Nashville Wrap Up (Part 1)

Howdy y’all. Excuse the twang. I’m just back from Nashville (last night was their closing night) but now I have already plunged headfirst into freelance work for the Tribeca Film Festival. I miss my Film Experience baby but I’ll be back to regular posting duties on May 1st. I had hoped to write up several of the features I saw in Nashville to give you a better picture of this trip to the longest running film festival in the south but we’ll have to cover those films as they emerge on DVD or theatrical instead. For now a quick dashed off note about the festival’s main slate.

a poster for Applaus hangs over the moviegoing crowd

Narrative Competition
The winner was a blast of color and song, a Russian musical actually. The plot was weirdly reminiscent of John Waters Cry Baby only gender-flipped with a side of boys-who-can't-stop-dancing from Swing Kids (Anyone remember that?). It's squares vs. hipsters opening is thrilling but the first musical number almost derails it for sheer confusion before things really get hopping. It's not always a smooth ride but it's most definitely a ride. It gets better as it goes and the ending is a knowing hoot, contextually the title in a way that just about anyone will understand. Recommended! Bonus points: Giving us lots of Oksana Akinshina who you'll undoubtedly remember fondly from Lilja 4ever. She's all grown up now and ravishing, fully convincing as the unknowable dream girl "Polly" who gets the story rolling.

<--- Grand Jury Prize: Valeriy Todorovskiy’s Hipsters
Honorable Mention: The Be All End All
Best Actor: Anton Shagin, Hipsters
Best Actress: Paprika Steen, Applause

It probably won't surprise you to hear that my great takeaway from this festival was a performance by an actress. I was on a separate jury so I didn't vote on the main competition but I was both enormously pleased and as far from surprised as it's possible to be to hear that they were rewarding Paprika Steen for her portrayal of an alcoholic actress Thea in this Danish film. Not only is Steen sensational as the trainwreck actress but she's also blistering as "Martha" who Thea plays in a production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf that keeps tearing holes in Thea's own narrative with its constant intrusions. I loved this performance -- it's a monster, fully deserving of the closeups it's continually granted -- and I loved the movie, too. You may remember Steen for her intense work in the dogme breakthrough Celebration (1998). She's just riveting in Applause and I'm hoping that the film, which has been working the festival circuit for some time, finds distribution so I can demand that every last one of you see it.