Bass Ackwards: The feature debut from Linas Phillips, who created a small indie stir several years ago with the documentary Walking to Werner, has received attention because a) it was executive produced by Mark Duplass (one of four Duplass-y projects at the festival) and b) it was one of several films made available for rent on YouTube in conjunction with Sundance 2010. In terms of indie-film distribution, bypassing the studio system is all the rage. Even Hollywood seems enamored by newer services like video-on-demand and companies such as New American Vision, which connects niche films with their audiences.
Fans of the Duplass Bros. work and other filmmakers in the so-called mumblecore genre (Andrew Bujalski, Joe Swanberg, Greta Gerwig, and others) should be engaged by Bass Ackwards, in which Linas Phillips stars as … Linas, a mid-30s guy meandering through life in Seattle who finds much-needed focus at the conclusion of his cross-country van trip. Despite a series of proverbial bumps in the road, he leaves behind an ill-advised affair, a series of odd jobs (wedding videographer, alpaca-farm assistant), and nights spent crashing at a friend’s house. Events that sustain him while on the road include running out of gas, getting drunk and simultaneously trying to get laid, and placing phone calls to his (real-life) dad.
The film’s most appealing expression is how Linas is influenced by the people he encounters; namely, Paul (Paul Lazar), a grieving, civic-minded gas-station attendant and Jim (co-writer Jim Fletcher) a slightly older man as equally adrift as Linas. Quiet moments with these men do wonders for Linas’s delayed manhood; by the time the end credits roll, Linas looks less like Joshua Leonard’s character from Humpday and more like a guy ready for his next act in life.
I’ve seen a handful of films like Bass Ackwards over the last few years. At best I’ve found these types of stories pleasant, honest, and for the most part, unassuming. Typically, they’re as male-centric as Judd Apatow’s films with more subtle humor yet similar dramatic resolutions — the dudes tend to mature into well-intentioned adults. Personally, I feel as though you have to identify with a character such as Linas to truly connect with a film like Bass Ackwards; otherwise, watching such a journey out of delayed manhood can be quite an undertaking.
Contracorriente: This Peruvian drama from director Javier Fuentes-Leon earned the World Cinema category’s audience award. It left me feeling at odds. The story is centered on a fisherman engaged in an affair with another man, unbeknownst to his pregnant wife and, for a while, everyone else in his village. After an hour-plus of beautifully shot scenes full of man-for-man longing, Miguel (Cristian Mercado) ultimately rejects blue-eyed painter Santiago (Manolo Cardona) and tries in vain to return to Mariela (Tatiana Astengo) and their about-to-be-born son. By the time Miguel has been outed by some local gossip, he’s already grieving not just Santiago’s sudden death/suicide, but the fact that his soul is not at rest. In other words, he’s dealing with one life coming into being and another who met a tragic end.
As the drama unfurled, I kept wondering if the story was an adaptation since the amount of metaphor and symbolism felt pulled in from elsewhere and made to fit around every scene. (It’s Fuentes-Leon’s original screenplay.) All the sandy love-making, misty eyes, and candle-giving was straight up Harlequin to me; more so, it overemphasized an already high-stakes affair. The locations were so romantic, so thoroughly pristine, they spoke directly to the theme of a tightly knit community and its sense of tradition in contrast with Miguel’s divided nature. Folding in the ghost story gave the drama some mystery, but there was little finesse to Santiago’s appearances after we learned he was waiting for Miguel to make the decision to be with him or remain in his real-world life.
What I can’t quite resolve is a statement made by Fuentes-Leon in the film’s press notes. Paraphrasing the filmmaker, he indicates an important aspect of his story is the power that can come from facing our own internal prejudices despite social conventions and the false expectations we tend to set for ourselves. But here it really is an external pressure that forces Miguel to make the difficult, noble decision to confront his own sexuality, which is to confront everything and everyone around him. The man was already haunted by his deceased lover, and I assert this alone should have been Miguel’s motivation to make right by his loved ones. That he had to react against rumors about him weakened his character and Contracorriente’s intended overall theme.
Literally and figuratively, Contracorriente is not for me, but the story is important and the film itself is well composed, and I can see it playing well with festival and general audiences. It will register with people who feel the need to closet their orientation due to external or internal pressures. But we have seen this kind of story in this genre again and again from around the world; in keeping with Sundance’s central theme this year, I don’t think there’s anything rebellious about this work. It’s well done and it falls in line with all the similar stories that have come before it.
ODDSAC: As a band, Animal Collective can be as harsh as they are cuddly, moving from periods of harmonic beauty to gnashing, enduring noise. And their drum programming always makes my chest feel tight in the only good way that can occur. Music writers spill over their legacy, but a quick way of framing their sound and appeal is to say their core members are two sets of childhood friends, and LSD was introduced in early life for most (all?) of them. So you can imagine what this might look like on film.
Danny Perez shot and edited ODDSAC over the last three years. He’s behind some of the band’s videos and, since ODDSAC was created as a visual album, Perez’s bond with the musicians and their sound makes for a huge step forward in statement from the entire group. Narrative is essentially non-existent, but we get a sense of their love for horror films (bandmember Josh Dibb appears as a vampire who feasts on a campfire family before burning into ash), but mostly this is a case of music and visuals influencing one another without a narrative purpose.
It’s the sort of film you might watch for a few minutes in a museum if you aren’t familiar with the creators, and you might try to interpret if you’re a devoted Animal Collective fan. I got into them about two years ago after my best friend promised to disown me if I didn’t listen to their record Feels. From there I worked backward and forward through their discography until reaching a point where I’m comfortable saying they’re the most progressive “discovered” band this country has to offer. And the fact that this work represents their decision to move beyond accessible music (consider this a relative term here) has me thinking in weird little stories influenced by ODDSAC’s imagery.
The Zo: This hand-animated short played before ODDSAC. First-time filmmaker Glenda Wharton assembled some 5,000 drawings into a skittering nightmare based on her experiences with domestic violence. Ms. Wharton indicated she thinks her work pairs well with ODDSAC, and I think Animal Collective ought to consider The Zo to be ODDSAC’s opening act when they push the film out to their audience later this year.
