festival
*The following review is based on a work print of the film. The picture is set, but the sound is not quite complete.*
The first few minutes of “festival” not only sets the tone for the film, but also makes it a bit difficult at times to watch the rest. It’s a smart and funny idea for a movie- reminiscent of Christopher Guest’s films like “Best in Show” and “A Mighty Wind.” But on the whole…well, I’ll get to that.
“festival” is written and directed by Brett Leigh and Michael R. West, and is a comedy about the ins and outs of putting on a film festival. Well, not necessarily the big ones like Cannes or Sundance, but a little festival in its infancy. We see filmmakers who are submitting their work, and get a glimpse of the people working behind the scenes as Margaret (Linda Vuong), a web designer for the festival, goes on the road, recruited by the festival’s head man Parker (Gary Bosek) to get the interviews both in-house and with the filmmakers. Will she succeed? More importantly, will she survive the process?
So I mentioned that the first few minutes of the film, which shows the people working for the festival trying to figure out how to put the festival on, sets the film’s tone. The characters are defined in these 10-15 minutes, and they are characters. One has a lisp. One appears to be a closeted gay man. One is an eccentric British woman. One is a racially-sensitive black woman. And the person who’ll hold the boom mike is a dwarf. None of the characters are defined by their actions so much as they are by tics and traits they exhibit. The filmmakers are the same way: one is a pretentious “artist”; another is a mentally-challenged political filmmaker; one is a foreign hack with no substance; another is a chirpy religious woman; and then there’s the clueless dance instructor. It’s an idea right out of the Christopher Guest-Eugene Levy playbook; unfortunately, the result is less hilarious and more just eccentric for no reason except to be eccentric. As the film goes on however, I wouldn’t goes as far as to say these characters are cruel caricatures; I was pleasantly surprised by that as the film went on. They are simply presented that way. This doesn’t mean they have much substance or intrigue beyond their various tics or eccentricities, but that the filmmakers allow these characters a certain about of respect (except when they don’t really deserve it, like the model-obsessed Ivan) is a strength this film displays as it goes on.
In the end, “festival” is a delightful little film. There’s a lot a genuine laughs (especially in some of the self-conscious moments to make this feel like a real documentary) that I honestly did not expect to find when this film first started. And the whole is much more successful than some of the individual parts. It doesn’t quite live up to the standards of the “faux documentaries” that came before it; still, it’s hard not to enjoy the film when it’s all said and done. In a way, “festival” certainly finds its own voice beyond what came before it in the genre, and celebrates the type of original filmmaking that festivals are for in the first place.
