H.P. Mendoza’s ‘Secret Art’ Continues His Mission to Throw Viewers Off Their Axes

All filmmakers dream of making a flying film, H.P. Mendoza declares. The San Francisco director may be more obsessed with the idea than most: He wrote a screenplay, unbidden, of L. Frank Baum’s sequel, The Marvelous Land of Oz, which contains a terrific flying sequence.

“When I got the script to The Secret Art of Human Flight,” Mendoza says, “I thought, ‘This is my chance to make that movie. Why not go all out?’ The big musical cues, the jump scares. I even rounded the corners of the frame to make it look more fable-like. I wanted everything to be stylized from the get-go so you know what you’re getting into. If you’re looking for a more quiet, grounded film, you’ll know in the first two minutes to walk out of the theater. Cause this whole thing is a fairy tale.”

The Secret Art of Human Flight, which receives its West Coast premiere Sunday, July 23 in the SF Jewish Film Festival, centers on Ben (Grant Rosenmeyer), a numb young widower who falls under the sway of a mysterious stranger he encounters (where else?) online. Is Mealworm (Paul Raci, Sound of Metal) a con artist, or an unlikely guru who outwitted gravity? Endearing and hopeful, the movie invites even chronically cynical viewers to root for Mealworm to be the real deal and for Ben’s spirit — along with his physical form — to achieve escape velocity.

Mendoza’s acclaimed films — Colma: The Musical, Fruit Fly, I Am a Ghost, Bitter Melon and Attack, Decay, Release — take grounded reality and, in the service of smart, unpredictable fun, shake it out of its complacency.

A regular presence at LGBTQ+ and Asian American festivals, the writer-director-editor-sound designer-composer-visual effects artist-actor has built a loyal following over two decades. But he hadn’t realized that his admirers extended so far beyond his community.
The Secret Art of Human Flight screenplay came to Mendoza through his longtime collaborator Richard Wong, who got it from Rosenmeyer, the film’s producer as well as star.

“We knew of each other through Instagram,” Mendoza recalls, sitting in his office in the Mission District flat he shares with his husband. “It was one of those super-surface relationships that I thought would probably never go anywhere, because that’s how social media works. So I was shocked to find out that Grant wanted to meet me. I told him that I didn’t know if I was ready to do this [project] because I had lost three friends in a row during the pandemic, and here’s this film about dealing with grief and loss and death. That was my excuse, but the truth is I’m always looking for an out when people come to me with projects. A lot of it is, if I can be completely honest, based on insecurity.”

Perhaps, but Mendoza’s response is not atypical of filmmakers who covet their independence, wear several hats on set and have mastered the art of completing projects with minimal resources. They are wary of outsiders (or insiders) with grandiose promises, especially after being burned once or twice.

“My career has been about being super scrappy and making things very DIY and on my own terms and for very little money,” Mendoza says. “When that piece of media comes out — usually a movie – it gets distribution, lots of people see it and I get praise for being scrappy. Then someone comes up to me from Hollywood in mogul drag saying, ‘Nice job with the DIY stuff, punk, but join me and let me show you how a real movie’s made.’ I do that, and it falls through a little bit and I have to end up being scrappy again. That’s happened time and time again, where I feel like after 20 years I’m not the scrappy newbie anymore.”

In this case, Mendoza was reassured by every meeting he took, and every new collaborator he met. Rather than a director-for-hire, he was a full-fledged creative equal. He added scenes to Jesse Orenshein’s script, which tilted toward buddy comedy, to expand the presence of Ben’s late Asian American wife, Sarah (Reina Hardesty). He and cinematographer Markus Mentzer, who flew to the Massachusetts location four weeks early, storyboarded the entire film with Mendoza playing all the parts and Mentzer shooting on an iPhone.

“Once I realized,” Mendoza says, “that Ben Wiessner, the main producer from the production company Vanishing Angle, hopped on board when he saw my name attached, I said, ‘Wait, I have reach that goes beyond the San Francisco Asian American community? I have a reputation that exceeds the queer community in the Bay Area? Here’s this guy that lives completely outside my community, but he’s been totally aware of my work.’”

The Secret Art of Human Flight premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, where it inspired moviegoers to argue late into the night about what exactly transpired at the end (just before Rosenmeyer and Raci sing “Fly” over the end credits). Nothing could have made Mendoza happier.

“Jon Norman Schneider, who plays the lead in Bitter Melon, said, ‘Aren’t all your films Rorschach tests? All your films leave you with that feeling that something big just happened, but I don’t know what happened.’ I think that’s where I veer off course from being the big theatrical wannabe Hollywood filmmaker. I make loud, fast-moving films, but they all kind of end like Nights of Cabiria and Persona by Bergman.”

Mendoza’s body of work comprises an ongoing stealth mission to confound audience expectations and throw viewers off their axes. He likes to toss open-ended storytelling at mainstream moviegoers and broad emotional scenes with big musical cues at arthouse intellectuals — in the same movie. This isn’t the stock recipe for fortune and fame, but it is the path of an artist.

“I learned this about the industry: When they think that something is too weird or artsy, they say, ‘That’s a very independent film idea.’ I remember feeling kind of offended at first, then thinking to myself, ‘Boy, you guys don’t watch foreign films. You don’t watch art films. You don’t even know who Ozu is.’ I’m dealing with people who are trying to tell me the greatest works of cinema were made by Marvel. I feel like my entire time, over the past four years of being represented by an agency and pitching Hollywood studios, I’ve had to model myself and remold myself into someone who has to pretend to like these things that they say are masterpieces.”

Mendoza laughs, “And I’m kind of done.”

‘The Secret Art of Human Flight’ plays at 8:30 p.m., Sunday, July 23 at the Castro Theatre as part of the SF Jewish Film Festival. Director H.P. Mendoza, producers Ben Wiessner and Tina Carbone, and screenwriter Jesse Orenshein are expected to attend. Due to the SAG-AFTRA strike, actors Grant Rosenmeyer and Nican Robinson are no longer expected to attend.