Read More Reviews Here of 2009 Fargo Film Festival Reviews
FARGO, N.D. (FargoPhantom.com)– An afternoon at the Fargo Film Festival. Wednesday afternoon I took in a segment of the afternoon offerings at the Fargo Film Festival. I’m writing this to give an idea to give some idea of what the daytime offerings are like: there’s still a couple of days in which to take in these offerings.
The first film was a fifteen minute narrative short about a 15 year old high school student and his first date. The movie was essentially a fifteen minute joke. The teen has no experience in dating, so once he bumbles his way into asking a girl for a date to go to the local Tastee Freeze(only it’s not called that), he asks his married older brothers for advice about what to do on a date. They give him copious detailed advice, only to finally admit they have never had a successful relationship with a member of the opposite sex either. Both their marriages(it’s not clear that one of them is actually a marriage) are breaking up. The date, of course, goes fine. LIke I said, a fifteen minute joke, but enjoyable nonetheless.
There followed a one hour documentary film “This American Gothic,” about the Iowa town Eldon, population 998.
Eldon’s claim to fame is that it contains the house that is pictured in the famous painting “American Gothic,” which hangs in the Chicago Art Institute. You would recognize the painting immediately: it’s the depression era painting with a woman and a middle aged man with a pitchfork standing in front of a house with a peculiar window in the front gable.
This movie captured a lot of issues in its short two hours. One could view it on the level of simply showing the events, such as they are, people and daily life, such as it is, in Eldon. But I think there’s much, much more here.
The central theme of the movie is the building(and obtaining the funding) for a visitors center for people coming to see the house and probably taking a picture with them standing in front of it. The point is made that Eldon is at least thirty miles from anything at all. Eldon, as is the case with many small rural communities is at least declining if not dieing. Most of the population is senior citizens, and there is absolutely nothing to do in the town. A big event is the opening of a café that had been closed for a number of years. Even if they are successful in promoting some tourism, which actually seems unlikely the point is made that jobs in the tourism industry, except for Las Vegas are low paying ones that won’t help the isolated economy much. This might be a relevant point for us, as I am now hearing about how North Dakota is planning to once again revive its efforts to increase tourism in order to revive the economy. didn’t work last time, won’t work this time. Anytime I hear such talk it means economic times are difficult, regardless of what one sees on television. But I digress.
There is also a discussion of what the painting itself means: symbolism, etc. At the end of several; pieces about the sexual implications, the pitchfork, the house itself, one of the locals remarks that maybe the artist, whose name escapes me, just wanted to paint two people in front of their house.
The movie ends on a “positive” note with the opening of the visitor’s center. “Now what” is what immediately came to mind.
I felt this movie a good fillm festival movie. Thought provoking, honest, could be viewed on many levels. Direted by Sarah Walters Freyer, Iowa City.
The final film I say was an experimental film, “Four Minutes on a Bridge.” The title pretty much says it all: the camera trains for four minutes on an abandoned, presumably railroad bridge. It is in the country somewhere with a railroad bridge in the background, over which a passenger(!) train passes during the four minutes. An experimental film is defined as one that breaks one of the standard forms of movie making. Mildly interesting in this case.
An enjoyable way to spend an afternoon.