Day One-Greedy Anticipation

Saturday marks my Day One of the film festival. Sure, I've been thinking about it for months. But tomorrow I actually attend my first screening. At 1 p.m. the Palm is screening Oberschule and The Little Red Truck. I have to say that, as I was screening film after film, Oberschule easily captured my attention. It's a black and white, silent film set in a 50's high school where stereotypes rule and a school election quickly transforms into a dark, propoganda-based drama. Styled after German expressioist silent films, this is definitely something you won't quickly forget. And it's utterly unlike anything else you'll see at the festival--which is pretty rare when you're talking about nearly 100 films.

Then, at 2 p.m. at the Downtown Centre, The Street Cleaner will play. Another early office favorite--in part because the movie reviewers from our sister paper, the Sun in Santa Maria made it--The Street Cleaner is a classic tale of prostitutes dissapearing from Savannah, Georgia. Or is it? The heroine, Jamie, is a young prostitute, addicted to heroine, and very clearly marked as the next victim. What happens next, and how the clever tale unfolds is up to you to learn for yourself but you can be sure that it is a story you have not seen or heard before, even if you think you have at the beginning.
At 4:15 the screening I am most looking forward to begins at the Downtown Center-The Recordist and Monster Camp. The one (recordist) is a beautiful, moving film about a seemingly normal girl placed on earth to record a single important event. What that event is, she has no idea, and the audience doesn't learn until the end. But that single second when everything clicks is more poignant than a dozen in-your-face Hollywood films packed back to back. And then there is Monster Camp. Ah, my beloved Monster Camp. Now, I consider myself something of a geek. But even I could not resist the opportunity to laugh at a movie about other, bigger geeks. This is a documentary about a live action role playing group based in Seattle (meaning: people of all ages, many of whom abandon their education for the opportunity to play World of Warcraft 24 hours a day). Through the film we meet a dozen or so hardcore geeks. They spend all their money and time creating costumes and elaborate identities for themselves. They chase each other with boffers, screaming codes and throwing spells at each other. And yes, maybe it's a guilty laugh. But I'd like to think that somewhere these LARPers know that their antics have brought joy to the world. You may be asking why I plan to attend these screenings having already watched these films. Fair question. There are some things that are so hysterically funny that you just want to look over at someone and share the hilarity, if only for a brief second. And, in terms of the Recordist, I may already know the ending, but I'd like to watch as others people suddenly understand as well. There seems to be two important aspects of the film equation: the actual film and the audience. And there's something lacking when you take the audience out of the equation. The satisfaction diminishes when it is no longer a shared experience. So bring a buddy.
Pictured above: The Recordist, Monster Camp, and Oberschule
-Ashley Schwellenbach