Movie Review: Denver Film Festival Roundup Days 4-7 (November 6-9)

The 46th Annual Denver Film Festival is still going on right now in your own backyard, with some of the greatest films in the world being screened as part of this massive festival. We sent our correspondent Julie River out to catch as many movies as she could, and she came back to report on the best films at the festival. Check out the reviews below to see what you’ve been missing out on at the Denver Film Festival and get the inside scoop on the films from the festival before these movies get a wide release.

The Crime is Mine (82/100)

One of the lighter entries into this festival, in this French period comedy, set in 1930s France, Madeleine Verdier (Nadia Tereszkiewicz) and her roommate, Pauline Mauléon (Rebecca Marder) are an aspiring actress and a struggling lawyer, respectively, who are penniless and at risk of being evicted from their apartment. When Madeleine is falsely accused of murdering a wealthy producer named Montferrand (Jean-Christophe Bouvet), the pair see an opportunity to turn their situation around. Madeleine confesses to the crime, claiming she killed Montferrand to protect her honor, making the entire trial about the rights of women. She’s acquitted and becomes an instant celebrity, but when the real killer shows up wanting a piece of the cut, Madeleine and Pauline find themselves at risk of losing everything again. This film is loosely based on a classic French play of the same name that was adapted twice into American films in 1937 (True Confession) and 1946 (Cross My Heart).

There was some homoerotic subtext between the film’s two femme leads which was never really explored upon. In the courtroom scene there’s a moment where the two women are accused of being lesbians because they share a bed, but they quickly set the record straight that they only shared the bed out of poverty, as they couldn’t afford a second bed. Then there’s the scene where the two women are bathing together (but they’re just roommates!) in which Pauline shows a clear attraction towards Madeleine which never gets expanded upon. Obviously in 1930s France it wasn’t particularly safe for these two women to express attraction to each other, but it still seems odd to not explore that thread in any way other than fleeting moments.

Overall, the film offered a much lighter fare than some of the really serious films being screened at the festival, as there was virtually no depth to this film. It’s a comedic farce that never gets into anything particularly weighty or meaty. While that’s not exactly the sign of a great arthouse film, it was a welcome break after so many really heavy films.

Frybread Face and Me (80/100)

Benny (Keir Tallman) is a young, Navajo-American boy obsessed with soap operas and Fleetwood Mac. But when his parents get divorced, they send him to live with his grandmother (Sarah H. Natani) on the Navajo reservation for the summer. There, he learns more about his culture’s traditions and connects with his cousin Dawn, also known to the family as Frybread Face (Charley Hogan).

This was a really sweet coming-of-age film that explored indigenous culture in a very real and touching way. There was something said during the introduction to this film about Benny experimenting with gender in this movie, and there are a few moments like Benny trying on a skirt or playing with makeup and nail polish, but those moments were never expanded on like I would have liked to see. Still, it made for a heartfelt film about the tensions between tradition and modernity.

Fancy Dance (90/100)

Trigger warning for grief.

Jax (Lily Gladstone) has lived on the Seneca-Cayuga reservation all of her life with her sister Tawi (Hauli Gray) and her niece Roki (Isabel Delroy-Olson). When Tawi goes missing, Jax starts looking after Roki while obsessively searching for her sister. Jax hasn’t had the heart to tell Roki that Tawi is likely dead, and keeps promising Roki that her mother will show up at the annual powwow that they attend every year, where Roki and Tawi are the reigning champions in the mother-daughter dance. But, when the state removes Roki from Jax’s custody due to Jax’s criminal record and puts Roki with her grandfather, Jax runs away with Roki to bring her to the powwow and go looking for Tawi.

Equal parts family drama, road trip movie, and murder mystery, this film was really compelling because of the great chemistry between the characters. The film was also presented as part of the festival’s CinemaQ offerings, as Jax is seen to be in some sort of casual romantic relationship with another woman, but that’s a very small part of this story. I appreciated that the main characters were likable despite being flawed. Jax and Roki are scammers and criminals throughout the movie, always finding clever ways to pull a fast one and make a little extra money. The ending leaves some things up in the air, but manages to find an emotional conclusion to the film that’s satisfying.

Housekeeping for Beginners (92/100)

Trigger warning for grief.

In this North Macedonian film, a healthcare worker named Dita (Anamaria Marinca) and her Roma girlfriend Suada (Alina Serban) live in a house with Suada’s two daughters from previous relationships, Mia (Dzada Selim) and Vanesa (Mia Mustafa), Dita’s friend Toni (Vladamir Tintor), Toni’s casual boyfriend who needs a place to stay named Ali (Samson Selim), and a random assortment of other young wandering souls. When Suada is diagnosed with terminal cancer, Dita must assume responsibility for this unusual family unit. Call it the queer, Roma Brady Bunch if you will.

This was an immediately triggering film for me because of my own relationship with cancer, having lost my mother to lung cancer when I was 23. That’s not to say that Fancy Dance did bring up bad memories for me too, but that one doesn’t really give you time to get to know the mother like Housekeeping for Beginners does. Anyone else with that sort of relationship with the disease is likely to find this to be a difficult watch. But if you’re willing to sit with that discomfort—and absolutely no shame on you if you aren’t—it’s a really gorgeous story about chosen families. The performances are beautiful and the relationships feel very real. This film has apparently been entered into the Oscars for the Best International Feature Film, and it’s certainly deserving of the honor.

Femme (98/100)

Trigger warning for queerphobic violence

In this British thriller film, Jules (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) is a gay man and a drag queen who performs under the name Aphrodite. One night, after a show, he stops off for cigarettes while still in drag and upsets a group of aggressive men led by Preston (George Mackay), who attack Jules, leaving him beaten and bloody on the sidewalk. But when Jules runs into Preston in a bath house and realizes that his attacker was a closeted gay man who only ever saw him in drag, Jules concocts a revenge scheme to trick Preston into being outed on a porn site. But as the two men become closer, will Jules be able to go through with his revenge plan?

Yes, I watched some of the most triggering films of the entire festival back to back to back with each other this week, and, as a trans woman, I don’t know if I’ve ever felt this uncomfortable in a theater before. It was certainly the most tense film at this particular festival. Normally in thrillers there’s a threat of violence and death, but specifically having the threat of queerphobic violence against Jules hanging over the whole movie made it less of an exciting, fun thrill ride and more of terror steeped in real life fears. Even after the brutality of the crime against Jules, I still found myself wondering if Jules’ plan was going too far. Ultimately, Jules seems to struggle with the morality of his own plan, and if that hadn’t happened I would have been way more uncomfortable with this film. But the film did an outstanding job of laying out exactly what Jules’ plan was and his own struggle with the morality of it all without giving him a monologue or anyone to talk to about it. Overall, it was a powerful and effective film, but it’s really hard to watch as a queer person.

Shorts 4: Avant Garde

The avant-garde shorts program at the Denver Film Festival featured the most fascinating experimental films from around the world. Avant-garde filmmaking can be pretty hit-or-miss, but these films did a great job of expressing visual poetry.

Bigger on the Inside (75/100)

A transgender man who may or may not be taking hallucinogens gazes at the stars from the solitude of his cabin in the woods as he flirts with guys he met online. This film spoke to the transgender experience from a truly abstract way, weaving in some experimental techniques that explored humanity’s relationship with the cosmos around us.

Sunflower Siege Engine (87/100)

In a combination of abstract shots and founds footage, this film explores resistance of indigenous peoples towards the violence of the reservation system. The most interesting part of this film was the clip from an activist outlining how the prison Alcatraz offers the same living conditions as a Native American reservation. A powerful form of protest, this film was effective in getting its message across in abstract ways.

Jill, Uncredited (90/100)

Jill Goldston appeared in countless films in her lifetime but nobody knows her name. Why? Because Goldston was a background actress, always overlooked in everything she did. This film collects footage of Goldston from throughout her career and compiles it together until Goldston herself starts to emerge from the found footage. It was a truly unique reminder of all the people in the film industry who go unappreciated.

It’s Raining Frogs Outside (80/100)

In possibly the festival’s weirdest film, a woman slowly begins to melt as it rains frogs outside at the end of the world, creating for a bizarre, apocalyptic narrative. This one was a little harder than the others to figure out what the point of the film was. Still, it created powerful and arresting visuals that stayed with you long after the film was over, even if the exact artistic statement being made is unclear.

Life Without Dreams (81/100)

A concept piece about sleep, insomnia, and dreaming explores the nature of these phenomena of dreams and their vital importance to our health. As a chronic insomniac, I was a bit shocked to learn of all the negative health effects of not sleeping, which made this film educational in addition to being an abstract expression of an artistic statement.

Maria Schneider, 1983 (95/100)

Trigger warning for sexual assault.

In a 1983 interview, French actress Maria Schneider recalled her own assault on the set of her iconic film Last Tango in Paris, in which the director forced her to participate in a rape scene that she was not told about in advance, creating an actual sexual assault on camera. In this short, three different actresses re-enact Schneider’s interview one after the other, as more information begins to trickle out with each enactment. This was a powerful and fascinating experiment that really found a unique way of paying tribute to the women who aren’t respected in the film industry the way they should be.

Banel & Adama (78/100)

In this film, Banel (Khady Mane) and Adama (Mamadou Diallo) are a young, married couple in a Senegalese village who wish to buck with tradition. Adama is next in line to become the chief of their village, but he refuses, saying that he and Banel are going to go and live on their own away from the village. But when a massive drought and several deaths hit the village, the villagers start to think that Adama’s refusal to take up his role has cursed them.

This was a visually stunning love story. The cinematography was simply gorgeous, with the African landscape on full display in stunning color. It’s a subtle story that moves slowly, but there’s a lot of great visuals to admire along the way. The end of the film was a bit confusing and somewhat ambiguous and I would have liked to see something more emotionally satisfying, but it’s hard to deny that the film at least looked outstanding.

Late Night With the Devil (95/100)

It’s 1977 and late-night talk show Night Owls with Jack Delroy is climbing in the ratings, threatening to overtake Johnny Carson as the late-night leader. But, after a ratings slump, Delroy (David Dastmalchian) finds himself desperate to climb back to the top and so, for a big, Halloween night show, Delroy invites on a skeptic and a girl who claims to be possessed by the devil onto his show, but has he unleashed something he can’t control?

This film was presented as if it was a piece of found footage, wherein we watch the broadcast that shocked a nation. Having a horror movie framed like that made it almost more terrifying because it’s presented in such a mundane format in which you would never dream of finding something as terrifying as a demonic possession. There was a lot of laughter during this film as well, which felt, to an extent, like nervous laughter as the audience anticipated the next horror on screen. But, overall, it was a powerful and fun horror movie that had everyone on the edge of their seat.

This is the final weekend of the festival so enjoy these last few days while you still can!

All photos courtesy of social media.