One of the greatest aesthetic strengths of Dogtooth’s execution is perhaps its implicit nature, one that intentionally confuses and overwhelms to illustrate the horrific outcomes of a concerned parental nature. Director Giorgos Lanthimos gives little exposition to grasp, expecting an attentive audience to catch the complex designs of the world created by the Greek parents of secluded children, but also to ignite an empathetic confusion that these children would experience if allowed to view the world beyond their parent’s design. The film’s approach towards audience engagement is unconventional, yet brilliantly metaphoric (hence it’s Un Certain Regard award), yet Dogtooth is also quite traditional in its coming-of-age themes and agenda, all appropriate combinations for a world cinema classic. Read on…

While there is no train advancing towards the screen in Me at the zoo, from user “jawed,” there is something hidden and more meaningful behind the seemingly unimpressive events in this video. The protagonist, if one can call him such, enacts common uses of film/video language: he narrates through direct address and directs our attention through gesture while the camera composes him quite squarely within a mise-en-scene, which also conveys action and depth via the distant elephant and receding wall to the camera’s left, which visually recalls the depiction of depth within the documented arrival of a train at La Ciotat Station. While neither works are the first visual documents of their medium, they both imply greater value at work. Read on…

Ben Lynch and Brad Beesley editor Lousiana Kreutz’s eleven minute The Bicycle Cowboy doesn’t just hark back to the feeling of early 20^th century American cinema, but provides for an interesting metaphor about the clash of today’s progressive movement. We’re first introduced to a cowboy riding along an unseen pathway, but only revealed from waist up. Traditional cowboy iconography calls to mind concepts of American honor and duty, yet what the camera reveals is this cowboy rides upon a bicycle. This addendum to traditional cowboy iconography implies activism, energy conservation, and anti-capitalism/globalism. These concepts are usually in constant battle, and what’s so interesting about this imagery, suggests that our concept of mythic history should contend with an updated concept of “the West,” one in which activism is just as dominant a mode of conduct in America as that of any codes of the “western.”  As two cowboys fight over the control of bikes for the heart of a young woman what results is a narrative that questions the conventions of aggressive and competitive resolution. The film ends with a “winner,” as both cowboys come to realize the young woman has played them against each other. While the reconfiguration of the American cowboy myth is progressive, what remains a problem is the inactive female, upon whom the blame remains at the end of the film (the implied indecisiveness is quite misogynistic). Perhaps any follow up cycle, as is the nature of American myth/cinema, will address such problems. Read on…

While Okie Shorts provided some great works this year (such as the comedy sketch My Own Prometheus about morning coffee and multiple morning identities, or the much talked about faux-documentary Faith Healer, who’s documented protagonists leaving a project reveals less about the film than the metaphor for audience and film-subject relationship), my interest was in two shorts that made analyses of Oklahoma a primary part of their structure. Read on…

A series of great shorts that redefine the manner in which “kids work’ is compared with “professional,” one in which “kid/student” is simply an age level rather than a definition of cinematic ability of expression or articulation.

Amy Bench’s work In this Place at first glance suggest a rudimentary application of graphic compositing, as a young woman shifts through background layouts of bright and exotic locations. We come to learn that Jane, a young explorer, is simply finding the means of escape from the low contrast, and more realistically photographed, 35mm footage with her mind’s eye of exploration in bright HD imagery. While this juxtaposition in itself holds a fascinating approach towards these two mediums and their relationship with young filmmakers, it also provides a justification for these compositing techniques that imply this artifice is of the love and excitement of imagination. Jane’s boring conversations with her condescending older brothers further perpetuates her desires for escapism, but when she attempts to develop her imaginary travels through video distribution, the distributor tells her the material is unrealistic and overly amateurish. Jane focuses her skills as a dreamer and video-maker to delight and reconnect her family through a love video made specifically for them, as she brings them into the emotionally bright HD footage away from the oppressive and dreary 35mm realism, bridging the gap between the optimistic visions of youth and falsely-imposed definitions of cinematic quality. Read on…

While these shorts provide for some great laughs, it’s the smart choices from intelligent directors that make these funny moments meaningful and memorable beyond their short duration.

Starting off the comedy block is commercial director Jeremy Berger’s The Van, which is able to provide some laughter due to it’s confident style and juxtaposition of Herman Melville’s poetics with a more crass modern humor. Although the image of a blow-up sex toy is paired with Moby Dick’s narrator description of his unhindered history of exploits plays on the social comedy of manners, the film unfortunately hit’s it’s peak. The chase between a biker messenger and the “white van” that assaults bikers is reliant upon technical proficiency rather than motivated by the psychological or emotional complexity of Melville. Perhaps what is lacking is the reason behind the pairing of the text of Moby Dick within the world of the bike-messenger that would really take the work into more complicated jokes, and perhaps become a more biting satire of contemporary eco-business warfare. Read on…

Lagueria Davis’ 1 in 3 is not so much a depiction of Lifetime–melodrama nor the exploitive horrors that are common in domestic abuse thrillers, but a more realistic drafting of the possibilities of subtle daily domestic violence. As a first feature, 1 in 3 is prone to raw craft, but it is the passion and careful intention of the film’s depiction of fear in domestic violence that allows the film to convey its message of strength and validate social advocacy.

An initial courtroom scene between Sydell, social service advocate, and her domestic violence client Angie defines several key concepts behind the film. As the judge hears another case, Sydell and Angie share a private dialogue through the passing of paper and pen. What Angie reveals is a fear of her abusive husband despite the safety of legal decisions. Though she may recognize the authority of the legal procedures, the fact remains that Angie’s voice is denied and the ramifications of this moment extend beyond the courtroom of rules. Angie’s husband not only proves the limits of legal restrictions when he pulls out a gun in a later scene, but also ignites the recognition of the realities behind Sydell’s job: a legal resolution does not stop the possibilities of violence, and perhaps forces an unintended silence of victims. While this sequence of events results in dramatic violence at the hands of a male aggressor and gunplay, the film reveals the forms of violence only begin with the physical and extend into one’s own complicity when fears become the driving force of daily decisions. Read on…

Although the dominance of ESPN over the concept of this documentary is so powerful, Jackass director Jeff Tremaine and editor Seth Casriel found ways to both defy and utilize the network’s clean format and structure while also presenting some incredible historical footage that places Matt Hoffman’s BMX footage into new light, and perhaps brings us the closest to the mortality of Hoffman’s unique biking style.

One of the most unique kinds of video work is hardcore bike and skate videos, one of my favorite genre of filmmaking. Such works impart a true love of a craft (in this case, biking) and often become overlooked by those who don’t share the same interest, nor know exactly at what it is they’re looking when such footage is presented to them without context. Yet, there is little that rivals such work in its ability to capture the harsh truths and intense passion of any particular, and fleeting, “moment”. While Tremaine and Casriel are able to incorporate such amazing footage, it is the way in which they are able to craft the reasons for such footage’s appeal that makes this documentary shine beyond a possibly rigid talking-head format. Read on…