We split up for the next film; Mike and Jeff go off to find a film as Jon, Amanda, Michelle and I head out to check out the first of two films with wrist cutting in the title. (Strange, I know.) We sit down in a room that’s even more classroomish than the first, though this could pass for a high school class. Walking in (though not sure why) we immediately head to the back row. I assume it’s so we can be up to something during the film, though none of us intend to do that.
fig. p
The first short is “The Ringmaster”, an animated film about a young boy who is shut off in his own little world. The visuals are stunning, looking like a Tim Burton animated film drawn with ball point pens. (see fig. p) The entire first world of the film is blue hued. There’s a musical number, and a shocking suicide attempt at the beginning, but then the young boy sets off into the world called New Town and the color palate switches to golden tones. The short is a stunning achievement, one I could watch over again even if it started immediately after its ending.
Next comes “Sunlit Shadows”, a story about a relationship, told twice with the same narrated footage, once from his point of view, once from hers. The cinematography really shines in this film; the lighting and color usage is gorgeous. It’s interesting because we form one opinion the first time through and have that opinion challenged by the second. The only strange thing was a scene with a little girl crying in front of a birthday cake at the beginning of the film that went on far too long. It’s one of those interesting juxtapositions you often see in independent films where it clearly meant something to the filmmaker but means nothing to an audience. (David Lynch is famous for these.) So we’re left to wonder, are we supposed to read into this, is it symbolic, what are we supposed to find, what are we supposed to learn? Luckily the rest of the film interrupts this line of thought before it gets too masturbatory and angry as it’s often prone to do. (i.e. hey, filmmaker! you calling me stoopid? [Spelling error intentional. DG (oh, dear god, parenthesis inside brackets inside parenthesis, my English 1 teacher would take me out behind the barn and put me down like Old Yeller)]) The film that doesn’t know exactly how to start also doesn’t seem to know exactly how to end as its closing shot lasts about a minute too long when they should’ve been running the credits.
fig. q
The final short is “Regret Case Study,” a film of stills of “the longest ongoing suicide note ever” featuring lists, wills, etc. It’s hard to explain, hilarious and difficult to watch at times for those of us who’ve ever had these feelings. (Hey, future Dave here to let you know that Regret also seems to be a product, [see fig. q] a book with all the information from the film, along with buttons, stickers and a record! Check it out on the website!) Very unusual.
Then beginsAn Alternative to Slitting Your Wrist, which, all hyperbole aside, is the greatest film shown at the fest. (I know we’re once again getting into that gray area where I’m asking you to continue going along with the present tense narrative I’m presenting while simultaneously accepting that I’m writing this at some future date, but if you’ve read this far, I think you can handle it. As my friend Raoul Duke used to say “Buy the ticket, take the ride.”)
Okay, Dave, so this is the greatest film shown at the fest, eh? Well, what makes that so? I’ll tell you. (Dear God, he’s talking to himself now.) Alternative is a first person documentary about Owen Lowery, a young man just out of the psych ward for a suicide attempt deciding that he needs something to live for.
fig. r
He puts together a list of 52 things, resolving to do at least one per week, guaranteeing him at least another year of life. The film follows his journey to check things off the list, in no particular order, and to confront the demons that drove him to that suicide attempt in the first place. Owen is a compelling lead and he gives you unprecedented access to the inner workings of his mind. What could’ve come across as teen angst bulls**t instead rings quite true. There isn’t a moment that feels like wallowing in self pity. Owen doesn’t allow himself to do that. Instead he presents things from his life, the little things and the big things, the things that hurt him, in the most straight forward way possible. He isn’t ever asking for our pity, he’s just telling us what happened. I find myself thinking about a line from White Out as I watch: “This isn’t an indictment…I’m just telling you.” Sometimes you gotta let it out. You gotta tell someone how you really feel.
In lesser hands it would be angsty and pretentious, and eventually slide down that slippery slop to nihilism and emo. But when you don’t build your life up, don’t make your life the epic story, instead weave a history that involves brutal honesty about your relationship with your alcoholic, and most of the time absent, father, and the awful truth about the molestation that happened in your childhood, you end up with a film that is tragic, yet hopeful. And that’s really what I took away from this film. I’ve been there. Many of us have spent time in the depths of depression. We’re with Owen. We love Owen. And we want nothing more than for him to make it to the end of this documentary alive, with some semblance of happiness.
fig. s
He does, thank God. And after the darkness that lies at the heart of the film, we find redemption, we find the world getting better, we find the light at the end of the tunnel getting brighter, and we’re relieved because Owen truly earned his happiness. He worked hard for it. It doesn’t get us there with an “and he lived happily ever after,” we know he’s still got the dark cloud of clinical depression looming over him, and that’s something that doesn’t just go away for good. But we know that, perhaps for the first time, Owen has an umbrella. And that makes us happy.
This film made me laugh and cry, which is the tiredest of movie review clichés, but cliché be damned! It’s what independent filmmaking is all about.
I share my admiration for the film with those around me. Michelle, who knows one of Owen’s friends, says he’s due to make an appearance at the Sunday screening. This is a film I’ll see again, if only to shake Owen’s hand and tell him that, “I’ve been there.”
