Prelude
On this morning, a workday morning, I awoke at my normal 6 a.m., stumbled down the hallway, fed the finches, shuffled into the bath, and got as far as turning the hot water knob before realizing that the first screening at the Maryland Film Festival didn’t start until the early afternoon. I suddenly had time.
So, I commenced to lose track of it.
I ran some errands. I puttered around the house. I paid my mortgage, restocked my CDs and DVDs, and e-mailed a very special welder of the latest cattle prods. Then, while reading some online news sites, I looked down at my computer clock: 11:15 a.m. No problem; the first movie didn’t start until 1:30, and although it takes me at least an hour to get to the Charles Theatre, I still could leave at noon and be there in plenty of time. I just needed to clean up first....
And as I stepped back into the bath, my phone rang; a freelancer for a major project had an urgent question. I quickly answered, and because she’s a former coworker, we gabbed some more, catching up. Feelin’ good, I hung up, cleaned up, and finally got to the car.
It’s 12:15, and I still have to pick up some cash. By the time I finally get on the road, I’ve got one hour to make the movies.
This happens every year. Every. Year.
American Fork
With independent filmmaking, projects are connected, and one success can birth lesser-known but worthy siblings. Producer Jeremy Coon helped writer/director/star Jared Hess create the cult fave Napoleon Dynamite three years ago. Coon and much of that film’s crew then helped make Napoleon first assistant director Tim Skousen’s own work, The Sasquatch Dumpling Gang, which features a cameo by Hess and showed at the MFF last year. One of the main actors of that effort, Hubbel Palmer, then wrote and starred in another Coon production--American Fork.
Like Napoleon Dynamite, American Fork centers on the travails of a gentle lost soul. In this case, Tracey Orbison is an overweight grocery clerk who writes (good) poetry in his notebook while irking out a life in a dead-end town. Living at home with his depressed mother and stuffed-animal-loving sister, Tracey is stuck in a cycle of trying to loose weight and failing at passing the driver’s license exam. Then, one day, he attends a play at the urging of his well-meaning boss (Bruce McGill). There, overbaked actor Truman Hope (William Baldwin, in a delicious turn) dazzles Tracey with his bad acting, and Tracey quickly signs up for Hope’s class. But when Hope eventually lets Tracey down, our hero decides to become a mentor for the teenaged hooligan friends of new coworker Kendis. Bad decision, but before it ends, Tracey finds redemption, accomplishment, and, most importantly, a sense of peace, told wonderfully in a poem.
Although American Fork shares Napoleon Dynamite’s themes and character-based humor, it avoids the episodic nature and greater absurdist minimalism of its predecessor. Instead, as written by Palmer and directed by Chris Bowman, American Folk remains a very human film, despite some goofy sequences and outlandish jokes. Palmer’s performance, propelled by his melodious voice, anchors the picture, creating a believable axis around which the story orbits. The result is a compelling little comedy where the humor accents the characters, allowing the more saccharine touches to become genuine and smoothing over some predictable plot points. Some bits, especially in the middle where Tracey hooks up with Kendis’s crew, stretch the balance between the off-the-wall humor and human fable, but Tracey’s climatic poem makes all forgivable.
Just the perfect kind of little picture to start the festival.
After the film, Palmer and Bowman answered questions from the audience, revealing that American Fork was shot in the town in Utah where Palmer grew up and based the story. Many of the basic situations that Tracey found himself in were inspired by Palmer’s life, which probably is how the story discovered its more affecting traits.
Intermission
After the screening, I had an hour to kill. I found out two things.
One: Don’t buy a S’mores Crepe unless they give you a plate. Two handi-wipes and countless napkins still didn’t clean up the mess (and wound up with a sticky spot on my nose). In sucking down the tasty concoction before it wound up in a puddle in my lap, I felt like Tracey during one of his stress-fueled gorges. Next time, I'll stick (groan) with my butterscotch crepe.
The crepe place has been next to the Charles Theater for a few years now, but it's expanded a bit to include a small eating and waiting area. No tables, but a nice shelf-style bar along the window, with a cushioned bench seat running along back wall just behind it. I'm off in the corner, frantically wiping off the marshmallow and chocolate into the trash can, when I happen to glance at the side wall next to me. There's a door, which I assume leads to the playhouse next door, but surrounding it and covering the wall are keys--dozens and dozens of keys hanging each on their own hook, running from floor to ceiling. Behind me, a customer discovers that the keys are the idea of the owner's art student son. I'm too busy staring at it, smiling at its simplicity.
Two: The Maryland Film Festival has grown even from last year. Usually, the majority of the films are screened at the Charles Theatre’s five screens, with an odd showing at another theater nearby. This year, they have three additional screens--one at the MICA center and two just across the bridge at the University of Baltimore, where my next film was showing. 'Course, I didn't notice that until I actually looked at the ticket 20 minutes before the movie started.
Every. Year.
I wander a bit, meeting a statue of Edgar Allen Poe--looking for all the world like an inebriated Lincoln holding a ciggie--when I finally notice the UB Student Center across the street and climb the glass-enclosed stairwell to its fifth floor theater. Where the main screening room at the Charles was nearly pitch dark, the center’s theater is completely white and modern, except for a pure parquet floor and a low wood stage below the small hanging screen. From a cavern to an art gallery, only this one has one picture....
Time and Tide
In 2002, two filmmakers joined a group of 60 New Zealanders returning to their homeland of Tuvalu, a small Pacific Island nation that achieved notoriety for selling their international Internet domain of “.tv” to a start-up dotcom company for $50 million. Many have never seen the island, and even the oldest have not returned since leaving 15 years before.
What they find is a communal culture struggling with its newfound Western capitalism. The capital town is overwhelmed with people and trash, and the rising sea is rapidly overwhelming what little land the island holds.
Despite its themes of globalization and global warming, Time and Tide is a humanistic documentary about cultures as well. The film interviews both the visitors and residents, discovering how Tuvalu has experienced firsthand the effects of change. Some of the visitors ride to one’s childhood home, only to find that it’s become a massive trash heap because Tuvalu has no other place to put it. Residents talk about losing Tuvalu’s tradition of sharing while establishing an economy to raise money to send their children elsewhere for schooling. Two weeks before they leave, the visitors take a trip to an inlet island, where they find happiness in a more traditional settlement. Until some realize that the lagoon used to be their own village, on dry land less than two decades before.
Without a pulpit, Time and Tide instead preaches with the people living through the experience. Humor and joy is mixed with an undercurrent of dread about Tuvalu’s future, and the message is obvious that this little country’s future could be ours as well. The message is quiet, but sent with more finality and honesty than anything Al Gore could deliver.
Fortunately, the film will not be restricted to festivals. The directors Julie Bayer and Josh Salzman said that Time and Tide will be shown on PBS this month. Needless to say, I recommend it.
Missed Today: Bobcat Goldthwait’s raunchy comedy and third film Sleeping Dogs Lie, presented by John Waters.
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