FILMMAKER BLOG  Friday, March 14, 2008
FEMALES LEAD AT SXSW
 Of the fifteen features I saw at this year's SXSW Film Festival, only one was announced as an award-winner on Tuesday night (Jeremiah Zagar's In A Dream). But despite their not winning official accolades, several of the other films I saw were nonetheless intriguing - in some cases wonderful.
Something that's stayed with me since leaving Austin is how utterly grounded many of the narrative films were in the performances of their female leads. Whether dealing in realism or more avant-garde experimentation, these films are not merely showcasing strong work by young female actors, but in fact reveal a tendency in their directors to really rest the entire energy of the stories on these performances. Whether quiet and nuanced or over-the-top, they're pushing their cameras in close and recording the rhythms of their heroines in ways that both electrify the stories, and place the films firmly in the more personal storytelling traditions of independent cinema.
 Mary Bronstein's Yeast is probably the most vivid example, one whose strengths truly rely on its three female leads, played by Bronstein herself and Amy Judd (both pictured at left), and Greta Gerwig. A loosely-sketched portrayal of three friends unleashing verbal, physical and psychological abuse on one another, it's an empathetic challenge from beginning to end, one that can only draw strong reactions. Mary, whose husband Ronnie's Frownland elicited similarly polarized responses after his SXSW screening last year, has made an incredibly aggressive and brave debut feature. The world she creates is voiced not with conversational realism, but rather with a reactive, tweaked-out, primal scream. Between the actors - in the subversive anger that gets tossed back and forth - is the real energy of this film. One of the sweeter films I saw this year, Josh Safdie's The Pleasure of Being Robbed, is similarly grounded (actually, lifted off the ground) by the performance of his lead actress, Eleonore Hendricks (right). She's charming and childish, elusive and infuriating, scurrying around the streets causing trouble. Safdie's moody, observational photography, and the tangential pacing and switchback whimsy are all totally in tune with her. There's a dance between actress and camera in this film that's effortlessly enjoyable. Two films that focus on more intimate moments between couples (and that could easliy face comparisons over the next few weeks, as the merits of this year's SXSW narrative selections are debated), also rely on strong deliveries by their respective female leads.
 Nights and Weekends, the latest from SXSW alum Joe Swanberg, was co-written and co-directed by Greta Gerwig (who rounded out a trifecta at the festival this year with the Duplass Brothers' Baghead). Nights and Weekends is Swanberg's most mature and sensitive film yet; there's a sincerity that critics of his earlier work have longed for. More importantly, Gerwig's contributions to the emotional arc of the film far outpace what we've come to expect from her. It's arguably the best acting she's done on screen to date, pulling her wry, offbeat charm down deeper into something tangible and raw. Swanberg's films have traded in the relatable and the familiar; in this case, he and Gerwig (left) have crafted characters who struggle to conceal their true feelings for the sake of remaining friendly - sometimes in ways all too familiar.
 Barry Jenkins' thoroughly engaging Medicine for Melancholy is a two-character tour through the race and class dynamics of modern-day San Francisco, a story in which the heaviness of culture weighs down the simplicity of love. Tracey Heggins' Joanne (right) is in many ways the emotional and moral core to the story, and the further I get from this film the more I think about her. To be sure, Wyatt Cenac gives a strong performance as well - his Micah is enigmatic and fiery, but also easily absorbed. Hers is a slow burn that remains undetected through much of the first half, but which smolders into the film's final sequence and beyond.
The most quietly impressive performance I saw this year - and my favorite film of the festival - was that of Jeannine Kaspar (pictured, top right) in Paper Covers Rock, the first in director Joe Maggio's planned Kieślowski-inspired ten-part series. The film follows a young woman just released from a hospital after unsuccessfully attempting suicide, and her measured steps towards reclaiming her life, and her daughter.
Paper Covers Rock is the most traditional of this group, mostly in the arc and scope of the film. It's given a humble but powerful realism by Kaspar, on which Maggio remains focused throughout the length of the film. There's a straightforward honesty to Kaspar that's most watchable; even her moments of frailty and confusion have a lucidity that's magnetic. David Lowery at Spout has compared moments in her performance to that of Damien Lewis in Lodge Kerrigan's Keane. Paper Covers Rock is a well-written and confidently-directed film, one whose final moments are truly haunting, and which leave its lead performance all the more unforgettable.
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posted by Durier Ryan @ 3/14/2008 03:12:00 PM
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