|
‘Sometimes’ change is good
 |
Photo courtesy of Visionbox Pictures
(Left to right) Michael Idemuto and Jacqueline Kim star in ‘Charlotte Sometimes.’ |
|
By Michael Hirtzer
A&E Editor
A garage door opener is an unlikely literary
device. It’s a device that wouldn’t
work in over-the-top films that consistently hammer
home their ideas. However, in Charlotte Sometimes,
an independent film seeped in subtlety, it works
just fine.
It’s a metaphor for the complex love story
on which the film is based. Eric Byler, the film’s
writer and director, said he was inspired to use
the technique after living with his aunt for several
years.
“There was this garage door that would open
and close,” Byler said in a recent interview.
“I knew exactly when she was coming and going,
so even if you feel completely isolated in your
own world, the sounds that reverberate throughout
the house make you aware of other people who live
under the same roof.”
The film relies heavily on nuance and unfolds psychologically.
“I’m trying more to reveal than to construct
a story,” Byler said.
Charlotte Sometimes is the story of a car mechanic
named Michael (Michael Idemoto) who is in love with
his neighbor and tennant Lori (Eugenia Yuan), a
woman already involved in a romance with Justin
(Matt Westmore). Michael lends Justin, the non-paying
live-in boyfriend, a garage door opener.
Each night, Lori and Justin disturb Michael with
their loud lovemaking. Then, after Justin falls
asleep, Lori sneaks over to Michael’s where
they watch movies, talk and eat together.
Byler said: “In this story, you have a man
who lives under the same roof with the woman he
loves and with the man who represents the obstacle
to getting her. There’s meaning in that awareness
of other people’s comings and goings.”
The story gets complicated—as if it weren’t
complicated enough already—after Michael meets
Darcy (Jacqueline Kim) at the bar he frequents.
Michael invites Darcy over to his house where they
begin a slow-developing romance.
Byler said Darcy is “a woman that feels more
comfortable at war than at peace. She feels more
comfortable in a tense and intimidating battle of
wills because she has an edge over almost anyone
else.”
Darcy’s dominating demeanor leads to a meeting
with Lori and Justin after Darcy suggests the four
of them go to lunch. Darcy disrupts the other’s
strange routine, forcing an evitable chain of events.
Kim, a Goodman School of Drama graduate, said she
has never played a character so close to herself.
Asked what traits she shares with her character,
Kim said: “They’re probably characteristics
that most people are not willing to admit they share
with Darcy: Seeming more in control and in touch
with things than you are, refusing things you might
actually need. Lonely, scared and insecure about
love, but adamant to be an individual.”
The film, which opened May 2 at the Water Tower
Theatre, 157 E. Chestnut St., works because its
inspiration is found not from successful Hollywood
structures, but from the lives of actual people,
Byler said. The film is also of a rare new breed:
An art film cast almost entirely with Asian-Americans.
Byler said, “Often [Asian-American] films
are encouraged to be diversity training for white
people, and none of those things are very compelling
from a dramatic standpoint, in my opinion.
“Asian-American filmmakers are just starting
to lose that self-consciousness of race and just
tell stories as human beings,” Byler said.
“Don’t focus on your Asian-ness so much.
Focus on your humanity.”
This article was the second part of a two-part series.
Part one, which dealt more with the business and
technological aspects of ‘Charlotte Sometimes,’
is available at www.columbiachronicle.com.
|
