Opera at SXSW 2008

The most interesting candidate, however, is George Zisiadis. George is outgoing and ambitious, but he is also slightly odd, as if he doesn't quite exist in the same reality as his classmates. He neatly tucks in the collared shirts he wears, and he speaks in a hybrid form of political and business jargon—in his first scene he describes his campaign as "synergizing amiability." The comment prompts his running mate Vanessa to roll her eyes, and sometimes it is difficult to take him seriously. This is particularly so when he is holding court in "The Lounge," an area in the hallway beside his locker that he has cordoned off with curtains. George schedules "Lounge" appointments—one teacher shows us his list of confirmations—where he counsels other students, quizzing them with pseudo-therapeutic questions.

Although George's behavior gets the most laughs in the film, he isn't exactly an object of ridicule. George lacks the vulnerability of an oddball like Napoleon Dynamite. He keeps something back from his classmates—one of his friends tells us that George isn't really close to anyone—and from the audience as well. He is an enigma, something closer to a force of nature than a high schooler.

In Frontrunners' establishing scenes, it is easy to make a comparison between George and Max Fischer, the 15-going-on-50-year-old student from Rushmore who exists at the center of a self-generated whirlwind of extra-curricular activities and loopy activism. But while Max's constant activity and yearning to be taken seriously as an adult is eventually revealed to be fueled by a mixture of embarrassment and denial, this documentary never reveals why George acts the way he does. He exists in his own world and doesn’t seem interested in explaining himself or his behavior to anyone else. For instance, on the day of the student elections George and the other candidates placed themselves around the school reminding students to vote. In one scene, George stops a student and after a brief pause asks her “Have you exercised your God-given right to vote?” The calculation in that pause hints at something behind George's carefully guarded persona that is both fascinating and strange, something which the film never quite explains.


Frontrunners director Caroline Suh and producer Erika Frankel
This isn't much of a handicap, though. Since it is an election year in the U.S., it's hard to ignore the broader political themes of Frontrunners. The students debate the gender and racial issues of the election—one ticket is exclusively female, and each of the three main tickets is mixed-race, a fact which all of the students recognize as a political necessity in the melting pot that is Stuyvesant High—and there are a number of debates about the differences in voting for a candidate because of his or her policies versus voting for personality. The high level of student discussions shouldn't be too surprising because the film continually reminds us that Stuyvesant High is New York's premiere public high school. One conversation about the merits of the Bush presidency ends by comparing W to an unstable isotope, which prompts one student to quip: "Isotopes. Fucking Stuyvesant." There is also a good amount of teenaged cynicism. After a televised debate—in which George promises to "fully implement the grand candy plan"—one student remarks that "my homeroom"—where students viewed the pre-recorded debate—"was filled with teenagers" whose reaction was "half disinterested, half mocking."

Of all the film's pleasures, however, the main reason to see it is George. He is one of the most unique and interesting people I've seen on screen in a while. Frontrunners doesn't have a distribution deal yet, but it is a film you should keep an eye out for. If you are in Austin, there will be another screening on Friday at 6:30 p.m. in the Austin Convention Center.

Here's the trailer: