They screw horses, don't they?

Ben Walters detects a new moderation in American indie cinema at this year's Sundance Film Festival.

Feb  7 2007

Judging by the couple of dozen films I caught there, this year's Sundance Film Festival was middling stuff: a couple of relative stand-outs (the Philippines' 'Tuli', our own 'Son of Rambow'), some enjoyable but familiar fare (the Wes Andersonesque 'Rocket Science', the 'Napoleon Dynamite'-ish 'Eagle vs Shark'), some interesting misfires ('Low and Behold', shot in post-Katrina New Orleans) and the occasional stinker ('Hounddog', the ludicrous Dakota Fanning rape movie). But while 'middling' might not rank as the most ringing aesthetic endorsement, the centrist approach taken by many of the features dealing with the US's current hot-button issues made for rewarding results in political and cultural terms. Just as candidates from the moderate wings of both major American parties have been gaining ground at the ballot, a willingness to engage with the nuances of sex, war and religion sounded a welcome note of ambiguity in a sometimes frighteningly polarised climate.

Of course, no subject is as divisive in the US as the Iraq war, and its shadow could be felt at Sundance. Much of the screen coverage of the conflict to date has been strongly partisan, with the tub-thumping Fox News network at one end of the spectrum and the shrill accusations of Michael Moore at the other. Two documentaries in competition this year had the war in their sights – Rory Kennedy's 'Ghosts of Abu Ghraib' and Charles Ferguson's 'No End in Sight' – and while neither has many good things to say about the campaign, nor are they mere exercises in finger-pointing.

'Ghosts…' contains interviews with a number of the junior soldiers caught red-handed perpetrating the grotesque abuses for which the prison is notorious, yet leaves audiences questioning the extent to which they have been scapegoated by their superiors. Comparably, the forensic precision with which 'No End…' attacks the war's calamitous prosecution is offset by a palpable effort to remain objective. As Variety noted, 'the presence of former troops and… specific avoidance of critiquing political ideology as the root cause of the unrealistic war plan appear meant to avoid alienating right-of-center aud[ience]s.'

The most striking example of this conciliatory approach to Iraq is found in James Strouse's directorial debut 'Grace is Gone', starring John Cusack as a conservative veteran struggling to tell his young daughters that their mother has been killed in action. Cusack's hunched, frowny demeanour initially makes Stanley unsympathetic, but comes to underline his patriotism and dedication to his family even under the most terrible strain; his amiable drop-out liberal brother (Alessandro Nivola) comes across as something of a lightweight in comparison. While Stanley's reluctance to confront the reality of his situation could be mapped onto the administration's blinkered determination to 'stay the course', the focus is solidly on the human cost borne by those serving their country and their families. On showing the film to friends with serving relatives, Cusack found 'it hit them pretty hard [but] they thought it was a movie from which some healing could happen.'

The polarising domestic equivalent of the war is sexuality, particularly homosexuality, more particularly the intersection of homosexuality and religion. It was therefore intriguing to see two features engage with this intersection in notably conciliatory fashion. The documentary 'For the Bible Tells Me So' examines the Bible's actual words on homosexual behaviour, and the often unbearable pressures imposed on the gay children of religious families, using interviews with those children – including Gene Robinson, controversially consecrated Bishop of New Hampshire – and their parents. The drama 'Save Me', meanwhile, follows a burnt-out young man's entry into an 'ex-gay' centre following a breakdown.

The documentary is the stronger work, but both films are notable for eschewing the now-conventional queer narrative in which a conflicted protagonist shucks off repressive conservative convention in pursuit of self-respect and self-determination, instead going to considerable lengths to respect subjects' desire to reconcile their faith to their sexuality. Even more remarkable is the concerted effort in both titles to sympathise with parent figures whose rejection has yielded so much anguish. 'For the Bible…' includes interviews with one woman who learned tolerance only after her child's suicide. The leader of the centre in 'Save Me' has the same back-story and although she remains intolerant of homosexuality – even after two of her ‘guests’ have found genuine, mutually enriching love for one another – she is presented as a well-meaning but damaged individual.

Focusing on human stories rather than political agendas, films like 'Grace is Gone' and 'For the Bible…' can explore volatile issues without causing blood to boil. The documentary 'Zoo' sets itself an even bigger challenge, engaging with a group that breached a universal taboo. Inspired by the 2005 case of a man who died after being fucked by a horse, its interviews with members of his clique goes a surprisingly long way to conveying these men's troubled relationships with society and yearning for transcendence, if not their actual desires. It's a hard sell, but another example of this welcome tendency to empathise rather than accuse.

• 
•