Tip of the Week: Mutual Appreciation

I was recently on a film festival jury and it’s probably not telling tales out of school to say that the filmmakers and journalists assembled were mostly apathetic to a current strain of filmmaking, which a New York colleague, Jamie Stuart, has dubbed “Slackavetes.” Without mentioning the picture the other jurors despised, I’ll note that my citations of Chicago’s own Joe Swanberg, the DuPlass brothers and Andrew Bujalski, whose “Mutual Appreciation” finally arrives here, were met with deaf ears and glazed eyes. Bujalski may be the most accomplished (and most ingratiating) of the twentysomething brood of filmmakers who are attempting something between vérité and Cassavetes—offhanded, discomfiting slices of experience by those who are yet inexperienced, like Eric Rohmer with mortifications instead of epiphanies. Despite seeming formless, Bujalski’s patternings are deceptively sly and deft. (Admirers of Jim Jarmusch and Mike Leigh should hear the pitch of the shaggy-dog whistle as well.) There’s something else I truly adore about the 16mm black-and-white “Mutual Appreciation”: lead Alan (Justin Rice) is a musician whose band’s broken up, and arriving in New York, he has no idea how to set up a live show, missing a drummer and being really bad at self-promotion. Radio DJ Sara (Seung-Min Lee) finds a drummer with romantic goals as well. When the show starts with only a handful of attendees, Rice, who leads a band called Bishop Allen, hesitates and then gives a most terrific musical performance. It’s one of the few times I’ve ever seen anyone get the process of rock ‘n’ roll performance on film, rather than merely photographing it, capturing a moment, an emotion, as it invents and demonstrates itself. Like a lot of the oddments of behavior from these refugees of a yet-undefined generation, it sneaks up on you like a kiss on the back of the neck. 109m. (Ray Pride)