An Ode to Film Devotion

If I ever get challenged on being a cinephile, I will hold up today as proof that I am willing to suffer for film.

It is, after all, James River Film Fest time and there's too much much good film out there to miss.

On a beautiful sunny, Saturday afternoon, I was closeted in the Byrd Theater for a 2011 Danish film about a disaster of a wedding and the end of the world.

Did I mention that it came in at two hours and sixteen minutes?

Fortunately, there was highly buttered popcorn.

"Melancholia" describes both the name of the rogue planet that collides with Earth, destroying all life, and the depression that the lead character, played by Kirsten Dunst, suffers.

Probably because "Melancholia" never played RVA, there was a good-sized crowd in the world's most uncomfortable theater seats and many of them were no doubt fans of director Lars von Trier.

JRFF organizer James Parrish introduced the film as the kind of movie they would show when they are able to establish a storefront repertory theater in Richmond, something they are actively seeking to do.

The movie was many things: beautifully shot (each scene was arranged like a painting), disturbing (an unhappier bride would be hard to find and her mother toasted her by saying, "I hate marriages, especially when they involve my closest family members"), dark (suicide, a horse being beaten) and bombastic (it began with a Wagner prelude).

By the time I walked out, I had half an hour before meeting a friend to see another JRFF offering.

I could use a little common sense when planning future Saturdays.

Luckily, first we did dinner at Garnett's, knowing we'd be able to get a nice glass of wine and be out in time for an 8:00 screening.

When you're sitting in a theater for close to six hours in one day, it's important o have priorities.

Two Cobb salads were followed by two slices of chocolate cake in that way that girlfriends like to eat when they're together.

Arriving at the Grace Street Theater for tonight's program "Richmond Takes Sundance," we were not surprised to see a big crowd gathering.

How often do we have two Richmond ties to one Sundance Festival?

We found good seats in the center and noticed that many people around us had brought their own candy since the theater doesn't have concessions.

As Friend noted, we shouldn't have craved candy in theory, but we'd have eaten it if we'd brought it.

Shameless, I know.

Showing first was a short, "Henley," shot in Cumberland, Virginia about a kid who lives at a motel and collects road kill.

The actor, Hale Lytle, was chosen from a host of SPARC kids, most of whom possessed the kind of "jazz hands" acting that they director was trying to avoid.

For the record, Lytle couldn't be at the screening tonight because he's in NYC shooting a feature film.

They grow up so fast.

Actually, he causes road kill, which was the disturbing part of former local Clay McLeod Chapman's script from a chapter in his novel.

But since I'd seen Chapman's work performed before, I knew to expect a twist and he'd delivered.

There was an endless delay due to technical difficulties before we got to the main event.

It was former Richmonder (and Ipanema chef) Rick Alverson's "The Comedy," which was anything but.

A disturbing look at our country's sense of entitlement and general numbness, it conveyed an uncomfortable sort of voyeurism of people impossible to like.

Most surprising was how much laughter there was at the screening because I found almost nothing laugh-worthy about its bleak picture of a desensitized world.

Particularly annoying was the loud laugher sitting right in front of me who laughed at every reference to sex, a seizure scene and every other inappropriate moment he could.

After the film, director Alverson said that some people had walked out of it at Sundance and other screenings had produced not a single laugh.

In my opinion, it shouldn't have. A movie about cruelty is nothing to laugh at.

One fascinating tidbit he shared was that the hour and a half movie had been made from an eighteen-page script with no dialog.

Ergo, all that talking by the unpleasant characters was improvised.

So all those male characters saying uncomfortable things to get a reaction and the women characters doing their best not to respond was spontaneous.

I have to admire being able to work that way.

Likewise, I have to admire a filmmaker who addresses a world with the kind of numb people who inhabit the 21st century.

I didn't say I cared about them, but they do make for a compelling film premise.

That said, my backside and I were more than happy to abandon theater seating for greener pastures.

Even a cinephile's butt needs a break after a while.

Sorry, Eraserhead, I just can't do it tonight.