film fest.

Wow. It's been a pretty crazy week. The time changed. The weather changed. It finally feels like fall, and although I love it, my body is not taking it well. Knots in the back galore! And there was a little election. Thank God they only come once every four years, because they really, really throw me off my game.

So, I'm just now getting back to the blog, and I wanted to write a little about what I did last weekend, which was attending a couple screening at the AFI Festival. The tickets were courtesy of my friend Jean-Marie. 

Jean Marie was thrilled to be back in L.A. after a brief stint in Oakland. She she prefers L.A. over the Bay area, and she gave a very interesting reason why. I'm paraphrasing, but basically she said that SF's beauty is on the surface and all its problems lie buried beneath, while all of L.A.'s problems are out in the open and its beauty is well-hidden.

I loved this, as it is EXACTLY what this blog is about.

Since it was the weekend before the election, I was doing some last minute research on the California propositions. The one I was really struggling with was Prop. 34, the appeal the abolish the death penalty. I say struggle, because while it shatters my heart when I hear of an innocent person executed, it also rips me apart when a person is horrifically killed. I feel that when people commit brutal murders (especially of children), they surrender their right to live.

So, it was ironic that I had the incredible experience that day to attend a screening of the new documentary, The Central Park Five by Ken Burns, his daughter Sarah (based on her book) and her husband, David McMahon.

The Central Park Five is a film you know will leave you outraged and devastated before the lights even go down. But this is not the work of a mere documentary filmmaker mortal. No. This was a film by the High Priest of Documentaries. A master storyteller, Burns knows to let the story speak for itself, while gently shaping it into a transcendent experience.

The Central Park Five begins with some background on this era in New York history--important as the city was already close to boiling over because of the explosion of crack and the effect on its soaring crime rate. It becomes abundantly clear that Central Park Jogger crime was the breaking point for the city. The citizens wanted justice, and they wanted it immediately.

Their "justice" came in the swift conviction of five young men--Raymond Santana, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yussef Salaam and Kharey Wise, who were all in the park that evening, but nowhere near the scene of the crime. They didn't even all know each other. The film mainly serves to let these men tell their story--since they've never been able to do so.

In addition to family members, the film is peppered with testimonials by journalists, one of the jurors on the case, former mayor Ed Koch and few others. Noticeably missing are any interviews with members of the NYPD and NYC District Attorney's office. The filmmakers acknowledge that they refused to participate, and the City recently subpoenaed Ken Burns interviews for the film. To which Burns has basically replied, "Whatever, bitches. I'm Ken Burns. Bring it."

I don't want to give too much more away, because I really want everyone to see this movie. But I will  say the experience was made all the more powerful by the post-screening interview with Raymond, Yussef and Kharey, who received a standing ovation.

The film reminded me of the tragedy of George Stinney, the youngest person ever to be executed in the United States, and David Grann's New Yorker article about Cameron Todd Willingham, which is the most brilliant piece of journalism--about another wrongful execution--I have ever read.

While the Central Park Five were not sentenced to Death Row, a certain influential public figure took out an $85,000 ad in the New York Times calling to put these NOT YET FULLY GROWN ADULTS BUT 14-16-YEAR-OLD CHILDREN to death. Who could it be? That's right. Stupid-ass Donald Trump. And I hate to say that jackoff made me think, but he did.

I don't have the time or the means to address the complex issue of the death penalty in my silly, little blog, but seeing The Central Park Five made it evident to me that we cannot ever have to possibility of innocent people sentenced to death. That crying for the death of another human being is a form of vigilante justice (even if I'm doing so in my head), And that we can't live in a true democratic society with the institution capital punishment. Also? Ridiculously expensive.

The Central Park Five opens in theaters November 23. Please see it.

The other screening I attended was Barbara, about an East German doctor banished from Berlin to a small country hospital for unspecified crimes. Hey, it was Communist East Germany--everything was an unspecified crime.

The film was directed by Christian Petzold and stars Nina Foss. I was familiar with neither, but was interested in the movie, because the plot synopsis reminded me of one of my favorite films from 2007 (one of the greatest cinematic years ever), The Lives of Others.

I'm not going to write nearly as much about this movie, because I have to wrap up this blog post, but I will say I enjoyed it. It's a funny little piece in that, ultimately, it was a Hollywood movie posing in as an art film. It's beautifully acted and well-crafted and yadda yadda, but there were definite heartwarming, heroic and very traditional movie themes just beneath the surface of its gravitas.

It reminded me a little of the Diane Keaton, yuppie-era schlockfest, Baby Boom, where a hard-bitten career woman is seduced by an earthy, sexy country doctor. And it made me think of that one essay in William Goldman's Adventures in the Screen Trade where he compares Bambi to The Deer Hunter, arguing that Bambi is the true tragedy while The Deer Hunter was mere melodrama.

This made me chuckle when I realized it, but it still was a lovely film, an interesting portrait of life in early-80's East Germany.

So, while we were waiting in line for one of the screenings, Jean Marie asked me how something as major as the AFI Fest wasn't on my radar. To be honest, sometimes it's a little overwhelming living in a one-industry town, and I'm generally focused on what's happening outside of the Hollywood behemoth. Shit gets old. But I really enjoyed the the screenings I saw, and I felt like the Festival was a true celebration of the art of film. I had a great time!