Day Two! Technically it’s Day Three, but you saw how fruitful we were back then. In any case, things have changed here at Sundance. The day is far more relaxing, and we’ve discovered the secret to getting around. Don’t take the shuttle in. If you have a car, and you have the choice to use it, please do. We weren’t as smart as we believed taking hotel transportation, which left us stuck in the freezing cold for hours. The complaining is now over here at Cinemablend.
A day smarter I looked forward to seeing some good movies finally. Early screenings didn’t prove to be as entertaining as I’d hoped. Saturday had to be better, and by the end of the day my dreams had almost come true. I got to see a captivating film that didn’t involve close up shots of noses, or complex setups of a still scene. Who decided that weird angles and draping curtains around a naked body constitutes art? I can’t get behind the art for art’s sake idea. A movie should be about something, not a montage of self-indulgence. OK, enough bitter film fest snobbery.
The Guitar
The Guitar, Amy Redford’s directorial debut (yes, she’s the daughter of Sundance producer Robert Redford), is supposed to be about a woman who confronts her mortality by having the experiences she has denied herself. It’s supposed to examine the human condition and what drives all of us to be the person we are, and how our own unhappiness is our own doing. Our choices have driven us here. For Melody (Saffron Burrows) it’s led her to terminal cancer. For the audience, we’ve been tricked into suffering through pretentious filmmaking disguised as brilliant art.
Saffron Burrows puts on a poignant performance as the dying Melody Wilder, and if she can get away from this unscathed you’ll see a lot of her in the coming years. Her doctor (Janeane Garofolo) tells her she’s dying, her HR manager fires her with four week’s severance and her boyfriend selfishly breaks up with her. It’s safe to say the woman is not having a good time. I can certainly sympathize. Facing her looming death, Melody uses her cash and credit cards to rent a huge loft on the West Side of NYC. From there she begins ordering every item imaginable from a catalog.
Funny how I haven’t mentioned a guitar yet. That’s because, other than some awkward dream sequences, there isn’t one in the movie until the halfway point. Mel finally gets her guitar, learns to play, and experiences life. It’s too bad that the film is too full of itself to let you care all that much about what’s happening. As much as Saffron tries to pull you into Melody’s journey, it never quite works. You’re too busy wondering why Amy Redford chose to have consistently ridiculous angles, instead of just showing the characters play out naturally. A story about the redemptive power of music should be engaging, and it should have great music. When The Guitar isn’t confusing you with camera work, it’s boring you with enigmatic story progression.
Transsiberian
Brad Anderson has a way of unveiling characters amidst tired genre backdrops (Session 9 comes to mind immediately). In Transsiberian he takes us on a train ride through a murder mystery that on it’s own is trite. If that were the point of the journey, then we’d run into some problems. Instead Transsiberian is an examination of people and what drives them to be who they are. Plus there is a lot of drinking, heroin, exuberant train love and murder.
Roy (Woody Harrelson) and Jessie (Emily Mortimer) are an average American couple over in China doing church work. They decide to hop the Transsiberian Express to Moscow for a little adventure. Along the way they meet up with Carlos (Eduardo Noriega) and Abby (Kate Mara), another western couple who have some secrets. As the train chugs along the tracks we find out that Carlos has more than a passing interest in Jessie, and there is more on the train than innocent westerners. Probably that heroin I mentioned above, but who knows what people will bring on a train.
The journey is captivating as we watch the four individuals struggle with their own choices in life, and what has led them to a place where they’re being chased by a Russian cop (Ben Kingsley). You’re never in the dark as to what is happening on the trip, Anderson takes away all of the mystery in the immediate story. Instead you’re left watching as the events in the film unravel the masks each person has put on until there’s only the truth left. Considering how well this was handled, the ending was a little too much of a nice red ribbon making the film neat and pretty.
