Little Rock Film Festival 2010: Down to the Bone

If standards used in measuring a film festival's success are solely based on the fruition of its films, the Little Rock Film Festival continues to surpass those measurements. In its first three years, pre-distribution screenings like Knocked Up, That Evening Sun, Touching Home, Breaking Upwards and (500) Days of Summer have all gone on to further acclaim. This year is no exception.

Having already snatched the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, Winter's Bone opened the Little Rock festival and went on to win Best Narrative. Co-writer/director Debra Granik continues the high quality of recent Southern films with her gripping Appalachian tale of Ree, a 17 year old girl who faces a seemingly hopeless task to protect her disabled mother and younger brother and sister. After hearing that her criminal father has been released from prison and is mysteriously missing she is told by authorities that her family will lose their home if he doesn't show up--dead or alive. Her only hope is a drug addicted uncle named Teardrop and a local godfather called Thump whose power mirrors that of Don Corleone himself. When they all refuse to help she pushes her nose into where it's too dangerous to sniff. Jennifer Lawrence is wonderful as the determined Ree. When she tells the sheriff (Garret Dillahunt) that she'll find her dad he sarcastically responds that he's looked everywhere. "I said I'll find him," she replies. It's not his heart that she melts with her piercing eyes. It's his guts. But her Uncle (John Hawkes) is even tougher as he shows in one of this year's most suspenseful scenes when he and the sheriff square off and Teardrop asks "Is this going to be our time?" Hawkes, who was so understatedly great in "Deadwood", somehow reminds me of Levon Helm. Expect to see Hawkes, Lawrence and the film itself on some "best of" lists by the end of the year. I know they will be on mine.

Passenger Pigeons is a much tamer Appalachian film but fascinating nonetheless. First time writer/director Martha Stephens presents us with a dramatic snapshot of an American mining town. Stephens, playing a college student who arrives to protest the mining company's methods, finds that the protest is canceled because of a miner's death. Her story runs parallel to those of others in the town: two mining officials who arrive to deal with the event, a young man who works in the mine and his girlfriend who both struggle with their feelings about the accident, and the miner's widow and little boy who are consoled by the miner's brother. I had expected the four stories to somehow come together as one with political viewpoints escalating to a climax of dispute. But instead, I was pleasantly surprised at how Stephens developed each story as almost a separate, apolitical vignette, and they remained that way. Their individual journeys were poignant and insightful. And the dialogue was simple, direct and absorbing. I left wanting more but content that I didn't get it.

Although Winter's Bone and Passenger Pigeons were both nominated, the festival's award for "Best Southern Film" went to the documentary American: The Bill Hicks Story. Under the category of "Celebrities Who Died Too Young" Bill Hicks is not a name well known. But once you see this film you will always remember him. Hicks was quickly becoming one of the biggest comedians of his time when he died of pancreatic cancer in 1994 at the age of 33. Co-directors Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas employ a unique form of animation that compliments the footage of Hicks' performances and numerous interviews with those who knew him. (I was fortunate to see Bill's act in Austin in the early 90s.) Hicks had the talent that all great comedians have of putting a mirror up and allowing us to look at ourselves in a different light. The heart of the film, however, is in the film's portrayal of Hicks' relationship with his family and close friends--especially growing up and at the end of his life. His mother Mary and brother Steve were at both screenings during the festival and Mary told how Hicks had come home to have his mother take care of him in his last days. Without a doubt, one of the best documentaries of 2010.

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