Post by joekiddlouischama on Jul 19, 2024 9:05:58 GMT
Written and directed by Nicole Riegel, Dandelion is an unusual film that speaks to classic themes. KiKi Layne plays the eponymous protagonist, a singer and guitarist struggling to find an audience. Indeed, she usually plays before virtually nonexistent and utterly disinterested patrons at a hotel lounge and bar in her hometown of Cincinnati. Dandelion (her real name is Theresa) is Black, but one would be mistaken to try and pigeonhole her music, which defies stereotypes and easy genre categorization. If anything, her songs are folky—steeped in so-called American roots music—and she is a heartfelt lyricist with no interest in commercial themes of drinking and partying or in selling a sexualized image of herself.
After a row with her ailing mother, whom she lives with and takes care of, Dandelion storms out and drives to South Dakota, where there is an opportunity to play at an event and potentially find an audience. The problem is that the event is a biker rally—and the racial and gender concerns speak for themselves, without any need for exposition. Predictably, the experience quickly sours, but a shy, wayward singer and guitarist from Scotland (Casey, played by Thomas Doherty) comes to Dandelion's aid. A tentative relationship blossoms into both a songwriting partnership and a romance, but Casey comes with plenty of personal baggage.
If Dandelion's occasional use of "psychological," slightly out-of-sequence narration sometimes seems derivative of some of Terrence Malik's movies, the film more than compensates by proving much more unpretentious than some of Malik's work. (That said, Malik's last feature, 2019's A Hidden Life, proved immensely powerful and elegantly shattering, and of course his directorial debut, 1973's Badlands, is memorably raw and earthy.) Dandelion is a movie about American dreams in American spaces, but it is never self-important. Through deft editing and cinematography, the film seamlessly blends realism and surrealism, amounting to a subtly atmospheric experience that is both casual and vivid. Layne's acting is very naturalistic and effective (and her singing is beautiful), and Doherty's idiosyncratic performance complements Layne and the movie perfectly. There are no villains here, and the story's betrayal is not necessarily anyone's fault. And Dandelion's denounement, while ostensibly triumphant, is also a little more ambiguous than it might seem—again there is that unpretentious blend of realism and surrealism.
Shot entirely on location, Dandelion is a "great" film, intimate and spare, using simple strokes to express deep and universal feelings.
After a row with her ailing mother, whom she lives with and takes care of, Dandelion storms out and drives to South Dakota, where there is an opportunity to play at an event and potentially find an audience. The problem is that the event is a biker rally—and the racial and gender concerns speak for themselves, without any need for exposition. Predictably, the experience quickly sours, but a shy, wayward singer and guitarist from Scotland (Casey, played by Thomas Doherty) comes to Dandelion's aid. A tentative relationship blossoms into both a songwriting partnership and a romance, but Casey comes with plenty of personal baggage.
If Dandelion's occasional use of "psychological," slightly out-of-sequence narration sometimes seems derivative of some of Terrence Malik's movies, the film more than compensates by proving much more unpretentious than some of Malik's work. (That said, Malik's last feature, 2019's A Hidden Life, proved immensely powerful and elegantly shattering, and of course his directorial debut, 1973's Badlands, is memorably raw and earthy.) Dandelion is a movie about American dreams in American spaces, but it is never self-important. Through deft editing and cinematography, the film seamlessly blends realism and surrealism, amounting to a subtly atmospheric experience that is both casual and vivid. Layne's acting is very naturalistic and effective (and her singing is beautiful), and Doherty's idiosyncratic performance complements Layne and the movie perfectly. There are no villains here, and the story's betrayal is not necessarily anyone's fault. And Dandelion's denounement, while ostensibly triumphant, is also a little more ambiguous than it might seem—again there is that unpretentious blend of realism and surrealism.
Shot entirely on location, Dandelion is a "great" film, intimate and spare, using simple strokes to express deep and universal feelings.