CURATE-A-FILM | PIA, Tia & Marco, And Play

DATELINE: July 27, 2010
Chez PMD-For-Hire HQ
Social commentary films last night and did I find three beauties for ya!

So I was “flipping” through my PDF copy of Filmmaker Magazine’s Summer 2010 edition last night and happened across this gem of a find on p26, “The Super 8: Eight Things That Will Keep You In The Know” about an 11-episode social commentary video site called FUTURESTATES.

Eleven up-and-coming shooters were asked to write and direct their own mini-feature depicting what their vision for the world would be for the very near future. What seems to have emerged from the Independent Television Service (ITVS)-sponsored project is a smashing array of would-be doomsday scenarios ranging from genetically-modified crops and “organic seed bandits,” to the immigration debate, to gaming behavior run amok, to a potential West Coast nuclear meltdown, to the globe’s population crisis. I couldn’t get through all of them due to time constraints, but over the course of this week I’ll catch each in turn and have more feedback for you as I get on.

When it comes to these episodes, think more Children of Men than sci-fi classics like Blade Runner, even though one of my curated films today — PIA — hearkens back to Ridley Scott’s 1982 other-worldly classic.

These films are a great time investment, perhaps better left for a weekend if you’re a working professional. They’re meant to be savored, not blown through. So far, each of these three had me going emotionally at some stage in their narratives, and I don’t expect any less for the remainder.

Let’s dig in, shall we?



PIA (2010, ITVS, short, runtime: 20m06s, director: Tanuj Chopra)

In the future, human organs will be harvested for transplant into android cavities that serve at the behest of human masters. Syama, a human, is in love with Rakesh, another human. and they declare their abiding love for each other atop their California roof. They dream of growing old and raising a family together. But their hopes are prematurely dashed when Rakesh suddenly perishes of a freak heart attack. Cut to: twenty years later: an investigating police officer happens across an abandoned cargo vehicle stranded in the middle of some parking lot. He rolls open the trailer door to find a half-dozen black market androids — or “PIA units” — hanging dormant. These PIAs are impounded, to be reassigned by the federal government shortly. Yet something is not quite right with one of these PIAs. It escapes its warehouse confinement and wends its way back to Syama’s suburban home, where our human-android story adventure begins…

What I just LOVED about this film?

PIA featured a mainly all-South Asian cast which instantly brought me back to Children of Men and Michael Winterbottom‘s stunning Code 46. Director Chopra bravely chose to depict our true demographic future and kudos to him for totally going there with the talent. The energy which appears to have been invested in costumes, delicate lighting, futuristic props, and general mid-21st century touches — especially sound design for the PIA Units and the vehicles and houses — will marvel you once you realize PIA was only a short film. The leads — especially actors Tillotama Shome and Pia Shah — did something to bring tears to my eyes, a feat not easily accomplished over a compressed period of screen time. PIA‘s ethereal music, its sepia tones, the RED camera used to shoot the piece, and Chopra’s poignant dialogues combined to make this the pleasantest twenty minutes of my day. Good thing PIA was the first vid I’d seen all evening as it established just the right mood for the rest of the session.

TIA & MARCO (2010, ITVS, short, runtime: 16m11s, director: Annie J. Howell)

If the current roiling debate about US immigration policy and those state laws recently passed down in Arizona are any indication, what Tia & Marco depicts is what we can likely expect to see in the near future in the United States. Burly border sentries patrolling US-Mexico border clad in Kevlar body armor with accentuated shoulder, knee, and body pads who violently tackle encroaching “no-name illegals,” incarcerate them, then chuck ‘em back over “The Wall.” Speaking Spanish is now illegal in the United States — on pain of imprisonment — and border guards enforce Washington’s strict regulations. This short almost makes director Annie Howell look prophetic, a woman who herself hails from Arizona and knows the debate well. Tia, our protagonist, works for this US Border Service and is expecting soon — a boy. On the eve of her shipping up to New York in order to rendez-vous with her husband for her birth, an “illegal” named Marco emerges from Arizona’s desert wasteland. Suddenly, Tia and Marco are forced to live with each other for a night and a day, each managing to find the humanity in the other.

What did I enjoy about this film?

Lead actress Susan Kelechi Watson plays a truly captivating Tia. In less than 15 minutes, we witness her transition through a full range of harrowing emotions — revulsion to disgust to curiosity to empathy to affection, and by the end towards a fierce materfamilias-like protection. Major kudos to Howell for casting Enrique Ochoa in the role of Marco, who — as a Mexican-American — shatters through our conventional stereotypes of Mexicans as unilingual Spanish speakers. Who won’t be instantly charmed by Ochoa’s portrayal? I know of few. Nice work with the moving camera — chase sequences especially; hardly easy to do on lower-budget prods. And like I mentioned, if the US’ current immigration debate is anything to go by, the scenes we witness in Tia & Marco might be just what’s coming down the pike. Yikes!

PLAY (2010, ITVS, short, runtime: 19m13s, directors: David Kaplan & Eric Zimmerman)

This is a fun little romp inside game designer-writer Eric Zimmerman‘s head about the convergence between real life and game — or “second” — life. When the lines blur between what’s real and what’s virtual, something like Play emerges. While the acting was spot-on and the characters did their level best with the material they were given, I can’t honestly say I was blown away by the tale. All of its metaphorical messages aside, I believe the directing pair was trying to conjure up some sort of chaotic future world populated by folks who can no longer discern how much time they spend online dwelling in fictitious universes and galaxies.

What I enjoyed most about this film?

Visual effects were eye-catching. Notice how the filmmakers wanted to render the virtual impinging on the real using tools like “life bars,” “toggle-down menus,” “decision boxes,” and all manner of other real-virtual devices (especially in the shrink’s office!). Plot was intentionally (?) non-linear, so I couldn’t exactly tell you there was a clear-cut storyline to this piece, though the film’s overall thrust shines through. Somehow we’re left with a mega question mark by Play‘s end: what is all of this gaming behavior and online boundary-shattering coming to? Our filmmakers have a few ideas, to be sure, but I believe Play‘s conclusion is left intentionally ambiguous and artistically blank, its random strands we’re forced to reassemble all by ourselves.

If there are any films you’d like to see, kindly let me know in the comments below and I’ll get right onto it.