Paul Taylor’s Driftwood, which eschews all traditional dialogue, screens this Sun as part of the Micro-Wave Cinema series
In the absence of speech during its run-time, Paul Taylor’s Driftwood emerges as a testament to the influence of the theatrical allegory and performance art on experimental filmmaking. Like Cecelia Rowlson-Hall’s aesthetically compatible MA, a unique and integral part of last semester’s robust Micro-Wave Cinema program, Taylor’s audacious feature finds a Madison screening on Nov 13, at 7:00p, in 4070 Vilas Hall. The director will join host and curator Brandon Colvin for a video Q&A afterward.
The film’s first act may be guided by a warped, abstract amalgam of Sleeping Beauty and Little Mermaid premises in rural, aging man (Paul C. Kelly)’s attempts to domesticate a solitary young woman (Micro-Wave alumna, Joslyn Jensen, of Funny Bunny) he finds washed ashore. Yet, romantic notions and tone quickly veer towards the harsh reality that accompanies the assimilating struggles of the titular figure in Werner Herzog’s Enigma of Kaspar Hauser. When the once-oceanic woman wanders off into the nearby woods, the psychologically scarred man’s slippery intentions turn overtly possessive in the ensuing character dynamic that provokes feminist themes.
Taylor’s directorial debut, which made a splash at this year’s Slamdance Film Festival premiere (winning the Jury Award for Narrative Feature), has been since met with polarizing responses that IndieWire critic Garry Garrison contrasts with Room (2015)’s captive scenario for its lack of “exciting new-world sensations.” However, Driftwood‘s rewards are more elusive by design, and its scenes generate genuine sense of ambiguous wonder that fully rely upon the actors’ range of gestures to convey the intricacies of the irregular relationship. Ben Umstead argues that actress Jensen perfectly parallels the purity and independence of an emerging human as “Scarlett Johansson did during Under the Skin‘s post-manhunting domestic chapter,” further stressing the constant curiosities in the film’s “structural simplicity and keen sense of social absurdity.”
- Driftwood screens on Sun, Nov 13, in 4070 Vilas Hall at 7:00p. Admission is FREE and open to the public. A video Q&A with director Paul Taylor will follow. For more information on the Micro-Wave Cinema Series, visit their Facebook community page.