Change Your Image
natebell
Reviews
Reel Redemption (2020)
An important piece of scholarship in an emerging field
Reel Redemption: The Rise of Christian Cinema is an ultra low-budget, feature-length video essay comprised entirely of found material (movie, television, and YouTube clips) commissioned by, and available exclusively through, Faithlife TV, a family-friendly streaming platform.
First, let's be clear what this documentary is not. It is not a comprehensive history of Christianity as expressed through the medium of film. Nor is it a history of the American church's involvement with the corporate Hollywood industry. You will not learn about Billy Graham's World Wide Pictures or Christian auteurs like Rolf Forsberg, Ron Ormond, or Donald W. Thompson. Rather, this is a thoughtful and stimulating survey of Christians' often contentious relationship with Hollywood, their emergence as a powerful moviegoing demographic, and their dramatic rise as a modern industry with powerful--if uneven and unpredictable--box office clout. It is also a critical yet optimistic look at the difficulties of representing spiritual truth--which resists visualization--in a visual medium for a congregation of viewers perpetually uncomfortable with ambiguity and abstraction, the very qualities that sustain art.
Smith, who wrote, edited, and narrates the film skillfully, belongs to an emerging class of young evangelical scholars who are both traditionally religious and cinema-literate. A prolific reviewer and podcaster, Smith is ideally positioned within a burgeoning discourse at the intersection of art and faith. He understands film language, but just as importantly, he understands Christians, and is more interested in building bridges than burning them.
The essay begins, appropriately enough, in the silent era, highlighting prominent examples of religious subject matter in epics like DeMille's The Ten Commandments, and speeds along to the ascendance of the Motion Picture Production Code and its powerful partnership with the Catholic Legion of Decency. Smith then goes on to demonstrate how the mainstream church gradually turned against Hollywood when the Code was replaced by the ratings system, climaxing with the boycott of the The Last Temptation of Christ. (Practicing a little self-censorship himself, Smith chooses one of the more anodyne clips--the raising of Lazarus--to illustrate that film's controversial retelling of the gospel narrative.)
Up to that point, very little in Reel Redemption deviates from broadly accepted film histories. Indeed, anyone who has taken a survey course on American cinema might find themselves in familiar territory. Smith, however, takes some bold discursive leaps during the essay's final third, which shines a spotlight on a rejuvenated Christian film industry that saw the release of The Omega Code--an independent effort that placed on the U. S. box office chart in 1999--and reached its apotheosis with The Passion of the Christ, which sent shock waves throughout the secular entertainment industry.
The content that came out of this new era of faith-based filmmaking has largely been disparaged--often with good reason--or ignored entirely by modern scholarship, so it's refreshing to see movies like those of the Kendrick Brothers (Fireproof, Courageous, et al.) engaged seriously, or at least respectfully. As a critic, Smith is both reproving and sympathetic, calling most Christian films "propaganda" for leading with a message, then softening this critique by suggesting that they should be regarded as a genre. Perhaps his most original contribution to the discourse is the identification of the "emblem," a symbolic object similar to Hitchcock's MacGuffin that drives the plot forward and gives the audience something to focus on.
As a one-man performance, Reel Redemption is impressive, an ambitious attempt to map the iconography of faith-based film and point toward a more fruitful engagement between Christians and Hollywood. As a piece in an expanding conversation, it fills a need and a void. Even so, Smith's reach exceeds his grasp. Besides a passing reference to Bergman's The Seventh Seal, there is very little discussion of European cinema and its influence on American culture, particularly in the late 1950s and 1960s when arthouses were at the peak of their popularity. It somehow falls outside the scope of Smith's thesis to include a towering figure like Terrence Malick, the cinematic patron saint of hipster Christians, whose Tree of Life expanded and redefined what we loosely refer to as "Christian cinema." And perhaps most significantly, Smith sweeps aside a century of church-financed filmmaking with its own quirky yet industrious studio system, whose history is chronicled with the utmost dedication by scholars like Terry Lindvall and Andrew Quicke.
In short, Reel Redemption could easily have filled an entire miniseries' worth of content with archival material and interviews with surviving pioneers, with Smith a globetrotting emcee in the style of Mark Cousins. Even after an engaging hour-and-a-half, there remain uncharted oceans to explore. Will anyone be courageous enough to shoulder such an undertaking?
Riva (2015)
the ecstatic image
I saw Riva when it premiered at the 168 Film Festival on August 30, 2015. It would not be an exaggeration to call it the sensation of the fest. The programmers knew what they were doing when they slated it as the final show of the evening: it had a consummatory effect, like the commencement speech at a high school graduation ceremony. The director-cinematographer-editor, Christopher Wiegand, has an artist's eye and a musician's sense of rhythm. He prefers to work largely in hand-held, shallow focus compositions, editing in a rapid montage style that speeds the narrative along on greased tracks. There is very little dialogue in the film (it was nominated for several awards-screenplay was not one of them), but the headlong action is kept intelligible at all times.
The story concerns a young vagabond (played with magnificent intensity by Meredith Adams, who won the Best Actress prize) and her pilgrimage to see a mystical healer (a striking Grant James) who appears to be the sole inhabitant of a tiny island. Haunted by images of her dead daughter, she seeks a cure for her perpetually bleeding wrists (slashed wrists being a cliché on the Christian film festival circuit- shorthand for psychological trauma), which take on a symbolic quality. In fact, practically everything in Riva is symbolic, since it alludes, parable-like, to Mark 5:34, the story of the woman who was healed of her hemophilia after touching Christ's garment. Did I mention the name "Riva" is Latin for "regain strength?"
Wiengard takes this slender scenario and turns it into a bold stylistic exercise, employing a whole arsenal of filmic effects: a diving, swooping camera, anguished slow motion closeups, and an insistent, euphoric score. It all works toward a single emotional impression, and while you may be tempted to reject the simplicity of the story, the sheer cinematic intensity proves harder to resist. The frequent use of drone operated aerial shots, coupled with the tastefully doctored imagery, give it a strangely surreal quality that somehow succeeds.
On the whole, this is a superbly confident work by a young filmmaker who prefers to tell stories in visual terms, and who believes in the expressive qualities of film to elicit emotion. I'd love to see what Wiegand could do with a more dialogue driven script, where the challenges of classical continuity editing would test his cinematic mettle.
The Dead Kid (2013)
Gregory Goyins' masterpiece.
And so it is. After much promise--flashes of intelligence, isolated moments of brilliance--Goyins puts it all together in what is certainly his most mature film. Set in the early '80s, The Dead Kid relates the tragic story of an adolescent boy's disappearance in a small coastal town. It is told through the eyes of a same-aged girl (Mandalynn Carlson) whose growing awareness of the surrounding incidents (the boy was bullied by locals) provides a sturdy, empathetic core. Unabashedly literary (based on a short story by Gillian King, who shares screenplay credit), the film effortlessly moves through a nonlinear narrative space, interweaving first person narration with observational storytelling to create a dense, emotionally rich texture. The cinematography has a warm, glowing, nostalgic sheen, and every production detail is calibrated for maximum emotional effect. There are numerous felicitous touches (such as the "Greek chorus" of kids that ease the transitions between scenes) but the biggest revelation, at least to this viewer, is that Goyins proves himself, after the old soul world-weariness of After the Denim and the shocking body horror of Vitriolage, a sensitive director of children. But to say so doesn't convey the full effect of watching The Dead Kid. It has to be seen to be believed. Goyins and his team of collaborators have made a small classic that speaks to specific social issues (race, class, bullying, etc.) without neglecting the all important human element. In short, it is a major accomplishment.
Vitriolage (2011)
Violence in a moral vacuum
Vitriolage is almost impossible to watch, and yet the craft behind it (particularly the smooth, slicing camera-work) to some extent diffuses the misogynistic overtures of the narrative. It's a breakup movie in which the man's feelings of betrayal and rage are powerfully externalized and directed against the female form. In terms of surface detail, the fetishization of the torture implements ally it with the likes of Saw, Hostel, and their ilk, but the approach is intellectually distanced, so that it almost resembles a deconstruction of the torture genre. (Remember, this is the same director who gave us a sensitive Carver adaptation.) The viewer's identification with the victim builds to an almost unendurable degree, and yet, at the precise moment all hope evaporates, Goyins takes us beyond fear, beyond punishment. A near masterpiece of discomfort.
After the Denim (2010)
An effective and affecting translation of Carver
After the Denim is a faithful rendering of a Raymond Carver short story about a man coming to grips with his wife's terminal illness, compressed (like Joyce's The Dead) into a single evening. Adaptations of this sort can be tricky, especially since they rely so much on subtext, but this one successfully navigates the small epiphanies without spilling over into sentiment. The nuance is there in the finely tailored performances and humdrum trappings. The filmmakers get great mileage from simple locations: a bland bingo hall is turned into a dramatic space; an ordinary parking lot becomes confrontational. An auspicious performance from first-time writer-director Goyins and longtime producer-director Rosenfelt.
Nigel Stone (2003)
tongue in cheek
A bright, smart-alecky parody of detective movie conventions, apparently conceived after too many viewings of The Naked Gun. There's too much dead air around the dialogue (as though the filmmakers were planning on adding canned laughter) for the screwy, rapid-fire aesthetic to really work, but Nathan Shane Miller's screenplay has wit, structure and a refreshingly politically incorrect sensibility (especially in regard to the ugly or the physically handicapped). It also has very little to do with film noir. In fact, its closest cinematic cousin is probably the Saturday morning cartoon, with its two buffoonish henchmen (a trashcan robot and a malignant mime) and their broadly caricatured boss, the optically afflicted Alexei Cliché. The woozy premise is given a helping hand by Phil Eastvold's rich, creamy 16mm color photography, frugal but spiffy production values, and Winton White's sexy sax score.
Distracted (2005)
crime and punishment
A smashing debut for director Jones, rich in feeling and plainly sympathetic to the plight of its characters. Some of itespecially the depiction of the protagonist's home lifefeels like the stuff of after school specials, but the harsh, dynamic visuals (including a haunting final shot) lend it vitality uncommon among films of this ilk. And the loose, improvisational style of the actors is sometimes worthy of Charles Burnett. That the film does not withhold judgment from its central character (a teenaged African-American boy "distracted" by basketball, rap music, and marijuana) indicates a moral toughnesssort of like a ghetto Dostoevskythat narrowly avoids being mawkish, maudlin, or preachy.
Sundown (2003)
mythically inclined
A superbly composed western that begins as a two-person talk piece but moves swiftly, relentlessly, and inexorably toward an expressive climax. Once we are taken out of the saloon (with its overripe sound effects and oppressive lighting) and thrust into a scorching desert wasteland (actually Palm Springs), Sikora shows his mastery of cinematic technique in a beautifully cadenced, seductively photographed action sequence that would have made Leone green with envy. The director seems obsessed with Western myth-making, and none of the simple storyline will make sense until you've seen The Shootist (or, at the very least, Shane). The predetermined "attitude" imposed on the material curdles most of the freshness, but this conflict of interest (new, hip "modern" film-making versus old, archaic, "classical" film-making) generates some interest of its own. Nathan Pearsey is too young (though dignified) as the bone- tired gunslinger that longs for California, but Brian Rowe gives a fine, wriggly performance as the hotheaded kid eager to make his mark. After killing his idol, he disappears into the wilderness like Cain leaving the presence of God.