10 days. 10 films.
I present to you my discoveries at this year’s Nashville Film Festival (NaFF) with a little bit of everything. Offering distinctive film genres that spread through varied countries, NaFF is expanding its reach around the globe. Obviously, it’s a difficult decision with every movie you choose because of the assortment of options, but I have no regrets. You don’t know ’til you go!
TRANSPECOS
Three Border Patrol agents on a lonely, desolate highway checkpoint have their lives changed forever when a suspicious vehicle comes cruisin’ their way. In his feature film debut, director Greg Kwedar stacks each scene with suspense, taking you on a recreant journey where the right choices are extremely difficult to make. As Flores and Davis, Gabriel Luna and Johnny Simmons are exceptionally convincing as men forced, for totally different reasons, in to uncompromising positions with no easy way out of the hostile, lawless desert.
TICKLED
New Zealand journalist named David Farrier is accustomed to reporting on the bizarre. Yet right when you think maybe he has seen it all, a video of a tickling competition is discovered. Go ahead and laugh because it suddenly stops once you’re exposed to the truth. This fascinatingly weird, shocking documentary indulges in to a peculiar fantasy, following an incredulous path paved by power, avidness, blackmail, and manipulation. A wildly magnetic story doused with creepiness is something you can’t not experience. Am I right?
THE FITS
No easy answers are provided in a film where the qualities of motion do all the talking. Director Anna Rose Holmer presents a mood of alienation and constant struggle of being socially accepted. Nevertheless, the significance and insight is tough to find and keep hold of. A sensibility blockade remains throughout, keeping us from being thoroughly immersed in the story. But as young Toni, Royalty Hightower’s prominent performance packs the most strikingly effective punch in her battle, brewing from the inside out, of a child blossoming in to a woman.
MORRIS FROM AMERICA
A guileless, tender coming-of-age movie about fighting adolescence while stifled in culture shock. Craig Robinson and Markees Christmas play a father and son living in Germany. Out of their comfort zone with no one but themselves to rely on, they sustain from the same hardships without trying to reveal them to each other. Still, slowly through their pain, their parent/child relationship transforms in to a genuine friendship. The scenes between Robinson and Christmas are hilarious and, at the same time, the most treasured. They do a bang-up job in this generous, unflashy story about individuality and applying it to those you love.
MAGALLANES
Director Salvador del Solar plunges into a whirlwind of forgotten pasts that still haunt the damaged decades later. Damian Alcazar is stellar as Magallanes, a struggling taxi driver who picks up a passenger with a familiar face. Magaly Solier is heartbreakingly radiant, and it’s her face that rushes all of the pain and guilt back into the mind, body & soul of Magallanes. As he tries to ease his deplorable actions, his good intentions won’t be allowed to vanquish the life-altering consequences. Unspeakable acts during wartime is only the beginning. It’s forgiveness that keeps showing back up as a reminder of how easy it is to ask for, but always difficult to receive and accept.
NEPTUNE
A unique, though unsatisfying depiction of a young girl trying to break free from what she’s been told all her life and discover a world she’s never known. Hannah (played by an impressive Jane Ackermann), is an orphan who has been raised by an overprotective priest off an island in Maine. The word of God, chores, along with every decision being decided for her, forlorn is all she knows. Her life and psyche begin to unwravel when the sea makes one of her classmates vanish. It’s her obsession about the disappearance and spooky visions that garner for your attention, but there’s not enough substance to take a special interest in a child discharging her rebellious spirit. Just because this version is more artsy, doesn’t mean it’s somehow unprecedented.
THE BANDIT
This lively documentary is for those good ole boys and fans of an underdog movie known as Smokey and the Bandit. Director Jesse Moss goes behind the scenes of how it originally came about, being directed by a former stuntman, and viewed as a failure before filming had even started. More engrossing than the concoction of this Deep South action comedy is the friendship between its director, Hal Needham, and its star, Burt Reynolds. Jealousy is insinuated, but there’s a trusting friendship between these two guys. Needham went from Reynolds’ stuntman to roommate and best bud, and loyalty is what kept their engines roaring through the rest of their venture in movies.
CAMERAPERSON
Kirsten Johnson has been behind the camera for some of the most impactful documentaries including Fahrenheit 9/11, Citizenfour, and The Invisible War. She has witnessed some incomprehensible situations, and in this personable film, her work presents the story of her life. Sort of. Pieces from her various projects are shown, however, their connection isn’t always clear with scenes constantly changing and becoming more of an interruption than anything else. Intimate, heavy-duty images are still captured and none are more so than when we see Johnson and her mother. Her vision stretches to a more affectionate level during those quiet moments.
THE POLAR BEAR CLUB
Friends that are way past their prime get a shock to the soul each time they plunge in to a freezing lake. It makes every bone in their body feel alive, but death is inescapable & they find that out the hard way. Confronting the fear of mortality and aging is tricky to do in a film struggling to find that precise emotional tone. Moments of natural affection are overshadowed by unconvincing performances and a director’s mishandling of scenes that should be more eloquent. The story can’t thrive when it lacks the importance of solicitude for the characters and the progress of their story.
SING STREET
Love can make us all do foolish things. In this case, it’s starting a rock band. The 80’s are in full force when Conor (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) finds himself miserable at home and lost at his new school in Dublin. A beautiful mystery woman named Raphina (Lucy Boynton) lights him up inside, causing chaos with his emotions. So she won’t soon forget him, he wants her to be in his music video. After all, women do dig musicians. Now all he needs is a band. Not only is this a celebration of sound and lyrics combining to demolish the establishment, but its a recognition of the delicacy of youth. By nurturing a funny, profound film with a thundering musical pulse, director John Carney is obviously in love with music and the influence it can have in someone’s life. His eminently charming cinematic concert is a wonderful reminder of when a song strikes the right note in an individual, the possibilities are endless.
