Cinequest is San Jose’s preeminent film festival, celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. In this daily film journal, I’ll be trying to spotlight films you might otherwise miss and let you know when you’ll be able to catch them again.

 Aspie Seeks Love

Directed, Written by Julie Sokolow
Fri, Feb 27 7:45 PM, Sun, Mar 1 4:45 PM, Wed, Mar 4 2:45 PM 
Buy tickets here

The documentary is not a form I’m drawn to, except perhaps during Cinequest. So far we’re two for two, with the splendid Batkid Begins which opened the festival, and now with the surprisingly pleasant, humorous, and inspiring Aspie Seeks Love.

Aspie is not a person, at least not directly. Aspie is short for Asperger’s Syndrome, or Disorder, which notably manifests in difficulties in social interaction. The person here is David Mathews, who reminds us in the film that he is not related to the “caterwauling alt-rock singer.” And that’s pretty much David, he’s clever, funny, and a bit out of touch with how he’s going to be perceived by people he meets.

So what does David want? Pretty much what everyone wants; someone to talk to, to listen, a companion, hopefully eventually a sexual partner. When watching another older couple, he expresses hopes that someday when he’ll similarly have grown old with his own companion. And that’s pretty much what the documentary promises.

Except it’s not.

While we’re entertained by the oddly composed and posted flyers,  the quirky locations David chooses for them, and the short interviews with prospective dates, that’s really the shallow end of this pool.

David, we find, is a persistent writer of fiction, performs public readings, is an artist, a devout vegan, and an extremely honest fellow when it comes to discussing his good and bad points. He has clearly formed and tightly held social and political views that he shares freely and with no small amount of sarcasm. He’s a fully rendered human being, and that’s really not what we expected. With the main narrative charmingly delivered in his self-admitted robotically hesitant voice, which is totally clear in pronunciation, he grows on us. Even though for the first few minutes you may wonder why an older Macintosh is narrating the film.

Bringing this picture of a different form of coping and creation, admittedly still full of personal frustration and failures, is the real gift of this movie. David is shown to be working to overcome the problems he has in interactions with others, and does manage to make connections with more people than so many unafflicted might hope for.

And that’s hopeful in itself.

This week and next we’ll take daily looks at Cinequest movie offerings that still offer opportunities for you to catch at the festival.  Subscribe now so you won’t miss any!

Ric Bretschneider
February 27th, 2015

Cinequest is San Jose’s preeminent film festival, celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. In this daily film journal, I’ll be trying to spotlight films you might otherwise miss and let you know when you’ll be able to catch them again.

 Afterlife (Utoelet)

Directed and Written by Virág Zomborácz, Starring Márton Kristóf, László Gálffi
Tue, Mar 3 9:45 PM, Fri, Mar 6 7:30 PM
Buy tickets here

There’s a subtle difference between a ghost story and a haunting story, but we’re not going to go deep there, this is a haunting story. It’s also loveable, funny, and as close to a realistic slice of life as you can get while still entertaining conversations with your dead father.

Mozes, Márton Kristóf, is recently discharged from a therapeutic stay in a facility which may or may not have helped his general confidence issues. His father, László Gálffi,  is overbearing, demanding, and has just decided that Mozes will head out to help leppers when he drops dead. While freeing Mozes from his impending undesired service fate, he soon realizes that the now somewhat mopey ghost of his father is following him about, providing bad and useless advice, and generally disturbing all aspects of Mozes’ life.

The rest of the family is cut from similarly flawed stock. The adopted sister is unable to fend for herself or explain why she returns home with smeared mud and crows feathers decorating her head and clothes. His Aunt is trying to have an affair with a local religious leader, when she isn’t otherwise trying to rule over her sister’s family. And the mother walks from scene to scene as if she were a ghost herself.

Mozes’ struggle to figure out why his father won’t pass along is similarly “helped” by the local auto repairman who is a psychic on the side, and a somewhat undependable sometimes girlfriend who just can’t seem to quit any number of addictions.Of course, neither is much help in the end, it’s up to Mozes to actually figure things out, or just stumble into a solution.

So, not exactly Ghostbusters in its scope or plot, but this film does deliver a lot of fun and charm as we watch the dour Mozes struggle through afterlife with father.

This week and next we’ll take daily looks at Cinequest movie offerings that still offer opportunities for you to catch at the festival.  Subscribe now so you won’t miss any!

Ric Bretschneider
February 25th, 2015

Cinequest is San Jose’s preeminent film festival, celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. In this daily film journal, I’ll be trying to spotlight films you might otherwise miss and let you know when you’ll be able to catch them again.

 Songs She Wrote About People She Knows

Directed and Written by Kris Elgstrand, Starring Arabella Bushnell
Sat, Feb 28, 3:15 PM, Mon, Mar 2, 7:00 PM Thu, Mar 5, 5:00 PM
Buy tickets here

There’s a familiar sinking feeling, a dread when a film starts with someone undergoing anger therapy who decides to quit the group and deal with it on their own. Rarely does this end well. And even rarer still, does the film turn out to be a musical.

And that’s why Songs She Wrote About People She Knows is just a doubly rare experience.

Carol (Arabella Bushnell) has anger issues. Few of the people she knows bring her anything but disappointment and aggravation. An exercise from the therapy group she has abandoned, she sets about writing songs that express her negative opinions of them, and then delivers the songs in performances left on telephone answering machines. Relatives, acquaintances, and even her boss. This last triggers a series of events that finds her “on the road” with her now ex-boss both looking for a more polished and perhaps popular way to express themselves.

Without giving too much away, the journey is unique, and the relationship… well, it’s fairly unique for a musical comedy.

And this is a comedy, a desert-dry, quirky, and tightly plotted set of crazy encounters. And it is a musical, but due to the unique conceit of having the performer sing as a form of therapeutic communication it’s not the same kind of fantastic fantasy that most musicals expect us to accept, where occasionally the players drift into a parallel universe where their inner thoughts and feelings are given life.  No, everything in Songs She Wrote About People She Knows could have happened in the world where Carol is acting on the singing therapy.

It’s not a musical reality the likes of John Carney’s Once, or even Jersey Boys. These are reasonably talented non-professionals (at least the characters are) who just end up singing their feelings.  And it works.

What’s not to love about someone singing about how much they dislike dislikable characters? Bushnell brings the otherwise visually reserved Carol from someone we’re not sure we like at all, into someone we’re really pulling for by the end. Keeping her reserve straight through to the end, we’re still looking at the same Carol, but perhaps with a little more understanding of what she’s all about.

And the hinted-at sequel?  Well, that’s intriguing as well.

This week and next we’ll take daily looks at Cinequest movie offerings that still offer opportunities for you to catch at the festival.  Subscribe now so you won’t miss any!

Ric Bretschneider
February 25th, 2015