Oh man. SXSW. Okay, here we go, get ready, there’s kind of a lot.
SXSW is/was/will always be pretty incredible and pretty weird—the sights, the smells, the sounds—did I mention the smells? Seriously though the concentration of amazing music and movies in one place was absolutely ridiculous. Luckily I managed to see a good handful of the amazingness up close and personal.
The first film I managed to catch (and I literally mean catch, I got in line basically as soon as we arrived and got the second-to-last magic “guaranteed spot in the theater” card) was Harmony Korine’s “Spring Breakers.” Going in I knew very little except a few former Disney princesses (Vanessa Hudgens and Selena Gomez), shall we say, branch out from their previous work, and James Franco was going to absolutely rock some cornrows and sick grillz as a white rapper type character. It sounded goofy, fun and clever.
Instead what I got was a violent, brutal examination of our love of excess and escapism as it gets manifested in spring break, and a Franco that manages to take everything that actually could be intimidating about a Vanilla Ice type, amplifies it 1000x and brings it to the forefront of your viewing experience. He gives a legitimately impressive, occasionally terrifying performance. He even dramatically sings a Britney Spears song from a piano overlooking the ocean. See this when it comes out.
While “Spring Breakers” was a highlight on the narrative side of things, the best documentary by far was “Good Ol’ Freda,” a documentary about the Beatles as told by their long time secretary Freda Kelly.
Maybe it’s just because I have a strong disposition towards anything Beatles related, but watching Freda dig through the boxes in her attic to find old fan letters and memorabilia—watching her tear up... There were emotions all over. And watching her coyly dodge the question of whether she ever went out with any of the Beatles might’ve been the hardest I laughed while I was down there. The entire theater was laughing with me. So yeah, it wasn’t just me, it was an excellent documentary.
Aside from the features, there was a full series of outstanding short films. Among the stand outs were “Boyfriends,” directed by Hugo Vargas-Zesati and “Ellen is Leaving,” directed by Michelle Savill.
While “Ellen is Leaving” won the Grand Jury Best Narrative Short award at the festival, “Boyfriends” had to be my favorite short of the event. “Ellen” is great—it’s a smartly told story about a girl trying to gift her boyfriend to another girl before she leaves the country. It had some great acting and it looked phenomenal, very well directed and featuring a set design to die for (I really, really wanted to go to a party in that apartment).
However, “Boyfriends” was just of another frame of thought. It started as a bizarre dream sequence fantasy fake out, shifted to slapstick to buddy comedy to a weird surrealist humor psychological breakdown moment that was freakishly relatable despite all of the lunacy—all this was within 10 minutes or so. I got to meet the director after the screening and got two pieces of very good news:
First, he’s just a really cool dude with an absolutely jaw-dropping beard and mustache combo. And secondly, he’s currently working on a feature film and has a TV pilot in the works. So definitely keep an eye on Vargas-Zesati because he’s going to be freaking great in the future.
Not to take anything away from Savill, who was also extremely cool and nice post-screening and is also working on a feature. She is already the sort of filmmaker that makes would-be directors like me really jealous.
In fact, this problem is the same problem and the only problem I had with SXSW: there’s just too much awesome going on. Everywhere. I guess it’s an okay problem to deal with.
You can’t see one great movie without missing two others. You can’t walk down the street without getting distracted by the band that’s playing at any one of the possibly infinite number of stages that dot the city. Trying to buy posters to support some of the artists who showed up became a huge production because there were just way too many choices, and they were all as purely rad (yeah, I said rad) as the next one.
So yeah, I guess in summation, if spending a week (or a few days at least) getting overwhelmed by amazing music, seeing countless great films on display, milling through Halloween on State Street level crowds in one of the coolest cities around while eating the cuisine of the south (I ate deep friend pickles. They are real) sounds like something you’d be into, then I highly recommend going to SXSW.
And if not, you can always catch the films I mentioned above, and other great works like “Milo,” “The Scenic Route” and “We Cause Scenes” from the festival and support some of the most talented independent artists in the country. Better yet, do both.
Are you as much of a film lover as Austin? Want to talk to him about his experience with SXSW film? Send any questions or inquiries to wellens@wisc.edu
