The close of the
2007 San Diego Film Festival brings the conclusion of my
third time attending the affair. It will likely be the
last time, too. This prediction comes not only because I
expect to be participating in bigger and better events of
the same sort when I move to Los Angeles in January, but
because the poor film-selections made by the
festival-coordinators this year have provided me no
incentive to return. The past four days of movie-going
have been rather tasking on my senses. They have made me
feel hatred toward the medium of film far more than they
have made me want to embrace it. Of the fourteen pictures
that I have seen at the festival, I am only able to
wholeheartedly recommend two of them: Marcy Garriott’s
Inside the Circle (discussed in my “Day One”
commentary) and Paul Schrader’s The Walker
(discussed below). What a frustrating, excruciating time I
have just endured over the long-weekend.
I did learn one
thing early on the last day of the festival: America is in
a state of emergency. Did you hear that folks? Yes, that’s
right: America is in a state of emergency! Just
look around you. What do you see? If the answer “the
widespread persecution of gay people” doesn’t spring
instantly into your mind, then you must be an Evangelical
Christian. That’s right – you’re an Evangelical Christian,
aren’t you? You’re one of those “chosen-ones” calling for
a violent merge between Church and State, right? In fact,
you probably just got home from a routine session of
gay-bashing. Yeah, you know what I’m talking about. You
know – where you stand around town and scream out “God
hates Fags!” and march around deviously with picket signs
and you play Focus on the Family leader Jerry Fallwell’s
radio program in the background? And not only that. You
probably just discovered that your son or daughter is gay
and you have decided to begin destroying their life over
it. And you know what? I bet you live in Texas and admire
the “strong leadership” that President George W. Bush
exhibits over the United States.
That’s the image
of America that Daniel Karslake, director of the
ridiculous documentary For the Bible Tells Me So,
would like the viewer to believe. He claims that the
Christian Right is damaging America in unspeakable ways,
mainly due to its supposedly unrelenting hatred for gays.
Karslake asserts that this deep-seeded, illogical
malcontent is breaking up families by the boatload; he
seems to think that it is one of the defining political
issues present in the country right now. With For the
Bible Tells Me So, the filmmaker wants to convey a
message against this “unspeakable” social-oppression that
the majority of citizens seem to be blind to. Despite
never appearing on camera or speaking in the film via
narration, Karslake stresses through his subjects that
those who believe in equal-rights for
homosexuals/bisexuals/transsexuals should stop at nothing
to get their message of “tolerance” across.
In response, I
have a message of my own for Mr. Karslake: get over
yourself, buddy. For the Bible Tells Me So deals
specifically with the emotional damage that homosexual
children are caused by Christian parents who do not accept
their lifestyle-choice. As I watched the film, I couldn’t
help but think of all of the truly oppressed minorities
that Karslake could’ve brought to light in a documentary
instead: the innocent victims of the genocide in Darfur,
the millions of Iraqi refugees displaced by insurgent
Islamic terrorists, the Israelis that were forced from
their homes on the borders of the West Bank of Gaza. Let’s
get real here: homosexuals make up a very small portion of
the general population (let’s say one-tenth, to be
generous). Even less gays are shunned by their parents
because of their sexuality, genetic or not. Hardly any
that didn’t have emotional issues to begin with become
suicidal because of their parents’ aforementioned lack of
acceptance toward their sexuality. Why must Karslake
pretend that this issue is of such grave significance to
America? Why must he act as if most gays do not lead
normal lives? Is the radical homosexual agenda so strong
that it will stop at nothing with movies like For the
Bible Tells Me So to establish its members as more
prominent and more attended to in American Society
than the average citizens?
Even if one were
to accept the central “moral of the story” found in For
the Bible Tells Me So—which basically breaks down to:
“feeling malcontent toward gays on strictly Biblical
pretenses is a convoluted, illogical, and dangerous line
of thinking”—it would still be a stretch for one to buy
the rest of the film’s assertions. Karslake’s subjects
support an entirely ridiculous vision for America, one in
which gays are given equal-representation as straight
people and are federally granted the right to marry. The
political agenda of this picture is so broad and
far-reaching that it’s impossible to take seriously. Nor
should it be, as the so-called “Bible-thumpers” who still
believe in literally interpreting the Old Testament’s view
of the wrongness of homosexuality have every right to feel
this way under the pretense of their First Amendment
Rights. For the Bible Tells Me So is, frankly, a
piece of irresponsible journalism disguised as a
straightforward documentary. Is it childish and wrong to
discriminate against gays in today’s America? Yes, but
viewers don’t need this film to irresponsibly and
manipulatively force-feed this truth to them.
Above, I
mentioned that it would’ve been far more respectable of
director Daniel Karslake to have made a documentary about
the plight of innocent civilians in genocide-plagued
Darfur, rather than one about the supposed one of
homosexuals in America. Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg have
made crafted such a movie in The Devil Came on
Horseback, which nobly looks at this conflict through
a regrettably cloudy lens. Rather than merely informing
unknowing viewers of the atrocities taking place in Darfur,
Stern and Sundberg have decided to make a half-assed
comment on how the American Government should respond to
the conflict. While I admire the fact that The Devil
Came on Horseback seeks to bring often-ignored horrors
currently taking place in the world to light, I question
the exclusivity of the means by which it does so.
The film is told
from the point-of-view of Brian Steidel, a former U.S.
Marine who observed the Darfur-conflict firsthand when the
American Government sent him to keep an eye on the region.
During the time that he spent in Darfur, Steidel
photographically documented the atrocities of the
genocide, which was (and still is) being led by the Arab
government that seeks to exterminate the black African
population there. When he returned home, Steidel
hesitantly allowed the pictures that he took to be
published The New York Times, which were initially
greeted by readers with surprise and a willingness to act.
Soon, however, the story faded into infinity, and Steidel
became tortured by the fact that widespread atrocities
continued to take place in Darfur, even despite the fact
that the U.N. and the United States openly recognized the
conflict as an official genocide.
Filmmakers Stern
and Sundberg and subject Steidel all openly realize that,
just as was with Rwanda in the early 1990s, the U.N. will
continue to do little-to-nothing to stop the crimes being
committed in Darfur. Their proposed remedy for this:
prompt the United States to take military action against
the Arab-government there. But there is a true element of
hypocrisy to this line of thinking on their behalf. They
are the very same individuals (perhaps excluding Steidel)
who condemn the U.S.’ foreign policy in the War in Iraq.
This makes it tough for them to claim that military action
against the government of Darfur would be just, given that
said government does not pose an imminent threat against
the U.S. like the al-Qaeda cells in Iraq did/do. Steidel
counters this claim by asserting that the U.S. government
currently knows of over thirty active al-Qaeda camps in
Darfur. He never comments as to why capturing their
members would be of use to the United States, given that
the C.I.A. is already aware of where they are located and
the nature of their operations.
Even if it is the
product of slightly hypocritical documentarians, The
Devil Came on Horseback is a mostly eye-opening
motion-picture that all viewers will benefit from seeing.
Those who, like me, have never read the New York Times
article about Steidel’s experiences in Darfur, will find
the film an enlighteningly flawed experience.
Less
tonally-grave than The Devil Came on Horseback but
(quite strangely) just as topical is Brian Petersen’s
Coyote. The film provides a very juvenile look at the
issue of illegal-immigration to the United States via the
Mexican Border through the eyes of its contrived main
characters, Steve (Petersen) and “J.” (Brett Spackman).
After one day smuggling a deported illegal-immigrant back
into the United States from Mexico for a friend, these two
fools develop what they view as an ingenious idea: become
professional human traffickers. Steve and J. create
different travel-options to entice native Mexicans to pay
to be smuggled into America, and make quite a business
doing so.
Coyote
works perfectly well as the light-hearted romp that it
functions as for its first two acts. Making an entirely
non-partisan statement on the loose-borders of the United
States, the film comes across as a sort of contemporarily
goofy delight for awhile. It runs into problems, however,
when it begins to take itself far too seriously come time
for its conclusion. In Coyote’s third act,
Steve and J. (along with newfound employees) get into
massive trouble with native Mexican coyotes and the
American INS. Not to mention, Steve’s fiancé begins to
question her love for him due to the obsession that he
develops for this entirely unnecessary, illegal line of
work. And if this entire segment doesn’t prove too
ridiculous for viewers, the finale will; one couldn’t
think up a more ridiculous way for Coyote to end
than the way that it does.
On the redeeming
end of things: Petersen and Spackman make for two quite
charismatic leads, and the movie looks very nice visually
given its low budget. The real problem here is that the
film doesn’t know what it wants to be: it works neither as
a comedy nor a drama and finds only moderate success at
being a mixture of the two. I admit that the movie is, for
the most part, entertaining despite its overall failure,
but so what? If the viewer takes only the knowledge that
they were able to kill ninety minutes of their time from
the picture, what is the point of watching it at all?
Coyote, ultimately, is just one of those movies that
just exist. It isn’t good and isn’t bad,
but it never becomes worthwhile, either.
Closing the film
festival was predictably the best, most credentialed film
that programmers could acquire: Paul Schrader’s much
anticipated The Walker. The film offers exactly
what one would expect from a "minor" Schrader picture:
pleasantly written dialogue, but little of the depth that
has made the filmmaker’s best work (the writing for
Taxi Driver, the writing and direction for Auto
Focus) so great. Schrader definitely isn’t at the top
of his game here, but The Walker was so much better
than the rest of pictures that I saw at the festival this
year that I savored every bit of it as I watched. It is
the kind of film that may not resonate with the viewer in
terms of its literal content, but rather engages by
building a progressively affecting aura as it
moves.
Woody Harrelson
gives perhaps the best performance of his career as Carter
Page III, the son and grandson of wealthy and influential
politicians. Carter isn’t as agenda-motivated as the
former men in his family, but his cocky swagger carries
just as much gravitas as theirs once did. He finds power
in Washington as a “walker,” an unpaid escort who locks
arms with the wives of important politicians at social
functions. Flamingly homosexual and undoubtedly
self-infatuated, Carter makes a point of making himself
seem important in the lives of those around him than he
really is. This mentality hits him especially hard when he
decides to conspire in a cover-up with one of his clients.
Said client is Lynn Lockner (Kristin Scott Thomas) who, at
the beginning of the film, is driven by Carter to see her
lobbyist lover, Robbie Kononsberg (Steven Hartley), only
to find him murdered in the middle of his home. Fearing
how the press might react to the revelation that she has
been cheating on her husband (Willem Dafoe)—let alone
cheating on her husband with a lobbyist—Lynn flees the
scene and allows Carter to claim to have been the one to
have found Robbie dead.
What unravels
following The Walker’s inciting incident isn’t what
one would expect from the typical political-thriller,
mainly because Schrader doesn’t allow it to be. The
accomplished writer/director is much less concerned with
external plot than he is with capturing a distinct
atmosphere. He lavishly indulges in the vernacular and
mannerisms exhibited by the Washington-elite that Carter
and Lynn entertain. The plot-related consequences of
Carter and Lynn’s cover-up enter the picture sparingly,
although Schrader constantly finds himself fascinated by
the more-interesting emotional outcomes of the act. Aiding
this style immensely is Harrelson, who downright
disappears into the lead role. Alongside him in the cast
are the equally-valuable Lauren Bacall, Ned Beaty, Lily
Tomlin, and Moritz Bliebtreu.
Despite the
command that Schrader exhibits over The Walker’s
material, I would be lying if I claimed I didn’t think
that the movie got a little boring in the second act. I
made a point of mentioning my admiration for the film’s
sense of atmosphere, but it should also be noted that
Schrader’s concentration on this sometimes causes the
picture to feel slightly monotone on the whole. I don’t
mean to question Schrader’s patient advancement of the
plot at hand—he accomplishes this in stunning form—but I
do think he could’ve cut certain bulky scenes in the
film’s middle-section. Since so much of The Walker
is about expressing the inconsequence of political
high-society through inconsequential dialogue, Schrader
could’ve easily cut a few passages unnecessary to the
film’s plot and ended up with a much tighter end product.
Still, it’s rather hard to fault the film, which achieves
what it sets out to achieve in a usually-stunning fashion.
I can’t say that The Walker is one of my absolute
favorite pictures of the year, but I admire the heck out
of the vast majority of its contents.
…And here we are,
at last. I have finished covering what will hopefully be
my last experience at San Diego Film Festival. Despite the
poor quality of several of the selections, I can’t say
that I know of a way that I could’ve better spent my
weekend. (When making this statement, I am of course not
taking into account the $90 price-tag on my film-pass and
the $100 price-tag on the gas, parking, and food necessary
to accommodate me during the festival). I am all set to
attend the (far more reputable) AFI Fest in Los Angeles at
the beginning of November; look for my coverage of that
event in the future. Until then, make an effort to spend
your time watching better movies than the ones I have just
seen at the 2007 San Diego Film Festival.
-Danny Baldwin, Bucket Reviews
(post date: 10.9.2007)
