Sundance - Day Ten

Somehow, it seems fitting to work my way backwards through Friday. It was a two for three day at the movies, but somehow, I expect that you'll be experiencing these films in the reverse order of my day when the movies meet the world, so...

I.K.U. is a Midnight Movie entry and it is likely to live out its life, at least in the U.S. as exactly that...a midnight movie. However, it may be one of the greatest Midnight Movies ever. The festival program did its best to warn the shy..."headed straight for your libido..."an experimental extravaganza of sight, sound and sex"..."explicit erotic filmmaking". And that was just the first paragraph! Perhaps some were thrown by the film's pretensions to being related to Blade Runner. But about 40 percent of the audience was gone before the lights came up. The exodus started about 5 minutes into the movie and never stopped. Why? Probably because this was an experimentally styled bit of erotic cinema and not an homage to Ridley Scott.

But what about the film? It was madly brilliant. The entire movie is composed of sexual encounters by androidal women with "XXX" tattooed on their wrists. The sex is served up in a wide variety of stylized settings, heavy on camera movement and computer animated backgrounds and effects. In the audience discussion afterwards, director Shu Lea Chang described the film as part of the digital generation, ready to be downloaded and recreated in hundreds of variations with little effect on the ultimate quality of the film. And indeed, she is right. This film is like a series of beautiful, wild, sexual encounters with all kinds of imagery attached. My favorite was probably the restaurant where dinner was served on one side of the fish tank and sex on the other. As the fish swam through and the people engaged...well, it was quite wonderful. I wasn't drunk and I don't get stoned, but this movie could be a classic Midnight Movie. It's not a porno movie, but it is sex. It's not a narrative, yet it tells all kinds of stories. It is truly a piece of art.

Going backwards, past dinner and to the Slamdance Festival Awards, I was thrilled to be there as Farhad Yawari won the Audience Award for his Dolphins. Seriously...commit this young man's name to memory. He is going to be an important filmmaker as time goes on. Last year's Audience Award Winner was Man of the Century, which was picked up by New Line and is probably the best known film out of last year's Slamdance. And so, I expect the same for Dolphins. To be truthful, I haven't seen most of the other award winners, so I don't have a lot of opinions about them. But take a look here on Monday and we will be putting up Rod Hewitt's five days of Slamdance (and other "dance" festivals) coverage and you can read more about all of it. The awards ceremony was, as always seems to be the case, insanely crowded and hard to hear. But hey, a room full of people who love movies...how bad can that be?

Back again, when I arrived at the Yarrow Press Screening room Friday afternoon to see the much heralded Human Resources, I was disappointed to see the screening had been changed. But what the heck? I went in and watched Butterfly's Tongue. WOW! I guess if I'd been paying attention, I would have recognized the name of the director JosŽ Luis Cuerda as the producer of another film that caught me off guard, Open Your Eyes, which I caught at ShoWest last year and really enjoyed. This film is set in Spain circa 1938. The movie is about a young boy named Moncho, who is headed for his first day of school. There, he finds an older man as a school teacher, who truly loves his work. Noting how sensitive and shy Moncho is, he takes the child under his wing and Moncho flourishes with just that little extra attention. Meanwhile, the political unrest in Spain seems to be at a distance. But will that distance remain? One of my favorite movies of recent years is Ponette, a story of death told through a young girl's eyes and heart. So too here, there is incredible charm and a strange insight in Moncho's world view. Simplicity makes sense. Director Cuerda manages to get a truly remarkable performance out of 8-year-old Manuel Lozano and veteran actor Fernando Fern‡n G—mez as the teacher, not that the rest of the cast isn't great too. This is a movie of the heart. I still want to see Human Resources, but I thank Miramax for forcing the change. I saw a wonderful movie for their efforts.

Okay...that's all for now. We're not going to publish on Sunday because I want to enjoy the Sundance Awards and the party afterwards without the pressure of rushing home to write. So come back Monday for a wrap-up of the whole 10 Days, plus the "Other Dances" coverage and the rest of Ray Pride's reports to boot. (I know...it's a lot...it may be late Monday or maybe even Tuesday before every bit of it is up.) In the meantime, enjoy the Super Bowl or the Super Bowl commercials or your Super Bowl party or the empty movie theaters you can run to while everyone else is sitting at home. And as ever, thanks for reading.

READER OF THE DAY: EC writes: "Have you ever seen the movie Safe Men? That's where I first saw Mark Ruffalo. When an actor can steal scenes from Steve Zahn and Sam Rockwell, it's a good bet that he'll be carrying something in the future. I think that film was also at Sundance...maybe in '97 or '98? not sure. Written/directed by John Hamburg. It's a great comedy, you should check it out if you haven't seen it yet!

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E ME: Anyone know if this was a Sundance film?!