Top 5 alternative film happenings this summer
June 16, 2016
Ah, summer… It can be a beautiful time, but it can also be too hot to handle during the day. For cinephiles, it can also mean a drought at movie theaters. But fear not! This year, there are some great offerings that will not only keep you engaged but also in the comfort of amazing film venues with air-conditioning. A glance at the upcoming screenings at indie theaters in Miami this summer reveals an eclectic mix, featuring a documentary, a new film by a legendary director, a classic anime feature and even a music-themed movie screening for one night only.
An interview with Queen of Earth director Alex Ross Perry in Miami New Times and more
September 4, 2015
After last year’s Listen Up Philip (‘Listen Up Philip’: one of the year’s most fascinating and funny character studies — a film review), who would have thought writer/director Alex Ross Perry would — just a year later — produce such a startling, tonally different work like the entrancing drama Queen of Earth. Elisabeth Moss once again returns to work with Perry after having such a great moment in his last movie. This time, however, instead of a character who works through her issues with a lover (the titular Philip played by Jason Schwartzman), she plays a woman who succumbs to a sudden sense of profound insecurity. Her character, Catherine, is dealing with two significant losses: the death of her father and a break-up with her boyfriend. She heads off to a lakeside house her best friend Virginia (Katherine Waterston) has invited her to for a week of recovery. With those two relationships ended, the film focuses on the dynamic between these two women who know each other too well for their own good. Let the projection and anxiety commence.
Though Listen Up Philip was driven with a comic tone so keenly established by the film’s outset, Perry has shifted gears at an almost startling level. There is nothing funny in Queen of Earth, notes the 31-year-old filmmaker, speaking via phone from New York City. He says it was a conscious decision inspired by Woody Allen. “That’s why I was so excited about Interiors, which he made right after Annie Hall. I was thinking about how I could follow up Listen Up Philip because it was such a huge, sprawling complete movie, and I look at Interiors and I thought, ‘Well, that’s how you follow up a huge movie that really connects with people and changes the way that people look at your work is make this small miserable chamber piece with no humor and nothing that anyone likes about your last movie, and you just kinda get that going and you just try with something different.'”
The only thing that isn’t different about this film and Listen Up Philip is returning actress Elizabeth Moss. Perry considers her a friend and says having her sign on involved a simple text message asking if she would like to play the role. “She perceived it as a challenging character, the likes of which she’d never done before, and she was really excited about that, to do something different,” he says. “She’d never really done anything quite so genre suggestive, and she just saw it as a really great character, and I knew if I was lucky enough to get her, then most of the hard work would be done, and no matter what, this film would have a powerful central performance that would carry most of the movie, and that’s the most important thing for a movie, especially a movie like this. It’s just two people sitting around in one location. I knew we needed someone of her acting caliber, and I hoped it would be her, and I was very lucky that she thought that way as well.”
Another, less obvious, carry over is Perry’s regular soundtrack composer Keegan DeWitt, whose abstract, moody music is also a big departure from the jazzy score of Philip. It’s restless, avant-garde quality featuring flutes and bells recalls Ligeti and plays a prominent role in giving the film an obtuse sense of disquiet. Perry says, Keegan came late into the process, after Perry had already begun editing early scenes to a temp score. “He had to look at that and conform his creation around the pre-existing rhythm of the edit,” notes Perry, “which is certainly not usually how that thing is done, but I’m such a fan of his work, and I was so blown away with what he was able to do.”
In fact, DeWitt worked so quick, his music caught up with the production, and it even had an influence on Perry, to an extent. “I mean, he read the script as early as everybody else,” continues Perry, “and then he’s looking at the dailies, and he’s seeing footage by day four or five of the shoot, and he’s making music while we’re shooting the movie, and then he’s sending us his music while we’re shooting, and we’re listening to some of the music on set. Then on day one of editing, basically the final music is just in there, and the movie takes its shape, takes its form around the essentially finished score, and that makes the music a much more complete part of the finished film.” (You can listen to the entire soundtrack on Spotify)
As for the success of Listen Up Philip, which brought the indie filmmaker wider acclaim and notoriety — at least among cinephiles — he said it never tainted his independent ethos, despite riding a wave of buzz from Sundance to Los Angeles. “There certainly were no offers to do anything,” he reveals. “I was in Los Angeles for three weeks after Sundance with [producer] Joe Swanberg trying to find any offer for Listen Up Philip, which people really liked, and that
whole time all he and I did was talk about making this movie. Now, here I am a year later, not a single offer and not a single meeting I had out there turned into anything at that time, except for all the time he and I spent dreaming of this movie, and now here we are talking about it, and it’s been released already. So that stuff is pretty elusive, especially when you’re alone with a strong enough perspective and viewpoint that it can’t just be squeezed into any random box, and yeah, it changed a lot in terms of the audiences that’s going to be interested in what the next project is, which is the best gift of all. I’d rather have that than being hired to direct some script that I don’t really sort of care about.”
Even though Listen Up Philip garnered him a new audience, Perry feels no urge to pander to them. Some may be startled by his shift in tone, but that does not bother the filmmaker. Asked how he felt about audiences who might be disappointed by the change he responded, “I hope so. That was my dream. That was what happened with Interiors from Woody Allen, and that’s what I wanted to really happen here. People are really into it, so I don’t know. I’m sure there are people that are disappointed, but it’s not like Listen Up Philip made $20 million or was nominated for Oscars or anything. Still relatively few people saw it, so I think the pool of people that can be disappointed is quite shallow, as well.”
Perry and I spoke much more in The Miami New Times, a publication I freelance for, about the themes of his films, questions he grapples with in his stories, influences and his filmmaking techniques, which embrace actual film. Jump through the newspaper’s art and culture blog logo below to read that article:
Queen of Earth opens in our South Florida area exclusively at Tower Theater this Friday, Sept. 4. It’s playing only at a few other theaters in the U.S. To see if it’s in your city, check this link. IFC Films provided a DVD screener for the purpose of this interview. They also provided all images here, except the portrait of Perry. That came from imdb.com.
During the Miami International Film Festival, I had an opportunity to sit down with actor/director John Turturro. I was told I had 12 minutes to discuss his new film, Fading Gigolo, with him. Somehow we lost track of time and carried on for double that time, but it was a great conversation, touching on specifics in both his filmmaking and his acting style, directing Woody Allen the actor, his vision to hire Vanessa Paradis, a model/singer/actress better known in France for all her talents and best known in the U.S. as Johnny Depp’s ex. We also touched on his memory of Philip Seymour Hoffman, who only recently passed, and who we did love so much here at Independent Ethos.
It was a long chat that had to be spread across two articles in the Miami New Times. This first one appeared in print in and was written as a feature story and touched on not only the movie but Allen and that controversy that hung a bit too close over the film’s premiere in Miami. It also features his comments on Hoffman. Read it by jumping through the Miami New Times logo below:
There were many details left out of that piece for the sake of space, which one has to be very conscious of when writing for print. We spoke much more about Allen and how it was working with him, but we also spoke about Paradis’ talents and, on a more important scale, the presence of a film like Fading Gigolo in a major movie production industry more concerned with adapting YA stories and comic books. Where does a film about more complicated adult love fit into such an industry? We get into all that and more in the expanded Q&A I provided for Miami New Times’ art and culture blog Cultist. You can read that part of our chat by jumping through the Cultist logo below:
Finally, there is what is left of our chat, which was no less compelling. Turturro was certainly gracious about his award, which he received at a packed concert hall in Downtown Miami a couple of months ago, at the 2014 Miami International Film Festival (A re-cap of a hectic half-attended, still impressive Miami International Film Festival 31). However, there’s something of a feeling of achieving a peak with such awards, and it can do things to your creativity and career … We start there, talk about color and film, shooting in 35mm (which Turturro has not given up on), and love stories for mature people. Here’s part three of our talk, exclusive to Independent Ethos:
Hans Morgenstern: So what was it like getting your big career achievement Award?
John Turturro: You know, I take those things with a grain of salt. People obviously like what you do. But I wouldn’t like to be doing it, because I’m not announcing my retirement. You know, I got one of those things when I first started out in Sundance. They gave me this Actor Piper-Heidseick Award. I think I was the first person to ever get one, and I was just starting out. It was like 1990 or 1991 or something like that. I remember I didn’t even have a proper suit jacket to wear. I guess because I do a variety of things, oh, look at this, look at that. I’m always appreciative, but I’m more appreciative of being able to do the things I want. That’s what I want to do. People can win an Academy Award, and it may not help them get another job. Things like that have happened many times, and my important thing is being able to do things I like to do. That’s it. That’s what I care about. I can’t sit and stare at the walls and say I got all these awards. It’s nice, but I don’t think about it too much.
They also showed your new movie, Fading Gigolo. One of the things I noticed about the film was the range of colors you used.
Oh, yeah, very carefully selected. We used the Saul Leiter photographs. He was a fashion photographer who did all these great street pictures and reflections in windows. Maybe they were staged, some of them. I’m not sure some of them weren’t, but they were like Kodachrome. There was a certain dye transfer that he did. Then I used the Italian painter, [Giorgio] Morandi, a still life painter, for a lot of the colors of Fiorvante’s apartment. So those were the two visual sources. Everything was selected very carefully, stripes that the Hasidic community used and the stripes that my character had, and even getting Woody in dark pants was a big thing. I told him, no khaki pants. I didn’t tell him, but I gently nudged him, and as you see, he’s got dark pants on, and that’s very unusual for Woody, and he even has a purple, kind of, colored corduroy hat. He’s even got a black jacket at some point, and he never dresses that way.
I even noticed the white of his hair more in this movie.
Well, he hasn’t really been in that many movies for a long time. Anyway, yeah, cause color is emotional, and the way it’s lit, we shot it on film. We didn’t shoot digital. We used 8 millimeter for the credits and it’s 35 millimeter, and [director of photography] Marco Pontecorvo, he’s great with the light. We used a lot of shadow, a lot of chiaroscuro.
Have you always shot in 35mm?
Only Passione I did with the Red [digital camera]. But this we tested, and we thought it was a lot softer on the women, and it’s a film about New York or any city that’s kind of changing and fading a little bit. I thought that would just be—it’s more voluptuous, soft.
Well, fading is a key word to your film.
Yeah, of course.
So what motivated you to do this film about a man far along in his prime, let’s say? Because when you are dealing with Hollywood and this complex idea of love, it’s so much easier to focus on the youth.
Well, youth is part of life, but it’s not all of life, and sometimes you can see a film like Blue Is the Warmest Color, and it’s fantastic. The girl is unbelievable because you’re seeing someone budding. I thought her performance was brilliant, but most of the time you see it, and their reference is very young, and life goes on, and people start life again at 40. They get divorced. They lose someone. They never find the right person, and though, well, here’s a guy who’s in the middle of his life and lives in a room, and I know people like that, who are really comfortable with women, who likes women, but he never really commits, but he’s a guy who is very good, physically. I have friends that can fix their engines, they have a plumbing problem, they have an electrical problem, and it’s very attractive to be around a person like that, cause you’re like, wow. These people express themselves in that way, and they may not be ambitious, and I was thinking about that. So many people want to be famous instead of doing what they do. I think love and needing to be loved, to be touched, to connect, it’s a universal thing. It never ends. You’re livin’ by yourself, and you’re 70 years old, you know, loneliness can kill a person. So I thought that could be an interesting thing to explore. Obviously, you have to be in good enough shape to do it, and I thought when Woody makes the suggestion to me, the guy is resistant. I’m too old. I’m not a gorgeous looking guy, but he’s not insecure that way at all. He’s like, well, I know who I am.
And that helps with the ladies.
Yeah, that’s right. It could help a lot. Especially if you know how to listen and you know how to behave, you know how to pick up what’s going on in the moment.
Your character has a great name: Fiorvante. Where’s that from?
A lot of the names I took— my father was a builder— right out of his phone book. He’s no longer alive and Dan Bongo, I took right out of his phone book. He was a plasterer. Fiorvante, I think [his last name was] Boccio, he was a painter. I just took the names right out of it. Not all of the names, but those names I did. Virgil Howard was a name I took right out of a phone book. So sometimes you’re superstitious. You think, well, maybe if I take something from my parents, it’ll bring you good fortune. It’s a way of communicating with them or something.
Fading Gigolo opens Friday, May 2, in the Miami area at Coral Gables Art Cinema, Regal South Beach Stadium 18, and AMC Aventura 24. On opening night, at the 7 p.m. screening at the Coral Gables Art Cinema there will be a live video-link Q&A with Turturro. For screening dates in other cities, visit the film’s official website.
Film Review: ‘Le Week-End’ balances delicate humor with harsh depiction of 30-year marriage
April 3, 2014
The depiction of love in movies often feels unfulfilling to the older movie-goer or anyone, for that matter, with true experiences in long-term relationships. Hollywood has a knack for making weddings part of the climax in films about relationships. Anyone who has had a wedding knows they are but a momentary blip in life. The real tricky part is capturing a semblance of the ever-complicating life shared between those who have been married.
Le Week-End director Roger Michell (the man behind both Notting Hill and The Mother) has many years exploring love in the movies. Armed with a screenplay by novelist Hanif Kureishi, he probably has not handled the subject more delicately or subtly until now. British couple Meg (Lindsay Duncan) and Nick (Jim Broadbent) are looking to rekindle romance in Paris by returning for a weekend to stay at the hotel where they first spent their honeymoon, 30 years ago. She bounces between raging frustration with him and flighty spontaneity. He can hardly keep up and has his own quiet, sheepish frustration that he tends to keep bottled up. In one meek attempt to seduce her, Nick reaches out and she flinches. “Why won’t you ever let me touch you?” he says.
She responds, “It’s not love. It’s like being arrested.”
They fight and argue a lot from one scene to another. During many transitional edits, the film and, by association, the couple seem to reboot. Romantic jazz music, featuring stride piano and plucky acoustic guitar accompanies the fade-in to these new scenes. The two distinct instruments call and respond. It almost mirrors the to and fro of the couple’s often opposing perspectives. It’s not discordant, however. There’s harmony but also conflict with in these distinct characters (I’m referring to both the instruments and the couple). It’s a witty musical representation of the couple. It’s hard to note this jazzy score by Jeremy Sams and not allude to a comparison to Woody Allen’s work as a director, who also has long presented a fine-tuned concern of romantic relationships on the rocks.
Another, more grim comparison could be to Before Midnight (Film review: ‘Before Midnight’ offers original glimpse of love evolved). With its extended scenes of sometimes passive-aggressive tension between its characters (when anger and resentments are not directly being flung at the other), Before Midnight can feel difficult to endure, as conversations spiral into full-blown operatic emotional battles. Le Week-End, on the other hand, knows how to keep the conflict in check with tidy scenes that build toward the fateful appearance of a third wheel played by an exuberant Jeff Goldblum. His character brings some refreshing perspective for not only Meg and Nick but also the viewer.
It could have been tiresome to just follow this antagonistic husband and wife for the entire film. Thankfully, Morgan appears to not only infuse some life into the film but also a deeper tragedy. Goldblum brings vibrant energy to Morgan, a former student of Nick’s who has had more success with his writing than his teacher. 
He also happens to live in Paris with a younger, pregnant wife. Though he seems to be doing well, he credits the dreary, serious Nick as an inspiration. “Over the years that I’ve sat at desks like this,” he says after inviting Nick into his fancy study overlooking the Eiffel Tower, “and in the times when I’ve tried to convince myself that I’ve had some kind of brain or just a little bit of rigor or integrity … I would think what would Nick Burroughs do now?” This weighs heavy on Nick, who happens to be a philosophy professor, not just as a compliment but a terrible burden of possibility.
Morgan has invited the couple to his spacious apartment for a dinner party with artists, writers, scholars— a veritable cornucopia of intelligentsia. But just when you think the director has inserted Morgan as some mirror character of possibilities, the film gifts us a confessional moment by Morgan to Nick. He says of his young wife, “She can’t see through me yet. I mean, she will,” Morgan says as he nervously chomps on an hors d’oeuvre, his eyes flitting about in a perfect Goldblumism.
Meanwhile, a younger Frenchman chats up Meg. With little to gain from this flirt, she quickly reveals her morose character, talking about her “fury, dissatisfaction and the clock ticking by.” But, oh, these French people. He’s still taken by her. “What a great thing,” he tells her with a pensive smile, “to be so attuned to your unhappiness.”
Still, thirty years of marriage matters for something, and the film, for all its bitterness and conflict, also subtly reveals slight but precious moments shared by Meg and Nick. Though they never seem to notice it themselves, the partners reveal similar habits, like when they wipe their eyeglasses at the same time at the table with their dinner napkins. Thankfully, the director does not try to highlight these moments heavy-handedly.
Underneath the explosive bitterness, the big value of the smaller things shines through and ultimately bonds Meg and Nick, and it makes the film a much nicer pill to swallow than most such movies. For all its seeming indulgence in the misery of this couple, Le Week-End turns out to be a delightful film. Communication opens up, and as much as this couple pushes so hard to move forward during a time when they should be just settling in, it is indulging in a bit of nostalgia that always seems the best cure for them. That the film ends with an even grander and more resonant reference to Jean-Luc Godard’s Bande à part than the delightful, though comparatively naïve Frances Ha, gives the film’s finale an extra punch. Fine, it’s work to make a long-lasting marriage work, but a bit of honesty to oneself and some confidence can go a long way to submit to the humbling power of a bond for a life shared together.
Le Week-End runs 93 minutes and is Rated R (mature language and sexual problems). Music Box Films provided a DVD screener for the purpose of this review. It opens in South Florida on April 4, in the Miami/Fort Lauderdale area at the Regal South Beach 18, AMC Sunset Place and The Classic Gateway Theatre. On April 18 it expands northward to West Palm Beach, at the Regal Shadowood, Living Room Theaters, Movies of Delray, Movies of Lake Worth and Downtown Gardens/West Palm Beach. It already began playing in other parts of the U.S. and has more dates scheduled through May; visit the film’s official webpage and click on “theaters” for more screening dates.
Update: Le Week-End will enjoy a brief weekend run at the Bill Cosford Cinema, Friday, May 16 – Sunday, May 18. Screening details.
A re-cap of a hectic half-attended, still impressive Miami International Film Festival 31
March 18, 2014
The Miami International Film Festival has just wrapped up another year of quality film premieres. Film for film, it may have featured the highest-quality programming I have seen at the festival ever. Unlike last year (Final weekend at MIFF: Trueba tribute, awards and aquatic-themed films), I hardly found a film to complain about at the 31st MIFF, but also I did not find the time to blog a daily diary of film-going experiences. Most of my time this year was spent providing content for the “Miami New Times” and its art and culture blog “Cultist.”
It began with a few preview pieces (Miami International Film Festival Announces Full 2014 Lineup). MIFF Executive Director Jaie Laplante has always made himself easily accessible, so it wasn’t hard to get him to admit to some favorites ahead of ticket sales (Catch MIFF Director Jaie Laplante’s Favorite Picks). We also talked about this year’s Florida Focus element, which featured more local filmmakers at MIFF than I can recall. I provided an exclusive report on that to “Pure Honey” (read it here).
One local filmmaker I was particularly impressed by was Monica Peña, whose short feature Ectotherms had its world premiere at MIFF. She was the only filmmaker I had a chance to interview at the festival besides actor/director John Turturro (more on his film, Fading Gigolo, which stars Woody Allen, in May). I was struck by the film’s patient, languorous quality, the warm, improvised performances of the actors and the associative narrative that turned death and arson into an incidental subplot. It’s a strange, compelling film that offers an appropriately surreal glimpse of a Miami few outside of the city know (read the interview here).
I had a chance to preview a handful of films before the festival began, which resulted in several reviews. None of these films were weak, but if there was one that was the weakest, it was Web. It’s strength lay in its subject: the One Laptop Per Child Program that began a few years ago. The program was designed to provide laptop computers to children in developing countries. Director Michael Kleiman went to two villages in Peru without running water and negligible electricity, much less Internet connectivity, to see how this program affected these small communities. He came away with an interesting picture about the ongoing effect of globalization. The question was not whether these tools could provide opportunities for people to advance with technology, but whether it would speed them along to irrelevance and ultimately a loss of culture. There were times when the director inserted himself too much into the piece, but when one villager begs Kleiman to not forget his family when he returns to life in the big city, it feels like a moving plea to conserve their culture.
Another startling documentary involving the web featured a more distant perspective, if a bit affected by a morose soundtrack: Web Junkie. Filmmakers Hilla Medalia and Shosh Shlam were somehow able to get a camera crew into a rehab camp in China for teenage Internet addicts. 
Cut off from the only thing that provided these male youths pleasure, the kids come across as pathetically desperate. When an off-camera voice asks one child why he is in the camp, he breaks down crying and replies, “because I used the Internet.” What may seem humorous at first gradually reveals a rather sad picture of a country that has taken it upon itself to raise children for families who have grown frustrated with their only kids.
From the extreme of these serious documentaries, there were a couple of truly humorous films from Latin America that added some delight to the mix. Club Sandwich by Fernando Eimbcke, the director of Duck Season, offered a rather shameless look at a young teenager’s sexual awakening while on summer vacation with his mother. What at first felt like an awkward film exploring a Oedipal complex takes a refreshing turn when the boy meets a girl at the resort he and his mom have escaped to. It’s still very awkward, as hormones remain the main motivator and not romance.
Another oddly humorous film in this mix was a U.S. Premiere: All About the Feathers. It came from Costa Rica and stood out as a quality work from a country you might have never thought of as having a film industry. It indulged in a deadpan sense of humor and focused on people often relegated to the periphery of life. 
The film followed Chalo (Allan Cascante) a security guard and his quest to become a cock fighter. Rounding out this vibrant cast that miraculously never went over-the-top and silly, is a house maid who pushes Chalo to try selling Avon products, a young fruit vendor with a talent for the trumpet and a reformed delinquent who now works with Chalo. Featuring brilliantly composed, patient and distant shots, the film reveals just how important sincerity is to humor.
The most impressive film of this group of reviews had to be The Summer of Flying Fish, from Chilean director Marcela Said. A beautifully made, exquisitely patient film. Said, who has only directed documentaries until this film, shows an impressive eye and ear for building atmosphere. The land is often shrouded in fog, and a surreal ambient music permeates the many quiet interludes between the verbose fights between a privileged daughter and her wealthy land owner father, as the indigenous Mapuche people grow more and more restless. It all builds toward a potent finale that reveals a rather dreadful perspective on class divisions.
To read longer reviews in “Cultist” of these interesting films, jump through the titles below:
Web
Club Sandwich
All About the Feathers
Web Junkie
The Summer of Flying Fish
Then it was on to the festival itself. I skipped the opulent opening night party and film, Elsa & Fred, on Friday night, and made The Immigrant the first film I saw, on Saturday. The James Gray film, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Marion Cotillard, was one of five films I dared to suggest as must-sees for “Cultist” (read that article here). For me, it did not live up to such hype. Though the film was beautifully staged, the characters felt a bit inconsistent. While Cotilliard’s Polish immigrant character at first felt rather heart-breaking (maybe it was the little voice she used pleading for her sister?), she later turned a tad too feisty to feel believable. Phoenix has returned to acting in fine form, a renaissance which began with the last Gray film he did: Two Lovers. However, whatever dynamism he was granted here did not suit him as well. Sometimes it all just boiled over into too much melodrama.
Another film I also recommended in the article but felt a bit disappointed by was The Sacrament, the latest film by Ti West. I was expecting him to give us something more than a simple take on the Jonestown massacre, but he did not. West was present at the screening and took questions from film critic David Edelstein and some of the audience members. 
I also spoke with him for a bit afterward. He really seemed genuine about his attempt to come to terms with the horror of Jonestown. There were some seeming plot gaps, which he even admitted to leaving open due to budget and time constraints. Who’s to say if it would have ultimately mattered? It’s not like this story needs a gimmick to make it more terrible than it was. As West said, the true horror is what men are capable of doing with followers who have given up everything else.
In between those two films, I squeezed in a documentary: The Notorious Mr. Bout. It was a somewhat humorous film about a rather infamous figure involved with the black market gun trade. He happened to be the man who inspired the Nicholas Cage character in The Lord of War. The film successfully establishes Bout as a resourceful man from post-communist Russia starting an import-export company. He happened to ship guns on the side, but he became a typical easy target when the media began to be intrigued by his persona. Though his morals were loose, there is nothing incriminating Bout as wanting to support terrorists who wanted to kill Americans, but that’s still why he was jailed. By focusing on a person, the film actually presents what’s wrong with a justice system that wants to find blame in a persona when what really maybe wrong is a system that thrives on war.
The following day, a Sunday, began early with an afternoon master class by Chilean filmmaker/critic/author Alberto Fuguet. He’s the director behind one of my favorite movies at MIFF 31: Locations: Looking For Rusty James. Held at the Miami Beach Cinematheque, the hour-plus talk and slide show was entitled “A Very Bright Future: The End of Movies as We Know Them.” 
It was an enthusiastic talk by Fuguet that embraced the continuing digital revolution of cinema. It’s something I have been coming to terms with for a while now (To accept the death of celluloid), and Fuguet’s talk just provided another positive argument of not just coming to terms with digital as the replacement to 35mm but celebrating it for its possibilities of making more personal cinema and allowing for a larger range of voices beyond those with a lot of money who are more concerned with profit over art. You can read my full report here.
After his talk, I caught up with Fuguet to let him know how much I appreciated his documentary/film essay dedicated to Rumble Fish, as it too stands as my all-time favorite film (My personal favorite film: ‘Rumble Fish;’ read my ode to Coppola’s underrated masterpiece in AFI). He was thrilled to meet another devotee and shared that he was next headed to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where Francis Ford Coppola shot Rumble Fish, and he, in turn, shot Locations. He was going to receive the key to the city on March 19, a day when his film will screen alongside Rumble Fish during a double feature at Circle Cinema in Tulsa. That day will then be officially declared Rumble Fish Day in that city (read more).
The class and conversation proved an invigorating day to begin day two of MIFF. I would only catch two other films that day, La La Jaula de Oro by Mexican director Diego Quemada-Díez and Fading Gigolo. La Jaula de Oro, which translates to “The Golden Cage,” but is ironically titled “The Golden Dream” for U.S. release, seemed similar to 2009’s Sin Nombre, but felt a tad more harrowing with younger protagonists who seemed to have even less of a fighting chance to make it. Indeed, La Jaula de Oro was quite merciless in its take on their situation. The film follows four young teens leaving Guatemala in hopes of a better life in the United States. The trip is filled with peril, and only one of them makes it to the U.S. in the end. The way the children dropped out of the action, as if they were metaphorically ground up the inevitable dangers of crossing borders illegally, made for a powerful film.
The director was present for questions and answers after the film. He said the events in the film were inspired by true stories, as he worked closely with many immigrants during his research. 
Most of the extras were actual immigrants, and he said he hardly had to direct them. He even hired non-actors for the main parts. His approach is clearly neo-realism, as he worked under Ken Loach before directing this film. It was also beautifully shot and less earthy than you might expect for such a film.
Making it to the next screening proved to be an example of just how difficult it is to attend MIFF screenings at different venues. Miami is a sprawling city and with screenings in Miami Beach, Downtown Miami, Coral Gables, Coconut Grove and Wynwood, it can feel even more difficult to make it on time to screenings in different locations. I dared to have a sit-down dinner in between these two screenings, but ended up rushing to Downtown Miami for the Turturro film and career tribute, which was screened at a sold out Olympia Theater at the Gusman Center. I found a seat during the middle of Laplante’s opening speech, high up near the rafters, as the lights dimmed for a montage of his film career. My full report on the rest of the evening can be read here.
I enjoyed the film. It maintained its tone throughout as laughs came consistently from the audience. Woody Allen co-starred with Turturro, who played the titular character. It’s a rich film that embraces the complexities of romance for more experienced individuals (read: older) while still maintaining a sense of humor: Allen, after all, plays pimp to Turturro’s florist-turned-gigolo.
The next day, I had a one-on-one chat with Turturro outdoors in Miami Beach that went twice as long as it should have, as it would turn out we would have a great rapport. Details of that interview will have to wait until May, when the film sees release in the Miami area and the “Miami New Times” will publish the resulting story.
The rest of that Monday was spent writing, so I could not attend any screenings. The following Tuesday, however, would turn out to be my closing night for this year’s festival, as a previously scheduled vacation loomed for the following day. It would turn out to be a dynamic day, even though it would only include two films, a documentary and a feature.
Supermensch – The Legend of Shep Gordon may stand as the most delightful film I caught at the festival. It was a surreal viewing experience, as I sat right behind the film’s subject at the screening. Gordon, a manager to such celebrities as Alice Cooper and Michael Douglas, seemed genuinely modest about being the subject of a film by actor/comedian-turned-director Mike Myers. The admiration so many celebrities have for Gordon stands as testament as how down-to-earth this man is. It seems to be how he has maintained such trusting relationships with clients over the years. His accessibility seems quite inspirational to Myers who kept the appreciation light and brisk, even with moments of serious exploration that showed that even a lovable character like Gordon can be lonely, too. The editing, also by Myers, featured masterfully interwoven vintage footage synched to voice overs of so many great stories, it never felt as though the film lagged. Gordon received a rousing round of applause ahead of a Q&A with more compelling stories from his past that kept much of the audience in their seats.
The second film of that night was Jim Jarmusch’s vampire drama Only Lovers Left Alive. It made for a great closer for this mini-MIFF. Stunningly stylish from beginning to end, Jarmusch treats the idea of long-surviving vampires with brilliant respect. Beyond the cute jokes like the names Adam (Tom Hiddleston) and Eve (Tilda Swinton) for the leads, 
Jarmusch profoundly considers the effects of immortality on the minds of these creatures who still have a touch of soulful humanity in them. It’s fitting that the youngest of them, Ava (Mia Wasikowska), who must have turned undead before her frontal lobe had fully developed, is the most troublesome. By the same token, it’s also apt that Adam would tend to agree with Einstein’s critique of quantum mechanics, “spooky action at a distance.” The sumptuously absorbing score by Jozef van Wissem is an inspired choice for a composer. I was glad I recommended it in my last must-see listicle for “Cultist.”
I was also able to catch Heli in that last list of must-see MIFF films. It may have been the most powerful of all the MIFF films encountered at the festival. Ana Morgenstern will provide a review ahead of its theatrical release in South Florida in the next few months.
Awards for the closing night of the festival were handed out on Saturday night. The winners included many films I did not get around to seeing (I did only attend about half the festival, after all). Some of these will probably appear at other festivals while others will actually see theatrical release. I’ll leave you with the full list of winners, beginning with the audience award winners:
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Lexus Audience Award:
Best Feature: Fading Gigolo directed by John Turturro (USA).
Best Documentary: The Mountain (La montaña) directed by Tabaré Blanchard (Dominican Republic).
The other awards were announced Sunday:
Knight Competition:
Knight Grand Jury Prize: A Wolf at the Door (O lobo atrás da porta) (Brazil, directed by Fernando Coimbra).
Grand Jury Best Performance: Nora Navas of We All Want What’s Best For Her (Tots volem el millor per a ella) directed by Mar Coll (Spain).
Grand Jury Best Director: Fernando Coimbra of A Wolf at the Door (O lobo atrás da porta) (Brazil).
Jordan Alexander Ressler Screenwriting Award:
Winner: Mateo written by Maria Gamboa (Colombia/France).
Knight Documentary Competition:
The jury selected two films to tie as winners in this category for the Knight Grand Jury Prize:
Finding Vivian Maier, directed by Charlie Siskel and John Maloof (USA).
The Overnighters, directed by Jesse Moss (USA).
Lexus Ibero-American Opera Prima Competition:
The jury selected a winner and an honorable mention in this category:
Mateo directed by Maria Gamboa (Colombia/France)
Honorable Mention: The jury would also like to give special recognition to We are Mari Pepa (Somos Mari Pepa) directed by Samuel Kishi Leopo (Mexico).
Papi Shorts Competition Presnted By Macy’s:
Papi Shorts Grand Jury Award for Best Short Film: A Big Deal (特殊交易) directed by Yoyo Yao China of China will receive $1,000. The film made it’s US premiere at the festival this year.
Honorable Mention: The jury would also like to give special recognition to Skin directed by Cédric Prévost (France). The film made its North American premiere at the festival this year.
The above award winning films joined completion winners in other categories, announced earlier in the week at the Festival including:
Miami Encuentros presented by Moviecity
WINNER: Aurora (Chile, produced by Florencia Larrea, directed by Rodrigo Sepulveda) will receive a pre-sale contract offer worth $35,000.
Miami Future Cinema Critics Award
Winner: To Kill A Man (Matar un hombre) (Chile / France, directed by Alejandro Fernández Almendras).
Reel Music Video Art Competition Presented By MTV Latin America and TR3s
Winner: “Around the Lake” (“Autour Du Lac”) directed by Noémie Marsily & Carl Roosens of Belgium. The music video was performed by Carl et les hommes-boîtes. The winner will receive an opportunity to be placed on MTV Latin America and Tr3s websites.
SIGNIS Award
The International Jury of SIGNIS, the World Catholic Association for Communication, formed by: Gustavo Andújar, president, and Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki and Juan José Rodríguez, members, give their SIGNIS Award to Belle directed by Amma Asante for its multi-layered depiction of the challenges to the value of human life and dignity wherever a profit-driven system makes commodification of persons acceptable. Masterly crafted, the film lifts up a variety of issues of conscience which still confront us today.
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Director Noah Baumbach is one of the most honest filmmakers working today. Often quixotically summed up as misanthropic or angst-ridden, Baumbach’s films actually feature an astute sense of humor that is not afraid to explore the deep emotional wounds we incur while growing up. It’s a difficult thing to turn humorous, and he has always handled it with masterful finesse.
Baumbach has directed films starring Ben Stiller (Greenberg, see my original review: Greenberg: The Great Projector) and Nicole Kidman (Margot at the Wedding). His screenplays stand out as offering refreshing new challenges to stars like Stiller and Kidman, who sink their teeth into these titular characters with heavy, damaged personalities to sometimes disturbing lows while offering a mordant sense of humor. It’s a fine line to walk as far as entertainment, but it’s a testament to his craft that he can attract such figures to his work despite the rather dark humor.
With Frances Ha, Baumbach finally seems to reveal a lighter touch. The film follows a young woman (Greta Gerwig, who also co-wrote the script) learning to let go of her best friend Sophie (Mickey Sumner, Sting’s daughter) 
while figuring out how to make her own opportunities in her career choice: modern dance. The film is a testament to the oft-neglected stage of growing up in one’s later years, sometimes referred to as the quarter-life crisis. It’s not far off the mark from what makes the current buzzy HBO series “Girls” so popular, but Frances Ha is much more tidy and heartfelt. It has a charm influenced beyond concerns of the current generation usurping interest in current media. Both French New Wave and early Woody Allen are more relevant as influences than Gen Y malaise.
Maybe it’s the luminous black and white cinematography and setting, but a comparison to Allen’s Manhattan would not fall far from the mark. However, it’s how Baumbach has channeled French film— from Nouvelle Vague influences to a contemporary master— that will appeal to most cinephiles. Over all, 
the film has a tone recalling the bright but resonant personal dramedies of François Truffaut. Then there are specific scenes that pay conscious tribute to the wardrobe of Bande à part by Jean-Luc Godard and the more contemporary Leos Carax, involving the hit David Bowie song “Modern Love” and Frances running in the street, a la Mauvais sang.
More subtly, Baumbach employees a smart soundtrack featuring music by Georges Delerue, whose scores accompanied many films of the French New Wave. Witty cues and flourishes pepper the closing of many scenes in distinct homage. However, beyond the black and white cinematography and the music, the nostalgia ends there. In fact, it’s representative of the titular character’s condition who has found herself in a rut because she cannot seem to let go of her own past. Her inner child still seems to claw its way out from inside her despite put downs from a friend who blithely calls her “undatable” and a boss who has grown tired of stringing her along for some permanent position in a dance company Frances seems only half-invested in.
Gerwig dives into the character physically and facially. With her forced smile, raised eyebrows and furrowed brow, she plays Frances with an awkward charm that buoys her throughout the film’s many dramas. 
Frances is so desperate for relevance, as her friends seemingly glide through life, be they “artists” with indulgent parents or lucky career climbers, she decides to charge a weekend trip to Paris, so she might “grow” a bit. Succumbing to jet lag and a friend who won’t answer her phone calls, the highlight of her trip may have been catching Puss in Boots in a movie theater off the Champs-Élysées.
As with any Baumbach film, the director knows how to pile on the witty, if sometimes sardonic, scenes at a break-neck pace. But the reason the script, which Baumbach co-wrote with Gerwig, feels so smart is not that these are jokes looking for easy laughs. They provide a charming avenue to develop Frances’ character while also making her relatable. The audience is not meant to look down at her state of arrested development but sympathize with it. The film has a wonderful way of piling on the moments of fleshing out the character without feeling redundant and still upping the stakes of the drama as her career becomes on the line, and her friendships drift away. It’s a valid fear everyone knows.
The brilliance of the film is how it can take a character in such a state and make it not only entertaining but also earn a sense of hope in the end. As much as she loves having friends and cannot seem to let go of her appreciation for animated movies (She says, “Animals have to talk or be at war for a movie to be interesting,”) or play fighting in the park, any growth ultimately has to come from within. You can give as much affection to your friends as you want but never neglect the friend you should be to yourself.
Frances Ha runs 86 minutes and is rated R (frank talk, including sexuality). It opens today, May 24, at the Coral Gables Art Cinema and the Regal South Beach Stadium 18 in Miami Beach for its South Florida premiere run (IFC Films provided an on-line screener for the purposes of this review). It also appears in West Palm Beach on May 31 at Living Room Theaters, Regal Shadowood and Regal Delray and Cinemark Palace. Miami will see AMC Sunset Place adding the film to their line-up on May 31, also. Nationwide screenings dates can be found here. Update: “Miami New Times” has published my interview with the star of this film here (that’s a hot link; more on this to come). Update 2: Frances Ha will arrive at the Miami Beach Cinematheque Friday, July 5. Update 3: Frances Ha finally arrives in Broward County thanks to the Cinema Paradiso starting Friday, July 12. Update 4: Frances Ha has also made its way to O Cinema beginning Thursday, July 4.
Independent Ethos 