Indie Mindie Mindie Moo
Northwest Theatre is pretty dang sweet. It’s low key, and Mondays feature half off tickets.
There wasn’t really a type of audience, per se– (you know, with the tweens at tween movies… well, that’s a dumb example) but I did notice an noticeable amount of bald men at our second film, Silent Light.
Touchingly dysfunctional
The first film, Tokyo Sonata, was great. The director is infamous for his horror movies, so the cinematography was unique. The pace of the story unfolding was fantastic, and definitely kept audiences interested through two emotionally exhausting (in a good way) hours.
As depressing as the trials and tribulations of the family is (the father is fired, and ashamedly conceals his unemployment from his wife and children, the wife is self sacrificing and loves without condition– but feels trapped– and the sons in the family fight their own way through life — one leaves for the army, and the youngest sneaks off to piano lessons), there are comic scenes that surprisingly endear the characters to us, rather then alienate the sad, poignant lives they struggle through. There wasn’t any typical rush to introduce the plot like typical large-budget movies we end up watching at large movie theatres, so it was very refreshing.I would recommend it.
Move FASTER, PEOPLE
Silent Light, on the other hand, typified that “indie” feel– no soundtrack, and the cinematography/direction was …thoughtful. Ultimately, though, my friends and I characterized it as a “dot… dot… dot” movie, because of the extremely lengthy pauses. It felt like each narrative clause was a very slowly moving picture.
The movie is about a family in a religious and agricultural German community in Mexico. The father begins to fall in love with another woman, and it is about his struggle between choosing the two.
These plots are usually passion-filled, impulsive, driven– but the “dot dot dot” aspect of the movie, which resembled the tortuous patience of these mostly pious people, humbled the passion and contextualized it with deadened reality. The plot twist throws all the waiting the audiences has done (up to three hours, it felt like) out the window, and as my other friend haphazardly and honestly declared, ” THAT MOVIE SUCKED… IT MADE ME WANT TO SHOOT MYSELF”.
Both were good movies in the aspect that they didn’t fail to provoke the audience. The first, in empathy, sadness, happiness, irony, and the second movie, in complete frustration.
Gracie
Tags: indie films, northwest movie, review, silent light, tokyo sonata