Reel Girly

A diligent effort in indie improv filmmaking, Alejandro Adams’ Around the Bay intelligently plays at the disintegration of family in the face of struggling business in the Silicon Valley.

Disaffect and self-absorption play a central role in this story about a wayward Los Gatos family. Daisy (very well played by Katherine Celio) lives in an unnamed town, works at a grocery store, and casually missed fall’s college enrollment deadline. Fortunately (or unfortunately) her errant father, Wyatt (glassily portrayed by Steve Voldseth) whom she hasn’t seen for the last decade, has just lost his girlfriend and his presumably high paying Silicon Valley job in the same week. Ill equipped to care for his nearly unbearable and yet empathy inspiring son Noah (also well played by Connor Maselli) he invites daughter Daisy to give Noah his ‘three meals a day’. She concedes and comes to stay in his guest house, beautifully attired and poetically divorced from the hollow, family nest. Wyatt contends that five-year-old Noah is self-governing and “knows himself,” a view that accounts for Noah’s aggression and unwillingness to befriend kindly Daisy.  

Like a lot of improvised dialogue, the conversations take on an inchoate air of meaninglessness, saying much and saying nothing at the same time. This paired with Adams’ repeated use of Steven Soderbergh style (or should I say “Lindsay Anderson” style?) non-sync sound gives the characters and their messy attempts at communication a feeling that everyone is at sea with no anchors in sight. Adding further to weightlessness and the volatility is Adam’s metaphorical use of water. Noah swims, Daisy reads by the pool, Wyatt spends endless moments in the overly attired shower. Captured largely in mediums and close-ups one even senses a dreadful sort of floating when Daisy takes the train with Noah to unknown destinations, or when Wyatt’s traveling in his car towards but another ill fated meeting with investors. 

 Performances are consistent and dialogue, though sometimes a bit thin, is really intelligent. Voldseth’s Wyatt is a perfect shell of a man. Trying little he seems to have made his fame skirting reality and Daisy, who turned out well (raised by her mother), is the only person willing to call him on his disingenuiness. Though his last moments are ones of remorse, one can’t feel as though his justice is one he’ll really aim to grow from – and cued by Celio’s response to him, it’s pretty clear that whether or not he mends his ways, the damage is pretty well done. 

Alejandro Adam’s Around the Bay will be doing fest runs shortly beginning with CineQuest ] in March and he’ll be appearing on SF360 Movie Scene, with Rod from the Film Society and the ever-glamorous Cheryl Eddy of the SF Bay Guardian.

Even before I saw his doc, The Ghosts of Cité Soleil at SFIFF50, Asger Leth appeared to be something of a bad boy – but you know, in that European fashion that doesn’t require motorcycles or overt cliché. He had a way about him that was both genteel and determined and how he handled the controversy brought to light by his film was nothing short of impressive. Americans, it seems, have found copious causes for offense at Leth’s doc about the Pro-Aristide gangs in Cité Soleil, Haiti, as the conflicts depicted by the film naturally implicate the actions of the global community (the US in particular) to condone or even support the tragedies in the towns. The audiences voiced their irritation in many (not so friendly) ways after the film’s Fest screening but Leth was stalwart about his cause. I hazard a guess that the US is not done saying things about Ghosts and to their aid, I wanted to post this interview with Leth. Hope it’s valuable.

How did you infiltrate the Chimeres?
That was quite easy. It was a matter of timing and then Lele, this French woman who is part of my film, was like the only white person going in and out of the slum. She was totally fearless. She’d been going in and out for months and had complete access to these gang leaders. And they loved her. All of them. And then when this civil war started, these guys were up against the wall. They were working for Aristide, knowing that he was probably going to leave them, and there would be a price to pay and they were probably going to die. I think it’s a drive they had – they wanted to tell their story. No one wants to disappear when they’re 22 years old, you want to make sure somebody tells your story, so once I got access through Lele, it was unstoppable.

How did you hear about Lele?
I heard about her through another friend, a woman who I know in Haiti. A Frenchman meets another Frenchman…you know. So I heard about Lele through her and that she was in there with a Serbian guy, Milos Loncarevic and he was just hanging out taking still photos. He’s a young guy, just 24 at the time, and he also knew these gang leaders.

Tell me about camera for this film. The people of Cité Soleil were yelling “it’s war” and your cameraperson was fearless!
We were only three people shooting this film: Me, Milos – the Serbian guy, I gave him a camera - and another Danish guy, Frederick Jacobi. It was the three of us and we decided to do it and we were there and there was no way out. Milos really filmed a lot of the extreme stuff. He grew up during the war in Serbia and he’s not fazed by anything. Of course we tried to avoid the heaviest stuff as much as possible – so we’d drive out, and all the sudden we’re in the middle of a checkpoint with guns pointed at you –it’s not like we would drive up to danger to film it, we would go outside and stuff would happen and we’d let the cameras roll. And anyway, we couldn’t leave. The planes stopped flying. The planes take off right over Cité Soleil, and the gangs threatened to shoot down the American Airlines planes so they stopped flying so there was no way out for a long time.

Lele gave you an entry point but when did you decide to begin filming?
I started shooting even before [I met] Lele because I was banking on her help. I was paying close attention to Haitian politics. I know it very well. It’s like a broken record. Every time a rebellion starts up in the city of Gonaive it always ends up with a dictator, or the President, or whoever is involved with the country at the time, being forced to leave, and always in February. Also, the Haitians know this so it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I knew about the Chimeres and I knew that was where the story had to be and the rebellion more or less began with a rebel Chimere gang that broke off from Aristide and I thought, “Wow, this is going to be interesting.” Very quickly I had to run around borrowing equipment and I had to get free or close to free film stock. I didn’t have any money: I didn’t have a company at the time so I was financing the film myself with loans and credit cards and I really wanted to tell this story. I didn’t really care what happened. I just got all the gear and started shooting.

It sounds almost like you were inspired by the risk.
You could say that. Also I’d just gotten divorced and I was like “fuck it.”

Was the issue of context ever something you felt burdened by? I know when documentaries are portraying historical or political subject matter or events, I often hear documentarians expressing they felt a burden to contextualize the events.
I believe that’s a mistake. If you’re doing a political film, that’s only political and it’s got nothing but talking heads, sitting and debating issues, you really have to maintain a balance and there’s all kinds of rules you have to apply to but that’s more in the area of journalism. My film isn’t journalistic; it’s a personal drama about two brothers who are gang leaders in the world’s most impoverished slum, in a horrible place. It’s really a personal film. The political side is really just framework. I also think it’s a major mistake to think that when you want to tell a story that you have to tell a complete story because you can’t actually do that. You’d have to make an 18-hour film. You have to choose your angle and what side of life you’re portraying. And hopefully other documentarians will make other sides to that story and altogether, all these films and all this information will give you an image that, in it’s togetherness, is complex and comprehensive and you’ll be able to form your own opinions. A lot of these political films try to convince some people about something they’re already convinced about.

When Nicholas Rossier made Aristide and the Endless Revolution he had access to Aristide but well after Aristide was out of danger. You’re very much in the thick of it. I wanted to know if you’ve experienced much of the controversy that would arise from showing this point of view of the drama? The audience I saw the film with was quite vocal about their views.
Of course! You know there’s a political disconnect in the sense that when Aristide came to power he was a man of the people. He was an ex-catholic priest who had been excommunicated because he was such a man of the people. He was such a hope for Haiti and many people thought that and became supporters of his. Myself included: I really believed in the guy. Over here, you get a media image of Haiti when it’s in the spotlight and then it disappears and people forget about Haiti and then when it comes back in the spotlight you see it again. I think there are many people here in the states that came to be very strong Aristide supporters and they didn’t hear about Haiti in all these years, and they didn’t follow the slide to see what happened to him. So all the sudden he’s in the spotlight again and then they still remember him from ten years before: this man of the people. But they don’t realize he stopped being that in many senses. Still he was a man of the people in many ways. The slums still loved him. But he also became something else. He became powerful and power corrupts…even Aristide. So, a lot of people over here don’t understand that [transformation] and they’re shocked to see it and I’m showing it. I’m not really even trying to prove a point. For me it’s common knowledge and I’ve known about it for years. I’m not even trying to prove anything and it’s not a political film in that sense but it can become a political film to those who are shocked by it. It’s also sometimes shocking to those who didn’t know, when I show the connection between the Chimere and Aristide. So that can be shocking and as you said, to a lot of people, who hear you mention Bush in the context of all this stuff that happened and landed Aristide in South Africa. I don’t know how to say this [long pause] I hate Bush as much as anybody else and the [his] Administration might have been involved – in many ways – but not involved in the ways people think. A lot of people think Aristide was kidnapped and I know for a fact that isn’t true. These guys that I’m filming were the guys guarding Aristide nightly, on top of the American bodyguards, but the Chimeres I filmed were in Aristide’s house every night of his last two weeks, including the night he left. I know he wasn’t kidnapped but I also am pretty sure that the US Administration helped the rebels perpetrate the idea – this idea there were thousands of them that weren’t true. They helped facilitate a state of mind that made it clear Aristide had to leave. You could twist that any way you want and maybe the Administration did help the rebels in all sort of ways – we don’t know – but it’s possible

The levels of involvement are so specific and there are so many gaps in our information.
There are so many ways to facilitate a change in government. Lots of ways, it doesn’t have to be “we’re going to pick you up.” These rebels who came from the North, they were really strategically clever. They would take one town with just 50 people, then leave [that] town and go to the other end of the county to take another town, so it seemed like they were all over the fucking place and that’s very clever. So if they wanted to show Aristide they were “on their way” they did it the right way. In that sense, I can imagine the US government could help [the rebels] by not helping Aristide understand that this was not the case.

Canadian director Andrew Currie had a great chat with me when his film opened SF Indie Fest back in February. Always kindly his tongue was firmly planted in his cheek. His film Fido – an unparalleled crossbreeding of Romero, Lassie, Lynch and Sirk, Fido is a bracing commentary as subversive as it’s methods and the film is a candy colored cocktail party from beginning to end. Fido’s website is a great place to start nosing about and I particularly encourage visiting the ZomCom site. The interview below might also entice. Andrew sure was a sweetie.

Fido is the story of a boy and his zombie slave. The story takes place in a post-Zombie-War North American Town of Willard and tracks the story of a family after they’ve acquired their own zombie servant. Your film was made in Canada but where in the world does the story take place?
I think people will assume its somewhere in North America. What I wanted to do was set Fido in a fable like place that didn’t define a location. Regimes spread fear are all over the world and different governments treat their people in different ways so I wanted it to be open to wider interpretation. I didn’t want to say “This is American in 1950.” or “This is Canada 1950.” I played Fido in France, Spain, Canada and they all see it from their own viewpoint and I find that interesting.

Feral and unkempt zombies live in the aptly named “Wild Zones” outside of Willard’s steel gates. These gates and “wild zones” polarize the township and create a strong distinction between civilized and unruly conduct. Tell me how your 1950’s imagery fits into this dichotomy.
I love “feral” – you don’t hear that enough. The whole film is a series of dichotomies and contrasts. And that’s what I wanted. What they did after the zombie wars was put gates up around the towns and just started killing off the zombies. Then they found a way to control them. So they kept the fences up and took the ones that weren’t completely mangled, put control collars on them and put them to work, creating this sort of slave class of zombies. So Fido contains obvious references to xenophobia and ‘the other.’ The situation creates an over dichotomy through that. Aesthetically, I love the juxtaposition of the idyllic world with the zombies and the sudden shocks of violence that can come out of that. I find that really exciting.

What I think is wonderful about a well managed premise is how every question or topic we discuss will in some way address another issue because all the motifs and themes are intertwined in the context of the story.
I really like that you described it as a “well managed premise.” I wrote with two other writers. My company, Anagram pictures spent a painful amount of hours in the story room. It’s nice that someone understands that. We spent so much time on character and theme. The theme of Fido is “love, not fear, makes us more alive.” That’s what we wrote to. If you look to the characters you can see that theme in action. For example, Bill (played by Dylan Baker) the father is absolutely terrified of zombies, but more than that he’s terrified of human emotions and intimacy. His idea of being a great father is to buy his kid a handgun, even though he shouldn’t. The irony is, of course, that this zombie –who is dead – comes into the family and he’s more emotionally alive than Bill. Bill’s journey, in a way, proves the theme.

You had the towns contained by steel gates, the citizens contained by codes of acceptable conduct, (my favorite detail) legions of “untrustworthy” old people contained in re-appropriated prisons. There were a lot of ways you could have dealt with the universal zombie issue. I was wondering why containment made the most sense for this story?
It’s a good question and I have a good answer. It comes from the idea of personal rights and freedoms. The first draft of the script was written in 1994 and then shelved. In 1996 I took it to the Canadian Film Center, which is Norman Jewison’s Film School in Toronto. I reworked it and then – this is the boring part – a company optioned it and we didn’t get along creatively. They left and then 911 happened. I was traveling and the fear in Canada was palpable…it was probably even greater in the States. We’re like America’s little brother they don’t even know they have. When America does something we feel it strongly. Canada is a kind of sensitive country like that. There’s a great love for Americans in Canada but there’s also this sense that if you do something too outrageous that people will get really upset and it’s like…“Don’t!” So anyway, after 911, there was a sense of containment. Everything was being locked down. Right now Bush is pushing for a 700-mile wall in Northern Mexico to separate Mexico and the US. That is palpable and real. There are gated communities. A lot of the containment is about keeping others out. When you see or think of containment, you have to ask yourself: containing for what purpose? And I’m hoping that Fido gives that sense, especially at the end. A friend told me that Fido is almost a film for promoting alternate lifestyles. It’s meant to be a very liberal film. It’s comedy but it does stick barbs into the notion of Homeland Security and containment and what that does to us. On a subtler lever there is the containment of emotion. Fido falls for Helen (Carrie-Anne Moss) and she recognizes it and maybe she falls in love with him – in a different way. And the Zombies, they have to kill when their collars malfunction but his heart is changed and Fido is kind of evolved as a zombie, I guess, and there’s a moment in the car when Helen asks him, “Why aren’t you killing me?” And he just looks over at her and she knows he’s in love with her and she’s like “this isn’t the time, gotta rescue Timmy.” - so there’s that kind of containment too.

The corporation responsible for securing the borders and homes of Willard is ZomCon. They are ubiquitous and central to the survival of the town. I saw a gentle parallel between the zombies and their owners who have been overtaken by this corporation. Is there any Dawn of the Dead corporate commentary going on here?
The idea was really more modern. Corporate America and the government are starting to blend and, like Haliburton, the lines are starting to blur. This takes it one step further. The corporation has become so powerful that the government just blends into it. In Fido even the bible is branded with a zed. That’s certainly an important element.

Tell me about the issue of trust in Fido. ZomCon markets surveillance as a comfort not a danger and “You can’t trust the elderly” because they could go dead and monstrous at any moment. You’re really confronted with the absence of extended family.
Trust is hard to come by in this world. When Timmy (K’Sun Ray) comes to his mom and she says “Timmy why’s your shirt dirty?” and he says “these bullies pushed me down.” Her response is: “Did anyone see you like that?” She sees he needs some attention so she gives him a half-second hug and then pushes him away. What he wanted in that scene was nurturing but his mom did just the opposite. That’s kind of a seed to the issue of trust. Timmy can’t really trust that his mom is gonna be a good mother or react as she should because this is world where fear has pushed emotion down and forced the issue of trust to the forefront. Trust then becomes earned in this world when genuine love is present. Fido starts to love Timmy and when Timmy can see Fido won’t eat him it begins to look like Fido is the most trustworthy character in the story.

When I see a fecund, ‘50’s era represented I personally can’t help looking for the insurgence or the counterculture. In the last few scenes in the film we see some footage that, well – is it the seeds of Revolution?
It is a reference to what is coming but the strongest seeds come from gender differences. I see this film as dealing a lot with extended family. I feel that xenophobia really should be wiped out. It always exists when the walls are up and when containment is happening. As soon as you break that down, coexistence creates harmony. There’s pain sometimes when groups come together at the start but most problems and most fear comes from not knowing ‘the other.’ In the end, the men in the film are either dead or on a chain and I wanted that. The film begins with a fairly misogynistic view of women and I wanted to have that in there so that there’s a shift at the end. I think that’s a seed. Mr. Theopolis (Tim Blake Nelson) has learned to respect Tammy (Sonja Bennet) as opposed to just using her as a sex toy. I’m not saying he’s highly evolved but he’s a dirt bag with a heart of gold. He does come to awareness about her feelings and he begins to serve her.

You have many references to films in Fido. Lynch’s Blue Velvet, Sirk’s All that Heaven Allows- though I thought of Haynes’ remake Far From Heaven. Tell me about your influences and the ways those influences infiltrated this project.
Watching Fido you can see references but I don’t really go after planting specific references. I made homage to Blue Velvet because I love the film and respect Lynch so much.

And it’s such a relevant parallel.
In terms of Douglas Sirk, I didn’t try to shoot Fido like Sirk shot his films but I’ve always admired the way he has this sort of socio-political level at play that people don’t often notice. All that Heaven Allows is fairly obvious about what is being said but it’s done in an almost gentle way. It very much comes out of the characters. His aesthetic has always struck me as powerful. Sirk influenced me for Fido but I don’t really have any hardcore influences. Charles Laughton’s Night of the Hunter was primary to me. The cadence of the language and how dialogue was written was important too. Far From Heaven includes some “golly gee” kind of language that I didn’t really feel was that prominent back then and so Fido was written in a world like our own but not specifically ours.

A continuation of his 1997 opus Henry Fool, Fay Grim is a similarly off-center ode to love and human potential by indie-auteur Hal Hartley. Now following the story of abandoned wife Fay (brilliantly played by Parker Posey) the film begins in Queens and establishes the barely contained chaos that Henry (Thomas Jay Ryan) left when he abandoned Fay and their son Ned (Liam Aiken) seven years ago. What made Henry enigmatic in his film was the way he balanced failure and charisma. Fay Grim similarly revolves around this sort of inept genius: cultivated by circumstance and survived by surprise. Continuing in this universe where literature is powerful and love is tenuous, Hartley again explores the vastness and absurdity of life.

Fay lives off the royalties from her brother Simon’s (James Urbaniak) poetry. As a result of Simon’s success, Henry and his confessions have become legendary, and Simon’s publisher has interest in buying them. When FBI agent Fulbright tells Fay that not only is Henry dead but he’s a secret agent wanted by every major nation in the world, her disbelief is only temporary. She immediately rises to the occasion and negotiates Simon’s release from prison. For the release, Fay is assigned to retrieve two of Henry’s black and white notebooks from Paris, and from there she finds ways of fooling many agents from the most powerful nations of the world.

One never knows how fair it is to address the implications of a film or a premise. For example, it’s unquestionably poetic to look at the world of Fay Grim as one in which literature has clout, or to see Simon Grim as a prisoner-poet who’s star rises ineffably higher than could ever have been expected from him when he was a socially awkward garbage man. And isn’t that inherent capacity something that inspires audiences? Isn’t that part of why Hal Hartley’s films have culled such a following? When it comes to the work of an auteur (and I think I can use that word here) the meaning that rises from the text seems be a value that vibrates long after the film has ended. Some of us study, some of us live easily, some of us struggle in unfulfilling jobs for the sole purpose of survival, but all of us ultimately believe we’re capable of more. It’s like human inertia or something. We all believe we’ve got something tiny and powerful in us that can alter our fate or the fate of those around us. Maybe that’s soul; maybe that’s longing or desire, but whatever it is, Hartley is interested in it and so is most everyone else.