Married Life, Paranoid Park, and Snow Angels: three independently produced American films, all being released this weekend by indie arms of major corporations, and three films that, according to Anthony Kaufman, are surprisingly serious about the “notion that we must come to terms with our complicity in other people’s pain, as well as our own.”

In this piece at Filmcatcher, Kaufman wonders what prompted filmmakers Ira Sachs, Gus Van Sant and David Gordon Green to tackle similar themes in very different ways. “Could it be some long-gestating post-9/11 reflection, or a reaction to the Iraq war and its horrendous collateral damages, from Abu Ghraib and Haditha? Or is it a newfound understanding of globalization, that we are all interconnected and responsible for each other?”

I haven’t seen Snow Angels. I saw Married Life months ago, but I really didn’t care for it and don’t think I could consider it seriously. But Paranoid Park is a really interesting film, one I wish I had time to write more about, but unfortunately haven’t been able to really cover in the madness of True/False and SXSW. It’s definitely a film about the psychology of Getting Away With It, and I can see how it would be tempting to graft political parallels on to that, in that it essentially mines horror from a criminal’s self-interested refusal to take personal responsibility. Still, even if the filmmakers were somehow taping into a zeitgeist, these films are all festival holdovers from 2007, and I’m not sure their simultaneous says anything other than that they’re neither likely Oscar contenders nor summer blockbusters. I’m personally skeptical that three corporate entities would suddenly come to a “newfound understanding” of their complicity in globalization and try to ameliorate their guilt by releasing three adult dramas on the same day.

Speaking of Snow Angels, indieWIRE is sponsoring an Apple Store event tonight in New York, with Angels director Green and co-star Olivia Thirlby (yes, the girl who said “honest to blog” in Juno). More info here.

While I’m busy digesting today’s mind-boggling NYFF double feature of Carlos Reygadas’ Silent Light and Abel Ferrara’s Go Go Tales, here’s a few bits of news and thoughts from the last couple of days of press screenings:

Brian DePalma has backed out of a press conference previously scheduled to follow tomorrow’s press screening of Redacted. It’s the first real disappointment of the fest, and its announcement was met with an audible sigh from the assembled press this morning. I saw the film at Telluride and would not call myself its biggest fan, but I was looking forward to hearing from DePalma’s cast of non-professional actors. No specific reason for DePalma’s last-minute cancellation was given, although as he’s still scheduled to appear at Redacted’s public NYFF premiere on October 10, we can probably chalk this up to a travel conflict. But the fact that an audience of public ticket buyers and Lincoln Center patrons will make for a softer post-screening Q & A? That’s gotta be gravy.

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