kendall Square #1 (Oscar-Nominated Shorts, DCP)
As soon as many see the title of this film and the caption stating it takes place on 28 August 1955 in Money, Mississippi, they'll feel a tension even if they came into this short blind and don't remember the exact date and location of Emmett Till's lynching; it's an event that has grown in infamy in the subsequent decades, enough so that viewers may worry that they're getting a mere recreation of it, which can seem exploitative even if many, living under better circumstances, could probably use the jolt of horror that simply reading the facts cannot deliver.
Writer/director Kevin Wilson Jr. delivers that, using the very fame of this case to let the audience watch dominoes fall from far away, as when a discussion at the local watering hole has Emmett's uncle, preacher Mose Wright (L.B. Williams), knowing that the 14-year-old kid may be getting himself into trouble he can't predict, let alone handle. It's heightened later on when white men come to his house, with early emphasis on how the borders of a black man's home are not respected, from the flashlights shining into bedrooms at 2:30AM to the utter entitlement the invaders feel to cross Mose's threshold. The confrontation is staged like a standoff but still emphasizes the powerlessness Mose feels.
It's what actor L.B. Williams does leading up to that sequence which makes the film truly memorable, though, as Wilson shows Mose at the end of a long day and life in general, the sort of situation where you've got to go down to the river and pump a few buckets of water just to take a relaxing bath. Williams is wiry and makes Mose move without limp or hesitation but without hurrying too much; he's learned how to keep things steady and not make a lifetime of wear obvious. It's the stance of a survivor but one who is not so ideally strong that he can't fold, a dignity that is pushed to shame later on. It's a contrast to Dane Rhodes, who plays the man knocking at his door - just big enough to have had an extra meal while still clearly insecure enough to push his black neighbors down, with a hint that he can be pretty likable among his peer group until the slurs start coming out of his mouth. It's a pair of terrific performances that slot into Williams's singular perspective on a story that is often used as a stand-in for all lynchings exceptionally well.
"The Eleven O'Clock"
* * * (out of four)
Seen 11 February 2017 in Landmark Kendall Square #1 (Oscar-Nominated Shorts, DCP)
The set-up for "The Eleven O'Clock" is simple enough that the audience can see ninety percent of it sliding into place as it happens and then spot just how useful the other ten is as it's coming into play, and while it's not always great for a thing that plays as a well-oiled machine to give the viewer to have such a clear view of the mechanism in question, it works here as it sets up Terry Phillips (writer Josh Lawson) as a psychiatrist confronted with temp Linda (Jessica Donoghue) instead of the usual receptionist and being informed that his first patient, Nathan Klein (Damon Herriman), has "grandiose delusions"... of being a psychiatrist.
It's a straightforward gag that works in large part because Lawson and Herriman have play the duelling "analysts" so as to both tap into the ego that they need to presume they can solve others' problems (but which patients resent) while coming at it from different directions, one stuffy and one manic. Lawson's script calls for lots of back-and-forth banter that goes from snappy to snippy, especially once word-association begins and Linda being roped in and hung up upon frequently threatens to send things careening in another direction. Director Derin Seale and his crew keep the pacing quick, and do interesting things with space, as a giant lobby makes Linda feel even more trapped in her tiny alcove, while the office seems to rapidly shrink around Terry and Nathan, with the point of view flipping back and forth in a way that is sharp but not jarring.
"The Eleven O'Clock" is the only comedy of the quintet, which always seems to be the way, like the collectie Academy knows that one of the things shorts do best is this precision timing that lasts just as long as the joke, but still can't help but give more recognition to the ones that focus on something important.
"Watu Wote" ("All of Us")
* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 11 February 2017 in Landmark Kendall Square #1 (Oscar-Nominated Shorts, DCP)
And sometimes that "more important" can also overlap with "not as well-reported as it should be in the West". That's the case with "Watu Wote" (given an English title of "All of Us"), which opens with text describing the tensions between Christians and Muslims on the border between Kenya and Ethiopia, in particular noting the large number of attacks by terrorist group Al-Shabaab. That's the reason why Jue (Adelyne Wairimu) asks whether the bus from Nairobi to Rhamu will have a police escort in the more dangerous areas; she's also visibly - and sometimes vocally - unnerved by the number of Muslims on the bus. Of course, when the journey reaches that homestretch, the police car overheats and is unable to follow.
The incident that follows seems to have been something of a notable one in that region of Africa, but it's noteworthy that director Katja Benrath and primary screenwriter Julia Drache do not exactly play it up as revolutionary or necessary even unusual. Jua's rosary beads have been exchanged for a head covering almost before the audience realizes what has happened, and teacher Salah Farah (Abdiwali Farrah) pushes back against their attackers without dramatic pauses between his words or a dramatic swell to the score. This pivotal, climactic scene is not necessarily more tense for how the filmmakers play it; it may actually let a bit of the air out. I'm curious as to whether this was a conscious choice on their part to position the actions of Salah and Jua's neighbor as not primarily heroic but what should be expected of people whether they consider themselves brave or not. It's an intriguing realignment of the aspirational true story that emphasizes not just that ordinary people can and should resist violence, but that they must.
It's a message that gets across in large part because of how Benrath has her cast play the scenes leading up to it; both Adelyne Wairimu's Jua and Abdiwali Farrah's Salah often come off as abrasive and prone to suspicion of others' motives, and the actors convey that well; they're also given material that lets them show the characters as having more to them before being thrown in the crucible. The locations shooting is beautiful as well, and never fails to capture the right combination of vibrance and danger.
If I were a betting man, I'd put it on "My Nephew Emmett", and I'd have a hard time arguing against it as the most award-worthy of the bunch. The whole package is well worth checking out, of course, whether before or after the awards.
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