A Few Days At The Virtual Dance
On Sundance, Jane Schoenbrun's 'We're All Going To The World's Fair,' Theo Anthony's 'All Light, Everywhere,' & more.
I have a soft spot for Sundance Film Festival. And while it’s easy to write Sundance off as a corporately-financed entity that prefers upholding a culture of celebrity worship and promoting mawkish, pat-yourself-on-the-back-for-watching storytelling to actual, all caps, bold, triple underline INDEPENDENT film, I can’t help it. I love it.
That said, I’ve only been once. I was a college senior with a discount student pass and a cheap housing hook-up. Made the 11 hour drive from Los Angeles to Park City with my friend Nick despite having never driven in/through snow. I had tire chains in the trunk but no idea how to even put them on. We shared a bed in a timeshare condo with 8 strangers who we think went to the same college as us. Never really figured that out. Woke up before the sun each day to make sure we’d get a good spot in the day’s first standby line. Got back in bed almost 20 hours later after a long day free Stella Artois, sneaking into after parties and, of course, watching (and sometimes arguing about) whatever movies we managed to see. It felt just as romantic then as it does in hindsight. At least once a year Nick and I talk about finally making it back. Alas, professional obligations and finances always manage to get in the way.
This year Sundance Film Festival went virtual. While the idea of catching a few Sundance movies during the actual festival rather than months from now, long after any buzz died down, excited me, I kept low expectations. No Covid-era virtual event has really managed to capture even a fraction of the high one gets while attending a real, in-the-flesh celebration of art. Not exactly a hot take, but true nonetheless.
Six days and nine movies later, I feel surprisingly rejuvenated. Virtual Sundance kind of felt like going to one of those plush, outpatient rehab facilities for celebrities (I imagine). I didn’t need it, per se, but I’m incredibly glad to have attended. It was a small respite from the monotony of Covid life. The healthiest reminder of what life was like before pandemic. A chance to acknowledge the tremendous pain and difficulty in spending almost an entire year without access to the physical spaces and communities that help constitute my sense of self. It felt like a change of pace and I’m grateful. So kudos to the Sundance team (as if they’ll read this?? — lol) for managing to put together an event celebrating the accessibility and possibility, rather than harbor on the inconvenience, of pandemic living.
I bought a few tickets but mostly watched movies early in the morning and late at night whenever my friend who actually paid for a festival pass wasn’t using his login. Obviously, I missed a bunch but the point wasn’t to see everything. In all, I saw two incredible movies, two good ones, four average and one I really didn’t like. Not a bad count! It felt like the scaled back nature of a virtual festival resulted in a more independent-leaning slate than previous years. I do hope it stays that way going forward. Independent filmmaking has never been more in danger as a craft. No offense to last year’s big Sundance hit Palm Springs, but that’s not exactly my idea of an indie darling. Nevertheless, here’s a little on what I saw…
All Light, Everywhere by Theo Anthony
My favorite documentary of the festival. I’ve now unsuccessfully attempted to explain why I loved this so much to three separate friends before they asked me to stop. In my defense, it’s tough to sum up an experimental documentary interrogating the modern U.S. surveillance state through the historical lens of motion photography, astronomical observation, technological militarization and self-reflexive filmmaking technique (among much more).
In elevator pitch terms, All Light, Everywhere is like Adam Curtis by way of Koyaanisqatsi, although I think that still undersells exactly how original Anthony’s film feels. Between all the chunks of headiness, Anthony points his (by his own admission, subjective) camera at two characters: Steve Tuttle (chief spokesperson for Axon, a private company that manufactures tasers and police body cameras) & Ross McNutt (an aerial, drone surveillance contractor whose technology was illegally used after the Baltimore protests for Freddie Gray in 2015. They converse in seemingly unintentional doublespeak and HR-approved terminology (Tuttle can’t stop talking about the importance of “open candor” to Axon corporate culture) as they pitch their dystopian dreams of a for-profit surveillance state. Both men earnestly believe in AI and machines as objective observers of reality, failing to realize (or perhaps choosing to ignore) how humans who create, program and, most notably, profit off the technology they hold in such reverence.
It’s not a funny documentary, but it once again proves our new reality is more ridiculous than even the best satire. For real, Tuttle and McNutt are practically The Simpsons characters come to life. Tuttle, something like Hank Scorpio’s sales rep. McNutt not unlike the travelling salesman in the monorail episode when he tries pitching Black members of the Baltimore community on buying into his surveillance security for their own safety. Remarkable stuff.
We’re All Going To The World’s Fair by Jane Schoenbrun
My favorite narrative film at Sundance. It’s the kind of movie I wish I saw in a theater, if only to hear what people were saying on the way out. I want to discuss and read about it for days. Luckily, Willow Maclay already wrote a wonderful piece on the film far more eloquent (and personal) than anything I’ll muster up.
I find it a little hard to write about World’s Fair because I don’t want to spoil anything. Not that there are any radical twists, but it’s an emotional experience that rewards total engagement and going in knowing little more than its premise. While Eighth Grade also hit on the difficulty of growing up in the Internet age, World’s Fair drops any pretense of cutesiness. It’s an honest, bleak and completely transfixing take on the paradox of having access to more ideas and people but somehow feeling more isolated than any other generation. World’s Fair captures, unlike anything else, how it feels to be an adolescent trying to transfigure boredom and a desire to be anywhere/anyone else into real human connection, using the Internet as a witches’ cauldron. Unfortunately, as is the case with any life lived online, there are no neat resolutions. Only glitchy, pixelated lines between truth and fantasy.
Technically it uses tools of the found footage genre to make something more poignant and deeply unsettling than any of its predecessors. I suspect there will be many higher budget imitators to come that fail to capture even a fraction of the raw humanity that makes this movie work so well. Not to mention Anna Cobb’s incredible performance.
Ahh! It’s such a wonderful movie. The kind of thing that makes me want to create as a means of connection. I look forward to whatever Jane does next.
Okay, that’s probably enough. I also saw: On The Count of Three, Cryptozoo, Strawberry Mansion, Violation, Cusp, Street Gang: A Life On Sesame Street and A Glitch In The Matrix. As I said earlier: two good ones, four average and one I really didn’t like. I already covered the two incredible.
I can’t wait until we can return to physical spaces. Virtual Sundance made me excited for getting out of this era. Excited for feeling normal. Excited to wait in a line for strangers for a movie I may not even get to see. Hopefully next year I can be there in person.
P.S. I changed the name of the blog already. Sorry!