Category: Film

PREVIEW: 60th Ann Arbor Film Festival

avameester Leave a comment

Nestled into the predictable hustle-and-bustle of a Midwest college town, nearly swallowed by the indifference of overworked students, March Madness, and the encroaching doom of finals, a week-long event brings a lucky glimpse of worldwide talent to Michigan Theatre. The Ann Arbor Film Festival is the oldest experimental and avant-garde film festival in North America, reaching all the way back to 1963.  Each year, thousands of film submissions compete for less than two hundred spots in the six-day event. As prestigious of an honor it is to even secure a spot in the lineup, AAFF competitors are even eligible to qualify for Academy Awards, illuminating a world of possibility beyond the big screens. This showcase of creative talent annually sets up shop in our own backyard at the Michigan Theatre, so why not make the walk to witness a couple of hours of rare genius? The week of film screenings extends from March 22nd to the 27th; each day features a schedule of special screenings and “Films in Competition” that compete for awards. The festival wraps up on Sunday with screenings of the winning films. Attendees can choose from a range of events to attend, from experimental shorts to animated features and grim documentaries. There’s something for everyone at AAFF.

I am attending the third night of film screenings on Thursday the 24th, specifically the special program titled A Lantern Through Your Labyrinth: Out Histories of the Ann Arbor Film Festival. This program focuses on experimental LGBTQ cinema throughout the film festival’s history; going into this with very little knowledge of the film festival or its queer artists, I hope to be enlightened about the intersectionality of film and its role in this distinguished event.

Student tickets are only $8 for any event of your choice! Find more information, buy tickets, and view the full schedule at https://www.aafilmfest.org/.

REVIEW: Oscar nominated shorts – Live Action

Joann Leave a comment

I admire short films because their shortness does not represent the depth of the message they carry but only shows the limitation to the time they are allowed to trap the audience’s attention. Due to these resources, they have to be clever in picking what to show and tell. This will mean that the audience will be on a quick, dramatic ride. The five films, although very different in the subject of the emotion they are telling, shared the common theme of pain and fear. It could be pain from a man having to ‘turn off’ his wife after her brain death(On my mind), fear of being imprisoned by machines that run the jurisdiction system without the flexibility to correct a mistake(Please hold), the pain of not having ‘a normal’ body and being laughed at(The dress), racism and violence conducted under it that comes without warning(The Long Goodbye), or the pain of a girl who dreamt of continuing her studies in the city where she was kidnapped to a rural village to do an unwanted marriage under the village and family’s approval(Ala Kachuu). They are communicated concisely and strongly, resembling a roller coaster with five peaks.

On My Mind – Great connection between scenes to make a complete story. The interesting buildup keeps the audience curious and engage during the first half.

Please Hold – The exemplary model of criticism toward the status quo. Intelligently designed reference to current digital society’s dehumanization of operations (we all have the experience of being frustrated by the neverending loop of ARS that does not have the option I want) and digital advertisements that nag you to spend money on options, and the necessity to have money even to fix something that went wrong. A thriller that has amazing communication: it was really easy to connect to the horrors and frustrations of the protagonist. However, I think the real horror was not the mechanic voices. The ones who saw this will remember the scene where the human attorney exclaimed ‘not again!’ before ending the $1000 call in a few seconds-will this mean that the protagonist was not the first wrongly accused? Why was the system not discarded after the continued horror of sentencing 40+ years to innocent men?

The Dress – A deep sorrow told of an unfamiliar world.

The Long Goodbye – The bewildering transition from a peaceful family home to a scene of murder and violence told the emotion of horror very well, but the part that was very unique to this movie came at the very end by a monologue from one of the characters. The rage, sorrow, and desperation break through the fourth wall with the character speaking directly at the audience. The poetic, POWERFUL monologue; it can also be found on the main actor, Riz Ahmed’s youtube channel.

Ala Kachuu – I wondered why the protagonist did not throw a fight against her kidnappers after she was forced into marriage, and then I fully realized the horror of the situation. The dread of being someplace where she knows not where, where everyone is acting kindly but on the watch for her escape, being abandoned by her family, and having no one to trust is just horrible. To seat in a theater may make the rebellion look easier, but in her situation, she did not know whether the people will attack her depending on how she reacted. The message at the very end saying that this kind of kidnap is being continued in the world was dreadful. This movie did a great job of emotionally converting the dreadfulness of such situations.

REVIEW: Oscar nominated shorts-Animation

Joann Leave a comment

Don’t expect kids’ favorite stories when you think of Animation. One (Robin, Robin) of the five of this year’s Oscar-nominated shorts (Robin, Robin / Boxballet / Affairs of the Art / Bestia / The Windshield Wiper ) did fall into this category, but the others either hold confusion, bizarreness, obsessions, and horror of the world. Here I’ll focus mainly on ‘Affairs of the Art’, an animation in a pencil-drawn style that reflects on how modern society defines art and allow strange things to happen in its name while giving short comments on others.

Robin, Robin – very cute, fluffy animation with the ever-selling theme of finding your value despite the environment that says otherwise. Cliche told again but not boring.

Boxballet – Very interesting visual contrast of the characters, explaining very much through this visual information. Surprising and bitter point-back to the political reality at the very end.

Affairs of the Art – Strong, grotesque criticism on ‘Arts’. This features a story of a middle-aged woman who gloats that she is doing ‘Art’ while forcing a model to move for her even when it’s clear that the model is suffering from it. Her story expands over her family members, who each seem to have a weird obsession. The main character gives an example of art as her sister’s obsession with dead and rotting things which occasionally involving animal abuse points could refer to obsessions and grotesque, even immoral things being allowed as ‘Art’, and her sister’s success seems to refer to the society’s funding poured to that form of ‘Art’ when it catches people’s attention and is demanded by the market. The main character’s gloat of finally doing art also criticizes how Art is praised like something divine and desired the snobbism, or the neglecting of questions asking whether the deeds done in the name of art are acceptable or right. The story tells about how obsessions for such art could be bizarre and grotesque, and even expands it toward a more commercialized form of art, the art of ‘the body’, by the main character’s sister saying that her reformed body is like ‘an exhibition’. The sweet art style of pencil drawing did not prevent this animation from conveying disturbing emotions. This one is a strong one.

Bestia – Chilling cross-showing of reality and mental breakdown based on a horrible historical villain of Chile. Dolls made of Regin were a perfect choice to convey the character. Because of its storyline crossing over reality and imagination, sometimes it was hard to tell whether a scene was in reality or not without the historical background.

The Windshield Wiper – Visually very satisfying and colorful. In this collection of short scenes, the scenes of each very short that last less than a minute, even with chunks of dialogues or not at all, tell a strong story and conveys emotions, and for that, I praise this film. However, how the scenes will add up was not as clear.

PREVIEW: Oscar nominated Shorts – Live Action

Joann Leave a comment

Shorts TV annually released oscar nominated short films. This year’s nominations are:

On My Mind (Martin Strange-Hansen and Kim Magnusson / Denmark)

Please Hold ( K.D. Dávila and Levin Menekse / USA)

The Dress (Tadeusz Łysiak and Maciej Ślesicki / Poland)

The Long Goodbye (Aneil Karia and Riz Ahmed / UK/Netherlands)

Ala Kachuu – Take and Run (Maria Brendle and Nadine Lüchinger/ Kyrgyzstan/Switzerland)

Ranging from 12-38 minutes, they all seem to tell strong stories within a short time span. Click here for trailers.

Among the movies, the synopsis of ‘Please Hold’ was especially interesting. It’s based in the future in a mysterious jail controlled by the ‘computed bureaucracy of the privatized American justice system‘. The trailer of ‘The Long Goodbye’ also intrigued my interest as well – the irony between bright, cheerful rap music as the background and something serious and dangerous seems to be happening to the characters made me wonder what’s going on.

Again, U of M students can get a ticket to the Oscar-nominated shorts series free if they use the Passport to the Arts before March 22th. The movie is playing on the 19th and 22nd at the Michigan theater. Please refer to the webpage of Arts at Michigan for further information on where to find the ticket / how to use them.

REVIEW: THE BATMAN

Joann Leave a comment

The Batman, 2022 / Spoiler Alert!

 

If we look at the evolution of superhero movies decades later, I think it will be a pretty interesting anthropology resource. All superheroes symbolize justice but the social norm of justice changes over time. This happened in the new batman as well.

New society, new villains. The villains in this movie do not work on personal, fictional motivation like pride or psycopathy. Instead, in this movie, they are the ones who were harmed systematically. The villain is not lone genius anymore – they are people who urge others to turn to violence with them to break down the society, and the most vicious crisis was aroused when they worked as a group. This resembles the spread of hatred on the internet and violent crimes happening in consequence of those messages. The metaphor to the modern society was quite clear – the riddled even blatantly talked like a  youtube or user of another Social Media platform, thanking the viewers for their support. I was almost expecting a ‘please like and subscribe…’.

The classic hero changed with the society to address the new messages aginst the evil as well. Bruce Wayne, if I remember correctly from prior films, was torn between his identity as a billionaire and the mysterious superhero and the dilemma of the personal judgment of justice was his main worry. For this new Batman, however, whether it’s known who’s under the bat-mask is not such an existential problem. This batman seems to be more careless about it (he got almost unmasked by a curious policeman after he was unconscious due to a bomb explosion) and the Riddler even says that who’s under the mask “does not matter”. If the former batman hides deeper inside himself to solve his doubts, this one comes out. The scene where batman leads the civilian out of the water with the red light and help carry wounded citizens clearly showed that this batman demonstrates a new notion of peace-not one that is magically achieved by a lone superhero, but one that is led by a superhero symbol but that can be achieved together. This batmans stands with the people, and that reminded me of the appeal in the society to unite together to fight the wrong. Batman with the mysteriousness reduced, interacting with the people was a new change. Almost like a friendly neighborhood… No, that’s another guy.

This movie is dark-literally. It had a lot of rain in the scenes and ones that minimal light is used. This led to many visually highly satisfying scenes-my favorite was the one where the screen was all dark and the movement of the characters was illuminated only with the fire from the end of the gun. Also, I saw the rain as more than the weather- with the final crisis being the flood, water could mean the danger to the city, and the rain could represent that the city was in danger. In all, highly recommend this movie. Go check it out!

REVIEW: The Worst Person in the World

Angela Gosselin Leave a comment

The Worst Person in the World is an anthology of sorts, chronicling a young woman’s struggles with making meaningful connections, navigating her career, and establishing her general place in the world. This sounds extremely cliché on paper, and I hate to say it but it somewhat held true in the film as well. 

 

I will firstly recognize that there’s a very strong chance I simply didn’t connect with this film. Sometimes that just doesn’t happen. There was still a sense of quality to the production and the performances did feel genuine, so maybe the fact that I walked away feeling very little is moreso a matter of a personal misalignment.

 

That said, I think there are a few other factors that caused me to feel so neutral. The style of the film felt a little inconsistent and choppy, this owing greatly to a scene involving psychedelics. All the established conventions of the drama that had been unfolding thus far were eschewed in favor of overblown effects, animation, and surreal sequences. I understand that there’s a lot of fun, playful techniques that can be used to convey an experience like that and there are moments of quick, pastiche editing earlier in the film, but in this case it just felt out of place and a little indulgent. Another particular instance of a chapter that didn’t fit quite right was a short one that used constructed media clips that we watch the protagonist watch. This isn’t inherently bad but it just felt disjointed in terms of style.

 

Another manifestation of this choppiness was the excessive structuring of the narrative. There was a prologue, an epilogue, and twelve individually named chapters between. For an ultimately chronological story, these separations felt unnecessary and moreso a chance for foreshadowing puns and dramatic titling. I do think it was an interesting mode of pacing for viewers, but making sections more discrete didn’t serve the narrative’s development and the emotional shifts of the film. 

 

Lastly, the paths of the characters all intersected far too neatly. This could be a style choice akin to the surreal moments in the film, but the way people floated in and out of the protagonist’s life felt a bit too convenient. The first few instances made sense, but there’s a specific reveal at the end of the movie that just made me roll my eyes. 

 

Any of these thoughts could certainly change on a second watch, but the fact of the matter is that I left the State thinking about other works that make the same points as this film, but better (see: Shiva Baby, Fleabag, etc). I still encourage a watch as I think this film is doing some interesting things with cinematography and has some thought-provoking points, but it’s definitely not going to be my film of the year.