Movie Review: Damsels in Distress (2011) Dir. Whit Stillman

Hey everybody let's do the sambola!

VIOLET 

You probably think we’re frivolous, empty-headed, perfume-obsessed college coeds. You’re probably right. I often feel empty headed--
Violet picks up the “Prevention” from the Center’s sign from ground.

VIOLET (CONT’D) 

But we’re also trying to make a difference in people’s lives. And one way to do that is to prevent them from killing themselves.... Have you ever heard the expression, “Prevention is nine-tenths the cure?” Well, in the case of suicide, it’s actually ten-tenths.

Damsels in Distress by Whit Stillman

Rating 4 out of 5 stars

Damsels in Distress was chosen as the Blahblahblahgay 6th Best Film of 2012

Blurb: Damsels in Distress follows a trio of beautiful girls who set out to revolutionize life at a grungy East Coast College – the dynamic leader Violet Wister (Greta Gerwig), principled Rose and sexy Heather. They welcome transfer student Lily (Analeigh Tipton) into their group which seeks to help severely depressed students with a program of good hygiene and musical dance numbers. The girls become romantically entangled with a series of men -- including slick Charlie (Adam Brody), dreamboat Xavier and the mad frat pack of Frank and Thor —who threaten the girls’ friendship and sanity.


Thoughts: A charming, witty and wonderful surprise, not least because Greta Gerwig can act. A little bizarre, not for everybody for sure but I had a wonderful time with Whit Stillman's flowers.

Damsels in Distress is quirky American independent cinema that borrows heavily from the mumblecore movement yet is more than a case of copycat cinema thanks to the unique voice of Whit Stillman. Writer/director Whit Stillman hadn't made a movie since The Last Days of Disco in 1998, cinema has changed dramatically since then, especially indie films and yet his obvious talent seems to have adapted easily, with the acknowledged assistance of Lena Dunham.

There are characters with hypersensitivity of the nasal passages, characters who are naively susceptible to all kinds of nonsense thrown their way and characters so stupid that they don't even know what colors are. It's all an exagerration, obviously, as the university of Damsels in Distress resides in a bizarre world inside Stillman's mind that he has allowed us access to for 99 minutes.

Greta Gerwig was a perfect fit for Stillman's Violet and she was surprisingly convincing in this dry role. Violet in turns juggles conflicting, contrasting character traits from one moment to the next, as her self belief waxes and wanes, ebbs and flows as others label her a life-saver or a joke, take advantage of her good nature and her attempts to help that occasionally hinder. She plays the role with such innocence and earnestness that the irritation you might ordinarily find with such a character is replaced with joy and hope.

More surprising for me is that Stillman is quoted as not knowing who she was before they started casting and assumed that as a pretty blonde girl she was going to read for the "bombshell Lily part." If I'd already seen Last Days of Disco I might have understood this stance, here is the director that cast Chloe Sevigny in the lead role in 1998, a woman that whilst uniquely beautiful (and a developing talent) isn't ever going to be a Hollywood directors first choice for leading lady. The same can be said (without the Vincent Gallo baggage, yet) for Greta Gerwig.

One weak point is that the timing and structure seem to be a little off; for a movie that is only 99 minutes it occasionally felt like it had been playing forever but there are so many marvellous laugh out loud moments and snippets of dialogue that you are won over and keep enjoying yourself despite wondering just how bizarre things can become. Such dialogue is a rare commodity in 21st century American cinema, with so much conversation simply serving as exposition or punctuation to a set piece.

The aspect that I was particularly enamoured of is that despite her at times questionable attitude it is the virtuous nature of Violet that triumphs, her goodness overcomes the bad things that surround or threaten to overcome her. The wholesome and sweet nature of the denouement is especially so because we know that in the reality outside of Stillman's mind this is not how life generally works but sometimes in the right circumstances hoping for good things to come to occasionally idiotic movie characters is something that can make a realist happy, even when they break in to a full blown musical dance number in a fountain.

All this and I haven't even mentioned the presence of the always excellent and always underused Adam Brody or the fun use of costume, for this I suggest visiting What Indie Nights? for her unique look at the movie.

The movie has no real direction or strong character objective, no traditional narrative arc that you might come to expect from Hollywood, it just follows these flowers around as they live their lives on campus in a series of anecdotal scenes. This "slice of life" trait that I love so much in more serious movies is blended with a surreal edge to create a movie that while not perfect is immensely enjoyable and will almost certainly provide extra pleasure on repeat viewings.

What's your favourite post-mumblecore movie? Are you a fan of Whit Stillman? What's your opinion of final scene musical dance numbers? Can a movie make you happy with an undeserved happy ending? Answer those questions or just discuss the review/movie in the comments below.
 

Reviews from some of my favourite bloggers:
The Most Beautiful Fraud in the World
Film Ha-Ha

Additional viewing:
Waitress
The Dish and the Spoon
Clueless (yes that is the artwork of the always wonderful Alex Kittle from Film Forager and you can buy her art here)

Additional reading:
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
Shoplifting From American Apparel by Tao Lin
All Families Are Psychotic by Douglas Coupland

Movie Review: Quiet City (2007)

Quiet City, the follow up film from Aaron Katz after his previous mumblecore effort, Dance Party, USA. As mentioned in my review of a few weeks ago, I was enamoured of the mumblecore scene and this seemed like a good place to continue my experience of it.

Quiet City follows 24 hours in the life of Jamie and Charlie, two strangers who meet at a New York subway station. She is supposed to meet a friend, who doesn't show. He is a directionless slacker who's been hibernating since his last girlfriend moved states. With nothing but time and nothing to do the pair bond through a series of events culminating in an art gallery after party.

Unlike Dance Party, USA you are not treated to any attempts at emotional growth from these floundering post-teens, Quiet City is more subtle than that. It is however another movie about finding connections with other human beings. Across the awkward 24 hours these two go from being total strangers to perhaps realising that they have found a kindred spirit.

This is nothing new but Katz and his two main actors (both given writing credits presumably for the amount of improvised dialogue contributed) provide no declarations of love, affection, lust or grand set pieces to hang the story arc from, instead we are treated to minute upon minute of "like" and "um" shoved in to every inelegant sentence developing in to much more coherent speech patterns later on as their comfort with each other and themselves increases. The people they meet throughout the day only serve to highlight how important finding the right human connection is and how suited these two actually are for each other.

Alan and his Great Movie Project pointed out in the Dance Party, USA review if you have any mid-range hearing issues this type of movie is not for you unless you want to switch on subtitles, as quite regularly the actors cover their mouths with hands whilst they're talking and conversations are nearly drowned out by passing cars etc. I have no doubt that this is an acquired taste in movie aesthetics but in my mind it is a better way to add some realism to a movie than shaky cameras. It gives you that fun eavesdropping feeling you get when you're listening to other customers in shops or "private" conversations on public transport.

Once more the visual aspect of a Katz movie is strong, he used a different director of photography this time but still captured some wonderful shots throughout. A lot of almost still images of natural and man made beauty litter the movie, highlighting the everyday nature/beauty of what we were witnessing between Jamie and Charlie.

There's a moment of such complete truthfulness at the party, as an old friend of Jamie's has (what feels like) a long monologue about her inability to connect with guys in which she says the word "like" as almost every other word and a few times I swear she says "it was like like I like um." It's a painful to watch moment that caused us to laugh at her throughout but it is a perfect portrayal of the inadequacies felt by this generation as they try to create meaning in/of their lives.

Initially I wasn't as impressed as I was with Dance Party but it's stuck in my mind for days now, I keep thinking about it and wanting to watch it again, which can only be a good thing. Again it's not a film that can appeal to a wide audience but I still think you should see it. It's only 70 minutes afterall. And if that's not enough Nicholas at Cinema Romantico recently touched on how Aaron Katz makes poetic cinema with his review of Quiet City that compared him to none other than cinematic recluse Terrence Malick.

Has anyone seen this one? Have I managed to talk any of you in to exploring mumblecore? Next up is Cold Weather which should tie in nicely with our noir-a-thon too. Leave some blah below.

Dance Party, USA (2006)

Dance Party, USA is an Aaron Katz creation from the mumblecore movement of American independent film making. I can't believe as a wannabe film maker it's taken me until 2011 to hear about this movement, especially when I was at film school at just the right time to be jumping up and down screaming at my classmates to get in on this. But then when I pitched an idea for a series of love story vignettes in London, each one made by different directors they ignored it and made zombie shorts instead. So let's face it, nothing would have happened if I did!

From what I've read of mumblecore so far I can give you a brief overview of the movement for those not in the know. These are largely naturalistic films shot on micro budgets with next to no production values and most featuring a bunch of twenty somethings mumbling through half finished sentences as they work out what they want from life and relationships. Doesn't sound like it's for everybody does it? It's OK Custard, I know.

So to synopsisise this movie for you: Gus is a guy who lies about his sexual adventures, much like every guy ever, Jessica seems like a lost soul who is trying to connect with someone but having no luck. The pair meet at some terrible house party and a sparkle of light comes alive in both of them.

That's all I can share, it's a movie that is just over 60 minutes long, as with Small Town Murder Songs, that's hardly a real feature film in my eyes but in the short time you get to know these characters you feel like a lot happens, to go in to more depth about plot and storyline would be giving too much away I feel.

My first impressions were that it was a more accurate depiction of the behaviour of people in their early 20's than I remember seeing on film before. It had the feel of Larry Clark's Kids but without the delinquent storyline. As you may have realised from previous reviews I am a sucker for a bit of realism in film, the kitchen sink aesthetic being something I enjoy more than a lot of other viewers and whilst this doesn't reach the level of a Ben Wheatley movie for example it is sufficiently raw and true to suck me in from the very beginning.

Yes the quality of image is poor but you shoot a film with a standard digital camera it's not gonna look like Star Wars and it simply adds to the intended effect. Katz doesn't look at his equipment, think he's making a documentary and shake his camera about like we've all come to expect from every movie ever made, he does a strong job with what he has to hand and there are some beautifully framed shots throughout.

Sound as you would expect from a movie dubbed mumblecore isn't the crisp clear dialogue you get from a regular movie, characters talk over the top of each other, planes fly overhead, diegetic sounds interfere occasionally but not to the point where enjoyment is hindered or you need to use subtitles.

There's a lot of humour in the film, subtle but still there, watching Gus talk to his male friend Bill can feel like you're watching a live action Beavis and Butthead but I couldn't stop laughing all the same. So many terrible anecdotes are shared between characters, sentences are started and not finished, you've known people like this and been to parties where there's nothing but boring stories, at times it's like listening to your father-in -law talk about the internet but happily you can laugh in these people's faces. It's quite cathartic in that sense. And this is quite a different party to the one's we're used to seeing in American Pie and films of that sort. It's definitely closer to what I've experienced.

The character development is also small but then the story takes place over just a few days and I'm sure we've all complained at implausible character development in Hollywood film so this makes sense but what it does do is provide some wonderful moments with Gus trying to talk over his internal changes with Bill and a truly sweet ending to the film.

Overall despite knowing not all of you will enjoy I can't recommend this film enough. It's not perfect but it is enjoyable. I'm very much looking forward to Katz's followup Quiet City now.

Mumble something under your breath in the blahs below, go on, you know you want to.