Saturday, January 17, 2009

JANUARY 2009: Battling Brothers and (Kinda) Sisters


It's day two of this Park City experiment to see if me, as an Asian Pacific American person, would find any sense of shared identification with films by and about anyone not of Asian Pacific origin -- three, if you count the day spent traveling here. Walking back home past midnight after a late-night press screening of director Emily Abt's wildly uneven Sundance Film Festival Dramatic Competition feature TOE TO TOE, I found myself looking up at the sky every now and again to marvel at how clear the night sky was, and how bright the stars lit up the Park City night.

In a way, I wish TOE TO TOE resonated to me with such clarity -- not that it didn't try hard. The story of two DC-area teenagers at an ultra-competitive prep school on the verge of earning lacrosse scholarships are as different as night and day. Tosha, a driven African American teen from the rough Anacostia district, is determined to overcome the obstacles that stand in the way of earning admission into Princeton and getting out of the neighborhood; while Jessie, a privileged white girl from Bethesda, is talented all right, but struggles with promiscuous tendencies that threaten to derail her already shaky prospects. Tosha and Jessie befriend each other on the lacrosse field, but off-campus their relationship mixes like oil and vinegar. Jessie, desperate to fit in, is pulled closer and closer to self-destruction: becoming sexually involved with a Muslim schoolmate and other wannabe homies, enduring a virtual non-relationship with her globetrotting mother, and is implicated in a racial incident at school involving Tosha that triggers Jessie's expulsion just weeks before graduation. Tosha herself must endure troubles at home, chief among them a gaggle of layabout teens who epitomizes the "crab in the barrel" mentality of most minorities, a family that regards her dreams with a mixture of tough love and indifference, and her own conflicted allegiances to her friend and teammate.

The measured tone of TOE TO TOE thankfully doesn't approach the over-the-top race politics bombast of directors such as a John Singleton and the like (director Abt, a white woman, has a background of community work with borderline individuals as well as social issues as AIDS awareness and prevention), but I found myself alternately enthralled by the at-times sharp and genuine dialog (a lesbian suitor to Jessie is blown off in favor of a potential fling - her off-camera retort from across the parking lot, "Fuck You, Jessie!" elicited laughter in the audience I sat in with), and impatient and fidgety with the sometimes clunky transitions between the two girls' stories -- at various points during the screening I asked myself how a 100-minute feature could feel an hour longer! The director's insistence of grounding the film by including scenes at a gogo [a uniquely DC-area form of deep house party funk] and by cross-cutting between Tosha and Jessie's homes could have been handled more deftly. Ultimately, I had a hard time determining which character I should focus on, as Tosha and Jessie both possessed arresting storylines that was missing that extra...something.

Far more palateable to my tastes and sensibilities is the Mexican comedy/drama RUDO Y CURSI, by Carlos Cuaron. The film reunites Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna of the well-regarded Y TU MAMA TAMBIÉN as two dim-witted brothers who toil on a banana plantation and play soccer on their local team. Beto (Luna) the hot-tempered one with a penchant for gambling, goes by the nickname Rudo and dreams of becoming a top-flight player. Tato (Bernal), a gifted forward with a burning desire to be a famous singer, earns the nickname Cursi and wins the adulation of his teammates. Both are recruited by a talent scout who secures positions for them, but on rival teams -- Cursi is chosen to be a starting player and is poised to rocket to superstardom. Not to be outdone, Rudo grows into a goalie without equal.

Their fame comes with steep prices depicted in comical, yet fatalistic ways. Cursi is awarded a new house and luxury SUV, as well as the long-coveted recording contract and opportunity for stardom -- I don't think, however, that Cursi was expecting to build a career crooning an ernest ranchero send-up of Cheap Trick's "I Want You to Want Me." His stubborn insistence on a singing career jeopardizes his now-stagnated soccer skills, and Cursi finds himself riding the pine, without an opportunity to play, stood up by the gold-digging slut who accepted his marriage proposal and ran off with another stooge, and seemingly destined to be demoted to a second-tier league. Rudo fares less better. Flush with success at an impressive winning streak without allowing a goal, he parlays his earnings into increasingly rash gambling habit. Sinking deeper and deeper into debt, Rudo's own fame is put on the line: the luxury accoutrements of the house he shares with Cursi is repossesed, the gambling syndicate he owes money to gives him a deadline to pay back or else, and the worst possible insult: the talent scout offers to make all his debts go away if, on the verge of breaking the all-time scoreless record, he throw the game against the very team that his estranged brother Cursi languishes on. Filled with numerous witticisms and morals provided in voiceover by Batuta, the soccer scout, RUDO Y CURSI is a winning effort. Cuaron directes the film with energy befitting a sports film -- and a comedy at that. Both brothers meet a bittersweet end -- I can't tell you how it ends, it's a sports films after all, and you just gotta see it -- but don't despair. I have a healthy suspicion that the film will turn up at your local art-house theater sometime soon.

As for Asian Pacific American stuff: the two short animated pieces weren't by APA's, but should resonate with audiences at a film festival such as ours. WET SEASON, by Singaporean Michael Tay, is an ingenious and heartfelt ode to the director's father who passed away in 2001. The film's stop-motion animation evokes references as obvious as the legendary Canadian animator Norman McClaren to more dubious, modern-day markers as the JibJab Brothers. And in Yi Zhou's HEAR, EARTH, HEART, computer animation renders a uniquely inventive meditation on the relationship of nature and emotion.

Oh, yeah, here's a Sundance tidbit I thought I'd throw at you: Jack Song, a publicist for our Film Festival who is one of David's colleagues, calls to invite us to a party on Main Street at the Queen Lounge, the site of our APA Filmmakers' Experience Reception. It's billed as the "Glam Party." Sorry Jack, I've been to the Queen Lounge a whopping four times today before I filed this entry -- I'm not feeling so glam right now. With the high altitude and the realities of water retention, I feel like a f*$#in' whale right about now...

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