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Tag Archives: Craig Zobel
Sundance film festival: how it got its edge back
A man seeks tickets outside the Eccles Theatre during this year’s Sundance film festival. Photograph: Lucas Jackson/Reuters
At this year’s Sundance film festival, which played out over 10 freezing days in Utah and came to a close last Sunday, the divide between American cinema and the news stories defining the nation’s mood seemed narrower than ever. From abuses of military power abroad to the financial meltdown at home, to the long, sad aftermath of hurricane Katrina, real-world concerns were being tackled in challenging and provocative ways by the films in competition. And not only by those in the documentary section, which can be relied upon to respond sharply to recent events. These stories were also being told by dramatic features.
Compliance: Craig Zobel
In Compliance, one of this year’s most divisive films, a prank caller posing as a policeman forces underpaid employees at a fast-food restaurant to subject a female colleague to a series of degrading strip-searches. Audiences reacted strongly to its depiction of people obeying power without questioning the moral authority behind it, and the abuses carried out in the film recalled Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo. In Arbitrage, an enormously wealthy venture capitalist (Richard Gere) tries to offload the toxic assets that made his fortune before someone finds him out. And in Benh Zeitlin’s mesmerising debut feature Beasts of the Southern Wild, which won the grand jury prize, members of a dirt-poor community in Louisiana return to occupy their own homes illegally in the wake of a disastrous flood.
Sundance Review: ‘Compliance’
Rating: 4.5/5
Directed and written by Craig Zobel, “Compliance” stands one of this year’s most controversial, and most brilliant, films at Sundance. Huge letters blare at us in the opening moments, cut out from blackness to let grimy Ohio snow and concrete spell out “BASED ON TRUE EVENTS.” It is one thing, of course, for a film to be “true.” What makes “Compliance” as good as it is, and as scary as it is, is that it is not merely “true,” but “honest.” It doesn’t merely depict things that happened but , looks at what those events mean.
It’s a bad day at the local ChickWich franchise. The manager, Sandra (Ann Dowd) is dealing with both how someone left the freezer door open last night and destroyed $1,500 worth of food, but also with rumors that a “secret shopper” from corporate is possibly coming by that evening. Sandra is summoned to her back office by a call from a police officer, explaining that a customer is accusing one of her counter girls, Becky (Dreama Walker, light-years from her work on “gossip girl” and “The Good Wife”), of stealing money from her purse. Officer Daniels (Pat Healy) asks Sandra to detain Becky until he can come down to the restaurant. But until then, Daniels explains, Sandra has to detain her. And confiscate her phone. And strip-search her. And when other people help the harried Sandra watch and control the scared Becky, Officer Daniels has orders for them, too …
Sundance Review: ‘Compliance’
Rating: 4.5/5
Directed and written by Craig Zobel, “Compliance” stands one of this year’s most controversial, and most brilliant, films at Sundance. Huge letters blare at us in the opening moments, cut out from blackness to let grimy Ohio snow and concrete spell out “BASED ON TRUE EVENTS.” It is one thing, of course, for a film to be “true.” What makes “Compliance” as good as it is, and as scary as it is, is that it is not merely “true,” but “honest.” It doesn’t merely depict things that happened but , looks at what those events mean.
It’s a bad day at the local ChickWich franchise. The manager, Sandra (Ann Dowd) is dealing with both how someone left the freezer door open last night and destroyed $1,500 worth of food, but also with rumors that a “secret shopper” from corporate is possibly coming by that evening. Sandra is summoned to her back office by a call from a police officer, explaining that a customer is accusing one of her counter girls, Becky (Dreama Walker, light-years from her work on “Gossip Girl” and “The Good Wife”), of stealing money from her purse. Officer Daniels (Pat Healy) asks Sandra to detain Becky until he can come down to the restaurant. But until then, Daniels explains, Sandra has to detain her. And confiscate her phone. And strip-search her. And when other people help the harried Sandra watch and control the scared Becky, Officer Daniels has orders for them, too …