Steve Iwamoto and Constance Wu in I Was A Simple Man.
The two Sundance films screening at the Malco Summer Drive-In Friday night could not have been more different.
The first was I Was A Simple Man by director Christopher Makoto Yogi. This is a film with a very different vision of Hawaii than the glossy tourist shots of Waikiki mainlanders are used to seeing. Masao (Steve Iwamoto) lives by himself in the mountains of Oahu. When the old man gets a terminal cancer diagnosis, he is forced to ask his family for help for the first time in years. As he slips away, past and present loses meaning, and a vision of his dead wife Grace (Constance Wu) appears to comfort him. Masao tries to reconcile with his estranged children and grandchildren as we see the painful history of loss that turned him into an alcoholic recluse. The story intertwines with the history of Japanese immigrants to Hawaii before and after the war, and the statehood movement that left so much of the original population as seemingly permanent underclass. It’s no coincidence that Grace died on the same day the statehood celebration parade rolled through Honolulu.
Yogi’s vision is meditative and inclusive, but where in his first feature, August at Akkiko’s, he emphasized the beauty of the surroundings, here he often concentrates on the messy details of dying. It’s a beautiful and moving picture with an amazingly unmannered, stoic performance from Iwamoto, whose craggy face and shaggy gray ponytail are both charming and sad.
Cryptozoo
The second show was Cryptozoo by Virginia-based graphic novelist turned animator Dash Shaw. As the programmer’s introduction pointed out, this film is as rare as the unicorn whose murder sets the plot into motion. It’s a completely hand-drawn animated feature produced independent of any studio, with the total creative freedom that implies. The credits indicated that it took four years to create, and from the incredibly detailed creature designs and backgrounds, I’m shocked they got it done that fast. Basically Jurassic Park with Medusa and Mothman instead of dinosaurs, Cryptozoo retains a lot of the plot curlicues that would be excised in a more polished production. Often, total creative control can mean tedious self-indulgence, but Shaw and his collaborators effortlessly pull off every big chance they take because they are so totally committed to the bit. The overall experience is like watching a 6th grader’s notebook sketches come to life and have adventures, and I was totally there for it.
Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga in Passing.
Tonight at the drive-in, the Memphis end of Sundance 2021 continues with another double feature. Tessa Thompson stars in Passing by director Rebecca Hall. An adaptation of the 1929 novel by Harlem Renaissance author Nella Larsen, it’s a psychological thriller about a pair of Black women who can pass for white in the Jim Crow era, and the racial tensions exposed by the necessary deception.
Real-life sisters Alessandra and Ani Mesa play estranged twins in Superior.
The second films is Superior by Eris Vassilopoulos. Based around a pair of identical twin actresses, Alessandra and Ani Mesa, the director’s feature debut is a tense, visually lush thriller of family heartbreak and dysfunction.
Sundance satellite screenings at the Malco Summer Drive-In begin at 6 p.m. You can buy tickets at the Indie Memphis website.
