Ira Sachs’ exceptional feature “Keep The Lights On” provides a fascinating study in the boundary-setting and sacrifices that make or break couples. German filmmaker Erik feels closeted publishing house lawyer Brian is not another anonymous one-night stand but The One. Yet over nearly a decade, Erik’s belief gets tested by their mutual taste for edgy behavior, particularly Brian’s crack addiction.

Sachs’ film offers a cinematic middle finger to those who see gay relationships as inferior to straight relationships. Commitment issues don’t magically change because of the partners’ sexual orientation. Reasonable viewers will notice such emotional manipulations as extended disappearances and pushing the partner’s boundaries. Arthur Russell’s music, which covers folk song to avant garde instrumental, honestly captures a relationship’s moods better than more conventionally syrupy work.

This powerful romantic drama will disconcert those uncomfortable with emotional honesty, let alone non-prurient depictions of gay sex. Hardier viewers will hail Sachs’ film as one of Sundance’s gems.



Call Rory Kennedy’s “Ethel” a valentine to everything from Kennedy-era idealism to the filmmaker’s titular mother, Ethel Kennedy. This wonderful film from the child who never personally knew her assassinated father Robert F. Kennedy moves past public tragedies to find spiritual renewal.

Centering the film are the amusing and amazing reminiscences of both Ethel Kennedy and the filmmaker’s siblings. Who expects such “commonsensical” actions as introducing Kennedy’s older brothers to the joys of House hearings or a nonchalant act of horse thieving would cause viewers to frequently stare agape at the screen?

“Ethel” illuminates the private side of a very public life without degenerating into tell-all destructiveness. It also transforms its famous subject’s life into an existence worthy of aspiration rather than envy.



David France’s exceptional documentary “How To Survive A Plague” provides a welcome tribute to activist power and street-level media chronicling. Using 700 hours of long unseen camcorder footage shot by ACT-UP and TAG members, the film documents these HIV-positive activists’ multi-year struggle against societal hostility and inertia towards AIDS sufferers. These activists’ efforts eventually transform AIDS from a death sentence to a controllable disease.

France’s film offers important object lessons on taking control of one’s fate and one’s history. For example, leaving the official authorities and the media of record to handle the AIDS crisis resulted in government indifference and a lack of media alarm. Only when ACT-UP’s and TAG’s activists fight for pharmaceutical reform and utilize such high profile actions as putting a condom on uber-homophobic Senator Jesse Helms’ home does real change actually happen. The director, who’s reported on AIDS for nearly 30 years, has performed a public service in telling the largely forgotten story of ACT-UP.



Think of public safety cutbacks and school closures while you watch Karin Hayes and Victoria Bruce’s infuriating documentary “We’re Not Broke.” This important and timely film blames America’s financially crippled government finances on legalized corporate tax dodging. Such familiar firms as Google, Bank of America, and FedEx cheerfully shift their profits overseas to successfully cheat our country of at least $100 billion a year.

The nemeses of these multinational corporations scheming to pay no tax revenue whatsoever are Ryan Clayton and several other activists of the anti-corporate tax dodging group U.S. Uncut.

The directors don’t romanticize the uphill struggle faced by these activists. Corporate tax dodging remains off the American public and media radar. Federal elected legislators are not about to rewrite corporate tax laws especially if those rewrites injure the interests of their corporate campaign contributors. But as the Occupy movement’s shift of the public dialogue shows, this struggle is not impossible to win.

SLAMDANCE

That Paul is truly not Karl’s doppelganger is just one of many sly jokes in Dylan Akio Smith and Kris Elgstrand’s “Doppelganger Paul.” This wonderfully off-kilter comedy/drama plays off middle-age anxieties about failure and loneliness by building the bond between its two lead characters on something more emotionally complex than attracting opposites. How both men eventually grow to need and support one another feels well-earned especially given the film’s bizarre route to that point.

Signposts on that route include shoe sniffing, a guilt-inducing animal exhibit, and a fractious trip to Portland. For those seeking a movie displaying quirky Coen Brothers-like humor, “Doppelganger Paul” will fill the bill.



Matthew Millan’s flawed short documentary “We Win Or We Die” tells the street-level story of ordinary Benghazi Libyans’ siege of the notorious Moammar Gaddafi fortress/political prison known as the Katiba. Its strongest moments come from interviews with protesters and chaotic street footage of the attacks on the Katiba. They underscore ordinary Libyans’ literal life-and-death stakes in confronting Gaddafi’s armed thugs.

Sadly, the film’s most dramatic thread, Mahdi Zew’s heroic sacrifice, falls unnecessarily flat. Its unannounced speculative recreation detracts from the film’s credibility. Zew remains a cipher who becomes a suicide bomber for Libya’s liberation. Only the closing shot of Zew haunts the viewer.



Should one cherish a victory written in water? That melancholy question lies behind Jon Rafman’s short film “Codes of Honor.” Its veteran video gamer lead reminisces about his younger video arcade days and confronts the allure of the artificial world where one can be an expert kung fu fighter.

Rafman argues that the accomplishment derived from defeating one’s opponent in a game is dwarfed by the reality that such a victory offers nothing to build upon for one’s future. Toshiro Mifune’s Musashi Miyamoto learned that lesson only after defeating his lifelong rival. But the video arcade players seen in Rafman’s film have not achieved that self-awareness.



The Animation Shorts program offers several remarkable highlights. MK 12’s “Follow the Sun!” links movie theater refreshments and eternal damnation. Cecelia Fletcher’s moody “Peekaboo” turns obsessing over vacation relaxation into regret. Alberto Vazquez and Pedro Rivero’s “Birdboy” darkens its Walt Disney-like setting into a grim post-holocaust landscape. Bradley Schaffer’s hilariously demented “Thumb Snatchers from the Moon Cocoon” shows alien invaders should never mess with Texas sheriffs. Finally, Tor Fruergaard’s claymation swingers club “Venus” will alternately alarm and amuse viewers.