A Perfect Pairing: "Los Olvidados" and "Marmato, Colombia"

Ramiro Gomez's art, however important, is impermanent. That makes David Feldman's documentary Los Olvidados a crucial supplement to Gomez's practice.

Gomez creates cardboard cut-out pop-up art meant to draw attention the humanity of immigrant laborers in the Southwest. The film documents the creation of an installation that Gomez erected in the Sonora desert of Arizona depicting a family of immigrants gathered around a white cross.

 

Feldman's documentary begins with a description of Gomez's art: he creates cardboard cut-outs of immigrant labors doing the kind of labor that immigrants often do. He then places them in found locations where someone might do the kind of work depicted by the cut-out. For example, he might put a cut-out gardener in a Beverly Hills lawn. Cardboard is an important ingredient in his art: it represents how immigrant laborers are often treated as disposable. This lays the groundwork for his installation titled Los Olvidados, or The Forgotten. Instead of an urban environment, Los Olvidados was placed in the Sonora desert, a high traffic area for illegal immigration up from Mexico and infamous as a deadly crossing. The piece depicts a Latino family standing around a small white cross.

By depicting immigrants in a compassionate light that calls attention to their vulnerability, Gomez puts a human face on a highly politicized and de-humanized event. His installations presumably exist until a property owner has their help clean it off their lawn, or in the case of the Sonora installation, until natural forces deteriorate the cardboard. Their impermanence is one of their strengths, but also one of their weaknesses. Feldman's film quite successfully addresses the problems of the installations' impermanence while not detracting from the story that their disposability tells.

 

David Feldman's Los Olvidados shouldn't be taken as a stand-alone film, but rather as an interpretive supplement to Ramiro Gomez's installation art. Gomez's installations are important in their humanization of a group that often takes second place to people's political beliefs about them. Feldman's film partakes of that importance.

 

Marmato, Colombia perfectly compliments Los Olvidados by placing responsibility for the root causes of Latino immigration to the States in the hands of North American capitalists and their Latino government partners.

Featured second in SIFF's "Ripped from the Headlines" package after Los Olvidados, Santiago Ramirez's Marmato is a series of interviews with the denizens of a Colombian mining community who are allegedly being displaced by an unholy alliance between a Canadian multinational and the Colombian government.

Marmato, Colombia consists of interviews with Marmato's residents, who practice traditional mining that ekes just enough mineral from the earth to make a living without depleting their primary source of income any time in the near future. According to the interviewees, their national government struck a deal with an unnamed Canadian multinational mining operation that is quickly depleting their mines and not paying the Marmatans for their labor. The government allegedly took it one step further and illegalized traditional hand-mining. As one of the interviewees puts it, by taking away their primary source of income, the Colombian government and the multinational are turning "good people bad, and bad ones rich."

Ramirez has struck a vein with his interviews with the locals affected by their conflict with the national government and the government's capitalist partners. It's worth noting, however, that he doesn't reach anything close to journalistic objectivity by including interviews with the leading figures in the multinational or government. By doing so he could flesh out the situation that is displacing the people of Marmato. Still, the interviews with Marmato's residents suffices in creating a companion piece to Los Olvidados by describing how actions taken by North American capitalists can create the conditions that displace Latin Americans from their homes, setting them, perhaps, on the road for America.

SIFF's curation is exquisite in placing Marmato, Colombia after Los Olvidados. It expands upon the story that Ramiro Gomez tells with his cardboard cut-outs by providing a platform for Colombians still in Colombia to say why they need to leave their homes. SIFF ought to be commended for their dramaturgical approach to telling one story with two films.

Free Syrian Army Propaganda

Propaganda's hard to spot when you agree with it. Let's say, for example, that you're into democracy and everyone having an equal say in affairs of state. Well, that doesn't mean that films that give exclusive voice to the democratic side of a conflict aren't propaganda, it just means that they're propaganda that you agree with.

Matthew Van Dyke's Not Anymore is interviews Mowya, a Free Syrian Army commander, and Nour Kelze, a journalist embedded with Mowya's battalion (and who's sympathies clearly lie with Free Syrian Army.) It's safe to say that Not Anymore accurately reflects Mowya and Kelze's experiences in the Syrian Civil War. It would be disingenuous to claim that it paints an accurate picture of said war.

Trigger warning: Not Anymore contains footage of a slain soldiers getting shot and killed, and a bomb or mortar blast in a crowded square.

 

Van Dyke and co-producer Kelze have created a propaganda piece to appeal to American's sentiment that democracy as a universal good. It feels disingenuous for Van Dyke and Kelze to call themselves journalists in context of this film. In other productions, perhaps they are able to interview more than one commander of one battalion of one side of the chaotic Syrian Civil War and a reporter embedded with said battalion. Not Anymore, while well meaning, feels coercive in its one-sidedness.

However much the American audience may agree with the sentiments expressed in Not Anymore, it is misguided to think that this film educates one about the multifaceted civil war that is spilling across Syria's borders. Even as propaganda it's incomplete: it doesn't tell its intended audience what it would like them to do. Should we write to our congress people demanding immediate military intervention in Syria[1]? Should we donate to this, that or the other charity? In the context of Not Anymore, Van Dyke and Kelze oughtn't be considered journalists. "Activist filmmakers" is a more apt moniker, although even as such their work is incomplete.

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[1] Not Anymore was completed in 2013, before America's involvement in Syria in opposition to ISIL.

A Quitely Powerful Truth

One can almost hear silent and off-camera documentarian Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee asking his interviewees, "How is climate change affecting you?"

His appropriately titled Isle de Jean Charles, featured in SIFF's "Ripped from the Headlines" package, asks just that question of the denizens of the titular island, deep in the Louisiana bayou.

http://goprojectfilms.com/#isle-de-jean-charles

His interviewees describe what it's like to live in a changing climate without ever saying the words "climate change." Instead, the phenomenon is implied and only its adverse effect is made explicit. Even better, Isle de Jean Charles is a platform for the people who know the island best tell its story themselves in their own words. In a way that places blame nowhere and retains focus on the islanders, we learn how they will soon be displaced by climate change.

Vaughan-Lee's silent question is important for its silence. Instead of creating an expose like An Inconvenient Truth, Vaughan-Lee is able to simultaneously side-step a hot-button political issue and address it dead on. By humanizing a politicized event, he is able to appeal to our senses of empathy and compassion, rather than to our senses of rage and righteous indignation. Isle de Jean Charles is quietly powerful.

Being Black "After Trayvon"

Do young African-American men feel persecuted? Do you really need to ask?

Alex Mallis' short film After Trayvon, featured in SIFF's "Ripped from the Headlines" package, sure feels the need to answer. (The answer, by the way, is "yes.")

 

Unfortunately, a video that lays it out as bluntly as After Trayvon is needed, because too many white Americans are blinded by the safety lent them by their skin color to the reality that not everyone has it so good. While Mallis' format may be prosaic, it's to be commended for it's simplicity: it's hard (or at least asinine) to answer "I feel persecuted" with "no you don't."

It ought to be a no-brainer, but apparently it isn't, that young men with brown or black skin feel persecuted in America because they are persecuted in America. It's important, therefore, for material like After Trayvon to exist. Mallis may not be a sophisticated filmmaker, but he gets the job done.

A Refreshing Realism

Realism is an actor's genre.

Ellar Coltrane

Richard Linklater's Boyhood pushes realism past it's persistent 19th century parameters by filming a plotless movie over the course of twelve years so that we can watch the characters age. The lack of a plot paints a realistic picture of what growing up is like: boyhood doesn't have an inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling action and neat resolution followed by a denouement. At the same time, a three hour film that doesn't give us the orgasmically structured rush we're used to could be a real drag. It takes good actors schooled in psychological realism to make it come off, and Linklater proves that he knows how to pick them.

Boyhood follows Mason (Ellar Coltrane) and Samantha (Lorelei Linklater) as they grow up in suburban Texas. Their dad (Ethan Hawke) is trying to involve himself in their lives, and their mom (Patricia Arquette) wants to find them a good step-dad. The kids get and break up with girlfriends and boyfriends. They experiment with booze and pot, and put up Obama signs with their dad. Mason discovers his passion for photography, and both kids grow up and leave for college.

That sounds about as interesting as watching grass grow, right? That's because the story isn't that interesting. What's interesting is how the actors, principally the core four (Coltrane, Linklater, Hawke and Arquette) inhabit their roles. The Realism with which they approach their roles isn't the American Method. The Method calls for a strong focus on objectives and tactics. Think of it this way, if you're acting using the American Method, you want to figure out what your character wants from your scene partner. It's got to be something concrete, something you'll recognize and celebrate if you get. You start with one tactic to get what you want from them, and if that doesn't pay off, you move on to another. In real life, we might act this way in a job interview or during a break-up, but we generally aren't so Machiavellian. The Boyhood cast acts in a way that reflects the way we really are. When Sheena (Zoe Graham) breaks up with Mason, he is clearly trying to get her to take him back. The mom has a clear goal when she needs to get her kids out of a dangerous situation. Arquette, however, doesn't have a clear objective with its test in Coltrane when he leaves for college. Sometimes you're just sad without ulterior motives, and Arquette reflects that with a refreshing honesty. Linklater set out to make a film that portrays an honest boyhood, and so he needs a cast whose acting could take Realism past it's unfortunate conflation with the American Method. Fortunately, he put together a stellar cast who can move past the American Method towards real Realism. By doing so, Boyhood presents intrinsically relatable characters, an accomplishment that allows the audience to emphasize with them on a deeply human level.

A Familiar Flamingo

La Vida Boheme's Flamingo tells a classic story of death and rebirth using animation reminiscent of 1930s Disney.

La Vida Boheme (Henry D'Arthenay, Daniel de Sousa, Sebastián Ayala and Rafael Pérez Medina) complement their rock ballad with a cartoon drawn in the old-school Steamboat Willie that tells a familiar story. By doing the classics, and doing them well, La Vida Boheme creates an enduring film soundtracked by their Flamingo.

 

The band chooses to tell an uplifting story about death and rebirth. The use of childlike, familiar imagery and contrasts between light and dark, color and monochrome emphasize the narrative content. It goes to show that sometimes the old ways are the best ways.

By using highly accessible techniques to tell a story intimately familiar to anyone with a passing knowledge of Christian mythology, La Vida Boheme have created a modern classic.

Storytelling with Wolf & Crow

Nothing beats a strong story.

Folk band Wolf & Crow (Mathieu Stemmelen and Zachary Vieira) tell a compelling love story in their "Love in the Time of Advertising." Their simultaneously dry and imaginative sense of humor adds warmth to the story that's beautifully animated by Matt Berenty.

 

It's an endearing little love story about how nothing beats human interaction. The earnestness with which Wolf & Crow tell it and Berenty animates it sell it, but none of that would matter if the story itself wasn't strong.

When it comes right down to it, music videos are about telling a song's story. It doesn't hurt that "Love in the Time of Advertising" is a narrative poem set to old-timey country pickin'. The video doesn't give much evidence of whether or not Wolf & Crow have much going for them as musicians, but as storytellers they can't be beat.

Jenny Schweitzer's Simple Success

A successful documentary is a simple film that provides a platform for the interviewees to tell their own stories.

Jenny Schweitzer's Flor de Toloache does just that for an all-female mariachi band, casting light upon their response to the machismo that characterizes the genre.

Flor de Toloache is part of Schweitzer's Rhythm in Motion, a ten part series of short documentaries about the musicians who busk in New York City's subway system. Traditionally, mariachi bands are dominated by men. Flor de Toloache, the band featured in the eponymous film, runs against that macho grain by featuring an all-women line-up.

Flor de Toloache exists within the broader context of international patriarchy and the ways in which such social structures limit women's opportunities. By simply allowing the interviewees to describe the problem and their solution for it, Schweitzer creates a compelling and positive movie.

Rather than focus on herself as a filmmaker, or even upon the individuals interviewed, Schweitzer's Flor de Toloache allows the expert interviewees to interpret a cultural event for us. The event is not isolated: it exists within a social structure that we all participate in. Flor de Toloache is an educational documentary that is well-made because it is made simply.

Philip Knowlton and Narrative Over Planting

Giving story precedence over style goes a long way. In fact, a sloppy approach to story can ruin an otherwise promising movie.

Take Philip Knowlton's Flower Shop and included in SIFF's "Face the Music" package. It's a short documentary that squeezes in two related but separate stories, and tries to cover the bad dramaturgy with cloying editing.

The film spends about the first half describing the history of Carolina Florist, the "oldest African-American flower shop in NYC." References to Phil Young's halting drum career punctuate that history. Through use of titles, we're guided through that history and into Young's resurrected devotion to music-making, illustrated by slow motion shots of Young relishing in his art. He describes how kids in Harlem are denied music and art in school, and how he and his band realized that they had "something to give to the kids."

Knowlton has a lot things going on in his film that, if he focused upon them instead of upon his fetish for slow motion, would make for a compelling movie. He could have focused on the flower shop's rise and fall, or he could have told the story of bringing jazz to the kids. Instead, he crams both into a short documentary. As if that weren't bad enough, he wastes precious time with his cloying slow motion shots of Phil Young drumming. His videography gets in the way of his storytelling.

Documentaries are meant to tell a story, not to exhibit the editor's filmic flourishes. In the end, Flower Shop is a messy example of style taking primacy over story. Knowlton may know his way around editing software, but he knows next to nothing about making a movie.

Will Farrar Move Out of Mediocrity?

If you're going to be a twee musician, you've got to find a way to set yourself apart from all the other twee musicians. Cassandra Farrar, judging by her music video Moving Out, is just another Zooey Deschanel wannabe with bangs and a guitar.

The song is a dime-a-dozen heart-ache ballad. The corresponding video is a nonsensical series of references to pop culture (like The Ring) and classic art (like Starry Night) that vaguely reference the lyrics.

 

 

If music videos are promotional tools for new singles, then Farrar makes an unconvincing case for why we ought to care about her music. The contents of her song and of her music video are almost obtrusive in their lack of originality: the video, in fact, seems to revel in it. At the same time, they are both competently done. The mediocrity of it ultimately makes Farrar's music forgettable.

Cassandra Farrar is an unremarkable addition to the ranks of twee musicians. She's not bad, but nor is she good. She is competent, and, judging by the long list of credits at the end of her video, she has a healthy basis of professional support. If she can add some originality to her act, she can work her way out of the mire of mediocrity that she's starting her musical career in.

Focus on the Work, Owerko

The Boombox Project is a bad commercial for Lyle Owerko's exhibition book of the same name.

The Boombox Project, directed by Paul Stone and featured in SIFF's "Face the Music" package, tells a flimsy story that focuses more upon an apparently self-involved artist than upon the product it seeks to sell.

The film begins with an expository focus on Owerko and how he began taking pictures while vacationing in Holland, and how he fancies himself a "creative anthropologist." He alludes to the boombox's position as a cultural icon for youth of the '80s and '90s, before briefly describing how he photographed and exhibited them and lets us know there's a book we can buy.

The film's intent is to sell us on his product, but the execution doesn't deliver. The focus seems to be on Owerko as opposed to his exhibition book, and he is a less than compelling protagonist. A Dutch vacation and professionally identifying by a self-invented term make Owerko seem overly privileged and unrelatable. The effect is not only alienation from the artist, but from the art that he's selling.

If the intent of The Boombox Project is to sell the audience on Owerko's exhibition book, it does a poor job. By focusing on uninteresting aspects of Owerko instead of upon the exhibition itself, the film makes us wonder why we should even care.

Considering the Canon: The Message

Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five's "The Message" is an enduring expression of suppression by a social hierarchy wherein race and class are inextricably intertwined.

The recent murders of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner and Mike Brown have pushed into public light the ongoing oppression of Black men. The final scene in "The Message" is as familiar today as it was in 1982. It's only by dent of the poet being Black that "The Message" is about Black men: it is equally the story of Indian and Latino men. It's a story that happens in cities and on reservations nationwide.

"The Message" is in fact a collection of stories, culminating in Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five's wrongful arrest. All are set in an environment of social decay wrought by abject poverty. All are punctuated by the desperate chorus:

"Don't push me because I'm close to the edge,

I'm trying not to loose my head.

It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder

How I keep from going under."

After setting the scene, Flash describes a second-person protagonist who responds to the emotional degradation by "walkin' round like you're Pretty Boy Floyd" only to wind up incarcerated. You, the protagonist, spend the time between your arrest and suicide or murder getting raped. After a final chorus, Flash and the Furious Five are wrongfully arrested in a segment that plays like found audio.

"The Message" is considered a classic because of its unfortunate timeless depiction of class in America defined by race and enforced officially by the police or pseudo-officially by the repo man and debt collectors in Flash's song, or the neighborhood watch in recent news. The song itself is class-specific. If you haven't been hassled by the police purely on the basis of your skin color, how can you relate? If you can walk down the street and not have a reasonable concern about being shot or choked to death, then this song will be alien to you.

Even if it doesn't achieve real universality, "The Message" retains relevancy and an unfortunate timelessness. Everyone, Black, Indian, White and so forth ought to give it a listen.