..Leonard Klady
..David Poland
..Ray Pride
..Patricia Vidal

In interesting balancing act became apparent to me on Saturday night, as I watched the excellent documentary, Neverland: The Rise & fall Of The Symbionese Liberation Army. With the current trend of theatrical release documentaries, this was one of the hot titles coming into the festival. It feels like the right time to reexamine this story. Patty Hearst is alive and well and willing to talk (though the documentary does not include any current footage of Ms. Hearst, who will be doing a Q&A after the film today, Sunday), as are some of the surviving members of the early SLA.

But beyond the sense that we aren't hearing from Hearst or with of the SLA members she was traveling with after the Los Angeles burn out of most of the group, what struck me was that I was watching a PBS doc struggling for a little more creative breathing room. And perhaps this is the great conundrum of the ambitious documentary world of the moment. If PBS and HBO are the primary financiers behind documentaries in this country, will their formatting preferences inhibit the growth of docs as a legitimate distribution opportunity?

I'm not talking about the quality of the filmmaking or the joy of a doc at a festival or in a small (or tiny) theatrical run. The breakout documentaries of the last couple of years seem to be the non-conformists, which are marked by outside financing (often British and/or Japanese) that allow the style to match the substance.

This thought first occurred to me while I was watching my favorite doc at the fest so far, Born Into Brothels. The film has its own idiosyncratic voice but then occasionally dips into slow-mo stutter-cam for some brothel and dancing sequences that look like something right out of the bumpers for Taxicab Confessions. They may have completely been inventions of the filmmakers and their editor, but they read "HBO Late Night" and I hate the idea of a film this smart and emotional getting pigeon-holed like that.

I really want to write about the delight that is Chris Eyre's Edge of America, but I need to get to a movie… more later…

Update - 6:47pm Sundance Time

Edge Of America was the opening night film at Salt Lake City. So, it had to be a well-intended piece of mediocrity, right? Wrong.

Chris Eyre has shown before, with Smoke Signals, that he knows how to mainstream the Native American experience without being coy or heavy handed. But his new film, Edge of America is more than a Native American mainstreaming. It is a classic, corny, fun, joyful piece of pure Americana that recalls Bend It Like Beckham as much as it does Hoosiers or One on One or Rocky.

A big part of what makes Eyre's film work, as with so many films, is casting. His lead, James McDaniel, who you'll remember from "NYPD Blue," is terrific. But the supporting roles are what really blows you away. He has a team of 10 girls, 6 or so have significant speaking roles. And as the film progresses, you know these girls and their individual stories without Eyre ever having to lay on the repetition. And you really care about them all.

It's all there… the black man who is seen as just another white man, the spiritual grandmother who doesn't understand, the friendly sidekick coach who has to keep the coach from losing perspective, the pregnancy, the juvenile delinquent genius, the angry white man… but somehow it is undeniably charming, emotional and in the end, joyous.

I'm told that there are some complications in distributing a film that is made by and for Showtime that make it less financially attractive, but that's a real shame. I still have some of the hotter titles to see. But this is a feel good movie that really reaches beyond its racial core. Of course, people have failed with movies like this before, selling them as ethnic films. What was great about Beckham and even the docs that have found some box office success is that they prove that you can reach beyond. It takes a special and unique effort and insight, but it can happen. And I hope someone finds a way to make it happen for Edge of America.

Lions Gate picked up Open Water after seeing the film on Friday and then making a preemptive bid on Saturday, working all night to get the deal on paper before the press screening of the movie on Sunday afternoon. As it turns out, the film is the best of the small festival pick-ups the studio has made and gotten behind in recent years.

It's not going to be an easy sell. It is a quiet, smart, romantic thriller that doesn't have the magic tricks that CG has brought to all nature-based films in recent years. But it has a good heart and a strong, simple story that most people will connect to. It's almost the same thing as Jaws not having a working shark during production, forcing Spielberg to rely a bit more on suspense over raw visceral thrills.

I don't want to tell you much about this movie and I hope you will avoid much outside input before you see the film when Lions Gate releases the film this summer. Like Edge of America, you kind of know the territory well enough to figure much of it out, but not… things are different than you expect, even of they are not revelations.

One of the outstanding things about the film… and it is a weird thing to be pointing out, so bear with me… but there is frontal nudity by both leads, male & female, in this low-budget film, which is something you almost never see. It's not that the nudity here makes the movie better. Truth be told, it's a little irrelevant. But it is truthful. Lovers who go on vacation sleep together in the nude. People most often do not have sex while the woman wears a tank-top or bra. But that is one of those indie things that tends to take you out of a film, reminding you of the negotiations that go into actresses exposing themselves that way. The Bertolucci is still coming up, but that's Bertolucci. Likewise, Margueritte Moreau's willingness to tell and show the naked truth of her character in Easy, without building a career and then exposing herself for a big payday, is one of the reliefs of that film. Ms. Moreau is cute and sexy and all that, but it is not ogling that makes the choice so attractive. It's that the straight-forwardness that relaxes the audience into the suspension of disbelief that almost every movie is trying to achieve.

Day Three
Day Two
Day One

 

- by David Poland