SCREENING LOG - 11/04-11/10, 2002

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I watched XIAO SHAN GOES HOME, LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN, YOL, STORM OVER ASIA and GIRL SHY. In no order (all are warmly recommended):

Xiao Shan Goes Home (1995, Jia Zhangke)

this film is not listed in IMDb

I got my hands on a video disc of Jia "Greatest Chinese Filmmaker Alive" Zhangke's thesis film from his days at the Beijing Academy, and it helped considerably in putting his budding body of work in perspective. The bare-bones and generally aimless narrative concerns a country bumpkin living in Beijing as he makes preparations for his return home. The film has no real regard towards story; Jia's camera's priority is capturing as much as he can of contemporary China and Chinese people in raw, undigested detail. Once again, his way of catching the everyday sounds and images that make up the collective experience of a culture is uncanny, and as far as I'm concerned unmatched with any other contemporary filmmaker from anywhere in the world. However, this [i]cinema verite non pareil[/i] is accentuated by intertitles that make lively commentaries on the action; here Jia's indebtedness to Godard (and possibly Bresson) is made explicit. It's interesting that he would abandon these techniques entirely for his future films, given that he's so adept at applying them to give his grungy characters a contrasting context of officiousness. The overall result, as in his other great films, is like witnessing a teeming world of destitute souls unearthed and held up like raisins in the sun.

Addison De Witt High Trash Hollywood Classic of the week

Leave Her to Heaven (1945, John M. Stahl)

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0037865

An absolutely gorgeous film, with colors so intense they perfectly match the uncommon luridness of the story. Cat-eyed Gene Tierney's possessive desire for hubby Cornel Wilde takes on murderous dimensions with maximum psychodramatic impact. A scene involving a drowning paraplegic probably looks ridiculously contrived on paper, but the scene plays out with a chillingly primal power. Part of this is due to the scene's absence of music; Alfred Newman's powerful score is applied judiciously, adding to this film's sordid swagger.

Rigor Political Consciousness film of the week

Yol (1982, Yilmaz Guney)

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0084934

The late Yilmaz Guney has one of the most fascinating careers I've ever read about (check his IMDb bio). A screen idol turned politically-active director, he was jailed numerous times throughout his career by the Turkish Government. While spending the better part of a decade behind bars, he would write screenplays for his assistant to direct. Yol is such a film, directed by Serif Goren while Guney was exiled in Switzerland; Guney would review and edit the reels as they came to him. Winner of the Cannes Palme d'Or, it's a fascinating story following five prisoners who are given a week's leave, bussed back to their homelands in various regions in Turkey. Their stories center on guilt from being helplessly absent as their families are dissolved, and the harsh demands of the family and the village in preserving their honor informed by an unforgiving attitude towards women and social outcasts. This is a very powerful and well-made work. brunt silent classic of the week

Storm over Asia (1928, V.I. Pudovkin)

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0019286

A Mongolian tribe rises up to challenge its British Imperialist oppressors in this stirring late silent film by one of Russia's biggest filmmakers of the time. Compared to the works of Eisenstein and Dovzhenko, this film has a more conventional narrative flow; only occasionally does a jarring juxtaposition of shots leap out at the viewer. As a side note, I was a little thrown off by the appearance of a Tibetan lama in what is supposed to be Mongolia -- the two regions are nowhere near each other!

bkamberger Charitable Endowment film of the week

Girl Shy (1924, Fred Newmeyer and Sam Taylor)

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0014945

Harold Lloyd is a destitute wannabe writer trying to woo a girl from the other side of the tracks. I actually liked this Harold Lloyd classic comedy more than his famous SAFETY LAST because I found its laughs more sustained from start to finish, and the climactic chase sequence (one of the best I've ever seen) to be even more enthralling on many levels than the climbing sequence of the other film. Lloyd succeeds brilliantly on the level of sheer entertainment, though I'm just as interested in his auterist qualities. It seems that, compared to Chaplin and Keaton, this so-called "third tenor of silent comedy" is the most middle-class in sensibility and substance. Chaplin was a great humanist who soft-peddled a socialist underclass agenda; Keaton was a more scientific type, tirelessly tinkering with the physical possibilities of the cinematic medium. These folks look downright eccentric next to Lloyd's relatively commonplace milieu of everyday settings and people. And yet Lloyd invests this world and its petit bourgeoise aspirations with a crazed energy: it's the American Dream on speed and steroids. Perhaps it doesn't help his case to say that his action sequences resemble those of today's mindless Hollywood blockbusters more than those of his peers. But it's that same observation that makes me want to say that Lloyd is the most contemporary -- his manic urban world of perilous velocity, automobiles and skyscrapers somehow feels very relevant in this century.

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