FilmMonthly » giarratano.amanda

The Harvest/La Cosecha

giarratano.amanda — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 21:29:44 +0000

How bad is Mexico? It has to be really bad, or else The Harvest/La Cosecha could never have been made. Every year, according to the film, 400,000 children work as migrant farm laborers in the United States. As the father of one of the film’s subjects puts it, “We had absolutely nothing in Mexico,” though it is hard to believe that they ever had less than they do in the film. The Harvest/La Cosecha follows 3 children living in the southern United States, who traverse the South and Midwest over a single summer in search of picking jobs alongside their impoverished families. No clan goes unpunished for their efforts to put food on the table, and as with any documentary that deals with poverty in the U.S., it is astonishing that human beings live like this in the most powerful country in the world. The movie goes to great pains early on to flash easily digestible quotes at the audience, making sure we are aware that migrant children are 4 times more likely to drop out of school, and that these children often work forteen hours a day, 7 days a week. And while these statistics are wonderful for the “holy shit” reaction director U. Roberto Romano is going for, he offers nothing in the way of hard questions, both of the people who exploit, and the families who allow their children to be exploited.
The film takes an almost lavish approach to how little insight it offers the audience. When a forteen-year old Perla Sanchez talks of her nineteen-year old brother’s murder, she explains that he was shot in a laundry room, but bled out because the hospital refused to treat him since he didn’t have the money. And though it could have happened that way, it doesn’t make much sense. (During filming, her mother had to have an emergency hysterectomy to save her life, with no mention of the magic cash that funded it). A laptop glowing on Perla’s face in the Texas night, braces on her crooked teeth, and an expensive Dodge Ram pick-up all send bizarre aesthetic messages that the audience, I suppose, is just supposed to not question of a family that pulls in around $17,500 a year. As well, Perla’s father’s sudden illness (a forty-six year old man who looks to be sixty-five) at the end of the movie is never explained except for Perla’s off-handed statement that she thinks her father may just be tired of working. And so the family must go off to Michigan once again, the father’s life-changing job for the family in Louisiana tossed in the garbage, alongside any hope of his kids ever being able to afford a night out at the Olive Garden.
The film is, of course, undeniably sad. The impoverished living conditions are at times mindblowing, yet these children stand by the decisions of their parents to move from state to state in search of work as loyally and blindly as a private at Normandy to his commanding officer, too young and inexperienced to realize that they will quite possibly do this to their own children. Victor Huapilla, a sixteen-year old in Florida, is another focal point of the film, picking tomatoes alongside his parents so his younger sisters can stay in school. He bathes his hands in bleach at the end of each day, is poisoned by farm pesticides, and explains that the summer prior to the filming the skin had fallen off of his arms from exposure to farm chemicals. All laughs aside, his father has been working for two years to get Victor’s two older sisters their papers to come to the United States. Once the girls get to Florida, one sister is dumbfounded by the endless days in the field.
And for every tale of heartache, there is a moment where you wish you could shake the parents to death. “I feel bad because I can’t give her a life that I know she would want,” twelve-year old Zulema Lopez’s mother says as she stands in a field, a naked two-year old on her hip, save the diaper. Zulema is finally sent away to live with her grandparents in Florida so she can focus on school, but after 9 months it didn’t work out. Again, all we are offered is that, in Zulema’s words, it was a “bad experience for me. I got mad at people, and some people got made at me.” Well, that’s good enough for me, but as Zulema states at the beginning and end of the film, she has no real dreams. Whose fault is this? The mother’s? The farmer’s? The U.S. government’s? The Mexican government’s? The stork on the Vlasic Pickle jar? It’s impossible to tell who the filmmaker is sympathizing with and who he is demonizing. And in the end, it seems that the whole purpose of the film was to create a cinematic sad face. That is, until the credits, during which time we are shown pictures of numerous professors, executives at Fortune 500 companies, and CEO’s, all who once were child migrant workers. So which is it? You can make it or you can’t? Should we not be worried, since the people in the credits are doing alright, or is this a travesty? Obviously it is the latter, but the filmmaker isn’t doing these people any favors by simply feeling sorry for them.
The Harvest/La Cosecha is available on October 11 on DVD and blu-ray and is distributed by Cinema Libre.

September 11: Memorial Edition

giarratano.amanda — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 21:03:39 +0000

September 11, in a decade, has had an opportunity to become all things to all people: A war cry, a cry for peace and tolerance, a call to religion, a call against religions, a binding agent for a country’s sentiments while simultaneously a heat source to deactivate that binding. And though it is clear that 9/11’s effect has brought no single resolution of thought to seemingly any two people, one would hope that the day itself could be the rallying point for galvanization. But if so, what are the stories to be told from that day? Tales of tragedy or triumph? Despair or redemption?
The History Channel’s DVD release, September 11: Memorial Edition, takes an honorable approach at answering this question. The set is comprised of 4 discs, 2 of which focus upon the sheer loss of the day, while the others embrace a pair of that Tuesday’s true miracles.
The set begins with 102 Minutes That Changed America, a gritty film comprised of video footage of over one hundred eye witnesses of that day and moves chronologically through the morning. Save for an unsettling, dissident soundtrack and a recurring digital clock that trudges tragically forward, the footage is free from affectation or commentary. It is an essential compilation for future generations to view, as it captures a staggering number of vantage points throughout the city, as well as the voices of firemen during their last transmissions, 911 dispatcher conversations with the (edited out) voices of doomed office workers, and raw commentary from those documenting America’s worst modern tragedy. An addendum to this particular disc, I-Witness to 9/11, is a throwaway 19-minute short with a handful of the videographers’ tales, complete with clichéd, over-the-top shots of several of the guests as they give thousand-yard stares into the camera and then explain how they came to be where they were that day.
The Days the Towers Fell, a primarily photographic account, covers the same timeline but is propelled forward by the commentary of amateur and professional photographers as their pictures paint the screen. The forty-minute film is even more compelling and intimate than 102 Minutes That Changed America, the still images exuding an artful account that makes video seem almost cheap. New York Daily News photographer David Handschuh runs from the first news assignment of his life (as Tower 2 collapses two hundred feet away), and Thomas E. Franklin of The Record crosses the Hudson and ventures into a devastated downtown Manhattan to photograph Raising the Flag at Ground Zero, and before your eyes these people go from covering daily beats to becoming war correspondents.
Yet in the midst of so much death, there were miracles, and the attention paid to these is what gives September 11: Memorial Edition balance. Hotel Ground Zero tells the harrowing story of numerous guests and staff of the Mariott World Trade Center Hotel that rested at the base of the Twin Towers, including Ronald Clifford, an architect who had arrived at the hotel for an interview that morning and learned after escaping the South Tower’s collapse that his sister and niece had been on the plane that hit the South Tower. Most spectacular is the story of Jeff Johnson and his twelve firefighters, who retrieve lawyer Rank Razzano after they are all spared in a small sliver of fire escape, only to survive the second collapse in a small section of stairwell that had been reinforced after the 1993 bombing.
The Miracle of Stairway B continues the through-line of hope, with interviews from surviving firefighters and office worker Josephine Harris who weathered the collapse of the North Tower in a small section of stairwell that refused to come down. Together with Hotel Ground Zero, The Miracle of Stairway B provides a balance in story-telling necessary to understand the truth of that Tuesday in September.
September 11: Memorial Edition reminds us that no matter how high the cost, how unspeakable the act, somehow there is always still hope.

Wainwright Walks: Lake District

giarratano.amanda — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 13:41:56 +0000

“Mountain climbing is an epitome of life. You start at the bottom, the weaklings and the resolute drop out on the way up. The determined reach the top. Life is like that.”
These are the words of Alfred Wainwright, late author, artist, and guide writer, who for three decades dedicated his artistic life to the creation of guidebooks of the Lakeland Fells in Northwestern England. From 1955 to 1964, Wainwright published seven guidebooks, collectively documenting nearly every path, lake, and sheep that could be found among the 214 various fells (mountains) through exquisitely written prose and intricately detailed sketches.
Wainwright died in 1991, and though authors such as William Wordsworth and Beatrix Potter were inspired by the very same Lakeland views, Wainwright has, at least locally, remained a legend of unsurpassed repute. His works are one reason the region now attracts 19 million visitors a year, including the BBC’s own documentary film crew, which recently released Wainwright Walks: Lake District, a three-disc, five-hour traverse across ten of Lakeland’s 214 fells, each of the half-hour long films nimbly navigating a breathtaking expanse of England’s highest mountains and deepest lakes and guided by Wainwright’s own words as well as the documentary’s host, Julia Bradbury.
The photography is staggeringly beautiful, and aerial shots are cleverly utilized to mark the impending walk at the beginning of each episode, providing a necessary point of reference for the viewer. It is the cameras on the ground, however, that have the most to say. Mountain summits that served as Ancient Roman roads, abandoned quarries that transformed sections of Castle Crags into mine fields of slate, a lake formed after the last ice age that now contains Wainwright’s own ashes. Huge swaths of time pass with nary a passing hiker, and this fact is taken advantage of in long, savory shots of Ms. Bradbury along the landscape, and it becomes difficult not to fall into self-reflection, the type one experiences when you’re the one on the mountain.
Ms. Bradbury is the perfect presenter for such an excursion, an everywoman with a true reverence for Wainwright’s work and the land itself. She lacks the dash of saccharine found in so many travel hosts, and her unwillingness to force feed her own personality to the camera allows the Fells to consistently remain in the foreground. In her stead, it is quite simple to imagine oneself along the lonely paths of rock and grass, the sounds of silence broken only by the crunching of Gortex and hiking boots.
The only true problem is the voice over by Nik Wood-Jones. Having Wainwright’s own words spoken is a natural addition to the production, and for a time it works. However, the intermittent voiceovers of Wainwright eventually cast somewhat of a ghostly shadow over the walks, so much so that a tonal shift begins to develop each time he speaks. Intermittent is the key word here, though, and it is a small feature that is easily tolerable.
This DVD is a must for anyone who intends to travel to the region, with invaluable insight given by Wainwright historians and friends, climbers, archeologists, and locals alike. Every soul that loves England should know this region, and anyone with a heart for hiking and the outdoors would be remiss to not take in this stunning production.

The Fort Fisher Hermit: The Life and Death of Robert E. Harrill

giarratano.amanda — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000

There was something whimsical about Robert Harrill. His life wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t necessarily happy. But for the thousands of visitors who flocked to Fort Fisher, North Carolina each year, he provided a smile and a nugget of wisdom to each friendly face that passed by his tiny hovel. The Fort Fisher Hermit seeks to tell the true story of this man’s life, from his early years of family troubles and failed marriages to his seventeen years living along the Carolina shore, ending with a violent and mysterious death.
A short documentary narrated by Barry Corbin of Northern Exposure fame, the 54-minute film manages the perfect mix of background, history and true-crime drama. Interviews with many people who had known and enjoyed the friendship of the Fort Fisher Hermit interspersed with long-cut dialogue from those who had officiated over the investigation of the untimely death of the Hermit paint a dark and cheerless end to the practically lovable man who had delighted tourists and locals alike.
Who killed the Fort Fisher Hermit? What was their motive? Answers to these questions will probably never be known. Yet still remaining are the last vestiges of a man who touched so many lives. The documentary presents not only the insight into the life of this wonderfully eccentric man, but also a startling glimpse at the prejudicial treatment he was afforded in life and death by not only local officials, but the rare local or visitor who would harass and bother the harmless man.
Many people were robbed of the opportunity to meet this enigmatic man, but his legacy lives on. While the mystery of his death may never be solved, this film is a fitting tribute to the all-to-short life he led.

The Institution

giarratano.amanda — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 00:00:00 +0000

“The Institution” brings nothing new to the horror genre. Much of the plot and premise are standards of the horror industry: an abandoned asylum cut off from civilization, a legendary killer, a small group of twentysomethings with lives entangled and an intriguing back-story. Throw in a few splashes of blood and you have a standard horror plot. That being said, it’s not necessarily a bad thing for a film to follow this formula–which “The Institution” proves without a doubt.
What must be understood from the start is that this is not a full length film. Rather, it is a fourteen minute short based on the script of a full-length feature entitled The Assignment, which is currently being re-worked (or so says their website). Depending on the eventual outcome of The Assignment film, “The Institution” can either be viewed as a horror short or an extended teaser trailer. Either way, it’s worth the fifteen minutes it will take to watch.
A trio of what appear to be criminal forensic students head off on their final class assignment, assessing a cold case for clues on a remote Michigan island. Their particular case is chosen by one of the group, Kate (Heather L. Tyler), who has a personal connection to their drama: a member of her own family is the only surviving victim of a notorious killer who had escaped from the remote asylum they visit and presumably went on a killing spree. Once arrived at their location, the trio soon finds more than they came looking for: a sheriff’s deputy, badly injured, strapped to an operating table, and a straitjacketed killer running amuck.
This set-up is nothing new, but it is done stylishly and with a decent premise–rather than the schlock causes of earning a large amount of money spent in the haunted house and the like, the three students have an actual reason to be spending time at the old asylum. Even the main characters are fairly standard: pretty girl Kate, love interest Bryan (Aaron Galvin) and wise-cracking fellow student Jonathan (Kevin Viol). The mystery element is nearly maddening, as the viewer is told very little about the murders that had happened before, why the deputy is even on the island, and the basis of Kate’s connection to the case. Whether this is purposeful or just a byproduct of an abysmally short film is up for debate.
The length is a real issue. Trying to pack so much into fourteen minutes can’t be easy, and it comes across in short, choppy scenes that serve only as passage for set-up dialogue. That being said, the film still manages to get its point across in such a short time. The setting at the asylum itself leaves little to be desired, carrying with it the standard graffiti–some of it fairly strange, such as “RIP The Boxcar Children” and what appears to be a quote from T. S. Eliot, as well as a crucifix and a smattering of red hearts–and medical equipment left to waste.
“The Institution” marks a return to the horror films of past, that weren’t forced to rely on shocking gore and horrific torture to give fans the chills they crave. Short though it may be, it is definitely worth a watch–and gives the impression that the eventual full-length film, The Assignment, will be too.

LoveCracked!

giarratano.amanda — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 00:00:00 +0000

When a film promises horror and comedy inspired by H.P. Lovecraft and in the tradition of George Romero, with a Monty Python-esque twist added for good measure, it can make a viewer very skeptical. However, Biff Juggernaut Productions’ LoveCracked! delivers on its promises–and then some.
Told in the style of a spoof documentary on legendary horror author H.P. Lovecraft, the film switches back and forth between short films based (some very loosely) on Lovecraft’s tales and a progressive storyline involving a schlock journalist presenting a skewed take on Lovecraft’s life and times.
In the role of the Journalist is Elias Ganster (here simply credited as “Elias”). With a mixture of faux seriousness and outright lunacy, Ganster gives a performance with shades of a young John Cleese, ranging from over the top freak-outs, random scenes done pants-less and a dry comedic one liners about his intended subject such as, “This…was not his house.” The Monty Python inspiration is clear here, and is done admirably without either seeking to simply duplicate the style or over-interpret to the point of mockery.
The horror shorts range from funny to frightening, the best of the lot being “Alecto,” involving a clearly insane violinist, and “Remain”, another treatise on a creative soul and his art, this time involving a painter. Both of these shorts rely heavily on atmosphere, using setting and sound to tell their stories rather than dialogue, and are short masterpieces in psychological horror.
For pure gore quality, the short “BugBoy” is best, while “History of the Lurkers” presents a tongue-in-cheek take on the summoning of evil and creepy adult store shoppers.
Be that as it may, the film is not without problems. In several segments, the use of dialogue re-dubbing is obvious and distracting. While possibly a necessity for sound quality alone, the distraction detracts from the intended horror and/or hilarity of the scene, taking the viewer out of the realm of the willingness to suspend disbelief. An over extended trip to legendary Troma studios (complete with a chat with Toxic Avenger director Lloyd Kaufman) provides a few laughs, but runs a little too long to sustain the comedy.
These are, of course, only small issues in what otherwise is a quality independent film. The downfall of this film, however, is so glaringly obvious that it cannot be ignored. An extended segment of actual porn, “Re-Penetrator,” gleaned from alternative adult site BurningAngel.com, is not only oddly out of place in the film, but so unexpected as to turn off the unsuspecting viewer. Make no mistake: this is not the requisite sex scene that inundates horror films. Rather, it is standard Internet horror-porn that not only does not belong with the other shorts, but would be better placed in some fetish video store.
Overall, LoveCracked! is a funny, refreshing take on horror-comedy, and a huge step up from the more standard lampooning films of the genre (Scary Movie, et al) that perpetuate the same old shtick, over the over again. Worth watching for the laughs it provides (I’m still chuckling over “This…is not his cow”) but BE WARNED that it contains extreme adult content towards the end and lacks a proper label giving the viewer appropriate warning.

Next Door [Naboer]

giarratano.amanda — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Things just aren’t shaping up well for John (Kristoffer Joner) lately. His girlfriend has left him, and apparently already moved on to a new relationship. Worse still, she seems to have developed some fear of being alone with him. On top of this drama, the two weird women next door just won’t leave him alone.
Julia Schacht and Cecilie A. Mosli star as neighbors Kim and Anne, respectively, who live in a large flat next door to John. Invited in on the pretext of moving a large piece of furniture, John soon finds himself pulled into the strange, twisted world that exists next door.
There is just not enough to be said about the atmosphere of this film. The music, the settings, even the cinematography perfectly provide the movie a strange, almost claustrophobic feel. The large, high-ceilinged rooms of the apartment next door are made to seem small, the wide spaces somehow closed in tight. Confusion and uncertainty permeate nearly every scene. It is a cat and mouse game, and John is the prey. Again enticed into the apartment next door, this time with the guise of watching over the supposedly agoraphobic Kim, John finds himself running a gauntlet of cluttered rooms and winding hallways that portray a carnival funhouse effect, in search of a way out.
While the atmosphere is certainly vivid, the rest of the film leaves much to be desired. Confusion can add much to a plot when done correctly, but there is a lot to Next Door that is just plain weird. The film plays at eroticism but couples it with such disgusting violence that the effect of either is lost on the viewer. The film hints at voyeurism but to such a heinous degree that the whole thing comes off as more disturbing than anything else–even more so than would be expected from a decent horror or suspense film.
All that is left throughout is the feeling that something just is not right here. John slips so easily from memories of his ex, Ingrid (Anna Bache-Wiig), into reality that it can be difficult to tell what is actually happening and what is not. This is a credit to some films, but unfortunately, Next Door is not one of them.
As far as gore and violence go, Next Door ranks high in both arenas. Blood spatter is an almost constant part of the scenery following the first half hour, and a particularly vicious death scene seems not only terribly realistic but rather horrific considering the circumstance.
The twist-ending becomes fairly predictable and even the slightly manic, slightly brilliant performances of the ladies next door–Julia Schacht in particular–aren’t enough so save its early revelation, but it still delivers a punch. Overall? Worth watching; while the sexual violence is a definite turn-off for most, those who stick it through to the end will find that it comes full circle.

Head Trauma

giarratano.amanda — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0000

There is a sense of foreboding in the air as George Walker (Vince Mola) reaches the dilapidated former home of his grandmother. Though it has been five years since her passing, George is only making his way back to the house he once lived in to stake his claim for the property. Unfortunately, the odds are stacked against him. The house is in shambles, and on his very first foray inside, he is accosted and thrown off the front porch by a neighbor (Jamil A. C. Magnan) who thought he was a vagrant. Throw in a possible saboteur across the street (Jim Sullivan) and a series of increasingly vivid and frightening nightmares, and George faces an uphill battle.
The idea is compelling; as George struggles to get the house into shape and stop if from being condemned and slated for demolition, he is haunted by a mysterious hooded figure and a series of frightening nightmares. Someone is in the house at night, sabotaging the work he is attempting to do and leaving strange messages behind. It all adds up, but to what exactly? George’s nightmares press the image of a young girl being hung from a tree, though he doesn’t know who she is or when it might have happened.
In the starring role is Vince Mola, who seems to struggle in the part. George is never a likable protagonist; from the start he seems more like the creepy drifter you wouldn’t want to sit next to on a bus than the hero you’d want to root for. While the unsettling performance, if done properly, would have added to the eerie feel of the film, Mola’s portrayal seems almost accidental, as though the awkwardness ascribed to the character is less of a purposeful portrayal than a failure to create a believable performance.
The other actors have similar problems, with many bouts of dialogue coming off jerky and clumsy. Jim Sullivan is a walking cliché as the angry across-the-street rival Chester, and Meryl Lynn Brown’s motherly next door neighbor seems too forced. The best performance in the film comes from Jamil A. C. Magnan, a relative newcomer, who does a commendable job as Julian Thompson, a teenage boy and aspiring comic artist who ends up assisting George in his renovation. The only problem with Magnan’s performance, oddly, is his image; he seems to look too old to be playing a teenage boy.
The main problem with this film comes from the disjointed storylines. While reality slipping seamlessly into hallucination and dream states is a common aspect of horror films, the regularity with which is happens in Head Trauma is a total overuse of the device. To make it worse, the terribly overused cliché of false wake-up–that is, a character “waking” from their nightmare, only to find themselves still under attack and then “waking” again to reality–comes into play.
There a lot of things that can take a viewer out of the intended feel of a movie, and in films that try to create an aura of confusion or displaced reality like Head Trauma, it is essential that steps be taken to keep the viewer in the proper frame of mind. However, Head Trauma has a single moment that, for some people, can break the subtle web that the film tries to weave.
Interspersed throughout the film are moments where George receives handwritten messages that are identical to the ones he hears in his dreams. One particular message is found scrawled on piece of paper in awkward, broken handwriting is, GEORGE YOUR DEAD. From that moment on, I sat waiting for an explanation of the obvious grammatical error. Was it only half a sentence? Will something happen to reveal a new twist that only an astute viewer might have noticed? Unfortunately, no. When it became obvious that this was no hidden clue towards the inner mystery of the story, the spell was broken. I spend the latter half of the film wondering how in the hell did that get to print with no one noticing?!
Throughout it all is the feeling that something is missing. There is no unifying element to the film, as though scenes were written independently of each other with no thought to later coherence. The characters aren’t very likable, the setting itself seems off–the supposedly spooky house is just too bright.
The verdict? It was a promising concept and a very imaginative idea, but it falls short of what it might have been, with proper casting and editing.