Reality Doesn't Bite
L.A. Film Festival has some good dramas, but the documentaries really shine
By Andy Klein
The Los Angeles Film Festival (or LAFF) comes but once a year, and here it is. Started in 1995 as the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival, a five-day showcase of indie productions, it grew quickly into something broader in scope, eventually leading to the dropping of the word "independent."
The event now runs 11 days - from June 22 to July 2 - and includes roughly 100 features and innumerable shorts, plus seminars, personal appearances, and special events. The big news this year is a change of venue: After several seasons headquartered at Laemmle's Sunset 5, the festival is now being held at a variety of locales, mostly in Westwood, from the Majestic Crest on the south to UCLA's Melnitz Hall on the north.
With so many titles, all we could do was view a sampling of those that sounded enticing (and were available for advance screening). Even if François Ozon's early, very weird Sitcom (1998) wasn't everyone's cup of café au lait, his prolific and diverse output surely included something for everyone by the time of the erotic thriller Swimming Pool (2003). His latest, Time to Leave (Fri., Majestic Crest at 7 p.m.), concerns the attempts of a thirtysomething photographer (Melvil Poupaud) to come to grips with his imminent death from cancer. This is Ozon's most controlled and austere work - so much so that I found it surprisingly unengaging. I seem to be virtually alone in this reaction, so chalk it up to my impatience with films that are utterly devoid of humor (another first for Ozon).
Four other fictional films I previewed comprise two natural American/foreign pairings in terms of subject matter ... with, I'm sorry to say, the American films being way less successful. Equan Choi's Voice (Sat., July 1, Majestic Crest at 11:59 p.m.; Sun., July 2, Landmark Regent at 1 p.m.) is the fourth entry in the South Korean Whispering Corridors series, about supernatural goings-on in a girls' school. After being mysteriously murdered, a high-schooler with a lovely singing voice finds herself haunting her school. She is invisible to everyone, but audible to her best friend, who tries to figure out what's going on. Like many Asian horror films, Voice has a plot so convoluted that, by the end, it's nearly impossible to sort out what really happened and even less possible to care. But - also like the others - it's beautifully made with clever effects and a genuine sense of creepiness ... .
... which is more than can be said for Head Trauma (Sat., Majestic Crest at 11:59 p.m.; Mon., Landmark Regent at 10 p.m.), a low-budget thriller from Pennsylvania-based Lance Weiler. A particularly uncharming derelict (Vince Mola) returns to his hometown to save his grandmother's house from the wrecking ball. Like the ghost in Voice, he is plagued by nightmares and/or visions that break down our sense of what is and isn't real. And, as in Voice, the film's determination to surprise us leads to enough revelations and reversals that it's hard to keep patience. Unfortunately, the visual style and performances in Weiler's film are not in the same league as its Korean counterpart.
The best of the batch is handily 13 (Tzameti) (Tue., Mann Festival at 4:30 p.m.; Fri., June 30, Landmark Regent at 9:45 p.m.). This French feature from first-time Georgian filmmaker Gela Babluani is a tight, focused suspense film about a young, impoverished roofer trying to support his extended family. After an employer drops dead without having paid him, the young man stumbles upon the instructions for some sort of shady, highly remunerative job the employer was about to embark on and decides to take his place. By the time he finds out how undesirable this gig - which occupies the middle half of the movie - is, it's too late to back out. Really nail-biting stuff, with (for better or worse) a typically Gallic sense of doom.
Comparable is Wild Seven (Mon., Majestic Crest at 9:45 p.m.; Tue., Landmark Regent at 2 p.m.; Sun., July 2, Majestic Crest at 5 p.m.), which likewise deals with young men finding themselves over their heads in criminal activities organized by the older generation. Written and directed by James Hausler (who also stars) and set in his native Scottsdale, Arizona, the film concerns a con (Robert Forster), fresh out of prison, trying to enlist another old guy (Richard Roundtree) in a plot to get revenge against his crazy former partner (Robert Loggia); he also needs the help of his son (Hausler) and his son's friends. Hausler is a charismatic screen presence, and he deserves huge points for casting Loggia, Forster, and Roundtree, who are always fun. But the story makes very little sense: Maybe Hausler thought it would be aesthetically interesting to leave out several key scenes. But I've never seen a film that more strongly suggested the financing ran out with a quarter left to shoot.
It's the documentaries this year that really shine. Chris Paine's Who Killed the Electric Car? (Sat., Landmark Regent at 12:45 p.m.) analyzes the rapid rise and fall of GM's EV1 (and other such vehicles) during the '90s, assessing the degree of guilt borne by the car companies, the oil companies, the California Air Resources Board, consumers, and the federal government. (The insane twinkle in the eye of proud EV1 owner Mel Gibson in his appearance here is enough to restore the faith of fans alienated by The Passion of the Christ.) Paine makes a compelling case, but, given the piece's TV-special-report style, it's surprising that Sony Classics is releasing this theatrically.
Imagine that, at the age of 11, you learn that the father you never knew was not the noble soldier you had been told about, but was in fact the evil commandant of Plaszow Concentration Camp Amon Goeth - the character portrayed by Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's List. That's what happened to Monika Hertwig, the central figure in Inheritance (Sun., Majestic Crest at 2:15 p.m.; Tue., Italian Cultural Institute at 5 p.m.; Thur., June 29, Laemmle's Sunset 5 at 7:30 p.m.). Director James Moll tags along as Monika - guilt-ridden over events before her birth - travels to meet an eightyish Jewish prisoner who worked in Goeth's household. It's an automatically compelling story, well told.
Kirby Dick has specialized in provocative projects like Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist and 2004's Oscar-nominated Twist of Faith. But, in terms of sheer courage, nothing matches This Film Is Not Yet Rated (Thur., June 29, Mann Festival at 7 p.m.; Sat., July 1, Laemmle's Sunset 5 at 2 p.m.), in which he takes on the scariest foe for any professional filmmaker ... the Motion Picture Association of America and its ratings board. Confused, amused, and angered by the arbitrary ratings and the cloak of anonymity protecting the judges, Dick hires a private eye to track the latter down and expose their names and natures. He hilariously reveals the extent to which ratings board creator Jack Valenti for years misrepresented the group's makeup.
Dick's film is absolutely essential viewing, but it pales next to Amy Berg's Deliver Us from Evil (Sat., Majestic Crest at 7 p.m.; Mon., Landmark Regent at 4:15 p.m.), which takes another approach to clergy abuse of children, the subject of Dick's Twist of Faith. Berg concentrates on the crimes of one man, Father Oliver O'Grady, who molested scores of children (including infants), and whom the church never punished or even restricted from contact with kids. O'Grady supposedly confesses onscreen, but it doesn't take a psychologist to see that he has no true sense of guilt or responsibility.
In fact, he is so defective a personality that he's more like a destructive automaton than an evil person. The evil ones in the film are those like our own Cardinal Roger Mahony, who condoned, covered up, and allowed such behavior to continue.
Published: 06/22/2006
DIGG | del.icio.us | REDDIT
