Florida: It’s not just for voter fraud anymore

It’s not difficult to pinpoint the exact instant I stopped
enjoying the fifth annual Sarasota Film
Festival. The moment occurred when, kicking and screaming, I was forced
onto the flight that returned me to Rochester and its subzero temperatures.
Piles of sand turned to mounds of snow. Palm trees became ice-encrusted bushes.
Scores and scores of brightly colored octogenarians looking for something to do
in between the Early Bird Special and Matlock reruns were transformed into… well, more mounds of snow.

            The
festival, which started January 25 and wrapped up this past Sunday, was a
hodgepodge of films in various cinematic states. A handful of entries have already
enjoyed screen time here in Rochester, whether in a regular theatrical
engagement (Far From Heaven and Together), one-shots at the Dryden (Hell House), or during one of our own
festivals (Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns and Karmen Geï). With the majority of
the as-yet unreleased, high-profile films I wanted to see scheduled for the
days following my tear-stained departure (like Dracula: A Virgin’s Tale, the Upright
Citizens Brigade‘s Martin &
Orloff,and Sonny, the directorial debut from Nic Cage), I was left to choose
from the (mostly) unfamiliar batch of leftovers, yet still managed to unearth a
few clear winners.

            The
best-attended film I saw was Danish filmmaker Kristian Levring’s The
Intended, which, if you’re familiar with his Dogme film The King Is Alive, probably seems like a
strange offering to pack the house at a festival where the age of the average
audience member was well over Sarasota’s daily high temperature. The reason is
simple: Costar Olympia Dukakis attended and conducted a Q&A session after
the screening.

            The film, a
Joseph Conrad-tinted anti-Colonialism number, is set in a 1924 trading outpost
on the Menkuang River, where a pair of eager young Brits (J.J. Field and
co-writer Janet McTeer) arrive, only to have their hopes and dreams quickly
crushed by both the jungle and a no-nonsense boss (Brenda Fricker). Levring
clearly liked certain aspects of the Dogme restrictions and jettisoned what he
didn’t, creating a fully realized, rich, atmospheric drama that may be the most
textured film I’ve ever seen shot on DV.

            As an added
bonus, I got to giggle through a couple of fairly gritty sex scenes, which no
doubt shocked the audience, who largely seemed to be there just to ask Dukakis
questions about Moonstruck and Steel Magnolias.

            Also
entertaining was the surprising He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not, which
stars Amélie‘s Audrey Tautou, in a
very Amélie-esque role, in what
looks, early on, like a run-of-the-mill French romantic comedy. About halfway
into the film, writer-director Laetitia Colombani literally rewinds her story
and tells it from a different perspective (but not like Sliding Doors), showing us all that there’s a very fine line
between being impossibly cute and a stone-cold nutter. Who knew Tautou had it
in her? And, for crying out loud, who can concentrate on the subtitles when
she’s on the screen? Make sure you stick around for the ending, which I heard
was a killer. I had to scoot early to catch…

            …Spellbound,
an intensely fascinating documentary about eight middle-school students
competing in the National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. (it won the Audience
Award for Best Doc). This baby was firing on all of its cylinders, leaving the
audience in tears and cheers throughout the 97 minutes it unspooled on the
screen.

            It wasn’t
just the Norman Rockwell, slice-of-Americana simplicity of a spelling bee. It
wasn’t just the collection of kids from every imaginable background: from rural
Missouri to the D.C. projects; from a New Haven girl with an au pair and
equestrian lessons, to one from Texas, whose parents can’t even speak English.

            And it’s
not just the edge-of-your-seat drama (you aren’t likely to find a more
suspenseful documentary, ever), or the cutting from close-up of speller to
close-up of parent, as they wait for judges to ring their kids out for
misspelling polysyllabic words. It was the moment when one speller shocked
herself by guessing her way into the next round, and the Bee’s official reader
started applauding, then quickly stopped once he realized what he was doing. I’m
pretty sure everyone in the audience felt the same way. Keep an eye out for the
shot of a Hooters sign in Tampa offering their “congradulations” to a
local finalist.

            Also worth
mentioning here is Manic, which bowed ages (read: two years) ago at Sundance. I
don’t know if he was perfectly cast, or if he’s a much better actor than anyone
has given him credit for, but Joseph Gordon-Levitt is terrific as the lead in
this raw, indie, Gen X version of One
Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. He plays a recently institutionalized kid with
anger management issues opposite the very underrated Don Cheadle as the group’s
headshrinker. It’s heavy stuff — much more so than Girl, Interrupted — with fresh, believable dialogue (including
playful arguments over superheroes and Van Gogh), and it’s all capably executed
by a largely underage supporting staff, highlighted by scene-stealing chameleon
Zooey Deschanel. Even better, there’s music from Thurston Moore and Aphex Twin,
and the score sounds like something hijacked from Eno’s Music For Films.

            There were
a couple of pretty serious clunkers, too — ones during which I purposely
settled down into the seat and fell asleep. But I don’t want to give them any
space. Instead, I’ll use it for a somewhat local connection.

            In the
controversial documentary The Backyard, which depicts various
Backyard Wrestling Associations and their penchant for using barbed wire,
mousetraps, broken glass, and thumbtacks, a woman from Kendall makes a decent
case for a Mother of the Year nomination. In one scene, her son asks if he
needs stitches to close the recently created gash in his scalp, to which she
replies, “It’s Saturday — they’re probably busy!”

I’ve never seen a tribute band before, but I got more than
my share in Tribute: A Rockumentary (screens February 8 at the Dryden
Theatre). Viewers are treated to tales of cover bands like Larger Than Life
(Queen) and The Missing Links (The Monkeys) in a style that can’t help but make
you think of This is Spinal Tap! But
that was a “mockumentary.” Tribute is, tragically, all for real, making it much more like Trekkies than Tap!

            Think
people who are obsessive fans of Queen are a little nutty? Check out the creepy
guy who’s an obsessive fan of Sheer Heart Attack, a Queen cover band.

Interested in raw, unedited movie ramblings from Jon? Visit
his site, Planet Sick-Boy, at www.sick-boy.com, or listen to him on WBER’s
Friday Morning Show.

This article appears in Feb 5-11, 2003.