LAFF 2008: Day 3

On the surface, the most obvious choice for the third day of the Los Angeles Film Festival would’ve been Werner Herzog’s man vs. nature in Antarctica documentary Encounters at the End of the World. Besides playing at the Majestic Crest, the coolest venue in the LAFF circuit, I’ve also been looking forward to seeing it for a long time. The thing is, it’s opening in LA in about a week and it seemed foolish to waste a primetime festival slot on something I’d be seeing very soon anyway. Unfortunately, the choices I made on Saturday were a little bit of a let down from a sterling Friday and I may have been better off with the Herzog after all.

The unofficial theme for part of the day was Young People Traveling Abroad. First up was German director Sonja Heiss’ third feature Hotel Very Welcome. Using the time honored tradition of the post-college world trip as a springboard, Heiss examines the notion of whether getting away from home is the best way to find one’s self. In this case, her unconnected stories follow five scruffy European 20-somethings, the kind that fill hostels the world over, as they travel through different parts of Asia.

German Svenja spends most of her trip trying to communicate with a Thai ticket agent in order to get a flight to Shanghai; English blokes Josh and Adam hang out on a Thai beach going to raves and trying to get laid; Irishman Liam is embracing his last shot at freedom before fatherhood trying to find himself from the back of a camel in the desert in India; while German Marion is at an ashram studying Yoga avoiding her disintegrating relationship back home.

Liam is the only character who seems to take an honest stab at the adventure before him. Svenja doesn’t get much farther than the hotel pool, Josh and Adam bicker about money and only seem to encounter other Westerners. Marion’s ashram is also full of Westerners and it’s almost completely isolated from the local population. All the characters are self-absorbed, but none of them are particularly self-aware. Even Liam spends a good part of his trip stoned or hung over.

The exotic locales are deromanticized by a rather bleak and dreary cinematography. This is probably by design, but it adds to the overall depressing thematic gloom of the film. Things are brightened somewhat by frequent humor, particularly on the part of the boys, but Liam is the only truly likeable character. The ending provides only the slightest encouragement that any of them have been changed for the better by their experience. I see where Heiss is going with Hotel Very Welcome, but it isn’t a very interesting journey. (International Showcase)

Another group of traveling Europeans opens Spencer Parsons’ more successful I’ll Come Running which made its premier last night at LAFF. This time three Danish friends are snickering their way through Texas tourist hell by station wagon. For Pelle (Jon Lange), the irony begins to wear thin somewhere near San Antonio’s Alamo. He decides to cut the trip short and return home, but not before falling into a drunken flirtation and then falling into bed with pretty waitress Veronica (Melonie Diaz, Be Kind Rewind, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints).

A classic one-night stand turns into a day-and-a-half stand as Pelle and Veronica (referring to each other as Milhouse and Lisa from The Simpsons) spend the day together having frequent sex. The two get to know a lot about their bodies and a little about their personalities as Pelle softens a bit and begins to drop his sense of cultural superiority. Veronica meanwhile proves she’s not just the shallow American he imagines. It’s almost a relationship in microcosm as they even manage to have an argument followed by more makeup sex before Pelle must head to the airport to return to Denmark.

A wholly unexpected event occurs around the 40-minute mark that puts the genuine connection that Pelle and Veronica have made into sharp relief and spins both the narrative and the tone in surprising directions. I’m not sure the gear shift is entirely successful nor are the carefree tonal flip flops that swing from comic to dramatic. On the other hand, both drama and humor are handled subtly and almost offhandedly giving them an air of realism. In this same regard, star Melonie Diaz anchors the film, proving again a facility with easy, honest and naturalistic performances that make her stand out from the crowd as an indie actress to watch.

Though uneven, I’ll Come Running is bursting with little moments of truth, humor and honesty that, combined with a sexy, funny and earthy performance by Diaz, make it a film worth seeing. (Narrative Competition).

Well intentioned and not without charm, the irritatingly titled HottieBoombaLottie is first-time writer/director/star Seth Packard’s stab at quirky Napoleon Dynamite-like indie glory. Packard plays Ethan, another off-kilter and awkward teen who just can’t get the girl when the potential for true love is right in front of him all along. Almost episodic in nature, Hottie delivers a few laughs (Packard has pretty good timing and a sense for the absurd) and the largely partisan audience appeared to be delighted, but it never struck the consistent comic gold it was mining for.

Part of the problem is that the character of Ethan was too quirky to be believed, but not quirky enough to pass as an entertaining cartoon. Also, the film meanders along, entertaining in spurts, but never really building to a satisfying comic crescendo. As an acting calling card, Hottie displays Packard’s knack for a certain goofy comic charm not unlike a young Anthony Michael Hall. Beyond that, it’s certainly painless going down but it doesn’t do much to distinguish itself from the crowd. (Narrative Competition)

Rounding out the day was Serge Bozon’s 2007 Cannes entry La France, the strangest war drama in recent memory. It’s WWI and when Sylvie Testud receives a letter from her soldier husband saying essentially that their relationship is over, she chops off her hair to pass as a boy and heads off to find him. Before long she falls in with a ragged band of soldiers who say they’re looking to join their regiment on the front lines.

Otherwise placid to the point of being Bressonian, La France stands out from the crowd as the soldiers sporadically break out instruments and burst into songs that would feel at home in a ’60s pop catalogue.

It sound strange, and it is, but the minimalism combined with the unexpected music lends Testud’s journey a dreamlike quality that recalls Kon Ichikawa’s The Burmese Harp. La France is not the masterpiece that Harp is, but it’s certainly a spiritual successor and an entirely unexpected little pleasure that sticks with you long after its over. (International Showcase)

Time for proof reading and rewriting is again short as more movies beckon. I’m shifting gears a little bit today and tackling at least two and possibly three documentaries. First off is Man on Wire, the story of Philippe Petit, the French daredevil who tightrope walked between the twin towers of Manhattan’s World Trade Center in the 1970s. After that is the world premiere of Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman. Shulman is an architectural photographer who recorded the works of Richard Neutra, Rudolf Schindler and Frank Lloyd Wright, men who defined a distinct Southern California style of residential architecture in the ’50s and ’60s in Los Angeles. Also on tap is the world premiere of Largo, a document of the uniquely intimate Hollywood club that featured performances from Aimee Mann to Fiona Apple, but has now relocated to larger digs.

Filed under: Film Festivals