The lone star state is vying for a new identity as the loneliest state at this year’s Dallas International Film Festival. In our festival preview, we mentioned Yen Tan’s movingly sad little film, Pit Stop (repeats today at 7:30 p.m. Magnolia 1; Rating: Go See It), about isolated lovers in a small Texas town looking for themselves and solace of heart. Yesterday I saw two more Texas-based films, both dealing with lonely characters whose existential isolation is reflected back by the forlorn Texas landscape.
In This is Where We Live (repeats today at 12 p.m. Magnolia 1; Rating: Go See It), co-directors Josh Barrett and Marc Menchaca set tell the story of a West Texas loner who happens upon a job caring for a young man with cerebral palsy. The handicapped man lives with his worn down, but affectionate mother; his father with dementia; and his sullen sister in a battered little house on the wide-open prairie. Barrett and Menchaca display an intimate familiarity with the subject, and the film is driven by more than a few moments that authentically realize an interpersonal dynamic that is nuanced and moving. At times, though, the film feels a tad overloaded with dramatic fodder, and I couldn’t help byt think that one edit – dampening the presence of the father character or trimming out some of the overly explicit emotional dialogue – could have turned This is Where We Live from just a good movie to a very good movie. Nonetheless, there is much humanity in this film, hard-bracing and sometimes staggeringly raw, an exultation of the quite sufferings of everyday life.
A Teacher (repeats today at 7 p.m. Magnolia 4; Our rating: Worth a Shot) tells the story of a young Austin high school teacher embroiled in a steamy affair with a cocksure and privileged student. Director Hannah Fidell keeps her story clamped tight on actress Lindsay Burdge, who plays the teacher, and it is Burdge’s dynamic performance that keeps the film sizzling forward. Ultimately, though, Fidell’s film feels like an elongated one act. Its intrigue never deepens, but rather, like a suspense thriller, continues to wind tight until it breaks. And yet there is something unshakable about these performances which allows a one dimensional story to nonetheless effectively conveys a desperate and enigmatic loneliness drowning in frantic, stomach-turning passion.
Both films offer solid performances and capable direction, and I am particularly excited to watch how the promising Josh Barrett’s career unfolds. But the highlight of my first full day at the fest was a film playing in the Italian section titled Il Futuro (repeats April 13 at 7:15 p.m. Magnolia 4; Our rating: Go See It). Chilean director Alicia Scherson adapts the novel by Roberto Bolano which tells the tale of two orphans in Rome, 19-year-old Bianca (Manuela Martelli) and her younger teenage brother Tomas (Luigi Ciardo). With his sister as his guardian, Tomas begins to skip school, rig the TV to watch pornography channels, and befriends two goon bodybuilders at a local gym. The two men hatch a plan to infiltrate the Roman villa of Maciste (Rutger Hauer), a former Mr. Universe and B-movie American actor whose claim to fame are camp, strongman movies he made in Italy in the 1960s. Bianca poses as a prostitute to get into the house and look for the safe that hides his riches. But once she discovers the hulking, loner ex-star is blind, a strange and charged relationship unfolds. Partly a new take on the Beauty and the Beast tale, partly a story about sexual maturation and paternal longing and tenderness, Il Futuro is a wonderfully acted, tense, and beguiling film, sticky and haunting.
Here’s what Jason Heid saw yesterday:
Cry (Repeats 7 p.m. April 10, Magnolia 5)
Rating: Worth a Shot
Cry is an appropriate title for a film like this, in which every character is so very sad. The story, about a troubled teen befriending his curmudgeonly neighbor, treads water without much forward momentum for too long. Still, there are some nice, honest moments between the two leads. -— Jason Heid
Shorts 1 (Repeats 12:15 p.m. April 6, Angelika 4)
Rating: Go See It
Due to multiple technical difficulties at Friday’s screening, only five of the eight films that were to have been in this program were actually screened. Those we saw were a solidly entertaining bunch. The best was a tense Arabic-language short about two partners-in-crime having a falling out. Others included a mock nature film about a dog’s pursuit of a bagel and a lightly-incestuous (you have to see it to understand), yet sweet story about a boy watching The Empire Strikes Back while his older sister hosts a pool party. — Jason Heid
Late Night Shorts (Repeats 10:15 p.m. April 6, Angelika 4)
Rating: Go See It
This horror-comedy-heavy program is everything that good short films should be: more experimental than most feature-length movies can be, weird and wonderful. The best of the terrific bunch is called The Wound, in which a gaping hernia hole in a woman’s stomach takes on a life of its own. It’s a bloody, gory, bat-shit-crazy good time. — Jason Heid
OTHER HIGHLIGHTS TODAY:
— The McKinney Avenue Contemporary is hosting a series panels discussions featuring conversations on screenwriting, storyboarding, and more. For more on those go here.
— The Sandlot is showing for free at Klyde Warren Park, a perfect outing for you families out there. It’s all part of a day long family celebration at the park with lots of activities. Bring a picnic. More here.
— For more reviews of films playing today, check out our festival preview.
Image: Lindsay Burdge in A Teacher.
