This year’s Tribeca Film Festival offered a number of worthy titles from the over three dozen I was able to view. My issue with many indie films being made today is how low the stakes are. Where are the risk takers? The envelope-pushers? The bold voices of tomorrow? You might find a few here.
Before listing the films I feel are the most outstanding of the Fest, now in its 25th year, I’d like to shout out some terrific performance in films that didn’t quite make my list.
Alicia Vikander, Victoria Pedretti and an underused Wagner Moura were all magnetic in Rachel Rose’s The Last Day, which began promisingly enough…
Jack Dylan Grazer does terrific work as an obliging young man in Rob Rice’s curious film, Ponderosa.
With a nod to Mohammed Ali Naqvi’s wholly engrossing doc, Hanging by a Wire, which I loved and reviewed at Sundance, here are the titles that I see as the best of this year’s Tribeca Fest.
Kingston
Carlos Key and Kalijah Rowe’s debut feature, Kingston, is a searing, unflinching look at the lives of a gaggle of students at a prestigious Ivy League Institution. It could Be Harvard, Yale, Princeton. It’s probably in New England. The students are mostly privileged, pretentious intellectuals who enjoy mental masturbatory babble…oops, I mean discourse. The faculty is loaded with bullies who have no consideration for their students and are only concerned with the college’s rules and reputation.
Kingston zeroes in on the lives of four messy misfits who, in one manner or another, don’t seem to fit in with the forced conformity mandated by this fictional (but oh so real) college.
Atlas (a beguiling Rose Badiru) is a low-income, Black freshman excited to take part in real discussion and debate as well as contribute to the college newspaper. But she is constantly being shot down and not taken seriously by her elitist fellow students and the pompous administration.
Cyrus (Key, who also co-wrote the film) is the personification of an affluent, entitled asshole. He’s a legacy student failing Chinese. A brave professor (Michael C. Liu), with his own agenda, steps forth to tutor the jackass who remains obstinate, until he finally opens up to the prof—and we realize there was a lot more going on with him than we thought.
And in the category of pretty white people problems, a couple (Leann Gardner, Nick Snipes) fall for one another, but make the dick move of asking their friends for advice and proceed to break up, in hopes of finding hookups and seeking someone better. As superficial as it sounds, their journey is actually intelligently and intriguingly explored, and both actors do terrific work.
Key and Rowe set a fascinating and deceptively simplistic act one only to deliver one intense and riveting scene after another in a second half loaded with much conflict, authentic awkwardness and frustrating injustices.
The film is a deliberately harsh look at the hypocrisy and arrogance in today’s academia. It skews the current climate of sensitivity and desperate need for safeness and comfort.
These filmmakers aren’t playing around. They’re risk takers, provocateurs and dialogue prompters. Exactly what Indie Film is in desperate need of right now.
Via Negativa
“Via negative” is Latin for the negative way and is a theological approach to improving something by choosing to see what it is not–rather than what it is—achieving clarity by removing harmful elements.
This is quite significant to Hannah Peterson’s titular film, based on Daniel Hornsby’s novel, since our protagonist, Father Dan (Young Mazino) is on a journey that involves bettering the world by ridding it of something/someone evil. Father Dan is haunted by demons and when his Bishop (Tony Hale) basically orders him to leave his parish, the priest embarks on a road trip, gun in tow, from Kansas to Wyoming, for a reason that becomes clear as the narrative takes shape. Along the way he accidentally hits a coyote, which he mistakes for a dog, and nurses it back to health.
He also encounters various characters including a troubled bartender (Zoë Winters), an angry teen trying to escape her abusive father (MiMi Ryder), a randy young gay man who used to be a Mormon (Stanley Simons), a husband in mourning (Carl Clemons-Hopkins) and Dan’s pissed off sister (Jee Young Han).
The entire cast is excellent and Mazino delivers a masterful slow burn turn. He’s unrecognizable from his celebrated Beef role.
Peterson has crafted a beautiful film, gorgeously shot by Maximillian Pittner, that takes on a truly important subject and handles it quite deftly, although I did want a certain character to get his just rewards. Peterson chose a different and more humane denouement. I can respect that. Stories like this need to be told.
Labrador — Autopsy of Silence
Canadian filmmaker Rodrigue Jean’s evocative, moody thriller, Labrador — Autopsy of Silence, is ostensibly about the investigation into the murder of a good-looking cook aboard a freighter in the iceberg-filled waters of the North Atlantic. But Jean has much more on his mind. The film is an indictment of racial and class inequality and a depressingly honest look at a society where queer people still need to hide.
Glacially paced, to match the setting (see what I did there), the film fucks with the viewer in a rather delightful manner (which I won’t give away) as the sometimes-non-linear narrative unfolds.
Alex (Alexandre Landry) is quite the popular cook. At night (and whenever she wills it), he’s hooking up with First Officer Michelle Comeau (Gabrielle Poulin B.), who enjoys abusing her authority by insisting that Alex be sexually available. What she doesn’t know is that Alex also has a thing going with Inuk mechanic Alupa Tulugak (Christopher Angatookalook), one that goes much deeper than just sexual. When Alex is found slain, Alupa becomes the prime suspect.
Labrador should be seen on the big screen to appreciate the stunning cinematography by Mathieu Laverdière. Be patient with this gem, it’s a truly mesmerizing sit and boasts impressive performances by the two leads. Landry, so good in the gay-themed Festival hit We’ll Find Happiness does remarkable work, navigating a tricky part. And Angatookalook is absolutely spellbinding in his feature debut.
Jean continues his atypical look at queer life, having previously written and directed the stirring and sexually-charged narrative features, The Acrobat and Love in the Time of Civil War (with Landry starring). Labrador takes his work to a whole other level.
Only What We Carry
Set in France, Jamie Adams’s Only What We Carry brings together a sextet of characters including a famed Moulin Rouge performer, Charlotte Levant (Sofia Boutella), who travels with her devoted sister Josephine (Charlotte Gainsbourg) to Deauville to confront renown choreographer Julian Johns (Simon Pegg) after reading an article he wrote that incensed her and awoke buried resentments. Julian is writing a book that is going to be published by his wealthy benefactor friend John (Quentin Tarantino). They all converge at a hotel, along with a couple that met on tinder (Lizzy McAlpine and sexy Liam Hellmann), who follow the four to John’s lovely Inn where they drink, dance, frolic and where tensions reach a boil between Charlotte and Julian.
I was a bit shocked to read that most of the dialogue in Adams’s moving drama was improvised and it made me want to rewatch the film all over again—which I did. Of course, I should have had a clue when Tarantino comments on Gainsbourg Wall Street-like appearance, “this whole Gordon Gekko look of yours is super cool.”
Gainsbourg is particularly endearing and her chemistry with Tarantino is surprisingly rich and charming. They provide a refreshing tonic to the seriousness of the Boutella/Pegg connection.
The film is a fascinating exploration of mentorship and examines the antiquated notion that the only way to get great work from performers is by pushing them in some tyrannical fashion.
Only What We Carry is a lovely and engaging treat.
Mineshaft: The Cruising Murders
Emmy-winning director Jeffrey Schwarz (Vito, I Am Divine, Tab Hunter Confidential) has crafted an engrossing doc, Mineshaft: The Cruising Murders, about the genesis of William Friedkin’s controversial 1980 film, Cruising, and the public outcry that followed, especially from the gay community. The pic provides a peek into the pre-AIDS world of gay sexual abandon and debates whether or not Friedkin’s disturbing portrait of a subculture of the homosexual community was dangerous to that community.
I’ve watched Cruising a couple of times now and I am still iffy on whether it’s a worthy cinema work or just a lurid piece of garbage. Honestly — it’s probably a bit of both. You can read my latest take on the film via my 4K review HERE.
Based on a real-life series of horrific murders targeting gay men, Cruising follows a young officer (Al Pacino) into the BDSM world to search out the killer. The main inspiration for the film was the real-life brutal murder of Variety reporter Addison Verrill. And the doc delves into his story as well as his slayer, Paul Bateson’s arrest and conviction. Bateson, ironically, had a small role in Friedkin’s hit, The Exorcist.
But even before the film’s release, there were massive protests, well-organized by angry members of the gay community.
Pacino, himself, distanced himself from the movie and refused to do any press and to this day he won’t talk about it. That was because of Friedkin’s decision, during post, to make it look like Pacino’s character could also have been the murderer—totally muddying the actor’s initial approach (never fuck with an actor’s preparation and technique).
The titular Mineshaft was a leather bar and sex club in the Meatpacking District in NYC. The owner refused to allow Friedkin to film there so the director set up his own version.
Schwarz’s doc is a welcome entry into the ever-increasing Cruising canon which includes James Franco & Travis Mathews reimagining of the deleted 40 minutes, Interior. Leather Bar. and the 11th season of American Horror Story, which starts off intriguingly enough and then, as many a Ryan Murphy project does, devolves into a gruesome mess.
The Revisionist
Alex Vlack’s clever feature debut, The Revisionist, enjoys mindfucking the viewer with a narrative that may not be all that you initially think it is. The film benefits from a quartet of fantastic thesps.
Alison Brie is Elise Keller, a celebrated novelist hoping to write her next best-seller. Alas, she’s blocked. Her husband, Jacob (Tom Sturridge), also a writer, is trying to talk his elderly father, David (Dustin Hoffman), into allowing him to write an authorized biography. David is also a writer, who had great success in his time. And there’s a mystery surrounding Jacob’s allegedly dead mother.
Everything changes with the arrival of John (André Holland), a good friend of the couple’s, who is sort of a writer (imagine) and may or may not have a secret history with Elise. At her behest, John begins to chat up David, who enlists him to write about his life. But there is much more going on here besides the social, intellectual and sexual dynamics.
All four actors are to be commended for great work. Holland oozes sexiness. Brie is perfectly enigmatic. Hoffman has his best role in years. But it’s Sturridge, in the least flashy part, who beguiles. And as much as the chem between Elise and John is unmistakable, I wish that Vlack had the homoerotic stones to also go deep into the John/Jacob connection because their chem was just as palpable.
Stand Up
Vera ( Lucia Zemene) is a cheery 23-year-old who likes to go to clubs with friends and sometimes even hook up. But her life is completely altered when a terrible accident leaves her without a leg and in a wheelchair. Cue the maudlin…or not!
Dutch writer-director Mari Sanders (who was born with Cerebral Palsy) isn’t interested in taking the most traveled road when it comes to a vibrant person who must now cope with her new but not so terrible reality as a disabled person. Sure, she spends some time feeling frustrated and hopeless mostly thanks to her old friends who seem to have no clue how to relate to her now. But she also meets Xander (Daan Buringa), an unapologetic, wheel-chaired young man who has his own gaggle of differently-abled friends and she begins to bond with them…and him.
Stand Up is sweet and affecting film that soars thanks to the sweet performances by Zemene and Buringa and to Sanders authentic and refreshingly optimistic narrative.
The Wedding Entertainer (The Tale of Moishe Badhan)
I didn’t think a film about a past-his-prime, alcoholic Hasidic wedding comedian, set in Jerusalem, would hook me. And yet director and co-writer Gidi Dar (Legend of Destruction) has crafted an outrageously funny yet poignant peek at a man driven towards (a bumpy road to) redemption with The Wedding Entertainer (The Tale of Moishe Badhan).
The disgraced titular figure, Moishe Striker (Shuli Rand, a wonder), must raise $20,000 for his daughter’s marriage so he sets about to find the money and get his livelihood back, in the process. He sees the perfect opportunity when his childhood friend Yisroel Bomchik (Tal Friedman) returns to town to marry off his son. Moishe coaxes Yisroel, using a little blackmail, to have him share the wedding entertainment duties with the younger and hipper Meshulam Kalicker (Elon Gold, hilarious), who costs $200,000! To say the dude is not happy with the arrangement is an understatement. And, from there, the narrative goes bonkers.
As someone who worked many weddings of varying faiths while in university, I learned fast that nuptial celebrations bring out the crazy in people and Dar and co-writer Shuli Rand take advantage of just how wacky and chaotic things can get when tensions and stakes are sky high, and liquor is flowing.
