The Rain Falls Down on Portlandtown

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

POWFest 2012: THE SILENT TRUTH & SISTERS IN ARMS

Regardless of what your political views are on the military and military service, there are two must-see documentaries dealing with women in the military at POWFest this year.

First up is The Silent Truth; a look at the death of LaVena Johnson, a young female soldier whose demise while serving in Iraq was ruled a suicide by the U.S. Army. Director Joan Brooker-Marks (Larry Flynt: The Right to Be Left Alone) gives Johnson's father and mother, John and Linda Johnson, the opportunity to tell the story of their struggle to get to the bottom of what they feel are a suspicious set of circumstances surrounding their daughter's death; their own investigation leading them to a horrifying truth about systemic mistreatment of women in combat situations.

A still from The Silent Truth

Brooker-Marks was clearly operating on a relatively small budget here but, very much to her credit, she's quite well-versed in laying out a compelling story, regardless of any economic restraints. Her technique here includes the use of rough but very effective animation, emotionally compelling interviews with the Johnson family and the film's military consultant Colonel Ann Wright, and a well-rounded argument aided by ample research. The Silent Truth is a heartbreaking documentary of great importance and it needs to be viewed by as many people as possible.

A still from The Silent Truth

A still from Sisters in Arms

Beth Freeman's Sisters in Arms explores the participation of women in combat situations via the stories of three Canadian soldiers. The documentary doesn't spend any time quibbling over the issue of these women's right to be in combat. Instead, the film proves the worthiness of its subjects through a balanced examination of their domestic and occupational lives, peppering in an appropriate amount of context related to the history of women in the Canadian army. It's a very successful piece that reveals much about the kind of women rarely seen in film. What more could you ask for from a documentary?

A still from Sisters in Arms

Sisters In Arms Trailer from Beth Freeman on Vimeo.

Festival passes can be acquired at this link and tickets for individual screenings can be purchased here.

The Silent Truth and Sisters in Arms will screen together at POWFest on Sun., March 11th at noon at the Hollywood Theatre.

THAT GUM YOU LIKE IS GOING TO COME BACK IN STYLE @THE HOLLYWOOD THEATRE

David Lynch and Mark Frost's early 90s series Twin Peaks certainly qualified as event television during its first season. It's a phenomenon that rarely occurs nowadays; a mass audience gathering around a single show, now that seemingly endless options on cable, audience time-shifting (via dvr, streaming options, etc.), tv on dvd and video-on-demand (VOD) have significantly fractured the way in which we view content, thereby reducing a given show's possibilities for the level of water-cooler potential (keep in mind that even something as critically celebrated as a Mad Men or Breaking Bad is, as far as Nielsen ratings are concerned, more of a cult-hit than a commercial success) that 20th century shows enjoyed.

But back to Twin Peaks; a show that, when it premiered in April of 1990, seemed to possess limitless potential for expanding notions of what television could do but, by the time of its cancellation just over a year later, ended up frustrating the majority of its initial fan base. Plenty has been written about the mishandling of the show by ABC, so I won't waste time or energy detailing how both the creative and marketing teams behind the series failed to fulfill audience expectation.

Far more interesting is the show's continued influence on how television operates as a medium. There's a phrase that's invoked quite often in critical circles to describe the current state of the tv landscape: a new golden age of television. What's usually being referred to here is not the countless permutations of reality shows being hocked by the networks but the popular movement away from episodically-driven series to a more serialized form of scripted content. Shows like The Sopranos and Lost (as well as the aforementioned Mad Men) are regularly cited as high water marks within this revolution in televisual storytelling.

It's difficult to imagine the current climate existing without the groundwork laid by Twin Peaks. The show effectively showed how a series could break out of the self-contained episode trap that plagued much of tv before it. Lynch and Frost also taught creatives like J.J. Abrams/Jeffrey Lieber/Damon Lindelof (Lost), David Chase (The Sopranos) the value of injecting soap opera tropes into prime-time dramatic fare. But, beyond that, Twin Peaks helped usher in the notion that television could strive to be as good (and sometimes better) than cinema. After all, what are the best shows of today other than extended films that just happen to be exhibited via television?

Watching Peaks now it's possible to appreciate the struggle between the creative, the commercial and the audience reception during its short run. Lynch has stated on numerous occasions that he never intended for central mystery of the show ("Who Killed Laura Palmer?") to be resolved; a question for which, quite understandably, the average viewer wanted an answer. Despite never really returning the heights of the initial 10 or so episodes, there are only a few truly awful missteps (this episode is a particularly stinky one) once that struggle was in play.

I'd even argue that the series finale is a brilliant slice of surrealist cinema smuggled into the average joe's living room; I can't personally think of a more subversive hour in broadcast television history (outside of, maybe, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour).

The pilot episode of Twin Peaks will be screened at the Hollywood Theatre tonight (3/7) at 9:30. Beginning next Wednesday (3/14), the Hollywood will screen two episodes on Wednesday nights until "we find out 'who killed Laura Palmer.'" More info available here.

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Tuesday, March 6, 2012

POWFest 2012: Opening Night is All About Local Talent

POWFest (Portland Oregon Women's Film Festival) 2012 hits the ground running on this coming Thursday with a night of short films produced by local artists. The presentation underscores the festival's ongoing commitment to Portland talent. Even as they've tapped notable guests from without (for instance), POWFest has always strongly reflected and honored women's contributions in the local film community and this year's edition is no exception.

Highlights include:

Not To Be Taken, directed by Emily Setzer
A pensively-pitched drama that takes place across two time periods, featuring an outstanding performance by Patricia Zapp as a woman haunted by past events.

A still from Emily Setzer's Not To Be Taken

The Lost Van Gogh, directed by Jessica Lyness
A whimsical piece centered around the provenance of a neglected artwork, smartly captured entirely from the painting's POV.

A still from Jessica Lyness' The Lost Van Gogh

Stella's Flight, directed by Courtenay Hameister
A very funny film about ennui and what it takes for one women to break out of the cycle of chronic boredom.

A still from Courtenay Hameister's Stella's Flight

CPR, directed by Kimberly Warner
My favorite of the bunch, drawing dual inspiration from the visual aesthetic of Mad Men and the narrative sensibilities of The Twilight Zone. Cinematographer Gary Nolton's impressive images leap off the screen.

A still from Kimberly Warner's CPR

Festival passes can be acquired at this link and tickets for individual screenings can be purchased here.

The opening night Shorts 1: Locals Showcase kicks off this year's edition of POWFest on Thurs., March 8th at 7pm at the Hollywood Theatre. An opening night party will follow at 9pm @Large Films.

THE FILMS OF NICOLAS WINDING REFN: PUSHER III: I'M THE ANGEL OF DEATH (2005)

Fans of the Pusher trilogy are especially fond of Milo (Zlatko Buric), the Copenhagen-based drug boss who hunted Frank (Kim Bodnia) in the first film and appeared briefly in the second installment (in a subplot involving secondary character "Kurt the Cunt"). In Pusher III: I'm the Angel of Death, a much older-looking Milo takes center stage for his turn in the spotlight. Of course, following suit with the treatment of the other antiheroes populating Nicolas Winding Refn's trilogy, the film catches up with Milo on a day where everything he touches falls apart.

As the film opens, Milo is attending a narcotics anonymous meeting. When it's his turn to share, he glosses over his addiction, preferring to share his stress about plans for his daughter Milena's (Marinela Dekic) 25th birthday party. After leaving the meeting, we see that Milo's still involved in the drug trade, although he's got a bit of a supply problem at the moment; a much younger set of traffickers are forcing him to accept their terms on a bad deal. It's not long until the situation spirals out of his control, setting him up for both a relapse and an über-violent solution to his problems.

Refn is more in control of his craft here than in any other chapter in the trilogy. Take, for instance, the moment where Milo's craving for junk returns; it's accompanied by the most frightening conveyance of addiction I've ever seen onscreen, telegraphed entirely by a sound cue and tight cutting. Buric is frighteningly good as Milo here, affable at one moment, psychotic in the next. It's his show and he makes the most of it, delivering a full-bodied portrait of the type of man it takes to succeed at a high level in the underground drug trade.

A warning: the film contains a level of gore in its third act that borders on the cutting-edge makeup and practical special effects that Tom Savini pioneered in 70s and 80s horror classics like George Romero's Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead. It's extremely repulsive but doesn't diminish the knockout performance by Buric one bit. It only makes him more frightening.

Pusher III: I'm the Angel of Death will screen at the NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium (in the Portland Art Museum) on March 10th at 9pm & March 11th at 7pm. The film is part of the retrospective series, Driven: The Films of Nicolas Winding Refn.

Related links:
The Films of Nicolas Winding Refn: Pusher
The Films of Nicolas Winding Refn: Pusher II: With Blood on My Hands
The Films of Nicolas Winding Refn: Fear X
The Films of Nicolas Winding Refn: Drive

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THE FILMS OF NICOLAS WINDING REFN: PUSHER II: WITH BLOOD ON MY HANDS (2004)

Arriving some eight years after Pusher, Nicolas Winding Refn revisits the dour environs of Copenhagen for the second film in his trilogy, Pusher II: With Blood on My Hands. For this installment, he picks up with Tonny (Mads Mikkelsen); the former best friend of Frank (our protagonist from the first film), just as he's being released from prison.

Looking quite a bit more dim than he did in Pusher (anyone who has seen that film knows the reason), Tonny heads straight to see his father, Smeden (Leif Sylvester), hoping to work for him in order to pay off an outstanding debt owed to a former cellmate. His father's reception of him is, let's just say, less than ecstatic, but he begrudgingly allows him to take part in the family's car theft business.

Pusher II doesn't have Tonny actively dealing drugs like the other leads in the series, although he does help his friend Kurt (Kurt Nielsen) in an ill-advised deal with Milo (the great Zlatko Buric, revisiting his role from the first film). There still is quite a lot of drug abuse in the film. Tonny uses cocaine and other substances liberally throughout it, as do his friends and the mother of his infant son; a child that Tonny denies siring.

Exploiting those layers, Refn has his troubled character struggling against assuming a parental role at the same time that he's dealing with his own father's disapproval. To further exacerbate his daddy issues, Tonny has a much younger stepbrother and a best friend that Smeden favors over him.

The nice thing about this trilogy of films is that you can drop in on any of them without needing to see the other films in the series. Having said that, the manner in which the supporting characters of one film morph into the focus of a subsequent chapter only adds incentive to watch them in sequence.

But, if you can only catch one of the three, the second feature is the one to see. Mikkelsen portrays Tonny here as an injured animal, woefully damaged but not beyond redemption, albeit redemption of a most compromised order. In this second swing at setting a story in his version of Copenhagen, Refn aims to tell a far more nuanced and universally applicable narrative; the second time's absolutely the charm.

Pusher II: With Blood on My Hands will screen at the NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium (in the Portland Art Museum) on March 9th at 9pm & March 10th at 7pm. The film is part of the retrospective series, Driven: The Films of Nicolas Winding Refn.

Related links:
The Films of Nicolas Winding Refn: Pusher
The Films of Nicolas Winding Refn: Pusher III: I'm the Angel of Death
The Films of Nicolas Winding Refn: Fear X
The Films of Nicolas Winding Refn: Drive

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Monday, March 5, 2012

THE FILMS OF NICOLAS WINDING REFN: PUSHER (1996)

Fifteen years before Nicholas Winding Refn thrilled audiences with the genre-inspired hit Drive, he kicked off his career with Pusher; the first entry in an eventual triptych focused on the misfortunes of street-level drug dealers in Copenhagen. Looking at the Pusher trilogy now, it's possible to trace Refn's rapid advancement as he learned the tools of his trade, accumulating the distinctive flourishes (especially those based in lighting, cutting and camera placement) that characterize his work to this day.

In his first film, Refn relays the tale of Frank (Kim Bodnia), a bottom-rung dealer who owes money to Milo (Zlatko Buric), a local drug lord who's just as likely to call you his friend as he is to order his muscle to go to work on you. Despite having delayed payment on a prior loan, Frank convinces Milo to front him a large amount of heroin, certain that he's on the verge of a lucrative sale to an old acquaintance from his prison days. The police intervene before Frank can make the exchange, leaving him in the lurch--without the dope or the money--and hopelessly in debt to Milo.

Pusher is a gritty, downward spiral of a tale, captured in a visual style that reminds one of a television police procedural; Morten Søborg's handheld camerawork seems unafraid of swooping into dark corners where dark ambiance is sometimes favored over fine image detail. This run-and-gun shooting strategy places Frank and his accomplice Tonny (Mads Mikkelsen) in a dismal world filled with obstacles; the largest barrier to success being their own stupidity.

That last detail is worth hammering home: these are not the brightest or most likeable of characters, although Refn never foregrounds such judgments. Frank and Tonny's conversations may reflect a post-Pulp Fiction, criminals-are-everyday-people-too aesthetic, but the dialogue never crackles with the confidence and panache displayed by Tarantino's iconic thugs. It's not because Refn couldn't necessarily pen such dialogue but, rather, because his characters aren't intended to be read as closet intellectuals. They're misogynistic, boorish and unpleasantly base fellows through and through.

Pusher is essentially a neo-noir where the set of circumstances visited upon Frank feel earned, rather than the result of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. After spending the first half of the film watching Frank make awful choices, there's a righteous thrill in seeing him being dealt the consequences. The film tells the tale of one man's ruination. And Refn invites us to smugly watch as Frank's life story goes south.

Pusher will screen at the NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium (in the Portland Art Museum) on March 8 & 9th at 7pm. The film is part of the retrospective series, Driven: The Films of Nicolas Winding Refn.

Related links:
The Films of Nicolas Winding Refn: Pusher II: With Blood on My Hands
The Films of Nicolas Winding Refn: Pusher III: I'm the Angel of Death
The Films of Nicolas Winding Refn: Fear X
The Films of Nicolas Winding Refn: Drive

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Sunday, March 4, 2012

1 QUICK FIX #TWO: UNE NUIT SUR LE MONT CHAUVE (A NIGHT ON BALD MOUNTAIN)

Back in the late 90s, I caught a glimpse of a fascinating old animation while flipping channels in my cramped, one bedroom apartment in Berkeley, California. The short film was being aired on the local public access channel during a classical music show, due to its use of Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain" as its score. It possessed the look of ancient film stock mixed with a technique I'd never seen before; a shadow-filled, fluidly morphing style that, while crude at times, pointed to the stuff of nightmares more effectively than the realistically rendered animation of the now. Basically, it rocked my world for a few minutes...and then it was over.

Because I'd come in halfway through the film, all I had to go on were the two names I'd quickly jotted from the credits: Alexander Alexeieff and Claire Parker. Keep in mind, this was before YouTube or Wikipedia existed and, though IMDb was around, film information on the web was often incomplete and untrustworthy. Still, I was able to glean a few details from a web search: the short was named Une nuit sur le mont chauve (A Night on Bald Mountain), the animators were married and the mesmerizing technique devised by them was called pinscreen animation; a form of stop-animation that uses a far more complex version of those pin art toys you might remember from childhood.

Almost seven years later, the Unseen Cinema box set was released and I had the chance to see Alexeieff and Parker's work for the second time. It's still mindbogglingly effective in its overall singularity; I've had the chance to see other films by them but, while those were quite impressive, Une nuit sur le mont chauve seems to be the crown jewel of their career together.

So let's get on with it: here is Alexander Alexeieff and Claire Parker's 1933 masterpiece Une nuit sur le mont chauve:

Related links:
1 QUICK FIX #ONE: POWERS OF TEN
1 QUICK FIX #THREE: ORGANISM
1 QUICK FIX #FOUR: THE GREAT ECSTASY OF WOODCARVER STEINER

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