The second day of the Chattanooga Film Festival was filled with far more films and events as its first full day. This was my first true test of film festival audio and visual endurance, as I didn’t end up staying as late as I initially planned. Thankfully, I did get to see more films before I inevitably crashed for the day.
***One important note before we get started: several of these films that were considered early cuts and in early stages of release, so my opinions reflect these early cuts of these films. As always, I encourage you to check out each film for yourself if you are interested, and take my opinions herein with a grain of salt. This goes for any and all film critics, but I feel this is especially important to note here that some of the final production for these films may have changed by the time you see them.***
A Bread Factory: Parts One and Two
Directed by Patrick Wang
Starring Tyne Daly, Nana Visitor, James Marsters, Brian Murray, Janeane Garofalo, Elizabeth Henry
Patrick Wang’s four hour comedy epic A Bread Factory was so large and layered that it needed to be split into separate two-hour parts. Both parts comprise a greater film that tells the story of the “Bread Factory,” a local theater group in the fictional town of Checkford, NY who must fight against corporate tyranny and prove themselves a crucial, necessary part of their community. The greater narrative is dense, with a variety of different characters, each with their own unique motivations. The characters are explored in great detail, with many long monologues and long takes that really immerse the viewer, both in Wang’s realistic and often hilarious dialogue, and in the excellent acting on display.
My main issue with both parts is that there are many scenes that don’t really contribute to the many themes the narrative tries to tackle. There are many scenes given to characters for development’s sake, without many of these characters contributing to the story in any meaningful way, such as the Hollywood actor parody Trooper Jaymes. There are also side plots that end up going nowhere by the end of Part II, which I won’t spoil. Lastly, the film juggles its tone from campy to grimly serious very often, and while it mostly succeeds at this, there are certain scene transitions that can feel (ironically, despite its colossal runtime) rushed because of this, such as those involving performance artists Ray May. Though the writing falters in terms of pacing and story, the acting and the dialogue keep the film interesting. It’s not a film that is very elaborate in its visuals or its score, and despite its tonal juggling and inconsistent pacing, it definitely made me interested in Wang’s filmography. A Bread Factory is not something I’d recommend to everyone, but if you have a good amount of time on your hands to watch this 4 hour theater comedy epic, there’s a lot to admire and enjoy here.
Verdict: See in Theaters — Matinee
In Fabric
Directed by Peter Strickland
Starring Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Leo Bill, Fatma Mohamed, Gwendoline Christie, Hayley Squires
In Fabric’s basic setup seems like a premise from a bygone era of late ’90s, early 2000s straight-to-DVD filmmaking. Thankfully, director Peter Strickland executes this film in a fascinating manner, elevating its premise from simply telling the story of a dress that kills people. Owing great influence to classic arthouse filmmakers like Kubrick and Lynch, this was by far the most surreal and visually abstract than any other film I saw at the festival. It exuberates style and balances dark humor with horror and drama in equal manner. Like A Bread Factory, it also has an anti-capitalist undercurrent, existing as a critical examination of retail and corporate excess, though this film is far smaller-scaled and intimate.
Strickland gives the film a sense of grand absurdity that compliments the film’s unnerving imagery. In a film where a dress kills people, the irregularity of this takes a backseat to further insanity: a clothing store with employees talking in unnaturally enhanced vocabularities; some sexual rituals involving mannequins and wigs; and even the most mundane home appliances coming violently alive. If this sounds appealing to you, I’d highly recommend checking it out. It’s a strange and tempting ride, and it’ll definitely leave you with some haunting imagery that you’ll be thinking about long after it’s over.
Verdict: See in Theaters — Full Price
Mangoshake
Directed by Terry Chiu
Starring Sermed Al-Chalabi, Jancie Creaney, Ray Arzaga,
Michel Backady, Michel Choquette
Mangoshake, the feature debut from Canadian director Terry Chiu, begins with a prologue that states that the goal of this film is to portray a kind of anti-coming-of-age film, one that’s free from a moral high ground of making a kind of substantive moral statement on the loss of innocence of youth. In reality, it is a lo-fi anarchistic mumblecore-adjacent butchery of any kind of narrative or visual cohesion. Sadly, without any kind of thematic impact or sense of chemistry, these characters all feel dull and the story of the film falls flat on its face in its attempt at this kind of nihilistic deconstruction.
The ambition behind Mangoshake as a debut feature is admirable, and the lack of production value behind the effort doesn’t necessarily break it, but the inability to hear character dialogue due to awful sound mixing, and the meandering nature of the deliberately unfocused narrative make this a film that prides itself on being obtuse. Unfortunately, it also makes this film incredibly unenjoyable to watch. I understand the film attempting to make the case that teenagers are inherently dumb and unsympathetic in various ways, but the characters are all uninteresting. A prologue before the film has the director stating something akin to “characters don’t have to be likable, they just have to be interesting,” and none of these characters were very interesting. I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone but those who really want to see something as punk rock and anarchistic as to see this film that admittedly does laugh at the concept of narrative cohesion and character development…just don’t expect anything profound.
Verdict: Skip It
Be sure to follow The Coffee-Break Collective on Facebook or on Medium here to follow up, as I’ll be writing continuously and posting the next two days of films I was able to see over time. If you liked this article, be sure to clap and follow as well, as your support is always appreciated!
Disclaimer: I review movies based on a 5-tier scale: See in Theaters-Full Price, See in Theaters-Matinee, Rental, Wait for Streaming, and Skip It. If a film is released straight to VOD or streaming, the rating will simply change to either Stream It or Skip It. If you disagree with this review, I encourage you to watch the film and as always, make up your own mind about it. Am I wrong? Am I spot on? Let me know in the comments below!
