Tribeca Redux Deux

The Arbor
One of the most unique documentary presentations I’ve seen in recent memory, Clio Barnard tells the story of Andrea Dunbar, a famous British playwright who died tragically at the age of 29. In complete disavowal of the usual stock and archival footage and expert analysis, Barnard has professional actors lip sync interviews with Dunbar’s relatives and partners as they interact in the real world. This technique creates an uncanny effect which displaces the narrative and actively mediates the logical-factual truth dichotomy which most documentaries bring up implicitly. Barnard then intersperses these moments with scenes from Dunbar’s plays acted out on the grounds of the actual estate in which they are set, amongst gawking real-life crowds. The Arbor is a challenging piece of performance art wrapped within an evidential premise that rewards multiple viewings.

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American Mystic
So a medium, a sundancer, and a witch walk into a bar…My skeptic’s armor was on as I sat through this look at alternative spirituality. In slow, rhythmic scenes which predictably stop-in on each character for ten minutes at some vital juncture and then repeats, Alex Mar manages to raise the import of communication with the dead, Native American animism, and paganism to the level of any Christian religion. They all decidedly have tenets, parishioners, and an apprenticeship structure despite their outsider reputations (minus Native American beliefs perhaps). Listening to the subjects in their own words is a very intimate and convincing tool. Like all of us, they are looking for meaning in the environment around them. Although the signs they are attuned to may be foreign, the purpose remains the same.

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Loose Cannons
A nice departure from the melodramatic onslaught of his last film, Un giorno perfetto (A Perfect Day), Ferzan Ozpetek lightens up just a bit. The themes of family, food, and love still abound, but they are at the service of a comedy. The story is framed by the youthful mistakes of the family matriarch, played by a commanding Ilaria Occhini. However, in present day southern Italy her grandson, Tomasso, wishes to avoid becoming part of the family pasta business and instead follow his writing bug. His only way out is to come out and risk his father’s banishment. Unfortunately his brother hijacks that plan, and Tomasso must contend with his familial obligations despite a desire to return to his life in Rome. I can’t say I thoroughly enjoyed this film with its soap opera lineage flagrantly on display, but fans of this filmmaker will still come out in droves. A lot of the cultural semblance is also lost on an American audience and the acting is broad to put it nicely, but Ozpetek always manages to get at some central truth about human interactions despite his lavish detours.

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Arias with a Twist: The Docufantasy
This documentary is an utterly charming look at the New York underground wunderkind, Joey Arias, and his sometimes puppeteer collaborator, Basil Twist as they prepare for their groundbreaking new show. The wonderfully inventive Twist sadly seems like a sideshow to the Arias main attraction. It is Arias’ restless re-invention, legendary collaborations, and perseverance through loss that drives the narrative and holds interest. When people are on screen describing how great Joey is, you just want to see Joey being great. When Arias channels Billie Holiday in various guises and countries, I truly did get goosebumps and the theater suddenly got a little steamy. He managed to capture all of her soulful frailty–it was not an impersonation in any traditional sense but some sort of celestial convergence. We follow Arias from his days as a clerk in Fiorucci’s clothing store to his performances with Klaus Nomi and on to his master of ceremonies duties with Cirque du Soleil’s Zumanity. I was wholly entranced by his journey and my only regret is that the film ended so quickly.

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Legacy
This psychological drama stars Idris Elba as a returning mercenary for hire, who deals with the demons of his most recent mission in the claustrophobic confines of a Brooklyn apartment. Playing crazy is notoriously difficult because all the tics we associate with madness read as comic when transported to the big screen. Elba is certainly a multi-talented actor as his turns on The Wire, The Office, and countless British gangster films attest. However, jettisoning his natural charisma for a paranoid, blistering portrayal isn’t wholly successful. At times Elba does resort to calibrated histrionics which read as false when we have the luxury of seeing so many PTSD sufferers in real life. Moreover, the director, Thomas Ikimi cloaks the proceedings in a political plot that never really goes anywhere. Ultimately we are left with a competently executed thriller with no real thrills. Moments which question the character’s perception of reality are intriguing, but they also don’t seem to play into a larger thematic cohesion and come off as cheap tricks. In interviews, the director speaks of an affinity for Hitchcock, but he has yet to master his use of misdirection and understatement. Nonetheless, I look forward to how Ikimi’s style might develop with future projects.

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