Archives for March 2020

AFF 2019: Tensions of the Self Onscreen

March 26, 2020 by be5355

*Portrait of a Lady on Fire* (dir. Celine Sciamma)

by Nila Selvaraj

I’ve heard the phrase “be yourself” so many times that it has almost lost all meaning, but attending the 2019 Austin Film Festival afforded me an amazing opportunity to explore the phrase anew. Each of us consists of a multitude of selves, and we selectively leak parts of our persona out at any point in time – at the behest of others, because of societal restrictions, or of our own volition. There’s a tension between the many versions of ourselves vying to appear at any given moment, and the medium of film can examine this phenomenon because strong audio and visuals can highlight or obscure different facets of a character.

The Portrait of a Lady on Fire

In 1770 France, Marianne is commissioned to create a wedding portrait of Héloïse without letting Héloïse know. The idea of different versions of self physically manifest in Marianne’s paintings. A portrait represents a way to capture and preserve identity, but only by losing some depth and dimension. It arrives in a new home before the girl to be married, standing in for her. Although it cannot capture her full personality, it determines whether or not she will live there for the rest of her life.

The film is full of beautiful shots full of symmetry, interesting lighting, and emphatic framing, conveying Marianne’s artistic eye. In liminal, stolen moments, the camera focuses on Heloise’s body parts just as Marianne does, examining the parts that make the whole. While walking with her, running with her, and conversing with her, Marianne gleans a side of Heloise that a typical portrait artist would not, which is why the superficial and immaculate version of her portrait upsets Heloise, as well as Marianne, so much. Throughout the film, preceding events set up the building emotions really well, and destroying the first painting feels simultaneously like a loss and like empowerment.

I loved this film, but unfortunately, I only watched about half of it due to technical issues that will haunt me until I get to finish the rest. After sputtering through weird color grading, off-putting time skips, and missing subtitles, the theater finally admitted defeat.

A Hidden Life

During World War II, an Austrian farmer refuses to fight for the Nazis no matter the consequences. Terrence Malick is known for capturing stunning, mesmerizing visuals. Other than wide establishing shots of the gorgeous Austrian countryside, the film’s visual vernacular employs close-up shots at an unusual angle: slightly below eye-level. These shots capture an intimate moment using near frontality, with the subject not quite looking directly at the camera. I almost felt like it was a child’s eye view, accentuating the idea that this moment was pure and unfiltered, containing a version of these characters that they could not normally display to others.

The bucolic farm village where the protagonist Franz lives transforms under the Nazi regime. Where the family once found an easy sense of community and camaraderie, only uneasy danger remains, a transition made all the more insidious by how slow and natural it feels, as if the film is inducing a trance. It becomes evident that the people did not change; the potential for vitriol and intolerance lies inside everyone, until fear and ignorance draw these ugly feelings to the surface. Along with commentary about human nature and our social institutions, A Hidden Life portrays a beautiful act of resistance not as a means, but as an end in and of itself. For three hours, we have to endure Franz’s suffering with him.

Ford v Ferrari

After sitting through three hours of Malick, it was refreshing to see a movie for pure entertainment, where the main plot was just, “CARS GO FAST.” At first glance, these two films have nothing in common, but I drew parallels between both protagonists. Of course, Franz has more at stake, and his quiet strength contrasts with Ken’s unapologetic confidence. However, both men find themselves in situations where they could feign or mask some of their opinions to make their public life more convenient, but they choose to remain true to themselves. Both ultimately fail in achieving their overall goals but derive satisfaction from living according to their principles.

Underneath the racing plotline, Ford v Ferrari is about branding, and about striking a balance between personal dignity and the bottom dollar. In real life, “Ken Miles is not a ‘Ford Man,'” but he says that at 70 RPM, only one question matters: “who are you?” That’s what makes the moment in which he does cave to the pressure to slow down so poignant, and even though he gets screwed over, I still felt like he won. Overall, this movie was just a lot of fun to watch.

Not to be Unpleasant but we need to have a serious talk

The premise sounds like the set-up for a weird joke: a man gets diagnosed with an STD that kills the women with whom he’s slept. It doesn’t take long after the first flip of the 180-line in the very first scene to make it obvious that there is darker turmoil to come with the bizarre humor.

The film makes good use of economical editing and transitions, showing no more than absolutely necessary to convey the story. Proximate scenes work in tandem to relay the plot without spelling everything out for viewers. Each scene packs a punch, and there are so many interesting ones that make the movie worthwhile, with unique, creative visuals and characterization devices. Aris’s boss’s voice machine is grating and funny, making already bad poetry even worse. His doctor has wild hair, like a mad scientist. A clown-fish balloon floats behind him, filling up the frame during one of the most emotional moments of the film.

Past experiences shape character, but by leaving out most of the details of Aris’s past, the film initially lulls viewers into sympathizing with him. There are a few interesting foreshadowing shots, such as the top shot in which he drives past a crosswalk, literally leaving death in his wake as a woman falls dead behind him. Overall, however, audiences can relate to his troubles at work and felt bad for his plight. One might even be forgiven for thinking that he must insist on telling his exes about the STD himself out of some sense of chivalry or sensitivity.

As he goes through his past relationships, however, seeing him interact with his exes makes it slowly but painfully evident that he’s simply a terrible human being. He wants to control the situation, clinging to some semblance of normalcy in the face of his mounting guilt. His guilt takes focus, dissolving the details of each of his past relationships. The frame often shows Aris to one side of the bifurcating line, driving on the right side of the frame, unless one of his past lovers appears on the left side, as if his guilt takes up that extra space. The movie itself is complicit; it’s awfully convenient that each woman dies in perfect order, and only dies after he converses with them. They all rehash their issues with Aris, rather than immediately rushing to the hospital to save their own lives.

His exes seem so different, and it made me wonder what version of himself he used to make them want to have sex with him in the first place. Aris is a salesman, both in his work life and personal life. Throughout the film, everyone is selling something, and selling themselves. The bodybuilding competition and dog shows literalized the idea of performance, with contestants literally showing off for a living. In fact, the film was initially titled “The Great Pretender.” As dramatic and tragic events unfold around him, Aris’s actor seemed strangely neutral and unemotional through everything, letting the scenes show guilt for him. In the Q&A, the actor said, “it was like watching a nightmare for me.” Unlike the other films I saw at AFF, which were about finding a truer version of oneself, this film wrapped Aris in more and more layers of pretense, and that idea really stuck with me long after the mystifying ending scene.

AFF 2019: A Yellow Rose in Austin

March 26, 2020 by be5355

by Edith Muleiro

I was only able to see a few movies during my time at the Austin Film Festival, including Yellow Rose which I will be focusing on in this review. Yellow Rose was filmed in Austin, the crowd was full of people that had worked on the film, and it gave me a peek into a level of filmmaking I have rarely experienced. The cinemaphotography of the film, in addition to its dynamism, are used in service to a coming-of-age story of a Filipino girl and her community. The film uses these strategies to depict the difficulties of the immigrant and undocumented experience, as well as the unconventional communities which can form families.

The film was screened in the State Theater in downtown Austin, accompanied by a Q&A with the directors and actors. The ways in which the cast was crafted was an important element of the film. Dale Watson, one of the protagonists of the movie and a prominent country artist in Austin, was one of the panelists. He played the role of himself in the film. In the conversation following the screening, director Diane Paragas said that she essentially just asked “Dale to play Dale.” This use of a untrained actor, seen in Dale and a few other of the cast members, is a pillar of Italian neorealism. As in the great neorealist films of Vittorio De Sica and Frederico Fellini, Yellow Rose succeeds in providing an authentic representation of local Austin characters.

Another important cast member is Princess Punzalan, a well-respected actor in the Philippines. Punzalan’s presence links the film to the Philippines, where part of Yellow Rose was shot . Here one can see another tenant of neorealism: the of “the street as the set.” Considering that this is a low budget film, these deliberate choices emphasize the goal of the director in creating a film which authentically represents both the Texas and the Filipino part of the film and its characters. The Broken Spoke bar is featured as a central location; it is where Rose works, lives, and sings. This honky-tonk holds importance in the Austin scene as well, and reiterates how the director prioritized these representations of her physical identity. Although the film is not strictly neorealist, it does utilize similar stylistic strategies quite effectively.

The context of Yellow Rose is very prominent; namely, the subject of immigration, which is a hot topic in our state of Texas. The shots of Austin will conjure nostalgic feelings for anyone who has spent time in the city, especially those audiences that attended the Austin Film Festival. These contradictory feelings of comfort and nostalgia alongside the hardships reflected in the immigrant narrative created a unique film experience.

In the Q&A, there was a strong message about this film not being political. I felt as though a difference in individual motives may have played a role in my experience of the film. I found myself moving from scenes where Roses mother had just been deported, pleading with her teen daughter to come with her through a detention center phone, to a scene where Rose began recording her music with Dale Watson in his beautiful home. It was difficult at times to internalize what was happening at the same time that Rose was rising to fame. Dynamism is very present in the film in this way, accompanied by Langian shots which feature objects that represent Roses mother. The use of dynamism juxtaposes the basic elements of being a teenage girl against the difficulties of balancing that identity with being an undocumented immigrant.

The cinematography of the film is beautiful. The colors are primarily soft and warm, with a western tinge that evokes Austin in the scenes that accompany Rose through her adventures. These colors serves as a sharp contrast to the scenes that include police raids and the detention centers, further entrenching dynamism in the film’s technical language. These scenes are surrounded by neon lights, sirens, and loud noises, often provoking feelings of anxiety. The violence of the shot in these scenes, reflected through the sharp movements and shaky camera, bring the viewer into a feeling of instability which is characteristic of being undocumented. These scenes then abruptly switch into beautiful shots and warm colors that bring the viewer into a feeling of calm. These contradictory color schemes sit with the viewer throughout the film. Although there is a beautiful and soothing feeling to the mise-en-scène, the issues at hand never feel completely resolved.

Another defining aspect of Yellow Rose is Rose’s music, which often functions as a sound bridge between scenes. Rose’s songwriting shapes the story line but also the soundtrack, almost a reflexive act serving to remind the viewer that they are watching a film. It exists in the story line, in the dialogue, and in the cinematography of the film itself.

Rose herself is in a way a contradiction, living between two worlds which are presented in both the public and private parts of her life. Her music is country, her heritage is Filipino, and she wrestles with this as teenagers do: with rebellion and spirit. In her music this is reflected most clearly, serving as another perspective into her character development. Through her music the viewer understands Rose. In addition to the sounds used, during these scenes the cinematography plays in with the soundtrack to create an element of intimacy with the viewer via close up shots. The director invites us to sit in these contradictions, whether they be through the colors and sounds or her own identity.

Paragas does a beautiful job of representing the many sides of Texan identity, including everyone from Dale Watson to Rose with the Texas sunsets as the backdrop. The dedication of the crew was evident by the mere turnout of those who had worked on the film, and it was a pleasure to view this film during the Austin Film Festival.

AFF 2019: The Unending Pursuit of Justice

March 26, 2020 by be5355

by Arvind Ashok

The protagonists in each of the three films I saw at this year’s Austin Film Festival — Scott Z. Burns’ The Report, Mitko Panov’s The Witness, and Daniel Destin Cretton’s Just Mercy — capture an earnest and dogged pursuit of justice, a compelling characteristic in a time where depictions of honest, moral public servants in media like The West Wing and All the President’s Men seem dated and in need of an update.

In The Witness, Vince Harrington, a young and idealistic Hague employee, ventures to Macedonia to find the reclusive and aging Nikola Radin, who is needed as a witness to convict a notorious war criminal. His journey is marred by a hostile government intent on not letting Radin testify. Then there’s the problem of Radin himself, who the film portrays as living in an isolated area with his young adult daughter.

Many individual elements of the film are sufficient to spark intrigue, but it suffers from tonal and thematic disjunctions that dull its impact. The film establishes a charming mentor-mentee rapport between Harrington and a senior judge at the Hague, leading one to believe that the film will focus on Harrington changing her ready-to-give-up attitude by finding Radin and proving the value of legal institutions. However, the film quickly throws this relationship away and turns into a middling action movie, complete with two companions the government assigns to Harrington that oscillate between idiotic and vaguely threating. Then, as Harrington tears off on his own to find Radin and escape with him and his daughter (a character who receives minimal development), the film shifts again, turning into an array of top shots and extreme long shots of a melancholic natural landscape. The characters frequently appear in silhouettes as they journey through the woods, especially as they rest in a cave. Panov, in these shots, seems to want the film to be a quiet and reflective journey about what bringing justice to war criminal entails.

As darkness and wilderness consume the frame, the film evokes a sense of how survivalist conditions — in war and in nature — work to decay moral reasoning and promote a loss of self. However, this theme never fully develops, and it’s unclear if there’s a coherent message about justice Harrington or the audience can gain from his experience.

Unlike the mixed messages The Witness sends on its lead’s persistent idealism, The Report leans into it full force. Adam Driver — a hot commodity at the moment, appearing in Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story and Star Wars — delivers a superb performance as Daniel Jones, an employee of Senator Diane Feinstein tasked with compiling a report on the torture carried out post 9/11 by the Bush Administration. Driver channels the steely resolve of Dustin Hoffman’s Carl Bernstein and dials it up with a domineering physicality and impassioned arguments against the effectiveness of torture.

As a rare Driver skeptic, I found him phenomenal in this role. So much of the movie is him arguing with Senator Feinstein and various CIA-adjacent operatives, and yet it never fails to be riveting because of how convincingly the film portrays Jones as a man working with seemingly the entire government as an obstacle.

The film provides nothing too visually engaging, but the direction is functional; Each of the film’s conversations — and there are many — play as a power struggle anchored by close-ups of Driver’s sullen and determined face. In Senate hearings, we look up at the Senators elevated in their chairs. The hero, it is implied, is oversight and accountability peering down. The settings remain sparse and maintain a government meeting-room sterility, which evokes a sense of paranoia and secrecy throughout the film. Much of the film takes place in enclosures, especially the windowless CIA room where Jones is left for many years to comb through records of “enhanced interrogation” on a computer. Jones is frequently boxed in visually by the furtive spaces he inhabits (no doubt a representation of the constricting arm of the CIA seeking to protect its reputation), but paper, the thing he retorts “helps us keep track of laws” after being told by a CIA employee that paper tends to lead to trouble, is his ally and shield.

Another simple but effective visual element is the film’s use of light, which shines especially brightly on one of the film’s authority figures in a key moment, reminding them of their responsibility to “shed light on” the harm caused by past mistakes.

The film’s depiction of torture, however, grows tiresome. The inexperienced psychologists responsible for selling enhanced interrogation are portrayed as macho, greedy goons, and while the characterization may be true, the film wastes far too much time flashing back to them selling and executing torture techniques. An inevitable comparison point here is Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty, an acclaimed but controversial film that The Report directly calls out for advancing a false narrative about the utility of torture in killing Osama Bin Laden. Unlike Bigelow’s film, The Report isn’t concerned with lingering on the guilt and pain associated with the act of torture. It plays loud metal music over the torture scenes, meant to mirror the loud music detainees were subjected to, but this only helps depersonalize the affair. Despite Zero Dark Thirty’s allegedly pro-torture stance, the handheld camera in its torture scenes and the ways in which the viewer is forced to identify with the torturer taking prolonged looks at the victim invite a reckoning with the moral costs associated. In The Report, no such self-reflection is invited: anonymized victims are merely subjected to cruel acts, and we move on. The differences in depictions of torture is emblematic of the differences in the two films, which should no doubt be viewed as companion pieces featuring similarly uncompromising protagonists working towards very different goals. The Report has a clear idea of who the good guys and bad guys are, and is so intent on proving it that it never lets us see too much of its character’s interiority. Zero Dark Thirty, meanwhile, probes Maya’s internal state thoroughly but skimps on facts. Despite perhaps being more concerned with telling a political story than being morally testing cinema, The Report accomplishes the tasks of education and entertainment very well, providing a main character that is downright inspiring in his fiery quest to see the truth be told.

*Just Mercy* (dir. Destin Daniel Cretton)

Just Mercy features esteemed lawyer Bryan Stevenson on a similar quest for truth played by Michael B. Jordan, who phones in much of his performance. The emotional beats of the story are familiar but powerful: Stevenson arrives in Alabama to help Walter McMillan, a wrongfully convicted man brilliantly played by Jamie Foxx, get off death row.

Despite the generic feel of both the script and the direction, the moving nature of the actual story grounds the success of the film. The evidence behind McMillan’s conviction is so obviously terrible that one would accuse the film of a lack of nuance if were purely fictional, but since it isn’t, a pervasive sense of injustice abounds throughout. The scenes inside the prison housing McMillan and other death row prisoners are particularly affecting, as the film often shows them in close-ups, obscured from full visibility to each other and the audience by prison walls. Despite being filled with platitudes like “we can change this world for the better,” Just Mercy manages to be worthwhile just based on the emotions etched into Jamie Foxx’s face during these scenes alone.

Blackness and Affection at the Austin Film Festival

March 26, 2020 by be5355

*The Obituary of Tunde Johnson* (dir. Ali LeRoi)

by Libby Carr

A bildungsroman of the harsh and the heartfelt, The Obituary of Tunde Johnson is a haunting meditation on police brutality, young queer love, and reliance – on others and on oneself. Written by Stanley Kalu and directed by Ali LeRoi, the film follows Tunde Johnson, a gay Nigerian-American teenager in Los Angeles, through a Groundhog Day-esque series of his own death. Tunde is killed by police and forced to live the same day over and over again, his evenings brought to a brutal end by racially motivated police violence.

In the first scene of the film, Tunde comes out to his parents while a news broadcast about racism in America hums in the background. The coming out goes well, but as Tunde rushes off to his boyfriend’s 18th birthday party, we understand they have made a pact to come out together that evening, and boyfriend Soren O’Connell, who Variety describes as having “perhaps the whitest character name ever put onscreen,” is deeply closeted and hesitant. Before Tunde can arrive, however, he is pulled over by police. Despite doing everything right — hands on the wheel, announcing his movements — the skittish cops kill him on the street. Tunde wakes up gasping in his own bed as we hear his obituary read aloud to us, a motif that runs the course of the film.

Following the first murder, Obituary turns from a shocking narrative into a film with less story and more meditation on adolescence. The joys in the film come through Tunde, seeing him happy with his friends and Soren. We notice the small changes Tunde makes to his final day as we see it repeated; we discover his best friend Marley is sleeping with (and in love with) Soren. As Tunde repeatedly experiments with different ways to tell Marley, win Soren’s commitment, and discover his place as a young adult, we are invited to focus on his spiritual survival alongside his literal survival. This French New Wave reference is not inconspicuous. Early in the film, we watch Tunde and his friends in film class, where they analyze the last scene of Truffaut’s The 400 Blows.

If the joy of the film is portrayed through Tunde’s loving banter with his parents and friends, the tragedy of the film comes from the artful nuances of his deaths. As we move through the film, every death became more distant. At first, we are close to Tunde: we see the bullets pierce his shirt, see the smoke, see the blood. But the second time we watch Tunde die, it is the same death through dashcam footage from inside the police car. We are separated by a screen from Tunde’s reality. Later, we only recognize his voice and hear gunshots from down the block. The final time we watch Tunde die, we are not privy to the escalation at all, but we watch him strangled, head against the concrete, and we are forced to endure. Ali LeRoi describes this shot as a metaphor for the greater violence against Black people in America: “You might want to look away, and you might look away, but when you look back, it’s still happening.” Just like the repetitive cycle of Black death in the U.S. today, the audience is more and more removed every time Tunde is killed. We feel ourselves pulling away from the violence while Tunde lives every day in fear of how it will end.

This film would be even more challenging to watch if it were not for LeRoi and Kalu’s commitment to display the love in Tunde’s life alongside the death. This is a film about a life, not a death. As a result, the audience sees Tunde loved as often as, if not more than, we see the violence against him that makes up the conceit of the film. There are heartfelt moments between Tunde and his best friend Marley; a beautiful sex scene with Soren; gentle and caring interactions with Tunde’s parents. It is in these artistic decisions, as opposed to in the details of representation of Tunde’s life, that the film finds its strength.

Visually, however, LeRoi has created a beautiful film. Often in a single shot, focus is racked between multiple objects in the frame to emphasize the variability of every iteration of Tunde’s final day. One rack in particular is essential for the final turn of the film. In one film class scene, focus shifts to and from one of Tunde’s unnamed classmates, a Black girl. In the final moments of the film, Tunde survives the night; the cost, we discover, is this girl’s life. Sydney Harris, as we learn her name in death, has been killed by police, and the Groundhog Day cycle has presumably shifted to her, just like the focus. This is an example of an overarching issue with the film. Often, we are presented with a successful concept, but lacking the detail to flesh out the execution. This system may have been more successful, for example, if we had learned more about Sydney Harris earlier in the film. Nonetheless, The Obituary of Tunde Johnson is a visually stunning film that tells a painful and timely story.

LeRoi and Kalu’s story dovetailed nicely with Patrick Wimp’s Brothers from the Suburbs, a short film portraying three Black teenage boys navigating a wealthy, suburban private school. It is a playful portrayal of the same racism Tunde Johnson faces in his world. Unlike Tunde, however, these three boys escape literal death; instead, they get caught up in a rain of micro- and macro-aggressions.

*Brothers from the Suburbs* (dir. Patrick Wimp)

The most charming scene of Brothers is a montage of the three boys taking turns in the bathroom, getting ready for a much-anticipated party. Whimsical colors surround them as they shave, smoke, and dance into the mirror. When the trio arrives at the party, however, they are told by their classmate’s mother that it’s a private party. Even when they explain they were invited, she refuses to let them in. But the text-ex-machina arrives! The party is, of course, in the exorbitantly large carriage house around back. The boys spend most of their time at the party drinking and smoking in choke-close shots. It is evident that they are not supposed to be there, but they bounce jokes and side-eyes off each other to tune out the white kids.

Eventually, the boys dip when the mother shows up with cops, trying to get them to arrest the Black boys that have infiltrated her party. If this was a scene in Tunde Johnson’s story, the presence of cops would be a point of no return. But in Brothers, the cops are positioned to make the racist mother seem ridiculous; they refuse to arrest the boys, and the trio escapes — but not without a “I don’t see color!” quip from one of their classmates.

The Obituary of Tunde Johnson attacks the present state of anti-Blackness in the U.S. more effectively than Brothers from the Suburbs, though they deal with different densities of the same issue. The different kinds of love and affection displayed in Obituary feel indispensable in a film about Black death. Similarly, the scenes of joyful affection between the three main characters in Brothers… feel radical. Both films engage in an invaluable effort to portray tender and vulnerable Black masculinity on screen. Similarly, both films feel extremely modern, from their use of slang, to social media, to music throughout. However, they root all of their characters in extreme wealth, to the loss of potential idiosyncrasies of a variety of relationships to class. This homogeneity is where both films lose some of their radical potential.

None of the films I saw at Austin Film Festival, including Apartment 413 and Collect Call, passed the Bechdel Test, unless you count a three-line quip in The Obituary of Tunde Johnson referencing an eating disorder. However, the films, particularly Obituary and Brothers, tackled other issues and allowed me to ponder a Bechdel Test for Black characters or for queer characters. Ultimately, The Obituary of Tunde Johnson is a successful commentary on the state of anti-Blackness in the U.S., even if it is lacking in character idiosyncrasy.

AFF 2019: Modern and Classic Cinema

March 26, 2020 by be5355

by Will Shute

I’ve never been to a film festival before the 2019 Austin Film Festival. Based on what I’ve heard about film festivals, I think I got the full experience. I saw more than my share of movies in a single week. In order, I saw Cows with No Name, half of A Portrait of a Lady on Fire (until the projector broke and they stopped the screening), The Two Popes, A Hidden Life, Treasure Trouble, Waves, and Marriage Story. While I really liked The Two Popes and what I saw of A Portrait of a Lady on Fire, the two movies I left with the strongest impressions of were hands down Waves and Marriage Story. Both movies handle different concepts of family from two varied perspectives and styles. While both movies are about a fracturing of a family, and the attempts to keep them together, Waves is more focused on the drama of the event that causes the fracturing, while Marriage Story’s fracturing event takes place off screen before the movie even starts. Stylistically the two could not be more different, while Waves bathes (pun intended) in modernity, Marriage Story is more classical in form.

For the lack of any other way to say it, Waves is probably the most movie I’ve seen in a movie in a while. This movie moves at a mile a minute, with constant, never ending engagement and sensation. While never boring, Waves proves utterly exhausting by its conclusion. The film’s frequent and unique edits, abstract color imagery, intense usage of music from beginning to end, and unexpected story beats works in making Waves feel like a unique experience from beginning to end, all making it feel particularly modern. This modern presentation represents the contemporary age that the youthful characters inhabit, making them blend seamlessly into each other.

The sound design in Waves is spectacularly motivated, something that many films overlook. There are moments where a sound will begin, which the film effortlessly justifies the sound diegetically. There is a moment where a song starts playing, and then the background track of the song is revealed to actually be the sound of MRI machine that a character enters in the next scene, which is also then used as a background track for another song in the next scene. This demonstrates the connected nature of these events in the story through the discordant sound of the MRI machine.

Another less “showy” example of this is a scene in a car where two characters are arguing, and as they are arguing you start hearing an annoying beeping sound, which gets louder as the lead ignores it until he gets frustrated with it and puts on his seatbelt. The attention to the blending of diegetic and nondiegetic sound design and motivation of the sound both emotionally and logically in its presentation was something I found enthralling.

I was not a fan, however, of the constantly shifting aspect ratio. In general, I don’t enjoy when a director uses aspect ratio shifting as a gimmick, as this device has become increasingly common in modern films as they reflect on the medium of film. While after some mental adjustments I didn’t mind the aspect ratio changes in the first half, most all of the aspect ratio changes in the second half felt a lot less motivated and just started annoying me. Still, Waves is a very tender, personal film that really left an impact on me.

On the other side formally from the modernity of Waves exists Marriage Story. Just to set the stage, Marriage Story is a fantastic movie, probably one of the better scripts I’ve seen this year, with every detail of the characters blending together into what just feels like a cohesive portrait of two flawed and yet understandable people. This focus on the realistically small minute details of these characters is benefitted through the much more classical form of film. Very few times does Marriage Story call attention to its own form, and nowhere near how Waves does.

Marriage Story formally has nods to theatre stylistically. There are several scenes that end with the subjects in the foreground’s lights going off and then the background lights dimming down, much as in theater productions. This connects with a stylistic choice of the subtle difference of how writer/director Noah Baumbach presents the two locations of the film: New York and Los Angeles. New York is seen as a colder place, with more theatrical elements being used to tell the story with little to no camera movements, while Los Angeles is warmer and presented with more camera movements, and cinematic moments.

The jewel of Marriage Story is, hands down, the writing, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the writing in this film. The movie starts by being adorable and funny, and Immediately establishes why you should care about the characters, and then sets up what the conflict is and relishes in it. From the wonderfully handled conflicts to a shockingly powerful musical performance, the movie always seems to be working in favor of itself and its goals—something I consider a rare feat.

I saw such a wide variety of films at this festival, from a documentary about family drama, to a family drama during Nazi occupation, to a family drama about growing up, and a family drama about divorce. Waves and Marriage Story left me with so much to think about in the separation of their forms. The different approaches to similar themes and ideas really represent what each film was working towards accomplishing, which they both did. Waves was the most engaging and emotionally draining film I saw at the festival, with emotions and active participation being a key part of my enjoyment of it, while Marriage Story hasn’t been able to leave my active consciousness since I’ve seen it, with some lines and moments haunting me ever since. These two vastly different viewing experiences defined my festival experience. I’m very thankful for the opportunities to see these at the festival, which has been a highlight of my time at this school.

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