WITHOUT: SIFF gem

WITHOUT is the first film from writer/director Mark Jackson and it is a strong debut. The entire movie is shot on Whidbey island, it both opens and closes on the ferry. It is the story of 19 year old Joslyn , who is spending one week caring for an old man while his family travels. Josyln must feed, change and wash this man, who doesn't speak and occasionally moans at night. His home is in the middle of the woods and has no internet connection. This seclusion affects Joslyn, whom, we learn, was struggling with both loss and isolation long before coming to this house.

The first half of WITHOUT is mostly watching Joslyn take care of the old man and do yoga. The second half of the film is watching Joslyn unravel. Jackson introduces several mysteries that imply dark forces are at work. Joslyn seems surprised when she discovers a large bruise on her back. Every night she places her cell phone next to her bed, and every morning it is someplace else in the house. The film is slow paced but builds in creepy tension as Joslyn's isolation makes her desperate for human connection and causes her to act out, sexually and violently, towards the old man.
In WITHOUT the directing, cinematography and acting are all wonderful, and the movie belongs to newcomer Joslyn Jenson, who is in almost every shot and captures the severely repressed young women with a naturalness that carries the film through long scenes of little action.
WITHOUT ends without answering all the questions it raises, which bothered many viewers, but I enjoy open-ended films when done well, as this one is. I have several theories, and I look forward to discussing them with people who have seen WITHOUT. The movie stays with me, haunts me, because without everything answered the story is not over. 

LOVE: very void of emotion

I am still trying to understand what the full concept for LOVE was. 

The main storyline is simple enough: man in solo space station loses connection to Earth and begins to unravel as years pass and he remains in complete solitude; but I did not understand very much about the execution of this story. 

First off, this movie began to take form almost five years ago when the band Angels and Airwaves asked director William Eubank to make a film inspired by their music. As Eubank began working on a script that was music driven, not plot, he began to expand on it more until it became a feature length more complex then what he had began. Eubank basically spent the next four years building a space station set in his parent’s driveway with supplies he purchased at Home Depot. Considering the low budget the set does look impressive and I was amazed when I heard the director talking about the creative ways he made the set. Still, a well made set fails to make up for a weak script.

I would say that LOVE fails on every level. It opens with a Civil War segment that did not seem connected to the rest of the film. Neither did the four random interviews of men talking rather broadly about their feelings of isolation placed throughout the film. The movie seems to suggest these are archival footage, remaining fragments of the, perhaps, extinct Earth population, but I failed to find any value in them. Instead they fell flat and confused me. 

The score is fine, but not particularly exciting.  Considering the band's music was the inspiration for this film I had expected much more of a musical heavy, eye candy type of art film, but there are hardly any segments in the film put to music. It is almost always background, playing subtly in the back while our star spaceman pushes buttons and looks worried in his small station.

 At no time in this movie did I feel the theme of isolation was explored intelligently. Since we never see our lead have any kind of human interaction it is hard to understand what was lost for him when all communication ended.  I would have found it much more interesting if the entire movie had been just him, in his space station, slowly losing it. Maybe then the audience could have experienced his feelings of isolation, if we too were forced to endure the claustrophobia of his lonely destiny.

We see little of this man’s past, there is nothing personal about his story.  (We get one short video of his brother telling him he is an uncle, and fantasy moments of a sexy woman on all fours in a thong with wind blowing around her hair.  Original!)  Since the man is left very undeveloped I can only assume that he is meant to represent a broad sense of humanity. Trying to suggest this is a universal story is ludicrous since the only voices heard are white, male Americans saying next to nothing. I am a fan of open-ended films, but there needs to be at least one element of any art film that excites you, bothers you or stays with you. LOVE left next to no impression on me.

SIFF 2011

 

SIFF is here!!

So many movies!

So many choices....


For this years SIFF I plan on seeing at least ten movies, hopefully more.

Choosing the films is one of the funnest parts of the festival. I love getting the catalog, reading about movies and marking off one's that look good. Of course with 400 movies to flip through it can be overwhelming. I thin out the choices by focusing on films that are by and/or about women. If it is directed by a women and about women it will automatically peak my interest.
It's cool being able to go online to the SIFF site and watch trailers of most of the films (some don't have previews up) which helps give me an idea of the quality and style of a movie.
Horror is also one of my favorite genre's and most years I see some great movies in this catagory. last year I saw the super violent DREAM HOUSE, which had some very disturbing (and awesome) deaths. Three years ago I saw the amazing Swedish film LET THE RIGHT ONE IN. This year there isn't any of the horror films I am very interested in. There were several that looked fun in the catalog but when I watched the previews they didn't look as good. THE INTRUDER, THE VILLAGE OF SHADOWS and WE ARE THE NIGHT are all horror movies where the previews made me uninterested.
I do want to see TROLLHUNTER, a fun looking "found footage" style monster movies about giant trolls. Also BELLFLOWER looks interesting, but I have a lot of American films on my list already and am trying to see one's from more countries.

Here are 4 movies at the very top of my list:
CIRCUMSTANCE directed by Maryam Keshavarz filmed in Lebanon
BELLE EPINE directed by Rebecca Ziotowski from France
WITHOUT directed by Mark Jackson filmed here on Whidbey Island
THE OFF HOURS directed by Megan Griffiths from Seattle and starring Tony Doupe, an acting teacher I had.

Other films that I hope to catch are LYS (Germany), WOMB (Germany/Hungary/France), PINOY SUNDAY (Taiwan), TABLOID (USA), AMADOR (Spain), FUCK MY LIFE (Chilli), TIMES AND WINDS (Turkey), JUAN (Denmark), THE WHISTLEBLOWER (Canada/Germany), JUCY (Australia), LOVE LIKE POISON (France)

The first movie I have seen has been LOVE (USA) and I will be writing a review of it along with all the films I see in the festival. So look for those soon.