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SFJFF: Sidewalk
SFist Mihi warns you that this preview clip above may be dull.
Sidewalk, the documentary we saw at the Roda Theatre in Berkeley on Sunday for the SF Jewish Film Festival, was billed as a "wry and hilarious" examination by filmmaker Duki Dror as he follows kids on their daily journeys to and from school. "Dror has the same wondrous gift of bittersweet nostalgia that cartoonists Charles M. Schulz and Lynda Barry have," said the catalog description. To that we say: are you smoking crack?
The word "Buddhist" is code for "boring," the blathering thoughts of children, and a very good short film, after the jump.
SFist Mihi, contributing.
We really wish the description of Sidewalk had been a little more restrained. Before the movie, Dror made references to the movie being "Buddhist," he also basically said, it was about "nothing" and later said he was "tired of narrative documentary." Note to self: in the future, remember that "Buddhist" is code for freaking boring and leave theatre immediately.
The kids were cute for about the first 15 minutes but there were too many characters and watching a bunch of kids who hate school, babbling not very interesting childish observations was like a marketing campaign for zero population growth. At the end of the movie, Dror said there were originally eight children he documented, but one girl was cut because her "story"
was not as good as the other children. Considering that one of the "stories" seemed to consist of shots of a little girl walking and waiting at the bus stop, the girl who got cut must have been a catatonic human slug.
Sidewalk was preceded by a 15 minute short, Jonathan. Jonathan is a little boy who wants to dress up as the Little Mermaid for Purim. We would much rather have watched a full documentary on the charming Jonathan who favored midriff-bearing shirts and Bob Mackie-esque getups that would rival Cher. The expressions on his little face as he watches the little girls in their princess gear or struggles with his father's disapproval tells a story about the bittersweet struggle to establish identity in the face of parental disapproval and societal expectations. Every method actor wishes he could emote without effort like little Jonathan. Unlike Sidewalk, which had virtually no narrative, each look on Jonathan's face told an entire story without saying a word.