[Pierre-Alexandre Despatis suffers for his cinema. Now covering his second edition, our official festival reporter and multi-function human cyborg will provide us the sights (plenty of cool pics!), the sounds, the reviews and the occasional interviews of the still very young 5th edition of the Tribeca film festival. Below are some of Pierre-Alexandre’s reviews in easy to read, insightful capsule form. Enjoy!]
LOCKDOWN, USA
Similar in many ways to ROCK THE BELLS, LOCKDOWN, USA documents Russell Simmons' quest to repeal New York State's Rockefeller Drug Laws and he shows the devastating effects that such acts have had for the families of the convicted. Figures are impressive; 2M people have been locked up in jail. Michael Skolnik and Rebecca Chaiklin's documentary poignantly demonstrates by use of many charts showing how such laws are unfair and how they especially target the black and Hispanic communities. Also thought-provoking is how the filmmakers made a strong point in outlining the importance of the prison lobby in the issues; after all, they benefit from having all the cells occupied! The film's 'in your face' approach is helped with the film's hip hop music soundtrack; its authoritative narration and the powerful footage of Russell Simmons' quest are truly remarkable.
FAREWELL BENDER
Remove all the comedy and hilarious situations from American Pie, and you'd probably get a film similar to FAREWELL BENDER. Part of the few select films made by young directors, the film is also reminiscent of other disillusioned, teenage-angst youth films, such Araki's film amongst many others. Matt Oates' FAREWELL BENDER starts right after a group of students lose one of their friends in an accident. We don't see the accident, only its destructive consequences. Apart from the few strong sequences most of the film’s aesthetics are rather ordinary, however the rawness of the aesthetics match with the roughness of the young friends' tormented minds and raw feelings. While watching depressed guys on the screen is, well, rather depressing and unsatisfying, the film has many qualities. For instance, despite the fact that the film tackles the same old and over used issues ("what will I do later in life", "our life could end just like that in a moment so we must spend our time wisely", …), it does so in a thought-provoking manner.
WHEN I CAME HOME
Perhaps Tribeca's programmers are either democratics, anti-republican or neo liberals or perhaps its simply because of the collective unconscious of the filmmaker community, but many films presented at this year’s Tribeca edition fall into the anti-war category. THE WAR TAPES highly criticizes the war via the p.o.v of the soldiers, UNITED 93 criticizes Bush's absence during 9/11, and now while WHEN I CAME HOME isn't about war itself, it is about the pitiable treatment of war veterans by the Bush administration. There are 300,000 homeless veterans in the US alone — many of them just came back from Iraq or Afghanistan – while there is an estimated 1.2 million homeless in the US; do the math! Shot with an activist point of view, Dan Lohaus' documentary follows Herold Noel’s battle against the state who refuse to help him despite him being diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder following his enrollment in the army. His compelling personal story and the film's style are both compelling and revolting. INSERT does an impeccable job at making its point. The open-ended ending of the film points out quite clearly that this is an ongoing battle and that the problem won't be solved overnight … but there is hope. WHEN I CAME HOME is a difficult and disturbing piece to watch but definitely stunning in the manner in which it presents the issues to an unknowing audience – even those who understand the problems at hand have no clue to the gravity of the problem.
JESUS CAMP
Like many recent films (e.g.: Jesus, You Know by Ulrich Seidl) that pertain to the same issue – this film deliciously examines extremist Christians. JESUS CAMP by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady follow several kids as they embark on their summer holiday to an evangelical summer camp aimed at making them Christian Soldiers in 'God's Army'. This is wild – very wild! Praying to Jesus through PowerPoint presentations, these kids are brought to believe that there is no truth to global warming and that its relevance is of no importance since good old Jesus is coming back soon. Of course, there is also a Harry Potter rant out of which comes one of the best quotes of the film: "Warlock are sinners . had he been put in the old testament, Harry Potter would have been sentenced to death!" It's was enlightening (to say the least) to watch such a film after seeing Randy Olsen's A FLOCK OF DODOS and after watching a TV show about how the Boy Scouts of Americas are discriminating against gays and atheists. The film's camerawork is rather amateurish looking, but the real strength of the documentary lies in the editing which is practically flawless. The excerpts chosen from the interviews or camp activities are perfect and the editing is not used in any propaganda-ish way to make the subject of the documentary look bad – people in the film just take care of that themselves! Having faith or not is a question of personal opinion, but some people are just pushing it a bit too far and that's exactly what the film displays in full view.
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