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The Guatemalan Handshake (2006, Director: Todd Rohal): The film’s tagline is “A feast for the senses, a challenge for the brain” and that about sums it up. Todd Rohal has created what must be considered the first “mumblecore” comedy and Benten Films has given it their usual loving and reverential treatment in this packed 2-disc DVD release.
Watching a film is usually a different type of experience than reading a book. Generally, we used to watch films in large semi-public rooms with friends and a crowd of strangers. It was a shared experience and the vibe of the audience could influence how we felt about the film later. Reading a book, on the other hand, is a solitary pursuit. We can compare experiences later with others who have read the book, but it usually doesn’t colour our impressions too much. Now that we have DVD, watching a film can be more like reading a book. And in the case of The Guatemalan Handshake, that’s a very good thing indeed. I don’t mean to say that you shouldn’t watch this with your friends, although I think that is what I’m saying. This is the sort of film you might want to form your own opinion of before sharing it.
A plot summary won’t help much. Donald Turnupseed (Will Oldham) vanishes after a mysterious power failure and the rest of the film follows his friends and family around, including his pregnant girlfriend, his father (who seems to miss his unique orange electric car more than his son), and his best friend, 10-year old Turkeylegs, who serves as our narrator. There are references to demolition derby, turtles, boy scouts, roller skating, and lactose intolerance. We meet a man with 18 daughters all from different mothers, and a woman who attends her own funeral. It’s all utterly surreal, often silly, but with a haunting undertone of melancholy. I laughed a lot, was gobsmacked more than once with absolutely gorgeous visuals and music, and have been thinking about this goofy-on-the-surface film for days. It’s no surprise that the essay in the DVD booklet was written by David Gordon Green, whose gorgeous and soulful George Washington kept popping into my head as the film progressed.
Director Todd Rohal is worth watching.
Official site of the film
Benten Films DVD
Trailer
Purchase the DVD from Amazon.com
Purchase the DVD from Amazon.ca
Purchase the DVD from the official site and get a free bonus DVD of Todd Rohal’s short films
(8/10)
UPDATE: Now that I’ve formed my opinion by watching the film alone, I’m looking forward to seeing it in a theatre with other people. Generation DIY is bringing it to Toronto on June 22 at precisely 3:15pm, when it will be screening at the Bloor Cinema.
Tagged as:
bentenfilms,
independent,
mumblecore
Ron Mann and Gary Topp’s Filmswelike is presenting “Generation DIY” from June 19-22 at the Bloor Cinema. This is perhaps the biggest collection of “mumblecore” films ever screened together in Toronto and I’m seriously excited about seeing a bunch of these, some for the second time (and all for the first time on a big screen). This is a no-brainer if you want to see what’s been happening in the American indie film scene over the past few years. Here’s the jam-packed lineup:
- Nights and Weekends (dir. Joe Swanberg and Greta Gerwig) (review)
- Quiet City (dir. Aaron Katz) (review)
- LOL (dir. Joe Swanberg) (review)
- Frownland (dir. Ronald Bronstein)
- Funny Ha Ha (dir. Andrew Bujalski) (review)
- Dance Party USA (dir. Aaron Katz) (review)
- Four Eyed Monsters (dir. Aron Crumley and Susan Buice)
- A Simple Midwest Story (dir. Blake Eckard)
- Orphans (dir. Ry Russo-Young)
- The Guatemalan Handshake (dir. Todd Rohal) (review)
- The Death of Indie Rock (dir. Rob Fitl)
- Backroad Blues (dir. Blake Eckard)
- Mutual Appreciation (dir. Andew Bujalski)
Festival passes are just $25. Even better is that the mini-fest is travelling to Winnipeg, Edmonton and Vancouver after its stop here.
Tagged as:
generationdiy,
independent,
mumblecore
Wild Combination (2007, Director: Matt Wolf): Until about a year ago, I’d never heard of Arthur Russell. A classically-trained cellist who died at the age of 40 in 1992, Russell was in danger of falling into obscurity. But then something wonderful happened. Those closest to him began to re-release some of the music he created and suddenly a man who seemed out of his time while alive began to influence a new generation of musicians. The 2004 compilation Calling Out of Context is a good place to begin. It was around the time of that CD release that director Matt Wolf became familiar with Russell, and decided to make the film.
Russell was born and raised in Oskaloosa, Iowa, but ran away to San Francisco while still in his teens, where he joined a Buddhist commune. It was in San Francisco that he made the acquaintance of Allen Ginsberg, and the two remained friends and collaborators for years to come. Russell soon followed Ginsberg to New York, where he soon become part of the artistic landscape at The Kitchen. Part of the avant-garde scene that included Philip Glass, Russell wrote and performed here regularly, often singing along with his cello-playing. It was during this period that Russell began to acknowledge his homosexuality, eventually meeting and falling in love with Tom Lee, who was (and remains) a tireless supporter of his work. His involvement in the gay scene introduced him to underground discotheques, and soon he was writing dance music under aliases such as Dinosaur L, Indian Ocean and Loose Joints. Though he achieved some modest commercial success with these records, he never really made a breakthrough, perhaps because his talent was too big to be confined to one type of music. The film features a generous selection of his work, and it ranges from avante-garde to dance to pop to folk rock, all of it accompanied by Russell’s utterly unique singing voice. He used his voice as another instrument but it gave all of his music a slightly odd quality, making it commercially unappealing at the time. It didn’t help that he was a perfectionist, rarely feeling that a record was “finished” and making it extremely difficult for him to take direction from others. Later in his life, he began to exhibit symptoms of paranoia, feeling that other musicians were stealing his ideas.
Matt Wolf has made an immersive film that rightfully foregrounds the music, often accompanying it with evocative scenes of the vast Iowa landscape that seems to have informed Russell’s work. Another musical theme was the expansiveness of water, and perhaps it was this desire for open space that led Russell to spend so much time on the Staten Island Ferry, scenes which Wolf has recreated by filming with vintage video cameras. I had a mixed reaction upon learning that so much of the “archival” footage in the film was recreated. As Wolf explains, there just wasn’t that much real archival footage to work with, but I think I would have preferred that the film itself carried some disclaimer that the footage wasn’t authentic instead of having to hear it from him in the Q&A. But don’t let that stop you from seeing the film. For those with some familiarity with Arthur Russell, it will fill in the picture behind the music, but more importantly, it will help you to introduce the work of this undisputed genius to your friends.
Here is the Q&A with director Matt Wolf from after the screening:
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Duration: 13:43
Official site of the film
Teaser
(8/10)
Tagged as:
homosexuality,
music
