Atlanta Film Festival - Day Eight

Thursday, April 23rd

The first film of the day is a documentary called Heart of Stone (***1/2). It follows Prinicpal Ron Stone's efforts to revamp Weequahic High School. The Newark high school used to be one of the most successful schools in the country, but is now in one of the poorest sections of Newark. Stone's attempts are supported by the school's mostly Jewish alumni association (the demographics of the area changed after the 1967 riots following MLK's assassination), which is one of the largest in the country. One of the more controversial methods Stone uses is meeting with the students that are gang leaders and earning their trust. He starts up a conflict resolution program aimed at stopping violence. The director gets some candid interviews with the two gang leaders and you do get the sense that Stone has really been able to reach them. There was a terrific Q&A with the director afterwards, and there were a couple Weequahic alumni in the audience.

The next film was Lake Tahoe (***), from Mexican director Fernando Eimbcke. Eimbcke's previous film Duck Season premiered at the festival two years ago, and was a nice treat about two boys stuck at home all day. This film is very similar in the minimalist style that Eimbcke employs. Juan is a teenage boy who crashes his mom's car into a telegraph pole. The story follows Juan's efforts to get the car fixed. Along the way he meets some interesting characters, including a single mother who wants to be a singing star and a teenage mechanic who loves Bruce Lee films. The film doesn't dramatize anything. It takes a matter of fact approach to each event. Juan asks an old man for help, and the old man tells him which part he needs. Juan then goes to an auto parts store to order the part, where he waits with the single mother for an expert to arrive with the part he needs. While waiting, the teenage mechanic might help so he goes off with him. The film continues like this and it's a pretty refreshing style in a day and age when directors are trying to show off. Eimbcke prefers to keep the camera still and let the events do the talking.

The final film of the day was The New Twenty (**), which is a typical indie film that follows a group of college friends as they struggle with the transition to adulthood. The film explores their difficulty with both proffessional and personal relationships. This is one of the more common indie film plots that has thankfully taken a back seat at this year's festival, but this one isn't so bad. Some of the characters are pretty interesting and the director keeps things going at a decent pace. However, some of the situations they go through are pretty ridiculous and some of the characters just come across as pricks, so there's little reason for you to care about them. Also, the resolution the director comes up with is just a little too neat. I'd recommend a 1995 movie called Kicking & Screaming (not the Will Ferrel one) instead. It's the best example of this genre.