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Under discussion:

Ballast  (2008)

Funny how, in the indie film world, falls from grace tend to begin before you’ve even hit the top. Yesterday, Lance Hammer’s Ballast was nominated for four Gotham Independent Film Awards — the most of any single film — including Breakthrough Director and Best Picture. Meanwhile, the critical darling is, for maybe the first time since its Sundance premiere, provoking sour responses. Armond White wrote a scathing review of the film attacking it as evidence that “African-American life is imprisoned by the art fallacies of Indie filmmaking, controlled by white liberal condescension” — but he’s Armond White, so that was somewhat expected. Somewhat less expected was this Hollywood Elsewhere post, where Jeff Wells pounces on White’s review like it’s the smoking yellow cake that makes the case that Ballast is overrated.

After quoting liberally from White’s review, Wells offers a snide, unverified bit of gossip as confirmation of the other critic’s thesis, and then essentially wishes the film good riddance:

Hammer is “a rich kid,” a producer friend told me yesterday. It all fits. Today is the final day to see Ballast at Manhattan’s Film Forum.

Because of course, Armond White has never fallen for a rich kid’s vision of another culture before.

All this, as if Ballast is even going to be seen by enough people to cause any sort of danger with its (to my mind non-existant) “white liberal condescension.” The self-distributed drama won’t even have much time to take advantage of any bump in local interest based on the IFP-awarded nods, because after its two week run at FIlm Forum wraps tonight, it’s scheduled to hop to the somewhat less illustrious Cinema Village for just one week before moving on to other cities. I know nothing of Hammer’s personal finances (other than that he worked in the art department on a handful of Hollywood blockbusters, whatever kind of personal fortune that’s good for), but it seems like smearing a self-distributed indie on the verge of a roll-out, even if that roll-out *is* trustfund funded (and from what I’ve heard, it’s not exactly that simple), is pure bad form.

Under discussion:

A Boy and His Dog  (1975)

28 Days Later  (2003)

Blindness  (2008)

People often say that the only things certain in life are death and taxes. But what if the government, along with a vast majority of the population, were suddenly obliterated? What are the certainties of life in a post-apocalyptic world? Death keeps its hold, but in a desert world scorched by nuclear holocaust or a zombie plague, death has a new partner in inevitability: sex.

Sure, sex is already as ubiquitous as taxes, but plenty of post-apocalyptic movies point out that sex gains a renewed importance in a world devoid of order. Even in films that are not specifically about sexuality after the implosion of society, sex is still an important linchpin. In the modern-day zombie classic 28 Days Later (mild spoilers follow), our heroes-on-the-run, Jim, Selena, and Hannah, find relative safety in a mansion fortified by a small band of soldiers. Before long, the all male band of troops begin making not-so-subtle overtures to the two young women. Their captain, in a futile attempt to persuade Jim to disregard the well-being of his friends, pleads, “But I promised them women!” Jim’s refusal to condone this flesh trade nearly gets him killed, but the potency of the zombie plague has a poetic way of enacting revenge on his behalf.

After the jump, “carnal desire” gains a whole new meaning…

The soldiers’ demand for sexual favors as payment for protection does a lot more than simply set up a situation in which Jim swoops in as the knight in shining armor. It illustrates that in a world with no real economy, the flesh trade quickly fills the void. A more recent example of this is Fernando Meirelles’ Blindness (more mild spoilers ahead). A global outbreak of contagious blindness all but destroys civilization. The first to be infected are rounded up and locked in an abandoned asylum, where their attempts to self-govern grow increasingly bleak. Eventually a band of men seize all incoming food shipments, demanding sexual favors from the women of the other groups. It’s a truly gut-wrenching scene when the men eventually comply, and allow the female volunteers, many of them wives and girlfriends, to take part in the demeaning trade.

The scene that follows is extremely hard to watch, partly due to the sexual violence that’s depicted, but mostly due to the verisimilitude of the whole situation. What the film (and the book before it) reveals is that humanity, when pushed to the brink, will negotiate even its most sacred and personal aspects for survival. The film is not saying that blindness causes depravity, as some groups have suggested, but rather that a relatively small change, like the loss of sight, can unleash a depravity that’s always been lurking just beneath the surface.

It’s also worth pointing out that the portrait of post-apocalyptic sex painted by 28 Days Later and Blindness can be critiqued in a number of ways. For one, the idea that the male protagonists in each film are faced with the “choice” of whether to “give up their women” is extremely patriarchal. While in Blindness the dilemma is handled in a slightly more even-handed way, Selena in 28 Days Later seems to go from ass-kicking zombie-killer to damsel-in-distress as soon as she’s forced to put on a dress. Am I the only one who wanted to see her fight her way out of that situation on her own, without the aid of Jim?

The other critique of these two examples is that they’re altogether too negative. A post-apocalyptic world is a world without authority, an anarchy where desires can be fulfilled by those brave enough to take charge, a playground for the id, if you will. The best example of this model is the 1975 film A Boy and His Dog, starring Don Jonson (spoilers follow). Set in a typical post-nuclear wasteland, Vic is a young man on a quest for sex. Lucky for him, he has Blood, a sentient dog with whom he can communicate telepathically. Blood can sense whenever a young woman is in the area, and he tells Vic, who in turn makes sure the dog stays well fed.

Vic’s first conquest reveals that he is essentially a serial rapist. But his encounter with beautiful young Quilla June is halted by an angry mob. They team up to defeat the intruders, defending their underground hiding spot. A bond is forged, and they make sweet love multiple times as consenting young adults. Quilla June, sure she has found true love, brings Vic back to her home, a vast underground vault modeled after an idealized version of the Antebellum South, with a Colonel Sanders-like dictator played by Jason Robards. Things don’t go well. Vic is strapped to a machine that systematically pumps his sperm, which is needed to impregnate the women of the vault, because the men have become sterile after decades of living underground.

The young lovers break away from this creepy cult of sexual repression and escape to the surface. Vic smells the freedom of anarchy once more when they emerge from the vault, but Quilla wants him to settle down into a quiet family life. Also, upon release from vault Vic is reunited with Blood, who was waiting for him on the surface. The poor hound has nearly starved to death without he and Vic’s usual sexual-partners-for-food arrangement. Vic is presented with a choice, settle down with his woman or keep rambling with his dog. In the end he kills two birds with one stone, (I’m not making this up) by killing Quilla June, providing he and Blood with both freedom and a substantial meal.

A Boy and His Dog is clearly a farce, but it still points out important truths about sex. When humanity is faced with despair and possible extinction, sex illustrates both our highest and our lowest goals. The connection between two lovers is a beautiful expression of what it means to be human. The act of procreation is in both practical and symbolic terms our most essential function. On the other hand, sex can represent the surrender of oneself to carnal desires. The only goals in an anarchy are self-preservation, followed by self-fulfillment. A world without structure is the impetus for the ultimate sexual revolution, for better or worse.

Under discussion:

Transformers  (2007)

• Universal Studios is building a ride in its theme parks in Singapore and Los Angeles, based on Michael Bay’s Transformers. The attraction is expected to “use 3-D HD footage with special effects, robotics and track to place humans in the middle of a war between the friendly Autobots and evil Decepticons, who can turn into cars, trucks, planes and other vehicles.” Yay, war!
• Meanwhile, Universal the studio is planning to sell genre division Rogue Pictures to Relativity Media for $150 million. Rogue has been moderately successful producing low-budget hits like The Strangers, to which a sequel is in development; Relativity will get the development slate as well as the library, although Univeral will agree to distribute all Rogue films through 2013.

MSNBC Films, the documentary unit announced by NBC/Universal’s news channel in June, has firmed up plans for their first two releases. The festival circuit acquisition Dear Zachary will premiere at Tribeca Cinemas on October 29 before rolling out to at least four markets, and in-house production Witness to Jonestown will premiere on the channel November 9. Being that two NBC employees died covering the events at Jonestown, this may be the closest thing to a personal project that a cable network could make.