57th Chicago International Film Festival: Dispatch 4
Andrea Arnold seems almost perfectly fit to direct a documentary. Her visual style already resembles classic non-fiction filmmaking with her long, patient scenes, authentic performances, and a knack for guerrilla filmmaking. She puts these approaches to good use in Cow, which follows the lives of two different bovines as they go through their day-to-day existence on a dairy farm. The results are both heartbreaking and fascinating, and while shown through an impartial lens, it’s almost impossible not to see an agenda at play. The brutal conditions and robotic nature of the farm’s factory are hard to watch, and grant this cycle of life an almost existential dread. Arnold’s decision to shoot only the cows with no additional animation, dialogue, or snazzy production helps further engross viewers into the cows’ plight, which will make me think twice before drinking another glass of milk. Grade: B —Joel Winstead
In the words of the prophet Mos Def, “Never say ‘never’ — you done said ‘never’ twice,” but at this point, I’m not confident that I’ll ever see the purported greatness in South Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-soo’s work. Just shy of a decade after reducing Isabelle Huppert’s appeal to that of a pile of bricks in In Another Country, the writer/director does similar uninspired work with In Front of Your Face, a bone-dry tale of former actress Sangok (Lee Hyeyoung) back in, well, country from the U.S. to visit her younger sister Jeongok (Cho Yunhee) and meet with a director Jaewon (Kwon Haehyo) who wants to cast her in his next film.
Beyond one emotional revelation and impressive acoustic guitar playing by Lee, the film consists of overlong scenes of one-on-one dialogue between Sangok and the two other characters — lengthy, unbroken takes that would be impressive if Hong gave a damn about how his film looked. Instead, the cheap visuals and amateurish zooms call into question why he feels this particular story needs to be presented as a film, while simultaneously providing further answers for his notorious prolificness. Grade: C-minus —Edwin Arnaudin
Julia is a documentary that has its heart firmly in the right place, but lacks any narrative flair to keep your attention. Julia Child’s life was anything but ordinary, but directors Julie Cohen and Betsy West treat it more or less like a reading of her Wikipedia page. Archival footage, photographs, and talking heads are all here, but the film’s overall look and feel is extremely stale. Child’s pursuit of bringing culinary style to the ordinary American household was an inspiration for women everywhere, and her political and social efforts further cemented her as a pioneer of women’s rights. The doc is worth watching just to take in all of who Child was, but it’s unfortunate that this exceptional life is told so plainly. Grade: C —Joel Winstead
About as standard as bio-docs get on a technical levels, Citizen Ashe nevertheless has such a compelling subject at its core in tennis star Arthur Ashe that it largely transcends these predictable trappings. Directors Sam Pollard (Mr. Soul!; MLK/FBI) and Rex Miller (who co-helmed the 2018 VR short Ashe ’68) wisely don’t dwell overly long on Ashe’s childhood and pre-sports existence, but focus on the more dramatic elements of his life: his storied tennis career and how, in his own distinct way, he came to be a civil rights activist. Indeed, in presenting Ashe’s landmark tennis matches, the filmmakers build such substantial tension and make such compelling use of the archival footage that viewers familiar with the athlete’s accomplishments may question the outcome they think they know. Meanwhile, Ashe’s non-professional work is played more to inform and inspire than to thrill, though these efforts prove similarly engaging on a different plane, and together provide a winning profile of an important individual. Grade: B-plus —Edwin Arnaudin
(Photos courtesy of the Chicago International Film Festival)
