Author: Louise McLeod Tabouis

Lefty/Righty (2018, 11 mins)

Righty, Ruby & Robbie have a tense relationship, expressed through a few strained words.  In the middle is small Lefty. With a horse and well-travelled silver balloon, Righty (Lewis Pullman) and Lefty (Marty Grace Dennis) depart on a more complicated adventure than I suspect either had imagined.

Family, fluorescent cereal and the tallest mountain, lie at the heart of it. They appear to be held together by a significant but tenuous thread, made evident when the shaggy band of brothers turn up to visit their ailing father. Righty perfectly incorporates a shape of vulnerability as he studies his father, the origin of which we can only attempt to guess. 

What writer/director Max Walker Silverman captures so well in his film is the moment where a child, of any age, responds to an authentic experience and then finds themselves spontaneously bringing comfort. Followed up by the complex and classic existential question – that we can only speculate on – where does a person go when they die?

Music often shapes a film, sometimes leaving a few lingering notes in your head and this film is no exception. A piece by American steel-string acoustic guitarist and composer John Fahey is carefully intergrated into the story line and skilfully played by brother Speed (Sam Engbring). Studied faces, long shots and beautiful light are a pleasure to look at in this film and Walker Silverman appears to have found a visual ally in DOP Alfonso Herrera Salcedo. 

Lefty/Righty Trailer from Max Walker-Silverman on Vimeo.

When a man in a hat rides up on a horse in rural America it is impossible not to be reminded of Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain (2005). Could it be the film that has had the most effect on how ‘cowboys’ are perceived? Max Walker Silverman provides another perspective in this portrait of a young man. 

Lefty/Righty has been awarded the following:

Winner: 2018 KODAK Vision Award
Winner: 2019 NYU Grad Film Wasserman Directing Award
Winner: 2019 National Board of Review Student Grant

Lefty/Righty screened at the Edinburgh International Film Festival on 27th June. 

For your visual pleasure go and have a look at DOP Alfonso Herrera Salcedo’s work: https://www.alfonsohss.com 

If you want to know more about iconic musician John Fahey have a look at this film: In Search of Blind Joe Death: The Saga of John Fahey (2012) 

Prayers To The Gods Of Guerrilla Filmmaking: Review

If you have already seen films which appear to be documentaries or mockumentaries, but are in fact fiction, or the reverse, prepare yourself for this ambiguous tale. A straight-talking Italian writer/director named Marco Brunelli goes to Hong Kong, a humming and intriguing city, hoping to blend in while making his film.

He’s spent everything on it and is now cashless. He has warned the five cast and crew, who he has flown in for the film, principally from Canada, that they’ll be staying in a bad place, that there will be a tight schedule, and they’ll be paying for their own food and transport. 

Inspired by Wong Kar-Wai’s 1994 film Chungking Express, Brunelli moves them into the windowless Chungking Mansion building in Hong Kong’s Kowloon, and bizarrely brings along a film crew to document the process, led by Johanna Taylor. This is either 1. Selfies gone mad, or 2. A master class in low budget film making.  

Marco Brunelli’s mantra goes a bit like this: “This is like the Nouvelle Vague in the 60s when people went to Paris and just started to shoot.” The key to this guerilla method is no permits. If you look it up, it’s true.  Hong Kong is one of the few cities that does not require a film-permit to film on the streets. So, he chose the right place. 

In December 2011 the six strangers arrived to shoot the feature film – The Night Of The Great Chinese Lottery – in three weeks. A terrible pitch, according to one of the three actors, Andrew, perhaps the worst pitch in history, but still the actors showed up because, as they said: we weren’t doing anything else at the time. This is a small budget movie apparently trying to look like a big-budget one, whatever that means.

Andrew, in the role of ‘Patrick’ appears throughout in his natural role of smug twenty-one-year old male constantly mocking the director for amongst other things his style, script, receding hair-line and scarf. You can see where this is going. One of the first lessons of guerrilla film making is that there is a significant disadvantage to not paying your actors. You can end up in the terrible position of dealing with their petulance, arguments and innuendos amongst a constant string of expletives.

And in this case while having it all filmed! The anxious and difficult-to-read Marco did bring it on himself by choosing a person he declared both ‘obnoxious and annoying’. Andrew (Patrick) certainly plays to type, even calling himself a stubborn smart-aleck. Good luck with that. 

Second lesson: Marco needs a producer. As he runs around madly location-scouting, finding fixers, taking risks, being insulted, and making sure the schedule is being adhered to, the viewer begins to understand the role of a producer. Essential. This is a great film for understanding the nitty-gritty of filmmaking. 

Third lesson: Comfortable beds. Faced with a grotty hostel, low budget, and annoying people, this situation would appear to bring out the worst in anyone. And we know that lack of sleep is a form of torture. By the end even the lovely sound-producer Alejandro, has no shame in calling the director lazy. The impression I get of this film is that lazy is definitely one word that doesn’t describe Marco Brunelli.

Apparently, guerrilla film appears to involve little pre-preparation. Spontaneous and stressful for the director as well as the frustrated actors who feel as though their time is being wasted. However, it’s hard to confirm this when none of them was acting professionally. `Fourth lesson: Employ people you like. Mutual respect usually brings out the best in people. Mathieu, in the role of Eli, will be getting jobs all over the place after Prayers To The Gods Of Guerrilla Filmmaking is released. 

The worst and most intriguing part of Taylor’s film is her invisible presence. Without it the film crew would have nobody to complain to, play up to, or witness their graceless arguments.  Yet, Prayers To The Gods Of Guerrilla Filmmaking is an interesting study of making something out of one person’s vision. And Marco Brunelli and cinematographer Francisco Fuentes (//www.birdothebird.com) certainly have that. In the end it’s hard to know whether this is a film inside a film or just one film. Did Brunelli’s 2012 film get a screening somewhere, or is this it?

Prayers To The Gods Of Guerrilla Filmmaking is out now.

Watch here – //www.guerrilla-film.com/ or via Amazon: //www.amazon.co.uk/gp/video/detail/B07GXZ2M2B

Under a bright winter sun an elderly man mutters the words tant pis (too bad) as he looks over the stunning bay. Appearing to be resigning himself to something – life, his house, a regret – he has a stroke and these words remain a mystery. As his adult children reunite around him, a level of unease based on absence sets the tone of the film. An unequal inheritance in her favour has brought Angèle (Ariane Ascaride) back to her childhood home, and she and her brothers Armand (Gérard Meylan) and Joseph (Jean-Pierre Darrousin) treat each other carefully as they come together under the strained circumstance of the demise of Maurice, their father. Remains of a washed-up boat bring the army to the village in search of impending immigrants. The distance between the groups is palpable when they eventually do meet, dominated by sullen-faced concern and wary hospitality.

Set in the modest and struggling family brasserie Le Mange Tout, in a fishing village near Marseille, the return home is one of anguish for Angèle (Ariane Ascardie), now a Parisian actress. Struck by the winter-induced absence of people and the ageing of others, the visit evokes a long-buried family tragedy. “How did you stay away from us for so long?”, asks her brother. As the film progresses, Ariane slowly asks herself the same question with the sea, lush vegetation, red soil, and an imposing viaduct carrying passing trains, evoking a physical memory of the past and dissipating her numbness.

Besides Guédiguian’s stable trio – Ariane Ascardie, Jean-Pierre Darrousin and Gérard Meylan – who reunite in this story of memories, grief and change, the story is an intergenerational drama.  Guediguian describes the film as a homecoming of sorts, to the bay that has been his home for almost 40 years.

In this film Guediguian feels like the Aki Kaurismaki of the south. Recollections of Kaurismaki’s The Man without a Past (2002) came to me as I watched the wintery sun, sea, and a certain stilted dankness.  Combined with gravity and gloominess, the hints of happiness never quite overrode the generally morose atmosphere.

This is an intricate film. Various stories are woven into the periphery of the family core, including that of Benjamin (Robinson Stevenin), leading a life that encompasses more than his fisherman’s facade would suggest, providing both energy and light in what could have been a story dominated by melancholy and introspection.

Days before the November mid-term election, three young women who identify as Muslim, Mexican and Haitian are stalked by a deranged person.  Erratically driving a Republican-type branded SUV and dressed as Donald Trump, the driver comes complete with a too-long tie and perfectly awful mask. As hideous Trump masks complete with billowing hair are handed out, the terror grows.  Harassment, terror, disgust, revolt, racism, Fiesta Boxes of crap, and a bunch of disillusioned people. It’s starting to sound like an ordinary day in the United States of America.

If most of the exchanges are based on reality, and you can’t make this stuff up, then the US is in a worse state than I had imagined. From writer/director Richard Lowry (Apocalypse Rising, A Lesson in Cruelty) comes this schlock-political-horror comedy apparently inspired by John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN (1978). A Michael Myers  – Donald Trump connection. Yep, I can see that.  The visual references to Halloween were on point as was the music, although overwhelmingly present. Normally this amount of musical distraction appears when the director can’t bear to leave anything out, thinks the audience has no imagination, or has no control over the editor. In the case of this film, its inspiration was as one reviewer put it: “a thrill ride designed simply to leave the audience shaking with fear”.  Documentary or fiction – it’s difficult to tell. Despite a few funny moments whatever its genre, it’s anything but comedy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umdLEOyIjJY

Unrelated to the Japanese media franchise Resident Evil, this film, including zombies (living or dead who knows…) appears to be a way for writers Lowry & Gregory Wolk to evacuate the worst of the current US regime.

When a film arrives in the inbox with ‘piece of shit’ as its password, it raises specific pre-viewing questions like do I have time in my life to lose 90 minutes. This is a film with a message rather than one trying to attract viewers. Or it’s possible that those living in Trump-land need to evacuate their disbelief at the current situation and what better way to do it than a ‘horror’ film. If you are ready to awkwardly laugh about the situation or gasp in disbelief, then this is probably a film for you. Or you could just have a look at twitter for the same.