The Unrepentant Cinephile

by Jason Coffman

  2017 Chicago Underground Film Festival: Part 1

  Originally published on Daily Grindhouse 5 June 2017

  2017 marks the 24th year for the Chicago Underground Film Festival, held this year at the Logan Theatre in the city’s Logan Square neighborhood. As always, this year’s lineup of features and shorts runs the gamut from wild experimental works to documentary to narrative features. This year’s opening night was Wednesday May 31st, and the fest runs through Sunday June 4th. Daily Grindhouse will be covering all the feature films screened at this year’s CUFF in three parts.

  May 31:

  Drifting Towards the Crescent (USA, dir. Laura A. Stewart)

  Laura Stewart’s documentary examines the lives of a handful of people living in Keokuk, Iowa and Hannibal, Missouri, two “river towns” on the Mississippi. The latter is famous as the hometown of Mark Twain, but that seems to be just about the only major differentiation between the two towns. Despite their geographical separation the towns seem nearly identical, sharing a common “river town” culture (fishing and drinking appear to be the biggest pastimes in both towns, for example) and a seemingly unstoppable economic decline. Beautifully shot and scored and carefully observed, Drifting Towards the Crescent is a fascinating look at a part of America that is rarely seen in popular culture.

  June 1:

  On an Unknown Beach (New Zealand, dir. Adam Luxton & Summer Agnew)

  Adam Luxton and Summer Agnew’s “speculative documentary” follows three subjects as they explore different types of ruins. Scientist Di Tracey studies impact of trawl fishing on the Chatham Rise seabed, sound artist Bruce Russell (of The Dead C) scavenges the city of Christchurch following a devastating earthquake, and actor David Hornblow explores his troubled past through Regression Hypnotherapy. The Chatham Rise sequences feature some astonishing deep-sea photography, and Bruce Russell’s recording approaches and philosophies are interesting and complex. Unfortunately, the sequences following Hornblow—which mix footage of him and his therapist with dramatizations of the experiences he recalls—feel lifted from a completely different project. They unfortunately prove more of a distraction than a complement to the other stories, but there is still much here to recommend giving the film a look.

  Kuro (UK, dir. Joji Koyama and Tujiko Noriko)

  Romi (co-director Tujiko Noriko) lives in Paris and cares for her paraplegic lover Milou. The audiences watches Romi go through her daily routines of tending to Milou, taking French classes, and going to her job at a karaoke bar while Romi tells a story of their previous life in Japan, where she was a live-in caretaker to an old man. Almost the entirety of Kuro is presented with a complete disconnect between the images (documenting Romi’s life) and sound (Romi telling the story). The story begins innocuously enough but as it continues it becomes dark and unsettling, coloring how the viewer sees Romi and Milou’s life as it is now. It’s an interesting experiment in storytelling, but whether or not Kuro works as more than a curious exercise will vary wildly depending on the viewer. It should be noted that the film has fantastic sound design—it would be worth listening to just the sound separate from the film to pick up on its intricacies.

  June 2:

  The Pink Egg (USA, dir. Jim Trainor)

  The Pink Egg opens with a title card featuring a quote from legendary surrealist Luis Buñuel: “You can find all of Shakespeare and de Sade in the lives of insects.” That’s all you get before being thrown directly into the film’s world of bright primary colors and crude sets that look like they were made for a grade school play populated by actors depicting the life cycles of a variety of insects. There’s almost no dialogue in the film, but for the most part it’s pretty simple to figure out what is going on thanks to some fantastic physical performances by the film’s actors. The film’s charming handmade “school play” aesthetic is at odds with its frequently gruesome subject matter and there are as many moments of laugh-out-loud absurdity here as there are moments of genuine unease. The Pink Egg is one of the most bizarre and unforgettable movies of the year, and it will be exciting to see what Jim Trainor does next.

  Dim the Fluorescents (Canada, dir. Daniel Warth)

  Audrey (Claire Armstrong) and Lillian (Naomi Skwarna) are longtime best friends and roommates, and struggling actor and playwright respectively. While they try to find work in their fields, they stumble upon an unexpected way to bring in some steady income and exercise their art: live demonstrations—short-form “plays”—for corporate seminars. After making some waves with a particularly impressive sexual harassment skit, the women are hired to perform at a conference in front of an audience of hundreds of people. But getting their biggest gig yet comes with strings: their corporate contact Gary (Todd Graham) insists on final script approval and requires they include a role for his aspiring actress niece Fiona (Andreana Callegarini-Gradzik). The stress of putting on the show stretches the friends’ relationship to the breaking point, a situation exacerbated by their envy of old friends who have found success with their art. Dim the Fluorescents is frequently hilarious, but as it moves along it becomes more and more emotionally affecting, and it ends with a jaw-dropping, gut-wrenching scene that is absolutely earned by taking time to really get to know and love these characters. Smart, funny, poignant, and led by two fantastic lead performances, Dim the Fluorescents is an extremely impressive debut feature for director/co-writer Daniel Warth.

  2017 Chicago Underground Film Festival: Part 2

  Originally published on Daily Grindhouse 12 June 2017

  June 3:

  The Modern Jungle (USA, dir. Charles Fairbanks & Saul Kak)

  As The Modern Jungle opens, Mexican shaman Juan Juarez Rodriguez performs a healing ritual in his remote mountain shack. A few minutes later, Juan is directly addressing the director behind the camera asking for financial assistance to go see a doctor about a persistent abdominal pain he has had for years. This is an extremely uncomfortable scene, with Juan asking for help in return for allowing himself to be filmed and waiting for an answer. Whether that was the plan for the film at the outset is unclear, but this dynamic becomes the central issue of The Modern Jungle. Juan has an x-ray and learns he has a hernia. He lacks the money and patience to save up for an operation and instead asks the filmmakers for more money to sign up for Omnilife, a multi-level marketing company whose products he believes will heal him. Additional complications arise when some of the locals ostracize Juan and his neighbor Carmen for their involvement with the “gringo” filmmakers and suggest they are being exploited. Honestly, it’s not hard to see their point on the latter. The Modern Jungle raises some serious questions regarding documentary filmmaking and the responsibility of artists, and it often comes across as queasily exploitative. Running an abbreviated 71 minutes, the film also fails to reach any meaningful conclusions regarding these problems.

  All the Rage (Saved by Sarno) (USA, dir. David Bellinson, Michael Galinsky, & Suki Hawley)

  In the 1980s, Dr. John E. Sarno predicted a massive increase in chronic pain in the United States over the coming decades. While his theory has been proven in the epidemic of chronic pain among adults in the States, the medical establishment has had something of an adversarial relationship with his work. Sarno’s practice focuses on the unconscious as the source of physical pain, created so the individual will focus on the physical and ignore problem thoughts they do not want to face. Documentarian Michael Galinsky has a personal connection to Sarno’s practice through his father, who suffered from chronic back pain much of his life but found Sarno’s approach a near-miraculous help. Galinsky and his wife Suki Hawley look at Sarno’s life and work, talking with a number of people who swear by it including Larry David, Howard Stern, Jonathan Ames, and John Stossel. But All the Rage is also a film about Galinsky coming to terms with the death of his father, and how he came to understand more about him as he and Hawley’s family grew. It’s a fascinating documentary with a strong emotional anchor, and Galinsky is refreshingly candid and open about his own
shortcomings and difficulties with his family. Like Sarno’s approach to treatment, All the Rage shows how intimately tied together emotional and physical well-being can be, and the result is one of the most honestly touching documentaries so far this year.

  Whatever Happened to Gelitin? (Austria, dir. Angela Christlieb)

  Gelitin was a group of four Austrian performance artists whose work gained them a fair amount of notoriety for its playful anarchy and crude approaches to confrontation. Imagine a sort of hybrid of the gang from Jackass but less focused on inflicting harm on themselves and more on interacting with each other and their audiences in ways that break down the audience’s inhibitions: making themselves into a “birthday cake” with candles sticking out of their asses, assembling a sculpture exhibit in which viewers step on a switch to “activate” the pieces by sending them crashing to the floor, building a huge “Arc de Triomphe” sculpture/fountain of a man pissing upward and all over himself, etc. Art dealer Salvatore Viviano sets out with director Angela Christlieb to interview artists who admired and worked with Gelitin, and the film intercuts their interviews with the artists—including Liam Gillick, John Waters, and a brief appearance by the late Tony Conrad among many, many others—with film and video footage of some of the group’s performances. Some of this footage is hilarious and inexplicable, but when the group stages a performance in the World Trade Center weeks before 9/11, it becomes clear why they may have been more inclined to shy away from public attention ever since. Your enjoyment of the film will be largely dictated by your interest in/tolerance for elaborate performance art goofs, but Whatever Happened to Gelitin? is a great introduction and crash course on the group’s hilariously bizarre work.

  2017 Chicago Underground Film Festival: Part 3

  Originally published on Daily Grindhouse 13 June 2017

  June 4:

  INAATE/SE/ [it shines a certain way. to a certain place/it flies. falls./] (USA/Canada, dir. Adam & Zack Khalil)

  Native Americans the Anishinaabe have an old story called the Seven Fires Prophecy, which predicted the arrival of the white man. Adam and Zack Khalil’s film uses the Seven Fires Prophecy as a framework to discuss the state of cultural tension in America, and specifically at Sault Ste. Marie in the far Upper Peninsula of Michigan near the Canadian border. They talk to members of the indigenous community of the area and with (white) employees of a local museum, underlining that tension with direct examples of uncomfortable appropriation. INAAAT/SE is a bracing and damning documentary hybrid with narrative detours into visions and dreams that vary from bleak to humorous, a close-up examination of issues that are deeply uncomfortable but presented in an exciting and engaging manner.

  Weather House (Germany, dir. Frauke Havemann & Eric Schefter)

  A group of people are trapped inside a house. Outside the temperature changes dramatically several times a day, and the occupants worry that the air pressure difference will eventually destroy the house. “Bodies” occasionally wander in and collapse, and an outsider searching for his wife arrives with a gun. He becomes a member of the household, which seems to consist entirely of insane people waiting for the end of the world. Weather House is a surreal apocalyptic black comedy defined by the alien behaviors of its survivors: a woman who constantly records audio of everything happening in the house, a man tethered to a house plant, an elaborate network of high-tension wires strung through the house. It is punctuated with breathtaking slow-motion shots of wind and rain pummeling trees and earth, which are as unnerving as the action inside the house is perplexing.

  All the Cities of the North (Bosnia/Montenegro, dir. Dane Komljen)

  Two men wander around an abandoned complex that may have been a hospital, a school, a retreat, or something else entirely. They interact with each other and the animals that wander about; they swim, they scavenge, they sleep in a tent set up in a white room. One of them tells a story in voiceover, and soon others appear. The approach of All the Cities of the North is somewhat similar to Kuro, another film at this year’s CUFF. There’s no dialogue, and the stories told in voiceover are not all clearly attached to any of the people we see on-screen. Mostly the film just follows them as they perform mundane tasks, the stories we hear acting not as counterpoint or complement but serving some other function that is never really clear. Director Dane Komljen has stated that the film is intensely personal, the process of making it a way of dealing with a serious personal trauma. This doesn’t feel like an exorcism, though— All the Cities of the North is a deliberate, meditative film that demands multiple viewings to unravel.

  Manlife: The Last of the Lawsonians (USA, dir. Ryan Sarnowski)

  In 2010, Merle Hayden was the last evangelist for Lawsonomy, a nearly lost philosophy of economics and living created by former airplane tycoon Alfred Lawson in the wake of the Great Depression. Hayden left home and his high school sweetheart Betty Kasch and dedicated his life to Lawsonomy,. Over 60 years later, he reunited with Betty thanks to the internet, and Manlife presents a snapshot of Merle and Betty’s lives after their long-delayed reunion. The film gives a quick overview of Lawson’s life and the ideas of Lawsonomy, but mostly it’s about Merle and his tireless dedication to the cause he believes in so strongly. This is a deeply touching documentary, and one of the best I’ve seen this year. Merle turned 90 during the making of Manlife, and amazingly he appeared in person at CUFF for the film’s world premiere. Sadly, Merle passed away this past Sunday, June 11th, but it’s great that he got a chance to see this fascinating tribute to his life and work.

  Festival Report: 2017 Overlook Film Festival

  Originally published on Daily Grindhouse 29-30 April 2017

  2017 marks the inaugural year of the Overlook Film Festival, a horror film fest held at the iconic Timberline Lodge. The Timberline is assured a place in horror history as the exterior façade of the Overlook Hotel in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, and now it’s home to four days of genre features, shorts, and a host of other activities to keep attendees busy. These include a special presentation by “immersive horror” specialists Blackout, a live performance of Glass Eye Pix’s Tales from Beyond the Pale hosted by Larry Fessenden and Glenn McQuaid, a weekend-long immersive horror game that plays out over the course of the fest, panels on making horror films, and more.

  Like Me (USA, dir. Robert Mockler)

  Video artist Kiya (Addison Timlin) robs a convenience store and posts a video of it on Youtube, resulting in a huge uptick in her online profile. Among all the reaction videos and essays from supporters and detractors, one particularly vicious response comes from a young man called Burt (Ian Nelson). Burt’s words cut deep, and Kiya becomes determined to one-up the shock tactics with the unwilling assistance of motel manager Marshall (Larry Fessenden). Kiya and Marshall set off on a road trip with no clear purpose or destination as their relationship becomes increasingly complicated. Like Me is a bleak, hallucinogenic trip through a world of Lisa Frank day-glo colors and extremely murky moral territory. Its eye-searing color scheme and surreal production design provide top-notch visual stimulation, but the film never so much as hints at what Kiya’s motivations might be. By the time the credits roll, the audience knows roughly as much about her as they did in the opening frames of the film. Like Me looks fantastic and has moments of transcendent creepiness—and Fessenden, as always, gives a great performance--but ultimately feels hollow and confused. It’s still an exceptionally intriguing debut feature for writer/director Robert Mockler, though, and whatever he does next will certainly be worth keeping an eye on.

  M.F.A. (USA, dir. Natalia Leite)

  Noelle (Francesca Eastwood) is a young artist at a prestigious university. One night while out at a party, she is raped by her classmate Luke (Peter Vack). Her best friend Skye (screenwriter Leah McKendrick) urges Noelle not to report the incident, but she does and finds everything Skye warned her about happening: the campus counselor downplays the incident and implies that it was Noelle’s fault. Noelle confronts Luke and accidentally
kills him. When it looks like the police are writing off his death off as drug-related accident, Noelle starts to form a plan to punish other rapists on her campus. Her campaign of revenge has the unexpected side effect of inspiring her to do excellent new paintings, but will insistent police detective Kennedy (Clifton Collins, Jr.) stop her before her graduate exhibition? The rape/revenge subgenre is always controversial, but M.F.A. approaches it from a unique angle. Written and directed by women, this is a modern feminist take on the form defined by a compelling lead performance by Francesca Eastwood. This is some exceedingly bleak territory, but Eastwood and the rest of the cast navigate it deftly. Despite its occasionally overwhelming darkness, M.F.A. has moments of sly humor that help keep it from becoming completely oppressive. It’s sure to be divisive, but this is an intriguing take on difficult subject matter from a voice that needs to be heard.

  Killing Ground (Australia, dir. Damien Power)

  Sam (Harriet Dyer) and Ian (Ian Meadows) are heading deep into the woods for a romantic weekend getaway, but when they arrive to set up camp they find someone else has already staked out part of the clearing they planned to use. They pitch their tent anyway, but as the day wears on there is no sign of their neighbors. A few days earlier, the owners of the tent arrived at the camp: Bored teenager Em (Tiamie Coupland) mopes around while her parents plan a hike with their toddler son Ollie. Meanwhile, locals German (Aaron Pedersen) and Chook (Aaron Glenane) discuss their own visit to the forest for a special hunting expedition. Killing Ground covers some well-worn territory, specifically recalling Greg McLean’s Wolf Creek in its nasty approach to Australian “killers in the woods” tales. Its antagonists don’t quite have the ghoulishly cartoonish personality of that film’s Mick, instead aiming for a more fleshed-out relationship between the two of them more in line with Justin Kurzel’s Snowtown. In other words, this is some extremely unpleasant survival horror, minus any sense of humor and with the addition of a toddler in constant danger along with the requisite cast of normal folks thrust into a horrific situation. There’s no denying that writer/director Damien Power wrings some queasy tension out of this situation, and in the end it does have something to say about how one’s actions can define them, but Killing Ground is just relentlessly mean-spirited and tough to watch.