“APART FROM THAT”
2006, written, directed and edited by Jennifer Shainin and Randy Walker.
Sometimes if you want your film to come out on DVD, you’ve got to do it yourself. And if you are DIY, then why not make it such a great package that it’s better than what any mainstream company would do.
In various overlapping stories and dialogue, Apart from That teaches you about people. Ella is a beautician who rents a room from the older, slightly crazy but lovable Peggy. Leo is a Native American who spends his days marking up nature for the government, trying to deal with an ailing best friend. Sam is Vietnamese and his son isn’t. All are trying to make sense of life, not in a pretentious way, but with real-life poetics.
An Altmanesque world, but not just because it invokes him and Raymond Carver and realistic acting and talking. This stands on it’s own. The film has some beautiful everyday moments, noticing subtleties in life. That includes Peggy getting naked and then calling 911 so firemen will break into her house.
With their debut feature, Shainin and Walker have made fans from Vegas to Harvard, Variety to Ray Carney. Ironically enough, its style has prevented it from being included in articles on super-indie films, despite its low budget. But you wont mind the luscious cinematography and layered sound. The film premiered at SXSW last year and went on a vibrant festival life, including gigs at Bradford, CineVegas, Edinburgh, Flanders, Rooftop Films, Seattle and was an Indiewire Undiscovered Gem.
The DVD release is fat. An 80-page, hardcover book of artistic photos taken by the directors during filming and also ephemera from the production, like actor’s handwritten diary pages. Really striking pics. Extras include four deleted scenes, “40 Moments” of behind the scenes actions (which is more poetic and funny than typical we-are-making-a-film-here fare), interviews with the actors that play Ella and Leo, and auditions of the actors improving without ever having seen the script. Another disc is the soundtrack for the film.
The most incredible extra might be their inclusion of trailers for films currently on the festival circuit that the directors are in love with. Not because they are part of a studio release. Just because they saw some other peoples’ films and like them.
The stylin’ book was printed in South Korea. “Course, as soon as we wired the $$,” Walker says, “homeland security got on the horn with our bank, asking them what we were doing sending money to Korea. I guess Bush gets North Korea and South Korea mixed up. I guess that’s what happens when you have two countries using the word ‘Korea.’”
Available at selective, smart bookstores for $40. Total bargain.
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