My SXSW Movies, Part 2

The thing about SXSW is that everyone really has a very different experience. We met someone who drove from Canada, bought a Platinum badge, got a hotel on South Congress and planned to see movies and music. We meet other locals who are just dabbling. Last night FFP met someone he was in college with who hadn't been back to Austin in a while. He runs the Avignon (yeah, France) Film Festival and was visiting his sister in Dripping Springs. Nevermind that everyone sees different films (or music or whatever interactive participants see). Everyone comes from a different place and interacts with different people.

One of my impromptu goals for the festival is to make each of the venues. We've seen something on every screen but the Alamo South 2 so we have been to each location. My other goal is to meet interesting people. (See above.) Lastly, I want to 'be a tourist' along the way. After our first movie of today I shot some shop window pictures in the strip center where Alamo South is located. I love the Salvation Army store window because it provides a lens on downtown Austin.

And, yes, we saw some movies. So far today we saw the short documentary "Scenic Highway" and the documentary "Fish Kill Flea." So far a perfect record: narry a narrative feature.

As is usually the case (unless you are associated with the short film in question) we aimed for Alamo South today to see the longer film. "Scenic Highway" was therefore a delicious surprise. And it followed the delicious surprise of the selection of pre-program clips today. Early Elvis musical presentations, wonderful Eastern European animated films that were like Saul Steinberg come to life and a clip showing some Japanese game played like soccer but with shuttlecocks (they looked like hacky sacks with feathers). After that the longish short "Scenic Highway" about Baton Rouge ran and it was delicious in its protrayal of the director's home town. You can watch it yourself, in its entirety, here. The movie says at one point that a city is known by its shopping malls or something like that. So it was a perfect segue to "Fish Kill Flea." This careful protrayal of a dead mall with some parts housing a flea market with nods to the history of the place including its 'live mall' stage included a wonderful portrait of people passing their time peddling things. The camera lingered on the people and the personal revelations were everywhere. This was the flip side of the consumption protrayed in last night's "What Would Jesus Buy?" At the Fish Kill Flea (before it gave way to the bulldozers) merchandise was far less fresh and new. Still the desire was there for hash pipes and knives and thirteen dollar sneakers. But mostly it was about the people and the derelict mall with its lost dreams. The wares had become incidental almost.

I've cooked up a plan for the afternoon and evening that only requires the approval of FFP and that he finish a little rush project for the neighborhood paper he writes for. So, perhaps, more to come in "My SXSW."