Film Festival

[ateolf]

The last day of Indie Memphis was my most movie-filled day of all. I started off in the late morning by seeing a movie called Jimmy with Mary Beth. It was about James Baldwin, a reimagining of when he first arrived in Paris. It was all shot in black and white on an old home movie handheld camera, so it had a nice look to it. There was very little dialogue or talking (towards the end there was a bit reading some of his writing). Mostly just the Jimmy actor wandering around Paris or in hotel rooms, etc. There was also a bit in the beginning with no actors or anything, just that same film footage shooting random things around Istanbul. It was good. Then I had a little break and I went to grab some food from Five Guys. There I discovered that the fountain has peach syrup! So in addition to the delicious food, I was able to have something resembling the peach coke that I loved so much! I mean, it obviously isn't a perfect recreation of the stuff they had in bottles several years ago that was the best thing I've ever drank, but it's the closest I've been able to have for a while and I enjoyed it. Now how can I repeatedly go up to Five Guys and just order a drink without seeming weird? Had a little bit more time than I'd expected and I ended up home for a little bit before the next movie. But back up to Studio and I saw Moving, the 1993 Japanese film. It was really good. Then I hung around the theater as there was my shortest gap between movies. Mary Beth met up with me again and we watched a movie together. It was preceded by a short called Burnt Milk that was good (a bit abstract with Jamaican patois voiceover). Then the feature movie was The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire about this Martinican writer who wrote a series of essays during the WWII blockade, surrealist and anti-fascist, revolutionary. But there's scant information on her she later burned her other works. The movie was an abstract semi-reenactment of her and her husband talking and just kind of being in this tropical forest. It was also good. I went home briefly again as there was more extra time but came back for my last movie. I saw New Wave, which is a documentary about this new wave music scene among Vietnamese refugees in the U.S. during the eighties. The music was the genesis of it, but it quickly ended up taking a backseat to other things. It was mostly about the intergenerational trauma of the refugees in the wake of the Vietnam War. And a lot about the specific families of the director and a couple of the people interviewed. There was really only one musician she talked about and to, a singer who did covers of hit songs (and the one time she did an original song it didn't do well...and when asked about it in the interview she very pointedly evaded the subject). The other main person was this dj who dj'ed the music back in the eighties (and continues to do so today...or at least returned to it after a while). Most of the stories went along the lines of parent or parents are working hard to take care of extended families in the network of refugees over here (and often back in Vietnam) so they don't have time for the children and the children feel neglected and ignored and end up rebelling (with the new wave music or whatever else) and then often rinse and repeat. And also everyone (especially those who lived through it) is carrying the trauma of the war and the fraught escape from their home country. So yeah, and it was good. Oh, I almost forgot that it had a short before it called No More Sad Songs that was pretty good. Okay. And that ends this year's Indie Memphis experience. Now back to work.