Sundance: Day Three

Dave Calhoun catches Jamie Bell's latest, a new film from Steve Buscemi and a quite brilliant documentary about 'New York Doll' Arthur 'Killer' Kane.

Jan 25 2005

Day three: Guns and reunions.

The third day of the Sundance Film Festival emerges as a great day for new films, with screenings of Thomas Vinterberg's 'Dear Wendy', Steve Buscemi's 'Lonesome Jim' and the documentary 'New York Doll', a film about Arthur 'Killer' Kane of the '70s punk outfit the New York Dolls.

But the first real discovery of the festival is a directorial debut, 'Brick', from first-time American writer-director Rian Johnson.

Set in modern-day LA, 'Brick' tells of rivalry, intrigue and violence among privileged high-school students who turn out to be drug dealers. Johnson's twist is to play out his story as a classic noir, with deliciously fast, hard-boiled dialogue.

He plays it straight and successfully maintains his trick for the entire film, so that 'Brick' never becomes spoof or parody.

With such a fine script and a good lead performance from Joseph Gordon-Levitt, it would be surprising if the film doesn't take on a cult life from here onwards.

'Dear Wendy' is an intimate Danish collaboration: a film directed by Thomas Vinterberg ('Festen') and scripted by Lars von Trier ('Dogville').

With hints of 'Dogville', von Trier's script takes a murky, all-encompassing idea of 'America' to tell an allegorical tale of social deterioration in a small mining community, caused by the quasi-religious worship of guns among 'the Dandies', a small group of teenagers led by Jamie Bell.

Vinterberg lends von Trier's story more visual panache than you would expect from von Trier as a director. There are some odd points in the film when you feel Vinterberg is losing his grip on exactly what he's trying to say, but it's still stimulating stuff, evoking ideas of state-craft, violence, law-making and war. The best film of the festival so far.

Steve Buscemi's 'Lonesome Jim', his third film as a director, stars American indie darlings Casey Affleck and Liv Tyler. Affleck plays an ineffectual, depressed 27-year-old who returns home to his family in Indiana after failing to make a life in New York City.

There are hints of 'Garden State' as Affleck tries to reconcile his mixed feelings for his family and hometown, yet Buscemi avoids the mawkishness of that film, delivering a movie that's touching and very funny in parts, even if the ending turns out to be something of a soppy cop-out.

Finally, a great documentary, 'New York Doll', which follows Arthur 'Killer' Kane as he prepares for last year's reunion of the New York Dolls at Morrissey's Meltdown Festival at London's Royal Festival Hall.

Now a Mormon who works for the church in LA, Kane hasn't played the bass guitar or seen his surviving bandmates for years, but the gig is a fantastic success.

At 77 minutes, Greg Whiteley's documentary is a pleasing exercise in economy that handles a bizarre story with welcome compassion.