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Two Strange Bay Area Tales by Doniphan Blair
"Coherence" starts as a fun gathering, rendered spookily realistic through its improv style. photo: courtesy J. W. Byrkit
THE OAKLAND FILM STAMMER AND ITS
genre-blending beliefs seems to have infected the San Francisco International Film Festival, which kicked off the city's high cinema season on April 24th—well, at least two of its Bay Area-themed films, at any rate.
"Coherence" is a masterful synergy of balls-to-the-wall improvisation and modern physics while "The Sacrament" takes on cults and mass suicides but in mockumentary form.
"Coherence", which writer/directed James Ward Byrkit noted before the screening is anything but coherent, holds together mightily, doesn't read as improv and would do Cassavetes proud. Certainly, Byrkit's evolution from Hollywood creative (he penned the animated indie "Rango", 2011) to an avant-gardist with elevated production values augers well.
Prior to his "Rango" collaboration with director Gore Virbinski, he helped conjure the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" (2003), also starring Johnny Depp.
Although "He has the soul of a pirate" sounds somewhat cliche (in the words of Washington Post columnist Michael Cavna), that is certainly what you need to evolve cinematically from Hollywood blockbuster to quirky animated feature and then a film like "Coherence".
100% unscripted, Byrkit only gave his actors outlines and relied on their crackerjack thespian chops, even more surprising since they are all so little known, save for Maury Sterling ("The A-Team", 2010). True to improv honesty, Sterling plays himself.
Em, played by Emily Baldoni, is the vague center around which 'Coherence' spins. photo: courtesy J. W. Byrkit
He gathers for a dinner with his old friends, nimbly rendered by Emily Baldoni, Nicholas Brendon, Elizabeth Gracen, Alex Manugian, Lauren Maher, Hugo Armstrong and Lorene Scafaria, to celebrate the passing of a comet but they are soon delving into more ground level issues: the dirty laundry of old romances.
While gently mocking his characters, straight out of the Bay Area's 40-something hipster class in what appears as a tone-perfect rom-com, they suddenly find themselves getting physical, with actual physics, in fact slipping into a shared multi-verse.
Shot with shallow focus at the crossroads of incoherence and insight, "Coherence" jams its characters together in this quickly claustrophobic, if universe-wide adventure, what Byrkit called a "'Twilight Zone' narrative."
The comet, which they go outside to view, is romantic but multi-verse anomalies can truly test any relationship, especially when half the dinner party was previously dating different members—in fact, that's what causes the most conflict.
Of course, "Rango" was a boisterous song of the West with cracked characters and stunningly impressionistic animation, but Byrkit's step up into mysterious improvisation is truly pirate-brave.
Although it didn't quite cohere into a surrealist tour-de-force, a la Lynch or Buñuel, as it might have with a more developed ending, it was a fabulously filmed and raucously-acted march into the dark. Indeed, it just won the Audience Award at SENE Film, Music & Arts Festival in Rhode Island.
James Byrkit, director—or is it ringmaster—of 'Coherence'. photo: courtesy J. W. Byrkit
"The Sacrament"'s revisiting of the Jonestown Massacre is a bit more straight forward, although it also brings together genres, notably the notion that the film is a doc from footage filmed by reporters from the splatter-news specialists, Vice Magazine, who go oversees to visit a commune of about 200 people, apparently in in the jungle of South America.
It was written/directed by horror filmmaker Ti West, a 33 year-old Delawarian known for "The House of the Devil" (2009), "The Innkeepers" (2011) and "V/H/S" (2012). Although the doc "Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple" (2006), by Stanley Nelson, was an excellent historical summary, "The Sacrament", which opened May 1, will bring the story to a greater audience.
West does a good job. While reluctant to plumb his subjects' soul, he ably explores the issues in a brisk modern manner following the reporter, his camera man, whose footage actually forms the film we are viewing, and the fashion photographer, whose sister is a commune member and arranged the visit.
The whole intro is excellent and utterly believable. Our team helicopters in and enters the compound passing AK-47-armed men and meeting Amy Seimetz, who intensely-plays the recovering drug addict sister who facilitates their trip. The show was stolen by Gene Jones as the father figure, however, and his long, almost real-time interview, on the community stage, debating his beliefs with the reporter played by Christopher Woodrow.
Vice reporter portrayed by Christopher Woodrow finds himself among the natives in "The Sacrament". photo: courtesy T. West
Great as Gene Jones was, West dodged the actual story of Jim Jones, which the Bay Area would do well to examine, given he is our monster as much as Idi Amin was Uganda's.
Although "Season of the Witch", a book by Salon Editor David Talbot, was trashed by the NY Times book reviewer Ellen Ullman, that was due to a simple misunderstanding. Ullman didn't get that the book was not a general history of the period, rather an important expose of the severe problems endured during the '70s in the Bay Area.
Answering the question "What happened to the 60s?," "Season of the Witch" details the flowering of San Francisco liberalism, which endured the '60s comparatively well, despite the invasion of the hippies and accompanying flood of drug addiction, petty crime and health and food needs. It was in the '70s, however, that San Francisco faced an existential threat: violent radicals, crazed cults and, finally and most horribly, AIDS.
Of all the crises consuming City Hall, Jones was the greatest threat, ethically. He inserted an agent on the mayor's staff, he procured young black women, from amongst his followers, for Mayor George Moscone, and his minions were footsoldiers for the Democratic Party, which allowed him to dodge investigation, although his own paranoia dug deeper than any official could.
The Jim Jones character was utterly inhabited by Gene Jones, no relation and nor were they the same genus of messianic maniac. photo: courtesy T. West
In addition to assuming the role of righteous pastor, Jim Jones was a triple threat, given he was a bi-sexual sex maniac and multipurpose drug provider—which "Sacrament" showed nicely—not to mention possible messiah.
The notion that all of "The Sacrament" was shot by the Vice reporters, or was drawn from other sources, is a nice trope, although some footage obviously breaks with that. Rotten Tomatoes has the film at only at 67% but it will definitely get a lot of play amongst kids and horror fans, both here and around the world.
Although the last third did veer more towards horror and West knows how to use his packages of exploding blood, it was spooky to see the film at the SFIFF in San Francisco just one block from where Jones' People's Temple sat on Geary and Fillmore.
Although East Coast-made and shot in Georgia, "The Sacrament" as well as "Coherence", after the Mayan End of the World or Hurricane Sandy in 2012, seem eerily close.
Doniphan Blair is a writer, film magazine publisher, designer and filmmaker, who can be reached .