All film festivals are like glassed-in terrariums, separate ecosystems that are part of the culture at large, but also walled off unto themselves, visible to the outside world but not quite a part of it. Thus it is that films you might not bother to cross the street to see the rest of the year become burning, obsessional things that require manic devotion to witness. When it's worth it -- and, actually, a good number of films this year were above average -- it makes for a laudatory experience; when it's not, it's excruciating, especially because you know some other possibility playing the exact same time as your lousy film might end up being the Talk of the Festival, a shame you'll simply have to endure.
Still, when all was said and done, there were a number of exceptional films -- good and bad -- and a great deal of stuff worth noting.
Most tonally peculiar: Hungarian director Kornel Mundruczo's White God is essentially about a young girl named Lili (Zsofia Psotta) and her beloved mixed-breed dog, Hagen (played by two talented pooches, Body and Luke). They are separated by her mean-spirited father when the two of them are dumped in his lap by his ex-wife.
As Lili mourns the loss and eventually seems to move on, poor Hagen goes through a pitiless journey of damnation -- ending up in the clutches of a dog-fighter thug and forced to combat other, equally miserable pups. But then, Hagen breaks free, escapes the dog pound with an army of similarly disaffected canines, and, like Caesar in the Planet of the Apes remakes, leads them on a charge of personal retribution, where he lays waste to all the evil and petty-minded men who did him wrong.
Half the film is brutally verite -- needless to say, dog lovers will want to steer clear (even though, thankfully, the director includes a coda, explaining that all the dogs used in the film were strays, and all were taken to kind, loving homes after filming) -- but the other half becomes a violent kind of fairy tale in which dogs can have their day of revenge and terrorize an entire city in the process.
Most overhyped: In retrospect, we all probably put a bit too much stock in the premise of Craig Zobel's Z for Zachariah, based on the sci-fi novel by the late Robert C. O'Brien. In the book, a young farmer's daughter, possibly the last woman on earth, living on her parents' old farm in the mountains of West Virginia after a nuclear holocaust lays waste to nearly everyone else on the planet, meets a lone-surviving man, and the two try unsuccessfully to navigate a relationship.
In the film adaptation, Zobel adds a third man (played by Chris Pine) to join the unsettled couple (Margot Robbie and Chiwetel Ejiofor), to make the film much more about male one-upmanship and pettiness than anything else. As I wrote in my capsule review, it figures that of the last three humans on earth, two of them want to kill each other. It's not a terrible film, just not terribly good, to the consternation of the critics packed into the thoroughly jammed premiere screening.
Most surprising film: If you hear the premise of Alfonso Gomez-Rejon's Me & Earl & The Dying Girl -- an even-keeled and laid-back high school senior is forced by his mother to befriend a female classmate he doesn't much know after she is diagnosed with leukemia -- you might assume a lot of things, but you likely wouldn't come close to the curious emotional grip the film ultimately has over you.
Warned in advance that it was a supreme weep-fest at the end, I entered emotionally prepared for such, but even so was weathered down to snuffling tears by the end. The thing is, the film is also pretty damn funny -- though perhaps a tad too precious at times -- but when it's time to rain emotional Ragnarok on your psyche, it doesn't hesitate to bury you alive.
Expect to hear more about this film by the time it gets released, after being acquired by Fox Searchlight after a furious bidding war. And expect to hear more about one of the actors below.
Scariest goat: Hands down, it was Black Phillip, the dark-hued goat suddenly befriended by a pair of young twins in Robert Eggers' excellent pilgrim horror film, The Witch, which stormed the festival in the early going and remained a consistent fave of most of the critics on hand.
The film follows the travails of a devout family of 17th-century New England settlers as they move from the township they lived in to a point right on the edge of wilderness some hours away. First, their baby is whisked away from its bassinet while their eldest daughter (Anya Taylor-Joy) is watching her; then their crops fail; then the other goats start milking blood.
It's a brilliantly made film, based on several folk tales and utilizing some of the very dialogue recorded in notes and dockets of the time. But Black Philip ... he's just unsettling. And that's before you hear his voice.
Most idiotic mistake I made: Sigh. All psyched to see Noah Baumbach's newest film, Mistress America, I walked over to the public screening one evening with my ticket in hand and waited an hour and a half for my seat -- only to find out at the door that my ticket said 8:30 a.m., not 8:30 p.m. I had to crawl back to my shared condo in shame, having missed one of the best films of the festival.
Funniest visual joke: Hard to explain this without giving the gag away, but it comes at the end of John Maclean's Slow West, a mostly winning western that climaxes, naturally, in a major gunfight. Let's just say the pain of one young lad's broken heart is seriously augmented during the course of the action. Unexpected, and almost Joss Whedon-like in its playful clash of tones, it remains one of the indelible images I came away with a week later.
Three films I wish I had seen: 1. Tangerine 2. Best of Enemies 3. Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck
Three films I wish I had avoided: 1. I Smile Back 2. Strangerland 3. White God (see above)
Best performance (male): It's not as if Christopher Abbott were entirely unknown -- he was a regular character on HBO's Girls, for example -- but when he opted to leave that show before its third season in 2013, he lay pretty low before finally appearing in J.C. Chandor's A Most Violent Year in 2014. Still, nothing he'd done up to this point suggested there was a star in the making, but in James White, one of my favorite films of the festival, he is nothing short of a revelation.
He plays the titular character, a good-hearted but irresponsible screw-up whose selfish ways and lackadaisical nature are mightily challenged by his singular devotion to his mother, a former schoolteacher played by Cynthia Nixon, struggling with recurring bouts of cancer. It's a haunting, harrowing sort of film, absolutely anchored by Abbott, who is mesmerizing.
Best performance (female): She appeared in two films at this year's Sundance (the other being the so-so Stockholm, Pennsylvania), but Saoirse Ronan truly shines in John Crowley's excellent Brooklyn.
She plays a young Irish woman in the early '50s whose older sister arranges for her to move to New York to start a new life for herself. Homesick and miserable at first, she eventually meets a kindly young man (Emory Cohen, also excellent) and falls in love, but is called back to her home country to contend with a family tragedy, and is given the choice to stay at home, with everything and everyone she knows and cares about, or return to her adopted country and continue forging her own path.
Emotionally charged but never treacly, the film is anchored by Ronan's carefully crafted performance, and Nick Hornby's brilliant screenplay, based on the novel by Colm Toibin. Simply put, she is unforgettable, which is high praise indeed in the midst of a week of doing nothing but watching films.
Best documentary: There was an exceptionally good slate of documentaries available this year at Sundance, including Pervert Park, 3 1/2 Minutes, Going Clear, and The Wolfpack, among a host of others. But the most interesting I saw was Rodney Ascher's The Nightmare, concerning the jarring effects of sleep paralysis among eight afflicted people, and the curious visions they shared.
Most alarming fun fact: Many of the afflicted subjects spoke of seeing "shadow people" coming through the bedroom door and menacingly toward them in that paralyzed state, which is bad enough, but all those same people described seeing one shadow person as the "leader," wearing a fedora.
Best narrative film: As great as James White and Brooklyn were, Robert Eggers' haunting 16th-century folk-horror story, The Witch, grabs you from the first frame and doesn't set you down again until the credits thankfully start rolling at the end. The period detail -- meticulous down to the seams in their clothing and the roofing materials used on cabins in that era -- adds verisimilitude, but it's the terrifying script and strong visuals that really take you in. On the strength of its powerful critical and popular reaction, it was bought by powerhouse indie distributor A24 (a relatively new outfit whose track record is outstanding), so you will definitely get a chance to witness it. I suggest taking a friend or loved one whose arm you can dig your fingernails into when necessary.
MovieStyle on 02/13/2015