The onslaught
of unreleased, on-the-edge, low-budget films that is San
Francisco’s IndieFest turns the switch on tonight. I had the
pleasure of viewing of few of this palate cleansing entries
and I wanted to share my love of them and a few others I
think you might be curious about. I know, I know, probably
not a lot of SF readers lurking about the Side One: Track
One film section, but think of these as films to seek out,
wherever you might be.
IndieFest Review/Preview
The Film: KABOOM
The Director: Gregg Araki
I’ve got to wait week to fully unleash my thoughts on the
new batshit crazy world of Gregg Araki’s new one, but I can
at least say a few words. KABOOM! is the Gregg Araki
that my parents used to not let me watch when I was growing
up. KABOOM! is Gregg Araki’s take on the college
comedy meaning its rife, rife with sex between guy and girl
and sex between guy and guy and girl and girl and guy and
guy and girl and on and on and on. Araki isn’t content to
just throw together a bunch of naked bodies and call it a
day though, he also tossed in a mystery involving a supposed
murder, a cult, a religious end-of-days philosophy and
rippling maybe gay roommate named Thor (Chris Zylka). It’s
decidedly low budget (extras were certainly not a part of
the budget in this film) and treads the line of low budget
indie and amateur film at times, but Araki has a manic sense
of fun in rattling about his chest and its pulsing beneath
every frame of this film. It’s kicked off the film festival
last night (Thursday, February 3rd) and will now be playing
a handful of times throughout Indiefest.
The Film: Gold Farmers
The Director: Ge Jin
Gold Farmers isn’t an easy film to watch. It’s
sloppily edited and the visuals are strung together with
chewed gum and dental floss. Subtitles (the film is almost
entirely in Chinese) are muddy and at times blend in to the
background and though it only clocks in at 34 minutes, it
still manages to feel long. That said the ideas presented in
Gold Farmers are fascinating and distract from the
more aesthetic missteps. The discusses the ideas of Chinese
"gold farms", groups of young men who play World Of
Warcraft nine hours a day (one lunch break) in an effort
to accrue as much gold and weaponry possible so they can
then send it to the lazy schlubs who make up the rest of the
world. It sounds like it could just be a clever depiction of
the "loser" sub-set, but Ge Jin manages to use the dislike
and distrust of the gold farmer as a way to explore the
onset of China as a true world power. The sections of film
involving the head of Radio Warcraft and his vehement quest
to eradicate gold farmers from the game he loves so much,
sounded like a the opening volleys of a hate war. Ge Jin
manages to paint the gold farmers as kids with no other
options well at the same time highlighting the positive
social interactions a world like Warcraft might present. I’d
love to see what Ge Jin could do with a hefty budget and
someone who knew there way around a camera.
The Film: Mars
The Director: Geoff Marslett
Consider Geoff Marslett’s Mars the first foray in to
mumblecore science fiction. Starring mumblecore mascot
himself Mark Duplass, the film follows a trio of astronauts
as they disembark to discover what might be shaking on the
planet Mars. Absolutely low budget, the film uses
gyroscoping as a replacement for special effects and it
times it distracts entirely from what’s going on narratively.
Astronaut Casey Cook (Zoe Simpson) is an attractive
character but the use of gyroscoping gives her a five ‘o’
clock shadow better suited to my sixty year old father. The
rest of the characters seem sickly or jaundiced. I can’t say
I love a mumblecore sci-fi movie. I didn’t enjoy Gareth
Edwards Monsters and feel like Mars followed a
similar dance tune. There’s a lot of talking in the film but
most of it is just emotional chatter that seems to have
snuck its way in to the wrong film. The acting is low-key
and casually charming, I just couldn’t get behind the film’s
concept.
A few others I’m curious about:
The Film: We Are What We Are
The Director: Jorge Michael Grau
I love the description of this film. A family loses its
patriarch and has to come together to survive in the wake of
his passing. Pretty simple right? Less simple when you
realize the family is a clan of cannibals. Creeeeeeeepy.
The Film: The Trashmaster
The Director: Mathieu Weschler
A film made entirely out of clips from Grand Theft Auto 4.
It’s not a short film. This is a 90 minute beast that
follows a garbage man as he’s pulled in to the world of
twisted serial killer. And every single frame is pulled from
a video game. Takes digital filmmaking to a whole new level.
The Film: Bloodied But Unbowed
The Director: Susanne Tabata
Punk rock documentaries always entertain the shit out of me.
The dirty, disgusting worlds true punk rock kids used to
live in are so far away from the blandly suburban life I
grew up amongst. Tabata’s film, about the burgeoning West
Coast scene in the early 80s, is all primary source footage
and amazing interviews and the brief amount I was able to
watch was highly entertaining.
IndieFest runs from Thursday, February 3rd until Friday,
February 18th.
- Noah Sanders
-
Unless
otherwise expressly stated, all text in this blog and any
related pages, including the blog's archives, is licensed by
John Laird under a
Creative Commons License.
