SoCal Film Festival Shorts Part Two: Life on Life’s terms!
With all due respect to all the films and filmmakers these were my favorite shorts. It’s time to dive in to what makes good movies. Everything. You have to respect a laugh as much as a tear. There is value in being the good guy and honoring your demons. The past is not something to let go of, it’s something to learn from. Your quirks may turn off some, but who cares? Which leads me to the wonderful comedy Love and Disorder.
The poignant often hilarious tale of two turret-syndrome characters, who see each other in the library, they do the “dance” that happens before asking someone out. In a film that required a perfect sync between actors (one with ticks/one with the cursing) and subject matter, this film achieved portraying turrets without resorting to cheap chokes. Having done research as filmmakers and having a respect for those with the syndrome, an excellent romantic comedy was created. I highly recommend checking out this film online (in the SoCal screening room) or do a google search and put this on your list of movies to see at future festivals.
Broken Up took the time to take the break-up movie and flip it on its side. Boy gets dumped, boy calls a former EX and the two help each other deal with their current break up. The first thing in my mind was my EX wouldn’t care I got dumped! O.k., all jokes aside. This lovely tale took us on a two day journey showing us that males and females have the same anxieties or do they? I’m a sucker for any movie that examines the “what if?” factor when it comes to an EX. I think we all wonder what an EX thinks or says about us, let alone would do if we called about a current break-up! Extremely hilarious, well acted, simple and to the point. The film didn’t carry excess baggage, which is what relationships give us.
*****
Red Poppies (Winner of the Best Director award), directed by Yaitza Rivera was superb. All it had was two actors running into each other at a funeral. The script was 12 pages and was adapted from a 35 page play that the original writer wrote for the actress in the film (Zulivet Diaz). This film was serious in tone, dealing with things like death and rape. However, the director didn’t shy away from throwing us into the fire of these themes. What made this film work was the director and actors are theatre trained. They were able to deliver emotion without relying on plot points, overdone shots or gimmicks.
What I loved most about Red Poppies is, the director opted to not let us know the country, ethnicity, or any info about the characters, but what they felt and had experienced together in the past. It examined a completely different angle of “what if?” in relationships. It also had a nice foreign film feeling to it, the ending is up to you as a viewer. It is no surprise it took home Best Director, because very few directors can pull that “what was the ending” and have the audience love it. As audience we are so catered to a storybook ending, that anything outside that, makes me happy.
Way Too Many Problems, as mentioned in part one of my article, took on Gay/Homosexual suicide. What many don’t know is people take their life because they are ashamed or society tells them they will have no place. I’m not here to politicize or get a debate going, I am here to say what the film said “we ALL have a place in this world.” This was brilliantly done, two characters were sitting on a bench and one is doing nothing but complaining about a fellow student’s suicide (we never meet the victim outside the shot of the suicide/reason for suicide).
The characters banter about life, respect for life, and eventually an argument ensues between the characters. However, at no time do you know it’s headed to the suicide or the gay issue. By the time we get to the issue at hand as an audience, the shock value hits you. However, the filmmakers did a masterful thing. They also posed the question, is the shock the suicide? Or that people feel they have to commit suicide over being who they are? Like I said, myself, SoCal F.F. and the magazine are not taking a political stance, but I will always (as a writer, critic, filmmaker) take a HUMAN stance.
The SoCal Film Festival online screening room kicks off at 6 p.m. on 9/29 and runs through 10/6. Go to www.socalfilmfest.com for more info.
Festival Shorts Review by Paul Booth
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