Sick. Spiritual. Inspiring. Satirical. There’s a little bit of everything at this year’s Wisconsin Film Festival, as programmers have turned to longtime staples while also following some recent trends.
Quirky humor can be found in several international narratives, including Taika Waititi’s Hunt for the Wilderpeople and Sion Sono’s Love & Peace. But the list of notable American independent films is short after Whit Stillman’s Love & Friendship and Matt Johnson’s Operation Avalanche, both of which have sold out advance tickets.
Despite the presence of Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin’s short Bring Me the Head of Tim Horton, North American experimental film has been displaced by campy, so-bad-they’re-good archival discoveries, trendy on the circuit and exemplified last year by Roar and The Astrologer and this year by Death Wish Club, a 1983 film about an elaborate suicide game.
Documentaries provide many intriguing options, ranging from the more traditional observational style of Albert Maysles’ final project, In Transit, to David Sington’s formally more adventurous death-row portrait, The Fear of 13.
The following capsule reviews are not meant to indicate the best of these categories, but they provide starting points for those overwhelmed by the schedule.
Sick: Men & Chicken
Barrymore Theatre, April 16 (8:45 p.m.) and Sundance, April 18 (7 p.m.)
Men & Chicken, from Danish director Anders Thomas Jensen (The Green Butchers), fits into the quirky humor trend as half-brothers Gabriel (David Dencik) and Elias (Mads Mikkelsen) discover that their biological father was a disgraced geneticist who exiled himself to a sparsely populated island.
The film might offend those who respect scientific ethics, animal rights, disability and elderly rights or the sanctity of human life. Others will have fun.
Jensen maintains a light comic tone for a sick premise that becomes more twisted as Gabriel and Elias meet three half-brothers who refuse access to their father at his dilapidated estate. All five men have cleft palates, and none of them know what became of their respective mothers.
Mikkelsen (most recently Dr. Lecter on NBC’s Hannibal) is particularly funny and barely recognizable as the socially inept Elias, whose solution to getting his even more inept half-brothers laid is both horrifying and somehow charming. Horrific and charming sums up the film well.
Spiritual: Paths of the Soul
Sundance, April 15 (3:30 p.m.) and April 20 (3 p.m.)
Paths of the Soul is a fictional account of a 1,200-mile pilgrimage from Mangkang to Lhasa in Tibet. Director Zhang Yang and his nonprofessional cast do not provide much psychological insight into the individuals on the journey. Instead, group members are the protagonists as they face logistical and other challenges in completing their mission.
Most often the camera simply observes at a distance, but this does not keep us emotionally removed from what we see. The overwhelming concrete details eventually move us like abstract poetry.
For those not familiar with the practice of kowtowing, the start of the pilgrimage is quite disconcerting. The participants take six to eight steps, clap their hands above and in front of them and dive to prostrate themselves on the road. Then they get up, and repeat. Cynics might ask, “Am I going to watch this the whole time?”
Yes, you are going to watch people completely dedicated to the physical demands of a spiritual experience. Even as a fictional re-creation, the physical commitment is palpable.
Inspiring: Sonita
Sundance, April 15 (11 a.m.) and April 17 (2:30 p.m.)
Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami’s Sonita, a portrait of an 18-year-old Afghan refugee in Tehran who aspires to become a rap star, won the Grand Jury Award and the Audience Award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. The documentary will play well to a Madison audience looking for cross-cultural experiences and insight.
But there’s a reason films like Sonita win audience awards: They can make us feel great about things that should make us feel horrible.
Sonita’s rise as a rap star is woefully underdeveloped, as the online world suddenly embraces her monotonous delivery, which did not appeal to any producers in Tehran.
The real drama, however, is her struggle between two equally problematic sets of social mores in Afghanistan and Tehran. A staff member at the Tehran refugee support center chastises Sonita’s mother for threatening to accept a customary bride price for Sonita against her will — but that same center then cuts off support for Sonita out of fear of legal consequences because she sings in public. These scenes are undeniably compelling, as is Sonita’s courage.
Most critical discussion of the film has focused on Ghaem Maghami’s direct intervention in Sonita’s life, but equally problematic is the streamlined three-act structure of the film that suggests that all she needs is an opportunity in America. Female rappers, not to mention Muslim refugees, face no obstacles here, right?
Satirical: Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party
Cinematheque, April 15 (6:30 p.m.) and Sundance, April 16 (noon)
One indie hero showcased this year is prolific Chicago-based filmmaker Stephen Cone.
Written and directed by Cone, Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party seems like a throwback to 1990s-era gay film festival fare. As with his 2013 drama Black Box, Cone demonstrates skill in working with acting ensembles, as friends and family, young and old, assemble to celebrate the birthday of a 17-year-old son of a Christian preacher.
The religious humor often goes for low-hanging fruit, and not all of the subplots are equally engaging. But when Cone allows scenes to breathe, his cast is more than capable of handling intimate conflicts and moments of self-discovery with compassion and insight. The opening scene of mutual (oh, but totally not gay) masturbation at a sleepover is jarring, but it strikes a balance of humor and honesty that sets the tone for the rest of the film.
