a couple of small american indies that i really enjoyed lately
caveh zahedi's "i am a sex addict" - so much fun. compulsive, obsessive director talks about his romantic live, mixing up documentary and re-enactment of real events. geeky, articulate, occasionally prone to phisolosphical ramblings, irritable and likable at the same time. playfully deconstructing the genre, gleefully exploiting the seediness; brutally frank, disarming, thoroughly stylized and very accessible.
what made me seek this movie was an excellent write-up at cinemascope a little while ago (now available online).
the site dedicated to the movie: http://www.cavehzahedi.com/films_sex.html that has some more interviews, stills, videos, etc. i like the fact that he has a voice - interviews/his site, his blog (sadly not updated anymore) - this strong position of the author/auteur is so important to me.
a funny trivia quote from imdb: Graduated from Yale with a degree in philosophy; attended film school at UCLA. Traveled to Switzerland to work with his idol, Jean-Luc Godard. After he called the director at 3 a.m., Godard stopped answering the phone. an easy first association is "iranian woody allen."
note that he also appeared in linklater's "waking life" as himself.
and of course this goes back to the idea of happenings, performing for camera, changing your life to fit the narrative, considering that writer/director/actor is the same person and subject matter is autobiographical (adding a historical/interpretative dimension); note how at times he side-steps to show him talk to the actors; also note that he has been shooting this film on and off for several years.
he also gives props to "me and you and everyone we know" which i also did like a lot (it is interesting to note how many film fans i know hated it). another quote from the same article: If it were up to me, I would make films that push the language of film as radically as possible, but also as playfully as possible. I mean, I’m really interested in films that are entertaining. But I love extremity as well.
cabeh zahedi's bio (interestingly, a lot of the descriptions for his other films contain coercion techniques - stuff that we now routinely see in the likes of ali g/tom green and other reality shows). a good read is a piece by caveh himself about art & ego (rimbaud, kafka, blanchot => For me, the answer has been: by removing oneself from the equation. In other words: by surrendering will. But one cannot simply remove oneself from the equation, nor can one make a film without exerting will. So what does one do? A complex dialectic is required, in which will and the surrender of will work hand in hand, and in which ego and the repudiation of ego also go hand in hand.).
it is notable that he is very well aware of american indie landscape (from cassavetes to hartley, from harmony korine to linklater), as well as the usual pantheon of godard/bresson/tarkovsky/kubelka/etc.