Tonight through Wednesday, Northwest Film Forum will be screening Joe Swanberg's Full Moon Trilogy, a trio of thematically linked films from the acclaimed mumblecore director. In advance of the series, Stranger film intern Amy Scott watched the films and wrote this:

Joe Swanberg’s "mumblecore" films are a bit of a meta-mindfuck. They’re about Swanberg, the person, Swanberg, the exaggeration, Swanberg, the director, and Swanberg the character, exploring philosophical ideas about art and making movies using lots of naked bodies.

The trilogy revolves around the complications that arise when attractive people in committed relationships make movies about attractive people in intimate relationships. It’s like if you and a bunch of your friends were to make a low-budget hour-long movie, completely improvising everything, using a handheld camera, and doing all the post-production—except your friends are extremely beautiful, interesting, and talented, and are willing to take their clothes off in front of a camera...

Read the rest after the jump, and find full info on the Swanberg series here.

Screening tonight at 8 pm, Art History is kind of the beginning of the process (although it was made after Silver Bullets) stripped down, and the most sexually explicit. Silver Bullets has the most successful story, about shooting a werewolf horror B-movie, with a bit of a Black Swan vibe, centered around the question of "What happens when you turn into the character you’re playing?" Swanberg, who plays a director (himself) in the film, talks about looking for “new forms” of filmmaking, and in The Zone, he explores the “new forms” concept. The Zone is aesthetically different from the other two films, with a wider range of shots that allows Swanberg to wrap up ideas from the previous two. Ultimately though, Swanberg discusses the failure of his approach, and the emotional toll it takes.

There’s a scene in The Zone in which we observe Swanberg, the director, observing footage he’s shot. The footage is of another actor playing director, shooting a movie. It reminds me of Gimme Shelter when Mick Jagger watches Maysles’ footage, and sort of has this look of shock on his face, as he realizes the relative failures of the free Altamont concert. The ending of The Zone leaves a wide-open gap of anticipation for what we can expect next from Swanberg.