Dallas VideoFest 2009: Sneak previews

Updated 07:31 a.m., November 4, 2009

by Sarah Crisman , Lena Dirbashi , Teresa Gubbins , John P. Meyer

I really appreciate it when film festival organizers deliver a bag full of DVD screeners to the Pegasus News offices prior to festival time, because it gives our staffers a chance to pick out some promising-looking film fare and give it a once-over.

We're passing along our good fortune to you by providing this sneak preview of several of the movies queued up for the Dallas VideoFest, running Thursday through Sunday at the Angelika Dallas.

Here's our first batch of quickie reviews; we'll be adding a few more before the festival is over.

Thanks for all you do, Dallas VideoFest folks!

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Emily Hubley's The Toe Tactic made its world premiere at Austin's SXSW Film Festival in the Spring of 2008. I was there, but -- like dozens of other films I would like to have seen during those ten hectic days -- it escaped me. Thus, I was pleased to see it would be appearing in the lineup for the VideoFest.

Lily Rabe stars as Mona Peek, a young woman who finds herself immersed in a world of whimsical and often mischevious fantasy following the death of her beloved father. Through a bizarre progression of seemingly insignificant events, Mona meets and interacts with a panoply of unconventional characters, including a young boy named Wilson (Sean J. Moran) who finds her wallet after it's been purloined by the embodiment of a cartoon character. (Yeah, I know, pretty weird.)

The boy's mother Lacticia (Sakina Jaffrey) finds herself strangely attracted to a piano teacher (Kevin Corrigan) who lives in an apartment nearby. Wilson takes piano lessons to bring them together.

Meanwhile, Mona goes to work for an eccentric rich lady named Victoria (Novella Nelson) who collects what appear to be snippets of prose on scraps of paper. The elevator operator in Victoria's building is a purportedly good looking fellow named -- well, we only know him as Elevator Man (Daniel London). Elevator Man writes songs, using for lyrics the things that people who ride in his elevator say to him. This can make for some very short songs, as we soon discover.

The film brims with animated magic and symbolic power items, such as the piece of bone Mona cherishes from the incomplete cremation of her father's remains. (Again, pretty weird.) It includes an original score by Yo La Tengo.

Definitely not your standard narrative feature fare. Check it out, perhaps while in an altered state.

- JM

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Gogol Bordello Non-Stop is a documentary about the band Gogol Bordello made by filmmaker Margarita Jimeno. Jimeno traces the origins of the New York City-based gypsy punk rockers, centering on frontman Eugene Hutz (who immigrated from the Ukraine with his parents when he was a teenager, and went on to star in a movie made by Madonna.)

We also get to know the rest of the members of Gogol Bordello, including Oren Kaplan (guitarist), who came on, he says, when "their other guitar player became schizophrenic and disappeared."

The film -- like the Bordello music -- is a grand Dionysian bacchanal of outrageous imagery and sound. We go live onstage with the band as they whip their delighted fans into a frenzy; we learn that Bela Bartok is a key influence of Hutz's music; we hear an early reviewer describe the band's heavily theatrical performance thusly:

"The sight was obscene, but it had some unknown aesthetic to it."

Say no more, but see this film. You'll go apeshit for Gogol Bordello.

- JM

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I was initially drawn to Died Young, Stayed Pretty because I'm a sucker for underground artists, and my interior decor features more concert posters than a woman of my age should admit to. Director Eileen Yaghoobian takes us to the dark underbelly of outlaw artists -- the mad brains behind the most raw form of music marketing. It was fascinating to see how this particular art form translates across genre (birthing mostly from the punk era). Like all art, it is subjective. What influences an artist to create a poster may not reflect in the beholder's interpretation. What matters, though, beyond whether or not said poster gets a person to a particular show, is the graphic memorability. Imagine the power of a gripping poster that ultimately attracted you to a particular show, and then that show just so happened to lead to the discovery of your new favorite band! Granted, this is coming from a person who routinely rips concert posters off bar walls on the way out (but only if the show is really, really good). All the same, this is a film for artists.

- SC

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A girl with baggy khaki pants walks through a narrow sidewalk in Tehran early in the morning, spitting out lyrics about how she no longer wants to "slash her veins" at night. She is on her way to the Omid e Mehr Center, a place where estranged girls like her escape their daily suffering.

The Glass House, a documentary directed by Hamid Rahmanian, takes the viewer inside an Iran rarely discussed in today’s media despite the hype and obsession over the country, and tells a story of four young girls who seek guidance at Omid e Mehr, a girls-only rehabilitation center in the Iranian capital.

Many of the girls who seek help from the center previously spent time in a jail or state home as they struggled through multi-layered problems including physical and emotional abuse, incest, rape, and poverty. Each learns to cope and maintain her confidence through the support and guidance of Marjaneh Halati, the center’s well-liked founder.

We are first introduced to Sussan, 20, when an early scene depicts the cameraman pushing her to make up with her mother after months of silence and a household inflamed with problems. Such problems drive Sussan to find an outlet through sigheh, a temporary, legal marriage contract unique to Shiite Islam. The agreement allows women to take advantage of marriage rights, yet doesn't require the husband to be wholly financially responsible.

Nazila, 19, finds an outlet for her anguish by recording rap music, which is forbidden by law and by her family.

Mitra, 16, feels alienated by her father and brother, who treat her as a maid as they verbally and emotionally abuse her. Mitra finds an outlet through her writing, where she reflects her feelings of pain and loneliness.

Samira is only 14 and was forced by her own mother into becoming a drug user. Unlike the other girls in the film, Samira’s father is genuinely trying to help his daughter while working closely with the center as she is taken through a series of psychiatry centers, state institutions, and finally back to her father’s care.

The center faces the challenge of being more than just a social work institution. Though there is no direct blame placed on the Iranian government in the movie, it becomes somewhat clear that the unique disadvantages of being in these situations in a country like Iran is that the government is too busy enforcing restrictions that it fails to see how some of these restrictions are provoking the very problems it is trying to prevent. These societal holes apparent in modern Iranian society are also what the center tries to fill in -- though not always successfully.

For example, despite the pleas from girls at the center who encourage Sussan to assert her own independence (and not through a man), she immediately rebounds with another man after her first temporary marriage fails. She later drowns herself in drug addiction. When the social worker from the center tries to step in, Sussan refuses to be helped.

The Glass House intends to portray a glimmer of hope, giving the girls the courage to express themselves and transform their tragic lives into new and better beginnings. What this movie doesn't do is obsess about their successes.

Since this is a documentary, it is very narrowly focused and definitely not for someone interested in understanding the country’s culture or its politics. It is a film about the universal tragedy of broken families and the disastrous consequences that happen to take place in Iran. A few unique cultural insights, like the temporary marriage, add an interesting twist to their problems.

Another unique insight, if not the most entertaining and delightful depiction in this film, involves the skillful way Mitra and her sister utilize hip-hop -- a genre of music with global appeal for its identification with people who are marginalized in society. Despite discouragement by family and the government, the girls successfully record their first hip-hop album, and through their lyrics, the movie’s plot is summarized best:

Difficulties have forced me to stand on my own

But Now I am starting a new life of indictment

It was my dream to die

But now I don't want to slash my veins at night

I don't want to be silent

I will wait for the promised day

I wont be silenced

- LD

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Dear filmmaker Bob Moczydlowsky,

Boy, was I excited to see this rock documentary filmed in Kansas City. I've been a huge fan of the K.C. rock scene dating back to the '90s; always thought it such a tragedy that bands like Molly McGuire were so horridly exploited by record labels -- exactly the kind of exploitation that 72 Musicians get those K.C. bands to talk about.

Well, congratulations for being one more L.A. prince who exploits Kansas City bands with your annoying documentary, wherein you can't be bothered to identify who the musicians are or what they're performing. Guess what, dude: I don't have time to sift through your website to try and match up which bands I liked. And call me silly, but when someone is talking and being presented as having expertise or authority, as the musicians are in this film, then I like to see who they are.

Unfortunately, the camera work is more of the same: Not only does it dismiss the musicians' individual identities, it callously turns them into into a parade of inanimate body parts, with its laughable microscopic closeups of someone's teeth or a moving arm or a hat brim. And to what end? The camera work doesn't offer any insight into their being, all it does is ostentatiously assert that the people making the film are "arty," and ultimately distracts the viewer from what they're saying. On some level it feels rather sadistic.

The documentary is weak in that there's a major disconnect between the interviews and the performances. The person being interviewed has no connection to the subsequent or preceding performance. It turns these people into cogs, like they're just passing through, secondary to the greater good of the all-important documentary. Unfortunately, the message -- that labels exploit bands and that being a rock band isn't as glamorous as it looks -- is hardly new or insightful.

The performances of the bands are great. As for who they are, the promotional material mentions Appleseed Cast, Coalesce, oh I don't know who they are and, as this film makes clear, it's not really important, is it?

- TG

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There's something appealing and simplistic in the idea of finding a pill to solve all our problems, and that includes the "problem" of women who don't achieve the kind of orgasm presented in popular culture -- you know, the elusive scenario where gal + guy hit it at the same moment with a crash of cymbals in the background.

Orgasm, Inc. is a thorough, often witty look at the efforts made by pharmaceutical companies to turn that "problem" into a disease so they can fabricate a pill to give us that'll generate profits for them.

Filmmaker Liz Canner covers all the bases: from interviews with companies making the drugs, to women who feel like they're not normal because their sex lives aren't like what they've seen on TV. She finds likable experts who question the pharmaceutical companies, and follows them to the movie's climax when the FDA conducts its review of Intrinsa, the questionable testosterone patch developed by Procter & Gamble. (The FDA ended up rejecting it in 2004; it has since become available outside of the U.S.)

She weaves in history and data such as the fact that clinical trials funded by pharmaceutical companies have 3 to 5 times the odds of reporting a favorable outcome for the drug being tested than those funded by other sources; that 80% of women have some kind of "body issue"; and that genital plastic surgery is on the rise. Her visits to a college class and to the Antique Vibrator Museum in San Francisco show how conflicted and ignorant many of us are when it comes to basic information about sex.

Nice piece of work.

- TG

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