Publication Date: February 9, 2007
Calvin Chimes
Headline: Best bets from the Sundance Film Festival

Taking on Sundance

Chris Beaumont

The Sundance Film Festival has changed substantially since its inception nearly 30 years ago. Originally conceived to showcase small, independent films, the festival now features movies from across the globe, made on a wide range of budgets. Additionally, Hollywood producers now search the festival, hoping to buy films for national distribution. There are several examples of wildly successful Sundance films; “The Blair Witch Project,” “Napoleon Dynamite,” “Memento,” and “Little Miss Sunshine” embody the type of films that Hollywood dreams of cheaply acquiring.

Unfortunately, while this commercialization of Sundance disseminates some festival films to the general public, it also tends to skew the conversation about independent cinema. While approximately 120 films appeared at this January’s festival, the media has fixated on only the few most conducive to Hollywood gossip. It’s unfortunate that Dakota Fanning’s rape scene in “Hounddog” has had a monopoly on Sundance press this year, since most festival goers thought the film was unremarkable.

Fortunately, I was able to attend the festival this year and view fifteen of the remaining 119 films. Many of these films offer more substantive topics of consideration than pseudo-child pornography, and do more justice to the image of Sundance as a continuing sustainer of original art. Furthermore, several of the films that I mention below are scheduled for at least limited release, meaning that they will eventually be available on Netflix if not the theatre.

Chapter 27

“Chapter 27” follows the three days leading up to the assassination of John Lennon by Mark David Chapman. What makes the movie fascinating is that it is told from the point of view of Chapman (played by Jared Leto), who believed he was the embodiment of Holden Caulfield of “Catcher in the Rye.”

The film deliberately refrains from casting judgment on Chapman, choosing instead to offer insight into the rationale of a deranged man. Leto’s performance was the best that I witnessed at the festival, and challenges the notion that criminals (even murderers) are wholly different from the rest of us. Though Chapman’s actions are atrocious, his motivation dissatisfaction with celebrity pretension and a desire for doing accomplishing something great – is not.

Chicago 10

While many films at Sundance tackled the war in Iraq, one of the most interesting war movies did so indirectly. “Chicago 10” can loosely be described as a documentary about the riots and ensuing trial sparked by the 1968 Democratic National Convention. However, as the film’s director Brett Morgen has emphasized, the aim of the film is not to document history but rather to capture and introduce to a new generation the spirit of revolution in the 60s.

Morgen’s team of voice artists (including Simpson’s regular Hank Azaria) reenacted the courtroom drama based on court transcripts, and used motion capture to computer animate these scenes. This footage was then combined with documentary footage, and set to a soundtrack combining pro-revolution Vietnam era music (like Bob Dylan) with its modern equivalent (bands like Rage Against the Machine). The resulting film is highly energetic and distinctly youthful. The film not only documents the climate of unrest during this time, but also suggests that this spirit of protest should be applied to our current situation. The conviction and technical prowess of the film are commendable, regardless of your political opinions.

Teeth

While “Teeth” was one of the most outrageous films that I came across at Sundance, it was also one of the finest. Roughly speaking, the film is a horror/comedy about a Christian teenager (Dawn, played by Jess Weixler and Special Jury acting award winner at the festival) who discovers that her vagina has teeth. This discovery becomes her weapon for guarding her purity and, eventually, enacting revenge on those who destroy it. I’ll leave the details to your imagination, but the film doesn’t; it’s incredibly graphic and certainly not for all audiences.

From a Christian point of view, the strength of “Teeth” lies neither in its shock value nor its admittedly clever reversal in changing the virginal female character from victim to villain. Instead, the film’s greatest attribute is its lampoon of certain Christian attitudes towards sexuality. The film develops the criticism that Christians, in labeling sexuality as taboo, can oversimplify the complicated role of sexuality in adolescence.

Dawn embodies this attitude to a hilarious fault; she gives sexual purity talks to early elementary school children (who I’m sure have no idea what sex is), and wears “True Love Waits” t-shirts with Unicorns on them. Of course, her anatomical disorder (found in many cultures’ mythologies) is the most vivid expression of the sex-as-taboo attitude. Like its predecessor, “Saved!,” the film’s criticism has its limits (the film ultimately ignores the validity of Christian practice). However, it offers a funny and disturbingly accurate caricature of Christians that we ought to take note of.

Grace is Gone

“Grace is Gone” stars John Cusack as a father who must tell his children that their mother has died while fighting in Iraq. Instead, he takes his two daughters on a road trip to an amusement park in an attempt to avoid inevitable pain.

The film is ultimately about how tragedy affects a father’s relationship with his daughters. Cusack plays the role of unremarkable father superbly (some speculate that his performance is in Oscar contention for next year). However, the acting of Gracie Bednarczyk and Shélan O'Keefe as Cusack’s daughters give the movie its substance. Bednarczyk’s portrayal of grade school Dawn bears a resemblance to the fierce innocence of Abigail Breslin in “Little Miss Sunshine,” while O’Keefe plays a young teenager who is entering the disillusionment of adolescence. These two performances are three-dimensional, realistic, and wonderfully complementary portrayals.

Another strength of the movie is that, despite its subject matter, it remains apolitical. Because of this, some critics accuse the film of pandering. I disagree, and believe that the film instead stresses the realities of our war – the grief and healing process associated with losing a loved one – that transcend political lines.

chris beaumont
beaumont@ifa.hawaii.edu
graduate student
institute for astronomy
university of hawaii at manoa
2680 woodlawn drive
honolulu, hi 96822