Movies -- A Recap -- Part XX -- SLIFF 2021

I hoped for more from Atlas.  This was the first of only two full-length films we watched.  It profiles a rock climber named Allegra who was in a cafe in Morocco when the cafe was blown up by terrorists.  All three of the friends she was traveling with were killed; Allegra was wounded.  She's now back home in Europe -- physically recovering, emotionally struggling, dealing with the lingering fears, slowly attempting to climb again.  If you're looking for an emotional journey, this may be what you're looking for.  I wanted more Morocco, I wanted more climbing; this movie doesn't really have either, so I was pretty bummed.

The second of our full-length films was My So-Called Selfish Life.  This one was right up my alley, and I loved it.  It gave voice to so many of the different feelings I've had over the last 15 years.  It questions the broad societal assumption that all women want to have children, interrogates why that is the case and why it's bad for women, and profiles several women who elected a childfree life.  This movie is not for everyone -- I get that -- but it was definitely for me.  It's a good, thoughtful reminder.  And I especially loved the closing credits: "no storks were harmed during the making of this movie."

In addition to the features, I watched loads of shorts.  S joined me for some of them, others were just me.

First up was the "Narrative Shorts: Assorted Gems" collection.  In something approximating the actual order in which they were played:
  -- Strasbourg 1518 (trailer) was terrible.  It's an avant-garde dance film, and as soon as we figured out what was happening (or more to the point, that nothing was happening), we skipped the end of it.
  -- The Coupon was weird but sort of entertaining, in its own way.  A wife gives her husband a birthday "coupon," which winds up in the hands of the man the husband backed into with his car.  When the man demands compliance, the wife is reticent.  Then the terms of the coupon change.
  -- Play It Again (trailer) is a broken heart story, cute and funny but bittersweet.
  -- The Danger in Front was a visually fascinating short.  Sort of a satire on a film noir.  Odd, but fascinating in its own way.
I really liked Out of Time.  It takes a minute to figure out what's going on, but that's part of the fun of it, so I won't tell you.  But it's really lovely.
  -- Shower Boys has an unfortunately un-clever title.  It's about two boys, in the shower.  In part it's your standard coming-of-age story with a bit of an exploratory twist, in part it's a lesson in parenting.
  -- The last, longest, and best of the bunch was The Letter Room (though it is not without controversy).  It follows a prison guard whose job is to review incoming and outgoing prisoner mail for objectionable content.  He can't help but become involved in the lives of some of the prisoners once he gets to know them through their correspondence.

S also joined me for "Doc Shorts: Secret Histories":
  -- Restrictions Apply (full film; trailer) is a story we know well; St. Louis is famous for its history of restrictive covenants excluding black folks from owning property in certain areas of town, and we discussed it at length in my property class in law school.  Perhaps because we know the story so well, S saw this as very much a "white savior" narrative.  I can see where he's coming from; it's a bunch of white folks campaigning for the removal of restrictive covenants from the properties they own.  But I don't have a good sense of how well-known this story is in other parts of the country or outside of the legal community, so maybe it's good that the story is getting out there.  Changing the covenants has to come from somewhere, even if those people are white, right?
  -- Street Reporter (trailer) follows a formerly homeless woman who reports on homeless issues, and the way homeless people are treated (which is primarily to say displaced).  While she is reporting on other people's homelessness, she is simultaneously struggling with homelessness herself.
-- Red Horizon profiles the founders and students at a flight school which focuses on training young black students to be pilots, dedicated to keeping the memory of the Tuskegee Airmen alive.
-- The infiltration of FBI agents into the Vietnam Veterans Against the War movement is the focus of The FBI's Secret War (trailer).  The whole operation, called COINTELPRO, was broader than just the VVAW infiltration; it was the name used more broadly for all groups through the 50s, 60s, and 70s that the FBI deemed subversive.  I guess I always assumed that there had been some amount of this going on, but I didn't quite realize the extent of it.
-- The Queen of Basketball we skipped.  It was pretty boring and not a topic I have much interest in.
-- Memory Lanes I have no memory of.  I think maybe this one didn't end up being included in the program (which sometimes happens).

I watched the "Doc Shorts: Growing Old" while S was busy with other projects one day.  Here are my thoughts:
-- Come on Time was not great.  Another one of those ones that was pretty "blah," to the point that I hardly remember it. 
-- The Hairdresser was a very sweet French film about a hairdresser who does the hair of elderly people living in a home so that they can have some little glimmer of their prior life back.
-- Strikers was cute.  It's about the inter-old-folks'-home Wii bowling championship in one town in Illinois.  Who knew there was such a thing?
-- Testimony of Ana is terribly sad.  Ana is an elderly woman in India who was accused of witchcraft.  She was exiled from her village and deals with the consequences of being an outcast.
-- Senior Prom celebrates the elderly LGBTQ generation, finally able to have all the fun they weren't able to when they were in high school.
-- Heurtebise honestly I really don't remember. So I guess it can't have been that good.

Last but not least were the "Doc Shorts: Honest Work" selections:
-- A Broken House was a sad but sweet story about a Syrian immigrant who can't go home to see his family because of his visa limitations, so he builds a tiny reproduction of his Damascus neighborhood to feel closer to home.
-- The Neon Craftsman was a neat little short film about a guy whose business is making neon signs in a world that uses fewer and fewer of them.
-- The Seeker is the story of an Amish man who has had to leave his community after a crisis of faith.
-- Eric and the Bees is -- you guessed it -- about Eric and his bees.  Beekeeping became Eric's therapy after he left the military.  It gives him purpose and helps him deal with the trauma of his combat history.
-- Lines of Exile is a black and white animated film, but I forget what it's about.  Something about education or immigration or the like.
-- Takeaway is a "day in the life" film about a carry-out food delivery driver in Beijing.
-- Joakim and Mutha & the Death of Ham-Ma-Fuku I truly don't remember at all.  Sometimes it happens that a film which is originally slated to be part of a series doesn't end up being shown.  Probably for licensing reasons, but I'm sure there were others too.  That might have been the case here.  Or it's also possible that I just didn't finish this series before my viewing license expired.

And, that was the end of my SLIFF 2021 adventure!  See you next year.