Editorial: Sundance 2023
Written by Grady Fiorio Original Publishing Date: February 6th, 2023
Return to Park City
It's been too long. For two years now the Sundance Film Festival has been online only. Now seemingly a tale as old as time, both the 2021 and 2022 festivals had their in-person events canceled due to Covid-19. In particular, the 2022 in-person festival was canceled just 10 days before it was set to take place due to the rapid surge of Omnicron Covid cases. At the time it was a real gut blow. I had my schedule planned, my plane tickets bought, and my hotel booked, but as cases started to go up, I had a feeling plans would probably change. So it was with resounding excitement that this year I was able to come back to Park City for my fourth year at the festival, and what a festival it was. I saw tons of films, met lots of great people, and adapted to the cold a lot worse than I'd like to admit. This year there was a good balance of films that seemed more varied than in the previous two online years. I think a return to in-person prompted more filmmakers to get involved and push for a festival release, ultimately raising the quality bar. There were also loads of cool events, talks, and just that great sense of community that floods the festival every year. Besides watching loads of films, I also attended a table read for the upcoming film, The Last Queen's Painter, a period piece about Marie Antoinette's portrait painter and close friend. It was similar in tone to Yorgos Lanthimos' film The Favourite and the 2002 adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo. I'm excited to see where that one goes, as I think it really has the legs to make an impact once it releases.
With a return to an in-person festival of course comes Park City. With a seemingly perfect layer of snow, the small ski town was beautiful as always, looking like it was plucked straight out of a snow globe. As much as I disliked the gridlocked traffic, it was great to see people coming back to celebrate films again. However, this year it was a bit tough to navigate the festival. With the priorities shifting to an online-hybrid festival and integrating the digital world, there were quite a few bumps in the road when it came to logistics. The new yearly Sundance app (which really just needs to be one permanent app), was prone to constant crashing, connectivity issues, tickets not scanning, and some pretty bad UI. This is a problem Sundance has had for quite some time, especially when it comes to their website. I really wish they would hunker down and invest in a quality digital interface to navigate the festival. The UI was so confusing that at one point I accidentally bought tickets for a film playing in Salt Lake City, and was unable to return them after speaking with the Sundance support center, which has a strict no-refund policy. When the website came crashing down during ticket sales, Sundance shut down their phone support lines and directed customers to their convoluted email system. I love Sundance and all they offer for the film community, but with the high cost of the festival and the dedicated commitment of their audience, some of their business practices are in need of change. It feels like there is a disconnect between two sides of the organization, something that I think ironically mirrors that of the film industry itself. The sides of art and business always need to be in relation for a thriving industry, but often they find themselves at odds. It's one of the few things about the world of film that I'd be more than happy if Sundance were to leave at the door. Like I mentioned earlier, I love the festival and community that it creates, but I think these are some significant problems that need to be addressed.
Despite some bumps in the road, this year's festival truly was great. I was able to catch 16 films in total. I still didn't get to see everything I was hoping to. Some big hitters like Mamacruz, Magazine Dreams, and Theater Camp, just escaped my viewing. Tickets sold out faster than you could say "404 Error, Website Down", and I had to scramble to get tickets and waitlist anything I could. That being said I caught some pretty good films, as well as a couple of stinkers. But hey, It's not Sundance if you don't see some cool shit, some weird shit, and some just shit. And hell, sometimes it's a combination of all three, but that's part of why festivals are great. You get the opportunity to see films that you never would have before, and then after you get to meet the people that made them. The world of art is such a wide spectrum that it's damn near a circle, and exposing people to ideas that they never could have imagined before is such a special thing that artists get to share with the world. With that being said let's get into all the films I saw at the 2023 festival, ranked from my personal worst to best.
*Any film with an asterisk was watched during the online portion of the festival
Films of the 2023 Festival
Divinity
Rating: 0.5/5 Release Date: N/A Distributor: N/A
Yes, you read that right. 0.5/5. Not 5/5, not 1/5, but yes zero point five out of five. Divinity really is that bad. Eraserhead meets Mad Max in this trash-terpiece of cinema. Almost everything about this film was just awful. Originally I was roped in by this film's unique premise of a mad scientist inventing a serum that would grant eternal life. What I got instead was a cacophony of idiocracy that barely even follows the plot I found so interesting in the first place. Divinity is confusing decision after confusing decision. There are space hookers, magic god juice, at one point someone gives birth to a tree, and just a whole bunch of I don't know what the fuck else. I wish I could give you better details of what I saw on screen, but instead, all I have is this Lovecraftian description of a horrifying monster that can't be defined by words.
Divinity is not only a mess of a story but it's also a mess of production. Instead of finding professional actors for the film, Divinity's cast is made up almost entirely of strippers and pornstars, that shockingly can't act! Spoiler alert, but people aren't watching porn for its riveting plot. HE'S NOT THERE TO CLEAN YOUR PIPES, MAM!! Divinity is just a poor excuse to get its cast naked while they spout meaningless philosophy and kill each other in over-the-top ways. The film is constantly trying so hard to be "edgy" and "cool", but fails at nearly every step. It's the film equivalent of a 12-year-old drilling holes in his sister's barbie dolls, giving them strapons made of play dough, and then smashing them together until they break because "it's funny". While I may sound like a prude, I'm not offended but Divinity's graphic content. If you've been following my site, you'll know that it doesn't bother me, and on occasion, I seek it out. I've seen things weirder and more graphic than anything Divinity vomits on screen. That being said, film is a tool of expression. There needs to be a reason for what you are seeing. There is a reason for the nightmare of Eraserhead, the suffering in Salo, and the violence in Antichrist. Divinity has no purpose for what it shows. It doesn't even serve as good shock value. It lives a pointless existence. I guess I enjoyed the music, and the cinematography and makeup were nice, but everything else was just so awful that I couldn't appreciate what few positives this movie did have. Divinity may be a film about eternal life, but I think I'm glad it'll end if someone ever wants to make me watch this film again.
The one positive I can say, or rather hypothesize about this film, is that it would have been a much better photography series. You can stay abstract, keep the cool makeup, do all the camera tricks you want, and nobody has gotta act! Just stand there and look pretty. The filmmaking talents here would have excelled there!
To Live and Die and Live
Rating: 1.5/5 Release Date: N/A Distributor: N/A
Unlike Divinity, I really hate giving this film such a low score. I really do. To Live and Die and Live is a film made with truth, love, passion, and pain, but it constantly shoots itself in the foot every time it comes close to breaking through. The film follows Muhammad, a filmmaker stuck deep in addiction as he returns to his family home after the death of his stepfather. While performances have their moments, a severe lack of technical ability causes To Live Die and Live to be a nearly unintelligible mess. The script is bloated with a heavy serving of plot contrivances and logic leaps. The camera work is focused solely on close-ups and can be extremely disorienting. Combined with choppy editing and a significant amount of glaring continuity errors, this film became genuinely headache-inducing. What makes this film stand out amongst most "bad" films, is that there is a diamond in this rough, but it would take a league of producers, rewrites, ground-up reshoots, and a whole lot of polishing to get there. For right now I guess we're just stuck with coal.
La Pecera (The Fishbowl)*
Rating: 2/5 Release Date: N/A Distributor: N/A
Ohh, La Pecera. Once again, I really wish this was better. Even though the premise of a woman trying to find herself in the last moments of her life is intriguing and has the opportunity to be very powerful, this film lacks any character development or true meaningful depth. The film starts in what seems like the third act of a much larger story, which is then followed by the lead, Noelia, passively going from moment to moment without truly processing anything that gives us a deeper perspective on life and the short amount of time we have here. A lot of the decisions Noelia makes are confusing and illogical, often making her quite unlikeable when she should be sympathetic. There are larger concepts here that do work, but a lack of depth never allows the film to play to these strengths. The film also tries to have a message about colonialism, but this is relegated to a few one-off lines and shots of submerged submarines and ships, never getting time to be fully fleshed out. Despite my complaints, nothing La Pecera here is explicitly “bad“ but the film never justifies its existence.
*Spoilers* I need to talk about that ending. What the hell was that? I understand wanting to die on your own terms, but who the hell wants their terms to be dying naked, drowning themselves, in a rusty bathtub, right before a hurricane? Just writing it out makes it sound like parody.
The Accidental Getaway Driver*
Rating: 2/5 Release Date: N/A Distributor: N/A
Unfortunately, The Accidental Getaway Driver finds itself suffering from many of the same issues that plagued La Pecera and To Live and Die and Live. It has a unique premise of an elderly Vietnamese rideshare driver getting hijacked by criminals on the run, but it squanders that potential with weak pacing and a screenplay with too much fat and not enough depth. It just slightly edges above La Pecera for having just a few more moments that connect, as well as a more conclusive ending. That being said this film is 30 minutes longer than La Pecera, and if I got to watch a mediocre movie, I kind of rather watch the shorter of the two, so take this ranking with a grain of salt.
Drift
Rating: 2.5/5 Release Date: N/A Distributor: N/A
Now I'm really going to sound like a broken record. Let's look at our checklist. Unquie Premise? Yup. Too long? Yup. Good Acting? Yup. Not enough depth? Yup. Great ambitions that get lost in the shuffle? Once again, drum roll please... Yup. This is honestly the trend with the more mediocre films that come out of Sundance and similar festivals. You have films with high hopes of telling deeply personal stories, but because of pacing and a lack of finesse, it just doesn't hit the mark. What sets Drift slightly apart is that it goes just a bit deeper with its characters even if it does run around in circles a few times by the end. The script is also just a bit stronger, as it plays with a unique style of flashbacks, that drip feeds just the right amount of information to the audience. The cinematography was also pretty nice too, and if I'm not going to enjoy the film, I might as well be looking at something pretty.
Birth/Rebirth
Rating: 3.5/5 Release Date: TBA Distributor: Shudder (Producer)
Okay, now we start getting into the good stuff. Birth/Rebirth is a mind trip. It's one of the few films in recent years that managed to genuinely get under my skin. The film is a modern Frankenstein story, about a morgue technician and a nurse, who attempt to reanimate the corpse of the nurse's daughter and keep it alive thereafter. The catch? This death reversal trick requires a constant stream of fetal tissue that acts as a regenerative cell. And this fetal tissue... It's gotta be all natural and match the daughter's rare blood type. I'll let you take a wild guess where that tissue is gonna come from. This sends both the film's leads down a dark and disturbing road, doing whatever is necessary to get that fetal tissue and keep the child "alive". The film is constantly asking its audience "When do we let nature take its course?". A mother's love is unending, but forcing a shell of a human to live a miserable existence is an unfair and selfish ask. Birth/Rebirth does a great job at constantly raising the stakes while also questioning our commitment to the characters. It's a tug-of-war that keeps you both invested and disgusted. The kind of trick only a talented filmmaker can pull off. Performances all around are very solid, especially from child actor A.J. Lister. While the film is a bit longer than it needs to be, director Laura Moss' vision for the film is a strong debut. I'm definitely keeping my finger on the pulse for what she has next.
Kim's Video
Rating: 3.5/5 Release Date: N/A Distributor: N/A
While it might be near the middle of my listing, Kim's Video was the first film I saw at this year's festival, and what a great way to start! The documentary starts with the story of Kim, a Korean immigrant who at the age of 21, started Kim's Video, one of the world's largest underground video rental stores. The film then chronicles the shutdown of said store, taking a shocking twist in uncovering a connected mafia plot spanning countries and governments. It's as wild as it sounds, in a tale that's exciting, funny, and heartwarming, and a great celebration of cinema and its preservation. Directors David Redmon and Ashley Sabin take a unique approach to this film with a "by any means necessary" style of documentary. The story of Kim's Video is strange and unorthodox, constantly surprising the audience with hilarious twists as more shocking Italian government secrets are revealed, through what started as a documentary about a video rental shop. David Redmon mans the camera for most of the film, and his stop-at-nothing attitude is perfect for the material. If he can't get a straight answer then he'll brute force his way into finding one, no matter how many years, trips to Italy, and "totally not breaking and entering" attempts it takes. This is only accentuated by the film's mixed media approach. Comprised of footage from DSLRs, iPhone cameras, archives, old movie bootlegs, and just about anything they can get their hands on to tell this story. Kim's Video stylistically matches the rugged, underground nature of the video shop that the documentary covers. Both lighthearted and engaging, Kim's Video was a great way to start the fest.
I also wanted to mention that at the end of the film, I got to meet Kim himself, and I gotta say, he's the nicest guy ever. *Minor Spoilers* At the end of the film, it's revealed that a revival of Kim's Video is underway with Alamo Drafthouse. I really hope this revival does a lot for his store and legacy because he's such a good guy, and after all the shit he's been through, he really deserves the success.
Heroic*
Rating: 3.5/5 Release Date: N/A Distributor: N/A
Now here is my final film of the festival, Heroic. Funny that the bookends of the festival found themselves smack dab and back to back in the middle of my list, but hey, I guess life is funny sometimes. But you know what isn't funny? Heroic. Heroic is a deep dive into Mexico's military boot camp, giving us a disturbing look at the violence and harassment that breeds soldiers. Expectingly so, very little is heroic about Heroic. Abuse, suicide, rape, and organized crime are just a few of the soul-shattering activities on display. Heroic isn't afraid to get into the muck and dirt of how men are broken to be rebuilt as soldiers. Truth be told Heroic is a darker retelling of the first half of Full Metal Jacket, which for the many strengths Heroic has, ultimately becomes the film's largest downfall. I couldn't help but feel that everything I saw this film do, Full Metal Jacket did better. Heroic is able to find its own spin on certain topics and cultural relevancies, but the largest themes of the film are retreading old ground. It's a shame because Heroic is still an incredibly well-made film, there's just a nagging sense of redundancy while watching. The film makes its largest changes in terms of its dark and atmospheric presentation. While the camera work on display is certainly beautiful (in its own disturbing way), the film makes a uniquely bold choice to consistently keep the camera behind the head of the protagonist, very rarely showing us his face. This works both to the film's benefit and detriment. It conveys both the stripping of identity and dehumanization that takes place in the military training camp, but it also keeps the viewer too distant from the emotions of the characters. Heroic is a cold film, but it makes the mistake of getting too cold and not allowing the audience to fully empathize with the cast. The lack of music in the film also doesn't help this sentiment either. It may sound like I'm really ragging on this film, but it's actually quite good, and because it's quite good, the flaws shine a bit brighter. The performances and technical prowess alone make this worth the watch, even if there is a feeling of retreading old territory.
Pianoforte
Rating: 4/5 Release Date: TBA Distributor: HBO Max (Producer)
If Whiplash was a documentary about Olympic-level teenage musicians, then that film would be Pianoforte. This heart-pounding doc from Polish filmmaker Jakub Piatek, is a window into the International Chopin Piano Competition, a top-level piano competition that takes place in Warsaw Poland every five years. Following a group of teenage and early 20s musicians, Pianoforte shows the insane dedication and cutthroat mentality that is required to survive the world's most competitive piano competition. Through a noninvasive and fly-on-the-wall shooting style, Piatek crafts an interweaving narrative that feels straight out of a scripted film. This is in no doubt in part to the masterful editing of Ula Klimek-Piątek. Piatek's editing style carefully matches the tempo and intensity of the competition that it's covering, creating a rollercoaster-like experience that always keeps the pressure on even as a passive audience member. I really can't rave enough about how good the editing was here. It's oscar level. The editing is also enhanced by what is already such an engaging story, that is thought-provoking in itself. Throughout Pianoforte, we watch as the parents and mentors of these musicians live vicariously and push them beyond their breaking points. It's both disturbing and astonishing how such great art can come from such great pain. It will resonate with most artists but leaves concerns regarding the young participants. It raises large questions of where the ethical line is, and how fair it is to push such young kids into a competitive field. Some of them start learning piano at five years old. Is it right to force a life onto someone who can barely even count the fingers that they use to play their instruments? While Pianoforte doesn't directly depict abuse, it does make you wonder what goes on when the cameras stop rolling. The talent of these young musicians is undeniable. They are some of the best piano players in the world. But what is the cost of such young success? Pianoforte never directly answers this question, but it will leave you thinking and entertained, which is more than most.
The Eternal Memory
Rating: 4/5 Release Date: TBA Distributor: MTV Documentaries (Bought)
If Pianoforte is Whiplash the documentary, The Eternal Memory is Vortex the documentary (If just slightly less dread-inducing.). The Eternal Memory puts us face to face with one of the greatest human fears, Alzheimer's. Death of the mind before death of the body. This documentary by Oscar nominee Maite Alberdi, follows Chilean couple Augusto and Pauline, as they grapple with Augusto's Alzheimer’s and declining mental condition. The film dives deep into the toll and ripple effect that comes with Alzheimer's. While the film is an exploration of mental decline, it's most importantly a love story, a love story about a forever-committed spouse who is dedicated beyond belief to the well-being of her husband. Trial after trial, and day after day, she wakes up by his side and tries to navigate the life of a man who can't even remember events that take place mere seconds after they occur. The dedication to true love is beautiful. However, The Eternal Memory suffers from one fatal flaw that keeps it from soaring above the rest. While initially finding a solid footing, once the film reaches the final act, it's not sure how to conclude the narrative. By the credits roll, it seems like the story isn't over. In all fairness, I do have to ask myself "How much story would be left to tell?". Would we watch for another 30 minutes and wait for Augusto to die? That doesn't seem right by Augusto or the audience. That being said the current conclusion as is doesn't settle on any final moment or statement. It doesn't need an epic finale, but some sort of final closure would have cemented what is otherwise a beautiful documentary. Despite this, I still definitely recommend The Eternal Memory, I just think its final bow could have been a bit cleaner.
Shortcomings
Rating: 4/5 Release Date: TBA Distributor: N/A
Appealing to the Criterion buying nerd in all of us is Shortcomings, the directorial debut of Randall Park. While mostly known for his acting work, Park gets behind the camera with Shortcomings. Coming off the praise of 2021's After Yang, the film stars Justin H. Min, as Ben, a Bay Area wanna-be filmmaker and movie nerd (Hey now!), who tries living a new bachelor life after taking a "break" from his girlfriend Miko. While Shortcomings isn't profoundly deep, it's funny and endearing while giving the audience just enough to think about to keep it interesting. It may be a bit of a cheat code to make a film whose main character is a sort of parody of the audience that attends Sundance, but for what the film is trying to achieve it works. It feels like the little brother to last year's Sundance darling, Cha Cha Real Smooth. It doesn't hit nearly as hard, but it touches on many of the same themes while still being a good piece of entertainment. To be 100% honest, there's not much to say about this one. It's simple, tight, and just a really enjoyable flick that kept me laughing with enough substance to carry the film throughout.
Infinity Pool
Rating: 4/5 Release Date: January 27th 2023 Distributor: Neon (Producer)
Okay, so I'm technically breaking the rules here. I fully intended on seeing Infinity Pool at Sundance this year, but because of some scheduling conflicts, I wasn't able to make it happen. That being said the film was released in theaters less than a week after its Sundance premiere, so I saw it then. It was the slightly watered down, R-rated version of the film, but what I could read from online, no major changes were made. Call me a cheater, but this is my list, my rules. I'll break 'em if I want to. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming. Back in 2020, I saw Brandon Cronenberg's previous film Possessor, and I was completely blown away. It was my favorite film of that year, and I haven't been able to get it out of my head since. I even have a poster from the movie theater and a 4K Blu-ray of the uncut version of the film. While it could've been very easy for Brandon to get stuck in the shadow of the similar iconic body horror films of his father David, Brandon has crafted his own unique brand of filmmaking that sets him apart from not only his father but the new emerging auteurs of the recent decade. So when I heard that Cronenberg Jr. was premiering a new film this year, I knew I had to see it. So how is Infinity Pool? It's good! It didn't blow me away the same way that Possessor did back in 2020, but Infinity Pool is the kind of exciting, surreal, and inventive horror that I wish more people were making. The film revolves around a writer on vacation, who after accidentally committing a crime, finds a loophole in the law for the rich that sends him into a disturbing rabbit hole of cloning bodies, ritualistic killings, and drug-fueled nightmares. It's Eyes Wide Shut meets Midsommar. It's hedonistic, violent, surreal, and just good clean family fun. Besides being a hell of a mind trip, Infinity Pool also serves as a metacommentary on the entertainment industry and its willingness to chew people up and spit them back out again. It's an industry that sees its artists as replaceable and disposable. When new meat comes in, they toss you to the sharks. It's not something I picked up on the initial viewing, but after sitting on the film for a bit, I realized the subtext was there. I wish the film as a whole pushed the boundaries a bit more like Possessor did, but I still think that Cronenberg's unique directorial touch shines through on screen. If this is just the start of Cronenberg's career, then a bloody bright future waits ahead.
Rye Lane
Rating: 4.5/5 Release Date: March 31st 2023 Distributor: Fox Searchlight/Hulu (Produced)
Officially my last of the in-person festival, Rye Lane was a great way to send off my trip to Park City. Just another of the many impressive directorial debuts at this year's festival Rye Lane comes from the mind of British director, Raine Allen-Miller. Starring newcomers David Jonsson and Vivian Oparah, the film follows Dom, who after a nasty breakup finds himself crying in a bathroom stall. In comes Yas, a punk rock type of girl, who takes Dom on a wild journey of hilarious mayhem and self-discovery. Of its many strengths Rye Lane's characters are extremely lovable and its writing is stupidly funny. Every second with Dom and Yas is just so much fun, and as an audience member, you never want it to end. Their chemistry is infectious. Even the characters who are "the bad guys" are still so well-written that you can't hate them for that long. Sure, does the film hit on the manic pixie dream girl trope? Yes. But honestly, when a movie is this good, who gives a shit? Go back to Tumblr, this film is great! Plus the performances are incredibly strong from Jonsson and Oparah, especially so being that during the Q&A they revealed that they were both first-time actors. Both of wich were some of the most lovely and gracious people I met at the festival.
Aside from its strong writing and performances, Rye Lane is just as sharp on a technical level. Making full use of its visual playground, Miller masterfully captures the alleys, shops, and every nook and cranny of bustling South London in full detail. While the cinematography by DP Olan Collardy, is definitely unorthodox, it becomes Rye Lane's true visual hallmark. Opting to strictly use extremely wide angle lenses, giving each shot distorting bends and curves that fully capture South London's weird and playful nature. While its choice of lenses didn't always visually land for me (especially during the dialogue scenes), it was still a strong directing choice that I appreciated. The look of the film is also accompanied by a dynamic color pallet, that's able to be bright and showy, while also still staying naturalistic and non-distracting. The only real issue with the film is its short runtime. Clocking in at only an hour and 22 minutes (with credits), there are a few moments in the third act that could have used some expansion before the final climax. The rest of the film's breakneck speed works perfectly, but the ending could have used just a bit more pause. Besides that Rye Lane was great fun.
Fair Play
Rating: 4.5/5 Release Date: TBA Distributor: Netflix (Bought)
One of the festival's biggest talking points was Chloe Domont's feature debut Fair Play. Bought by Netflix for a whopping $20 Million, Fair Play is a high-intensity thriller that brings a modern interpretation to 90's erotic thrillers like Basic Instinct and Fatal Attraction. With its high intensity, unrelenting mind games, and disturbing depictions of relationships and sex, Fair Play was sure to rattle feathers at this year's festival. But what was the film at the heart of its controversy? A killer thriller, that's for damn sure (I get paid 10 cents by Webster every time I say "thriller" in a sentence). Throwing us into the deep end of NYC's financial district, Fair Play stars Phoebe Dynevor and Alden Ehrenreich as two Wall Street brokers who are in a secret relationship, forbidden against the rules of their firm. After a promotion doesn't go as planned, the couple's power dynamics are irrevocably shifted, sending them both into madness as they try and out beat each other in one of the country's most ruthless fields of work. It's heart-pounding, stomach-churning, and at many points, pretty damn hard to watch. But the smart writing and performances on display constantly keep you on the edge of your seat waiting for the pressure cooker to blow. It's the kind of film that was commonplace 20 years ago, but cinema seemed to have forgotten about today. I'd be lying if I said this film didn't have me on the edge of my seat, screaming like an old lady watching a soap opera. It's much higher quality than old soaps, but each twist and turn was crazier than the last. It's some pretty good stuff.
However, I would be remised if I didn't talk about some of the director's statements during the Q&A after the film's ending. While I'll refrain from spoilers, by the film's end both characters transform into some pretty awful people. They become physically, mentally, and sexually violent to each other. The film's final resolve ends on a violent (albeit not as violent as it could have been) note. During the Q&A Domont made a statement that seemed to infer that some of the abuse from one of the characters was justified. One of the audience members interrupted her statement, interjecting that this is a dangerous message to send and that the film was advocating violence, specifically taking power through violence. The director snapped back stating that she doesn't condone violence and that this is a film meant to be entertainment, not a moral compass. While I'm always against censorship, I couldn't help but feel stuck in the middle of these two stances. While I'm guilty of enjoying films that resolve with violence, usually those films don't try to maintain a realistic or grounded tone. From the start, they establish that they are entertainment and create a degree of separation. Am I wrong for enjoying it when Django blows up the Candyland Ranch? Or what about when John Wick turns bad guys into his own personal pencil holder? No, but those films aren't trying to be a direct reflection of real life. Fair Play treads a much finer line of realism and fantasy, depicting a story that the director based in part on her own life. While I was watching the film I never felt like it was advocating violence, but the director's comments did make me think twice about its intentions. However, if I'm going to judge the film on its own merit with my own interpretation, it's a hell of a ride and a good watch.
Beyond Utopia
Rating: 4.5/5 Release Date: N/A Distributor: N/A
While I saw a few South Korean films at Sundance this year, I absolutely did not expect to see a North Korean film at Sundance this year. Absolutely heart-pounding as it is heartbreaking, Beyond Utopia is a documentary about a pastor from South Korea who helps families defect from North Korea. Specifically following a family of six, making their escape to the South, Beyond Utopia details every step on the road to freedom and the heavy price that comes with it. One of the most eye-opening factors is the route itself. To get from North to South, it's not just a simple jump across the border. The DMZ is loaded with landmines, guard dogs, and a wealth of bullets waiting for anyone who tries. To make the escape, defectors have to go from North Korea to China, take a car ride all through China's countryside, hike 12 hours through the jungle of Vietnam, make a similar hike through Laos, and then cross a river into Thailand, where defectors intentionally get caught by border patrol and are put through a months long program to integrate them into life in South Korea. It's every bit exhausting as it sounds, and then some. Oh, and this family of six? It includes an 80-year-old grandmother, a teenage daughter, and two sub ten year old kids. What makes the film so shocking and effective is its commitment to the truth and subject matter. At the beginning of the film, it's stressed that all the footage used is real. There are no reenactments, animations, or trickery. All the footage comes from hidden cameras in North Korea, the border smugglers, the family, the documentarians, and leaked archival footage. Seeing the horrors that these people are faced against makes the documentary feel even more real, and makes its message that much stronger. Beyond Utopia is the kind of film documentaries were made for. Documentarian Madeleine Gavin has crafted a narrative so steep in empathy you feel every step of the journey to freedom. The pain feels real because it is real. There is an innate desire for freedom within all humans, and Beyond Utopia shows that. Watching as an 80-year-old hikes 12 hours through the jungle of Vietnam, because she believes in freedom for her family is both deeply moving and heartbreaking. During the film's Q&A, the director brought up both the family and pastor, to which the audience broke out into universal cheer, tears, and a standing ovation. It was an incredibly emotional experience, to say the least.
On a side note, you probably also noticed that instead of using a still image from the film, I used a photo of the family from this documentary. I've done this intentionally because I think it's better to highlight the heroes that risked their lives for freedom rather than a random still that doesn't hold the true weight of what is being portrayed. This is a story about people, and I thought it best to show the people who made it happen.
Past Lives
Rating: 5/5 Release Date: TBA Distributor: A24 (Producer)
And for the final best of the fest, we have Past Lives. Of the many impressive directorial debuts this festival, Celine Song's Past Lives far and away takes the cake. Separated at a young age, best friends Nora and Hae-Sung reunite a decade later during some of the most formative years of their adult lives. It's a friends-to-lovers story as old as time, but with a grounded take that can be unbearably honest. Taking more than a few ques from Wong Kar-wai, Song's direction is precision-like with a beautiful script to boot. Performances by Gretta Lee and Teo Yoo also beautifully complement the subtleties that these characters require. It's never about the dialogue, but rather what's in between the lines, and these two speak volumes. What makes Past Lives stand out is its unwavering dedication to truth. The truth, of friendship, the truth of love, and the pain when the walls come crumbling down. The story stays grounded and real. Life isn't a fairy tale or hokey lifetime romance. People drift apart and come back again. Wants and needs aren't always clear. Past Lives is a film about the moments when the parallels of our lives get knocked off course and crash into each other. We are defined by our choices, but we never know if we made the right one until it's too late. Past Lives makes you relive what it was like to fall in love for the first time, followed by all the trouble and heartache that came soon after. It's the kind of film that really sneaks up on you. In the beginning, it holds its cards close, but by the end, everything is in full play. Before you know it you're in a theater of 1500 people and every single one of them is crying their eyes out. There were no dry eyes by the time the credits rolled. Man, what an absolute gut punch this was, but it's the kind that every now and again you need. For fear of giving too much away, I can't say much more than I have now, but what I can tell you is that Past Lives was definitely my favorite film of the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.
