This year's Sundance was marked by great uncertainty. Personally, I was never quite sure how to feel, as the many unknowns surrounding next year's move to Boulder meant it was unclear to what extent this year was supposed to feel like the end of something or the beginning of a new beginning. However, he didn't know how sad he must be; As the festival progressed, it became clear that there was room for nostalgic reflections.
The first movie I saw at Sundance was Andrew Fleming's comedy “Hamlet 2” at the Library Center Theatre. Which means it was 2008 and then I was an intrepid freelancer who talked myself into sleeping in a recliner in a condo rented by The Times until the staff left and I finally had the place to myself due to the vagaries of an extended lease. That's how I found myself, completely unexpectedly, in a room interviewing all the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, who were in town for the documentary of their “CSNY/Déjà Vu” tour.
That sense of surprise and discovery (and in-person interactions that probably wouldn't happen anywhere else) are what have brought me back to the festival every year I can since. That's precisely why I'm a big fan of the festival's NEXT section, made up of films that don't fit anywhere else in the program. This year's highlight was Georgia Bernstein's first feature film, “Night nurse” a film of assured poise about a young woman (a convincing Cemre Paskoy) who takes a job at a nursing home only to be dragged into a series of phone scams, erotic role-playing and psychosexual transference with one of the clients. Recommending the film to colleagues feels a bit like a human rights violation, but the perverted undercurrents and disturbing emotions are worth it.
Cemre Paksoy and Bruce McKenzie in the movie “Night Nurse.”
(Lidia Nikonova / Sundance Institute)
Many conversations surrounding the festival seemed to focus firmly on “The Invite” and “Josephine,” but another film that people kept mentioning was “Wicker.” Written and directed by Eleanor Wilson and Alex Huston Fischer, adapting a short story by Ursula Wills-Jones, the film takes place in an unspecified time and place: a sort of medieval-style mental village in Central Europe, in which a single woman (Olivia Colman) asks a local basket weaver (Peter Dinklage) to make her a husband. The fact that he comes out looking like Alexander Skarsgård makes the whole city nervous. Nimble and inventive, with compelling special effects work, the film is a charming parable that continually finds ways to reset itself.
It's unclear how it was planned, but there couldn't have been a better movie than “The only living pickpocket in New York” It will be the last fiction feature film to premiere at the Eccles Theatre, one of the festival's most historic venues. The film, the directorial debut of character actor Noah Segan, is a warmly elegiac portrait of the city and the pain of recognizing when time has passed. Led by a quietly commanding lead performance from John Turturro, the film also stars Steve Buscemi and Giancarlo Esposito in supporting roles.
When the trio took the stage with Segan and other cast members after the film, it quickly became apparent how special it was to have those three actors there at that moment. Buscemi rattled off a staggering number of films in which he has appeared with “New York” in the title – “New York Stories,” “Slaves of New York,” “King of New York” – while Turturro spoke movingly about his relationship with Robert Redford, whose absence loomed throughout the festival.
John Turturro in the movie “The Only Living Pickpocket in New York.”
(MRC II Distribution Co. LP / Sundance Institute)
When Esposito began talking about what Sundance has meant to him over the years, his words gained a fierce momentum. He recalled that when he first came to the festival in the '90s, he was “ecstatic that it gave a voice to those who had no voice… We didn't come to sell a movie to a big studio. We came to share our little movie with human beings who could actually see themselves in a mirror on the screen.”
Of Redford, he added: “His vision is priceless. It is the jewel we all hope for. It is the juice of why we live. It is the connection of why this film works. It is the love for what we do. This, for me, will stay with me for the rest of my life. My interactions with this man who started this festival will always be a beacon of light in my creative process.”
It was a beautiful and inspiring way to leave that theater for the last time and, in turn, leave Park City behind into a future that, while full of unknowns, for now will also promise new discoveries to come.
