Dance Party, USA.

I hope (and I think) David Lowery will forgive me for quoting at such length but, especially as we emerge back out again from the musty halls of Schrader's canon, it's doubly refreshing to find such a well-stated assessment of one current line of development in cinema:

I've been reading Movie Mutations, edited by Jonathan Rosenbaum and Adrian Martin, which was born out of the realization that cinephiles the world over are simultaneously and of their own accord being drawn to the same films and filmmakers; and I've been thinking about how there are similar traits noticeable in the films themselves; artistic sensibilities born of and in response to cultural impressions, political climates, generational ennui and what have you; and I've focused these thoughts on one particular microcosm of cinematic development, that being the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, where a certain type of filmmaking seems to flower above all others, and the filmmakers, inadvertently or otherwise, form a sort of self-propogating clique.

I'm thinking of the Duplass Brothers' The Puffy Chair, Andrew Bujalski's Mutual Appreciation, Joe Swanberg's Kissing on the Mouth and LOL and now Aaron Katz's Dance Party USA. These are all films made independently of each other, but they all have a sort of shared formal aspiration, a blurring of form and content (or, rather, a crystallization of Susan Sontag's belief that form and content should be inseparable, indistinguishable) and an alluring, incisive sense of naturalism.

There's more, and David follows this entry with an interview with Aaron Katz and Dance Party, USA producer Brendan McFadden. The film begins its run at NYC's Pioneer Theater tonight.

In the New York Times, Jeannette Catsoulis finds that DP, USA "is an admittedly slight movie, but one that is given heft by a yearning tone and a camera fascinated by the emotional shifts and shadows on a young person's face."

More from Jordan Harper in the Voice and Sujewa Ekanayake.

Posted by dwhudson at November 15, 2006 9:46 AM