Variety's experts review Sundance

'Beasts from the Southern Wild'William H. Macy and John Hawkes in "The Surrogate" Dreama Master in "Compliance" Variety's senior film experts Justin Chang and Peter Debruge weigh in around the 2012 Sundance Film festival. Peter Debruge: Should you take a look at Sundance's dramatic competition selection this season, you may think the condition of yankee independent cinema is determined by movies ambitious to become Fox Searchlight releases: twee youthful-love fables ("The Very First TimeInch), a zany time-traveling romance ("Safety Not Guaranteed") and tales of stars and company directors looking for themselves ("The Finish of affection,Inch "Nobody Walks"). How great, then, that Searchlight zagged and acquired two total formula-busters: unlikely crowdpleaser "The Surrogate," featuring indie stalwart John Hawkes like a sex-seeking, polio-stricken poet, and Benh Zeitlin's grand jury prize champion "Monsters from the Southern Wild," a very original, strongly recognized lightning storm of the movie that does not fit inside any kind of traditionally commercial box. Coming off annually of low-carrying out indies, possibly it's more accountable for emerging company directors to become operating in audience-conscious terms, a la Mike Birbiglia's appealing "Sleepwalk Beside Me,Inch though I favor to think about Sundance like a showcase for daring outsider work, and also the good examples were few in number only at that year's fest. Justin Chang: What's especially satisfying about seeing "Monsters" within the winner's circle is it was among the couple of dramatic records to show anything when it comes to a visible imagination, to goal for that mythic instead of be satisfied with the mundane. Any film that may hold its very own with early Terrence Malick is clearly doing something right. For similar reasons, I had been disappointed by the possible lack of fascination with Antonio Campos' completely different "Simon Killer." Yes, this dark descent right into a grubby Parisian underworld is definitely an frequently tough, uncomfortable experience it is also an amazing and hypnotic bit of filmmaking, one which I possibly could easily see holding its very own in a festival like Cannes. And frankly, considering the generally upbeat look at love and sex espoused by a few of the movies you mention -- even individuals I loved, like "Safety" and "Surrogate" -- Campos' toxic, ice-cold look at human sexuality went lower just like a refreshingly nasty tonic. PD: Ah, sex -- always a well known subject at festivals and, in fact, central to 2 from the most powerful films I saw here. Former Sundance champion Ira Sachs' "Keep your Lights On" plays just like a gay "Moments From the Marriage," discussing intimate, extremely honest glimpses from the troubled nine-year relationship. The film holds true to itself inside a refreshingly genuine, frequently heartbreaking way, even when the unsentimental depiction sabotages its crossover potential with nongay audiences. "The Surrogate," by comparison, uses crowdpleasing sentimentality to provide an unconventionally sex-positive story, one out of which sexual intercourse works as a type of human connection for somebody who has experienced hardly any physical contact beyond his parents and care providers. Alternatively extreme was "Compliance," which sparked more discussion and debate than every other film within the fest, with valid reason: Though undeniably provocative in the mind games, "Compliance" essentially comes down to an element-length rape scene. JC: Permitting the representation of the immoral act do not need to be immoral itself, I discovered "Compliance" absolutely compelling and proficiently disturbing, as well as competition-worthy (rather, it had been slotted within the fest's low-budget Next sidebar). But lest you assume I love my movie sex dank, perverse and nonconsensual, I hasten to include which i share your popularity of "The Surrogate's" disarmingly frank and grown-up management of the topic, particularly its understanding of the ever-present tension between sex and religion. It had been a running festival theme, also addressed in films as different as "Love Free or Die," a documentary about freely gay bishop Gene Robinson, and "Youthful and Wild," a hot-blooded romp in regards to a Catholic girl's burgeoning sexuality. PD: As the narrative features were more uneven, too frequently restricted to narcissism or cutesiness (minus the situation within the worldwide choices), Sundance's doc choices boasted a dependably solid selection of social-justice and eco-conscious records. I had been particularly astounded by three films that worked with race in interesting ways. Mike Pollard's class-ready "Slavery by Another Title" discloses the shocking techniques through which whitened Southerners perpetuated slavery-like conditions for pretty much a hundred years following the Civil War. Eugene Jarecki's must-see, grand jury prize-winning doc "The Home My Home IsInch stretches this inquiry into present, analyzing how drug-related laws and regulations perpetuate racial inequity within this country. And, whilst not a doc, Spike Lee's "Red-colored Hook Summer time" bites off a lot more than every other film within the fest, dealing with issues of religion and representation among inner-city African-People in america. JC: I did not have the ability to see "Red-colored Hook Summer time," although it certainly sounds meatier and much more ambitious than a lot of the relaxation from the Premieres section, which offered up one mediocre comedy to another, including "a couple of days in NY," "Bachelorette" and, in the usually reliable Stephen Frears, "Lay the favourite.Inch Among all of this star-studded dross, it had been a relief to come across "Shadow Dancer," a tense, superbly understated IRA thriller that verifies James Marsh among the wisest filmmakers working today either in fiction or nonfiction. For the fest's typically stellar docu selection, my personal favorite didn't have social-justice orientation whatsoever: Rodney Ascher's enchanting cine-essay "Room 237," which offered up a hilariously obsessive, frame-by-frame analysis of Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" and also the abundant layers of meaning hidden away therein. Each year whose official Sundance slogan was "Look again," I'm able to think about not one other film in Park City that so consistently and enjoyably forced me to complete exactly that. Contact Justin Chang at justin.chang@variety.com