Hey folks, Harry here with Memento Man's second report of the festival! This time he fills us in on 3 new flicks unfurling in the frozen north of Sundance. The one I'm anxious to see is GARDEN STATE... if a film can stand comparisons to THE GRADUATE and HAROLD & MAUDE... at the same time getting favorable comments drawing parallels between films like ANNIE HALL and MANHATTAN in another review on the site... well... Then it has to have it's shit toghter.
SUNDANCE: IRON JAWED ANGELS, GARDEN, GARDEN STATE
Hi Harry!
Here's the latest lowdown!
IRON JAWED ANGELS (***& 1/2)
One of the big surprises of the festival so far, IRON JAWED ANGELS is both engaging and artistic. Beginning with one of the most magnificently beautiful openings in recent memory, that energy is then channeled throughout the rest of the film.
IRON JAWED ANGELS tells the story of Alice Paul and Alice Burns, two champions of the women's suffrage movement. We track their story from 1912 through 1920. But hold on. This isn't your grandmother's stuffy period piece; this movie is rife with modern sensibility, particularly by way of a powerful soundtrack composed of modern songs and cutting-edge editing complete with MTV-type fast-motion camera sweeps through large, complex crowd scenes. Most of all, though, the film feels particularly relevant in showing the dangers that come from voicing any opposition to a wartime president.
Hilary Swank burns up the screen in her portrayal of Alice Paul, an assured leader who can even swing the wife of an important senator to her cause. Equally marvelous is Frances O'Connor as the exciting but determined Alice Burns. Together, these two women stand up the conservative old-guard suffragettes (such as the formidably radiant Anjelica Houston), violent misogynists, a non-sympathetic president, and terrible abuses while they're in prison.
The real hero, though, has to be Katja von Garnier, the director, who infuses the film with energy and artistic passion. As this film will be premiering on HBO, sign up now or miss the ANGELS IN AMERICA for 2004.
GARDEN (* & 1/2)
The premise sounds fairly unusual–make a documentary about an area of Tel Aviv where gay prostitutes hang out and then spend some time following a couple of them, Nino and Dudu, around. True, the film takes us to places almost unimaginable. The problem is, it does so in an unimaginative way, feeling like it has very little to say. Dry and boring for much of its screentime, this GARDEN needed some watering.
GARDEN STATE (*** & 1/2)
Hilariously quirky at the beginning, romantic in the middle, somber and meditative near the end, GARDEN STATE is one of the most talked-about films of the festival so far, and one of the hardest tickets to get. (I waited for two hours in a wait line yesterday unsuccessfully and then was the very last person to be let into the theater tonight after a long, cold, outside wait-line.) But oh was it worth it.
GARDEN STATE is compared to THE GRADUATE and HAROLD AND MAUDE in the Sundance program blurb and there is that type of quirky feel to it. (There's even a GRADUATE-like shot with a young man suntanning on a raft in a pool.) Yet, unlike those two films, GARDEN STATE also has some deeper reflections about such issues as death and the way one copes with loss.
Zack Braff plays Andrew Largeman, an small-time actor who comes back to New Jersey for his mother's funeral. While there, he meets Samantha, a bubbly Natalie Portman. While Samantha lies about everything, Andrew has many secrets he keeps locked inside. Together these two find healing, nurturing, and understanding in each other.
Writer/director Zack Braff was at the Q&A tonight and was very personable. He explained that he wrote the script using many anecdotes from his journals as he was growing up in New Jersey. It was shot in 24 days, during his short hiatus from SCRUBS. The audience tonight loved him, deservedly so.
It's now about 2:00am and I'm up in four hours to start the next set of films! Any talkbackers who want to spellcheck my facts on four hours of sleep a night are free to do so. Until then, this is MEMENTO MAN, signing off!
