As a filmmaker myself, I appreciate the execution of experimental filmmaking. Crafting and producing a film–any film–is no easy task and is a feat in and of itself. Even if it’s challenging to enjoy every aspect of experimental films, you can often find some appreciation whether it’s the brilliant cinematography, vibrant colors, interesting sound design, or bizarre acting. While experimental films aren’t usually my favorite kind of film as a member of the audience, I certainly found beauty in Celia Rowlson-Hall‘s acclaimed indie drama, Ma, which played at this year’s Sun Valley Film Festival.

Ma opens with a gorgeous silhouette of a desert landscape. Our lead (played by Hall) is found wandering the desert with nothing more than a long, ratty tee-shirt, and a pair of bright red cowboy boots she may have stolen from Teddy “West-Side” Mosby. Eventually, this woman emerges from the desert to a road and is met by Daniel (Andrew Pastides)—who stops for her. She climbs atop his hood and the two drive to a dumpy motor lodge where “Ma” is raped while her driver sleeps in the car. The next morning, the two continue to drive—this time with our leading lady riding in the car with the driver. The two then travel without a destination and spend their nights in a new motor lodge. We are faced with great metaphoric imagery—sand pouring out of paintings and sink faucets—and some wonderful choreography from the writer/director/lead Celia Rowlson-Hall.

Ma is absolutely beautiful. The sound design used in the film is incredible considering it contains almost no dialog. As an experimental film, it knocks it out of the park in many ways. With its slow pacing, difficult narrative, and often confusing visuals, the film may be a bit too surreal for the average movie-goer. As a piece of art and a specimen of visual poetry, Ma is a welcomed addition to the cannon of the medium.

Once a director gets classified as a provocateur, it’s a label that can be hard to shake off. Rick Alverson earned that title three years ago with The Comedy, his extremely uncomfortable (and funny) takedown of ironic detachment. In that film, Tim Heidecker played someone who thrived on being repulsive and confrontational, and it was easy to treat his character as a symbol for a specific, rotting part of today’s culture. Entertainment, Alverson’s follow-up, is another piece of provocation that will naturally get compared and contrasted with The Comedy; Heidecker returns to co-write the screenplay (and show up in a cameo), and Alverson continues showing off his knack for creating interactions that can have people crawling in agony towards the exits. But Entertainment provokes in a more insidious manner than The Comedy. If Alverson’s previous film focused on attacking character, stretching a protagonist’s “likability” to the breaking point and beyond (think of Heidecker’s character as less of an anti-hero and more of an asshole), then his latest work sets its sights on dismantling structure and narrative. That makes Entertainment feel more specific and less like a commentary or something symbolic, so it can be harder to glean what Alverson’s real intent might be with his increasingly surreal story. The results are murkier, for better and worse.

So it makes sense to cast someone like Gregg Turkington in the central role, a person whose career involves blurring the lines between reality and fiction. Turkington is known best as Neil Hamburger, a comedian who specializes in antihumour, taking familiar aspects of stand-up comedy and performance and aggressively going against expectations. But in recent years he’s also played “Gregg Turkington,” a version of himself that co-hosts the web series On Cinema, along with being involved in its spinoff Decker. In Entertainment, Turkington plays “The Comedian,” a stand-up travelling across the Mojave Desert with his act (an exact version of Turkington’s Neil Hamburger character). A young clown (Tye Sheridan) appears from time to time as an opener with his own baffling act, but The Comedian travels alone, making pit stops in between his performances to indifferent crowds. Alverson expectedly basks in every millisecond of painful silence that comes after Turkington/Hamburger barks out another one of his offensive jokes. Enjoying these scenes, and enjoying Entertainment as a whole, is largely a make or break affair; either you like Turkington’s brand of comedy or you don’t.

The majority of Entertainment plays out as a portrait of one man’s loneliness, with Turkington usually framed in a way that makes him look swallowed up by the desert landscapes (Lorenzo Hagerman’s cinematography is one of, if not the best parts of the film). His interactions with people are usually brief, except for a sequence where he visits a cousin (John C. Reilly) who’s too business-minded to comprehend what The Comedian’s purpose really is. A series of voicemails The Comedian makes to his daughter (who’s never seen or heard) throughout also provides a little bit of characterization, even if it feels like it’s there to make the character look like more of a desperate sad sack. It’s only until a meeting with a chromotherapist (Lotte Verbeek), followed by a brutal encounter with a drunk heckler (Amy Seimetz) that Alverson starts letting go of his formal grip on the film, providing one surreal encounter after another that escorts The Comedian from the purgatory of his desert tour to some sort of deranged, Lynchian hell. Levels of discomfort get ratcheted up considerably as The Comedian’s disdain of others, along with accepting his own pitiful existence, reach a fever pitch when he makes it to the final stop on his trip. Entertainment ends with the image of The Comedian laughing hysterically, which is both the character’s most expressive moment in the film and the point where Alverson lets go of the film’s connection to any form of reality. The Comedian’s eventual acceptance of his own existence as a punchline doesn’t land as strongly as it should, a result of Alverson’s tendency to create compelling scenes that stand on their own yet link together in an aimless fashion, but there’s something powerful in Entertainment’s ability to push down into the darkest depths without any hesitation. Alverson, whose singular style makes him one of US indie’s most important voices right now, confirms what The Comedy established three years ago: he’s a filmmaker brimming with potential, but for the time being someone to watch rather than behold.

I’m a horror aficionado. I have watched everything from Melie’s Le Manoir du Diable, Nosferatu, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and other early film depictions of the spectacular and creepy, to today’s special effects riddled gross-out filled shock-fests. My final thesis in film school focused on horror films and it’s easily my favorite genre. While it’s been fun to see horror transition into new things, such as The Blair Witch Project‘s popularization of found footage films, some experiments have been outside of what I enjoy about horror, such as torture porn revitalized in part by Eli Roth with his Hostel series. Roth is one of more than a dozen producers on The Sacrament, the latest from Ti West (The Innkeepers, The House of the Devil, V/H/S), and his influence isn’t heavy-handed but is certainly evident. But what’s different about The Sacrament isn’t a new horror style, but instead its distinct use of near-reality to disguise its horror.

For most of The Sacrament you will truly believe you are watching a documentary, albeit made by naïve journalists, about an atrocious historical event. Three Vice media journalists–one a photojournalist, one a video journalist, and the third an investigative journalist–travel outside the U.S to an undisclosed location. One of them, Patrick the photojournalist, has a sister who has recently written him about how she’s joined a commune after getting clean. Patrick fears for her safety and soundness of mind, while his editors see the chance at a potentially hot story. Upon their arrival outside of Eden Parish, the community his sister has joined, they are met with armed guards, immediately giving their trip an ominous feel and the environment one of distrust. They sort things out with Patrick’s sister, Caroline, and are granted admission into the community as well as the freedom to film. Patrick goes off with his sister while the two others, Jake and Sam, wander the commune interviewing those who will talk to them. Everyone speaks highly of their new life outside the U.S. in this veritable paradise, and ALL of them refer to ‘Father’, the man who made all of this possible.

They are allowed to interview ‘Father’ at the evening’s celebration and this is where the film begins its true tension. Father (Gene Jones) is the definitive charismatic cult-leader. He answers Sam’s questions with a distinct superiority and defensiveness for his ‘family’ and the safety of their home from the outside world. It’s at this point that anyone old enough to remember or know about the Jonestown massacre will feel the hair on the back of their necks raise. Father’s words sound eerily close to ones used by Jim Jones, leader of the People’s Temple cult and mass executioner of over 900 of his followers. But the similarities don’t stop there, and the inspiration for West’s film is so obvious it suddenly makes everything uncomfortably self-conscious.

In the end the film’s make-you-watch devices are what push the film over the edge, causing too much distress by the violence to satisfy the true horror film lover’s thrill-seeking addiction. The fun of horror, at least to this fan, is the roller coaster ride of fright and calm within a story. Without that sense of safety, the thrills can’t seem quite so thrilling. But there is rarely a moment of safety within The Sacrament, so the thrill becomes painful by the end. West’s forceful editing leaves nothing to the imagination, and he knows what Thomas Edison also knew way back in 1895 with The Execution of Mary Stewart, that one of the most ghastly charms of film is its ability to show everyone exactly what death can look like. Whether you want to see it or not.

Perhaps The Sacrament is just being promoted wrong. West’s straight-forward film and its historical similarities can’t help but be taken somewhat soberly, which strangely makes what happens on the screen even more frightening. Unfortunately it’s a kind of scare that feels irreverent, albeit thought-provoking. It will surely be a divisive film among critics, but this horror film lover will probably stick with her ghouls and psychopaths and choose actual documentaries for true-crime and history.

The Green Inferno

It seemed to be fate that I’d have a day devoted exclusively to genre films at TIFF. After the excellent reaction to Eli Roth’s The Green Inferno at its midnight screening, I caught up with it the next day. This time Roth decides to take on a subgenre of horror that hasn’t been touched in a while: cannibal horror. Fans of Cannibal Ferox or Cannibal Holocaust should know that Roth delivers and then some when it comes to the cannibal part of the subgenre’s name.

A group of activist students decide to fly from New York to the Peruvian Amazon and protest a corporation bulldozing a primitive tribe. Their plan is seemingly successful, but only because of their manipulating of a UN Ambassador’s daughter (Lorenza Izzo) to join the protest. On the way back their plane crashes in the forest, and soon enough they’re all kidnapped by the tribe they were protecting.

Roth has been known for his gory horror films, and The Green Inferno is by far his goriest one yet. The effects by KnB are too well-done, in that they can be downright disgusting at times. The second half of Inferno, where the cast tries to survive the tribe’s brutality, benefits from its focus on the nastiness. A few scenes are total howlers, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Roth made these with the midnight crowd in mind.

The ultraviolent second half can’t sustain the film though, and it’s more of a relief than anything considering how godawful everything before it is. Roth has assembled a cast of bad actors and bad accents, who all deliver bad dialogue. The inclusion of political commentary on activism is laughable too, but it’s not surprising since Roth has never been known for his depth. Fans of Cabin Fever and Hostel will love The Green Inferno as it has more unlikable characters getting brutally killed, but this proves that Roth can never live up to the hype he’s been building for himself over the years.

RATING: 5.6

The Sacrament

It was interesting to follow up The Green Inferno with The Sacrament, Ti West’s new film which was actually produced and presented by Eli Roth. Roth introduced the film at its TIFF premiere, telling audiences who saw The Green Inferno to “delete” that movie from their memory before The Sacrament began (I was way ahead of Roth long before he said that). West is one of the few American horror directors working today who can actually make something scary, and he continues to prove that with his latest film. It’s a lesser work in comparison to the rest of his filmography, but it’s still a creepy little horror film that stays consistent with West’s work up to now.

The Sacrament is framed as a documentary by VICE Magazine. Opening with a text crawl that explains the term “immersionism” and how it relates to VICE, correspondent Sam (AJ Bowen) explains how his friend Patrick (Kentucker Audley) received a letter from his sister (Amy Seimetz) talking about a religious group she joined that moved from the US into an unnamed country. Patrick accepts her invitation to visit the compound, taking Sam and a cameraman (Joe Swanberg) along without telling them.

Ti West is clearly obsessed with Jonestown, and The Sacrament essentially is a Jonestown movie. I assume that legally he couldn’t adapt the true story, but he follows the basic facts of what happened in Guyana closely. The modern setting and use of a camera crew puts a spin on it, along with a few other dramatic liberties West takes, but for anyone who has heard of Jim Jones it will be very easy to know where things will go.

Amazingly The Sacrament still worked for me despite knowing everything that would happen. This is because the events at Jonestown are so horrifying that the first two acts are filled with dread at what’s about to come. West plays into that too, periodically dropping some moments in that show something is seriously wrong with the compound. Once cult leader Father (Gene Jones) shows up to do an interview with the documentary crew, The Sacrament begins firing on all cylinders. Jones is fantastic as Father, with the interview sequence showing just how charismatic and dangerous he is as a character.

Soon after the interview things begin taking a turn for the worse, making way for the intense and disturbing final act. With The Sacrament West intelligently uses the mockumentary (calling it found footage wouldn’t be entirely accurate, as West said himself at the Q&A) format, creating a realistic what-if scenario of Jonestown if it happened today. He also stages some seriously impressive sequences, using long takes and stationary shots to pull off some truly disturbing moments. The Sacrament might not quite be a breakout for West, as the concept might not fly with mainstream audiences, but it still establishes him as one of the only consistent horror filmmakers working today.

RATING: 7.1

Canopy

Part of me wanted to describe The Sacrament as a minimalist film for its genre, but after seeing Aaron Wilson’s Canopy, Ti West’s film looks insanely busy in comparison. Running at just under 80 minutes, Canopy is a very simple feature that sometimes thrives off of its no frills approach.

In the jungles of Singapore during World War II, an Australian pilot (Khan Chittenden) crashes his plane. Waking up hanging from a tree, he stumbles around the jungle trying to avoid Japanese soldiers. He eventually runs into a Chinese resistance fighter (Tzu-Yi Mo) who is hiding in the jungle for the same reasons. From there the two of them team up by pure necessity, trying to escape without being spotted and killed.

The one thing everyone will mention about Canopy is its gorgeous technical work, and it deserves the praise. With approximately 6 or 7 words spoken in the film, the visuals and sound end up doing most of the heavy lifting. The locations are gorgeous, and cinematographer Stefan Duscio provides an abundance of gorgeous images in the jungle setting. As nice as the visuals are, the real winner here is the sound design. It’s obvious that a lot of care went into providing the soundtrack to Canopy, and the results can be heard. It’s completely immersive, and when Wilson decides to throw in a few expressionist sequences the visuals and sound work together quite well.

With all that said, Canopy‘s simplistic approach ends up being more of a detriment than a benefit to the film. As accomplished as the film is technically, the main relationship doesn’t feel natural in the slightest, and the whole thing feels very slight by the time the surprisingly abrupt ending comes around. Canopy functions as a good way for Wilson to establish himself as a talented director and craftsman, but there’s very little to go on other than his technical skills. Hopefully with a follow-up feature, Wilson can show that he can create some substance to match his style.

RATING: 6.5

Oculus

My day ended at the World Premiere of Mike Flanagan’s Oculus. It was midnight, and the crowd was rowdy and ready to go once programmer Colin Geddes introduced the film. It was a bit of a surprise then that, other than some applause for a few sequences here and there, the crowd was dead silent through most of the film. That speaks to the power of Flanagan’s film, which is a terrific horror movie and the most entertaining film I’ve seen up to this point.

Kaylie (Karen Gillan) and Tim (Brenton Thwaites) are siblings who haven’t recovered from their parents deaths 11 years ago. Their father (Rory Cochrane) tortured and murdered their mother (Katee Sackhoff) before Tim shot and killed him in self-defense. The incident put Tim in a mental hospital for a decade, and the film starts with him getting released from psychiatric care at age 21. Kaylie tells him upon his release that she’s found the cause of their parents deaths: The Lasser Glass, a centuries-old mirror in their childhood home that supposedly drives its owners to harm themselves and others.

Kaylie and Tim bring the mirror back to their childhood home, with Kaylie setting up an elaborate plan to prove the mirror’s sinister influence and destroy it once and for all. Oculus, which was adapted from Flanagan’s short of the same title, ports over the same sequence from the original short almost word-for-word: A long, exposition-filled monologue explaining the mirror’s history along with all of its victims. This sequence, which is excellently done in both films, gets to the heart of what makes Mike Flanagan such a terrific horror director (Note: I’m a big fan of Flanagan’s past work, and I included his film Absentia on our Great Horror Films You Haven’t Seen feature). He knows the power of a good, well-developed backstory, and viewers will eat up the extensive history of the haunted mirror.

And for most of Oculus, the creep factor comes from discovering just how powerful the Lasser Glass mirror truly is. The mirror’s power is entirely through screwing around with people’s perception, and its manipulations are so extensive that by the end of the film it’s hard not to be freaked out.

Flanagan and Jeff Howard’s screenplay is a truly rare thing in the horror genre: It’s smart. The film crosscuts between Kaylie and Tim’s present-day battle with the Lasser glass and what happened to them as children. At first this seems like an odd choice, given that we’ve already been explained about what happened to their parents from the beginning, but by the final act it comes together in a truly effective way. Without giving away too much, the mirror’s distortion of perceptions eventually merges the two timelines in a way that’s so seamless it’s hard to notice exactly when the changes occurred. It’s an inventive way to change up the cross-cutting, and watching it in action makes for a truly admirable site. I can’t think of the last time a horror film used a single location so well, or had a structure so ambitious.

Admittedly there is a little bit of a cheese factor here, mainly with some ghosts that don’t have the same chilling impact as the scenes where people get tricked by the mirror, but it isn’t distracting enough to bring things down. Oculus is a truly rare horror film these days: one that’s truly original, with a great screenplay and some legitimately unsettling moments. It currently does not have distribution but it’s the best horror film I’ve seen this year, and I have a good feeling that it will stay on top at the end of 2013. In my write-up for Absentia I said that, with a bigger scale Flanagan might deliver something truly special. After seeing Oculus I’d say he delivered on that promise, and then some.

RATING: 7.5

Stay tuned for an interview with Mike Flanagan

Next up:

I start the day with Kelly Reichardt’s Night Moves before moving on to the follow-up from the director of Revanche and Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin. And oh yeah, I squeeze in some time for a little film playing here called Gravity.

It’s no wonder Adam Wingard’s indie horror flick You’re Next is so damn good—with fellow indie powerhouse filmmakers like Joe Swanberg, Amy Seimetz, and Ti West walking around the blood-splattered set, Wingard was in good company. But take no credit away; he demonstrates he’s got a long and successful directorial career ahead of him. The film—which you can drop in the home invasion column of the horror genre—is 100% organic, pulpy, fresh-squeezed terror in a bottle. It’s an overwhelming rush of pure, insanely violent, visceral horror cinema executed with impeccable style. You’re Next is a straight-up shot of blood and guts with no chaser.

The setup is pretty straightforward—the Davison family gathers for a reunion at their gigantic forested mansion estate. It’s a comfortable cage for the unwitting prey. The knit-sweater-wearing, millionaire patriarch, Paul (Rob Moran), and his jumpy, medicated wife Aubrey (Barbara Crampton) are joined by their four adult children—Crispian (AJ Bowen), a college professor, Drake (Swanberg), an instigative bonehead, Aimee (Seimetz), a dumb, walking squeak toy, and Felix, an immature brat.

Each whiny, spoiled-rotten sibling has brought along a significant other, and at dinner, meathead Drake prods Paul about how “unprofessional” it is to be dating his former student, Erin (Sharni Vinson, who just sits and listens uncomfortably.) The argument heats up and Aimee’s boyfriend, Tariq (West) removes himself from the table, walks to a window, and WHAM! Arrow in the face! We have our first kill, just like that, and from there Wingard keeps his foot heavy on the gas pedal.

You’re Next embraces and celebrates the quick, nasty kill. The deaths are to-the-point, brutal and streamlined—no convoluted Rube Goldberg machine kills here, people. Wingard sticks to good ol’ machetes, knives, and other sharp objects being shoved into skulls. The film’s pace is unrelenting, maintaining a high level of urgency throughout. Wingard gives you no time to breathe, which makes the experience purely sensory and reactionary. There’s really nothing special or inventive about the plot’s many twists and turns, but the film’s breakneck speed makes you far less prepared for them when they come. It’s like riding a kiddie roller coaster at 200 MPH. In the immortal words of Harvey Keitel’s “The Wolf”, this film is “fast, fast, fast.”

A pleasant surprise is that the characters aren’t just lambs lining up for the slaughter—they’re interesting people and their dialogue is punchy and often hilarious. If you’re an indie film geek, Wingard throws more than a few in-jokes for you to chew on. For instance, at the dinner table before his William Tell demise, West (one of the best horror directors working) shares that he’s an independent filmmaker who screens his movies at “underground” film festivals. Swanberg (god of the mumblecore scene) snidely inquires if the festivals are literally held underground, and sarcastically proposes that TV commercials are a more sophisticated art form. Hell, the simple fact that he’s cast Swanberg as an uncultured dummy and Seimetz (known for arthouse gems like Upstream Color) as a grating airhead is funny in itself.

The killers picking off the Davison clan—a sort of animal-mask-wearing S.W.A.T. team—aren’t the most original scary movie villains you’ll find, but their imposing, violent physicality and Wingard’s excellent camerawork makes them feel formidable and frightening.

What is original, however, is Vinson, whose character unexpectedly disrupts what would otherwise be a fairly one-sided killing spree. You see, she’s just as, if not more, deadly and gifted at killing than the masked murderers. For reasons revealed halfway through the film, she’s well-versed at armed and unarmed combat and has a MacGyver/Kevin McCallister-like encyclopedic knowledge of trap-setting (a nail and a foot come to mind.) What results is an even match-up between trained predators, a thrilling turning of the tables that makes for some epic moments of delightful bad-assery. At my press screening there were multiple rounds of applause for Vinson, and one impassioned audience member even screamed “I love you!” at the screen as she repeatedly walloped of one of the invaders in the head with a meat tenderizer. It’s really, really fun to root for her, and it’s nice to have a horror movie protagonist that outshines the villains for once. She’s one to watch.

The film’s score is key in cultivating the film’s inescapable tension. It’s comprised of ominous electronic drones and synths that contrast nicely with the gritty on-screen action, and the sound design is equally effective. Wingard and DP Andrew Droz Palermo keep things visually interesting throughout. Everything, from the constantly shifting, evocative lighting, to the careful camera placement, to the neat technical tricks (most involving blurry reflections), contribute to creating a deep sense of dread.

What Wingard’s made is a horror movie for horror movie geeks. You’re Next even pays homage (intentionally or not) to classics like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Rear Window (in a sequence that will jolt your senses), and even Home Alone. You’re Next is an absolute beast of a horror picture that’s so fierce, barbaric, and terrifying that the guy sitting next to me in the theater started to convulse from fright and leaped over his chair and bolted out of the theater. Plus, it’s got a brain and a stellar heroine to boot. See it with friends—you’ll gasp, scream, jump, and squirm in unison, the sign of a true horror masterpiece. It’s gonna be hard to top this one.

You’re Next trailer:

You’re Next

Throughout the first week of SFIFF, as I walked, drove, and BARTed my way around the city, there was one thing I heard more than anything else from fellow festival-goers—“You need to see You’re Next!” No other film at the festival garnered such buzz, which compelled me to check it out, though I was positive the film couldn’t live up to the hype. Just like always (ask my wife), I was wrong. Adam Wingard’s indie-horror kill-fest blew me away with its watch-through-your-fingers scares and creative kills.

The plot of You’re Next isn’t groundbreaking—a rich, sweater-wearing family is attacked in their cushy vacation home by psycho killers with crossbows wearing animal masks that look like they were bought at a Party America Halloween sale. It’s creepy stuff, but again—nothing groundbreaking. What makes this movie so effective and feel so fresh is that the bloody massacre is supported by sound, savvy filmmaking by Wingard.

Unfortunately, most horror films exchange artistry for mindless gore, but You’re Next makes no such compromise. Some of the kills (there’s a load of ‘em) have been seen before in older, more popular films, but here they feel extra violent and hit with a bone-rattling jolt. The film’s focus is on extreme, visceral violence, not gore. The sharp editing and flawless sound design are the keys to achieving such raw levels of intensity.

The cast, a tight-knit troupe of indie directors (Joe Swanberg, Amy Seimetz, Ti West), give excellent, ego-less performances (Seimetz is hilarious), and it was surely a huge asset for Wingard to have such talent on hand. Over the past few months, I’ve been touched and moved by some of the cast members’ artsy, weighty films, so it was a lot of fun to watch them run wild in such a crazy, brutal movie. It’s fantastic news that the film is finally being released (it’s been in studio-limbo since 2011), and I can’t wait for you all to see it. Time to sack up, folks.

Museum Hours

An American woman (Mary Margaret O’Hara) is called to Austria to visit an ailing friend, and while visiting the Vienna’s world famous Kunsthistorisches Museum, meets Johann (Bobby Sommer), a genial patrolman. The two quickly become friends and engage in a days-long, existential discussion that leads to endless self-discovery. The museum and the snow-blanketed city feel unstuck from the world, a sanctuary for the two to explore and mold each other through the art they ponder and the life experiences they exchange. As they make their deep connection, mortality looms in the form of Anne’s dying friend.

The brilliant works of art in Museum Hours are beautifully captured (jaw-dropping), and director Jem Cohen and DP Peter Rohsler echo the immense artistry of the art in their gorgeous cinematography. Every damn shot is breathtaking and immaculately composed. Cohen intermittently cuts in thoughtfully selected close-ups of paintings, which jogs our memory and emotions. It’s completely engaging and makes this movie not only thoughtful, but sensual. Sommer and O’Hara move effortlessly throughout the film, endearing us to them with every passing moment. Their relationship feels real and isn’t easily defined. There’s something uniquely charming about the way Sommer speaks and holds himself. His voice carries empathy and wisdom, and his monologues feel as profound as the museums’ works, though he carries no pretension. Of all the films at SFIFF, this is the prettiest I’ve seen.

Stay Tuned to Way Too Indie for our full reviews of You’re Next and Museum Hours.

For all intents and purposes, Shane Carruth has completely disappeared off the filmmaking radar ever since his mind blowing indie sci-fi debut of Primer eight years ago. The only place his name has appeared since then was in the Thank You section of the credits in Looper. For Upstream Color the self-proclaimed “control freak” handles more than just the directorial duties as Carruth also; wrote, acted, co-edited, scored, and even self-distributed the film. At times Upstream Color will seem impenetrable and elusive, and at others it will make perfect sense; what remains constant is a mesmerizing and yet challenging film that explores the spirituality between humans and nature.

Near the beginning of the film, a creative professional named Kris (Amy Seimetz) is suddenly drugged by a mysterious thief (Thiago Martins) who uses a special maggot like creature that has a brainwashing effect. This leaves her in a hypnotic state where the thief has full control over her mind and what she does. Under his instructions, Kris empties out her entire savings account to him. A few days later she comes to her senses to find a long worm crawling under her skin. Another stranger takes her in, seemingly to help remove the worms, though ends up performing a surgery that exchanges fluids between her and a pig. It is nearly as bizarre as it sounds, although everything is done very technical and matter-of-factly that it looks believable in a sci-fi kind of way.

Soon after Kris realizes that she no longer has any money or her job, she runs into a man on a train who she has never met before yet is strangely drawn to. She learns that this man (Shane Carruth) suffered from a similar event that also left his past cloudy. Quickly, the two begin to bond as they share this intangible connection that they cannot quite figure out. This leads to the main plot of the film; their exploration into just how exactly their childhood experiences seem to blend as one.

The film itself plays out more like an abstract recollection of someone’s past than a straight dialog driven narrative. Beautifully lensed with outstanding stimulating visuals, Upstream Color perfectly illustrates the symbolizing connection between human and nature. Pairing wonderfully with the visuals is the masterful editing that keeps the pacing of the film in check. The editing here is extremely important as it cuts back and forth enough to simulate the kind of blurry state the characters themselves experience. The result is one of the better edited films of its kind in recent time.

Another part where the film excelled in was the score, which I mentioned before that Carruth himself wrote. The original music that he creates superbly compliments the eerie nature of the film. The score is ambient enough to not be overstated, but yet still noticeably enhances the tone the film aims for.

Upstream Color definitely calls for a second viewing to fully appreciate everything that is thrown at the viewer. But even then, I wonder if the film would still be fully realized. It is not that the film is impossible to decipher, but that it is shown in an abstract manner without a straightforward direction with somewhat dense storytelling. Perhaps a second viewing would also enhance the emotional relationship between Kris and Jeff, instead of the forced one that the viewer gets thrown suddenly into on the first watch.

By the time the credits roll, you will feel like you have just woken up for a multidimensional hypnotic state just like the characters in the film. There is definite method to its madness that purposely leaves the viewer a little puzzled with what exactly transpired. But the beauty of Upstream Color is that the film wants you to further explore all the themes, connections, and emotions on your own, and in order to do that, multiple viewings may be required.

All the Light in the Sky

Joe Swanberg’s All the Light in the Sky is a naturalistic portrait of Marie (Jane Adams), an actress whose career seems to be losing steam. Romantically, she’s gotten to the point where she no longer possesses the energy to actively pursue men, and isn’t quite sure if love is in the cards for her any longer. Marie’s niece, Faye (Sophia Takal), comes to stay at Marie’s Malibu beach house and acts as a projection of her bygone youth, reminding her that life is forever moving forward, never stopping. Marie is a woman at a crossroads, past her prime, directionless and stuck. She’s an emotional castaway, frozen by the immensity of the infinite possibilities laid out in front of her.

As in Swanberg’s previous works, All the Light in the Sky is ultra-realistic and naturalistic in every way. It’s also a snapshot of the technology of our time, as Swanberg utilizes smartphone cameras and Skype to tell his story. Though he throws things like shots from camera phones in there, the implementation is seamless and his mechanisms don’t call attention to themselves.

The dilemmas Marie wrestles with are universal ones, and it’s hard not to identify with the feeling of listlessness she is stricken with. Her friend Rusty, a useful character played by the genuinely funny Larry Fessenden, exudes a “stop and smell the roses” attitude, and being with him just might be the healthiest path for Marie to take. In fact, every character in the film represents a different path for Marie to take in life. The question of which path she chooses to go down is a heavy one. Jane Adams is sensational, creating an endearing and grounded character in Marie. She uses every muscle in her face to convey the feelings she needs to while never once abandoning the realism so essential to Swanberg’s films. The overwhelming sense of serenity makes this film stand out from the pack, as does Adams’ poignant performance.

RATING: 9

The International Sign for Choking

Josh (played by writer/director Zach Weintraub) is an American sent on a mission to Buenos Aires to find inspiration for a film. Losing sight of his original objective, he finds himself aimlessly searching the city for something, somebody, to shake him from the loneliness that’s consumed him. The problem is, every time he’s close to making a connection, he (you guessed it) chokes. He meets a fellow American, Anna (Sophia Takal, again), and just as their attraction becomes undeniable, Josh pushes her away. Josh makes makes failed connection after failed connection, and the feeling of isolation grows and grows.

The International Sign for Choking feels personal, though watching Josh’s social inadequacy becomes tiresome as the film progresses, as no stakes are ever established. There are several effective moments where the characters’ relationships silently and subtly crumble before our eyes, but the consequences for the characters are mild. Watching Josh awkwardly shuffle from person to person, racking up missed connections is effective in that we feel sad for him, but ineffective in that it’s not entertaining. While the actors put forth a good effort and are clearly talented, most of the characters are uninteresting and forgettable. Weintraub shows skill in how he captures the essence of scenes by highlighting the small nuances of the actors’ performances. However, these scenes fail to become greater than the sum of their parts.

RATING: 6.7

Sun Don’t Shine

Amy Seimetz (Tiny Furniture, Be Good) delivers a soul-rattling directorial debut about two lovers, Crystal (Kate Lyn Sheil) and Leo (Kentucker Audley), who roll through the muggy wetlands of central Florida toward an unknown destination while trying to attract as little attention as possible (the unsettling plot is worth discovering on your own.) On their nightmarish road trip, their paranoia, frustration, and fatigue slowly drives them crazy as they wrestle with their demons, and one another (literally.) Crystal is a combustible open book, never hesitant to vocalize her emotions on the loudest volume possible. Leo is the opposite, constantly trying to suppress the fears that eat away at his psyche. As they fight and tumble across Florida, their love is tested, and they learn that they are forever tethered to each other, whether they like it or not.

Seimetz, Audley, and Sheil work together to create one of the most mesmerizing on-screen relationships of the year. Watching Crystal and Leo poke and tug at each others’ emotions is simply riveting. Kate Lyn Sheil puts on a spectacle of a performance, being at once psychotic and adorable, somehow. Some of Sheil’s quiet scenes are jaw-dropping. Audley perfectly balances Sheil’s openhearted performance with his wound-up, quietly violent demeanor. The tension the two create together is thick, and when it snaps, it’s explosive. There are some pacing issues, but overall, Seimetz makes a big statement in her debut, and I look forward to seeing what she serves up next.

RATING: 8.7

Funeral Kings

A coming-of-age film with a larger-than-life attitude, Kevin and Matthew McManus’ feature debut, Funeral Kings, follows a trio of 14-year-old boys who crave nothing more than to leapfrog their teenage years straight into cigarette-smoking, foul-mouthed, gun-toting, sex-filled “adulthood.” Charlie (Alex Maizus) and Andy (Dylan Hartigan) are weekday altar boys (a dream job for them, as it gets them regularly excused from class.) Late one night, their older friend Bobby drops off a large trunk at Andy’s house which he asks Andy to hold and promise never to open. Naturally, Andy, Charlie, and their new friend David (Jordan Puzzo) open the chest, and find a veritable goldmine of forbidden paraphernalia (cigarettes, pornography, a gun) to abuse. Chaos ensues as the friends fight over the coveted gear.

Funeral Kings plays out like a rough-around-the-edges, testosterone overloaded Superbad. The narrative structure is a little scattered, and some of the plot lines receive underwhelming resolutions. The story does have heart and substance, however, and the Mcmanus’ depiction of male adolescence is right on the money. The three leads carry the film well and have genuine chemistry. Maizus in particular shows a lot of range and delivers his lines with bravado beyond his years (all three leads were the age they played.) What’s most impressive about the trio is that they can handle heavy, dramatic scenes with as much confidence as they do comedic ones. The excellent hip-hop soundtrack represents the bad-ass swagger the trio aspires to attain. The film disappointingly goes out with a ‘poof’ instead of a ‘bang!’, but all in all, Funeral Kings is a hugely enjoyable film with a gifted cast and giant cajones.

RATING: 8.1