By Sasha Burchuk
Coverage From Wednesday November 11th
Taste in film, like taste in literature, is a very personal matter of aesthetic that is difficult to translate. For this reason, it is very difficult to put together a good film revue that can please crowds without sacrificing too much to lowbrow pop culture. I was pleasantly surprised by the November 11 selection. Among seventeen shorts, there was only one entry that I thought was offensive to my lofty sensibilities.
Highlights included People Can’t Wait, a satirical short about public bathrooms and social justice. Inspired by the struggle for public toilets in Portland, ongoing since 1910, director Travis Shields does a nice job of underscoring the import of sanitation as a human right, without getting too righteous. Axioms of a Dishwasher, written by playwright Charles Augustus Steen III took a Down and Out in Paris and London look at the Machiavellian qualities of the dishwasher. And do you remember when that comic strip “Love Is” started getting really dirty, or did I just make that up? Because as long as I didn’t, Trolls was an updated version of that.
Don’t Worry, It’s a New Century took a cynical stab at the recycling of ideas as a commodity – and also featured a fat man running naked down lower Mississippi (near the 405 Bridge) while holding a Nintendo, shot from the side, creating a very poignantly absurd moment where I just had to ask myself, what the fuck is going on here? But only because I was trying not to be too buffaloed by a hilarious image that was being used in a self-reflexive and comic way to underscore the film’s sardonic message.
The collection of shorts was followed by Eileen Yaghoobian’s rock poster documentary Died Young, Stayed Pretty. Through a series of interviews with the artists, Yaghoobian takes:
“a candid look at the underground poster culture in North America. This unique documentary examines the creative spirit that drives these indie graphic artists. They pick through the dregs of America’s schizophrenic culture and piece them back together. What you end up with is a caricature of the black and bloated heart that pulses greed through the US economy. The artists push further into the pulp to grab the attention of passersby, plastering art that’s both vulgar and intensely visceral onto the gnarled surfaces of the urban landscape.”
Died Young, Stayed Pretty was exhibited in both the Montreal 2008 World Film Festival and the SXSW 2009 Film Festival. Yaghoobian takes a wheeling art history approach to understanding the semiotics of social commentary and currency of a number of artists.
Related from Kimberly Gehl: The 36th NW Film & Video Festival | Running through Saturday, November 14
