SXSW 2010 is just around the corner, and all the good trailers are just now coming out, giving us a taste of what to expect from one of the country’s biggest annual festivals. SXSW is sort of the alternative to the more elite and awards-centered festivals (ie. Sundance or Cannes), and each year it proves itself as the most welcoming place for independent films and music. This year is no different, and one of the first trailers I’ve seen for any of the films is from none other than Aaron Katz, a man widely recognized as one of the founders of mumblecore. Unfortunately for Katz, however, the potentially awesome aesthetic and nature of the ultra lo-fi indie flicks has since been picked up by less capable filmmakers who simply didn’t have the budget to make anything huge. They would slap the mumblecore title onto their film and expect an audience. The aesthetic isn’t the secret though; the real trick is in the writing. Since the early 2000’s, mumblecore has had about as many successes as it has failures, with directors like the Duplass brothers, Katz himself, and Andrew Bujalski all making fantastic lo-fi films examining the lives and relationships of twenty-somethings in current society. The antithesis, however, is the broke film school graduates who end up writing a terrible script, filming it in the same vein of these films, and trying to pass it off as art. Like Von Trier’s Dogme 95 movement, mumblecore is just too easily accessible, so it’s no surprise that many of the movement’s directors are trying to do other things.
Now after a three year absence from the scene, Katz is back and taking on less of a personal relationship story, and more of a crime drama. The trailer is incredible and Katz’s impeccable aesthetic is, once again, all too enticing. Check out the trailer and synopsis below, and keep checking for reviews coming out of SXSW.
A former forensic science major and avid reader of detective fiction, who, after making a mess of his life in Chicago, returns to his hometown of Portland, Oregon. There, he, his sister Gail, and new friend Carlos become embroiled in something unexpected.
-William Gutheil
