Coverage of the Seattle International Film Festival and year-round art house programming in the Pacific Northwest.
Kathy Fennessy is President of the Seattle Film Critics Society, a Northwest Film Forum board member, and a Tomatometer-approved critic. She writes or has written for Amazon, Minneapolis's City Pages, Resonance, Rock and Roll Globe, Seattle Sound, and The Stranger.
As an admirer of Alan Warner's 1995 novel Morvern Callar, which centers on a coolheaded Scottish drifter, I was pleased to see that he's preparing a 33 1/3 entry on Can's 1971 opus Tago Mago. That's an album—a double album, no less—that could benefit from literary exploration (though Ege Bamyasi remains my favorite Can record).
Can plays a part in Morvern's story just as they do on the soundtrack to Lynne Ramsay's 2002 adaptation. Her first feature, Ratcatcher,
knocked me out to the extent that I immediately grabbed a copy of
Warner's debut novel when I found out that she would be adapting it.
After catching the film, in which Samantha Morton
plays the title character, I picked up the soundtrack. Naturally, it
includes Can, but also two solo selections from singer-bassist Holger Czukay (Ramsay has since adapted a second novel, Lionel Shriver's We Need to Talk About Kevin).
Here's a mini-cut of Can references from Morvern Callar (exactly as written):
Though alone I climbed to the circular folly
above the port. I put Can: Delay 1968 in my ears while I used the
goldish lighter on Silk Cuts and bolted the wine...I held my arms out
for a while to let the mud just dry on the skin then I climbed on up
swinging the trowel to I'm So Green till I came to the big gathering of
tons boulders with soil and mosses capping the tops...Near their feet I
cooried down in front the CD and put on Unlimited Edition by The Can...
From her boyfriend, Morvern also inherits copies of Magazine's Secondhand Daylight, Last Exit's Iron Path, Bill Nelson's Red Noise, PM Dawn's Of the Heart, of the Soul and of the Cross: The Utopian Experience, the Golden Palominos' This Is How It Feels, Material's Hallucination Engine, and Lee "Scratch" Perry's De Devil Dead.
According to the announcement
regarding Warner's Can book, "Publication date is unconfirmed at this
point but look for further announcements on this blog." It's been years
since I've read a 33 1/3 title, due more to a lack of time than
interest, but I predict that his contribution will be among the finest
in this enduring series.
Fun fact: Alan Warner dedicated Morvern Callar to Czukay and sax great Peter Brötzmann. Dec 29, 2023 update: I read Warner's book in 2017 during a trip through Eastern Europe. It wasn't quite what I was expecting, i.e. he took a memoir approach, so there's more Warner/Scotland and less Can/Germany than I anticipated. Still worth a read, though. Images from the IMDb (the movie poster) and Amazon (the book cover).
"Now, we all know Kerry's my favorite, then Kev, then David, then Mike. But the rankings can always change."--Fritz Von Erich (Holt McCallany) to his sons
Part One: The Story of a Face
It's hard to talk about writer-directorSean Durkin's fact-based melodrama The Iron Claw without talking about Zac Efron, and not just because he plays the central character, former wrestling champion Kevin Adkisson, aka Kevin Von Erich, but because it isn't the kind of role he could've played, say, 10 years ago when he appeared in the hit frat-vs-dad comedy Neighbors.
Zac just doesn't look like that fresh-faced guy anymore, and not because he's 36 rather than 26--in The Iron Claw, he plays Kevin from his late-teens through his late-thirties--but because he looks like a different person.
When Zac first came to fame by way of The Disney Channel's 2006 millennial sensation High School Musical, he was about as pretty as a young man could get. It made him an instant teen idol. Zac capitalized on his success by appearing in two sequels, in addition to the 2007 version of the Broadway musical adaptation of John Waters' 1988 film Hairspray.
He could've kept going as a song and dance man, but decided to try other things instead; some worked, some didn't, but he was honing his chops.
In retrospect, it's too bad the coming-of-age dramas he made with Richard Linklater (Me and Orson Welles), Ramin Bahrani (At Any Price), and Lee Daniels (The Paperboy) didn't make more of a impact, or he might have continued in that vein, but instead, he gravitated toward mainstream comedies and romantic dramas. It's only in more recent years that he's appeared in slightly edgier material, like Harmony Korine's The Beach Bum.
Though Zac has worked steadily since 2002, when he was only 15, he was involved in an accident in 2013 that would change the course of his life. After a bad fall that, by his own account, left his chin literally hanging from his face, he had his jaw wired shut. The experience didn't alter his appearance at first. Through regular rehab, he could keep the damaged muscles in his face in alignment, but when he took an extended break in 2021, his jawline widened, permanently altering the shape of his face, and leading to speculation that he had had plastic surgery. He swears he hasn't, and I believe him, but he looks different. He's still a handsome man, but the prettiness is gone.
While watching The Iron Claw, it occurred to me that he's entered the post-1956 Montgomery Clift stage of his career. After the horrific accident in which Monty's famous face took the brunt of the impact, he had surgery that subtly, but significantly altered his appearance. Though plastic surgery wasn't as advanced in the 1950s, he appears to have had the very best.
It's often said that the accident robbed Monty of his looks, but this is cruel overstatement.
Even the Clash got in on the act with "The Right Profile" when Joe Strummer sang, "And everybody say, 'He sure looks funny--that's Montgomery Clift, honey'." Monty still looked good, but his matinee idol days came to a crashing halt, and though the films and roles grew smaller, he continued to do finework. Eventually though, after years with a debilitating case of chronic colitis combined with the suffocations of the celluloid closet, the damage from self-medicating with alcohol and barbiturates took its toll.
Zac, on the other hand, may also look subtly, but significantly different, but he isn't going anywhere--not least because he's been sober since 2013, possibly as a result of the fall. It's just that there aren't likely to be as many pretty-boy roles in his future, which brings us to The Iron Claw in which he takes on his darkest, most devastating role to date.
If 2017's superfluous Baywatch introduced a super-fit, male model version of the svelte figure he had been before--much like Ryan Gosling's beach-ready body in Barbie--Zac is all muscle here, just as young Kevin Von Erich was all muscle (in 2020, Zac claimed he never wanted to work out like that again--"It's just stupid and it's not real"--and yet here we are). As far as I can tell, it's 100% Zac; no makeup effects, no prosthetics. It's a startling transformation. In combination with his changed face and shaggy hair, he's virtually unrecognizable, other than by those unmistakable blue eyes.
Part Two: The Family That Prays Together
In the prologue, a trim and effectively intimidating Holt McCallany (Mindhunter) plays Jack, patriarch of the Dallas-based Von Erich clan. He's a variant of the absolute beast Robert Duvall played in The Great Santini or maybe even Robert De Niro's "Shut your pie hole!" stepfather in A Boy's Life. Better known by his heel name, Fritz, he and his wife, Doris (Maura Tierney), have two boys, Kevin and David. From their father, they learn his signature move, The Iron Claw, which is every bit as injurious as it sounds.
The next time they appear, the family has expanded by two more sons, Mike and Kerry (Durkin omitted Chris, the youngest Von Erich). Fritz now works behind the scenes of World Class Championship Wrestling as owner and promoter, while Kevin and David (Scrapper's Harris Dickinson) have taken his place in the ring.
Except for the fact that their world revolves around wrestling, they're a typical Texas family in the 1970s: they own a ranch, their house is filled with guns, and their stay-at-home mom is a devout Christian. It isn't clear if the Von Erich menfolk share Doris's fervor, though it seems unlikely. When something goes wrong--like the accidental death of firstborn son Jack Jr. in 1959--she claims it was God's will, and when the boys seek her advice, she tells them to sort things out for themselves. It's the most downbeat performance I've seen the one-time Newsradio player give, and it will grow more downbeat over the course of the film.
A bright spot arrives in the form of Pam (Lily James, last seen playing Pamela Anderson in Pam & Tommy), who forthrightly and flirtatiously approaches Kevin after a match. The expectation: she's a groupie looking for a roll in the hay. Not exactly. Pam does everything in her power to get the sweet, if rather clueless grappler to ask her out. One date later, and they become inseparable. Durkin suggests that the Von Erich boys have been so indoctrinated by Fritz's macho bluster that they don't know how to have a normal conversation with a woman, especially one as outspoken as Pam. She's everything Doris isn't. (Even in the prologue, Doris comes across as a scold, chastising Fritz for buying a fancy car when their funds are tight.)
Durkin introduces the third brother, Mike (Angelfish's Stanley Simons), early on. To his father's chagrin, the rangy kid would prefer to make music than to wrestle, but he supports his brothers, and the feeling is mutual. At least 30 minutes pass before Durkin introduces the fourth brother, explaining that Kerry (The Bear's Jeremy Allen White, shorter than the rest, but just as buff), aka the future Texas Tornado, has been away at his father's alma mater, Southern Methodist University, where his expertise at discus-throwing lands him a berth on the Olympic team, but when the US boycotts the 1980 Moscow Olympics, Fritz talks him into joining Kevin and David in the ring where they become a formidable tag team, wrestling three opponents at the same time, bringing even more fame--if not always fortune--their way.
So far, so good, but then, after Durkin has fully defined the contours of the family's life and work, everything starts to go wrong, and no one has the power--or uses what power they have--to try to stem the tide. The idea of a Von Erich Curse takes hold, but not one of these tragedies was preordained.
In brief: David develops enteritis before a major Japanese match. Though Kevin urges him to see a specialist, David tells him he plans to wait until afterward. The boys have been taught to suck it up, and so David does what he has been told. We won't see him again.
With a second son down, Fritz convinces Mike to trade music for the mat; from his business-minded perspective, the boys are virtually interchangeable, but it works for awhile. Until it doesn't.
One injury later, and Mike is no longer able to wrestle. More critically, he isn't able to do much of anything, and though he shows signs of improvement, it isn't enough. He doesn't want to live like this, and so he finds a way out. Though Kerry, not Kevin, will bring home the American Heavyweight Champion belt Fritz was never able to secure himself, yet another injury will take him out of the ring. Against all odds, he finds a way to return. All the while, though, he's in excruciating pain, and turns to painkillers to cope. Soon he, too, will take himself out of the picture, leaving Kevin the last Von Erich male--next to his indestructible father, of course.
After the film ended, it occurred to me that this is a deeply odd motion picture to release during the holidays. The entire thing serves as a cautionary tale about masculinity and its discontents. Though Durkin concludes with an idyllic sequence, and though the inter-titles indicate the better times to come, I left with the overwhelming feeling that the Von Erich Curse was due more to poor parenting than to fate. Notably, Durkin didn't call on the real-life Kevin, now a 66-year-old grandfather, until well into production, but he's been supportive of the film, so it would appear that he doesn't dispute the representation of his parents. If anything, he says he was moved by the depiction of the closeness he and his brothers shared.
Part Three: Suicide is Painless (Not Really)
There are plenty of adults who grow up with shitty parents, and manage to survive and thrive. There are others who have the most loving parents imaginable, but it isn't enough when life feels like it's no longer worth living. There's no one reason people commit suicide any more than there is no one kind of person who sees death as the only solution to their ills. In the case of the three Von Erich brothers who took their lives--including the unseen Chris--they made their own decisions, but the film strongly suggests that they didn't have the means to cope when adversity came their way. Dad taught them to suck it up, Mom taught them that everything is God's will, and they grew up in an environment where therapy was for the weak. If The Iron Claw isn't an overtly political film, it's certainly not pro-gun. The principle of Chekhov's gun is in full effect: two brothers would die by self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Though it's beyond the scope of the film to explore copycat suicides--a real-world phenomenon that rattled Japan in the 1980s--it's hard not to imagine that the first Von Erich suicide in some awful way made the second and third possible. It's almost as if The Iron Claw is an uber-macho precursor to Jeffrey Eugenides' hyper-feminine novel The Virgin Suicides--the inspiration behind Sofia Coppola's directorial debut--in which every one of the beautiful, blonde Lisbon sisters takes her own life. Except that this all really happened.
Part Five: The Last Man Standing
In the end, Kevin escapes--and ostensibly ends--the so-called curse. He would follow his father as a behind-the-scenes wrestling magnate, while his sons would follow in their father and grandfather's footsteps as pro wrestlers. The film posits Pam as the primary factor that helped him to weather adversity, though it also presents him as the most stable Von Erich right from the jump. True or no, he's like a surrogate father in the film, since he settles down first and doesn't judge his brothers way his parents do when things go wrong.
Though the idea that the love of a good woman saving a man's life seems rather simplistic--and even conservative in ways that the rest of the film isn't--Kevin and Pam have now been married for 43 years, run a business together, and have managed to avoid the scandals that plagued his father's career, so it's hard to completely discount her influence.
Part Six: The Aftermath
Last week, Zac Efron was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and members of The Iron Claw cast came out to support him with Sean Durkin and Jeremy Allen White saying a few heartfelt words on his behalf.
Hollywood is powered by hot air, so I don't always know what to believe--as much as I like to think I'm pretty perceptive--but the person they described sounds a lot like film's Kevin Von Erich.
Zac, too, is a survivor, and reportedly a kind and decent person. He's also ridiculously privileged, but when a young, inexperienced kid finds themselves with boatloads of money: bad things can happen. Zac slipped and broke his face because he was running around in socks and collided with the granite fountain in his home. But he got sober with help from his friend and mentor Matthew Perry, who succumbed to drug addiction this October after years of trying to get clean (sadly, the ketamine overdose that claimed Perry's life was part of a therapy treatment gone wrong).
I watched Zac's Walk of Fame ceremony on YouTube because I wanted to see what he looks like now, long after filming has wrapped. His appearance in The Iron Claw is so unsettling--and frankly disturbing--that I worried he might still look like a Hulk-come-to-life. He doesn't. He's de-bulked, and he looks good. In fact, no one could stop talking about how good he looks.
I'm not sure whether he gives a great performance in the film, because Kevin is so recessive compared to his more extroverted brothers--David especially--but it's definitely a good one, and I feel certain that he's never brought more of himself to a role. So far, the film's biggest award has been for best ensemble, and despite Zac's shocking physical transformation, an Oscar nomination isn't guaranteed, but at least he's got a real shot.
At the press screening, my colleague, Silas Lindenstein, noted that The Iron Claw isn't really a wrestling movie, and he's right (he also complained that the film's Ric Flair doesn't begin to capture the actual flamboyant heel's charisma, and he's right there, too).
As Sean Durkin explains in the production notes, he grew up as a fan of the Von Erich brothers, so he brought that knowledge and enthusiasm to the project, and the wrestling scenes look sufficiently authentic--and viscerally painful in ways that recall Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler--but I believe it's the second half of the film, when things fall apart, that really drew him to the project.
Durkin's 2011 directorial debut, Martha Marcy May Marlene, which stars a very good, pre-MCU Elizabeth Olsen in her breakout role, also revolves around a survivor; in that case, a former cult member learning to function as an autonomous individual. The link between the two is clear: having to perform masculinity at all times in all situations and never showing any physical or emotional vulnerability is like being in a cult. It's also a curse that can infect--and in some cases destroy--most everyone that it touches.
For a more upbeat wrestling film, I recommend 2018's Fighting With My Family with Florence Pugh and Jack Lowden. The Iron Claw opens on Dec 21 at the Uptown and wide on Dec 22. Images from TV Guide (Zac Efron in The Iron Claw), Teen Vogue/Walt Disney Co./Courtesy Everett Collection (Zac in High School Musical), Men's Health (Zac in Baywatch), The Hollywood Reporter (Zac with Harris Dickinson, Stanley Simons, and Jeremy Allen White), WrestleTalk (the Von Erich menfolk), Common Sense Media (Zac and Lily James), ABC7 Chicago/KABC (Zac with star), and Yahoo /Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images (Kevin and Pam at Zac's ceremony).
RISSI PALMER: STILL HERE
(Dilsey Davis, USA, 44 minutes)
At the second and final festival screening of Still Here, Durham, NC director Dilsey Davis explained that PBS's American Masters,
which produced her directorial debut, stipulated a cut of less than one hour, and so
she complied, though it wasn't easy. To Dilsey's credit, her profile of the Nashville country
singer, the first Black woman to land a song on the country charts since 1987,
feels pretty comprehensive, though I still wish it was more fleshed-out (and she didn't say anything about the availability of a longer cut).
Aside from Dilsey's look at her subject's rise from a frustrated pop singer toa fully-actualized country artist, mother, and television host, the profile shows how emerging artists from marginalized communities can benefit when someone of Rissi's stature uses her platform for their benefit.
Charly Lowry, a Pembroke, NC-based artist from the Lumbee/Tuscarora tribes, was at the screening, and performed a couple of songs from her upcoming full-length debut (she's also a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill graduate). Charly has a strong, resonant voice, and one of the songs was so catchy, I found myself humming it while walking out of the theater. Definitely an artist to keep an eye on as she makes more waves in 2024. Dilsey is now working on a documentary about Charly. I hope, for the sake of both women, that she'll be granted a longer run time.
RIDDLE OF FIRE
(Weston Razooli, USA, 113 minutes)
I've never seen a film exactly like Weston Razooli's Riddle of Fire, a hit at Cannes and Fantastic Fest, which takes place in Wyoming, but looks more like Romania. That's because Razooli appears to be well versed in the fantasy films or fantastique of the 1960s and '70s, like Barbarella or John Boorman's Zardoz, even if his film is devoid of crazy, sexy costumes.
Unlike Riddle of Fire, those very adult films never revolved around kids. Other than some choice profanity, it would make for a great family film. I would've loved it if I had been able to see such a thing when I was a little one, though it's more likely to target and attract the art house crowd.
There's plenty of action, most involving paint guns and off-the-wall humor. There's even a little magic. I couldn't always understand what Jodie (the unbelievably cute Skyler Peters), the youngest of the four adventurerers, was saying, but his rubbery gestures and appealingly squeaky voice made me laugh more often than not. Charlie Stover, Phoebe Ferro, and Lorelei Olivia Mote as his brave companions were equally effective.
Their quest: to find a speckled egg for the purposes of Jodie and Hazel's mom, who will only share the TV password they need to use the video game console they boosted if they bring her a blueberry pie made according to a very specific recipe while she's in bed with a cold.
That's the gist of the plot, but Razooli (who also plays a part) squeezes maximum inventiveness out of it. There are also witches, freak folk twins, a hazy color palette that lends everything a lysergic glow--he shot on 16mm as in the fantastical days of yore--and the kind of Celtic-style lettering for the credits and inter-titles that adds vintage flare to a film otherwise set in the present. I heard a rumor, from a knowledgeable source, that Razooli's debut may be coming to Seattle at some point, and I hope it's true.
SHE IS CONANN (Bertrand Mandico, Belgium/France/Luxembourg, 104 minutes)
I reviewed French fantastique filmmaker Bertrand Mandico's After Blue (Dirty Paradise) for Video Librarian last year (I haven't seen his directorial debut, The Wild Boys). Mandico has his own, idosyncratic thing going on, and it's easy to admire, but not as easy to like--at least not for me.
In their outlines, his narratives make a kind of sense, but dialogue is frequently inscrutable.
Unlike After Blue, She Is Conann--his queer, gender-bending take on Robert E. Howard's Conan--features an entire B&W sequence in English, and it's one of my favorites. Conann, a female-presenting character, is played by older actors in each sequence as she ages.
In the English-language section, the 35-year-old Conann is played by a bald, striking Black woman (Lupin's Sandra Parfait) with silvery, new wave-style face makeup and records strewn across her floor from the likes of Can (Tago Mago) and Klaus Nomi (his self-titled debut).
Not a lot happens in this sequence, but Mandico amps up the somnolent pace to welcome effect. Another, livelier highlight: the sequence in which Conann asks a gathering of cash-strapped artists to literally eat her body in its entirety. If they do so, she'll ensure they have the funding they need. They're thoroughly disgusted, but except for one woman, they all dig in.
Mandico's performers, like the ever-fearless Elina Löwensohn (Nadya, Amateur) are always game, but the acting is variable at best, which can make it hard to care about any of the characters. The lovely Ms. Löwensohn spends the entire film behind a thick, prosthetic dog mask as a sort of ageless trickster figure named Rainer who wears a black leather jacket with their name emblazoned in rhinestones on the back, much as in Kenneth Anger's Scorpio Rising. The name also surely serves as a reference to Mandico inspiration Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who created fully-formed, insular worlds out of whatever the fuck he could get his hands on.
At times, I drifted off, ever so briefly, during the film. It didn't really matter, and I felt zero guilt. As programmer Aaron Hillis advised in his introduction, if you aren't sure what's going on, just relax and let it wash over you.
Though I wish Mandico was a more scrutable storyteller, I can't imagine taking a pass at the chance to see one of this films on the big screen, because there's nothing quite like them in terms of practical effects, and we need more of that in our CGI-dominated cinematic landscape.
There are no more screenings of any of these films,but Altered Innocence will be releasing Conann theatrically in 2024. Images from Rissi Palmer's official website, Screen Anarchy (Riddle of Fire's pint-sized cast), Movie Insider (Andrea and Rachel Browne), Brooklyn Horror Fest (Nathalie Richard as Conann at 55), and The Movie Isle (Elina Löwensohn and pals).
SCALA!!! (Ali Catterall and Jane Giles, UK, 2023, 96 minutes)
It's unlikely I'll see a better documentary this year than Ali Catterall and Jane Giles's SCALA!!! (love those three exclamation points), an artful, no-holds-barred look at the celebrated London movie palace that existed under various names and permutations for hundreds of years. Against all odds: it's still standing.
Giles, a former programmer was at the screening with former theater worker Vic Roberts--who now lives in Wilmington--had previously compiled a large-format Scala Cinema Book for FAB Press, so she was well positioned to segue to a documentary about a subject she loves dearly.
Through present-day interviews, archival footage, and an abundance of fair-use film clips, Catterall and Giles recount the history of the place, including the first UK appearances from proto-punk legends Lou Reed and Iggy and the Stooges, while concentrating specifically on the years 1978-1993 (a plaque now commemorates the historic 1972 concerts).
During that time, Scala was as much of a haunt for aspiring filmmakers, like Isaac Julien and Mary Harron, as musicians, like Douglas Hart (Jesus and Mary Chain) and Barry Adamson (Magazine, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds), who composed the finger-snapping, Elmer Bernstein-inspired score (at the screening, Jane noted that it will be coming out in some form, possibly on Mute Records). Editor and producer Andrew Starke also deserves credit for marshaling the material in such a clever, fast-moving manner.
SCALA!! is currently making the festival rounds while Catterall and Giles work out the distribution situation. To judge by the reaction of the capacity crowd at Jengo's Playhouse, the documentary will be making a lot more enthusiastic fans in the future, and maybe it will even inspire more theater owners, like the fine folks at Seattle's Beacon Cinema, to throw caution to the wind when it comes to film (and other kinds of) programming.
KIM'S VIDEO (David Redmond and Ashley Sabin, USA, 2023, 85 minutes)
Unlike some of the other documentaries I've seen at Cucalorus, especially Georden West's beautifully burnished Playland, Kim's Video is not a pretty film, but as much as I love a handsomely-shot or creatively-constructed work of non-fiction, a case can be made for those films in which the storytelling--and the sheer fearlessness it takes to tell the story--reigns above all. That film is David Redmond and Ashley Sabin's Kim's Video.
I would imagine that these experienced documentarians (Intimidad, Girl Model) didn't have the budget for a cinematographer, because aside from co-directing, David--who has a very pleasant voice--narrated and shot the film.
I couldn't say what kind of camera he used, but the images have a consumer-grade look, like the camera work in The Blair Witch Project or Ti West's Trigger Man, after which Ti turned to professional DPs. For what its worth, the imagery isn't as wobbly as either of those films.
It's also possible that the filmmakers simply wanted to be as nimble as possible, since David had to travel from New York, where Youngman Kim once owned several popular video stores, to New Jersey and South Korea, where he maintains homes, and remote Salemi, Sicily, where the entire collection ended up after Kim's went out of business (Karina Longworth previously recounted the labyrinthian journey for LA Weekly in 2012).
So, the storytelling is the thing, and David is relentless in trying to establish the links between "Centro Kim," as the collection was known in Salemi, and the various mobsters and politicians who took it up as a cause, while also ensuring that nothing was ever digitized and that the thousands of films, in whatever form, were never properly shielded from the elements or made available to the public as promised.
There's a happy ending, and David helped to make it happen. When a filmmaker inserts themselves into a story, bad things can happen, but just as Jane Giles's passion fueled the Scala book and documentary, David Redmond's passion for Kim's Video inspired him to go above and beyond mere image-making. Maybe someday he and Ashley will again make a film that looks better than this one, but their storytelling is hard to beat.
There are no more screenings of SCALA!!! or Kim's Video. Images: Alan Delaney / Screen Daily (Scala), Mick Rock / Happy Mag (David Bowie, Lou Reed, and Iggy Pop), James and Karla Murray Photography (Kim's Video), and The New York Post (Youngman Kim in one of his stores).
WITH LOVE AND A MAJOR ORGAN (Kim Albright, 2023, Canada, 92 minutes)
British-Canadian filmmaker Kim Albright'sfeature-length debut, With Love and a Major Organ, takes a
metaphorical expression, and makes it literal. According to Psychology Today, giving your heart to another person "manifests profound love."
What if instead of doing so in the conventional way, you could rip it out of your
chest and hand it over to them, still beating? Chances are, you'd be dead before you completed your grim task, but what sounds like a
horror-movie premise powers a non-gory film that plays more like an office comedy
or a rom-com where everything is slightly skewed. It's funny, but in a
deadpan, absurdist way. It doesn't hurt that Anna Maguire as Anabel and
Hamza Haq as George are charming as the potential couple.
PLAYLAND (Georden West, 2023, USA, 72 minutes)
Of all the hybrid documentaries I've ever seen, Georden West's Playland, which screened at Seattle's TRANSlations Film Festival earlier this year, is possibly the most beautiful. West looks back, in a theatrical manner, at a refuge for Boston's queer community that existed between 1937-1998, and cinematographer Jo Jo Yam bathes every sequence in a golden glow.
The actors, who represent workers, performers, and customers from different eras enact out scenarios that provide a glimpse into the lively atmosphere that once swirled around this space, bolstered by intricately-detailed production design, beaded and feathered costumes, an eerie electronic score, and a combination of pop songs and classical pieces (the primary actor/performers, who are all quite effective, include Pose's Danielle Cooper, Aidan Dick, and drag star The Lady Bunny). Look closely, and you'll spot a swan, or a reference to a swan, in most every sequence.
Audience members looking for facts and figures will leave disappointed, as several Letterboxd reviews attest, but there's no rule that a documentary has to have an overtly literal-minded narrative--though this one incorporates audio interviews and newsreel footage at crucial moments--when a filmmaker would prefer to conjure up something impressionistic.
Anyone interested in queer history, in addition to the work of David Lynch and the ghostly filmography of Roy Andersson will find much to enjoy.
SUMMER SOLSTICE (Noah Schamus, 2023, USA, 81 minutes)
A sweet, overly passive trans actor spends a weekend in the country with a cisgender college friend that tests their relationship in Noah Schamus's touching feature. After the screening Schamus, accompanied by editor Christopher McKee, acknowledged that some details were inspired by personal experience, and I would believe it, because they ring true. Whether trans or not, we've all befriended or at least met that person--usually a woman--who is always impatient, emotional, and dramatic.
Leo (Adam's Bobbi Salvör Menuez) has to figure out whether it's worthwhile to have Eleanor (Marianne Rendón, Mary Harron's Charlie Says) in his life, not least when he felt like he was just her hanger-on in college. The two actors are exceptional in their very different roles.
RATS! (Maxwell Nalevansky and Carl Fry, 2023, USA, 83 minutes)
I may have seen Carl Fry and Maxwell Nalevansky's RATS! at 10pm,but this wild, over-the-top stoner comedy is the quintessential midnightmovie (near as I can tell, Fry is based in Austin and Nalevansky is based in Brooklyn). The co-directors along with a number of their high-spirited cast and crew were in attendance, so it was a boisterous screening. Plus, "Convulsions" programmer/emcee Aaron Hillis came dressed as a giant rat.
The story revolves around graffiti artist Raphael (newcomer Luke Wilcox) who gets in over his head with a crazy cop (an unhinged Danielle Evon Ploeger) and other Pfresno, Texas eccentrics. The action moves fast and furiously, and gets very, very bloody towards the end. It absolutely won't be to all tastes, but the actors are so good, I'm certain we'll see several of them again, and I hope we do.
Wilcox and Khali Sykes as Bernadette, a goth-punk woman he meets while doing community service, are great together, have obvious star quality, and are very easy on the eyes, if you're into that kind of thing (Darius Autry is also hilarious as Mateo, their partner-in-petty crime). In person, the actors are just as attractive and charismatic as they are on screen. Nalevansky and Fry wisely have them keep things grounded in reality, which only make the craziness that surrounds them seem all the crazier. If Japanese wild man Sion Sono made a stoner comedy set in Austin, it would look a lot like RATS!
Playland screens again on Sat, Nov 18, 4:30pm at Thalian Black and Summer Solstice screens again on Sun, Nov 19, 1:15pm at Thalian Main. Click here or more details. There are no more screenings of With Love and a Major Organ and RATS! Images from Film Inquiry (Anna Maguire), IFFR / Variety (Playland), MUBI (Bobbi Salvör Menuez and Marianne Rendón), and Cucalorus Film Festival (Luke Wilcox and Khali Sykes).
FOR NICK, FROM DAD (Nick Damore, 2023, USA, 42 minutes)
Nick Damore's first-person documentary takes on a lot in 42 minutes, but not more than it can bear.
In his directorial debut, Nick recounts a childhood spent with the father he never really knew, investigative journalist and longtime Cape Cod resident Leo J. Damore (Senatorial Privilege). Leo, 66 at the time, took his life when Nick was 10 years old.
The film begins with audio from a cassette recording in which Leo explains how much Nick means to him, so the love wasn't in doubt, except his father was obsessed with writing. Beyond the books of fiction and non-fiction, he was a compulsive diarist who left scores of journals behind.
Plenty of writers take an obsessive approach to their craft, but Leo did so at the expense of his second family--and possibly his first (Nick has a stepbrother and sister). He was also looking into to the kinds of cover-ups, like Chappaquiddick, that unsettle powerful people and organizations, like the Kennedy clan and the CIA, so some associates suspect foul play in the way he went off the deep end toward the end of life. He was also keeping a major secret that Nick didn't discover until well after Leo's death.
Nick is now working on a book about his father. The director attended the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, and the creative non-fiction professor who sent him down this path--possibly Clyde Edgerton, but I'm not 100% certain--was at the screening. I spoke to both, briefly, afterward. It's so great to see professor-student relationships lead to such substantial and presumably cathartic work in the years after college. I can only imagine how much a creative kid, who lost his father at such an early age, could have really used a mentor to help him channel his frustration in a focused manner.
When Nick was younger, he really didn't want to deal with his father's suicide or the unfortunate events that led up to it, but as he told People magazine in 2022, "When someone takes their life, they may think they are releasing their
family from a burden but they fail to see they are also shackling them. It leaves things so unresolved that it leaves a chasm. So
these projects are my attempt at feeling whole and hoping to understand
things better. It's when we don't address what happened that it
lingers."
I know what he means. I never experienced the suicide of a parent, but my mom did. Though she was an adult when it happened, her father's disappearance after her parents' divorce, combined with his self-inflicted death in the 1970s, left her family with a mystery that will never be solved; unlike Leo Damore, my grandfather, who also started a second family, didn't leave any clues, like journals or research materials.
Since the elder Damore's passing in 1995, his best known book, 1989 bestseller Senatorial Privilege, has been re-titled Chappaquiddick Power, Privilege, and the Ted Kennedy Cover-Up. Nick claims that John Curran's 2017 docudrama Chappaquiddick, in which Jason Clarke plays Ted Kennedy and Kate Mara plays Mary Jo Kopechne, was inspired by Leo's book--and the cover copy backs him up--but he received no mention in the credits. Considering that it's the definitive statement on the subject, that does seem unfortunate.
Due to the unusual length of For Nick, I'm not sure where it will turn up next--possibly PBS or The Criterion Channel--but it screened with a short, Thomas Corriveau's painterly Marie. Eduardo. Sophie., and followed a performance by Portland-by-way-of-Wilmington musician and filmmaker Leigh Jones, aka Eugenia Riot, who sang John Lennon's "Beautiful Boy" that brought a tear to my eye. She said that Cucalorus founder Dan Brawley had told her to sing whatever she wanted; considering Lennon's lyrics about the future he envisioned for his son, Sean--but never got to experience--she couldn't have chosen a more touchingly apt song.
For Nick, From Dad plays again on Sun, Nov 19, 1:30pm at Thalian Black. Click here for more information. Eugenia Riot's short, "Wild Dream," plays Fri, Nov 17, 10:30am at Thalian Black and Sun, Nov 19, at 4:15pm at Thalian Main. Images: Nick Damone / People (father and son), the cassette (the film's Instagram), the book cover (Amazon), and Nick and his son (Nick Damone / GoFundMe).
FOR NICK, FROM DAD
