Believe
it or not, sometimes it’s hard to be a film critic. The more
repetitive the films become, the more one starts to shrug his
shoulders at movies that aren’t exactly bad but are
certainly far from great, the more frustrating the enterprise
becomes. All year, we wait for the movies that will excite us,
but sometimes we have to go through 20, 30, even 50 titles
before we get there (think of how many weekends you avoid the
movie theater, not quite interested in what they have to
offer).
So imagine what it was like then to step foot in Madison
last weekend and be swamped with cinematic gems at every
corner, to go from screening to screening and to be
increasingly wowed with the bold visions illuminating
Wisconsin screens.
Two titles in particular captivated me - and I can only
hope that general audiences will get a chance to check them
out in the weeks and months to come.
"Chop Shop"
First, let me briefly address Ramin Bahrani’s "Chop
Shop," a movie that is startling in its realism, and
affecting in its tenderness. It’s a New York story, about a
back alley street that lies in the shadows of Yankees stadium,
where stolen cars are brought to be dismantled into components
that can then be sold for profit.
At the story’s center is a young child with an older
teenage sister - two apparent orphans who are learning the
angles of how to make a few bucks while surviving in this
world ignored by the police. Clearly this is not a world where
child labor laws are enforced.
The younger of the two seems more capable of seeing the
score: the way that they are paid small stipends to do the
work that no one else will do. But he’s also the one with
the plan: Save up money, bit by bit, so they can buy a lunch
truck and then make the real money - selling food to the car
guys.
It’s an ambitious, yet naive, plan, the one feeble
attempt these siblings can make in a bid to improve their
lives. And what "Chop Shop" ultimately proves to be
is a case study in the way poverty limits one’s vision,
closes off avenues of opportunity and creates a cycle of
desperation that can accelerate into anger and violence.
"Chop Shop" was one of the festival’s great
visions.
"Water Lilies"
One of the most creative, unsettling films I saw at this
year’s festival was CŽline Sciamma's "Water
Lilies," which screened Friday evening, the festival’s
second day.
Underneath all the sexual frustration, the movie tells the
story of three teenagers, all members of an amateur
synchronized swim team. One of the girls is overweight and
finds it impossible to seduce the man of her dreams, while
another is slowly coming to the realization that she's gay,
becoming obsessed with a third girl who reciprocates her
flirtations while nevertheless continuing to chase after boys
herself. It's both enticing and haunting, an enigmatic love
triangle in which platonic friendship, sexual experimentation
and raw lust collide.
But more than just the emotional stakes of young love, the
movie is also about the struggles of adolescence, and just how
hard it is to be a young teenage girl, struggling to find
yourself. Sciamma's depiction of girls struggling to adjust to
and survive teendom is suitably raw, avoiding dewy-eyed
visions of first love and social conflict for a bruised,
tender portrait of growing up as a confusing, traumatic period
of constant readjustment. Losing one's virginity is presented
as a thorny, harrowing event - metaphorically visualized by
the sight of swimmers' lower halves kicking about underwater -
and one girl’s abandonment of her loyal but uncool friend
for the chilly but beautiful alternative captures the selfish
callousness that kids are capable of when social standing and
self-esteem are at stake.
It’s almost ironic - than from a festival with so many
great visions of the world, it would be one of the most
intimate visions that would linger the most vividly in the
imagination.
I can hardly wait for 2009.
Did you go to the film festival? What was your favorite
moment? Tell Steve Snyder at SnyderReviews@hotmail.com.
