Jill's Film Festival Diary for Friday, April 13-Sunday, April 15

Films: Zoo, VHS - Kahloucha, Viva

Future Screenings: Zoo: No future screenings scheduled
VHS - Kahloucha: No future screenings scheduled
Viva: No future screenings scheduled

I was overly-ambitious this weekend, and eventually traded sleep (and a glass or two of vino) for films. Did I miss out on some stellar movies? Probably. Do I regret it? No: sometimes, it's nice to not be sitting alone in a darkened room.

Zoo
I'm not actually entirely sure why Zoo was on the list of movies that I really wanted to see, because certainly, after my reaction to S&Man, you'd think that a documentary about a man who died from a perforated colon sustained while he was being penetrated (yes, in that way) by a horse wouldn't appeal to me at all. I think I may have decided to go because I remembered when the event actually happened, and there's something kind of validating about seeing a documentary about a memorable event that occurred during your lifetime. It's like saying, "Hey, you're not the only one who remembered that!" Of course, Zoo isn't, by any means, your normal documentary. It uses no archival footage and only one (out-of-place feeling) on-camera interview. Instead, in true Unsolved Mysteries: Bestiality fashion, the film has a mix of real people and actors playing real people reenacting events leading up to, and immediately following, the horse-related death. It's filmed beautifully, on location in Washington State, but because everything is re-created, it ends up feeling quite false, even though the narration comes from audio interviews with the involved parties. Maybe I'm un-inventive or old-fashioned, but I didn't really think of this film as a documentary so much as a historical reenactment, a la The History Channel during sweeps week. Pretty and interesting though the film may be, its format kept me from finding it compelling.
Festival rating: Fair.

VHS - Kahloucha
To be perfectly honest, I wasn't sure I wanted to see this film until I saw Jim's review of it. But I'm glad that I added it to my calendar, because it was one of the most enjoyable documentaries I've seen in quite some time. I couldn't help but hearken back to Borat's depiction of an entire village that is involved in the creative process. But that, of course, was fiction, and this, amazingly, is not. Kahloucha chooses his actors, not because of talent, but because of appearance. It seems to work out well for him: nobody ever turns down a part. A big reason for that is definitely the fame and notoriety that the actors earn in the village once the films "debut," played on a thirty-six inch television screen in a crowded cafe packed with a hundred people or more. (Women are not allowed in these establishments, and the film does actually spend a small amount of time talking about what women are or are not "allowed" to do in Tunisia.) It's all charming and amazingly makeshift: need a character to have blood on his person due to a gunshot wound? Well, in the AIDS-aware world we live in, it clearly makes sense that the director would cut a big gash in his arm and apply his own blood to the actor's "wounds." The idea made me shudder, but it was still, like the rest of the film, hilarious to watch.
Film rating: Very Good

Viva
There is a special place in my heart reserved for campy movies from the sixties and seventies, and many of the subsequent films inspired by them. And so I braved last night's driving (and very cold!) rain to head over to the Ritz East for Viva. Lucky me, I ran into Pencopal, and we watched the movie together. Not only is Pencopal just a lot of fun to be around, camp is far more fun when you're not watching it alone. Viva is absolutely ridiculous, but self-aware enough to make the silliness work. I giggled from the first line of the movie onward, and I was not alone in my amusement. A gentleman a few seats down from us was literally cackling through most of the film. Of course, there were plenty of "squares" (to use the film's period vernacular) who left the film early. Their loss.

The Film Festival program states that Viva is sure to be a cult classic, and I definitely agree with their assessment. Anna Biller, in the title role (in addition to having written and directed the film!), plays the vintage camp so well that, with a little help from the set's color palate and the film used by the cinematographer, it's easy to forget that you're watching a movie made in 2006, not 1973. The musical numbers are hysterical and not-to-be-missed, and some of the camera angles used in them—the fully-clothed Viva, for instance, sitting still while two naked men dance behind her, their junk at her eye level—are simply priceless. The costuming on the film is also impressive: there's a new outfit in every scene. But even more impressive than that is how real all of the naked performers (and there are a ton of them) look. There are no six-packs, no freakishly large breasts or long penises, no liposuctioned asses: this is what normal people (complete, by the way, with period-appropriate pubic hair) look like naked. (Although, I've gotta say: one pair of naked breasts seemed to bug everyone in the audience.) It was the icing on the cake: not only was the film a ton of fun, it didn't look like a sea of plastic.

Viva is slightly too long, with a run-time of two hours exactly—the last half hour seemed to especially drag—but it was still one of the most consistently-entertaining, if not always well-acted (one actor in particular couldn't seem to choose an accent and stick with it through the end of one sentence, let alone through the end of the film), movies I've seen at this year's festival.
Festival rating: Good to Very Good (would have been higher with a shorter run time and more consistent accent)