The screen, like the page, starts out blank. And just like that moment when (old school) you crack the spine of the book, when the projector tosses images of a pre-show trailer on the white wall, the anticipation begins. Where will this take me?
In just a week I have been to China and back. The Antarctic. The West Bank. Brooklyn. A 90,000-square-foot unfinished home in Orlando. The Deep South. Japan during the tsunami. The L Train in Chicago. The future.
I was thinking I hadn’t really seen many films from this year’s festival. That can happen when you are surrounded by film lovers who are drinking from the fire hydrant of offerings known as Sundance. When folks are seeing two and three and even five films a day (yes, Donna, I’m talkin’ about you), it is easy to feel like a slacker when you average one a day.
But the rest of the long year you realize that weeks, sometimes months, go by and you see zero films. Seeing “only 10” in a week seems like some kind of crazy luxury. Like a festival.
During this crazy 10-day circus, I see very few documentaries as a rule. Which is sad, because I love them. I tend to see movies where I work, at the Eccles Center. And mostly those are premieres and dramatic-competition entries. But the student outreach program, which we help partner with Sundance, is mostly doc shorts, which gives me a taste of things real, not imagined. On Monday, we showed students the power-packed piece, “The Tsunami and The Cherry Tree.” On Tuesday the short was nominated for an Academy award. Later in the week we were able to show the students only segments of the popular “Chasing Ice,” about our shrinking glaciers. We could show them only segments because the film had just sold to National Geographic for distribution. The actual filmmakers are in the classroom with the students and these kids, right in the midst of the festival, experience the festival in a way few adults ever do.
I hadn’t planned to watch “Robot and Frank,” but suddenly things were going smoothly and I had a ticket. The story appears to be about a man with memory issues in the not-too-distant future whose family members decide to buy him a companion robot to help fix meals and clean the house and get him out to exercise. Which is all very sweet. But Frank is a thief at heart and has been imprisoned more than once and his absences have caused his estrangement from his family. He has a crush on a librarian who has a robot that helps her restock books and perform simple tasks. The cast is stellar Liv Tyler, Susan Sarandon, Frank Langella. It takes you on a subtle journey about aging, family, posers, and people who can easily be parted with some of their wealth. There are twists and turns and more turns. And the ending may not be as benign as it appears. It gave me much to think about.
As did every minute of the documentary film, “Never Sorry,” about Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei. (At the TED conference last spring there was a short piece about Ai and his work and his struggle with free speech in a country that didn’t support that. Or him. At end of the presentation, we were asked to stay in our seats and then, on the screen we saw Ai, who was in a closet in his home, on his computer, talking to us while he was under house arrest. A month later he was imprisoned for 81 days for his outspoken beliefs.) Thank you to my neighbor, Amy, who found a ticket for me to the film about Weiwei.
The filmmaker is a young woman who, after college, taught herself Chinese (yes, you read that right) and took off to have an adventure in Beijing. Where she met Ai and learned about his incredible talent from his design for the Bird’s Nest stadium at the Olympics, to exhibits at the Tate Museum in London, to his photographs from the decade he lived in New York City and chronicled other hip Chinese up-and-coming cool cats.
The filming at his house and gardens is mesmerizing. He owns more than 40 cats. Beautiful, longhaired independent creatures. And there is a moment, early in the film, where he points out he might have thought cats couldn’t open doors because 39 of his cats can’t do that. But he has one cat that can. And this skillful young filmmaker catches the cat approach the door with a running leap, jump up on the handle, push it down, land on the floor again and then sashay out the door and into the garden.
I’ve thought about that scene all week.
And that’s the magic of Sundance, those moments where you realize what you thought were facts cats can’t open doors are turned upside down when you see it happen right in front of you. On the screen. As day in the theater turns into night in the future.
There are still days left to grab some adventures, including this very Sunday in the Park …
Teri Orr is a former editor of The Park Record. She is the director of the organization that provides programming for the George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Center for the Performing Arts.