{"id":4788,"date":"2012-05-02T12:33:35","date_gmt":"2012-05-02T16:33:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=4788"},"modified":"2014-05-26T23:44:02","modified_gmt":"2014-05-27T03:44:02","slug":"film-despite-the-gods-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=4788","title":{"rendered":"Film: Despite the Gods (2012)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Return to: <\/strong>Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> \/ <\/em>D<\/a><\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Film: Good\/ DVD Transfer: n\/a\/ DVD Extras: n\/a<\/p>\n

Label: n\/a\/ Region: n\/a\u00a0\/\u00a0Released: n\/a<\/p>\n

Genre: Documentary \/ HotDocs<\/p>\n

Synopsis: Fly-on-the-wall documentary shot during the making of Jennifer Lynch’s disastrous Bollywood horror\/musical\/drama film “Hisss.”<\/p>\n

Special Features: n\/a<\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

Review:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is my pasta cluster-fuck\u201d<\/em> — Jennifer Chambers Lynch<\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

Somewhere in 2008, Jennifer Lynch (daughter of Blue Velvet <\/strong>director David Lynch) accepted an offer from Bollywood producer Govind Menon to direct a bizarre genre kludge where a fertility goddess returns to her reptilian form, leaving behind bodies and apparently some dancing Indians. The actual story is never fully detailed in Penny Vozniak\u2019s behind-the-scenes documentary \u2013 which is rather strange, if not a bit sloppy \u2013 and the focus is almost exclusively on capturing whatever problems and profane tantrums Lynch is experiencing during the prolonged 6-month shooting period spanning pre-production through principal photography in Mumbai, India.<\/p>\n

Onscreen, Lynch comes off as a whiner, and Menon even notes her daughter Sydney \u2013 present during the entire shoot – seems to have more maturity than her mother, but while it\u2019s easy to ridicule Lynch, it\u2019s clear Menon\u2019s concept of bringing an American director to India proved a disaster. Besides obvious clashes in working and social cultures, Lynch is trapped in a disaster that no one could\u2019ve fixed. The original script for what ultimately emerged as Hisss<\/a><\/strong> [M<\/a>] two years later may have been of her own design, but the delays, weather issues, non-existent schedules, strikes, being an on-set mother, and a producer who clearly wants to step in and direct the film himself pushed Lynch to a level of distress that would\u2019ve made anyone crumple.<\/p>\n

She does break down at one point, but it\u2019s a moment where it\u2019s frankly justified, and although she tried to make the best film under the circumstances, her final cut failed to please the producers. Not invited back for any reshoots or editing, Menon reportedly trimmed the film for a faster pace, and Hiss <\/strong>was eventually released to unimpressed critics in South Asia.<\/p>\n

Vozniak, originally hired to look after Lynch\u2019s daughter, managed to assemble Despite the Gods <\/strong>from the on-set footage, although with the exception of a quick, trailer-like montage at the very end, there\u2019s no finished footage of Hisss<\/strong>, while severely limits the doc\u2019s visual scope and robs us of any comparison between the material Lynch was struggling to create amid the chaos, and the final material.<\/p>\n

What emerges with Gods <\/strong>is a semi-interesting profile of Lynch struggling with Indo-Western cultural and professional clashes, being a single mother, and a drive to prove herself a filmmaker after her disastrous 1993 directorial debut, Boxing Helena<\/strong>. Because Lynch\u2019s involvement with Hiss<\/strong> ended when she returned back to the States, Vozniak\u2019s doc has no conclusion, so the compromise is a tacked-on coda that shows Lynch, sporting a bad pink hairdo, at home with her new boyfriend and a much older Sydney. The material doesn\u2019t add anything new except it closes Lynch\u2019s Indian adventure showing the director more at peace with herself, content she\u2019s moved on to other projects, and sharing no bitterness for the experience of making Hisss<\/strong> nor producer Menon.<\/p>\n

Also available: Audience Q&A<\/a> with director Penny Vozniak during HotDocs 2012.<\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a9 2012 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

External References<\/em>:<\/p>\n

IMDB <\/a>— Official Website<\/a> — HotDocs Entry<\/a><\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> <\/em>\/\u00a0D<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to: Home \/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews \/ D . Film: Good\/ DVD Transfer: n\/a\/ DVD Extras: n\/a Label: n\/a\/ Region: n\/a\u00a0\/\u00a0Released: n\/a Genre: Documentary \/ HotDocs Synopsis: Fly-on-the-wall documentary shot during the making of Jennifer Lynch’s disastrous Bollywood horror\/musical\/drama film “Hisss.” Special Features: n\/a . . Review: \u201cThis is my pasta cluster-fuck\u201d — Jennifer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[1268,1267,1269,461,2814,1266],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-1fe","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4788"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4788"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4788\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8988,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4788\/revisions\/8988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}