IFC Films is starting the city-by-city rollout of Barry Jenkins' film tonight in NYC. It's kind of a "Before Sunrise" with two black hipsters in San Francisco.
You can read reviews in the Village Voice or The NY Times, but here's what's got me excited to see this. In his review of the film, Voice writer Ernest Hardy pulls a quote from the main character, Micah, who says
Everything about being indie is tied to not being black.
Further, Hardy makes the following point:
His [Micah's] love of indie music, however, is not a desire to escape or deny blackness: Immersion in a scene whose default setting is "white" is pardoxically rooted in his hunger to embody and live a more complex, dynamic blackness that that which the pop barons market. The irony crushes him.
The soundtrack is definitely made up of indie artists, but I can't say that I recognize any of them. Looking forward to hearing it, though.
Yeah, you just might catch me out tomorrow night checking this one out. I'll share my observations once I've seen it.
Additional link:
- Strike Anywhere Films site
- "Medicine for Melancholy" trailer at Apple.com (Quicktime required)
