CHARLES POEKEL: CHRISTMAS, AGAIN (2014)


Caitlin Mehner and Jason Shelton in Christmas, Again

Christmas, Again, a wistful and sweet piece of midwinter sadness, is a small observational film that's unambitious but well-constructed. Charles Poekel calls "Method writing" his creation of a scenario out of his own direct personal experience doing just what his protagonist does. He spent three years "hustling evergreens to hipsters in Greenpoint, Brooklyn," as Peter Debruge puts it in his Variety review -- and the setting is exactly at the tree lot Poekel himself ran. These are the last days before Christmas as lived by Noel (Kentucker Audley), a tight-lipped construction worker from Upstate who's spent the pre-Christmas season this way for five years. Only this time his girlfriend isn't with him. So he is lonely, cold, sleeping in a trailer, and a bit strung out: he keeps taking pain killers and stimulants to get him through the 12-hour night shift that's his task. A young couple takes the day shift, another reminder that Noel's solo. A lesson in how unjoyful the season to be jolly can be if you're not actually jolly and are a young man out on your own, not in the bosom of a family any more (if you once were).

While it's a mood piece, of course, what Christmas, Again gives along the way is a realistic and knowledgeable look at the Christmas tree-selling process. The kinds and sizes of trees (even which ones women might like best), the big and little wreathes, decorated and plain, the tree stands, lights, white or colored (also for sale to those who ask), the way to water the trees -- and how clueless or irritating some of the customers are. Noel is polite to them, if rarely garrulous; but he's harsh with the couple working the day shift, showing he's obviously not in the best of moods. Once he goes for a swim at a pool, and he goes on taking the pills. There is no drama about this, just a sense that he's making it through the days bundled up sleeping in the trailer and the nights awake.

All that happens is this: Noel rescues a pretty girl passed out drunk on a park bench (Hannah Gross). He brings her to the trailer to sleep through the night. This has plusses and minuses. She's very grateful for being rescued and bakes him a pie in thanks, but then when he speaks too loosely to her boyfriend later without knowing who he's talking to, he winds up getting socked in the jaw. And then she returns again to apologize and hang out a while, and accompanies Noel on some Christmas Eve deliveries. Surprise: the flirty woman is actually running a retirement home. A few little other touches provide a wistfully romantic finale. As Debruge puts it, the film "offers modest, VOD-scale pleasures, but is probably best viewed in the warmer months as the curious indie-movie anthropology study that it is." This is a first feature introduction for Poekel, and another example of the 16 mm. color craft of cinematographer Sean Price Williams (who recently shot among other things Listen Up Philip and Heaven Knows What (both in the 2014 New York Film Festival) and editor Robert Greene (who cut Listen Up).

Screening in ND/NF with: Going Out
Ted Fendt, USA, 2014, 35mm, 8m
Liz thinks she’s going on a date with Rob to see RoboCop, but things take an unexpected (and inexplicable) turn. World Premiere

Christmas, Again, 79 mins., debuted at Locarno. Screened for this review as part of the 2015 FSLC-MoMA series New Directors/New Films. Theatrical release (NYC) and VOD (iTunes) from 4 Dec. 2015.

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.