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ASHLAND INDEPENDENT FILM FESTIVAL A scoop from the ocean: Reviews of four festival films Comment By John Darling For the Tidings DailyTidings.com By John Darling For the Tidings Posted Apr. 13, 2015 at 7:10 PM By John Darling For the Tidings Posted Apr. 13, 2015 at 7:10 PM » RELATED CONTENT • 'BRAND,' 'Western' among Ashland Independent Film Festival award winners... • What was your favorite film? • Ashland Independent Film Festival movie review: 'A River Between Us' tells compelling st... » Social News Didn't make it to the five-day Ashland Independent Film Festival that ran Thursday through Monday and wonder about some of the nearly 100 films shown were about? Did make it and wonder what others thought of the films? Hear are reviews of four of the films. ECHO PARK  Girl leaves boy. Girl (same one) meets boy (different one). She’s new in the 'hood. Doesn’t know anyone. She is trying to get over the old boyfriend. She says no to hooking up with the new boy. That lasts a few hours. Then, what the heck, some espresso with him, a visit to the record shop, then it’s evening and all she has to drink is tequila. They are young. It’s summer. Her old boyfriend is pressuring her to fulfill his agenda for marriage and all that. It/he doesn’t flip her switch anymore. The old Hollywood story is that, of course, the new boy flips her switch a lot and after much passion and problems, they find true love, right? Well, this is a new generation of filmmakers in Hollywood (she’s in a group of 20 female directors) and the old stories just don’t play. It’s the first film for Amada Marsalis and it’s a good one, though it trails along, like real life, with such lines as “I’ll get my shoes” and “they didn’t have your flavor” (for espresso). The girl, Sophie, is Mamie Gummer, daughter of Meryl Streep. She has her mom’s nose. Also her hair and that look in her eyes. She’s good. It’s probably like being the daughter of Abe Lincoln. Can you ever be good enough? But she nails the role perfectly and is ably directed not to get too emo. “Echo Park,” was shot in a “brutally” short 17-days in Echo Park in north Los Angeles, said Marsalis, in a Q&A after the showing. (Spoilers ahead.) Someone congratulated her for not resolving the story by letting the girl get the boy, but instead letting the girl get herself and her life and find out who she is, which, as the movie ably shows, is the very necessary next step. Marsalis smiled and said, yes, that was her adjustment in the script by Catalina Aguilar Mastretta. No quick fixes here, folks.  The cinematography, by Jason McCormick, is superb, capturing that inimitable look of LA in summer, where the skies are no particular color but rather a silver-white of sunlight and “stuff” in the air, seemingly exuded by the omnipresent palms and eucalyptus. The little stores and cafes reek with utility but seem as charming and inviting as Italy.  Asked if the film had a “message,” Marsalis said no. It’s life. Relationships are complex and shouldn’t be taken to some prescribed finish line. If that leaves you hanging, wanting it all to come back to some home chord, well then, experience that. It’s like life. KURT COBAIN Probably the most creative American rocker of the '90s, the troubled Kurt Cobain flashed like a comet across the musical heavens then disappeared into suicide in 1994. This eponymous film tries to help us understand why, by showing us old Super 8 film and interviews with his mom, dad, first girlfriend and wife and it certainly does the job. It is painful to watch. It does a masterful job of montaging lots of audio tape, quotes from his anguished journal, patched on screen, pointing him to his inevitable end. It’s kind of a case study of a creative, kinetic happy childhood, sent off into alienation in adolescence, when his detached parents divorced and roundly rejected him. Pot, vandalism, crazy teen spirit, then mastering his guitar and an amazing talent with music, which turned into sudden fame in the grunge-alternative period in Seattle. It’s reminiscent of the decline of Jim Morrison in “The Doors” movie — wretched, sad and lost. But it’s a story that needed to be documented and was told well in this film. What lessons or message are to be learned from it? Maybe that everyone should have to get a parenting license that is a lot harder than getting a driver’s license. The scenes of him and his brief loopy wife, both on heroin, with this baby girl are very painful and they would never have passed the exam for a parenting license. The film is artfully done but ends suddenly with the onscreen words that, OK, he performed in Rome, then came back home and died. The crowd at the Ashland Historic Armory sits in silence as the credits roll by. There is no applause, just shaking of heads — sad, very sad. Brave are those who sat through it. SONG OF THE SEA A literally enchanting retelling of ancient Gaelic myth and legend, “Song of the Sea” takes you on a long and winding journey through the lost world of faeries, witches, spirit animals as it explores the scary stuff that tries to thwart our appointment with our true destiny. This animated gem was written and produced mainly for children, something they could visit again and again as they grow up, but it works for adults, though the mysteries and mythical dimensions are deep. Still, they ring familiar in the genetic memory. Saoirise (pronounced Sear-shuh in English) and her bother Ben seek to unravel the fate of their mother, a Selkie (a seal, turned human for a while, in order to love a human), who has vanished back into the sea — and the meaning of Saoirse, who is 6 but has not spoken a word. The message of the story is: How can we humans understand and recapture our connection with the disappearing spirit world? Much myth takes the viewer on a journey through the incomprehensible lower world in search of something the searchers do not understand. They are guided by instincts and spirits they cannot understand but they persist and finally — the rediscovery of “home,” their right place, the lost mother, then all things fill with color and the world is mended once again and the powers of life are restored, allowing all to move forward. TOCANDO LA LUZ (REACH FOR THE LIGHT)  A film about three blind women in Havana, their lives, their reaching for a life they can live with. This amazing film reaches into the private lives of these women, who, like us, are trying to make lives from the starting point of sightlessness. This documentary hangs together beautifully. One is an elderly widow, another a wonderful singer, the other a young woman hopeful of being a mother, a sitiuation prevented, mostly likely, from radiation therapy. Too many docs detail misery of socio-cultural situations that get you aggravated about our society. But this one is personal — and it brings Cuba into our lives in ways it has never been. The day to day stuff of markets, family budgets, people just trying to make a go of it against harsh odds.  It’s a beautiful film that enraptures and captures you. They put flowers into the creek in honor of river spirits, play blind baseball and learn to use the white cane. It holds you and makes tears flow. It’s not about Fidels’ Cuba, but it shows the ladies commenting on how he seems older and fatter now and is beloved by them. It’s a top film in the festival. By John Darling For the Tidings DailyTidings.com By John Darling For the Tidings Posted Apr. 13, 2015 at 7:10 PM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. 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