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ABFF 2002
Fun, Films and Fans in the Sun
By Esther Iverem
SeeingBlack.com Editor and Film Critic
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MIAMI—As soon as I check into my Miami Beach hotel for this
year's American Black Film Festival, (formerly the Acapulco Black
Film Festival), I click on the television and there is Miss Cleo,
the TV psychic, who is in Florida facing charges that she is a fraud.
What a welcome, I think. How appropriate a greeting for film festival-goers,
who are attracted to the realm of storytelling, entertainment, illusion
and fantasy.
I see no more news about Miss Cleo for the duration of the festival,
June 26-30, but I do see lots of films that delve into the inner-mind.
Most noteworthy is "Crazy As Hell," a psychological
drama directed by Eriq La Salle and starring Michael Beach, about
a psychiatrist who winds up wrestling his own demons. "Karmen
Gei," Joseph Gai Ramaka's sensual and energetic remake of "Carmen"
set in Senegal, does not draw huge crowds but well represents the
continent, along with "Daresalem," by Issa Serge Coelo and, "Ubuntu's
Wounds," a powerful short film about South Africa's Truth and Reconcilation
Commission process, written and directed by Sechaba Morojele.
Preferring home grown products and talent, the audience awards
go to "Civil Brand," a female prison drama directed by Neema Barnette;
to actress Monica Calhoun ("The Best Man," "The Player's Club")
for her role in Rob Hardy's upcoming erotic feature, "Pandora's
Box," and to actor Clifton Powell ("Bones," "The Brothers,") for
his role as a crooked prison guard in "Civil Brand." The Lincoln
Filmmaker Trophy, an award chosen by Black filmmakers, is awarded
to "The Riff," a jazz drama set in New Orleans
and the winner of the HBO Short Film Competition is "Quest to Ref,"
a comedy written by and starring Benjamin Watkins.
At the ABFF Awards Show on the final night, the intense young
actor Mekhi Phifer is on hand to receive the Rising Star award,
and the festival presents Career Achievement awards to costume designer
Ruth Carter and to its long-time supporter, Robert Townsend—the
versatile artist who, along with Spike Lee, ushered in the "new
wave" of Black filmmakers. "It's not about a Black thing, it's a
human thing," a tuxedoed Townsend, who is the MC for the evening,
tells the audience gathered inside the gracious Jackie Gleason Theater.
"All I want to do is create something that speaks to people."
Townsend, visibly moved by the surprise award, confides to the
audience that he is going through a "horrible divorce" and thanks
his longtime friend Keenan Ivory Wayans, who is on hand to give
him the award, for helping him in his difficult time. Mega-star
Chris Tucker is also here on Townsend's behalf, grateful to pay
respects to the man who he says gave him his first film role, though
he complains with comedic bitterness that he was "cut out of the
film."
Actors like Tucker and Phifer have made this first state-side ABFF
more star-laden than those recently in Acapulco. Actress Sanaa Lathan,
(accompanied by actor Omar Epps) is on hand to present the career
achievement award to Carter. Director John Singleton, whose short
film, "Drama," about domestic violence, is screening here, is also
an awards presenter. At one festival party, I witness a Phifer fan,
obviously drunk and overcome when Phifer smiles at her, slowly slink
to the floor and weep.
Overall, South Beach—which remains a work in progress with
pricey art deco hotels and condos ajacent to vacant storefronts—seems
a bit more hospitable to ABFF than Acapulco. Real estate in the
area has been hard-hit since Sept. 11 and local merchants seemed
appreciative of the influx of business. Mayor David Dermer says
the festival is pumping $10 million into the city's economy.
The heat here is just as intense and even more humid than in Acapulco,
(but while many of the locals prefer to speak Spanish, they can
also usually speak English). In Miami, the festival is able to draw
on the resources and interests of the community in a manner that
was impossible in Acapulco. Jeff Friday, producer of the festival,
has announced plans to expand the mission of the festival to include
the Latino community. There are more nightclubs playing danceable
music, more restaurants serving edible food and, here, we can drink
the water.
"We outgrew Acapulco," Byron Lewis, founder of the festival, says
before a small TV crew from Ohio after a morning press conference.
"Here we have more access to a larger body of filmmakers and better
technical facilities—and I'd rather be home" in the states.
It could be that festival organizers, intent on demonstrating
the festival's economic impact on the city, spread functions and
programs out to as many varied venues as possible. But this decision
makes for some disappointing "official" parties and much scrambling
for better alternatives. The cruelest blow comes on the final night,
after the wonderful awards program filled images of Black beauty
and excellence. Well, off we head down the noisy main drag of South
Beach to a club called Liquid, where we are greeted by two blonde
chicks standing on high pedestals on either side of the entryway
wearing nothing but I-Dream-of-Jeanie ponytails, bikinis and knee-high
boots. Inside, high above the middle of the dance floor another
high pedestal, is another bikini-clad, ponytailed chick, dancing
in a way that might be described as mix between 70's go-go girl
and 80's techno. She reigns over the dark crowd, which wanders around,
bewildered.
"I'm a smart person," one Los Angeles entertainment attorney says
earnestly, glancing upward and sipping champagne. "But I don't understand
this. Do you?"
I have no answers for her. I don’t understand it myself. I think
this might be a job for Miss Cleo.
A Riff In Need of Magic
The jazz movie is a special genre. It brings together our classical
music with the particular rhythms of cinema. Films like "Round Midnight"
or "Bird" manage a fine marriage of music and images, with each
driving the other forward, and driving the story forward in the
process.
"The Riff," written and directed by Mark Allen, is an interesting
take on the jazz genre but falls short of the required magic. Set
in New Orleans, it centers on the relationship between a long-time
talent scout/manager Adam Goodnight (Cameron Smith) and his drug
addicted friend and client, the once-great trumpeter Shoop Summers
(Antonio Fargas). There is a slowly unraveling mystery in the past
Goodnight and Summers that binds them together and piques our interest,
the photography sets the right nightclub mood and Antonio Fargas
lends scenes the right tortured presence, with an unfocused gaze,
a crooked sneer, jive talk and a frequently nasty disposition.
But despite these strong points aren't enough to save the film.
The relationship between Goodnight and Summers reeks of a tired
cliché—the stereotyped Great White Father caring for the irresponsible
Black buck. Similarly, Summers and the other young musician are
not finely drawn characters; they emerge as little more than shells
of musicians.
Most disturbingly, music is not at all a driving force in the
film. Throughout, it relies on a weak score of what is commonly
called "cool jazz," that insipid, zippy Muzak-like stuff that lacks
any semblance of soul. Aside from a few performances by a blind
pianist, there is no great music here and many of the numbers sound
like they are repeated over and over. Jazz club scenes are not directed
or edited in a manner to obscure the fact that Fargas and others
are not really playing instruments. Much of the incidental music
is not jazz at all but is, instead, that sickly violin soundtrack
that always signals melodrama.
There is the skeleton of a decent story here. Too bad there isn't
the meat, muscle and music to make this film really sing.
Good, Evil and Insanity
The best film I saw at this year's American Black Film Festival
(ABFF) was "Crazy As Hell," a complex, psychological drama directed
by Eriq La Salle, known to most of us as Dr. Peter Benton on the
television show, "ER." Produced with an eye for convincing visual
detail and a flair for the dramatic twist, this film is one that
will make you think twice as it interrogates the meaning of good
and evil, and the devil.
Centered on a psychiatrist named Dr. Ty Adams (Michael Beach),
the film takes us into the harried wards of a mental institution
where Adams hopes to prove, once and for all, the success of his
controversial methods of treating the mentally ill. Adams avoids
psychotic drugs and believes that even the extremely disturbed can
be cured with counseling and therapy. On his first day at the hospital,
he is shown his new patients and it all seems like a set up. He
is given the harshest cases in what the hospital administrator calls
the "Ripley's Believe or Not" ward, which includes men and women
in various states of dress or undress, talking to and fighting with
imaginary people, acting more often like children than adults.
But we also know fairly early in the film that Dr. Adams is troubled
himself. He keeps hearing and seeing visions of a woman and of a
little girl that we learn are his dead wife and daughter. At the
same time that Adams is depicted with some sympathy as a man shouldering
personal tragedy and willing to take a more holistic approach to
mental health, he is also revealed to be perhaps blindly ambitious.
We ultimately learn the connections between his tragedy and his
career goals. Much of the film is this meditation on the driven
buppie, so obsessed with success that he/she loses his soul, mind
and life in the process.
The film also builds a sense of tension and anticipation by showing
us two competing visions. First, it shows what only Adams sees—visions
of his laughing daughter, his knowing wife. Then it shows us what
everyone but Adams sees. A documentary crew is at the hospital producing
a program about Dr. Adams's controversial methods. Hidden cameras
placed all over the building catch Adams in repeated, heated discussions
with the thin air. Who is crazier, the patients or Adams? Can Dr.
Adams be both successful and troubled?
Obviously, "Crazy As Hell" gives its cast a chance to go outside
of the boxes of hyper urban and ghetto drama. La Salle, who co-stars
as The Man, a patient claiming to be Satan, is able to stretch here
both in front of and behind the camera. Beach (NBC's "Third Watch,"
"Asunder," "Waiting to Exhale"), who has had plenty of recent opportunities
to play troubled, complex men, does a good job at both drawing our
sympathy and contempt. He does such a great job, in fact, he helps
the filmmakers ride this sense of tension until the very end. It
is not clear that the movie convinces us that Adams is evil as much
as just plain nuts. But it does ask us to decide when being driven
crosses the line into being evil.
Esther Iverem's film reviews also appear on BET.com
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-- July 12, 2002
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