Bohemian Cinema By Jonathan Pacheco

Film Handicapping and “Blanc de Blanc”

I don’t like the idea of handicapping films. Whether it had a budget of $300 million or just $300, whether it was shot over two years or over two weeks, I wish I could evaluate every film on the same plane. Many people are uncertain of how to look at indie and uber-indie films; do they view them with the same eye with which they view the next Wachowski Brothers film, or do they give the film with perceivably fewer resources a few passes along the way? Even though my ideals beg me to judge each film on that level plane, I’ve always assigned a cinematic handicap to every movie I view, from the small film burned on a DVD using the director’s personal computer to the ballyhooed Hollywood epic shining brightly on the IMAX screen.

Blanc de Blanc almost begs to be handicapped. Before the film even begins (in the version I viewed), a title card informs the viewer that this film was shot and edited within two weeks as part of a Twitter challenge labeled #2wkfilm. Completing a feature film is a small miracle in itself; doing most of it within a two week span is that much more impressive. The challenge serves as a way to get the filmmaker to let go of excuses and just make a feature film. There’s no time to second-guess yourself and no time to allow your project to fall into any sort of limbo. There’s also no time to fix, to edit, or to retool your film. If something doesn’t feel right while shooting or cutting—tough. You’ve got a feature to plow through. I imagine that the majority of the shooting and editing takes on a run-and-gun style just to get the darn thing completed. ^[1] To say the least, there will never be a #2wkfilm Avatar.

How much of this do I take into account when I look at Blanc de Blanc? Am I more forgiving of its flaws, considering what director Lucas McNelly accomplished, and how he went about it? Are the film’s triumphs even richer because of how the film was formed? Earlier this year, a local critic went on the radio and stated his conviction that Danny Boyle deserved the Best Director Oscar thanks entirely to Slumdog Millionaire’s difficult shooting conditions in Mumbai. I scoffed; that might have been the dumbest thing I’d heard all Awards Season. I still disagree with the gentleman’s conclusion, but I’m beginning to understand how he came to it. Once you know (or have even experienced) the plight of the filmmaker, particularly the indie one, it’s even more difficult to look at all films on that equal level of comparison. How can you not give the little guy some sort of handicap?

With such a limited timeframe for production, you would think a low-budget film would go plotless out of sheer convenience. While McNelly’s previous short, gravida, centered around a simple scenario, Blanc de Blanc adds a bit of a plot, but chooses to keep the details a mystery. David (Jason Kirsch) shows up in Pittsburgh with the clothes on his back and a backpack full of random junk, and coincidentally keeps bumping into a nurse named Jude (Rachel Shaw). David cooks like a chef and can bust more than a few yoga moves, yet we never learn how he came to master such things. Guarded about his reasons for being in Pittsburgh or anything to do with his past, the traveler remains an enigma, yet Jude still chooses to take him into her home, albeit reluctantly.

All of this develops a lot more naturally than I’d expected. McNelly doesn’t force these details into conversations they don’t belong in, instead allowing them to flow out of Jude and David’s relationship. The film works best, as gravida does, when characters are allowed to sit and have real discussions; the more the characters talk, the more engaging they and the plot become. This is one of the more delightful trends I’ve noticed in McNelly’s work.

A tendency I’d love to see the director drop is his insistence on placing music where it isn’t necessary. I wouldn’t say he uses it as a crutch, but he seems almost afraid to let a scene or transition pass without turning up the score. As with gravida, his dialogue and directing skills deserve more faith from him, as they’re capable of standing up on their own. Many scenes in Blanc de Blanc would strengthen once they lost the music.

Beyond smaller tendencies such as this, McNelly does commit one major mistake. The revealing details of the plot are intentionally withheld, leaving only hints and clues blended into conversations, implications, and looks. There is, however, a seemingly pivotal scene in which an important character emerges, pushing the central relationship to a climactic conflict. While this character’s confrontational scene doesn’t divulge a whole lot about the still-mysterious plot, the sequence was too much. As you watch the majority of the film reveal its secrets in a subtle and quiet manner, this scene jumps out at you, waving its arms, yelling in your face. It’s too broad, blatant, and uninteresting for a film with so many more intriguing moments.

The perfect balance between the plot, the characters, and McNelly’s storytelling goals is achieved in a wonderful scene that has David describing to Jude the Masonic-like French ritual of eating ortolan, a small, rare songbird. McNelly patiently holds the camera on his characters as Jason Kirsch expertly delivers the character’s symbolic monologue, and with this understated, engaging segment, the director cleverly reveals more of the story’s mystery, develops his characters, and just gives you an engrossing, memorable scene.

Compared to this, the plot-heavy confrontational climax (and the emotionally confusing scene that follows) feels even more out of place. Both of these ill-fitting scenes could be removed entirely from the film, and with a little bit of tweaking, Blanc de Blanc would be even more effective. But that brings us back to the issue at hand: is that the type of move you make (or even know to make) when you’re trying to shoot and edit a feature film in two weeks? Probably not. Therefore, is it fair to fault McNelly for that? I’m still not sure.

The Twitter challenge serves as an immediate point of interest for Blanc de Blanc; if #2wkfilm gets more people to watch the independent films associated with this task, I’m glad. However, I fear that at the same time, the two week restriction hamstrings filmmakers like McNelly. He will no doubt go on to make stronger films than Blanc de Blanc, but he can still make Blanc de Blanc itself stronger. With a few bold choices and some minor tightening, he could really have something here. So even though #2wkfilm provides a nice identity for his movie, if I were McNelly, I’d at least consider one more editorial pass through Blanc de Blanc after this Twitter challenge has served its purpose. He’s just too talented for a handicap this high.