Secret Fest, American Shopper, Scott Walker: 30 Century Man

Today's Secret Fest film was moderately ok and that's really all i'll say about that. Carl Spence of SIFF let it be known that there are rumors someone has been violating the Oath of Silence on their blog which is not a good thing.

With all the buzz and promo material (buttons, flyers, postcards, etc) going on around American Shopper, you'd think it was a band or something. But no, this is the new method of DIY distribution: street crews. It's a little crazy if you think about how long indie bands have been doing this and only now independent filmmakers are latching on. I've always been a little iffy about bands with excessive amounts of slick promo materials, and usually they've turned out to be fairly sucky, so my inclination was a little in the right direction with American Shopper although I would not call it sucky -- just not exactly my cup of tea. A lot of the buzz surrounding this movie though wasn't exactly regarding the quality of the material itself but the straddling between documentary and mockumentary form that it seems to accomplish.

I really started to feel a very mockumentary vibe going on as the movie began, and almost believed these were really good actors playing very natural roles. I'd imagined maybe a very loose script similar to Curb Your Enthusiasm where the actors are given what to do but not what to say. At the end during the Q&A, some of the major characters came up to the stage and it was very clear by then that these were in fact real people. If the Q&A hadn't happened, I might still be questioning the reality of it.

The movie follows a new up and coming "sport" known as "Aisling" which is the practice of shopping in a grocery aisle while doing funny dance moves or throwing things very gracefully into one's cart. Basically shopping and being goofy about it in a way that is a form of self-expression. In the movie, the leader of the movement puts on an Aisling competition and a bunch of people enter to win a grand prize of $10,000. The point where the documentary angle meets mockumentary is that the original idea was in fact one of the directors', and the organization of the event was assisted by the film crew. So the establishment of the actual event and sport is a setup, then the film then goes into documentary-mode to explore the real lives of many of the contestants, only a handful of whom actually made it into the finals (and thus, in the picture).

While the idea of Aisling is cute and funny and establishes a nice fertile ground for all kinds of crazy antics, I guess I still felt a very mockumentary vibe about this movie in that it wasn't really a real thing (yet) and thus I didn't really care too much about the contestants and felt a bit detached from the whole concept, even though the characters themselves were very real and charming people. The audience seemed to really enjoy this one, but I found myself completely unhumored or finding any of the shopping cart antics particularly inspiring (save for the marshmallow-shooting contestant).

Scott Walker: 30 Century Man delves into the notably reclusive life of Scott Walker who was one-third of the famous group The Walker Brothers, who then went on to create very sporadic albums that moved very strongly in the direction of experimental music. At the Q&A after this documentary, director Stephen Kijak (who did the excellent Cinemania) said this was very much a film about the evolution of a songwriter, rather than specifically geared towards Walker's life or probing to get more information out of him. In fact, the highlight of the piece is an interview and studio session with Walker personally, but these were done after pretty much the majority of the film was already assembled. The movie assembles information about his career path and the evolution of his style as it transformed, and features interviews with various people who were either involved in his professional career or were influenced by his works, including David Bowie whom you can really hear a vocal resemblance to.

The documentary as a whole was very informative, but I have to admit I wasn't particularly interested in the music. There were elements of Walker's experimental style that I really enjoyed, such as the orchestral instrumentation and the use of alternative forms of percussion (e.g., punching a big slab of raw meat, or shuffling a garbage can across a wooden box), but the music as a whole really didn't do much for me, and it really is essentially the centerpiece of the movie. Regardless of that, the documentary as a whole is very well done and provides some great background on the career of a highly influential musician.

Audience Watch: In two different theaters I sat in a row just in front of someone with really bad breath which was somewhat painful to endure. Also, during the Scott Walker documentary there were a number of very noisy walkouts.