SFIFF53: Michael Hawley's Review Capsules

After weeks of anticipation, the 53rd edition of the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF) is finally set to launch this Thursday, April 22. I'm looking to catch 30 or so films during the next two weeks and hope to file a wrap-up report when it's all over and done with. Meanwhile, here's a fistful of capsule write-ups of films I've had the chance to preview on DVD screener (except where noted). These 14 films represent only a fraction of what's on offer, so pick up a festival mini-guide, browse the entire roster of films on the festival's website, or check out my previews of the line-up here, here and here. Also, if you're interested in knowing which films are screening in 35mm and which ones will be digitally projected, be sure to have a look at the Film on Film Foundation's indispensable Bay Area Film Calendar.

Air Doll (Japan dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda)
A blow-up sex doll comes to life and discovers that having a heart is heartbreaking in this perhaps destined-to-disappoint follow-up to 2008's masterful Still Walking. Kore-eda laboriously overworks his premise here to deliver a gnarly parable about loneliness. Still, the film looks great and is a choice vehicle for Korean actress Bae Doo-na (Linda Linda Linda, The Host), whose gifts for pathos and physical comedy are put to sublime use in the title role. (Seen at the 2010 Palm Springs International Film Festival.)

A Brand New Life (South Korea/France dir. Ounie Lecomte)
Based on the director's own childhood spent in a South Korean Catholic orphanage, this powerful and affecting film is a testament to the adaptability of youth. In 1975, nine-year-old Jin-hee (adorably resolute Kim Sae-ron) is brought to an orphanage by a father who can no longer care for her. Over the course of the film, we witness her disbelief and anger painfully transform into resignation, and finally acceptance. Realizing her father will never return, Jin-hee intuits that her best bet is to play the system and present herself in a way that will facilitate a foreign adoption. Remarkably unmanipulative considering its subject matter and engaging throughout, the film should be a strong contender for the festival's New Directors prize. (Seen at the 2010 Palm Springs International Film Festival.)

Cairo Time (Canada dir. Ruba Nadda)
The talents of Patricia Clarkson aren't nearly enough to save this hokey tale of a Western woman's reawakening amidst an exotic culture. Magazine editor Juliette gets waylaid in Cairo while waiting to be joined by her U.N. relief worker husband, meanwhile vaguely falling for the handsome Egyptian assigned to watch over her. Clunky dialogue, an overwrought score, and lack of chemistry are among its chief problems. The only winner is Cairo itself, which is beautifully photographed. (Seen at a festival press screening.)

Father of My Children (France/Germany dir. Mia Hansen-Løve)
A beloved art-film producer commits suicide after becoming financially overextended, leaving family and business associates to deal with his legacy in this splendid Special Jury Prize winner from Cannes (Un Certain Regard). The film kicks off with a bravura sequence detailing a day in the life of producer Grégoire Canvel, as he chain smokes, juggles multiple cell phones, irons out production snafus, evades creditors and smoothes the ruffled feathers of temperamental actors and directors. He has a loving, if exasperating relationship with his wife and three daughters, which renders the suicide at the film's exact mid-point all the more tragic. The second half almost seems like an anti-climax in comparison, as Canvel's wife tries to salvage the production company and a family secret is discovered by his eldest daughter. The film was inspired by the life and death of Hubert Balsan, whose list of productions includes films by Claire Denis, Youssef Chahine and Lars von Trier. I found it a big step up from Hansen-Løve's debut film All is Forgiven, which certainly had its ardent admirers. Father of My Children will be of special appeal to those interested in the economics of contemporary art film production. (Seen at a festival press screening.)

The Invention of Dr. NakaMats (Denmark dir. Kaspar Astrup Schröder)
Yoshiro Nakamatsu holds the world's record for patents–3,357 and counting–as compared to Edison's paltry 1,093. This snappy and entertaining bio-doc follows Nakamatsu in the months leading up to his 80th birthday and the debut of his latest invention, the B-Bust Bra for small breast enhancement. Brilliant and eccentric, the good doctor also comes off a sardonic self-promoter and pompous ham. He's best known for inventing the floppy disk, an idea that came to him, like many others, while swimming underwater (he takes notes on his waterproof notepad, which of course, he invented). Among his other creations are spray-on aphrodisiac Love Jet and a vehicle that runs on water. A dapper dresser who does all this "out of love" for humanity, the doctor gets by on four hours sleep and one meal per day (he won a Nobel Prize in nutrition after photographing and analyzing every single meal he ate for 34 years). "I think that nothing is impossible" is his credo and this film will convince you he sincerely believes it. With a fun music score by Mark Mothersbaugh (Devo, Pee-wee's Playhouse).

Marwencol (USA dir. Jeff Malmberg)
In 1993, Mark Hogencamp was viciously attacked outside a Kingston, NY bar and consequently spent nine days in a coma. His face had to be rebuilt and all his motor skills had to be relearned. Hogencamp's mental recovery from this trauma has been precipitated by Marwencol, a miniature, doll-populated WWII-era Belgian village he's built outside his trailer home. Marwencol and its inhabitants are the subject of a captivating and poignant film that recently won the jury prize for best documentary at SXSW. Hogencamp works through emotional issues by staging and photographing elaborate dramas with dolls, many of whom represent people he knows in "real" life. One day there might be staged catfights at "The Ruined Stocking" bar, and the next day might find Hogencamp's avatar doll being stripped and tortured by sadistic SS officers. Eventually the Art World comes calling–Hogencamp's photos are compiled into a nifty volume and a NYC gallery stages a one-man show. It's then we learn of a "twist" in his story; one that explains a lot about Marwencol and the "reason" for the 1993 attack. Director Malmberg lays all this out in a compelling way, using judicious stop-motion animation and period music to bring Hogencamp's extraordinary creation to life.

My Queen Karo (Belgium dir. Dorothée Berghe)
The ups and downs of communal living are explored in this bittersweet, autobiographical flashback to 1974. Ten-year-old Karo and her Belgian parents help establish a squatters artist commune in an abandoned Amsterdam building. Trouble invades paradise when Karo's father invites another woman to move in and share his bed, sending Karo's less liberated mother into an emotional tailspin. Ideological differences involving money start to strain the couple's relationship as well. A confused and conflicted Karo, who observes the adults having sex in the commune's un-partitioned living space, does her childlike best to navigate a way through it all, with metaphorical swimming lessons providing some needed structure and discipline.

Northless (Mexico/Spain dir. Rigoberto Perezcano)
After being abandoned in the desert by his coyote, Oaxacan Andrés is captured by U.S. immigration authorities and sent back to Tijuana. He falls into work doing odd jobs at a bodega, where a sexual tension develops between himself, the store's female owner and a female helper. Despite having a wife and two kids back home, crossing the border becomes less of an imperative, at least temporarily. The two women are in no hurry to see him go either, each having lost a man to the allure of El Norte. When they finally do help him emigrate, it's in a wonderfully surprising way that, of all things, is scored to Debussy's "Claire de lune." Handsomely photographed and finely acted, this observational and melancholic (but not humorless) film about the toll of economic disparity is the antithesis of last year's heart-pounding immigration melodrama Sin Nombre.

The Peddler (Argentina dir. Lucas Marcheggiano, Adriana Yurkovich, Eduardo de la Serna)
Sixty-seven-year-old Daniel Burmeister rolls into the Argentine Pampas village of Gould driving a beat-up red sedan. For the 58th time in his filmmaking career, he'll make a complete narrative feature using local talent in exchange for lodging, food and the right to sell tickets to a premiere. This sweet documentary takes us through the gregarious and self-effacing Burmeister's entire DIY process–from casting to location scouting, from shoot to showtime–improvising as circumstance dictates. A white sheet doubles as his movie screen and a cemetery ghost costume. A tracking shot is accomplished by having Burmeister dragged across the floor atop a blanket. This is the only Argentine film in this year's festival, which is unusual. Fortunately, this charming and respectful portrait of small town life and one man's passion is worthy of standing alone.

The Portuguese Nun (France/Portugal dir. Eugène Green)
"I never see French films. They're only for intellectuals." So states a minor character in this formalist work that will strike many as overly mannered and pretentious. I was pretty darned transfixed by it, and believe me, I ain't no intellectual. Leonor Baldaque plays a malaise-afflicted French actress who's in Lisbon to make a film about a 17th century nun and her affair with a military officer. She wanders the city like a doe-eyed somnambulist and has a series of life-changing encounters with a suicidal man, a genuine Portuguese nun and a six-year-old waif–not to mention a one-night stand with her co-star. Among director Green's cinematic tactics are 360° pans, emotionally flat dialogue delivery, two-shot conversations spoken directly to the camera, focal shifts within single shots and a fascination with legs and feet. Green also portrays the director of the film within the film, one Denis Verde. All this will drive some people bonkers and I predict walk-outs. What might keep them in their seats are several live music interludes and the fact that Lisbon has never looked more ravishing on film than it does here.

Presumed Guilty (Mexico dir. Roberto Hernández, Geoffrey Smith)
The SFIFF staff was so impressed by this look at the horrors of Mexico's criminal justice system that they pre-awarded it the festival's Golden Gate Award for Best Bay Area Documentary. It's easy to see why. This powerful and moving film follows the trials of one José Antonio Zuñiga-Rodriguez, a thoughtful young man wrongly arrested and convicted for a 2005 homicide despite a myriad of judicial injustices–not the least of which is several dozen witnesses putting him miles from the crime scene. When it's discovered that his original lawyer was practicing with a forged license, "Toño" is granted a retrial that the filmmakers are miraculously permitted to record–and what an eye-opener that is. The "courtroom" is merely one section of a large, open and chaotic office space and his judge is the same guy who convicted him in the first place. Of particular interest is the trial's cara a cara, in which the accused is permitted to question and confront, literally face-to-face, his accusers. It's shocking, but not unsurprising when the retrial results in a second conviction. The case then goes to a court of appeals, where the retrial film footage is submitted as evidence. You'll have to see the film yourself to learn their ruling. During the end credits it's revealed that 95% of Mexican verdicts are convictions, and 92% of those are not based on any physical evidence.

To Die Like a Man (Portugal/France João Pedro Rodrigues)
Middle-aged transvestite performer Tonia has problems. Her infected breast implants are killing her, her junkie boyfriend is ripping her off, her AWOL solider son has committed murder and her once-adoring public is no longer interested. In this hyper-stylized melodrama, Portuguese provocateur Rodrigues (O Fantasma, Two Drifters aka Odete) precariously walks the fine line between hooty camp and deeply affecting emotionalism–and largely succeeds. Since the film premiered in Un Certain Regard at last year's Cannes, it's accumulated an equal share of haters and defenders. Chances are if you disliked his two previous films, you're not gonna like this one either–and vice versa. I can't wait to see it again. After you've seen it, be sure and check out The Evening Class' Michael Guillén's interview with Rodrigues from the Toronto Film Festival. (Seen at the 2010 Palm Springs International Film Festival.)

The Wind Journeys (Colombia dir. Ciro Guerra)
Following the death of his wife, taciturn accordion maestro Ignacio sets off on a mission to return his accursed instrument to its original owner. He begrudgingly tolerates the company of aspiring teen musician Fermin, and their episodic misadventures en route shape this dazzling, roadless road movie that was Colombia's 2009 Oscar submission. The journey takes them through a variety of landscapes–desert, mountain, plains and seaside–all breathtakingly filmed in wide screen. They also come into contact with various cultures and their music. A frenetic battle-of-the-accordion-players at a village music festival is one of the most joyous and thrilling things I've seen at the movies this year. Visually, The Wind Journeys is a stunner, with meticulously framed compositions and intricate camera choreography that at times borders on show-off-y. I regret not being able to fit a big-screen experience of this into my festival schedule.

You Think You're the Prettiest, But You Are the Sluttiest (Chile dir. Ché Sandoval)
While this film isn't anything we haven't seen before in such vignette-structured youthful gab-fests like Slackers and 25 Watts, it is genuinely funny and an accomplished achievement for its 25-year-old director and largely non-pro cast. Protagonist Javier (a revelatory Martín Castillo) is a pesky, motor-mouthed overthinker whose bravado masks a pathetic vulnerability. It's not really his fault that best friend Nicolás is way cooler and hotter and keeps stealing his girlfriends without trying. In addition to romantic advances and retreats, the film tracks Javier through a series of prickly social encounters. He allows a frustrated friend to punch him in the face for nine dollars, and then pays a gay guy at a bus stop to quit bugging him. Most memorable is a tender interaction between Javier and an aging prostitute who's waiting for a taxi after a hard night's work. I was sure the film couldn't possibly live up to its fabulous title. I was wrong. This will be another solid contender for the festival's New Directors prize.

Cross-published on film-415 and Twitch.

AKIRA KUROSAWA @ 100—PFA

Akira Kurosawa's centenary celebration continues all Summer long at the Pacific Film Archive with a 30-film tribute curated by Susan Oxtoby. That's five more than Criterion's AK 100: 25 Films by Akira Kurosawa! But speaking of that gorgeous DVD collector's set, for a limited time, you can save money on your purchase while supporting the Pacific Film Archive. Buy AK 100 at criterion.com, enter code AKPFA at the prompt, and you'll save 25% off the retail price of $399.95—plus, the Criterion Collection will make a $25 donation to PFA on your behalf.

Though I caught several of these films during TCM's recent retrospective, I'm all the more excited to see my favorites projected in 35mm prints during the PFA schedule:

Friday, June 4, 2010
7:00PM—Rashomon (Japan, 1950). Visual proof of the relativity of truth, Rashomon is "one of the most brilliantly constructed films of all time, a monument to Kurosawa's greatness, and a landmark in film history."—James Monaco. (88 mins)

Friday, June 4, 2010
8:50PM—Drunken Angel (Japan, 1948). Doctor meets tubercular gangster (Toshiro Mifune) in the slums of postwar Japan in this noirish tale, an "effective and searching view of contemporary Japanese life."—Variety. (98 mins)

Sunday, June 6, 2010
6:50PM—Throne of Blood (Japan, 1957). Kurosawa's Noh-influenced version of Macbeth is "the most brilliant and original attempt ever made to put Shakespeare on screen."—Time. The towering Toshiro Mifune is paired with the legendary Isuzu Yamada in "a partnership of titans."—Film Forum. (107 mins)

Saturday, June 12, 2010
7:15PM—Red Beard (Japan, 1965). Toshiro Mifune plays a gruff but charitable nineteenth-century doctor in this humanist epic, his last film with Kurosawa. (185 mins)

Sunday, June 13, 2010
7:35PM—I Live in Fear (Japan, 1955). Toshiro Mifune gives a daring performance as an eccentric patriarch with a neurotic fear of the atomic bomb. "The final effect is overwhelming, and perhaps Kurosawa's most sweeping statement on the human condition."—Film Forum. (100 mins)

Thursday, June 17, 2010
7:00PM—The Lower Depths (Japan, 1957). Filmed on only one set, Kurosawa's adaptation of the famous Gorky play throws together some memorable characters—raucous thief, oversexed landlady, gambler, prostitute, samurai—in a teeming Tokyo flophouse. (125 mins)

Saturday, June 19, 2010
6:30PM—The Bad Sleep Well (Japan, 1960). Kurosawa charts corporate evil as a company is torn from within by scandal, greed, and lust. "Enron meets Hamlet."—Film Forum. "Better than Shakespeare."—Francis Ford Coppola. (148 mins)

Sunday, June 20, 2010
7:15PM—Ikiru (Japan, 1952). In Kurosawa's humanist masterpiece, an ordinary civil servant discovers what it means to live. This Japanese Everyman was perhaps Takashi Shimura's greatest role. (143 mins)

Wednesday, June 30, 2010
7:00PM—The Hidden Fortress (Japan, 1958). Toshiro Mifune swashbuckles his way through this supremely entertaining mythic adventure, the plot inspiration for Star Wars. (134 mins)

Wednesday, July 7, 2010
7:00PM—Sanshiro Sugata (Japan, 1943). A young man learns dedication and discipline in life—and judo—in Kurosawa's debut film, "a must for Kurosawa admirers."—L.A. Times. With Sanshiro Sugata II. (163 mins)

Saturday, July 10, 2010
8:30PM—Stray Dog (Japan, 1949). Toshiro Mifune is a driven detective in Kurosawa's bravura Tokyo noir. "A bona fide masterpiece."—Time Out. (122 mins)

Wednesday, July 14, 2010
7:00PM—The Most Beautiful (Japan, 1944). A semi-documentary drama of life among women factory workers ("not a major work, but the one dearest to me," said Kurosawa). With the lively samurai adventure The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail, "a small triumph of inventiveness and resourcefulness."—TCM. (144 mins)

Saturday, July 17, 2010
7:00PM—Seven Samurai (Japan, 1954). A ragtag group of samurai band together to protect a village from bandits in Kurosawa's masterpiece, often cited as one of the 10 best films ever made. Seeing it on the big screen, who's to argue? (208 mins)

Wednesday, July 21, 2010
7:00PM—No Regrets for Our Youth (Japan, 1946). Ozu favorite Setsuko Hara stars in this powerful character study of a woman fighting for her rights—and life—before, during, and after the war. Kurosawa's only film with a female lead. (110 mins)

Saturday, July 24, 2010
6:30PM—Yojimbo (Japan, 1961). Mifune is a sly, amoral mercenary looking to make a fistful of ryo in a lawless town in Kurosawa's tongue-in-cheek anti-epic, which inspired A Fistful of Dollars. "A visually faultless and highly sophisticated satire on violence and human weakness."—Sight and Sound. (110 mins)

Wednesday, July 28, 2010
7:00PM—One Wonderful Sunday (Japan, 1947). A young couple encounters the pleasures—and dangers—of Tokyo in Kurosawa's city-film, inspired by Frank Capra, D. W. Griffith, and Murnau's Sunrise, and one of the first films to capture the essence and energy of a newly emerging postwar Tokyo. (108 mins)

Saturday, July 31, 2010
6:30PM—Sanjuro (Japan, 1962). Kurosawa's spirited follow-up to Yojimbo finds Mifune leading a band of comically inept samurai. "A superb parody."—Donald Richie. (96 mins)

Saturday, July 31, 2010
8:30PM—Scandal (Japan, 1950). A motorcycle-riding artist and a pure-at-heart popular singer are targeted by unscrupulous scandalmongers in this entertaining indictment of journalistic "ethics," inspired by Warner Bros. muckrakers and starring Toshiro Mifune and Yoshiko "Shirley" Yamaguchi. (104 mins)

Wednesday, August 4, 2010
7:00PM—The Idiot (Japan, 1951). Kurosawa faithfully remakes Dostoevky's The Idiot in wintry Hokkaido, with Toshiro Mifune and Setsuko Hara bringing to life this tale of a pure soul destroyed by a faithless world. "Probably the only Dostoevsky adaptation which carries something of the complexity and dramatic intensity of the original."—Noel Burch. (166 mins)

Saturday, August 7, 2010
5:30PM—High and Low (Japan, 1963). A kidnapping becomes a moral dilemma for executive Mifune in "one of the best detective thrillers ever filmed.... Both spine-tingling and compassionate."—N.Y. Times. (143 mins)

Wednesday, August 11, 2010
7:00PM—Dodes'ka-den (Japan, 1970). Kurosawa's first color film was also his most personal, an expressionist look at the lives of several Tokyo slum dwellers. Music by Toru Takemitsu. (144 mins)

Sunday, August 15, 2010
7:00PM—Kagemusha (Japan, 1980). George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola helped produce Kurosawa's big-budget return to epic samurai filmmaking, involving a lord and his double (both played by Tatsuya Nakadai) trying to hold a kingdom together. "Probably the director's most elaborate, awesome film ... majestic, stately, cool, almost abstract."—N.Y. Times. (160 mins)

Wednesday, August 18, 2010
7:00PM—Dersu Uzala (Japan, 1972). A grizzled native hunter teaches a Russian surveyor how to survive in—and respect—the Siberian wilderness in Kurosawa's environmental epic. "It seems that Kurosawa has created this magnificent film as an elegy to our human heritage."—Peter Coyote. (165 mins)

Thursday, August 19, 2010
7:00PM—The Quiet Duel (Japan, 1949). In one of his most delicate, introspective roles, Toshiro Mifune plays a dedicated doctor who contracts a deadly disease during the Manchurian War. (110 mins)

Saturday, August 21, 2010
5:30PM—Ran (Japan, 1985). King Lear in feudal Japan, with Tatsuya Nakadai as the lord who divides his kingdom among his three sons, with disastrous results. "A majestic piece of filmmaking, a lush tapestry of lordly tableaux, ruthless betrayals, and flaming carnage."—Village Voice. (160 mins)

Sunday, August 22, 2010
7:00PM—Ran (Japan, 1985). See August 21. (160 mins)

Wednesday, August 25, 2010
7:00PM—Rhapsody in August (Japan, 1991). Four teens visit their grandmother in Nagasaki, and try to comprehend her (and the city's) memories of the atomic blast, in Kurosawa's eloquent, gentle reflection on war and its aftereffects. "The master is as vigorous and complex as ever."—N.Y. Times. (98 mins)

Saturday, August 28, 2010
5:30PM—Dreams (Japan, 1990). Dreams come to life in Kurosawa's magical collection of tales drawn from his own dreams. "At once buoyant and extraordinarily passionate, it has the feel of an urgent message to the living and the dead."—Village Voice. (160 mins)

Sunday, August 29, 2010
7:00PM—Madadayo (Japan, 1993). Kurosawa's final film looks back on the life of a beloved elderly teacher and his students. "Fully engaged and alive, beautifully written, acted, and filmed, meditative, benevolent, humorous; one of the director's greatest works."—Chicago Tribune. (134 mins)

04/20/10 UPDATE: Frako Loden offers Ace Pilot's great guide to Kurosawa's ensemble of actors.

Cross-published on Twitch.

FILM INTERNATIONAL: Vol. 8, No. 1

I'm pleased to announce that my first book review for Film International has been published with their current issue 43 (8:1, pp. 80-81). I was invited to take a look at Diasporas of Australian Cinema, edited by Catherine Simpson, Renata Murawska and Anthony Lambert, which dovetailed nicely with my research into diasporas and imagined communities for Film Festival Yearbook 2.

The cover article "On the Edge" by Gary McMahon--whose layout mimics a comic book--renders an evocative snapshot of why the horror genre addresses a social malaise of powerlessness and rage. McMahon writes: "Drugs, perhaps, and comforting obesity, and desensitizing la-la land on TV, keeps life and limb together through a mandatory nightmare, this pusillanimous void, this ogrous abomination that is everyday life. Another thing taught by the super-villainous 1980s was that nothing comes free, not public services, not emergency services, not education, not caring: everything is levied as a bribe, where briberies for amenities is legitimate commerce, and our human rights are leased to us for exactly as long as we can pay for them." (8:1, p. 9)

Garry Leonard follows through with "Monsters and Mortgages: The Horror Movie as Prime Economic Indicator"; a truly fascinating Marxian analysis of how horror films concretize unseen market forces, especially consumer debt as vampirism. "Descending inexorably into debt," Leonard writes, "is similar to the progress of a victim's relationship with a vampire: we move from a sense of fascination, illusory well-being and imaginary plenitude to a horrified awareness of the steady, unstoppable diminishment of our life force. The 'answer', as presented in the genre of the horror movie, is to identify, isolate and destroy this 'monster' in order to once more re-inhabit the present moment, regain control of the future and then stop the mysterious draining away by annihilating the now visible cause." (8:1, p. 12) Vampires aside, his argument begs a vision of our current economic collapse as caused by Wall Street financiers infected by their own philosophies; a brood of zombies, if you will, who have transmitted their infection onto not only a national but a global populace. He inspires me to write a novel on that premise; screen rights to follow.

The "infection film" is further meditated upon in Murray Pomerance's "What Ever is Happening to M. Night Shyamalan."

Shifting away from the genre of cinematic horror to real-life horrors of omission and erasure, Omar Hassan critiques censorship in "Real Queer Arabs: The Tension between Colonialism and Homosexuality in Egyptian Cinema." Hassan emphasizes the alarming trend by pious Islamic fundamentalists of viewing cinema as one of the "darker" arts fueled by perceived Western degeneracy.

My favorite article in Film International issue 43, however, is "Return to Third Cinema? The Case of Listen to Venezuela" by filmmakers Deirdre O'Neill and Mike Wayne, not only for their efforts to define a revolutionary cinema, but their cogent critique (by way of Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino's seminal essay "Towards a Third Cinema") of classifying First Cinema as dominant commercial cinema and Second Cinema as film festival arthouse fare, which deems itself revolutionary for resisting Hollywood's hegemony while unabashedly catering to middle-class appetites and agendas.

And of course, there is much much more, not the least being Gary Kramer's festival report from the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival, which I appreciated not only for his disclosure of how he selects films to watch from TIFF's voluminous entries ("I generally avoid popular titles ... to see films that might not otherwise get distribution"), but--anticipating its inclusion in San Francisco's upcoming International Film Festival--his commentary on Rigoberto Pérezcano's feature debut Northless (2008), which he says "belies a documentary approach" in its opening (and strongest) scenes, "shot with little or no dialogue. The heat is as palpable as the miles of unchartered territory." He adds: "Northless benefits from its incredibly assured sense of place, and the use of música norteña on the soundtrack lends an authenticity to many of the Tijuana scenes." (8:1, p. 93)

ALL ABOUT EVIL—INDEX

Interviews

Aurora Bergere

Thomas Dekker

Jack Donner

Joshua Grannell (aka Peaches Christ)

Cassandra Peterson

Noah Segan

Mink Stole

Updated: April 12, 2010

ALL ABOUT EVIL—The Evening Class Interview With Aurora Bergere

Imagine being a young effects artist relatively new to the scene and sitting in front of Joshua Grannell with your portfolio and your resume, listening to his ambitious vision for his first feature film All About Evil. Imagine him describing all the shock gags he wants to include in the film. Then imagine being told you have next to nothing to make those effects happen. Why would you bother? Because, after listening to Grannell relay his dream, Aurora Bergere wanted to do everything she could "to make his dream happen." Everyone I know who has worked on this project has felt the same way, including myself. I feel like someone sprinkled me with holy water, incanting, "The spirit of Peaches Christ compels you!"

Alongside the Victoria Theatre near the back stage entrance Bergere and I found two folding chairs during her break and warded off the cool night with some warm talk. [This conversation is not for the spoiler-wary!!]

* * *

Michael Guillén: In the space of two years since you moved from France to San Francisco, Aurora, you have already built up your resume with some notable Bay Area projects, including Pighunt, La Missión, and now All About Evil. Why did you choose San Francisco rather than Los Angeles to pursue make-up effects?

Aurora Bergere: I chose the Bay Area first off because of Industrial Light and Magic (ILM). I grew up with all those big movies whose special effects were made by ILM. I wanted to meet with them and, hopefully, work with them and—though I didn't know if that would happen or not—that was one of the reasons why I moved to the Bay Area. A second reason was that I grew up in a small town in the south of France so I was still a little scared about Hollywood and everything around it, so I played it safe by starting out in the Bay Area and taking it one step at a time. Then I fell in love with San Francisco and never wanted to move, to be honest.

Guillén: You got your start interning with special make-up effects on the film Catwoman?

Bergere: That wasn't my first movie, but it was my first big movie, where I worked with well-known professionals. I worked nine months on that shoot. I was about 21-22 years old.

Guillén: You're in a nice dovetail right now as La Missión is just about to open the San Francisco International Film Festival, and you were assistant make-up artist on that film before joining the crew of All About Evil.

Bergere: That's true. I feel very lucky. I don't know how, I don't know why, but….

Guillén: I suspect you're doing good work.

Bergere: I guess so! I think I am.

Guillén: How did you become involved with All About Evil? Did you know Joshua beforehand?

Bergere: I didn't know Joshua at all. I knew Brian Benson, who was the first assistant director and one of the producers. We worked together on La Missión. He knew I was capable and—at that particular time—I was finally working with ILM but they didn't have much money. When we went to Sundance with La Missión, he started talking to me about working on All About Evil. So I said, sure, I'll bring my portfolio and resume to them and see what we can do with what they have. Though I won't say I fell in love with Joshua the first time I met him, I walked away feeling a very deep connection with him. He's an amazing person, one-of-a-kind, with a beautiful karma. I just wanted to make his dream happen. So I jumped on board.

Guillén: How closely have your effects matched what Joshua had written for his script? Were they specifically delineated in his script? Or did you negotiate with Joshua during production on what effects could be created within budget restraints?

Bergere: No. Joshua has a wide imagination. All these effects were written into the script how he wanted them to look like, except for one effect—the amputated breasts—where I had a little bit of input. He wanted something simple for that shock gag because, of course, he didn't know what we would be able to achieve technically. I understood, but, I wanted to take it to the next level for him so we made this beautiful appliance with tubes and syringes inside. It was gorgeous. I was very happy to create it in the time that we had because we only had three weeks of pre-production to make these effects happen.

Guillén: My understanding is that All About Evil blends your practical effects with some CGI?

Bergere: Yes, but not much CGI. The CGI people are here primarily because Joshua wrote a scene that involves a projection. There is a film within the film. That's why they brought in visual effects. Thank God I was able to make most of the effects without visual effects. Maybe they'll do some touch-up—that's always happening—but, I don't think they'll have much to do actually.

Guillén: It strikes me that your effects are very much in the tradition of the practical effects used by Peter Jackson in his early films. Was that tradition an influence on your work?

Bergere: Oh yes, absolutely. I'm a big fan of his and other early films. My B.A. is in literature and art history and so it was Frankenstein that first caught my attention. I was intrigued by how they had taken this book and used special effects to turn it into a movie and then I became interested in how you create effects with whatever you have on hand around you. That's how I got started. Ever since I was a kid, I would make something out of whatever I could get my hands on, and later in college I studied painting, sculpting.

Guillén: As you were developing this talent in this small town you grew up in southern France, did others consider you odd?

Bergere: [Laughs.]

Guillén: Well, weren't you the only one? Was anyone else doing this?

Bergere: No, naturally; but, it took time to develop because in France it's completely different than here. Being an artist is difficult and it's hard to make a living at it there. So I had all this talent in my hands but I didn't know what to do with it.

Guillén: You're reminding me of Robert Green Hall's Lightning Bug. Have you ever seen that film?

Bergere: No, tell me about it.

Guillén: Well, Robert Green Hall is himself a make-up artist who directed this film Lightning Bug that was basically autobiographical, about a young boy growing up in a small town in rural Alabama who wants to work in Hollywood as a make-up effects artist. He's extremely creative but no one around him understands what he's dreaming for himself.

Bergere: Sometimes I fantasize on what it would have been like to grow up here in the U.S. instead of in France. At least here kids have influences around them. For me, everything had to come through my imagination. Where I grew up in the south of France, I had no access to effect supplies. Though, to be honest, later on I found this to be a good thing because I've been forced to improve my art with nothing. Now that I have the materials that I need, I can take my imagination to the next level.

Guillén: Speaking of effect supplies, about how many buckets of blood have you used in shooting All About Evil?

Bergere: Not much, actually. I've used about 10 gallons.

Guillén: What is your blood made of?

Bergere: It's the Dick Smith formula: basically, karo syrup, pigment, water. That's pretty much it.

Guillén: I imagine that—as a make-up artist who is constantly "taking it to the next level" with each assignment—that you are continually growing and learning as an artist?

Bergere: Absolutely.

Guillén: What would you say you have learned from working on All About Evil? Have there been challenges that have provoked you to learn new things?

Bergere: A lot of new things. At first I was worried because the script called for a lot of effects that involved prosthetics and—as anyone who works in make-up effects knows—they take a lot of time to make. It takes about six to eight hours just to make a mold, then you have to do a live casting, and all the rest. It's a lot of work. I worked non-stop seven days a week, 17 hours a day for about three weeks to get it done on time. That was something Joshua didn't get until he saw the appliances and then he was like, "Oh my God, Aurora, I'm so sorry. Now I understand."

So, yes, I learned a lot. I learned that basically without a lot of money, you can still do a very beautiful movie.

Guillén: How has it been for you with this cast of actors applying make-up and prosthetics?

Bergere: I feel very lucky. Mink Stole is a player. She went for it. She's awesome. I had a blast working with her. The same thing with Kat Turner. She was wonderful. To keep it short, I feel very lucky. They were all game and enthusiastic. And again, Joshua's energy was all around you. Everyone is here for him.

Cross-published on Twitch.

ALL ABOUT EVIL—The Evening Class Interview With Thomas Dekker

At the time that I interviewed Thomas Dekker on the set of Joshua Grannell's All About Evil, the decision was still pending as to whether or not his TV series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles would be picked up for another season. Fox elected to cancel the series; but—livewire that he is—there are no flies on Thomas Dekker. No sooner did he return home to Los Angeles from the All About Evil shoot than he was cast as Jesse Braun in Samuel Bayer's remake of A Nightmare On Elm Street, which he recently promoted at WonderCon.

During down time on one of All About Evil's infamous night shoots, Dekker and I sat down to discuss his career to date, his involvement with Evil, and his plans to shift from acting to directing.

* * *

Michael Guillén: I was just reading an interview where you were complaining about night shoots on the set of Laid to Rest, and here you are going at it again!

Thomas Dekker: I know! It's difficult, but I don't actually dislike it. A lot of the other actors hated it; but, for me, it was just strange to adjust to. I'm a night person anyway. I would much rather shoot overnight than to have to be up early every day, that's for sure.

Guillén: I wanted to make sure to tell you, Thomas, that as one of core group of extras working here last weekend, I was impressed with your friendliness and kindness to the extras, coming over to talk to us while we were waiting to be called on set.

Dekker: We couldn't make the movie without you guys.

Guillén: I especially liked how you treated Annie. She's such a fan of yours and you made her feel like a million bucks.

Dekker: I love Annie; she's sweet. And she's a great supporter. She's been at every single thing I've done and I'm thankful. There are actors who are rude to the extras and rude to the crew but what the fuck's the point of that?

Guillén: I've been noticing you're a bit of a live wire on this set.

Dekker: Yeah. I tend to become the jokester on set. I mean, it feels like I'm making a movie with my friends, like I felt on Laid to Rest where I was friends with so many of the creative people and the actors in the cast. I don't feel I have to be "professional"—though I am professional about the performance—but, it's been great to be crazy and silly and have fun. It took me a while to get there on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles because I was being precise at first; but, both Lena Headey and I became terrible jokesters on that set. But there have been movies where—if I have a lot of emotion to play—I've needed to keep a lid on it; but, this is way more fun.

Guillén: How did you become involved in All About Evil? Did you know Joshua beforehand?

Dekker: This is how it went down: I knew the producer Darren Stein for years. I'd heard him talk about Peaches Christ but I didn't really know who Peaches was. We had just started filming the second season of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles when Darren called me and said, "I have this friend Joshua; he's the one who does Peaches Christ and he's in town and wants to meet you." I said, "Okay, well come to the set." Joshua (not in Peaches drag) came to the set—which, comically, was made up to be a military academy that day of all things—and I spent about 20 minutes talking to him and really liked him immediately. I thought he was smart and cool. He told me, "I'm directing this movie All About Evil and Darren's producing it and I think there's a role I'd like you to do." He sent me the script but I had actually agreed to do it before even reading it because I really liked these two guys. Joshua didn't really know anything about me personally. I think he thought I was just another actor; but, when he was talking to me in my trailer on set, he noticed it was filled with John Waters films and horror films. Since then, he and I have talked at length about being major horror geeks—very close to the character Steven I'm playing in All About Evil—and cult geeks. Joshua's thing for cult and horror is totally my thing. That sealed the bond for sure.

Guillén: Tell me about your character Steven in All About Evil.

Dekker: Steven is a big ol' horror geek, which was the easy part for me, and he's also a visual artist, which I've also done my whole life. So I have a lot in common with the character of Steven. But he's been fun to play because he's naïve. In a way he has to be. Even though all this stuff is going on around him and even though he figures it out, being as close to it as he is you'd think he'd get a whiff of something being wrong. But, he's naïve, aloof, and I'm playing him very young. I knew a kid who was a big horror geek and he used to blink all the time so I've put that into the character. He has all these twitches and blinks and a funny slurred speech. It's been fun because I've been playing John Connor now since June of last year so finally getting to play someone else has been really liberating.

Guillén: Had you met and worked with Cassandra Peterson or Mink Stole before?

Dekker: No, I'd never worked with either of them before and I only got to meet Mink briefly because I didn't have any scenes with her. Cassandra is such a lovely woman. The only two people I knew from this cast previously were Anthony Fitzgerald who I worked with on Laid to Rest (he was the head that was cut off in the fridge) and he was in Whore, is a friend of mine, and helped me out a lot with getting that movie made. The problem was that I shot Whore while I was doing Terminator that first season so Anthony was the person who made everything happen because I couldn't get stuff ready. My time off was simply to shoot. And I've known Noah Segan for a long time.

Guillén: I was going to ask you what it was like to be directed by someone in drag; but, you've done so much genre work that you're probably used to collaborators in costume around you?

Dekker: Yeah, but, I've never had a director in drag, which has been interesting. It's funny, but I miss seeing Joshua sometimes when he's directing as Peaches. What's interesting, though, is that—even in drag—he's still on top of everything. He's a great director, no matter if he's in a dress or jeans.

Guillén: I was impressed reviewing your career last night in preparation for our talk today. I had first seen you as Claire's friend Zach on Heroes and was somewhat disappointed that your character in that series wasn't really developed past the first season; but, then you got the gig as the young John Connor in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which I watched in its entirety this last weekend.

Dekker: All of them?!

Guillén: Yeah, I did a marathon catch-up.

Dekker: Oh my God!

Guillén: It was fun.

Dekker: You liked them, though?

Guillén: Absolutely. Is the series going to be continued?

Dekker: We won't know until May 15. That's when all the shows, the up fronts, happen.

Guillén: Annie will be devastated if the show isn't renewed. Is there anything your fans can do to make sure it happens?

Dekker: Yeah, well, the fans of the show have been working their asses off. They're not the issue. They write to Fox every week; but, you can write all the letters you want and, unfortunately, it's an issue of having greater numbers overseas than here, which doesn't really please Fox. Who knows? I'd love it to come back and do another season; but, if it doesn't, we did a good show that I don't feel ever compromised its intelligence to be successful.

Guillén: Speaking of intelligence, IQ-145.

Dekker: IQ-145 is one of the strangest gigs of my career because I did it long before Heroes and Terminator. I didn't know what it was for. It was all green screen. I just auditioned and went and did this thing for a month. I didn't know if it was a pilot or an internet thing and then I never heard anything else about it, but then when I was working on Terminator suddenly it was out. It felt kind of odd because everyone thought it was this new thing I'd done but it had actually been sitting for a while, mainly because it took them so long to do the computer animation.

Guillén: Though you're a young actor, you began as a child actor and—in some ways—have more experience than most of the actors on this set.

Dekker: Look at you! Paying me compliments. Keep them coming.

Guillén: Which leads me to ask: by comparison, what is the atmosphere of this set like for you?

Dekker: It's a blast! One of my favorite moments was when Peaches—just in his makeup and regular clothes—walked past Martiny and went, "Third time to the cake table, Martiny?" We all get along and we all know each other and I've never worked on anything with quite this much blood. I came up to San Francisco wanting to do something fun with my friends, that was the feeling, and after the read through, even after a couple of days of filming, I realized, "Wow, this is going to be an amazing movie." It wasn't that I didn't believe in the film before I got here; but, once I was here, I really began to believe in it. But, honestly, that wasn't the reason I first came here. I just wanted to have fun. But All About Evil is blowing my mind. Joshua is directing like a pro. I was saying to Darren the other day that it has everything you want—which makes it difficult to describe—because if you want your tits, you've got your tits; if you want your murders, you got 'em; if you want culty stuff or comedy, you got 'em. Everything is in this movie. That's why when people ask me what the movie's about, I don't know whether to tell them it's a horror movie, a cult movie, or a black comedy, which is great.

Guillén: As a director yourself now, having directed Whore….

Dekker: And a couple of other things out there on the Internet….

Guillén: …are you having any issues switching back to being an actor?

Dekker: The only time I have issues is when I get nervous for the director and nervous for the production and the movie that's being made because—when you're just an actor—you're oblivious to those concerns and you're focusing on your own performance. Sometimes I wish I could go back to that "innocence" again; but, I can't. Once you've directed, you see what's going wrong with a production and it becomes frustrating. You see the director running out of time, running out of money, which—when you're making an indie movie—you learn are both scarce. Then I get nervous.

Guillén: So tell me about these directorial efforts out on the Internet.

Dekker: You make them sound so scandalous talking about them like that. The very first I directed was when I was 16, almost 17, and it was a feature-length hand-held dogme '95 movie. This is the first time I've ever spoken about it in an interview. It was called Cotton Wool and it was an improvised piece. I did it mainly to learn. I funded it but it was majorly cheap. It's kind of funny when you don't watch something for a long time and then you go back to it? Whenever I thought of Cotton Wool I dismissed it as that piece of shit thing I did as a kid; but, I watched it again recently and it wasn't that bad. Then I did a 30-minute short called Arcane and that was my first time working with a crew. Arcane is what helped me get the money to make Whore.

Guillén: Is Whore going to be theatrically released?

Dekker: No. We took a long time to get it ready because I kept going back and re-editing and added greasy coloring to it, so it took a long time. The finished cut is on DVD and we're trying for the festival thing. It's a culty movie so it needs to find its niche. Some people love it. Some people hate it.

Guillén: With Megan Fox, Lena Headey and Ron Jeremy, it has a promising cast.

Dekker: Here's the thing. I might as well just come clean now and we'll call this the first interview. The main point of Whore—among the many points it's trying to make—is a hokey idea: about kids who come to L.A. who want to be actors, fail, and become prostitutes and drug addicts. I get that's been done a million times before; but, the reason for Whore is specific. You never see these young kids attempting to be actors; it's implied. It's more about the mental state these kids are in while in Los Angeles. Kids all over the world desperately want to be actors; but, actors—by the public—are often treated like whores, sometimes like shit. It wasn't until I got my own TV show and started going online and reading what people were saying, not just about me, but about the show in general that I realized that some person in Wisconsin was writing the most vile shit about people that they don't know for no reason other than that they're actors. That fascinated me. Why is there this need to rip apart people you don't even know?

The main reason Megan Fox and Rumer Willis—who are friends of mine—are in the film is a game with the audience. They don't even have dialogue. They're on screen for a total of 25 seconds to two minutes. They offered to play roles, but, the reason I did it like that was because I wanted to play with the fact that everybody—and this is exactly what has happened—is concerned with whether Megan shows her tits and "that Rumer girl is so ugly that I wonder what she does in it." I knew that would happen and my hope was that these idiots who would go to the movie to see Megan's tits and make fun of Rumer will find out neither of them are really in the movie. If you want to see the movie for the movie, you're not going to miss them; but, if you're coming to ogle over celebrity, I'm not going to give them to you.

Guillén: Do you want to direct more than act?

Dekker: Yes. I love acting and I've done it now for 16 years. Darren asked me the other day if I'd ever quit and I said, "Of course!" And then I went, "I dunno." I may do both.

Guillén: Well, there's nothing wrong with taking a hiatus, perhaps; but, I hope you don't quit acting altogether because—in reviewing your work this week—I'm struck by its promise. I'd like to see you older in more mature roles. I see you owning your craft at such a young age, that I'm curious to see what you'll give us with even more experience. It's interesting to watch you be such a livewire on the set because when it's time for you to play your scenes, you're actually much more subdued. Some of your roles call for you to be quite serious and emotional.

Dekker: And those are the roles I normally tend to get. I never get comedy or anything like that. I usually get dark, brooding roles, which is probably why I do a lot of horror. The greatest compliment I receive is when someone says, "Oh, you're nothing like your character." To me that's the whole point about creating a character: you have to find a voice and a walk and mannerisms.

Guillén: You're on the crest of a pop cultural wave with Heroes and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, but talk to me about some of your upcoming projects, like From Within.

Dekker: From Within will come out in about a month. It's funny because people are asking me now if I'm choosing to do horror and science fiction films and I'm actually not. It just seems to keep happening that way. I did From Within, Heroes is sci-fi, Terminator is sci-fi, Laid to Rest is horror, this is horror, and the next film I'm doing is sort of horror.

Guillén: One of your early roles was as Picard's son in Star Trek: Generations, for God sake.

Dekker: I was, baby!

Guillén: And weren't you one of those damned children in John Carpenter's Village of the Damned?

Dekker: Which we shot here in San Fran. Yeah, so I've had a long line of that kind of stuff. From Within is actually a good film; I like it. Phedon Papamichael did a great job. It was, again, another exhausting night shoot in Maryland. And the next film I'm doing is a werewolf film.

Guillén: What about Laid to Rest, which made this month's cover of Fangoria?

Dekker: Laid to Rest was kind of like All About Evil in that I thought, "Oh, let me help my friend Robert Hall out. We'll all pitch in and do our thing." But, again, it turned out great.

Guillén: When I was talking to Aurora Bergere about her career, I told her she was reminding me of Robert Hall's Lightning Bug, which she didn't know anything about, and which you actually turned me onto in the Fangoria piece on Laid to Rest.

Dekker: I hope I turned a lot of people on to Lightning Bug.

Guillén: I understand you're a fan of Fangoria?

Dekker: I first started reading Fangoria because when I was 8 or 9 years old I saw an issue that covered the film Species and Natasha Henstridge's tits were on it as she was coming out of the cocoon and I had to have the magazine. I had watched Species about a thousand times a day. My mother had to take the magazine away from me because was I so fucking in love with Natasha Henstridge.

Guillén: Though it's not a genre piece, tell me about My Sister's Keeper.

Dekker: I just saw the finished cut of it actually not too long ago and I was impressed. It's a story that could so easily be a Lifetime / Hallmark film; but, it isn't because Nick Cassavetes is a pretty tough guy and so—when you have a tough guy doing sensitive material—it works well. I got to shave my head and my eyebrows off for it, which was really fun.

Guillén: But they didn't touch your eyelashes.

Dekker: No! They're my meal ticket. But as an actor you rarely get to be paid to do something as drastic as shaving your head and eyebrows. It was awesome. It was right after the first season of Terminator had aired where I had emo hair and everyone was like, "Where did you hair go?!" It was a big hoopla.

Guillén: In that first season of Terminator, I was wondering if you got to work with Jesse Garcia, who is one of my favorite young Chicano actors?

Dekker: No. I never even got to meet him. We weren't in any scenes together; but, Lena loved him. She thought he was amazing. There were a lot of people that first season I never got to meet. I barely even saw Richard T. Jones. Everyone had their own shooting schedules.

Cross-published on Twitch. Here's a little Evening Class extra: Thomas Dekker's colorful music video for title track "Psyanotic."