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We sent a critic to check out the SXSW Film Festival and see if it lives up to the hip hype, and ...

By Sean Nelson
Special to MSN Movies

First things first: I have never heard anyone suggest that South by Southwest Film Festival, now in its 15th year, is actually the "New Sundance." But during the course of the festival itself, which runs March 7-15, I have heard many, many people -- journalists mostly, and mostly foreign -- suggest that "some people are saying" that SXSW "might be on its way to becoming" the successor to the most famous and lucrative independent film festival the world has ever known. Well, I hate to betray the premise of a nice headline, but it just ain't happening.

I have attended Sundance, and found it to be overcrowded by industry hacks and wannabes who seem less eager to see movies than to be seen at them. Patrons there wait in lines that wrap around snowy blocks to see films that are likely to open in theaters a few days later, hoping they might get into the theater on some priority waiting list (while stars and executives cut effortlessly to the front). Despite its reputation as an independents'/film lovers' paradise, Sundance is the last place in the civilized world where it's acceptable to answer your cell phone in a crowded theater -- it has long since been colonized by Hollywood, and, though it remains the most prestigious festival for filmmakers to strive to be accepted by, its luster has dimmed as a result.

SXSW, by contrast, is a festival for fans and filmmakers. Period. There are some businesspeople around, but they keep their heads down for the most part, and their ringers are set on silent. Judging by the audience and the artists in attendance, it's the kind of place where people are a lot more likely to be texting one another about the movie they just saw than blathering about the deal they're trying to make. Of course, these are generalizations, too, but still ... It's far more accurate to say that SXSW is the old Sundance, the one that set out to make a safe space for truly independent, even experimental, filmmakers to gain the experience of showing their work to supportive-but-critical audiences, to put themselves to the test and emerge stronger, better artists as a result. It's unlikely that anyone will ever come away from SXSW with a multimillion dollar distribution deal (though it's worth mentioning that no one came away from this year's Sundance with one either). Far more likely is that a young filmmaker will have the chance to see her second feature screened before audiences who ask her questions, discuss it among themselves and maybe, if they really like it, buy her a beer afterward. The joy of SXSW Film, much like the joy of SXSW films, lies in the thing itself -- the seemingly lost art of making something for the simple sake of making something.

So what are they making? Well, much as it has always been folly to lump "Sundance" or "indie" films in a single cluster, there's no way to identify a unified style to characterize SXSW films. Here are four that typify the breadth of expression at this year's festival:

"Baghead"
Written, directed and produced by brothers Mark and Jay Duplass ("The Puffy Chair"), this is an assuredly off-hand hybrid of multiple genres -- comedy, drama and horror (with a dash of romantic agony) -- rather than a mere flirtation with one, and then another. The story begins with a classic slacker premise: Four frustrated actors (two guys, two women, naturally) go to a cabin in the woods to write themselves a screenplay. But before all is said and done our expectations are subverted, and delighted, by a parade of raised stakes: a bit of screwball comedy, a hint of sex, a lot of drinking, a tangle of misdirected lust, questioned trust and broken friendships and, oh yeah, the deranged psycho with a bag over his head out in the woods. A genuinely funny, genuinely scary movie.

"Nights and Weekends"
The latest from director Joe Swanberg ("Hannah Takes the Stairs," "LOL"), doyen of the cinematic form known as mumblecore, and his collaborator Greta Gerwig, is frankly devastating. But if mumblecore -- a catch-all designation for hyperrealistc movies made on small budgets, with small crews and without traditional scripts -- is a byword for amateurism, "Nights and Weekends" should be the film that elevates it to a state of genuine aesthetic authority. This cagily crafted story of a doomed relationship maintains much of the feel of Swanberg's past efforts (including his presence on-screen, alongside Gerwig, in explicitly sexual and nakedly emotional situations), but goes so deep into the characters' psyche that it's often actually painful to watch. And more painful to look away. A movie like this can't be for everyone, but those of us it is for will always be grateful.

"Full Battle Rattle"
Speaking of painful, this ingenious documentary shows the efforts of a clandestine (but apparently real) U.S. Army base in the middle of the Mojave desert that has been converted into a mock-Iraqi village (a la "Blazing Saddles," I couldn't help thinking at first), complete with Iraqi immigrants (and refugees) acting the parts of grateful peasants and insurgents while officers go through the paces of pretending to be interested in diplomacy and nation building and the grunts all try their hardest not to just shoot everyone. It could well be that the endless duration of this misbegotten war has made it impossible to watch a film about Army strategy without becoming despondent, but "Rattle" is a genuinely depressing work. It's also absolutely, unflinchingly brilliant. Assuming it's real.

"New Orleans, Mon Amour"
Experimental director Michael Almereyda ("Nadja," the Ethan Hawke "Hamlet") has revisited Alain Resnais' funereal "Hiroshima, Mon Amour" by setting it in contemporary New Orleans, among the displaced poor, the inconvenienced upper crust and the concerned carpetbaggers who continue to volunteer their time trying to clean up the mess caused by the criminal negligence of the Army Corps of Engineers. While the revisions of the original (and indeed the whole project) seem a bit arbitrary at times, there's no mistaking the colossal tragedy of New Orleans as a setting (though it's a bit much to attempt to make equivalency to Hiroshima -- even if both tragedies were perpetrated by the U.S. government), and the HD video lends an air of hyperreality, so much that it almost seems artificial, or at least surreal. Meanwhile, actors Christopher Eccleston ("Shallow Grave") and Elisabeth Moss ("The West Wing") play people so shattered they can't even understand why they're turning so desperately toward one another. A troubled, troubling experiment.

Of course, there were many other notable films at SXSW, including earnest-minded award-winners like "Wellness" and "They Killed Sister Dorothy," the much-loved underdog relationship comedy-drama "Present Company," the haunting "Medicine for Melancholy," and the gritty urban drama "Explicit Ills," starring Rosario Dawson and Paul Dano.

If you're really into films and not hype, I suggest booking a trip to Austin in March 2009.

Would you travel to Austin for the SXSW Film Festival? If you could attend any film festival, which would it be and why? Write us at heymsn@microsoft.com.

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Sean Nelson is a Seattle-based writer and musician. He is the author of "Court and Spark," a book about Joni Mitchell, published by Continuum Books.