Slamdance Virtual 2023 Field Report 2: Where is the Lie? & Unicorn Boy

 When I am watching films on a festival pass I don't tend to read blurbs or watch trailers of the movies I am going to see. In the case of Slamdance this year I've committed myself to watching all the fiction feature films available to stream in Canada, so I don't need further convincing to see any of those. Might as well go in as blind as possible. Last year The Civil Dead paid off for me in a big way when I the basic premise caught me by surprise. At other festivals I end up seeing and loving films like Those Who Make Revolution Halfway Only Dig Their Own Graves that I may not have even selected to see had I been pre-screening blurbs in the programme.

 Often this blind scheduling leads to fun and unexpected thematic connections. When I randomly picked to screen Unicorn Boy and Where is the Lie? in the same night I didn't know I was building a double bill on gender identity. But I'm always pleased when this theming surfaces in my festival watching. It's always such a pleasant surprise when this harmony occurs. All the cohesion of a hand selected double bill with all the surprise of the festival unknown.

Where is the Lie?

 What I love about Where is the Lie? is just how effortless it makes evil look. In this catfishing drama based on a real life viral Twitter story, a successful young tv commercial director spends her spare time leading on and heartbreaking young queer women in the Philippines. And god she makes it seem so cool, so stylish. Beanie (the aforementioned director) and her friends that she recruits into assisting with her schemes have such a good time breaking the spirit of their victims. The film frames it with all the vigor and excitement of a heist film, but of course in a heist film you're not supposed to care about the mark. It's what allows the audience to cheer for the people breaking the law. But Where is the Lie? uses that genre expectation and purposely puts it up against a victim that by no means deserves it. The film could paint Beanie as pathetic and sad as their actions reveal them to be. But it wants you to have a great time with Beanie's antics despite how you're simultaneously watching the hurt they have on the victim. It's a real slick use of genre expectation to underline the film's thematic point.

 When it's not being a real smart genre picture, pretty much all hands on the picture pull off a pretty good job. Maris Racal as our schemer Beanie Landridos shows some of the best acting of the festival thus far in a role that asks for a much wider range than it seems at first. Not to mention the rest of the cast that often need to act out nested characters several personas deep. Quark Henares' measured directorial hand keeps a complex narrative on the rails and understandable enough to keep the audience from getting lost. As so much of the story happens in text messages and Tiktok posts and Youtube streams, Henares does a great job of weaving these digital places straight onto the screen. Which not only saves the film from a ton of clunky expositional dialogue, but also makes the film feel authentically of the digital age inhabited by its characters. Really just a strong film across the board and I feel its an easy recommendation.

 Also of note, the secret best film at Slamdance is Henares' director introduction video. A true must watch.

Unicorn Boy

 For their animated pseudo-memoir Unicorn Boy, Matt Kiel serves as director, producer, writer, animator AND lead voice actor. Not to mention that it's loosely based on an experience from Kiel's own life. Well as much as a film about being whisked off to a magical unicorn kingdom can be based on someone's real life. This film is solely Kiel's work in a way that only a one-hander animated film really can be. The big difference between these largely one person productions and more traditional crew based productions is that the artist doesn't need to explain to very many people what they are trying to achieve or get across to the audience. One doesn't need to explain to a cinematographer what feeling they're trying to evoke with a camera movement, or explain to a lead actor what they're emotion they are trying to emote.

 But, the problem is that you still need to explain these things to the audience in the finished film. And that's where Unicorn Boy gets all tangled up. I'm sure the emotional arc of the Matt through their journeys through the unicorn kingdom makes sense to Kiel themselves. But I don't feel they successfully bridge the gap from their psyche to the audience to invite them into the experience. Because of this, Matt the character just comes off as awkwardly uncomfortable as they bumble along their adventure. The symbolism of their fantasy world doesn't read as coherent metaphor if the audience has such a weak grasp on what is sending Matt into their depressive spiral.

 There's a couple elements very late into Unicorn Boy (as late as a post-credits epilogues shot) that lays out the key to Matt's depressive confusion being unresolved gender identity issues. But I feel that comes too little too late for an audience largely checked out at this point. As always, I could be missing some clear obvious signpost that cis dude me was completely blind to. But based on some of the live action personal footage in the film (and when it was shot compared to when this film was worked on) I wonder if Kiel themselves knew all the answers when they started production on the film. If much of this film was made when Kiel was as desperate for the same answers as the audience, would it be fair to criticize it on this axis? Not a question I have an answer for, at least without hearing Kiel discuss the film in more detail. I can only look at the work in front of me as it exists now.