Before the Fall (Tres Dias)— A meteor is hurtling towards earth and life as we know it will end in 3 days. As society crumbles around him, Ale (Víctor Clavijo), who has spent his life as an all-around loser, surrenders to the imminent death of mankind with sour passivity. It’s a spent premise, yes, but director Javier Gutierrez is obviously trying to push his film as a clever coil in the apocalyptic-thriller genre. There is definite potential here with a David Lean-esque desert sandscape (Andalusia, Spain) and a classic anti-hero that is forced, against his every inclination, to fight for the ultimate lost cause: life. The real threat is not the impending meteor crash, but rather a bloodthirsty serial killer who has some unfinished business with Ale’s family and Ale responds by going to the extreme to protect the people that only now he realizes that he loves, climaxing in a showdown à la Cape Fear just moments before the earth incinerates. Ale is thus redeemed for a life ill-lived, if only for a moment, leaving us with the question: was it worth it? It is Gutierrez’s ‘twist’ on the genre, but it is also the film’s own worst enemy as it is bogged down by contrived Filmmaking 101 clichés. Clavijo’s performance is fiercely demanding and, while it’s nice to have an end-of-the-world disaster flick without the big-budget special effects, Gutierrez’s grim realism is spoiled by editing room gimmicks and the sort of predictability we rather hoped to be spared. — (Before the Fall screens Nov. 2, 1:30 p.m.; Nov. 5, 7:00 p.m.)
Gogol Bordello Non Stop— Directed by Margarita Jimeno, this international Documentary competition offering profiles Gogol Bordello, the New York based ‘Gypsy punk’ band whose frenetic brand of in-your-face extreme exhibitionism has been shock-and-aweing the East Coast underground scene for nearly a decade. Gypsy/punk fusion may sound like strange bedfellows, but after all, ‘It’s all music,’ say the band who are comprised of a sweeping mix of ethnicities, corely comprised of immigrants from Eastern Europe (hence songs like ‘Immigrant Punk’) with the cheeky odd Yank, African and Chinese-Scot thrown in besides. Their welcome-to-hell explosion of bipolarized multi-cultural music smacks of everything from Johnny Rotten to Bela Bartok to Cirque du Soleil, and their motto of think locally, fuck globally sums up the mass appeal that makes everyone from Manu Chao to Madonna want a piece of the action. (We’ll forgive them for the latter.) As a refugee from Soviet Russia, the band’s founder and front man Eugene Hutz’s onstage ravings have an undeniable resonance that generates what he calls an ‘alarming energy’ amongst Gogol’s minions. Jimeno does her best to capture the insanity as well as the essence of this acutely inventive ensemble her use of deep color and quick cuts, but in watching it one does rather get the feeling that with Gogol Bordello, well, ‘you had to be there.’ Recommended (Gogol Bordello screens Nov. 1, 7:10 p.m.; Nov. 5, 12:30 p.m.)
Last night marked the first of the 11-day 2008 AFI fest here in Hollywood. I’m a wishful would-be writer with a highly undeserved AFI press pass who watched last night’s red carpet gala from out of my foggy bus window (the disagreeable No. 217) while Nouvelle Vague’s ‘Making Plans For Nigel’ wistfully whispered through my earphones. LA traffic, vile on its best days, was at a complete standstill on that three block stretch past the Arclight’s Cinerama Dome where blazing flood lids blinded drivers and fans alike. And I smiled–me– sitting next to my overgrown fellow metro companion with the grinding teeth and rather offensive body odor, thinking how exceptionally comedic life is. This week I’ll be sipping wine with these pearly-white specimens, even though I’m nothing myself, but it won’t matter: because here we are all in the same boat.
Here, we are all willing and wanting concubines of that flickering celluloid darkness …
… for the next 11 days this blog will be my home … sometimes sober, mostly not, but my haven nonetheless … so do me a favor, won’t you? Take everything I say with the saltiest grain.
For who am I … who are any of us, really … whether a misty-eyed outsider on a smelly LA bus or a manicured beauty under a paparazzi flash …
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