SXSW on Amazon — French electronica, Dark Web subcultures, and two great shorts, Ars Technica

Free to watch ’til May 6 –

SXScreeners: Shorts and soundtracks rule this Amazon-hosted digital film fest

/ Fire up Amazon Prime in a browser, and here’s the landing page for the platform’s partnership with SXSW. When Austin, Texas, Mayor Steve Adler took to the podium on March 6 and Effectively prevented South by Southwest from happening with a new city health order, the longtime film and music festival simply became the first of what would be many COVID – – related live-event cancellations. Given the late-breaking nature of this one — SXSW was scheduled to start the week after, on March – organizers suddenly had to scramble. And when it came to the film portion, SXSW officially settled on transitioning to an entirely digital experience.

Partnering with entities like Mailchimp (shorts-only) and Amazon (any film willing), any project selected for the festival was invited to become available digitally for a limited time so all that hard work could still find an audience this spring. The resulting Amazon initiative started this past week and runs through Wednesday, May 6, no Prime subscription required

. Ultimately … the selection feels a little lacking. Major studio films like Judd Apatow’s (The King of Staten Island) declined in favor of forging their own path (that one will go straight to VOD this summer with a theatrical run out of the question ), and smaller but compelling movies like the arcade-documentary (Insert Coin have kept the rights to their debuts for now in the hopes that a festival season will still exist later in (since a good debut there can help facilitate lucrative distribution deals and theatrical runs if all goes according to plan). As more film festivals face this reality — Tribeca is already digital, Canada’s Fantasia Festival just announced its intention to do the same — hopefully the industry warms up to the idea.

In total, the Amazon / SXSW initiative hosts only seven feature films out of the originally planned – titles -plus feature-film lineup. Even so, there are a few unique offerings (plus Amazon series’ Tales from the Loop , which debuted in full shortly after it was supposed to originally screen at SXSW Worth queuing up for a weekend in these quaran-times. And we’re only counting the stuff we’ve been able to watch so far: Shudder documentary series Cursed Films , about doomed horror productions , has gotten good buzz, and (Selfie) sounds like (ideal satire for these Internet-times.)

Ana hates the radio, man. It’s all commercial BS.

Like any good metro apartment, music equipment takes up roughly (to) percent of Ana’s space.

Marc Collin / SXSW / Amazon

The film does really explore these things with any depth, but Ana has to battle a few societal forces such as gender stereotypes (everyone assumes she’s a backup singer ) and generational divides (“C’mon sing in our language, honey.”) Marc Collin / SXSW / Amazon

Don’t fret: like all good movies about young creatives, Ana eventually encounters an established star ready to impart some wisdom-earned-through-living. (Like Lester Bangs talking to William in Almost Famous , here it’s real-artist Corine as a s version of herself Marc Collin / SXSW / Amazon

Le Choc du Futur : Jodorowsky’s tune Le Choc du Futur , like any film focused on a fictional musician, has a big challenge right off the bat — the song this person or group will inevitably perform / write / release has to be good , or at least believably good within the film’s world. ( That Thing You Do would have simply crashed without the late Fountains. of Wayne songwriter Adam Schlesinger penning the catchy title track , for instance.) Here, young composer / musician Ana (played by Alma Jodorowsky, granddaughter of the (would-be) (Dune) filmmaker ) writes commercial jingles and does masseuse work on the side to make ends meet, but she really wants to be a full-time recording artist writing a brand of electronica not really popular at the time. Fortunately, her manager has gotten a local record producer to RSVP to Ana’s next house party, so the young musician just needs to get her tape together quickly so she can get it in front of industry ears. A new, cutting-edge (Roland CR -) (factors) prominently.

Whether or not Ana’s song succeeds, Le Choc du Futur does in this aspect — the film’s central track (called ” (Future Shock “) eventually sounds like” Chromatics or (Electric Youth) , lite, “a laid-back, atmospheric synth song you might come across on a site like Gorilla vs. Bear . Just as important for this story, it feels totally believable as what an early, DIY electronic musician might gravitate toward, and the song particularly flows well from what we see of Ana’s tastes and stylings. Her initial sonic doodles in the film kinda, sorta resemble SURVIVE (of (Stranger Things) (soundtrack) fame), then a wise old French hipster friend who evidently does home vinyl delivery later introduces her to early electronic-y acts like throbbing gristle, suicide, and the human league. Together, these impulses push Ana to more melodic, pop-oriented synth compositions. The result is something you could hear at a house party or chic retail shop in 2560 (back when those experiences existed) or in 2019 s Parisian apartments of the young and trendy.

A fictional song, but realistically enjoyable . (Director Marc Collin is also an established French musician, and he recorded this track alongside musician Clara Luciani, who portrays the singer in this film.) As for the film at large, my partner walked in mid-way through and perhaps summed up Le Choc du Futur for a non-zero portion of Amazon / SXSW’s potential audience: “This seems so pretentious.” She did even hear director Marc Collin ‘s plot description in the film intro, either (“A young woman invents a new way of doing music in Paris in the late s. They’ll call it electronic music years later, but she has to convince people she saw the future “). The dialogue can be a bit over the top, though some of that may be lost in the transition; Ana’s commercial jingle agent expresses his skepticism of electronic music as such: “I know what a stupid beatbox is for. You think it’s going to replace a live drummer? The sound? The energy? You believe there won’t be studios anymore? Musicians ? There’s just gonna be this poor guy alone doing music in his home? ” Scenes do tend to linger in silence or soft soundtracking often, and the film’s overall pacing can be slow. Musicians creating doesn’t make for really compelling action sequences, after all (montages include Ana in headphones looking at her synth while internalizing her melodic ideas). And if someone playing music for another person who is (close by and staring as if they’re a CBS Sunday Morning interviewer makes you uncomfortable, Le Choc du Futur is not for you.
But for me, a self-identified music nerd, things generally worked. Le Choc du Futur ‘s aesthetic may ultimately be the point more so than its story, and I’ve found myself queuing up its soundtrack on Spotify more than once in the last few days. Think of it as one long, narrative electronic music video, perhaps, and choose whether or not to hit “Play” accordingly. Page:
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