Best of the Fest: LAKE OF FIRE (US-Director Tony KAYE)

Also known as the movie that had members of its audience weeping, riveted, storming for the exits, and, according to legend, vomiting, “Lake of Fire” is a documentary about abortion in America. Its steely, grayscale images are the ideal expression of a debate in which absolutes aren’t quite so absolute, and it has balls and heart in heaping amounts. Director/Cinematographer Kaye is an egalitarian filmmaker, refusing to use any of the devices which have reduced many contemporary political documentaries into ironic snarkfests, instead letting the onscreen speaker have the film’s undivided attention. Unlike most nationwide discourse, this film allows the debate to get complicated and expansive, and the end result, even in what Kaye calls its current, ‘brief’ form, is one of the finest documentaries of the past decade. (Lake of Fire has US distribution through ThinkFilm)

2nd Place is a TIE: COLOSSAL YOUTH (JUVENTUDE EM MARCHA) (France/Portugal/Switzerland-directed by Pedro COSTA) and SYNDROMES AND A CENTURY (SANG SATTAWAT) (Austria/France/Thailand-APICHATPONG Weerasethakul)

Ghostly, dreamlike visions define these two films- Costa’s is briefly maddening (the first twenty-five minutes pretty rough going) but finally transcendent series of sketches of sadness, beauty, and ennui; Apichatpong’s a dizzyingly romantic reverie that, even when veering into a mysterious medical drama, retains a powerful sense of laconic focus. Both are striking visions, both challenging benchmarks in World Cinema. Colossal Youth was also the best-looking film in the entire festival, making consumer-grade DV look like binary chiaroscuro- Costa’s sense of composition is peerless, and he and co-cinematographer Leonardo Simões crafted something absolutely unique and haunting. (Syndromes and a Century has U.S. distribution through Strand Releasing)

3-MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES (Canada-Jennifer BAICHWAL)

Plundering the land never looked quite so arresting as in the work of photographer Edward Burtynsky, which Jennifer Baichwal’s award-winning film explores. I was hooked from the mindboggling opening sequence- an 8+ minute lateral tracking shot through a Chinese factory almost a mile long; it was graceful and intimidating, exactly like Burtynsky’s work, and time and time again, the artistry of the documentarian echoed perfectly the artistry of the documented. (Manufactured Landscapes is distributed in the US by Zeitgeist Films)

4- EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY (US-Don HERTZFELDT)

Don Hertzfeldt has always made great films (“Rejected”, “Billy’s Balloon”), but with this one, he really leaps up a level. Building on the humanist heart of his previous film “The Meaning of Life”, Hertzfeldt weaves a series of uncertainties into a rich portrait of fear and beauty. If our lives are pointillist collages of the thoughts and memories that we have experienced, what then happens when we lose that ability to step back? Everything Will Be Okay actually has already had a Nashville theatrical engagement, at the Belcourt as part of The Animation Show 3.

5, once again a tie: KENNY (Australia-Clayton JACOBSON) and PHONE SEX GRANDMA (US-Jack TRUMAN)

A pair of bawdy portraits of fascinating people with interesting jobs, I can see both of these films having long and healthy lives as cult items. Truthfully, though, Kenny could easily be a mainstream hit, judging from the way it won its audiences over and star Shane Jacobson tossed out some of the best lines of the festival with the ease of a free jazz soloist. Opal Dockery, the subject of Phone Sex Grandma, might never become a crossover icon, but no one who has seen that nine minute short will ever be able to forget her. If “Kenny” could be a safer “Borat”, then “Phone Sex Grandma” could be the aughts’ equivalent to “Heavy Metal Parking Lot”.

6- LUMP (UK-Faye JACKSON)

Absolutely terrifying in all of its implications, this short film is a remarkable fusion of horror film thrills and art film dread. As with #8, it proves the axiom that horror and genre cinema can get away with expressing fears and perspectives that ‘respectable cinema’ won’t touch. It works as a representation of cancer dread, the callousness and organized mysteries of health care, and the deep-seated fears that come with trusting too much. Here’s hoping that director Jackson gets to tackle a feature, and soon.

7-yet another tie- EXILED (FONG JUK) (Hong Kong-Johnnie TO Kei-Fung) and SMALL ENGINE REPAIR (Ireland/UK-Niall HEERY)(winner of Dishmag’s first ever Virtual Audience Choice Award for Best Feature Film!)

Men and their jobs. Differing places and circumstances, certainly different in terms of genre and tone, but the throughline of both these films are the lives men lead and the sacrifices and choices that they make along the way. And in both instances, the result is remarkable. (Exiled is distributed in the US by Magnolia Pictures and may receive some form of Nashville release. Small Engine Repair does not currently have US distribution, but after winning the festival’s Dreammaker Award & Virtual Audience Choice Award, it may get it.

8-END OF THE LINE (Canada-Maurice DEVEREAUX)

Apocalyptic and relentless horror with an axe to grind… in your sternum. With a relentless sound mix that had the audience jumping and a willingness to get as gory as it got political, I can’t see this Canadian marvel not getting some form of distribution in the US. Horror of this quality usually gets bypassed in favor or elaborate torture scenarios or remakes, but it’s just too right for the time and place we are in the world. Psychotropic muffins, teleological visions, and so very many stabbings- as it should be.

9- DRIVE THRU (US-Gretchen SKOGERSON)

A haunting travelogue of fluorescent wreckage, using damaged street signs as a common denominator. The most effective of this year’s experimental film offerings, streetside Proust that, even if it goes on a bit too long, creates a haunting vision of drive-by culture.

1O- GUIDE DOG (US-Bill PLYMPTON)

Enthusiasm + tragedy = comic genius.