What’s up, everyone?
Who’s ready for more Slamdance films?
Ready?
Better be.
Narrative
A Brixton Tale
(Courtesy of Slamdance Film Festival)
Directors: Darragh Carey, Bertrand Desrochers
Producers: Rupert Baynham, Dennis Gyamfi, Beau Rambaut
Cast: Ola Oreyibi, Lily Newmark, Craige Middleburg, Jaime Winstone, Barney Harris, Dexter Padmore, Rose Kerr
Synopsis:
“Class and race relations come to a head in this gritty look at an emerging artist’s ambition and the toll it takes on her relationship — featuring outstanding performances by the film’s young leads.”
Yep. The above description says it all. What’s amazing to me, every time I see a film about the UK, is how absolutely segregated it is, not just by class, or even race (though “native” British folks might not feel that way), but in terms of blocks of high-density, low-income housing.
Literally, it’s damned near a death sentence to show your face in the wrong block, even if it’s only a physical block or two from your own “home.”
Abso-fucking-lutely nuts.
But in terms of this film, the distinction is mostly based on class, as the upper-crust(ier) white girl, bucking for a good school and/or job, initiates and exploits a relationship with a black man from the blocks, filming him and his life, trying to establish an artistic name for herself.
Then, when things get too personal, and go too far, she retreats into her safe space, away from him, leaving him to live out his days in the hell she helped create for him, in a way he would never have conceived of being without going through it all.
And not in a good way.
I feel like A Brixton Tale has a better movie in it. Although the performances are good, the details feel a bit predictable, and have been done before, better.
Breakouts
After America
Director: Jake Yuzna
Producer: Jake Yuzna
Cast: Yvonne Freese, Theresa McConnon, Daniel Nies, Ahmed Yusuf, Dan Fox, Eli Anthony, Robert Dante
Synopsis:
In 2019, a group of criminal justice de-escalation workers in Minneapolis embarked on a collaborative film project that used radical theater workshop techniques to explore their real-life struggles to escape the pressures of the American dream. The result, finished days before the murder of George Floyd, captures a city searching for what lies after America.
I’ll keep it short and sweet: Overall, this is the worst film I’ve watched at Slamdance, thus far. And it had to beat one of the films I talk about further down this article…
Some interesting character and story ideas, but no cohesion, and at the end, I didn’t really care where these people wound up.
I was looking for more, and found way too much less.
Narrative Shorts
Each Other
Director: Oskar Weimar
Producer: Oskar Weimar
Cast: Jack Riley
Synopsis:
A dark, modern-day fable, Each Other tells the story of a human body on a journey of self-discovery. Not a cow. Not a chicken. But what? Mixing horror, dance and Lacanian philosophy, Each Other explores what it means to truly know oneself.
This one is neat from high altitude. Take a full grown human body (emerging from a tree, no less) and send it off on the same journey human children make.
All mimicry, no originality, we are what we see, what we do.
Whether that makes sense or not.
Animation Shorts
Poise
Director: Luis Soares
Producer: Mario Gajo de Carvalho
Synopsis:
A man is unable to make a choice and the world comes to a halt. Is the tension of indecision stronger than the fear of mistake?
Remember a couple bits above? This was the worst movie I had screened so far until I got to After America.
While the animation was intriguing at times, the overall happening of the piece was unclear (if one had not read the synopsis), which forces the audience to figure that out before figuring out what that meant.
Again, another case of “I was expecting more, and got less.”
Experimental Shorts
Mountain Lodge
Director: Jordan Wong
Synopsis:
The candle, the myth, the legend. Mountain Lodge.
If you’ve ever joked with a group of friend about nothing, or rather, something so trivial as to be next to nothing, and cracked each other up for hours, then you’ll enjoy Mountain Lodge.
I have, and I did.
Unstoppable
Stilts
Director: Dylan Holmes Williams
Producer: Dylan Holmes Williams
Cast: Tom Glynn-Carney
Synopsis:
A young man tries to escape a surreal dystopia where everyone wears ginormous metal stilts.
Stilts is one of my more favorite pieces so far. A great visual aesthetic, reminiscent of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil in feel, tweaks the absurdity of the protagonist’s situation to even higher levels.
Really enjoyable. Kudos.
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