Archive for the 'DVD Clubs' Category

Small Town Gay Bar

Published
by
James McNally
on August 19, 2007
in DVD, DVD Clubs, Documentaries and Ironweed
. 1 Comment

Small Town Gay Bar

Small Town Gay Bar (Director: Malcolm Ingram, USA, 2006): This film was part of the June 2007 release from Ironweed Film Club, and features two short films as well that I haven’t yet watched. I missed this when it played originally at this year’s Inside Out festival, so was glad to see it on DVD so soon.

While my own experience with gay bars has been pretty limited, I understand that they serve a vital social function within the community, serving as sanctuaries from a world that is very often hostile to gay people. The situation is even more dire in the rural South, where prejudice has been tolerated and even encouraged for a long time. This small film keeps its focus tightly on a very specific area, northeastern Mississippi, and on the patrons of a bar called Rumors, located in tiny Shannon, population 1,726. In rural communities where everyone knows everyone else, it’s not unusual for gay people to stay “in the closet” and so the bar becomes the only place where they can actually be themselves. However, since Mississippi is in the middle of the “Bible Belt,” the bars are often targetted by conservative church groups and forced out of business. Part of the film covers the history of gay bars in this part of the state, and Crossroads, once located in larger Meridian (pop. 39,000), seemed to be just the sort of place that conservatives would want to close. As one former patron put it, the sense of desperation was so strong that it became a sort of circus, a place where “anything went” and so local law enforcement found a way to close it. Happily, this same former patron bought the property and reopened it as a much more congenial place, recognizing that people were being forced to drive several hours to Memphis for lack of a local place to go. I found myself reminded very much of British pub culture while watching the film, where the bar is not only a place to drink and meet romantic partners, but a hub of information and a surrogate family. Ingram’s film does a great job of capturing a sense of place and of the very unique people who populate it.

Perhaps the only weakness I found in the film was in its choice of counter-voices. Reverend Fred Phelps (of GodHatesFags.com fame) was born in Meridian, so I can see why the filmmaker wanted to feature him, but giving this nutbag so much screen time was unnecessary. Ingram also interviewed Tim Wildmon of the American Family Association, another extreme organization with their headquarters in nearby Tupelo. While this generated lots of sparks, I was rather hoping to hear more from local regular people and even local pastors instead of people whom the majority of Americans would view as raving lunatics. As well, it would have been interesting to hear why the patrons of Rumors and the other bars haven’t just given up and moved to larger cities where they could live more openly.

As a side note, I was intrigued when I heard so many Toronto bands on the soundtrack (Metric, The Hidden Cameras, Broken Social Scene) and guessed, rightfully, that director Malcolm Ingram was indeed from Toronto. I’d love to hear what drew him so far from home to tell this story.

Official site for the film

7/10(7/10)

Men At Work (Kargaran mashghoole karand)

Published
by
Jason Chu
on August 1, 2007
in DVD, DVD Clubs and Film Movement
. Closed

Men At Work (Kargaran mashghoole karand)

Kargaran mashghoole karand (Men At Work) (Director: Mani Haghighi, Iran, 2006): Kargaran mashghoole karand (Men At Work) begins with four middle-aged men driving home to catch an important football match on television. Three of them are talking and joking around while the other naps. He wakes up and bugs them until they finally pull over and allow him to make a pit-stop on the side of the road on the edge of a canyon. While they are stopped, they discover a tall, narrow rock formation sticking out of the ground. This film is about their attempts at trying to figure out how it got there, but ultimately how to knock it down.

It doesn’t sound like a very intriguing story, but somehow it is. And funny. The situation these men impose upon themselves can surely be a metaphor for any kind of obstacle that one may face in life, or it could really just be about how difficult it is to dislodge a big rock from the earth.

Through alternating moments of silence, comedic and almost slap-stick antics, emotional outbursts and acts of desperation, we learn of these mens’ relationships with women (two of which conveniently show up, join the challenge for a while, and then leave) and each other, but mainly we see how differently they each deal with this “problem.”

Men At Work (Kargaran mashghoole karand)

I have seen a few Iranian films from the past few years, and most of them are about women and their struggles within their culture. This film, however, may focus on the possibly neglected point of view of the men, and perhaps this is why the offensive rock is quite, well, phallic. Is this a commentary on the different attitudes that some Iranian men may have about their male-dominated society? If so, then how does one explain the relatively passive attitudes of the women who show up? (One can make a metaphor of anything, I suppose.)

In the end, after periods of working together and then literally giving up and leaving someone behind, the four friends learn that sometimes problems can solve themselves.

Viva Cuba

Published
by
James McNally
on June 11, 2007
in DVD, DVD Clubs and Film Movement
. 3 Comments

Viva Cuba

Viva Cuba (Director: Juan Carlos Cremata Malberti, Cuba, 2005): Viva Cuba is a charming fairytale/road movie that submerges its political message in a very personal story of friendship and love. Jorgito and his tomboy friend Malu are on the cusp of adolescence, and their close friendship seems about to morph into something at once more serious and more frightening. It’s evident from the way they can be holding hands one minute and arguing violently the next. To make things worse, their families detest each other. Malu lives with her mother, a bitter woman whose family used to wield influence in the days before Castro’s revolution. Jorgito’s parents have moved to Havana from the countryside and are firm supporters of the government. Each mother admonishes her child for playing with an unsuitable playmate, but that only drives the pair closer together.

This Romeo and Juliet story really takes off when Malu’s mother decides to leave Cuba forever, to join her boyfriend in what we assume is America. In order to get permission to leave the country with Malu, she must get her estranged ex-husband to sign an exit authorization. Knowing this, Malu and Jorgito hatch a plan to appeal to his paternal love (or guilt) by traveling in person to see him. The problem is that Malu hasn’t seen her father since she was six, because he works as a lighthouse keeper at the other end of the country.

The two young protagonists hit the road by train, bus, and oxcart to reach their destination, but their constant squabbling threatens to ruin the plan. In the meantime, their worried families have seemingly reconciled in the desperate search for their missing children.

First and foremost, this is a beautifully-shot film, and the use of colour is often striking. The political message, such as it is, seems to ignore Castro completely; instead, it’s a shamelessly pro-Cuba film, highlighting both the island’s natural beauty as well as the fierce pride of its people in their cultural institutions. It’s not surprising that music plays a big part in the film.

It’s unclear whether the director was attempting to make a film aimed solely at children. There is certainly a sense of naïveté in the dialogue and the basic structure of the film, and there is never any real danger to these two kids on the run, but the ending seemed particularly grown-up and ambiguous, and made me reevaluate my initial impressions. Some critics have seen the film as an allegory depicting two sides to modern Cuban culture, but I don’t believe the intention was that obvious. I think the film gains resonance from refusing to be overt about its political opinions. Instead, it leaves the viewer to untangle his sympathies from the intersection of conflicting desires in a country that is changing, just not fast enough for some.

Note: Film Movement featured this film as their Year 5 Film 5.

8/10(8/10)

El Bola

Published
by
Jason Chu
on June 5, 2007
in DVD, DVD Clubs and Film Movement
. Closed

El Bola (Pellet)

El Bola (Pellet) (Director: Achero Mañas, Spain, 2000): Pablo’s nickname is Pellet, hence the title of this film. I didn’t know anything about this film before popping it in the DVD player, so I had no idea what kind of a ride I was in for.

The ride was great. Performances are authentic and at times, appropriately subtle. The actual subject matter doesn’t arise until almost halfway through the film; a style that doesn’t always work, but definitely does here.

Pellet loiters around town with some of his misfit, daredevil peers and befriends the new kid at school, Alfredo. Alfredo provides Pellet with a simple camaraderie that Pellet seems to never have known before, and he is obviously needy for this kind of friendship. Still, he initially feels out of place in certain situations, such as spending time in Alfredo’s family environment; granted, Alfredo’s family environment may not be the most “normal”, but we soon see why Pellet is tentative.

El Bola (Pellet)

The film touches indirectly on a lot of themes and situations that are not very developed, but I appreciate the realistic snapshot of time-and-place that this method provides; they also work to advance characters rather than plot. We never really get the story on some of the supporting characters but it ends up not really mattering; somehow the subtle oddities of certain people and events gives the film a “truth is stranger than fiction” sort of backdrop.

I was very impressed with the lead actor Juan José Ballesta, who played the title character at only thirteen years of age. I didn’t recognize him at first, but later realized that I saw him in person a couple of years ago at TIFF when he was in town to promote the film 7 vírgenes.

El Bola is a powerful film that deserves the many awards and nominations that it received. It is a moving story that is painful at times and heartwarming at others. It authenticates itself through its photography, characters, performances and sadly, the story itself. I think that Jay would consider this to be a “Jason Chu film”, so it’s no surprise that many moments of it recall Truffaut’s Les Quatre cents coups (The 400 Blows).

Note: Film Movement featured this film as their Year 1 Film 1. That’s right, it was their very first pick. As an added bonus, the film is on sale right now for half price, making it a bargain even for non-subscribers to Film Movement’s service.

Official site for the film (Spanish only)

Blue Vinyl

Published
by
James McNally
on May 29, 2007
in DVD, DVD Clubs, Documentaries and Ironweed
. Closed

Blue Vinyl

Blue Vinyl (Directors: Daniel B. Gold and Judith Helfand, USA, 2002): After seeing and enjoying Helfand and Gold’s latest film Everything’s Cool at Hot Docs this year, I was looking forward to seeing this, their first film. Let’s just say that the pair have developed quite a bit as documentarians in the past five years. Though the film explores an important subject, the toxicity of the vinyl used in siding and other products, the tone and production values were ultimately distracting for me.

Helfand is very much involved in the film, since the project grew out of her concern that her parents’ installation of vinyl siding on their house would lead to health problems and other environmental damage. She does a decent job investigating the vinyl industry’s record of deception and coverups, but she’s just a little too gimmicky. She reminded me too much of Michael Moore, putting herself into every scene, and even carrying around a piece of vinyl siding throughout the film. In a few places, her inexperience as an interviewer is obvious, and although she tries to play it for laughs, it falls flat.

One subject that I wanted to hear more about was the search for alternative building materials. She does talk to a number of people at a California convention, but doesn’t provide enough information about the innovation going on in the construction industry. The film aims for a light tone but has a hard time maintaining it when we hear about how many people have become sick or died from working with vinyl and PVCs. This is a decent first effort, but I’m glad that in their latest film, Helfand generally stays off screen. As well, they chose to make a more positive film focussing on solutions, which suits their style better.

Note: Ironweed featured this film on their April 2007 Earth Day edition. They’ve posted a good collection of resource links about vinyl siding.

Official site for the film

7/10(7/10)