Austin Film Festival

The Aquatic Titles of the Austin Film Festival

March 26, 2020 by be5355

by Skyler Goodman

Three films stuck out to me at the Austin Film Festival: Drowning, written and directed by Melora Walters; Undertow, written and directed by Miranda Nation; and Wade in the Water, written by Chris Retts and directed by Mark Wilson. The connection between these films goes beyond their water-themed titles. They all attempt to deal with obsession and how it drives the main character to lose touch with reality. Each film tries to establish the audience’s understanding of this obsession through various cinematographic techniques, but find different levels of success. Wade in the Water was the most successful at communicating this descent into obsession. The film incorporates interesting and unique devices, but the audience is never distracted for the sake of an effect. Undertow and Drowning also have some interesting elements, but their cinematic techniques tend to take away from the storytelling instead of complementing it.

Undertow is a film about Claire, a woman who recently had a miscarriage and the stress it puts on her relationship with her husband Dan. The hook of the film is Claire’s obsession with Angie, a young girl who is pregnant and somehow familiar with Dan. Nation tells the story through a straightforward narrative, though she is not afraid to indulge in symbolism. Mirrors are everywhere in Undertow. Scenes often involve multiple mirrors or other reflective surfaces, and from the very beginning, it is clear that the film will revolve around Claire’s distorted perception of herself and the world around her.

The film’s insistent inclusion of mirrors climaxes in a shot of Claire staring out of a window. We can only see the window and the street outside. Focus is pulled on the reflection of Claire’s face, and the shallow depth of field stops the background from distracting us. In this brief moment, we see Claire’s face morph into Angie’s face, a sign that Claire’s obsession has evolved into the belief that she, in some way, is Angie.

This shot is a novel visual device, but it feels artificial. It plays as if Nation wrote the scene to show off the effect. This moment is unnecessary for the audience’s understanding. At this point in the film, Claire’s obsession is implied through other elements of filmmaking that are less invasive. For example, Claire climbs next to Angie in the bed of Angie’s motel room and strokes her pregnant stomach as if it were her own, she staples Claire’s ultrasound next to a picture of her deceased child, and there is a bizarre hallucinated masturbation scene where Claire sees Angie in the bathroom with her.

Despite its shortcomings, Undertow has good ideas. It wants to tell a story through a unique visual design. There are various issues with continuity, sound design, and dialogue that disrupt the experience. Sound design is a large part of the film’s process. Claire frequently endures auditory hallucinations, and the audience is often subjected to them through strange sound effects. These effects attempt to put the audience into Claire’s world, but they are unsuccessful.

The effort to enhance a story with strongly cinematic techniques is admirable. However, Nation does not execute these ideas consistently, and as a result these directorial flourishes don’t always fit with the rest of the film. In other words, Undertow is unable to adequately develop its vernacular. It is in a perpetual flow of indecision between a daytime television show and an extremely symbolic art film. If a future version of Undertow can execute a consistent aesthetic, it will be well received.

Drowning follows Rose, an anxious mother whose anxieties are only growing now that her son is fighting in Iraq. The film’s color palette stands out from Wade in the Water and Undertow. At the post-show Q-and-A, Melora Walters — who wrote, directed, and starred in the film — mentioned that this was a conscious decision intended to represent how Rose feels in different spaces. The color grading shifts throughout the film. It is sometimes the cliché teal and orange like Undertow and Wade in the Water, but it also changes to a natural and warm look inside of the bookstore where Rose works. For most of the film, the color is a starkly desaturated red and teal. This grade is reminiscent of the two-strip Technicolor process from the early 20th century. The light was filtered through a red filter and a green filter onto two strips of black and white film. This was a popular way to achieve a color film, albeit with limited hues. Martin Scorsese also replicated this look for his film, The Aviator.

Formally, the colors are successful in communicating how Rose is feeling, but such a drastic color grade is a delicate process for digital footage. Without optimal lighting and equipment, there are often strange color artifacts that can seriously distract from its formal purpose. This problem is similar to Undertow’s issue with sound design. These are two ideas with the potential for strong formal storytelling that require a consistent and polished execution to be effective.

The best scene in Drowning comes towards the end of the film when Rose is fighting with her partner Frank. She sits on the couch in a familiar wide shot that we have seen throughout the film. The two characters often talk or relax with each other here. However, they are no longer on good terms. What makes this scene effective is the lighting: it is almost completely dark, but there are two diegetic lights, a warm lamp in the frame to the left, and a cold blue light coming through a doorway on the right. As the two characters are fighting, they move in and out of this light. Their legibility is constantly shifting and chaotic. This scene is beautiful, and almost like a dance. It is shot on a tripod with no cuts and no camera movement. This is a clear example of Walter’s inspiration from Frederico Fellini, which she acknowledged at the Q&A session. She mentioned Fellini’s film La Strada as an inspiration to both the lighting and Rose’s character.

The above scene from Drowning is a perfect example of how it and Undertow could improve if either of these films were able to consistently execute their styles. They could express their stories with greater clarity through a polished vision. Drowning is a film with great potential to create unique visual storytelling, but it fails to commit with enough fervor and experience to make it convincing. Consistent execution of a solid formal language and style makes Wade in the Water stand out from these two films.

Wade in the Water is about “Our Man,” as he is billed in the credits. Our Man is an obese man in his 30’s who spends his days watching old cowboy movies and listening to gospel music. He is accidentally mailed a DVD containing graphic images of children and sets out on a mission to kill the pedophile who was supposed to receive it. The climactic moment of the kill happens surprisingly early in the film. The real story is the unlikely camaraderie that emerges between Our Man and Tilly, the pedophile’s teenage daughter.

The film quickly establishes a concise visual language that flows with the story instead of being ornamental. One of the first shots is a dolly out of Wade’s mailbox. It begins with only his box in the frame, but as the frame expands, we see an endless wall of uniform numbers. The audience is immediately able to understand how Our Man feels: trapped in a box. Our Man does not have a cubicle job. He works from home and answers the phone for an insurance company. He only leaves his house to go to his favorite restaurant and check the mail. There is a feeling of being squeezed throughout the film. Our Man cannot comfortably fit into most spaces, and neither can the audience. The film uses his small apartment, car, and restaurant of choice to make these issues stand out.

Presence and absence are two key concepts of this film. Some of the most impactful shots are ones that come back with key elements or characters missing from their normal places. After Our Man and Tilly’s friendship is ruined, his apartment becomes even more lifeless than it was in the beginning. One of the final shots in the film shows Tilly and Our Man sitting next to each other in a police station as he waits to turn himself in. There is an incredible feeling when we see Tilly sitting alone after Our Man leaves the frame. Her small form cannot hope to fill up space without him sitting beside her. The cinematography creates a fun dynamic between the two characters. The film deals with deeply dark ideas but deals with them in a physical and comedic way. There is a wonderful training montage in the first half of the film, and it works very well. It’s amusing to see Our Man throw away the old pizzas in his fridge and replace them with random vegetables that he will never cook.

The magic of Wade in the Water is the story. It never chooses style over substance and instead uses style for substance. It appears to be a simply shot film without too much decoration, but the film has an exact and constant vision of what it wants to show the audience. It stands out from Undertow and Drowning because while those films also approach isolated and obsessed characters, there is always a sound or a visual that takes the audience out of the film. Drowning and Undertow have plenty of interesting shots and strong stylistic choices. The problems arise when those choices do not serve the plot of the film and instead exist outside of it. The filmmakers of Wade in the Water do not try to do everything. They chose a specific set of tools and used them very well.

AFF 2019: Everything’s Shorter in Texas

March 26, 2020 by be5355

by Phoebe Anderson

Everything’s Shorter in Texas, presented by The Texas Film Commission (TFC) at the Austin Film Festival, featured six short films, each unique in vision but some more effective than others.

Bibi follows a young Latino man who has to reconcile with his father’s death years after his father rejected him for his sexuality. The editing and cinematography effectively advance the narrative, and while the plot felt overdone, the writers — J.M. Longoria and Victor M. Dueñas, who also acted as the director — brought a unique perspective to the piece.

Another short featured by TFC was Heavenly. Directed and written by Ya’Ke, the short follows a young black woman who becomes wrapped up in a system of prostitution and violence. Yarne, written and directed by Andrew Krakower, follows two young child monks and their friendship. All of these films brought diverse and politically involved stories to the screen, however Yarne was the most engaging and effective short of the series.

Yarne’s strength comes from its characters: Sonam (Konchok Rangdol) and Tashi (Dawa Dorjee), who are played by real child monks. This is one of the many aspects of the short film that appear to draw influence from the Italian neorealist tradition. Rangdol and Dorjee’s performances were honest and varied. The boys allow audience members to see themselves in the characters. After all, the story is a variant of what many of us experienced as children and continue to struggle with as adults: dealing with the class bully. All of the children bring energy and joy to their roles. Their smiles are contagious. Rangdol endears audiences with his honest and subtle expressions of excitement, anger, and fear. When Tashi steals Sonam’s money, I could feel the audience members stiffen. Some even voiced their objections, murmuring “No!” Although most of us knew what was coming, we still felt for Sonam due to Rangdol’s alluring performance.

The audience also appeared engaged by Bibi and Heavenly; however, their reactions were not as strong as those inspired by Yarne. In Bibi, Solis is given the address of his father’s caretaker due to his father’s wishes. When he gets there, he is faced with a handsome man who appears romantically interested in Solis. This invoked “Aww”s from the audience, though the crowd did not exhibit this deep attention throughout the piece. Furthermore, audience members appeared shocked by the ending of Heavenly as the main character, Crystal, stabs a violent and controlling classmate of hers. While the audience seemed to be engaged in the ending scenes of Bibi and Heavenly, it did not exhibit this level of care throughout the piece. In contrast, the room felt rapt throughout the whole showing of Yarne. There was group laughter at multiple times in response to the short’s comedic moments, and attentive stillness in response to the dramatic scenes.

Audience attention was not the only aspect that distinguished Yarne from Bibi and Heavenly. The overall narrative of Yarne felt more genuine and subtle than the other two. Heavenly felt heavy-handed, telling the story of a woman struggling with abuse who can only exercise agency through violence and murder. This trope appears often and is not as empowering as male creatives seem to think. The narrative also threaded flashbacks and dream sequences in a way that was more disorienting than effective. While stories of young women dealing with prostitution and violence are compelling, Ya’Ke created an empty world that left me wanting more of the character and less abstract dream sequences.

Bibi approached an increasingly common premise with a new take. Solis and his father write letters to one another when the subject matter is too difficult to speak aloud. The use of letters builds Solis’s father as caring and loving, doing his best after the death of his wife and Solis’s mother. The father character is then stilted by faulty writing. When Solis learns his father had accepted him long ago, I could not help but think the narrative was forced in order to simplify the story. If his father accepted Solis, he would surely want him to know before he died. Why would he set his son up with his caretaker but not give his son a call in the years before his death? It is hard to feel the emotions the director pushes us toward at the end, because I could not stop thinking, “But why?”

The narrative for Yarne, on the other hand, was robust although the story was simple. One child is a bully, and one child wants a soccer ball. The film is a slice of life film that draws in audiences through world building and sympathetic, complex characters. Set in a monastery in Nepal, audiences unfamiliar with monasteries are given insight into a new world where children learn in a small schoolhouse, chase each other around the monastery, and spend all their allowance — which are donations to the monks — on sweets and Coca-Cola. There is one moment where the film’s resolution is lowered, and is edited to feel like slow-motion. We realize this is because one of the children has stolen an elder monk’s iPhone, and they are playing around with it, recording slow-motion videos. This simple moment reveals the underpinnings of the world of the monastery: finding joy and beauty in the small events.

Yarne’s world-building is enhanced by the character building. The simple characters, the bully and the protagonist, are made complex through the actors’ performances and the minimalist script. The script keeps the short from falling into the trap of character stereotypes. Instead of hearing the kids complain about Tashi, we see Tashi’s mean streak when he drinks all of Sonam’s coke for which they both paid. Director Krakower appears to derive inspiration from the “show, don’t tell” philosophy. Instead of hearing how manipulative Tashi can be, we see it. This allows the audience to empathize more fully with the characters.

Bibi and Heavenly were both engaging shorts with important themes, however Yarne stood above them. Yarne did not overcomplicate its plot like Heavenly nor did it compromise its characters half-way through the piece like Bibi. Instead it found the endearing moments of a simple premise and used these to build an exciting world and set of characters. Furthermore, the ending was inspiring and led audience members to lean in. When Sonam and Tashi rekindle their friendship, and Sonam forgives his friend, we are asked to let go of our own grudges. As the film fades out on Sonam and Tashi in fits of laughter, we are asked to laugh too.

How Five Words and Convenient Scheduling Shaped the Experience of a Film Festival Rookie

March 18, 2020 by be5355

by Zach Epstein

Walking into one’s first film festival can be intimidating. Being in the presence of acclaimed directors, critics, actors, and more is unfamiliar territory for someone who’s love for movies developed because of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

When I walked into the Galaxy Highland theatre for the first time, I had no idea what to expect. I entered a mostly empty theater to view Family Obligations. It wasn’t the sort of movie I typically sought out, yet I gave it a shot anyway. The movie was slow, little happened by way of plot, and the camera work said: “small budget, yet attention to detail.” The emotions evoked when a young man takes care of his dying uncle are present, but could have been conveyed more intensely.

At the end of the festival I got to see Ford vs. Ferrari, a surefire blockbuster featuring Matt Damon and Christian Bale arriving in theaters on November 15^th, just a few weeks after AFF. This is much more of a “movie” that I was used to, with big-name stars producing at a high level. It felt as if I was in a regular movie theater setting, though with a bit more excitement as it was an early release.

Neither of those two movies compared to my experience seeing Limbo. This 89-minute German film helped thrust me deep into the thrill of the festival. The movie was located and timed directly after Family Obligations, and after seeing five words in the description: “crook,” “undercover agent,” and “gangster boss,” I knew I was set up in the right place at the right time.

The movie begins with a compliance manager named Ana identifying a potential mistake in her company’s finances, just as the work week finishes on Friday afternoon. She chases after her boss insisting the issue is urgent, though that boss brushes off the worry and insists Ana join him and a third man in their car. The camera tracks their journey to a gas station, before strangely diverting to a seemingly (and in fact) trivial character, on an arbitrary 30-second walk, into a building.

Upon arriving in that building the camera turns to a fervent conversation between two men, and they too hop into a car. The movie then follows their entire road journey — a peculiar storytelling choice, as little took place during the ride.

That second car scene helped me realize that something was different about this movie, and only after it concluded I learned that the entire movie is filmed in a single shot. Known more commonly as a “one-shot film,” the filmmakers (present in the crowd) revealed this. “Were there any secret cuts?” a film festival employee asked. “No,” the filmmakers responded. “Originally, we had some dark corners and dark doorways just in case we wanted to include [a secret cut]. But we realized people would surely ask about this, so we intentionally brightened those areas to prove to audiences there were actually no secret cuts.”

This is the first one-shot film I’ve seen (or, at least, that I’ve seen knowing it was filmed in one shot), and it exemplified one of many new experiences film festivals offer. Filmmakers Anil Kizilbuga (the screenwriter) and Tim Dünschede (the director) navigate this bold approach quite impressively, plotting and accounting for little details throughout that could otherwise rupture the film’s continuity.

The film was shot a total of two times. The first time, the cameras simply went through the entire movie without stopping. This footage was viewed, analyzed, and utilized as a vessel to prepare loose ends before the second and final take. One example of how the filmmakers revised the plan for the second time around can be seen in the first car scene between Ana and the men. As the filmmakers recall, while initially filming that scene, “We hit 10 red lights in a row, and ran out of dialogue!” The timing of stoplights is one of many unpredictable elements within a one-shot film, so for the next take they scripted additional “backup” lines for the characters in case the lights delayed the ride once again!

Most drama/thrillers jump time throughout their movies to help build up hype and anticipation. Dünschede starts his one-shot masterpiece in the daytime, and still manages to build up to a climax taking place at night. Viewers are on the edge of their seats. The character development and familial ties come full circle even in such brief encounters. Making a film that captures action, emotion, and suspense in 89 minutes is an accomplishment. Doing that in one take is – as Kizilbuga described it to the festival audience – “a mind fuck.” But they do it, nonetheless. Delving deeper into the plot would ruin much of the surprise for those who haven’t seen this movie yet, so I will save my words in hopes others get to enjoy this film one day.

Part of what made the experience so special was speaking and interacting with these filmmakers after other attendees filed out. We talked about the remarkable characters portrayed by several of the actors and actresses, and they revealed some insights that made it even more special. None of the actors or actresses were paid, and only one (not Ana) is a professional. In fact, while most at least had avid-theater experience, Ana was the anomaly who didn’t!

This movie is not a summer blockbuster. It’s not a sequel, in a series, or directed by an award-winning star. In fact, it was Dünschede’s thesis project that he submitted back while still a film student in Germany. A heck of a thesis though it is, Dunschede somehow only received an A- on for his work. I politely disagree with the more qualified professor, giving the movie – and the experience of seeing it at AFF as a whole – a solid A+.

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