Year 13 is upon me, and so are the annual writeups of what I’ve caught. I’ve slowed down my pace a bit, and downgraded myself back to a Film Pass, but I’m still doing it. No volunteering yet for me this year, but I’m still considering it, depending on how the demands on my time go next year. Mindy has continued to be very supportive of my traditional habit of nearly disappearing for a week every year for this event.   Right, so here’s what I’ve seen so far this year.

Friday March 13

“Strongman”

Honestly, I’m not sure what attracted me to this one in the schedule. Perhaps the potential for it to be an entertaining freak-show doc, the kind that so often seem to show up at SXSW, drew me in. It turned out to be a quasi-cinéma vérité style documentary, just following the aging “Stanless Steel”, whose ambition is to continue to be, well, a strongman in the carnival sense, though not literally in carnivals. The

film delves deeply into his relationships with those around him, including his family, his peers, and his girlfriend. It also focuses heavily on his earnest quest for self perfection, mostly of physical strength. As we follow him through his days and his various experiences and tribulations, it’s seems like he’s a bit of a feckless, but lovable dolt. His heart in in the right place, but he is incredibly absorbed by his need to be a better, and more popular and bankable strongman entertainer. After leaving this one, it occurred to me that independent docs are often guilty of victimizing subjects/people like this, taking advantage of their naive natures to exploit them for entertaining material. This piece transcends this a bit, seeing something about his creative impulse and struggle that is identical to that which is presumably at the core of anyone involved in the creative enterprise of independent film. It’s subtle, but the subtext is definitely there. I confess, I usually prefer docs with a strong narrative current, which this one lacked, but I think the treatment of the subject was relatively fair yet unflinching, and if you were paying attention, you might learn something before it was all done.

“Monsters From the ID”

This doc suggests that the 50’s were something of a scientific golden age for America. It points out that, although the conventional understanding now is that the science fiction cinema of the era was largely about fear of Communists and the Bomb, that many of these films: (“Forbidden Planet”, “Them”, and one of my favs: “The Day The Earth Stood Still”) also lionized scientists as heroes, something not often seen since, and this had a knock on effect of inspiring people of that time to pursue science, and thus drive the county on to great scientific achievement. He also goes on to draw the conclusion, mostly though his interviewed experts, that there is something of a connection between the lack of this glorification of scientists these days and the decline of scientific education and ability in this country.

I went along with this premise, mostly out of the sense that we’ve just emerged from 8 years of a government fairly disdainful of things intellectual, and that American science could use some bolstering right about now. Still, I’m troubled by the flag-waving aspect of this. We are a wealthy and powerful nation, and as such, we surely have a responsibility to support and contribute to science. However, since the subject was limited only to a discussion of a history of America’s scientific prowess, one implication there is that science should be used to secure our own advantage in the world. The film does not overtly suggest this, but I think the inevitable conclusion from the notion that America is in danger of being left behind intellectually is that Americans should then pursue science for our own benefit. I frankly find this to be a fairly shallow point of view. Thinking about science in tems of national engagement kind of misses the point. Good science should be about the free exchange of ideas unimpeded by borders and what have you. I understand that some things will be considered to be military secrets or whatever, but what about when we’re talking about clean energy or pharmaceutical research? Surely science at it’s best must include inputs from and benefits to everyone rather than just one country or just the First World. So, I guess I came away feeling like trying to look at 50’s sci fi as being some kind of inspiration for us now to be a bit specious. I understand needing to limit a subject for purposes of discussion, but this one left me feeling like the discussion had unceremoniously been ripped out of context to a point so as to be useless. It doesn’t help that the title kind of points to the aspect of the discussion least developed by the end of the film. Seems like this film might have gotten away from it’s masters when it crawled off the slab.

“Ong Bak 2″

No need to belabor this one, it’s more Thai martial arts from Tony Jaa. If you saw the original, you’ll probably like this one. It has the same film speed-ups and florid slo-mos of the original as well, but it was pretty enjoyable overall if you’re a martial arts film fan.

Saturday March 14

“Reel Shorts 1″

My annual readers might recall that I do loves me some shorts programs. There’s something about the form that makes for a sort of “pure” cinematic experience. There is absolutely no room for dead wood in a short. Either you hit your mark or you don’t. When they do, they seem so satisfying somehow.  Fortunately, many in this reel did.  Strange as it is, if there was a theme to this reel, it would be semi-experimental black comedy. “Winter Lilacs” is about a man living with his aged mother who appears to be near catatonic with dementia.   Oddly, yes, they found a bit of humor in this.  Also true for “Countertransference”, about a milquetoast antique store worker and her relationship with her boss, but also her twisted, abusive therapist helping her with her low self esteem issues and “Cochran”, about a loser who hates his delivery job, bit whose true love of skeet shooting and hunting leads him towards a hunting accident that leaves him unable to deliver, but allowing him to work at the gun range. The stand out from the black comedy take would be “Isis avenue”, about a crime scene cleanup company emptying a house of its contents left behind by it’s dead owner.   I suppose the commonality here was that though the subject was undoubtedly morbid, the interviews with the workers were surprisingly upbeat.  Go figure.

“AMAC @ The Hideout”

This was a shorts program Jordan turned me on to populated only by works from students of the Austin School of Film.   I have to say, it was surprisingly solid.  In particular: “Remains”, a narrative about a woman who is in town to clean out the house of her recently deceased, estranged mother and her interaction with her mother’s neighbor, who had had some kind of relationship with her. It was really well acted and fairly compelling, especially for a narrative short. Also, “Blade Throwers”, a very short doc about a regional knife throwing competition. Nicely polished and put together, your typical “get to know a subculture” doc. Lastly, “Headcheese”, a somewhat longer horror piece where the young worker of a butcher shop starts to lose it and starts taking orders from a pig head, Son-of-Sam style.  Not shy with the fake blood.

“The Last Beekeeper”

Knowing a little bit about this subject, I was curious to see this filmmakers take on the state of the bee industry, if you will, in light of the recent troubles with honeybee populations in decline. This one was really well put together, had a nice little narrative to it as we follow three beekeepers on their annual trek to the almond pollenation in California, and their struggles to keep it together. As it turns out, there’s quite a bit of passion and heartbreak in the bee biz. The only thing that left me unsatisfied were the scientific underpinnings of the film. There are some interviews with apiarists trying to explain Colony Collapse Disorder, often heard about through brief mass media science-scare stories, but as there’s no explanation, no theories are really advanced. We learn that the almonds in particular are instructive as they, unlike many other crops, depend totally on bees for successful pollenation, and to accomplish this takes 75% of the US supply of beehives. There are therefore some stabs made at an explanation implicating the constant, long-distance transport of hives into monoculture areas, such as the vast almond orchards of California , are to blame, combined with the stressed of environmental pesticides and imported bee parasites.   I guess if you assume that we’re in the grips of a national bee holocaust, that beekeepers are having a rough time of it, interesting as their stories might be, isn’t excatly a surprise.