AIFF - Streetsweeper by Neil Mansfield

I'd been hearing contradictory messages about Streetsweeper - some loved it and others thought there was nothing there. Quite literally, one friend said, "There's no there, there." So I went into the theater Saturday night prepared to be let down. But also prepared for something very different from a typical Hollywood movie. And I walked out pleased with the movie and with it's being selected as the best feature of the festival.

So, why would someone like it and others hate it? I propose that it depends on someone's idea of a movie. From a traditional movie perspective, we would take it very literally and say:

• It's about a crazy homeless man with a streetsweeper cart who acts out his mental problems by sweeping the stripes in the crosswalks, polishing traffic signs, and lugging his cart up and down stairs, and reading the scraps of paper he picks up.
  

This appears to be how Peter Porco at the ADN saw the movie:

Once we get the general idea that the homeless man is in his own world, reciting to himself bits of poetry, lines scrawled on notes he finds in the street, memories from a wretched childhood; once we fall into the easy rhythm of Keith pushing his broom cart through the margins and empty corners of the tidy, humdrum city, it isn’t long before we’re bored.

(I would note here that Porco wants to speak for everyone, replacing his first person perspective and claiming to represent all of us with the use of "we" throughout. He doesn't represent me or most of the people at the Bear Tooth Saturday night who stayed for the whole movie and the Q&A afterward.)

So if we don't look at this as a typical Hollywood movie with a plot line, how else can we look at it? There are several overlapping ways to watch the movie that brought me a great deal of satisfaction.

• Streetsweeper can be seen as a visual concert. Just as the symphony is sounds without verbal content, this was a series of visual images (with the added sense of sound). In his visual composition, Mansfield challenges us to look at things so ordinary that they have become invisible. We normally walk [drive] past them without seeing them - the patterns of railroad tracks, of cracks in the street, of the all angles and curves of urban settings, but he shows us the beauty that is all around us that we don't see. If it were a series of spectacular shots in brilliant color, this wouldn't work. Instead he takes the totally mundane and asks us to reconsider what we usually pass right by. The streetsweeper is a device as significant as, say, giving a piece of music a title like, "Pictures at an Exhibition" or "The Flight of the Bumblebee." It gives us a reason to be looking at these images, but there is no exhibition, there is no bumblebee, just notes. Probably there is no streetsweeper either, it's just an excuse to wander around Newcastle and look at it with fresh eyes.

• Another way to think about the movie is as visit to a gallery where we look at photos of urban landscapes. But these are more than photos; they move too. And there's sound. Just as someone could easily lose herself for an hour or two looking at pictures (at an exhibition?) that don't have a story line or even content, she could just sit back and enjoy the visual stimulation and soothing of Streetsweeper, and even relive the excitement of seeing the beauty of the patterns of lines made by railroad tracks that most of us haven't seen since we were first exploring the world as little children. When everything was new and didn't have names and contexts and we could just enjoy how the images tickled our eyeballs.

• One could also think about this as a walking tour through Newcastle, Australia. Wandering this way and that, past signs, up steps, down steps, by the river, crossing streets, past trees, just wandering without a clear plan, to get a feel for the place. I think this alone wouldn't carry the average viewer without the more generalized rediscovering of the invisible beauty experiences mentioned above. But I thought about how this would be an interesting way to explore Anchorage as I was watching, and even toyed with the idea of going off to some unknown city, getting a cleaning cart and broom, and exploring, say, Buenos Aires or Barcelona or Budapest, by sweeping and cleaning my way through town.

I found the movie allowed me to relax. If I skipped a few images, it didn't matter. I wouldn't miss some important clue in the plot, I wouldn't miss someone's head being blown off. I didn't have to listen carefully to every word. First, there weren't that many. Second, they didn't really matter. And the pretext of the street cleaner evaporated as his stops to clean zebra stripes became less frequent and precise, as time between his dusting off a street sign became longer and longer and he just pushed his cart along, and as the broom eventually disappeared altogether. Like at a concert, my mind could drift, could think of other things, and then come back to enjoy new images and sounds. I even slid, a few times, into some unconscious interactions with the streets of Newcastle and then rejoined the journey taking place on the screen.

But if you were headed to the theater expecting Brad or Meryl in some dialogue heavy Hollywood formula of character development with plot with dialogue, and didn't know how to 'see' this movie, it would be easy to be bored. I think of a perception game I've used with students. I show them several series of numbers and ask them to give me the next number. The first few series are figured out by looking at the mathematical relationships between the numbers. Say, add 2 to the previous number. Or multiply the first number by the second number to get the next number. But then I ask for the next number in this series:

2, 3, 5, 6...

I get all sorts of responses and mathematical justifications. But the next number is 8, because it is the next number with curves.

Then I give them

16 5 18 3 5 16 20 9 15 ...

This drives them crazy. The next number is 14. These are the numeric equivalents of the letters that spell the word perception.

Just like we first are looking for mathematical patterns and then can't see the visual patterns, or the symbolic use of numbers for letters, I think people go into movies looking for what we are programmed to see, and cannot easily switch to see a movie using a different way of organizing images and sounds.

I enjoyed Streetsweeper because its film used a different model than the standard we normally see, a model which focused on the visual images, which, for the person willing or able to see differently, gave a chance to see the beauty in everyday things. It showed us the poetry in words on lost or tossed pieces of paper. It isn't for everyone, particularly for those going to see blood and body parts, or just to have one's rational brain cells stimulated. This is a very non-verbal movie. And since this isn't part of our tradition, it's the kind of movie that doesn't have good commercial prospects. But it pushes us to see differently and is precisely the kind of movie that Film Festivals should be about.


Somewhere on my disk are some visuals to help illustrate this, but I'm not sure they are necessary. We'll see. If I have time, I may add them later. Thanks Neil for a great show.

[Update: Sunday night - Here's Neil answering questions after the showing Saturday night.]
[Update: Monday night - I've been having trouble viewing the videos I've posted since yesterday. I'm on a Mac using Firefox. I switched to Safari and it was fine. If others are having problems seeing the video, try changing to another browser. Also let me know if there are problems and what system (pc, mac, linux) and browser you're using. Thanks.]

AIFF - Awards

It's Sunday morning, the next films start in about 11 hours. The Awards Ceremony at Middle Way Cafe waited for the crowd at Streetsweeper to get over there before things were announced. We already knew that Streetsweeper got best feature and Last Days of Shishmaref got best feature documentary. But I didn't know the others.


So here are the winners:
Best Short Documentary: Leave Her To Die
Best Super Short: Spider
Best Short: Open Your Eyes
Best Animated: Distraxion There's a short clip at the link, definitely worth it to get a sense of this delicious animated film.
Audience Awards were given for
Best Feature: Coyote
Best Feature Documentary: The Wrecking Crew

[Update: The official list, with runners up, plus the Snowdance (Alaska related films) winners are up at the link.]
Wrecking Crew will be shown Sunday at 5:30pm at the Bear Tooth
Coyote will be shown Sunday at 8:00 at the Bear Tooth

I really didn't see much in the way of short documentaries, but I wanted to see Leave Her to Die simply because it takes place in Thailand, and we're headed back in January for three months.

Best Feature: I finally saw Streetsweeper tonight. I was getting mixed reviews from people. I enjoyed it thoroughly. But it is easy to understand why some might not like it. I heard from one person whose taste I respect: "There's no there, there." So I was prepared to be sorely disappointed. But the was the there, just not the one he was looking for. But this deserves its own post. Later.

Best Documentary: I've already commented on Shismaref and posted over ten minutes of director Jan Louter at Saturday's workshop. Good Alaska movie.


Best Short Short: Spider Everything about this is well made. Including the surprises. But aside from being technically well made, does it have any deep lasting meaning? I think I ended up seeing it about four or five times because it kept popping up in places I didn't expect it. In this category, the one I instantly bonded to was: No Regrets. The music, the humor, the whole thing just worked for me.

Best Short Documentary: Leave Her To Die. I've got nothing to say about this category because somehow I didn't get to see any of these.

Best Animation: Distraxion. I loved this film. Kenny G is one of my pet peeves, and so I could totally relate to the poor put upon employee who was hounded by his boss' taste in music. And while I'm not a heavy metal fan either, I thoroughly love his getting revenge through Yngwie Malmsteen. When Mike puts this online, I'll put it up. This one did everything right. But there were just so many imaginative, creative animations. Definitely the most competitive category. Jeff Chiba Stearns' Yellow Sticky Notes was also great, and totally different. And his workshop today was outstanding. I've got lots of video of that coming eventually.

AIFF - Jan Louter Workshop

I liked "The Last Days of Shismaref" very much. The photography was stunning. The last scene - the all white screen and then two people walk off into the distance was a piece of visual art all in itself. The scenes with the families were real. I haven't been to Shishmaref, but I've spent a few days in Wales. Clearly Jan had gained the trust of the people in the film - not an easy thing to do. The Alaska Native villagers I've met are very open, trusting, and sharing. They have often given to Outsiders who didn't understand that giving was a two way process.

And I've written here in the past about the problems of Outside journalists trying to tell the stories of Alaskan Native villagers. So I had a lot of questions. I had a sense from the film what the answers would be, but I wanted to hear it from Louten himself. I was concerned when he said after the showing last week, that when he first read about Shishmaref, he knew there was a story there. And that Shishmaref was a metaphor for global warming.

The idea of him having "the story" before going to Shishmaref leaves the door open for him to use Shishmaref and its people to tell Jan Louten's story and not Shishmaref's story. To a certain extent, when he began today to say that he scripts his documentaries very carefully before he shoots, that concern wasn't mollified. But overall, what he said and the film itself, suggests to me that he did listen carefully to the people of Shishmaref. He said he took the film to Shishmaref and showed it to the people and told them if there was anything that they felt should be out, he would listen to their arguments. That they had nothing they wanted cut was reassuring.

He talked today about making documentaries almost like making a fictional feature - he does lots of research and then scripts it all carefully. He gave an example of a film he did on American writer, John Fante. He didn't want talking heads, so he had a person he was interviewing drive the car while he talked. This way he could get Los Angeles into the film. And they drove to the cemetary where Fante was buried. This way he could let the audience know Fante was dead without actually saying it. He simply showed the grave stone.

Here are some unedited clips from today's workshop. The film will be shown again tomorrow (Sunday) evening at the Bear Tooth at 5:30, for people who have not seen it.

AIFF - Yellow Sticky Notes Maker Jeff Chiba Stearns

I got to talk to Jeff last night at the museum, just before his video Yellow Sticky Notes was played at the Museum. But we spoke about a previous film - What Are You Anyway? - which is about his growing up half-white (and half-Japanese) in Kelowna, British Columbia. Since I'm on the steering committee of Healing Racism in Anchorage, I found the video a great tool for using in workshops looking at racism. Though I had a question about a part near the end where Jeff says his new girlfriend's behavior showed him that if he was proud of his heritage, the disturbing words and questions wouldn't bother him. I agree that is a good strategy if you are subject to prejudice, but in a training session with people of the dominant ethnicity, you need to discuss that this doesn't mean that the victim should be blamed. This perception on Jeff's part is good in unintended insults based on ignorance, but doesn't address the structural basis for discrimination built into society that causes people to have negative or just inaccurate preconceptions about people of different ethnicities.

You can see "What Are You Anyway" at the link. Trust me, it is well worth it - funny and informative.

Jeff explained that he made the movie as an expression of his own experiences and was suddenly called on to talk about the issues of people of mixed heritage by schools and universities, and that he's learned a lot about the subject. Anyway that's the context for the bit of video I got of our discussion.



Jeff will give the filmmaker workshop

TODAY (Saturday, Dec. 13) at OUT NORTH at 3pm








Here's a link to another YouTube of Jeff talking about making Yellow Sticky Notes.

AIFF - Martini Matinee, The Video

Here are a few clips (unedited so I could get it up quickly) from the afternoon session at the Mixed Grill in the Inlet Tower. People were all having a good time. I'm still having intermittent trouble downloading the video from iMovie to .mov, but if I do it at lower quality, it works. So the quality is even bad by my already shaky standards. But you can get a little sense of how it went.

AIFF - Friday

It's 10:18pm at the Bear Tooth for the 10:10 showing which is going to be way late. The line was long. We got in late.

Started the day's movies at the Mixed Grill where they had the "Martini Matinee". That too was jammed and we saw great animation. They also introduced some of the film makers there and announced that Last Days of Shishmaref won the best documentary. We'd already heard that Streetsweeper won the best feature. Though I'm hearing from some people that they were disappointed. I'll get to judge tomorrow night.

Then to the Museum, with a stop at the PAC to get tickets for Fiddler on the Roof Sunday afternoon. It's the last performance, it's in the middle of the film festival, but I want to see what Christian Heppinstall has done with it. At the museum we saw Rachel: A Perfect Life. It was good, if you like watching brain surgery. Well there was brain surgery, but it was good, despite that. But this is a rush post before the late shorts/animation begins. Then we saw one of my favorite films of the week - The Wrecking Crew. When I first saw it in the schedule I figured it had to be good if just for the music. The Wrecking Crew was the backup band for most of the big hits in the late 60s pop music in California. It turned out to be an interesting movie that filled in a lot of gaps - these guys and one woman - played in literally every big hit. It was sort of like a public television fundraiser oldies show, but much, much better.

Also got to talk to Jeff Chiba Stearns. I'll add some video later.

First Annual 30 Second (More or Less) Film Festival - Part 1

While the Anchorage International Film Festival has been going on, in Mariana Gonzales' Art 257 class - Computer Art and Design - we had our own mini festival. Actually, it was our last assignment. And Wednesday we saw everyone's videos - many of which included animation. So, for the next couple of days, I'm going to post a couple of the class videos. These are from art students (except mine) most of whom had not done animation or video before. I was impressed with the variety of things people did, though it seems for my fellow students, the music video is a pretty strong influence.







More tomorrow. Mine's not in this bunch.

AIFF - Sky in December Discussion

I guest lectured at a class at Wayland Baptist University this evening, so I missed the 5:30 films and barely got to the Fireweed to see Sky in December. The students seemed bright and I'm sorry I had to rush off. I don't have the energy, nor am I ready, to write about the film now. Suffice it to say, I'm glad I went. The black and white look was jarring in a new movie, but the characters were engaging, and a slow (by US standards) moving pace was a nice change. Peter Porco, writing for the Anchorage Daily News, does a good job of giving the basics of Sky in December.

After the movie I got a little of a discussion among three people with somewhat differing ideas about the film.

AIFF - Annetta Marion talks about short films

Monday night I met Annetta Marion and she did a brief video pitch for Donut Heaven. The next day I got to see Donut Heaven and briefly discussed it in a post that also talked about short films and why people do them. So last night after Dream Boy I ran into Annetta again. I'd also written that I wished I'd seen her after I saw Donut Heaven so I could ask her about whether the main character wore a fat suit at the beginning (she more delicately called it a prosthetic). So, yes, she did. And it was heavy and hot in Florida in July. When they took it off, water gushed out.

But she also answered some of my questions about why people make shorts. Here's a snippet of our conversation.



Donut Heaven plays again Saturday, December 13 at 8:00 PM - Anchorage Museum as part of Subjective Subtleties.

AIFF - How To Be and Dream Boy

How to Be didn't work for me. I'm sure there are people like the main character whose father doesn't pay attention to him and whose mother is constantly saying things like, "There was always something odd about you." The kid is trying hard to overcome this, but he's whiny, kicks things a lot, and just doesn't fit in anywhere.

Lots of people have made good movies about people like that. And the story line - the kid finds a book called "It's not your fault" and invites the author to move into the house and observe the family as part of his therapy - is original. But the film just didn't come together for me. There has to be (for me) some reason to sit and watch this basically decent, but thoroughly childish, character rant for an hour. That reason never came. I didn't get any real insight into what was wrong with him or what sorts of things might help. The self-help author was - in my mind - a total quack.

If this had been a documentary, documenting someone's psychological issues it might have worked. If we got some insight into something (more than the mother saying the boy reminded her of her obnoxious older brother) it might have worked. And I don't mind a plotless movie either, except then the parts have to be worth watching and these, for me, just weren't. There was scene after scene - the skateboard park, some of the bar scenes - where I have no idea what those scenes added to the movie.

But then we saw Dream Boy. This was a beautifully made film, lush as its Louisiana setting, about young gay love - sweet and genuine - in a hostile environment. I was immediately sucked into the story. At first I wondered if this could be told just with film. It seemed there was so much inside Nathan's head that we needed to know for this to work. But somehow the story was all revealed - only a bit through few flashbacks. [Dream Boy picture link -pictures rotate.]And James Bolton, whom I got very briefly on video the other night, answered questions after the movie. Some questions he addresses:
How has the film been received in Europe?
How could the 17 year old drive the school bus?
How'd you get Rickie Lee Jones in the movie?
Was the cast preselected, or did you open it up, or?
Were the lead actors gay?

Viddler was down, so I've uploaded this one on YouTube.





This YouTube clip I found has a couple of scenes from the movie.