TRUE/FALSE FILM FESTIVAL – Day Two Report

by Stephen Tronicek

As the sun rose over Columbia, Missouri, I found myself refreshed and ready to go. I’d slept on a couch for free (a quite comfy couch) and gained some of my energy back after the night before. I can say with some certainty that this energy has disappeared now that it is, yet again, midnight and I’ve just gotten home. There’s no need for pity though. The selection of films today was brilliant, broad, flawed but nevertheless exciting, something that True/False is certain to provide. 

The day started out with Kirsten Johnson’s Dick Johnson is Dead, a documentary about grief for a person who has never died. Johnson has become a master of the meta-documentary, with her film Cameraperson capturing an emotional portrait of being a cinematographer for documentaries. Now, she’s returned to kill her dying father Dick, over and over and over again. Every bit of sardonic wit that is found in that description is also found in the movie. Somewhere in the runtime, Johnson questions whether or not the film is a comedy. Lucky enough it is. It is more than that though. On top of having some of the most joyful imagery you’ll witness all year, Dick Johnson is a touching portrait of the way we kill sections of our lives. What happens when we have to bookend times we thought would never end. After the show, Johnson brought up an old friend of her father’s who recalled the memories of the house that Dick leaves behind in the film. The friend talked about how beautiful that house was. The joy and sadness found in her voice is enough to illuminate the film. 

While joy and sadness illuminate Dick Johnson is Dead, horrible acidity and plaintive optimism describes Feels Good Man, a film about Pepe the Frog. Created by Matt Furie as the “young brother” character for his Boys Club comic book, Pepe soon became a symbol for the Alt-Right. As a person outside of this very real internet conflict, Feels Good Man is an incredibly insightful picture of the escalation of Pepe, edited together with seamless precision. The interviews with Trump’s former communications manager and the 4chaners make your stomach turn. The toxicity on display is palpable. It’s unhealthy behaviors fueling unhealthy actions. An entire film of this could become tiresome, but thankfully director Arthur Jones points the camera at Matt Furie. Furie is described as naive by some of the film’s more horrible characters but he seems rather sane and optimistic in the face of what has happened to his creation. Through the story of his journey, we can see a light at the end of the tunnel for Pepe the Frog. It’s small but it’s there. 

:Less hopeful is Catskin, directed by Ina Luchsperger, which centers vaguely on a family living in Bavaria. The purpose of Catskin seems to be contrasting the weirder aspects of the family’s life with the slow encroachment of white nationalism back into Germany. With a running time of fifty-eight minutes, Catskin only has enough time to scratch the surface and yet it also has the time to be incredibly blunt. There’s an unevenness in that balance at times, but the disquieting atmosphere is enough to keep the film going.

More interesting was the short film that played before Catskin: How to Disappear, an ode to pacifism built entirely out of in-game footage of Battlefield 1. Using a multiplayer match as a framing device, the film analyzes the political ramifications of the deserter. The footage itself is extremely funny. The filmmakers are right to assume there’s a sense of absurdity that comes along with watching players not fight in the battle or even try to stop others from fighting. That absurdity paints an interesting picture when contrasted with the narration explaining that the deserter is a necessary part of war and ultimately defines how wars are fought. The ironic edge here has to be appreciated and the cleverness employed in displaying it is immense. 

As with last night, the biggest film of the night came last. When I say big, I mean BIG. Khalik Allah, the director of Black Mother, showed up to True/False with a 200 minute, supposedly incomplete cut of IWOW: I Walk on Water, an autobiographical treatise thrown together in six months, IWOW, which had its world premiere last night, analyzes Allah’s relationship with himself, his art, women, his city, his mother and an older man named Frenchie. There’s no stone left unturned in IWOW. Allah himself said in a post-screening Q&A that, “The audience is me…I’m just growing up…I’m trying to grow as a person,” He’s certainly using the film to do that. IWOW is at times a narcissistic ode to his own ability and at others a scathing criticism of how that ability has crippled his relationships with those he loves. In that, the film inherits the strengths and flaws of its creator’s gaze. When it observes the world of Harlem, New York it does so through his rich, textured eye. When it blends audio and visuals together in its dreamy edit, it inherits his self-described, “…never sober…” state. When it moves into his relationships, it inherits his selfishness. Whether or not the strengths outweigh the weaknesses is for the audience to decide. I’m still deciding that now. What I can say is that for 200 minutes I was hypnotized and swallowed up by the experience. Even if this isn’t the final version of the film, even if it possibly could be split into two parts, IWOW is never less than engaging, expertly modulating pace and tone over the course of its runtime.

So, dear reader, that was Day Two. Having completed the first full day, the momentum is only building. Hopefully, there’s more energy over there too