SXSW Film Reviews – March 12-14

So, despite my efforts at doing so here, I was not prepared for SXSW. The mass of people. The lines at everything. I’ve gone to places I’ve been to a bunch before, like the Drafthouse and the Paramount Theater, but they were unrecognizable. Nonetheless, here’s my summary of what I’ve done so far:

FRIDAY:

Friday was like an education for me in how to do SXSW. I showed up to Kick-Ass an hour before it started and didn’t get in. Then I didn’t get into Trash Humpers (which I’m kind of okay with) and the Predators preview event. So it was basically a wash.

SATURDAY:

Film: Dogtooth
So, I started my festival with the dark, dark Greek film Dogtooth, which won the Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes last year. Dogtooth is about a husband and wife who, for reasons that are left frighteningly vague, keep their three children locked up in their country estate. They teach the kids different meanings for words, so they can’t communicate with anyone except each other, and feed them with lies about the dangers of the outside world (cats are the most dangerous animals; stepping outside of the gate will cause you to die). Into this sheltered world comes an outsider who the parents are paying to sleep with their son, and things only get more messed up from there. Dogtooth swings from darkly funny to genuinely disturbing in a whiplash inducing way. The movie stays with you after its over, and some of the weirder setpieces are still eating at me a little. I wish the film was a little more stylistically polished (the colors are a little washed out and the camera work is, at times, kind of flat), but for a Lynchian contrast between a bourgey, rustic setting and the terrible things that the people who live there do, you can’t do much better than Dogtooth.

Grade: B+

Micmacs

Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s follow-up to Amelie is going to be a film you either love or hate. If your tolerance for unironic whimsy, childlike magic, and absurdity are low then you will likely check-out somewhere around the first five minutes. But, if you are locked in on Jeunet’s particular brand of playful filmmaking then you’re in for a delightful and fun night out. Micmacs is the story of a band of misfits who team up to take down a couple of arms dealers, but its strength is much more in the high number of comic setpieces and the thrill of watching things play out. The movie draws from a number of inspirations – ranging from Pixar to Tex Avery to Ocean’s 11 – but the main touchstone is Buster Keaton. Jeunet uses as few words as possible, making for a visual (and visceral) experience that is able to mine laughs in a truly cinematic way. Some of its jokes are as old as Keaton films, but the flair and pizzazz that Jeunet uses to tell them makes them funny nonetheless. While its ending draws the film’s politics to the fore a little too much, Micmacs is still a delightful piece of filmmaking.

Grade: A-

Cyrus
The Duplass Brothers’ greatest strength – their emotional honesty and verisimillitude – is also their greatest weakness. Their films are so rough and unpolished that its easy to sit at the end and wonder what, exactly, was the point of it all. But that’s a feature, not a bug, and, with Cyrus, they’re poised to break out in a big, big way. Their first movie with stars, Cyrus is about a guy, played by John C. Reilly, whose life is in a lonely tailspin, until he meets and falls in love with Marisa Tomei. Things are going great, but there’s a big obstacle to their love, in the form of her emotionally stunted, 21-year-old son Cyrus (Jonah Hill) who still lives at home and is in a weird, somewhat creepy co-dependent relationship with her. The movie doesn’t strain for laughs but lets them flow naturally, drawing from a loose, naturalistic style (helped by the actors’ improvisation and the Duplass Brothers’ trademark, documentary-style camerawork) and feeling very real. Its helped on by some great performances. John C. Reilly is his typically great self, but I was surprised by Jonah Hill (best known for Superbad and Forgetting Sarah Marshall) who gave a very natural and poignant performance that was miles away from his Apatow persona. It feels a tad slight – treading the line between loose and lazy – but its a very funny film with the potential to be a huge smash at the box office.

Grade: B

SUNDAY

Winter’s Bone
The only film I managed to see on Sunday was Winter’s Bone, a smash at Sundance that should be getting released later on in the year. The movie is set in the Ozarks, focusing on a young girl who, with her mother struck with mental illness and father in and out of jail, has to take care of her family and household (including her two younger siblings) on her own. Things get complicated when the cops show up and say that, if her Dad doesn’t show up for his court date, the family will lose their house, which he put up for his bond. The movie looks absolutely gorgeous – getting full effect out of the rustic, mountaneous backdrop – but is also an intricately realized and very full story. While the Coen Brothers are an obvious influence, this movie never mocks or satirizes its characters. The movie is all about the innate, deeply held mistrust of others and pervasive sense of “minding one’s own business” that is held by residents of the area and only exacerbated when Jennifer Lawrence’s character starts asking questions that make some very scary people bristle. The movie boasts some fantastic performances – especially Lawrence’s weighty work in the lead and John Hawkes (who was just killed off on Lost) as her tough, tempremental uncle – and the last 15 minutes are absolutely wrenching. It takes some time to get going, and a few scenes are too on-point (especially one with the only army recruiter in America who actually turns away potential recruits), but Winter’s Bone is a richly detailed mystery that forgoes the typical hyperbole and conventions of the average noir/thriller in favor of a more subtle and human story.

Grade: A-

TONIGHT: Macgruuuuuuuuber