Sex, Life and Videotape: Cinema as Collective Memory

Crossing the border to a film festival in Iowa, Canadian critic Elijah Baron focuses on a pair of films that reflect on the past and the subject of youth: The Legend of Juan Jose Mundo and What the Hell Happened.

You’d think customs agents have heard it all, but the one I faced on my way to Dubuque had to ask multiple times before she was even certain she’d heard me right. A film festival? In Iowa? She wasn’t alone—every single person I’d told where I was headed had reacted in the same way. The mere existence of an event such as the Julien Dubuque International Film Festival seems like a feat, to say nothing of its ability to attract people from multiple countries across continents. It literally takes a village to make it happen—its programming is the result of dozens of volunteers going through over a thousand submissions, both short and full-length.

This community spirit, and general eagerness to share and connect, is perhaps the event’s most enduring as well as endearing quality. It’s not merely a matter of networking—mostly, my time at JDIFF made me reflect on what it means to offer yourself to others through your art. I should note that the festival’s programming, as I experienced it, is extremely varied, in style and subject matter, but also quality. At its worst, it platforms would-be creators with a narcissistic streak, showcasing largely self-financed, amateurish exercises with little to no artistic merit. At its best, it provides a space for both first-time and seasoned filmmakers to share little-noticed works of fiction or documentaries that, while often imperfect, communicate lived experience in a way that allows for meaningful connection and dialogue.

One such film was The Legend of Juan Jose Mundo by Michael Walker—a breezy tribute to 80s teen sex comedies, in which a Spanish exchange student’s 1984 trip to suburban NY makes a lasting impact on the girl who hosts him, as well as their group of friends. Of course, it could never compete with the best of the genre, but it’s a loving and vividly recollected throwback to a time and place that Walker and his cowriter Susan Gomes clearly knew and remember inside out. Through its elaborate dialogue and world-building, it provides something I especially appreciate and hope for when I go to the movies—the feeling of having been invited into someone else’s memories.

Another festival highlight—What the Hell Happened, by filmmaking duo Eliza Fox and Matt Wilkins—accomplishes something similar in documentary form. Recalling Michael Apted’s Up series (1964-2026) or Richard Linklater’s experiments with long-term filmmaking in Boyhood (2014) and the Before trilogy (1995-2013), Fox and Wilkins document their own lives, as well as the lives of some of their college peers, over 32 years. The film starts off by dusting off VHS tapes from 1992, in which the participants—then-quirky 20-somethings staring into the future as if into an abyss—paint a picture of their current circumstances, and then updates us on what they became in following decades. The most striking scenes involve them rewatching the original footage, and facing their since-forgotten young selves with a certain confounded awe. To me, that is one of the powers of cinema—to take us back in ways otherwise inaccessible, and confront us with who we were and who we are still hoping to become. Meeting a likeminded group of people at a faraway film festival is quite the cherry on top.

Elijah Baron

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