Old Hollywood wisdom has it that if you take a wide-eyed child or an adorable pet, success comes almost certain. This statement is backed up by countless studio blockbusters, and apparently, by independents as well. Sundance has always been known for showcasing movies that swim against the current of such studio created rules, yet this year, children and dogs were in abundance in the movies, bringing delight to the audiences and success to the filmmakers. It is striking, however, that nowadays both directors and viewers expect far more from child actors than looking cute on the big screen. A pretty face is no longer enough, unless it is accompanied by versatility and outstanding performing skills. This is primarily because many movies targeting adult audiences use child actors and their ?grown-up’ themes require a more mature approach from children, who would not otherwise, or may not even be permitted to see such movies. Parents carefully protect their children from scenarios that these young actors have to put themselves into relying entirely on their own imagination and the directors’ guidance. Child actors often have to express emotions and feelings they have never experienced and cannot even comprehend. Whether it is pain, suffering or premature sexual desire, these feelings have to be portrayed convincingly, which is indeed a challenge even for more experienced and more mature actors.
This year’s festival was filled with memorable performances, and many of these came from child actors, who solved their tasks with exceptional craft and maturity. Their on screen performances as well as the movies themselves prove that we, adults, often underestimate children, who in fact see this world from a shockingly mature perspective and they can be sharp observers, critical with the grown-ups and sometimes even manipulating. Whether it was a drama, a horror flick, a political satire or even a documentary, children conquered the 2007 Sundance demonstrating that acting is no child’s play, although some of them managed to pull off outstanding performances with such ease as if actually it was.
When it comes to extraordinary talent, a twelve-year old girl seems to have it all. We have seen Dakota Fanning as Tom Cruise’s daughter in War of the Worlds (2005), but she also starred with Robert De Niro in Hide and Seek (2005), and alongside Denzel Washington in Man on Fire (2004), as well as in I am Sam (2001) with Sean Penn and Michelle Pfeiffer, just to mention a few of the most important roles from her already significant filmography. Fanning got an exceptional opportunity from director Deborah Kempmeier to prove her talent in the leading role of this year’s Sundance scandal, Hounddog. In the movie, she plays little Lewellen, who is raised by an alcoholic brute (David Morse) and a cruelly strict grandmother (Piper Laurie). Lewellen’s only hope and dream is to become a famous singer like Elvis Presley so she keeps practicing his songs (hence the title, Hounddog). She is eager to get out of this Godforsaken farm she is doomed the live in. It is not revealed whether this dream of hers comes true or not, because the film does not go that far. In fact, the truth is that it does not really go anywhere. The movie tells the story of hot and eventful summer, somewhere in the South, recalling the atmosphere and the time of the 40’s and 50’s Southern gothic novels by Flannery O’Connor or Carlson McCullers. We have the stock characters of betraying friends, rich and snobbish white folks and kind-hearted blacks, together with the common themes of terror, fear and loneliness, and it is also coloured by Biblical references. (Such as, the often reoccurring motive of snake, as the eternal metaphor for sin and loss of innocence.) Kempmeier’s work is full of promises, most of which, except for a few remain unfulfilled. Among the few exceptions, there is the way she captures the social hierarchy (not only based on skin colour) of the former slave-owner states. The environment Kempmeier creates for Lewellen perfectly underpins the old black farm-worker’s observation ?You ain’t gotta be a nigger, to be treated like a nigger.” Kempmeier’s plot does not always serve the interest of the story and as a result, she mostly outlines the problems and lets them be solved ?deus ex machina’. She wants to tackle too many things, each of them would otherwise be interesting, but unfolds very few of them and even those appear to progress too slowly and elusively. Consequently, the movie becomes almost unbearably boring at places (in spite of its 98 minutes(!) running time), and it is only saved by Fanning’s stunning performance. However, audiences flocked to the screenings (somebody signed up for 350th on the waitlist), to see this ?scandalous movie’ creating so much buzz and controversy. A number of religious groups and child protection organizations protested against Hounddog without even seeing the movie. The protests were mainly fuelled by the scene, in which Lewellen gets raped by the adolescent milkman. Not much is revealed in this scene and the story is clearly not about the rape of a little girl. Rape is unfortunately ?only’ one in the line of painful and humiliating incidents that happen to that poor child. Anyway, Hounddog is again a good example that there is no better publicity for a movie than a juicy scandal and some controversy.
If we want to judge director, Tommy O’Haver’s feature in terms of the use of recent cinematic inventions and stylistic novelties then An American Crime offers not much more than a television drama, yet it is guaranteed to shock and leave a lasting impression in the viewer. O’Haver’s film starts off by grabbing the audience by its throat and the grip becomes only tighter and tighter. So it was a wise and conscious decision from O’Harver to choose a more conservative cinematic approach to the heavy subject matter of An American Crime because the abundance of stylistic elements might have taken away from the harsh reality of the events and might also distance audiences from the raw brutality and thus question the authenticity of the horrifying scenes. O’Haver’s intention was to truthfully and meticulously reconstruct the details of an actual crime, by enacting the facts, revealed by the court files, police evidence and statements from the ones involved. The exceptionally brutal crime shocked America in the mid-sixties, no less than this movie shocked the audience. (Many left the screening in tears, and a young man even fainted.) If the death of an innocent, teenage girl, Silvia (Ellen Page), who was tortured to death by Gertrude Baniszewski (played by superb Catherine Keener) and her children was pure fiction, we could condemn the sick imagination of the writer. Knowing, however, that the events are pictured as they actually happened (thanks to the thorough research preceding the project), we, again, have to realize that life can exceed any creative imagination. The director leaves nothing to the viewers’ imagination and depicts all atrocities and cruelty done to the innocent victim, who, eventually, dies of the tortures. This is probably the reason why the director chose a more traditional cinematic language, making sure that nothing diverts the attention from the shocking truth. Also, this could well be the reason why he placed such major emphasis on the performances. The conservative and retrieved visual style coupled with the nuanced performances make the perfect basis for the retelling of the events, which took place in 1965 in Indiana. Playing Silvia, Canadian Ellen Page, did not only study the horrid crime, but also read recollections of torture victims in order to be able to portray the suffering and the state of mind Silvia might have gone through. (Ellen Page also gave an outstanding performance in Hard Candy, showed at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival.) She exhibits a wide scale of emotions, ranging from the early stage of ?it can’t get any worse than this’ (well, it indeed got much worse) to the unimaginable feeling that ?it can all happen to me’, and also how she holds on to the hope that someone will eventually come and save her. (The director even makes way for such hope for a brief moment right before the tragic end.) Gertrude, who is stricken by illness, poverty and her own hopeless situation, is played brilliantly by Catherine Keener. As she is succumbing to despair and drifting towards madness, Gertrude directs all her negative feelings and frustration against Silvia. She abuses and tortures the girl in such cold-blood that it sends shivers down everybody’s spine. It is obvious that Gertrude is mentally unstable, but even that cannot be an excuse for such cruelty. An American Crime does not only reconstruct the events of 1965, but also calls our attention to domestic violence, which is a current and existing problem and could lead to tragedy.
The eight year old Anna (Nina Kervel) is the young heroine of the witty and entertaining movie by Julie Gavras. In Blame It On Fidel, Anna is the victim of her parents’ political radicalism and opposing views. The little girl’s personal comforts and joys are sacrificed one by one on the altar of the grown-ups political convictions. Anna’s life was perfect when she could practice (and made the other kids practice) eating fruit with fork and knife at her grandparents’ countryside estate. The children were bathed by a nanny, who also prepared their dinner at the mansion and at school Anna could listen to her favorite catechism lecture with full devotion. The idyll, however, did not last long because Anna’s parents got actively involved in politics and began to fight for the ideas of communism, first in Chile and then in France. All this is observed from the bright and whip-smart Anna’s point of view. She is confused and stirred up by the events and does not hesitate to express her discontent. The family moves to smaller and smaller homes and if this was not enough, Anna has to put up with nannies coming from different parts of world and preparing all kinds of strange dishes. She even experiences police attack and teargas at a demonstration but all this is nothing compared to having to give up her favourite catechism lessons. At first, Anna’s life and mind is confused by the old, aristocratic morals of her grandparents and the political idealism of her parents in the stormy political climate of the early seventies but soon she finds out the difference between group solidarity and sheep mentality, and as a result, Anna becomes much wiser than most adults. She learns from her new nannies (coming in all colours of the rainbow) that every nation has its own stories about the beginnings of the world and catechism offers only one of the many explanations. Anna goes through a considerable development by experiencing the clashes of different values and she manages to create a healthy and reasonable balance between her old and new life. She proves to be much wiser than her snobbish grandparents, but does not go to the extremes of her parents’ idealism. The well-written, but occasionally lengthy morality tale, could not work without the engaging performance by Nina Kervel, who with the ever upset expression on her face, and with her questioning attitude and loud outbursts makes the otherwise often uninteresting plot entertaining.
Naturally, it is not always a blessing for the parents and for the family if a child is too mature of his age, especially if this maturity is mixed with cold-blooded manipulation as in George Ratliff’s Joshua. Joshua Cairn (Jacob Kogan) lives in a luxury apartment in New York with his wealthy parents. His father (Sam Rockwell) is a successful stockbroker, while his physically and mentally fragile mother (Vera Farminga) stays at home with their newborn baby girl. Joshua himself feels that with the birth of the baby he gets even less attention from the parents, so the already eccentric child begins to act weird, driving his parents into madness. The story starts off as a mystical thriller, but here the child is not possessed by evil. Joshua is simply a little boy blessed (or cursed) with exceptional intelligence, who is desperately longing for some attention and love. The film certainly has its scary moments, but there is nothing authentic or original about it. We have seen this story so many times that we are only shocked by the fact that we have let ourselves be fooled once again. Though Ratliff skillfully mixes the horror elements of Omen, The Good Boy and Rosemary’s Baby just to name a few, but he does not manage to add any novelty to the genre. The otherwise well-structured and full of twists and turns plot fails by recycling old formulas, which worked well with its predecessors but have been repeated and reused way too many times. As a result, Joshua could only surprise those who have not seen a horror movie or a mystical thriller for the last few decades. The actors, however, do their best to make this feature work, especially Vera Farmiga, who reminds us of Mia Farrow due to her fragile figure and hairstyle. The cameraman successfully creates a gloomy and, at places, quite creepy atmosphere so that we can clearly feel ?the distressing presence of evil’ and, as was mentioned earlier, the plot is quite well-paced and well-structured, but all this seems to be completely in vain in the absence of original ideas.
Horror is not the only genre which likes to focus on a gifted child, but there are also many documentaries about child prodigies. It is said that true talent shows at a very early age, and recognizing it is much easier than dealing with. It is especially important for the parents of talented children to handle their kids’ abilities in a way that they do not become completely isolated from their peers and do not miss out on any fun of childhood. The documentary My Kid Could Paint That depicts the miraculous rise and quick fall of a four year old (!) modern painter. It also teaches us a lesson about how relative and changeable the perception of art and artistic talent is, especially when it comes to modern art. Sometimes it really seems to be a matter of sheer chance who is pronounced a genius in the art world. In Amir Bar-Lev’s documentary, the patrons of modern art, art critics and gallery owners all get theirs along with the ambitious parents (especially the father), who try to profit as much as they can from the hype surrounding their kid. Audiences can follow closely how the little Marla Olmstead is declared to be the wonder of contemporary conceptual art at the age of four. She is compared to Kandinsky, Pollock and even to Picasso and her paintings are sold for a total of 300 000 dollars worldwide, not to mention the seemingly endless waitlist. Opening ceremonies, interviews and enormous attention follows every step Marla takes until, all of a sudden; it all comes to an end, due to a short but to the point television show, in which the experts claim that the paintings cannot be the works of a four year old. This bold statement is supported by a hidden camera recording, in which it becomes obvious that the little girl gets clear and specific instructions from her father on what and how to paint. (The father, himself is a painter.) All the fame and fortune turns into an array of accusations from the public and the customers, who rightfully, feel deceived. To restore Marla and the whole family’s reputation and to reinvigorate business the gallery owner launches a DVD about the making of on of Marla’s paintings). Owing to this clever marketing strategy to prove the authenticity of the paintings, sales start to go up again, in spite of the difference between the painting featured on the DVD and the rest of the paintings exhibited in the gallery. Amir Bar-Lev does not seem to be convinced of the paintings’ authenticity either, though he is clever enough not to pass judgments, he leaves that to the audience. My Kid Could Paint That unveils the pitfalls of fame and the easy come, easy go nature of success.
It would be difficult to estimate how many documentaries are made about the war on Iraq, the bombings in Afghanistan, the horrifying events taking place in war-zones, the power struggles and the despair of those living in the line of fire. Newsreels often fail to show the true victims of war and nowadays Muslims are mostly mentioned in connection with carried out or planned terrorist plots. However, only a few people are aware of the Muslim communities living outside their countries and struggling with the hardships of integration. The documentary On A Tightrope tells us about the approximately eight million Uighurs living in North-West China. They form the largest religious and ethnic minority of China. It is not surprising that very few know about them outside the country since the Chinese government does its best to keep them under close surveillance and to integrate them. The Uighurs can practice their religion, traditions and language mostly in secret and the Chinese government tries to keep them away from the curiosity of the western world. So it is almost a miracle that documentary director, Petr Lom was allowed to shoot for eighteen months in an orphanage for Uighur children, where the young inhabitants try to acquire the skills of dancing on a tight-rope, which is an essential part of their cultural heritage. Tight-rope dance does not only connect them with their roots but it might also give them the chance to get out of poverty and hopelesness. The touching documentary features four children who tell us their stories and paths to the orphanage (their parents are either dead or too poor to support them). We get an insight into their everyday lives and learn about their hopes and dreams. Although tight-rope dancing might be their only chance to get out of the miserable conditions they live in, not all of them dare to choose this career. Those with less courage or talent choose to study and become integrated members of society even if this means giving up all their culture of origin. The film also shows the coaches and their approaches to the children and in this respect it resembles Szabolcs Hajdu’s White Palms, which also deals with the question of training young gymnasts. In Lom’s documentary we meet a strict coach who, although not physically, at least not in front of the camera, but psychologically abuses the children and who is only concerned about the money these kids could bring him. And there is a more humane trainer, with more humane methods of training, who unfortunately, cannot work with the children of the orphanage too long, since this is only a voluntary job and he has to make a living and support his family. Since the government does not pay for the coaches to train the children at the orphanage, they indirectly, but effectively suppress the centuries old ethnic traditions of ethnic minorities.
Not only documentaries strive to capture the events of America’s war on Iraq, but an increasing number of feature films and even an HBO series. We have witnessed explosions, fleeing civilians, soldiers in combat and many shocking scenes showing the dead or the wounded. It is rare, however, to see a feature like Grace Is Gone, which is all about the war and its casualties yet it does not actually show anything of the war itself. Screenwriter/director James C. Strouse (who also wrote the script of Steve Buscemi’s Lonesome Jim) does not try to list the large number of casualties or horrify the viewer with dreadful images. Instead, he takes us to small-town America, to the peaceful home of a middle class family, where the father, Stanley Phillips (John Cusak) is raising his two daughters, Dawn (Gracie Bednarczyk) and Heidi (Shélan O’Keefe), while the mother is serving as a soldier in Iraq. The clumsy and reserved Stanley’s life is governed by strict rules and order and his devotion to his family. His everyday life governed by clock-work routines gets shattered and starts falling apart the minute he learns that his wife died on the battlefield. Lead by panic and the inability to tell his daughters about the sad news, Stanley starts acting out. He takes the girls on an excursion and this journey proves to be a rites de passage for the whole family. Stanley has to break the news to the girls and has to realize that in the future he will be the one and only person taking care of them and he also has to sort out his feelings about the righteousness of this war. He desperately holds on to the idea that Grace’s death was not an unnecessary sacrifice in a meaningless power struggle, but that she actually died for the peace of the country and well-being of the American citizens. Strouse is efficient, in his simple and occasionally a bit didactic way, in showing what we never see in newsreels: the relatives of the soldiers. The dead or the wounded are nothing more than figures, statistical data; here, however, it is obvious that even the loss of one is way too many. While most filmmakers use powerful images, and people in the streets choose demonstrations to protest against the meaningless bloodshed, Grace Is Gone, in its own modest and quiet way (war only appears on TV or in radio news programmes in the background), raises its voice against the aggressive foreign policy of the US by giving us an insight into the tragedy of an everyday American family, only one of the casualties of many. Though in some cases it may seem too moralizing, the film is definitely thought-provoking. It also shows that even if you firmly believe that your beloved one died for the right cause, it will not eliminate the pain. The strength of the movie lies not only in the above described but also in the finely tuned performances by the child actors Gracie Bednarczyk and Shélan O’Keefe, who proved to be the right matches for their experienced partners John Cusak and Alessandro Nivola.
Other highlights of the festival include Garth Jennings’ Son of Rambow, which exhibits considerable creativity. This does not come as a surprise, since Jennings and Nick Goldsmith (alias Hammer and Tongs) were the ones responsible for the visual effects of the Douglas Adams adaptation, The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy. The Son of Rambow is a sweet movie with great ideas and again with great child actors. Though we can see more and more actor turned directors, relatively few of them focus on the visual aspect of their works and come up with something truly cinematic. Well, this year, it was Antonio Banderas’ directorial debut, Summer Rain, which proved to be a clear exception. Banderas took a teenage story that we have probably seen a thousand times but presented it in an engaging way. The story is not boring in itself but it would not be so interesting if it were not for its stunning visual elements. The surreal ballet scenes, dreamlike images and the use of harsh colors (a tribute to Almodovar?) light up the unfolding story of youngsters in a small Spanish town. Gregg Araki’s latest movie does not lack dreams or hallucinations either. Smiley Face invites us to a crazy trip with a marijuana twist, in which Jane (Anna Faris) dreams of becoming an actress but she spends most her time getting high. Jeffrey Blitz’s movie, Rocket Science, was also a crowd pleaser at this year’s festival because who would not like a boy with a severe speech impediment, whose main ambition is to became part of the school’s debate team and a girl’s heart. This is not an all happy ending story, so its hero does not become a public speaker in the wink of an eye and someone else gets the girl but he still finds a path to overcome his inhibitions and perhaps he gets closer to solve the eternal mystery of relationships, as he says „ after all, it is not rocket science.” Blitz follows the beaten track of Napoleon Dynamite and Little Miss Sunshine to success and he does it quite well.
As can be seen from these movies, it is no child’s play to round up so many talented children, though their performances make acting appear as easy as that. These young actors have to place themselves into situations that they might not be able to fully comprehend. Thus their achievement becomes even greater and proves perfectly that one does not necessarily have to experience or explore everything in depth in order to reflect it on camera. Talent is, after all, when someone can show it all without really going through all the highs and lows of life. The grandness of the 2007 Sundance lay in the spectacular performances, which came from extraordinary actors of all ages. Thanks to them, even some of the mediocre movies became entertaining and memorable.
