Austin Heat: What To Believe About the Buzz at SXSW

By Randee Dawn

SXSW may not have the breakouts that characterize its far larger winter cousin in Park City, but a number of small movies are starting to ripple beneath the surface in Austin. Gary Gee's haunting “Joy Division” documentary held its U.S. premiere Wednesday to a nearly-packed audience looking for a little darkness in the middle of their 80-degree day. While crowd reaction was mixed, Gee delivered, with a stylish, frank film that clearly comes from the heart of a music lover.

Another doc generating significant buzz: “Second Skin,” which focuses on the relationships formed (and lives destroyed) because of obsession with games like World of Warcraft and Everquest. Tuesday night's second-go-around for the film brought out a packed house that included several of the doc’s subjects and an eager Q&A session. No sale yet, but it’s a fascinating film, if a bit disjointed in the last act, and gets audiences who've never considered spending 18 hours in front of their computer to sympathize with those who do.

Other talked-about docs have been less thrilling: Celia Maysles’ “Wild Blue Yonder” is earnest and heartfelt, but she lacks enough distance from her subject – her own search for her late father, the documentarian David Maysles, through his work, and that lack of perspective makes the film feel self-indulgent. That Albert Maysles is doing his own doc about David, is the subject of much controversy in the film (Albert wants some of the same clips as Celia), and at first he comes off as just a mean old man, but his may be the film worth seeing.

Many more movies still to come, even as, at the mid-week point, the fest begins to
admits its slightly unwashed, if slightly cooler, rock and roll cousins.

Comments

[Rhea]

Just got back from SXSW. "They Killed Sister Dorothy" is a doc that received two top awards. I didn't get to see it, but I hear it tells the story of the life and death of an American nun who works to save the rain forest in the Amazon.

[Derekp]

I think i've seen this somewhere before…but it's not bad at all