Sundance days one and two: A quieter festival

By Kevin Lally

FJI contributor Daniel Steinhart reports on the first two days of indie launching pad, the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.

As the first major film festival since the unraveling of the economy, the 2009 Sundance Film Festival should serve as a bellwether for measuring the current state of film festival culture and film acquisitions. This being my first time at Sundance, it's a little hard to compare this edition to previous years. Certainly, the news of commercial sponsors pulling out of the festival and the scaling back of festivities point to cost-cutting measures that affect the shape of the event. And eventually, the final tally of attendance figures will make plain how this year's edition rates, but according to a few festival veterans I've come across, attendance is noticeably down. For better or for worse, this may not be terrible news for the dedicated festival-goer. Warned that the frenzy of Sundance can be taxing, I've found the festival to be cordial and relaxed. The crowds have been manageable and the screenings easy to get into. Sidewalks are mostly free of pedestrians, making for pleasant walks between screening venues.

After day two, acquisition activity is too early to judge. So far, only Antoine Fuqua's cop drama Brooklyn's Finest has been picked up, with a deal going to Senator Distribution for North American rights. Many industry insiders are predicting moderate business as a result of fewer independent distributors and specialty divisions and the lackluster performance of many of last year's pricey purchases. But all this depends on the quality of films and that's what really matters at any festival.

A couple of films in the Dramatic Competition have generated a bit of hype, but they've been uneven. Lynn Shelton's Humpday is an amusing comedy that plays out like a jocular Old Joy, Kelly Reichardt's sensitive 2006 film about two estranged male friends. In Humpday, Ben and his wife Anna live a comfortable, married life. Then, late one night, Ben's college friend, Andrew, arrives at their house unannounced and subsequently tests the stability of the married couple. Over smoke and drinks at a hedonistic party, Ben and Andrew hatch a half-baked art project, in which they will have sex together on film. They never really figure out what drives them to carry out the project; they just know that they have to do it. The friends' project demands a major leap of faith on the part of the audience, but the film pulls it off with good performance and full, rich scenes. But try as it might, little insight is offered into the bonds and strains that underpin hetero male friendships.

Less convincing is Push: Based on the novel by Sapphire, Lee Daniels' film about Precious, a 15-year old obese African-American girl who suffers a string of abuses and humiliations. She's pregnant with her father's second child, she's taunted at school, and she endures unrelenting verbal and physical assaults from her mother at home. Instead of grim realism, the film opts for an odd mixture of whimsical fantasy and the grotesque. While Push has its moments, notably the lively banter amongst Precious' alternative-school classmates, the overall results feel tonally muddled and overstuffed.

In the World Documentary Competition, John Maringouin's Big River Man follows Martin Strel, a Slovenian long-distance swimmer who specializes in tackling the world's longest rivers. After swimming the lengths of the Mississippi and Yangtze rivers, Strel takes on the Amazon as his next challenge. Strel is an unlikely athlete. Overweight and a lover of booze, he's less Michael Phelps, more porpoise. But Strel is blessed with impressive drive and inhuman endurance, which the film chronicles during his arduous journey as he suffers one obstacle after another: fast-moving currents, the flotsam and jetsam of the Amazon, sunburn, bacterial infestation, and eventual mental instability. The further he goes down the river, the more unhinged he becomes, bringing with him an unstable river navigator from Wisconsin and his dutiful son, who narrates the film. We soon come to feel that the 3,375-mile swim is less a feat of endurance than an act of self-destruction.

Another fascinating athlete is explored in James Toback's Tyson, an intimate portrait of Iron Mike, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and was recently picked up by Sony Pictures Classics. Fashioned out of a lengthy interview with Tyson and fight footage, the film gives the boxer a 90-minute forum to defend, explain and, at times, dismiss his uncontrollable violence in and out of the ring and his mistreatment of women. This one-sidedness and the film's lack of critical analysis make the whole project seem dubious. Still, the stories and attendant footage of Tyson's troubled youth, his initiation into the world of boxing, and the ferocity of his fighting skills all make for evocative viewing. But 90 minutes of Tyson's confessional was enough to drive this viewer to sneak out of the theatre before the post-screening Q&A with the director and boxer. That, and I wanted to get to the screening of the documentary Art & Copy.

A contender in the Documentary Competition, Doug Pray's Art & Copy explores the creative side of the American advertising industry. Interviewing some of the most powerful and influential ad men and women, the film traces the evolution of the business since the early '60s while delving into some of the most memorable ad campaigns. The greatest hits are detailed here: the self-deprecating VW Beetle ads, Braniff Airlines' chic make-over, Wendy's "Where's the Beef?," Apple's 1984 Super Bowl commercial, Reagan's re-election TV spots, and Nike's "Just Do It," a slogan which was inspired by a death-row inmate's final words. Perhaps the greatest feat of Pray's enjoyable documentary is that it persuasively sells the ad industry as a meld of genuine artistry and capitalism when it's really the demands of commerce that drive and define the business.