Northwest Connections (SIFF film)

Northwest Connections

Your Lucky Day, White Lines and The Fever: The Death of DJ Junebug, The Thomas Beale Cipher, Rise ‘N Shine-A Hero’s Journey, Shuffle

I believe I have to admit one thing. Before I began this class, I did not have any thoughts about “patriarchy,” “masculinity,” femininity,” while I was watching movies. I did not have thoughts about every “isms”, such as “sexism,” “racism,” “ageism,” “ableism,” either. This class made me have different perspectives and expanded my points of view about the movies. Also, usually short films are made by younger generations, who will lead the movie industry. I believe I expected something original, creative, that had a unique way of expression and deep studying of humanities before I watched Northwest Connections.

Northwest Connections consisted of 5 short films: two narrative short films (Your Lucky Day, Shuffle), one animation shot film (The Thomas Beale Cipher), and two short documentaries (White Lines and The Fever: The Death of DJ Junebug, Rise ‘N Shine- A Hero’s Journey).

First, Your Lucky Day (directed by Dan Brown) is a story about several people who struggle with having a winning lottery ticket. The theme of this movie is definitely human greed. The theme is very clearly expressed throughout the movie.

An old man won the lottery and several people in the grocery store started to fight for the ticket. At last, everyone was killed. The interesting thing is that in Korea we have a very similar famous short story which was published in the 1960s. The title of the short story is also similar: My Lucky Day. The theme of the movie was obviously represented and the story structure was clear and the acting of the characters was fairly good.

However, the story structure, characters, dialogues, the theme, and the method of development were very familiar: a set of clichés. There are too many similar movies, thus it was hard for me to understand why the filmmakers of this movie made this same kind of film again. Is human greed forever the theme of humankind? This short film represented “masculinity” and “capitalism,” through excessive violence and blood.

Second, Shuffle (directed by Garrett Bennett) is a story about a hit man who wants to clean his past and lives as a reborn man. The camera work and editing were good. In the first scene, the main character, the hit man, killed a man who was watching porn. When he left the murder scene, a little boy (maybe the victim’s son) looked at him standing near the door. The hit man met an old man, who looked like his boss, and asked to free him. The old man refused the hit man’s request and suggested the last card game. If the boss lost the game, the hit man will be free, if the hit man lost the game, he had to do one more mission which was to kill the boy because the boy was a witness of the murder. As expected the hit man killed the boss and left with the boy and a woman.

Maybe the theme of this movie was “humanity” but it was also one more cliché. Also, the music was excessive to me. Although the theme of this short film was “humanity”, but it represented “masculinity” in the way of excessive violence. Moreover, the boss was an old man and he represented a greedy evil man. I think this is “ageism” because an old man can be wise and have a deep understanding about humankind and life.

Third, The Thomas Beale Cipher (directed by Andrew Allen) is a very interesting movie. I believe a short film should be like this film because this film showed the filmmaker’s experimentalism. However, this film also used guns and violence, thus it represented “patriarchy” as well.

Fourth, Rise ‘N Shine- A Hero’s Journey (directed by Rohit Agarwal, Timothy B McCormack) is a documentary film about young girls and boys who were infected by HIV and AIDS. The main narrator was Ralina Miller who was infected by AIDS when she was 13 and Janet L. Trinkus who tried to help the HIV and AIDS infected young people. I liked this documentary because the young woman, Ralina Miller, was very brave although she had AIDS. The surprising thing was that she had two daughters. Especially, I was touched by her clear and bright eyes. I am sorry to say this but I could not understand fully about their situation because of my poor English. What I understood was that she got the AIDS virus because she was raped when she was 13. If I understood correctly, it was such a terrible tragedy. This documentary showed us the consequences of masculinity’s violence: rape.

Lastly, White Lines and The Fever: The Death of DJ Junebug (directed by Travis Senger) This is a short documentary about DJ Junebug who died when he was 38. The almost all of the performers were people of color and the owner of Disco Fever was a white man. The performers explained and testified how DJ Junebug was brilliant, and what kind of person he was. DJ Junebug was loved by everyone around him, but was killed brutally by the same people of color. This documentary tried to follow sincerely DJ Junebug’s track, but relied on the other people’s explanation, because DJ Junebug already died and the filmmaker did not seem to have enough data about him which made the documentary weak. Even though the film had several problems, I liked this film because I could see the filmmaker’s effort and devotion. This short documentary also showed severe violence: “masculinity”

Over all, I believe I liked the documentaries more than narrative short films. Since I started to have more critical views about movies, maybe I am stingy of praise. I believe that if the younger generation wants to jump over the older generation, they have to be greater than the older. If they just follow in the older generations footsteps or make the same clichés over and over again, the progress would be hard to make.

At this point in time, I have one question. In American movies or documentaries, are guns, violence, blood, and sex inevitable? Without guns, blood or violence, maybe the movie makers can make more meaningful, deep thoughtful films then it will be better for all of us. Even if the reality is violent and gloomy, the filmmakers can change our society, at least we can give a small amount of hope to people, such as living without bloody circumstances. Is my thinking stupid?