MIFF Mockumentary Offers Entertaining Look at Film School Culture

by Todd Lazarski

For those of us who generally devote the majority of our waking hours to pondering, discussing and obsessing over the arts, whether it be music, books or movies, it can be hard to remember that arguments over topics such as "what is the best Led Zeppelin album" actually aren't all that important. In such cases, there may be no better vehicle for a trip back to earth for the overly snobbish arts and entertainment connoisseur than the mockumentary. In the same vein as the Rob Reiner-directed and Christopher Guest-written This is Spinal Tap, Filmic Achievement comes to our city as part of the Milwaukee International Film Festival's Midwest Filmmaker Competition. What Spinal Tap did for cutting down to size the "we're doing serious work here" mentality of early-'80s arena rock bands, Cleveland filmmaker Kevin Kerwin's work should do for self-important, aspiring filmmakers.

Those who took film classes in college know the typeóthe self-assured voice, usually from the front of the room, that can pontificate on Scorsese's jump-cuts or discourse on Hitchcock's use of shadow. Such characters (or intellectual "archetypes") abound in Kerwin's film, just as they did when the writer/director attended film school at Columbia University. There Kerwin was ridiculed by peers for his adoration of the mockumentary; here his fellow cinephiles are exposed for what they too often areóoverly serious, pretentious and self-absorbed, albeit intelligent and hopeful auteurs-in-training.

In the movie's prestigious UNY Film School, students vie for the $10,000 prize and renowned fellowship that comes with the Filmic Achievement Award. There is Constance van Horn, who films her interpretive dances and notes her parents' Bee Gees albums as a key inspiration; Mike Pack, who has modeled his life after that of Quentin Tarantino, and is striving for the "biggest explosion ever"; and professor Buck Felty, whose 13 steps of screenwriting include the "voluptuous prize" and the "boat to the hinterland." This is only a sampling; throughout, Filmic Achievement is littered with subtle and hilariously perverse sexual innuendos that recall Spinal Tap; over-the-top psychotic episodes similar to those in Guest's Best in Show; and awkward moments witnessed with one-part pity and one-part comedic amazement, reminiscent of BBC's "The Office."

Despite the absurdity onslaught, the film is kept moving by a smart and tender original score, and the audience is still left moved by the students' relentless passion, hopeful for their artistic ambition.

Filmic Achievement should keep MIFF well grounded on cinematic earth, while providing plenty of laughs along the way.