One of the bigger influences on my filmmaking, Ilha das Flores by Jorge Furtado is a ten minute dissection of society and the entire world that starts with a tomato and ends with you wondering how this system that we have created is at all okay. The use of voiceover, the editing, the macro/micro view of things are all tricks that I still use in my movies to this day. But every time I watch it, I still find myself completely transfixed by it. In some ways it is the total opposite of My Josephine, the Barry Jenkins student film that I wrote about earlier this month. Whereas that film was small and intimate, this is all encompassing. There’s no searching for an intangible feeling. Everything here is concrete and objective. It’s a film that lists facts. That categorizes and labels. A movie that doesn’t shy away from over-explaining something. But that only makes its power that much more compelling. Because these are things as they are. This is the world as we have made it. Even if it isn’t 100% a documentary, even if there are certain things about it that are exaggerated or glossed over, you can’t deny that a tomato is a tomato. And a pig is a pig. And trash is trash. And people are people.

Unfortunately I could not find a version of the film online with the original Portuguese audio and English subtitles. The version I am linking here just has a dubbed English narration. It’s pretty good but I’ve watched this movie so many times that I can’t help but feel like it’s not quite right (he over emphasizes some really weird words, instead of just having the confidence to maintain the matter-of-fact monotone). So, if you speak Portuguese, I would highly recommend watching the original version somewhere else. (though if you’re at all interested in film and you’re Brazilian, there’s a pretty good chance you’ve seen it already)

https://vimeo.com/53862971

Everybody Dies! By Nuotama Frances Bodomo was made as part of a feature film called collective:unconscious. The idea was that four filmmakers would adapt each other’s dreams. While the feature as a whole is interesting and worth watching, Bodomo’s segment stands out as more than just a part of a whole. And much more than just the adaptation of a dream. In some ways, this is probably one of the most underrated short films of the past ten years. It’s something that could have so easily come off as cheesy or dumb or maybe even seem like it was trivializing a very serious topic. But Bodomo knows exactly the tone she’s going for and she nails it perfectly. It’s funny and entertaining while at the same time tragic and deeply disturbing. It’s wholly original while still being completely accessible. It’s impossible to watch it and not feel somewhat shaken up. It’s a film that film channels the rage, frustration, and despair of the #BlackLivesMatter movement into something truly haunting, as Bodomo uses a surreal game show to expose the reality of what’s actually going on: young black people being killed for no reason.

https://vimeo.com/178011614#t=45m36s

After the Oscars last night I felt it only fitting to showcase something from a previous Oscar winner. So here is Barry Jenkins’s very first student film:

https://vimeo.com/7456450

My favorite thing about My Josephine actually is that it is definitely a student film. It feels rough, the subject matter is almost a little beyond his reach, and it’s bristling with the excitement of someone still figuring out their style. The film was written shortly after 9/11 and it still works as a perfect time capsule of that time. Beyond that however, it’s a wonderfully cinematic character study from someone who can’t help but have so much empathy for his characters, in this case two Arab-American laundromat owners. Barry once said that this was his favorite movie he’d directed. I’d have to give the nod to If Beale Street Could Talk myself, but the through line in his work of good people trying to find love and connection in a system designed to suppress and subjugate them was there in the beginning with this one. Here it’s all just hinted at. The film is foggy. Fuzzy. Like a memory. It doesn’t show any another characters. It doesn’t betray any real backstory. It doesn’t even mention 9/11. Its power lies instead in the small little moments. Like an exchange about language. Or the way they handle the flag. It feels elliptical. Conveying the feeling of being an immigrant in a way that feels honest and human, and not manipulative or obvious. It’s a kind of confidence that’s rare in filmmakers already deep in their careers. The fact that Barry pulled it off while he was still in school only makes it that much more special.

First off are two (very) short documentaries from Joe Callander. “Tim and Susan Have Matching Handguns” and “Tina Delivers a Goat”. Both have overly descriptive titles that also double as loglines. Both premiered at Sundance in 2014. And both do a great job of mining human comedy out of actual issues (gun ownership for Tim and Susan / colonialism, white guilt, and global inequality for Tina). The straightforward documentary presentation exposes the absurdity of the situation without minimizing or trivializing the topics, and without providing any sort of easy answer or definitive statements.

Tim & Susan: https://vimeo.com/81207357
Tina: https://vimeo.com/54677788