Team Picture (Director: Kentucker Audley): Number 5 from indie distributor Benten Films, Team Picture shares the “mumblecore” lo-fi slacker ethos of previous releases like LOL (review) and Quiet City (review) and the rural working-class setting of The Guatemalan Handshake (review). But the film it reminds me of most is Frank V. Ross’ Present Company (review), mostly because of its maddeningly inarticulate protagonist.
In this case, it’s David, played by director Andrew Nenninger (Kentucker Audley is a pseudonym). He’s somewhere in his twenties, living with his roommate Eric, a self-described “really tall guy with a great personality.” It turns out, though, that neither of them have really great personalities, or much personality at all. They spend most of their time just hanging out, drinking beer and lounging in a kiddie pool in their front yard. Neither of them seems to think more than five minutes into the future, and when David’s girlfriend breaks up with him near the beginning of the film, he seems oddly detached. Both of them aspire to some form of creativity: David is writing songs on the guitar, and Eric hints at poems he’s writing (one of which he hilariously reads at an “open-mic” night later in the film). But I get the sense that this is just a way to avoid getting down to the everyday reality of working for a living. Though David does have a job, he soon quits. He’d been working at a sporting goods store managed by his mother’s boyfriend, and it seemed like something she’d arranged for him. Though he’s eager to be free to do what he wants, he really doesn’t have any idea what that might be. As well, he knows that without the indulgence and coddling of his family, he’d be completely lost.
That doesn’t mean he’s close to them. Several excruciating conversations show us that no matter what the social situation, David is unable to function. And though Eric is more chatty, he’s just as emotionally retarded. Though it’s actually very funny in places, it becomes hard to watch these characters for very long, and mercifully, the film clocks in at just 62 minutes. It doesn’t surprise me that a kiddie pool is the nexus of these guys’ lives, since it’s obvious they don’t want to leave childhood behind.
As usual, Benten gives the film the deluxe treatment, with a commentary from both the director and actor/cinematographer Timothy Morton, who plays Eric. As well, a new short film, “Ginger Sand” is included as an epilogue of sorts. In it, Eric and his girlfriend visit David and his girlfriend in Chicago. Though we’re not sure how much time has passed, it’s clear that in this new context, Eric’s eccentricity just makes him look like an asshole. This was almost sadder than the original film. Not coincidentally, the short was produced by Frank V. Ross and shot by Joe Swanberg.
It’s really a bit difficult to criticize filmmaking like this. As I said in my review of Present Company, it feels like watching a documentary, so calling the characters annoying and infantile seems a bit personal. The real test for Andrew Nenninger (he apparently chose the pseudonym Kentucker Audley to hide the film’s existence from his family!), and by extension for all of the so-called “mumblecore” directors, will be whether he can climb out of his own character to become a better filmmaker and tell stories other than his own. I sincerely hope he can.
Buy Team Picture from Amazon.ca
Buy Team Picture from Amazon.com
The film’s MySpace page
(6/10)
Tagged as:
bentenfilms,
independent,
mumblecore
Funny Ha Ha (2002, Director: Andrew Bujalski): Perhaps the first of the films later lumped together as “mumblecore,” Funny Ha Ha was written and directed by 27-year-old Harvard film graduate Andrew Bujalski. Made on a shoestring budget with non-professional actors, it toured film festivals for almost three years before getting a limited theatrical release in 2005. I believe this is the first time the film has screened theatrically in Toronto.
Marnie (Kate Dollenmayer) is a recent college graduate still living in the student ghetto near her school. Though she’s no longer a student, she seems unable to move on to the next phase of her life. She still hangs around with her college friends, partying and working temp jobs. Her obsession with her friend Alex is obvious to everyone, despite the fact that he’s already in a serious relationship. Nonetheless, when she hears Alex has broken up with his girlfriend, she’s reluctant to make her feelings known, despite the urgings of all her friends, including Alex’s sister. She meets another guy, Mitchell (Bujalski), at her temping job and he awkwardly asks her out. Then her friend Rachel’s boyfriend Dave kisses her drunkenly after a party. None of these relationships are going the way she wants. She quits the temping job and finds a better one as a research assistant. Alex begins hanging out with her and flirting ambiguously. Then suddenly she finds out he and his girlfriend have not only reunited, but eloped and gotten married. But he still shows up drunk late on the night of her birthday. “Marriage is complicated,” he says.
With prospects like these, Marnie clearly needs to get away from these people and maybe even this town, and by the end, we get an inkling that that’s what is going to happen. But for about 90% of the film’s running time, we float through Marnie’s life just the way she has. What saves it from being completely tedious is Dollenmayer’s open and pretty face, and her gradually increasing determination to move on with her life.
Funny Ha Ha is extremely primitive, with no music and no external lighting. As my colleague Bob Turnbull expressed, it’s almost a Dogme 95 film. But there’s plenty of humour, of both the goofball and the cringeworthy varieties, and a sympathetic protagonist. When the film ends rather abruptly, I wanted to know what was going to happen to Marnie, and that means that Bujalski has hooked me.
NOTE: I was delighted to find out that Kate Dollenmayer is actually an animator whose credits include work on Richard Linklater’s Waking Life (2001).
Official site of the film
(7/10)
Tagged as:
generationdiy,
independent,
mumblecore
Nights and Weekends (2008, Directors: Joe Swanberg and Greta Gerwig): A fitting opening night film for the Toronto leg of the Generation DIY mini-fest, Nights and Weekends is co-director Joe Swanberg’s fourth feature film in four years (in addition to two series of online shorts), and he’s still just 26. Perhaps no other director better exemplifies the DIY spirit right now. This particular film grew out of a close collaboration with Greta Gerwig, who has acted in most of Swanberg’s previous films. Their real-life friendship informs and adds some tension to this story of a long-distance relationship.
James lives in Chicago while his girlfriend Mattie lives in New York. We eavesdrop on their hurried lovemaking and awkward conversations in both cities and then quickly it’s a year later and they’ve broken up. The last half of the film deals with their unresolved feelings as they both want to make it work but know that it can’t. For anyone who’s ever been involved in a long-distance romance, much of this will ring true. Physical distance creates both intense longing and emotional blind spots. The film begins with them tearing each other’s clothes off at the beginning of a rare weekend together. But once that’s done, they spend the rest of the time trying not to deal with their impending separation. Though they promise to come up with a plan to be together, it never takes shape. The film is full of awkward silences and glances, as these inarticulate characters struggle to hold onto what they have. There is a tension throughout the film that gradually slackens into sadness, and in another sex scene near the end of the film that bookends the opening scene, both characters can’t keep their fatalism at bay long enough to consummate their desire. It’s an emotionally affecting scene, even in the absence of any particularly well-written dialogue.
According to Swanberg and Gerwig, a lot of the dialogue was improvised, and credit must be given to the skillful editing (also by Swanberg) for shaping this into a film with an emotional arc. Of all the “mumblecore” directors, I think Swanberg is the least concerned with filmmaking “flourishes”. His films are the least “arty” in my opinion. Instead he seems to aim for emotional authenticity and in this case, he has the perfect collaborator. Gerwig is the better actor (something Swanberg freely admits), and her mood changes effectively communicate her confusion and frustration in every scene. It doesn’t hurt that the camera adores her. Even the harshness of digital video cannot dim her natural beauty.
And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the intensely intimate sex scenes in the film. Though we never see James and Mattie actually having sex, there is plenty of nudity and foreplay on screen. When Hollywood films show people in sexual situations, you’re keenly aware that these are actors who probably don’t know each other very well, but here we have two real-life friends, co-writers and co-directors of the film, not only emotionally but physically naked in front of each other and the audience. It’s raw and brave and awkward all at the same time. I couldn’t help but wonder what Swanberg’s wife thought of all of this, though he’s featured this sort of matter-of-fact sexuality in all of his films.
In my review of his film LOL, I wondered (perhaps a little unfairly) what it would be like for Swanberg to work with “real” actors, but I think Gerwig is the real thing. Still, I’d like to see him stay behind the camera (preferably a 35mm film camera) and work with a fully-formed script next time. That being said, and although this film feels unpolished and slightly unfinished, Nights and Weekends contains moments of genuine emotional power.
Here is the Q&A with directors Joe Swanberg and Greta Gerwig from after the screening (and that’s Canada AM’s film critic Richard Crouse asking the first few questions) :
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Duration: 25:49
Official site of the film
(7/10)
Tagged as:
generationdiy,
independent,
mumblecore
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
