SCREENING LOG - 7/29-8/4, 2002

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I watched ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS, CHILDREN OF HEAVEN, CRASH, BEIJING BICYCLE, WINCHESTER '73, YEELEN (BRIGHTNESS), and THE SCENT OF GREEN PAPAYA. In order of preference:

Yeelen (Brightness) (1987, Soulyemane Cisse)

second viewing A filmic version of a 14th century African myth about a father and son who fight each other for control of the knowledge of the universe. Seeing it on the big screen confirmed for me that I could watch this film innumerable times with undiminished pleasure. The world it envisions is both direct in its details and resonant in its mythical, cultural and political meanings. Despite its extraordinary visual beauty, its elliptical manner of storytelling doesn't pander to the expectations of the Western viewer. Fully conceived in its own idiom and all the better for it, it's the kind of "third-world" filmmaking I heartily endorse, the kind that doesn't try to pave over its culture for mass consumption, capturing both the ordinariness and mysteriousness of its world in all their beauty.

Only Angels Have Wings (1939, Howard Hawks)

Hawks achieved a startlingly elaborate expression of his macho worldview with this story of fearless courier pilots who challenge a treacherous South American mountain pass to make their deliveries. From one great scene to the next, Hawks mixes and matches the various characters in this tiny world he creates to impart his existential ideas on camaraderie and honor, with Cary Grant playing the roles of crew captain and Hemingway hero, his compass never straying from his moral code (even if it means slapping a woman to put her in her place). Whether one accepts Hawks' ideas or not, there is no questioning the integrity and eloquence he puts into their expression; he makes it plain that the fatal conditions in which these men work calls for a rigid code of conduct every man must obey. A number of exciting flying sequences add to the power of the proceedings Ð plus a slightly less than glamorous Rita Hayworth makes one of her earliest appearances. Essential Hawks.

Crash (1997, David Cronenberg )

Cronenberg's meditation on the relationship between sex and car crashes is a masterful exploration of desire and the uncanny. After a near-fatal car accident, James Spader becomes entangled in an intensifying communal fixation with several other men and women, all of whom have sex with each other while planning their next car crash. Terminally obsessive in its regressions (one scene features the group masturbating to car crash footage) and yet irresistible for the total commitment of its cast and crew, it somewhat resembles ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS, but without the narrative cohesiveness, sexism and moral baggage. An essential work of the 1990s, if only because it takes the shallow fixations on sensation that pervade Hollywood movies and lays them out in plain view while transforming them into something eerily beautiful, even spiritual.

The Scent of Green Papaya (1993, Tran Anh Hung)

The debut feature of renowned Vietnamese director Tran Anh Hung is also a loaded sensual experience, though its pleasures are of a young servant girl and the innocent wonders in small things she observes. The film alternates its coming-of-age story with close-ups of the tiny animals and other colorful objects of nature (one wonders if Terrence Malick took from this film for his similar shots in THE THIN RED LINE). Its extremely dense atmosphere is reminiscent of Satyajit Ray, and one can be so intoxicated by its sounds and images that one may not notice at first how it doesn't seem to be carried by a story of any particular substance. Such an element is the difference between a work of true-to-live perception and a work of exotic luxury; the fact that it was shot entirely in France on sound stages attests in no small part to its relation to the reality of Vietnam. Nonetheless it's hard to complain about a film that is so immaculately beautiful, nostalgia piece or not.

Beijing Bicycle (2001, Wang Xiaoshuai)

Wang Xiaoshuai, once one of the edgiest members of Chinese independent filmmaking, strides confidently into the mainstream with this tale of two young men, one a poor country bumpkin, the other a city brat, who contend for possession of the same bicycle. The story starts with the country boy in much the same manner as DeSica's BICYCLE THIEVES, but things become interesting when the film reaches its tug-o-war struggle between the boys; we compare and contrast their motivations for having the bike while marveling at how far they'll go to get it back. Unfortunately, this single-minded determination of the characters may also reflect the simple-minded development in the way they were written. The back-and-forth gets tedious and mechanical after a point and the literally ham-fisted climax follows the sentimental tradition of DeSica in a bad way, but if that's what it takes to get people to watch movies dealing with issues like urban migration, poverty and class warfare, so be it. Meanwhile, where is the distribution for the best Chinese movie of the year, THE ORPHAN OF ANYANG?

Children of Heaven (1998, Majid Majidi)

Brother loses sister's shoes. Brother and sister share brother's shoes. Brother tries to win sister new shoes by placing third in a cross country race. I can easily be cast as a cold-hearted critic if I said anything negative about a film that seems so earnest in its simple humanitarian vision of familial goodwill in the face of adversity. Taken on a surface level, it looks and feels like a perfect movie, and I would heartily recommend it to anyone in search of a pick-me-up or wanting to introduce their children or friends to the sublime wonders of foreign films, particularly those from Iran, which has arguably the richest cinema in the world today. If I hadn't seen the films of Abbas Kiarostami or Jafar Panahi (whose far more complex THE WHITE BALLOON is a kid's film for adults), I would be a lot more enthusiastic for this film; but the fact is that I have, and so compared to the works of those artists Majidi's film, however sweet, ultimately feels mechanical in its design and sentimental in its effect. Nonetheless, it's still superior than a Disney film, coming off as far more earnest in its innocence. Definitely worth seeing and hard to dislike, and hopefully will encourage ventures into more challenging and rewarding fare.

Winchester '73 (1950, Anthony Mann)

Entertaining tale about a rare and famous rifle that changes hands from one person to the next. Unfortunately the narrative doesn't allow for much insight (one intriguing secret between two of the main characters is divulged way too late in the game), even as its shifting from one episode to another keeps things going at a lively pace. I was also bothered by the East Coast accents shared by most of the cast; it's not often that I hear cowboys shouting "whaddya mean you're outta bullets?"; perhaps this was a vestige of the films noir Mann had helmed before making the transition to Westerns. Fortunately, the psychological intrigues of films noir also survive among the characters; they would go on to blossom magnificently in Mann's masterpiece THE NAKED SPUR.

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