And speaking of BAM CinemaFEST… I will be blogging on their doc slate for POV in the coming weeks. The other I had the most gratifying opportunity seeing 2 amazing new narrative features back to back from CinemaFEST: Sophia Takal’s “Green” and Michael Tully’s “Septien”. I can’t say enough about either of these films, except to say that both films blew me away. It’s clear that these two directors belong to a new generation of filmmakers that also includes Mike Mills, Miranda July and Azazel Jacobs to name just a few. These filmmakers don’t feel compelled to produce traditional narratives but, at the same time, don’t lose sight of aesthetic or story.
Michael Tully’s “Septien”, a hit at Sundance and part of their Sundance Selects, is about Cornelius Rawlings (Tully looking like a fitter version of an “I’m Still Here”-era Joachim Phoenix) who returns home to his eccentric family’s farm, after having been missing for some 18 years. Ostensibly he kept himself alive by sports hustling. The hustling is something we are privy to in a number of the film’s funnier sequences. Cornelius dons a hooded slicker and yellow goggles and heads into town to make a quick buck off various unsuspecting athletes. Meanwhile, back home on the farm, brothers Amos (Onur Tukel), a painter, and Ezra (Robert Longstreet), an effeminate homemaker deal with plumbing problems and finishing jigsaw puzzles.
“Green” is a deceptively simple story of a young Brooklyn couple, Sebastian and Genevieve (Lawrence Michael Levine & Kate Lyn Sheil) who move to Sebastian’s family country house so he can work on a writing project. Almost immediately they meet a local naif (“Gabi on the Roof” star & “Green” director Sophia Takal) named Robin. Robin ends up adopting the couple out of a dormant intellectual curiosity. There might also be an erotic desire, certainly the sexual tension exists from the start. Sebastian has an arrogant streak while it emerges that Genvieve’s seeming passiveness disguises a darker streak. But it’s the film’s cinematography (Nandan Rao) and sound mix (West Fonger) that eases you into the otherworldly vibe of the film. By the end, you’ll be both utterly pleased and unsettled.
