I have never been to a Film Festival before, so I was pretty fresh to the scene at Water Front in Saugatuck, MI this year. It was a small, quiet resort town, mostly untainted by hype or the onslaught of cinephiles. There were just a lot of people, anywhere between the ages of 1 and 80, who simply came out to enjoy the films and maybe meet a few other film-lovers. The festival itself flowed pretty smoothly (except Fed-Ex some how managed to misplace several films, which then had to be shown in digital instead of celluloid; much to the film-purists chagrin), which is pretty incredible considering it is a completely volunteer-run festival. Even the promotional media that they showed before films seemed well-done, and were at the very least clever and humorous.
The first film I watched while I was there was
The Go-Getter, a film by Martin Hynes; his second after a film he made in 1999. The
Go-Getter stars Nick Offerman, Jena Malone, William Lee Scott, Zooey Deschanel, and Lou Taylor Pucci. The main character, Mercer, is played by Lou Taylor Pucci who, although he had a bit of a shaky start, pulled off a pretty convincing character through which I was reminded of the strange transition between adolescence and adulthood with all of its awkward and scary moments. The film follows Mercer on a crime-initiated road trip after the death of his mother. At first, I was a little unsure of how the movie would unfold. The first half hour took a little too long dwelling in abstract character development that didn’t really give the audience much with which to work. I think the initial frustration is the lack of information that would ordinarily accompany opening sequences and give the viewer some footing from which to understand the rest of the narrative. In this case, that information is given in very small pieces as the film progresses, through new characters and flashback, we begin to put together the back story of why Mercer (and the viewer) are on this crazy trip. This isn’t a new concept in terms of narrative structure, although I would say the rate at which information is communicated is a bit slower and even delayed in this film.
The Go-Getter opens with a suburban establishing shot and follows a kid (Pucci) on a bike from a birds-eye-view until he arrives at the high school. If I remember correctly this is where the voice over narration begins. Mercer says something to the effect of “then I realized how to not be stuck.” It reminded me a lot of the opening of
American Beauty or
Ordinary People; wide shot of a middle class neighborhood that gradually moves in with a voice over narrator who pulls you into their world. They are isolated people in the midst of a crowded existence.
Upon his revelation of “ how not to be stuck”, Mercer sets in motion a plan to steal a car and begin a road trip. Of course, at first we don’t know what he is doing, he simply skips out of school and goes to borrow his friend’s uniform. When he shows up in uniform at a carwash, you can only assume that he is there to steal a car. Its interesting how they use the Point of View shots here, they show pretty much everything from inside the car with Mercer, until he pulls out into the road, then we switch to the perspective of the person whose car was stolen. The carwash attendant is freaking out and we never see the reaction of the person who just lost their car. Its an interesting piece of set up, unless you have already read the synopsis and you know that this person will eventually befriend Mercer and their anonymity will be part of the intrigue between them.
You would assume it’s a coming of age kind of flick, but you don’t see any character growth until about half way through when Jenna Malone’s character is introduced. Or perhaps during Mercer’s first stop at a Pottery Studio, where he smokes pot and starts spilling his guts over the dinner table about his Mom dying and how he just wants to find his brother since its been 9 months and he thinks Arlen should know. This is the first time we really see any emotion from his character that even hints at why he has begun this journey.
Even if the narrative and characters were a little shaky from the beginning, I still enjoyed the production quite a bit. The cinematography was great. They played with contrasts in artificial and natural light and incorporated the landscape into the different segments of the journey. The writing didn’t seem so great when the film started, there were a couple of initial exchanges that seemed a little forced or cliché, not at all thoughtful. In fact, I was pretty sure the main character was going to annoy the hell out of me the whole time. Luckily enough he became likeable, or at least I could have some allegiance to him considering the subject matter. I also enjoyed the soundtrack although some songs became slightly redundant. What I liked best was that the film embodied all of the characteristics of an Epic Journey narrative. It seemed to have this intention all along, but it didn’t really come into the full style until later on. As the main character becomes more adamant about his mission to find his brother the narrative seems to take shape, like a hero embarking on an epic journey.
We get a lot of information about Mercer through his conversations with Kate, the girl whose car he stole to begin his journey. And through their, and several other, interactions we get flashbacks that fill in the blanks of who the main character really is. The transitions into and out of flashbacks were very good in that they were seamlessly oriented around an object or a natural break in the frame. They used light a lot for these as well. One of the best parts of any Epic journey is the characters and worlds that the hero encounters along the way. For Mercer, the pot-head pottery guy, the woman in the pet-shop who makes him help out with their community-service project, the crazy-sexy girl he used to know in junior high, the pornographer, and Kate at the other end of the cell phone, contribute not just as catalysts towards his goal but also as agents of change who participate in the process of peeling back the layers of his character and revealing to him some important ideas about life, death, and who we can be in the world. One of my favorite moments is when Kate and Mercer are talking and she asks “Doesn’t anyone know anybody anymore?” which digs into the real question of the film. Is it possible to truly be known? Or will we always be strangers no matter how close we become? For Mercer and Kate, this question presents itself and then slips into irrelevance as they continue down the path of acquaintance. …because the answers to these questions might very well be “yes”, but that is hardly a good enough reason not to try.
The second film I saw at The Water Front Film Festival was
Vanaja, the story of a young Indian girl who goes to live in the house of her landlady and ends up being raped by the landlady’s son. The story is told with humor and yet maintains a balanced perspective between the childhood-esque and the difficult issues that surround being a low-caste female in the Indian world. The director did a great job creating a believable world and representing the caste and patriarchal systems that are in place to keep people in their place. The narrative flowed pretty smoothly in a linear fashion and was accented along they way by beautiful dance sequences as performed by the main character, Vanaja, who was played by Umila Ramachandriah.
Vanaja leaves her home and her drunken father at the age of 15 to go and live and work for the landlady of the town. Her ulterior motive is to have the landlady teach her how to sing and dance well. This is not an easy task as the landlady is extremely stubborn and stern with everyone, but she eventually relents and begins to teach Vanaja. The story develops more when the landlady’s son returns from the University in America to run for political office. He is, unfortunately, a very arrogant and self-centered young man who ends up raping Vanaja and then blackmailing her into silence. She becomes pregnant and the truth is finally revealed to the landlady who tries to make her have an abortion. In desperation, Vanaja’s father hides her out in the country with some friends until the child is born. When it is, she is asked to give him up to the landlady.
This story is not really a surprising story line, it seemed predictable at times, yet was not boring. I remember feeling as though it was a little long and very depressing, but that’s what happens when you watch something that doesn’t come from the Classical Hollywood machine. I am used to being entertained and filled with warm fuzzies after good triumphs over evil and the hero gets the girl. But what I have found in most foreign film is that often good doesn’t triumph over evil, and love doesn’t always find the main characters. This doesn’t make the film bad, its just makes it harder to watch.
Vanaja is actually a very good film. The acting, production, soundtrack, and design were all well done and in a way the narrative does come full circle so as to make the viewer feel some sense of relief on behalf of the main character. Yet, its not what the traditional American audience would expect and so, it is easy to write off. But don’t, give it a chance and at least try to enlarge your sympathies for what life is like for the rest of the world.
The third, and final, film that I saw at Water Front was
American Fork, by director Chris Bowman, produced by the same guy who also did the cult-classic
Napoleon Dynamite.
American Fork stars Hubbel Palmer as the very large and extremely naïve Tracy Orbison who works at a run-down grocery store and struggles with his weight and inability to pass his drivers license exam. Also in the cast is William Baldwin who plays Tracy’s acting coach Truman Hope (a washed up community theater actor who I could swear recites monologues from other films, specifically
A Beautiful Mind). Tracy, like most people, is just looking to find his niche, the one thing that will make him stand out and give him something to live for. At first, he believes that acting is "the thing" and he sets out to become the best he can be. Unfortunately, because of his insecurity, naivety, and eagerness to please, he allows his acting coach to use him, which makes for some major disappointment. With acting out of the picture, Tracy turns to befriending some of the local troubled teens. Once again, eager to make a difference and too easily convinced of their intentions, he finds himself in some compromising situations. Just when you think it couldn’t get any worse, his sister starts dating his old acting coach and they try to do an intervention in his life based on false accusations about his character. At the center of all of this are the constant jokes and angry remarks about Tracy’s weight. One sequence, probably at one of the lowest points of the film, the narrative crosscuts between Tracy’s sister with Truman Hope and Tracy binge eating everything in the refrigerator. It’s almost painful to watch and yet is a reminder of the destructive things we do to deal with our pain. This is one the only movies that I can think of currently that addresses eating as an addiction and not simply a coping mechanism, especially for a male.
American Fork has a lot of strong points including casting, writing, acting, production design, and soundtrack. All of these things pull together a tight narrative that keeps you emotionally involved, not bored or distracted. As a viewer, you are either laughing hysterically at the awkward escapades or wanting to cry from depression, after all it is extremely frustrating to watch a person get walked all over for two hours. There isn’t really anything remarkable about the production except the fact that it is seamless and unnoticeable, which, unless there is something intentionally going, is the point of continuity in production. The use of several kinds of lighting at home, work, and in other settings plays on what is done in the light versus in the dark; out in the open or in secret. The truth about all of the characters was that while they might pick on Tracy for his weight, they all had something to be guilty of that they were trying to hide or that controlled them as a false identity.
American Fork, for me, was an interesting and entertaining film with compelling characters and a quirky storyline; I’m hoping it does well in the future with further release.