In the realm of contemporary naturalistic portraits, Tom Quinn's Slamdance award-winning The New Year Parade, a study of a family in the midst of its breakdown, stands out as memorable in its raw emotional depth. It's a quiet film, fit for a plaintive mood which yearns, at the end of its contemplation, for some hopefulness and reconciliation. In that way, The New Year Parade is a triumph, that it draws you into a bitter moment only to show how lovely all the healing of that bitterness can be.
The portrait focuses on brother and sister, Jack (Greg Lyons) and Kat (Jennifer Welsh), as they navigate the rough landscape of their parents' divorce. While Kat lashes out with subtly in relationships that run awry, Jack isolates himself from his girlfriend and father, in the process also pulling away from the structure he's lived in the entirety of his life, the rehearsals and preparation of his string band for Philadelphia's Mummer's Parade. Over a period of three ...
