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Shared Darkness

A Communal Life in Film, Examined

Daily Archives: August 24, 2010

David Lynch Tabbed Guest Artistic Director for AFI Fest 2010

Filmmaker David Lynch has been named the first-ever guest artistic director for AFI Fest 2010, it was announced today. “I said yes to being the guest artistic director of AFI Fest 2010 because I love the AFI,” said Lynch in a press release. “AFI can do for others what it did for me. AFI gave me an opportunity and money to make a short film, The Grandmother, and my first feature film, Eraserhead. AFI put me on the map.”

Lynch created artwork (above) that will serve as the official image of the 24th
annual festival. As guest artistic director, Lynch will also program a special
sidebar of films that have influenced and inspired him. His selections will be announced in
October. AFI Fest 2010 will take place November 4-11 in Hollywood, at the historic
Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, the Mann Chinese 6 theatres, the Egyptian
Theatre and the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. For more information, click here.

Animal Kingdom

Writer-director David Michôd’s Animal Kingdom, winner of the Grand Jury Prize at this year’s Sundance Festival, is an involving, rangy and sneakily ambitious crime drama that pulses with a low hum of menace. Unfolding against an unfussy, decidedly non-glamorous criminal backdrop of modern-day Melbourne, the movie has intriguing characters and a broad canvas, like it could easily be spun off into a miniseries or TV serial.

When his junkie mom dies of an overdose, teenager Joshua (James Frecheville) gets taken in by his doting grandmother (Jacki Weaver), which would seem to be a good thing. Problem is, she’s den mother to a cabal of ne’er-do-wells, whose armed bank robberies have made them marked men by cops, some of whom play by the rules and some of whom have no qualms with vigilante justice. As one officer (Guy Pearce) tries to flip Joshua and make him a source, shocking twists and turns ensue.

Frecheville believably exudes naivety, and is a great anchor for Animal Kingdom, but Michôd smartly trades in organic rather than artificial thrills, making a movie about the legacy of violence that doesn’t often indulge in it. The result gets its hooks into an audience slowly. For Los Angelenos, a double-feature playdate at the New Beverly with fellow Aussie crime drama The Square most certainly awaits. For more information, click here. (Sony Classics, R, 112 minutes)

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