Jason says: “On my
coffee table, underneath the piles of other stuff that has been dropped
there over the course of the last couple of years, is a half-completed
jigsaw puzzle – the penguins are done but the plain white ice and blue
sky are mostly still in pieces. The competitive puzzlers of WICKER
KITTENS almost certainly would not approve, but I’m not terribly
ashamed: The interesting details are a lot more immediately rewarding
than the repetitive background, even if you need the later for the
piece to be complete.
“Amy C. Elliot’s brief documentary isn’t exactly slacking on anything
the way that I am, but it’s not just the short 52-minute ruining time
that might make the audience like it hasn’t been constructed all the
way to the edge – it’s the expectations that come with the
offbeat-competition genre. The event she has chosen (the jigsaw
contest at the St. Paul Winter Carnival) does not have a long enough
history to give it even a peculiar weight of tradition; it’s not an
activity that necessarily lends itself to striking visuals or editing
that can boost suspense; and the usual storylines that could serve as a
narrative plot just don’t emerge. Nobody is exactly overcoming
adversity, the various entrants don’t interact much, and there aren’t
really any rivalries. It is pretty drama-free.
“That’s not necessarily a problem; it’s actually kind of a nice change
of pace to watch something like this and be meet with a wall of
Midwestern good cheer, both from the four teams of four that Elliott
follows but from Monika Kopet, the chipper young woman organizing the
event. Almost everybody involved seems to be pleasant, aware of their
eccentricity but without a whole lot in the way of snobbery, and even
when they’re at their most competitive or even contentious, they don’t
often start coming off as ‘Minnesota nice’. With a bit of an assist
from a puzzle historian, there’s enough talk about various specific
types and qualities of puzzles and what history there is of events like
this to give curious viewers a little more detail on something they
likely take for granted, and the actual scenes of the teams practicing
and competing gives an amusing look at how serious puzzlers go about
it, from choosing a smooth table to sorting pieces to lifting a
completed section to put it in place.
“Elliott puts it all together quite ably, deserving kudos for not
trying to stretch the picture to what some might consider a minimum
feature length or cut it back to the 40-minute ‘long short’ mark (then
again, this probably is the sweet spot for PBS). It’s shoot and edited
clearly, not going for excessive stylization or ironic juxtapositions
that might mock her subjects. It’s a simple movie, but one that gets
what it’s going for across.
“I think there are a couple of pieces missing from my puzzle, and that
may be the better metaphor for WICKER KITTENS. It still looks good,
and you can see the image it’s looking to get across, but there is a
little bit missing, especially if you like these movies to be
surprisingly exciting as well as cute. 3
cats
“Seen 28 April 2014 in Somerville Theatre #2 (Independent Film Festival
Boston, digital).” |
