Why 'The Future' is my personal favorite film of Sundance 2011
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Miranda July
IceboxMovies — 15 years ago(January 28, 2011 11:56 PM)
This morning began with a screening of
The Future
at the Eccles, and it was a screening I will never forget. When I rented her 2005 debut feature
Me and You and Everyone We Know
a couple of years ago, I knew that Miranda July was an interesting filmmaker who would be going places. Now that I have seen
The Future
, I realize that she is something more: one of the wisest filmmaking voices of our generation.
Though it has dozens of side-splitting moments that had the audience laughing for minutes,
The Future
is not a full-blown quirky comedy like
Me and You and Everyone We Know
; and, as a result, I actually think it's a much better film. Miranda July has confirmed her incomparability as a poet of desperationher films are about aging, wandering souls whose only longing is for love and security. In
The Future
, she and Hamish Linklater play Sophie and Jason, a couple that decides to adopt a stray cat from the pound and, then, make the most of their lives in the next 30 days waiting before they're allowed to take the cat home.
But that doesn't even begin the incredible scope of July's 91-minute film, which eventually becomes the most surreal and intoxicating independent movie of its kind since Charlie Kaufmann's
Synecdoche, New York
. As pleasant of a film as Me and You and Everyone We Know was, it followed a typical linear narrative that all first-time independent filmmakers generally adopt for their debut projects. Five years later, July is a much more experienced filmmaker and has chosen this time to play around with narrative structure and, what's more, blend the line between reality and imagination. This seemingly small movie packs a wallop: a talking moon, a litle girl buried in dirt from the neck down, a yellow shirt that literally
crawls
a across neighborhood street, and characters who have the ability to freeze time.
All of this anchored by a most ingenious plot device: a track of narration by the lonely stray cat, named "Paw Paw", that waits patiently in its cage for the day when Sophie and Jason will finally come to bring it home. We never get to see what Paw Paw actually looks like; we only see her giant paws, which gesture like regular human hands (one of the film's funnier moments). And her voice (by July herself) sounds like the dialect of Norman Bates' crotchety old mother: it's creepy, it's hilarious, and it's even sad. I will not spoil the events that ultimately unfold from Sophie and Jason's anxious wait to adopt Paw Paw, but I can't rave enough about how much of a must-see experience
The Future
is. When it opens worldwide later in the year, I hope to see it again, maybe even to review it. I have a very good feeling it's the kind of film that improves with repeated viewings. It's also the most haunting film I've seen at the festivaland I say that as someone who has also seen Iwai Shunji's
Vampire
.
Only one disappointment about the screening: Miranda July was not there. The excuse was that she's "needed all around the world." It's a shame, too, because I wanted desperately to have a picture taken with her. And then to give her a great big hug.
"What I don't understand is how we're going to stay alive this winter."