by Jackie Richard

From the opening scene, Eden forces the audience to travel inside a dark world few of us ever willingly go. Eden is loosely based on the true life experiences of a teenage girl plucked from a seedy bar and held captive for over two years in the early 90s, long before human trafficking was openly acknowledged as a real epidemic. The more time goes by, the more she is forced to build relationships with her captors, both as a day-to-day survival mechanism and as a strategy to plan her escape. While she does eventually outsmart her oppressors, her harrowing experiences will forever leave her scarred.

The film stars former ‘Real World: San Diego’ reality star turned aspiring thespian Jamie Chung, Matt O’Leary, and Beau Bridges. Director Megan Griffiths was rightfully awarded the SXSW Chicken & Egg Emergent Narrative Woman Director Award for her smart and delicate approach to such a seedy subject matter. Her main objective was to make a watchable film so that the audience danced just up to the line of grotesque but not obscene, where they could feel deep sadness and compassion for the protagonist without feeling like the film was borderline pornographic.

I was pleasantly surprised with the daring performances, especially newcomer Jamie Chung, who was awarded a Special Jury Recognition for her gripping portrayal of Eden.

What a privilege it was for the audience to meet the “real life” Eden, who bravely joined the cast and crew onstage for the Q&A. Judging from her emotional reaction to watching the film, the filmmakers did justice to her story, although she did remark “the script was quite watered down; I wish I had it as easy as Eden did..” (which to the audience did not look the least bit easy).

Griffiths and her scriptwriter made some really wise decisions by keeping the plot steadily moving along without dwelling too much on the graphic nature of the story. This also leads to a handful of climatic encounters where you have no clue how Eden will react or what decision she will make when pushed to the brink, leading you to question “what would I have done differently than Eden?” To which my gut tells me, probably nothing.

BERNIE is the latest film from Richard Linklater, starring Jack Black, Matthew McConaughey and Shirley MacLaine. The film is a true story about… well, it’s about Bernie. Bernie (Jack Black) is a mortician from a small, red-neck town in Texas. He becomes good friends with a wealthy widow (Shirley MacLaine) after he conducts the funeral service for her husband. The relationship between Bernie and the (unnamed) widow becomes unbearable by both parties and Bernie ends up killing her. Bernie then attempts to cover it up by making the rest of the community believe she is still alive. This not a spoiler as this is basically what the whole film revolves around. It’s “Weekend with Bernie” in reverse. This time Bernie does the killing. Not really, but kind of.

It was weird seeing this film in Texas. Mostly because it got a HUGE reaction to every Texas joke, most of them seemed undeserved. Richard Linklater is from Austin and is pretty much responsible for the booming film scene here, and even partially responsible for SXSW altogether (as Janet Pierson noted in the Q&A). Linklater, much like Soderbergh, is a filmmaker that has earned his stripes and is not afraid to diversify and explore various different genres. Going into this film I didn’t quite know what to expect, just that it had a fairly good cast, was a Linklater film, was based off a true story, and was a dark comedy. However, that was more than enough for me to be interested.

The film is told in a mockumentary style that is at first amusing, but quickly becomes annoying. It’s like the whole time you’re waiting for the film to start. At times it feels like you are primarily just watching a series of fake interviews. The casting and acting wasn’t the problem, it was more the structure. The continuous interviews with town folk is monotonous and boring and you just want to get back to the story.

BERNIE has its funny moments, including many of the one-liners in the interviews, and Jack Black’s performance is well-rounded and well-executed, but it just felt like the film ended before it ever really started, and not in a good way. The actual true story of BERNIE is fascinating and darkly comical. Unfortunately, it just never felt like the film really found its tone. It felt very disconnected from its audience despite the Texas crowd roaring in laughter every time there was a joke referencing Texas, or McConaughey (known Texan) popped up in a scene. It seemed like Linklater just made this film real quick on his 0ff-time and got a couple of his buddies together (that he had previously worked with in other films) and said “let’s do this!” I was underwhelmed and had hoped for more, even though I came in with zero expectations.

In this episode: John and Titus discuss the polarizing similarities between “The Tree of Life” and “Melancholia”… but that’s where the similarities end.

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Ever wonder where stuff that is labeled “Made in China” actually comes from? All of us have seen that label somewhere. The Last Train Home documents the tragic lives of the people who make the stuff that’s “Made in China.”

The main characters are a father and mother and their daughter. The mother and father work in a city 1800 kilometers away from their family’s farm. Their sole aim in life is to work hard so that their kids can go to school. Grandma cares for their children, who they only see once a year during the much-anticipated Chinese New Year Holiday. All year the parents anticipate this visit, and vie with other migrants in rowdy crowds acquire the coveted train tickets home.

But in spite of their good intentions, the kids are bitter at their parents for leaving them all those years. And as the story unfolds, we’re given an unflinching view of how economic and social forces have driven this family into a desperation.

The film is a brilliant work of art from a thematic perspective. It is simple and beautiful on the surface and fraught with passion and pain underneath. In many ways it reminded me of the work of the late brilliant Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. Like Kurosoawa’s work, Train creates a deep sense of empathy with the misery and hopelessness of peasant life. But unlike Kurosawa, it does not offer a savior. No bold samaurai ride out of the mist to save the poor peasants. In Fan’s version of the world, the peasants live in a hell of their own making. And Fan offers no clear solution, but simply shows us the vastly unnerving choice faced millions of peasant workers in China.

Fan could have made this a dry, journalistic piece about the plight of the worker, or a rant against western consumerism. He could have had experts and professors and learned folk talk about economic forces. Instead, he forces us to watch as real people are crushed by those forces. He puts their pathos in our face. By bypassing the abstract, he kept the story human.

The Last Train Home is also a cinematic work of art. Its use of ambient sound is far superior to any other documentary. These sound effects combine with outstanding cinematography to provide rich contrast between the pastoral Chinese countryside and the roiling cities. The viewer is immersed in the story because he is immersed in its environment. Fan shot much of the film, and, much to my delight, he? bucked the verite filmmaking trend of sloppy, poorly exposed handheld camera work. In fact, there were a couple shots in this film that sucked the breath out of me.

The Last Train Home also utilizes a strong story structure, as key plot points center around the central event of the train ride home for the New Years Holiday. The viewer is familiar with the routine, and measures character change by the way they behave on each successive trip.

The characters in The Last Train Home speak only when necessary. This is great because it forces you to guess at what they are thinking or feeling. It makes you try to see the events unfolding onscreen through their eyes. This is also the film’s greatest flaw, because near the end of the film, I was sick of trying to guess what was going on in the daughter’s mind while she brushed her teeth. Did she think, “I hate my parents,” or, “I hate this train,” Or, did she think, “I need a new brand of toothpaste”? But there were two points (which I will not give away) where the film spoke volumes of gutsy exposition without a single line of interview—just good-ol’ visual communication. I’ll take that any day over a verbose talking-heads fest.

The Last Train Home is a brilliant film, and a watershed documentary. I would love to see more films that aspire to this quality of visual storytelling. It’s a Zeitgeist doc, which means it received funding and technical assistance by the folks at Sundance Institute. I’m going to keep my eye on their future releases, and I’m officially a fan of Lixin Fan.

“Liam Neeson vs. Wolves” is about all I needed to know to get me to buy my ticket for “The Grey”, and while the film did have Liam being epic in every conceivable fashion, the studio/trailers are selling you a different movie.

First off, “The Grey” is a beautifully shot, wonderfully acted film. If this were released later in the year, it would be a serious contender for an Oscar. But here it is, in what Hollywood considers “Dump Month”, which is a shame really, because this film has a lot more depth than what appears on the surface.

Liam Neeson stars as “Ottway”, a hunter employed by oil companies to keep the drillers safe by killing threats that walk on all fours (ie. Wolves). As “Ottway”, Liam brings his A-Game, making him seem like a real human being, with pain and suffering worn on his face. Early on in the film, he writes a letter to his wife, and the emotion in this scene is wonderful, no doubt drawing from Liam’s own personal experience with losing his wife tragically last year.

“The Grey” has a wonderful cast all around, including Dermot Mulroney, Dallas Roberts, and Frank Grillo. The big selling point for me was that real men were cast in the roles, instead of actors that can barely grow facial hair (I’m looking at you, Taylor Lautner!!!). All of the actors brought an authenticity to their roles, be they fathers or ex-cons. When its time for certain characters to bite it (see what I did there? Wolves. Bite it!), you hate to see it happen, as you honestly do care for these characters and the back-stories that they have.

Joe Carnahan co-wrote and directed “The Grey”, and while I feel he is fully capable of handling big action films like “The A-Team”, smaller character centric films like this one are where he truly shines. The film is truly poetic, taking on themes such as faith, mortality, and one’s place in this world without ever missing a step! The script feels real, the shots are beautiful, the actors feel authentic, and the score is magnificent! This film delivers!

Anything to complain about? Eh, my only beef was some of the camera work (a tiny amount) was too shaky, but that was probably because I was too close to the screen. (Note to self: arrive earlier to theater.)

In short, “The Grey” blew me away, and while some people in the theater didn’t exactly enjoy how it ended, I feel it perfectly captured the film’s essence.

Also, be sure to stay after the credits, as there’s an final scene!