SCREENING LOG - 10/13-10/19, 2003

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saw from the 2003 New York Film Festival CRIMSON GOLD, GOODBYE DRAGON INN, DISTANT and RAJA. Given that these films have received a good deal of praise as the best of international cinema that 2003 has to offer, I was generally disappointed by what I felt in some cases to be their slackness -- GOODBYE DRAGON INN and DISTANT seem to push the long take aesthetic to an unbearable extreme, just as KILL BILL unbearably pushes in the opposite direction. I also saw A DOUBLE LIFE, THE MUNEKATA SISTERS, RAISE THE RED LANTERN, ODD MAN OUT, KILL BILL, NIGHT AND FOG, and A KING IN NEW YORK. In order of preference:

zetes fixer of the week

A King in New York (1957, Charles Chaplin)

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0050598/

A deposed monarch takes exile in New York, where his foreign stature and charming demeanor make him a target for an army of advertising agencies, and somehow lead him to be investigated by the HUAC. The plot, mostly having to do with an innocent abroad in America and its cultural bewilderments, is incidental and episodic, but this is par for the course with Chaplin -- he doesn't structure his plot along an arc so much as find his way from one revealing episode to another, leading to a bizarre and heartbreaking conclusion about what it means to be an American. 1957 was a year abundant in films scrutinizing media and consumer culture (WILL SUCCESS SPOIL ROCK HUNTER?, A FACE IN THE CROWD, SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS) but if this is one of the best it is because it doesn't seem to have an axe to grind. This is most evident in Chaplin's scenes with Dawn Addams, an attractive but hopelessly materialistic ad woman; Chaplin's sense of puzzlement over how such a bright woman can be such a blinkered tool for corporate America is palpable, and yet he accepts her and loves her all the same. What Chaplin does with his character as he films commercial spots puts Bill Murray's similar scenes LOST IN TRANSLATION to shame, because, for lack of a better word, it feels free, free to say whatever it wants to say, making its scathing observations about Americans with the innocence of a child. This movie made me reflect on which filmmakers strike me as being the most "free", in that they are not burdened by personal hang-ups or haunted obsessions, who approach the world of their films as if discovering it fresh and whose films make the world feel even fresher. I came up with Howard Hawks, Abbas Kiarostami, Yasujiro Ozu, Jacques Tati, Orson Welles, Seijun Suzuki and Charlie Chaplin. #3 for 1957, between APARAJITO and WILL SUCCESS SPOIL ROCK HUNTER?

DerVin166 documentary of the week

Night and Fog (1955, Alain Resnais)

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0048434/

In a world glutted with Holocaust documentaries, one of the earliest is still one of the best, because in many ways it's a manifesto on what a Holocaust documentary ought to be. This sober, unsentimental and unflinching presentation of images from concentration camps, not only during World War II but from contemporary footage capturing their decrepit condition, actively interrogates the value of the Image, both as concrete reality and as abstract idea, and the importance of such images as markers against the eroding waves of history on humankind and our preference to forget what we have suffered and inflicted on ourselves, challenging us to take responsibility, at least by partaking in the mere act of bearing witness. The script, perhaps one of the best scripts ever written for a documentary, at times seems to remark spontaneously at the images presented, and those images, ranging from the iconic (Hitler) to the near-trivial (various artifacts found in the camps that seem to speak volumes about the lives who possessed them) are scoured, revered, critiqued -- it's no coincidence that Chris Marker served as assistant director. A powerful experience, visually, emotionally, intellectually, not to be missed. #2 for 1955 between ORDET and PATHER PANCHALI

kerpan Ozu film of the week

The Munekata Sisters (1950, Yasujiro Ozu)

From what I've heard, this is one of the least revered Ozu films, but after first glance I find it to be one of the most fascinating. A naive but zealous girl (Hideko Takamine) proposes marriage to a man who is in love with her sister (Kinuyo Tanaka) who is trapped in a loveless marriage; this is the girl's way of showing concern for her sister, by keeping the man she really loves but cannot have close at hand. It's an odd mix of high comedy and stark social commentary on the social boundaries that define women's roles, and for me it shows as much tonal range as anything I've seen in other Ozu films -- frivolous flirtatious interludes, sincere and tender romantic exchanges, and stark moments of violent rage are held in precarious balance thanks to Ozu's rock solid powers of observation. It's worth seeing this film as Ozu playing as self-consciously and inventively with genres as he did in the 30s -- the girl in some scenes narrates the action like a benshi. I definitely see this as a reworking of WHAT DID THE LADY FORGET?, revisiting the setup of the liberated meddling gamine overturning the fragile co-existence between a hapless housewife and the helpless husband; this time the scene of domestic violence is given the full measure of subtext and consequence that was lacking in the earlier film, adding resonance to what otherwise might be misjudged as straight melodrama. A difficult film to pin down, but no less alluring for it. #5 for 1950 between IN A LONELY PLACE and SUNSET BOULEVARD

Raja (2003, Jacques Doillon)

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0339558/

One of the most impressive things that Jacques Doillon did in his sensitive if ultimately schmaltzy PONETTE, about a 5-year-old girl's reckoning with her mother's untimely death, was his exhaustive observation of kindergarteners, which enabled him to elicit fresh and natural behaviors in his cihld performers. I suspect he did the same with the Moroccans who populate his newest film, which has almost nothing in common with PONETTE other than some amazing performances that feel even more live and spontaneous. The seemingly simple scenario involves a rich Frenchman who invites local girls to work on his yard only to become besmitten by one of them. Neither he nor the object of his affections are very attractive, but they develop a raw mutual attraction that's all the more troubling for its inexplicability. Numerous questions are raised as to how each party may be using each other and whether genuine emotions have any part in the negotiation of their relationship, and how it affects various contingent parties. Not only does it work as an allegory for post-Colonial responsibility towards third world nations that are not quite able to help themselves, but it also works as an anti-PRETTY WOMAN, a modern day fairy tale gone awry in a world where differences in class and culture can't always be so easily resolved. #3 for 2003 IMDb releases between CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS and MYSTIC RIVER #6 for new films seen in 2003 between WAITING FOR HAPPINESS and SEAFOOD

A Double Life (1947, George Cukor) second viewing

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0039335/

One of the best films noir of 1947 came from, of all people, George Cukor, the master of cheery urbane theatrical comedies. The urbane theatrical part is still there, but given a dark, instrospective shade thanks to expressive black and white cinematography and an impressive performance by Ronald Colman as a stage actor who takes his new role as Othello a little too seriously. The intelligent script by Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon lends insight into the theater world (even though it lays on the parallels with Shakespeare a bit thick at times), and Cukor's assured handling of actors makes every character feel affable in their casual, knowing repartee, even as the tension builds. #4 for 1947 between THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR and RECORD OF A TENEMENT GENTLEMAN

Raise the Red Lantern (1991, Zhang Yimou) second viewing

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0101640/

One of Zhang's early reputation-building works, this is the purposefully exotic and tragic tale of a young educated woman who becomes the fourth wife of a man so powerful we never see his face onscreen. The woman becomes both ally and adversary to the three other wives as they try to outmaneuver each other for the limited pleasures allowed them: conjugal visitations by their husband and foot massages (from the looks of it they get off more on the latter). It's typical of Zhang's slippery filmmaking that this depiction of an oppressive household can be seen by Westerners as anti-Communist (and possibly anti-Chinese) and by Chinese as not only anti-feudalist but anti-Capitalist (given how the opulent settings and materialist desires drive the women to destroy each other), but however one wants to see it Zhang's filmmaking is masterful in how it sucks the viewer into this claustrophobic world and its twisted logic. It's also interesting that the lead, played by the once-iconic Gong Li, is rather unsympathetic in her selfishness and fateful naivete, making her as much of an object of scrutiny as a subject of identification. The ending, as is often the case in Zhang's films, seems abruptly unresolved and confused, though pretty much everything that leads up to it runs like Kubrickian clockwork. #6 for 1991 between THE NAKED LUNCH and MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO

Odd Man Out (1947, Carol Reed) second viewing

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0039677/

The first of Reed's famous collaborations with Graham Greene, involving a dying IRA operative who's passed like a worn-out five pence among various constituents of Irish society representing various responses to his condition. I liked it well enough, often finding it compelling viewing with tautly orchestrated sequences. Still, there's hardly a cinematic idea in this film that isn't stolen from Lang, Hitchcock, Welles or Ford (in the case Ford, his worst qualities, those cartoony characterizations of minor figures). I love THE THIRD MAN but will have to see more of Carol Reed to see what defines his work -- so far all I can discern is a moody Catholicism supplied by Greene, a penchant for caricature and garish camera effects to match (courtesy of the very talented Robert Krasker). #9 for 1947 between BLACK NARCISSUS and BODY AND SOUL

Crimson Gold (2003, Jafar Panahi)

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0371280/

Though I don't think I like this as much as other Panahi films (THE WHITE BALLOON, THE CIRCLE), this portrait of a pizza delivery man who becomes a failed bank robber is still a powerful examination of class differences and the disenfranchisement of the working class in Iran. Scripted by Abbas Kiarostami, there are at least two masterful sequences in this film that use subtle but vivid observations of body language and behavior to depict how rich people have their way with the poor and how the police have their way with everyone. Hossain Emadeddin, a real-life pizza delivery man, gives a wonderful performance (if you want to call it that) as a dignified but confused man teetering on the brink of despair.The movie never fully explains why his character is motivated to commit crime, which may be its own way of letting him be his own man, something the world he inhabits won't allow. #6 for 2003 IMDb releases between PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN and GOODBYE DRAGON INN #19 for new films seen in 2003 between PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN and S21: THE KHMER ROUGE KILLING MACHINE

Distant/Uzak (2002, Nuri Bilge Ceylan)

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0346094/

The recipient of much attention since it won Best Actor awards for its two leads in Cannes, this study of modern alienation between an affluent photographer and an unemployed relative who visits him seeking work is basically the old city mouse/country mouse set-up (and there's even a real mouse thrown in fo good measure) done to an elliptical extreme. Roger Ebert dismissed this movie as yet another instance of painfully slow arthouse cinema a la Kiarostami and Angelopolous, where "grim middle-aged men with mustaches sit and look and think and smoke and think and look and sit and smoke and shout and drive around and smoke until finally there is a closing shot that lasts forever and has no point," and I can't entirely blame him for feeling that way. I found it difficult to follow the narrative or really connect with the characters, though there were flashes of brilliance from time to time in depicting the uneasy dynamic between the two men. The films of Andrei Tarkovsky are featured prominently throughout, which at first struck me as a rather pretentious homage to an acknowledged influence to this film, rife with long takes of self-absorbed men, but it becomes apparent that Ceylan uses these moments to skewer the photographer (and himself) for his self-contented image of himself as a deep-thinking artist. For example, there is one hilarious scene where the artist puts on Tarkovsky's STALKER to drive his houseguest to bed, so that the artist can then put on a porn video for his own non-intellectual stimulation. Moments like that encourage me to give this another shot. #27 for new films seen in 2003 between BOLLYWOOD HOLLYWOOD and THE ROAD

Goodbye Dragon Inn (2003, Tsai Ming-liang)

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0377556/

Clearly the most challenging and formalistic film to date by one of the most extreme practitioners of the static long take, this spatial and temporal exploration of a cavernous movie house on the brink of being closed down and the random people who haunt it has a number of interesting things going on, but for me few of them took flight. For one thing the film lacked compelling characters to latch on to -- people come and go, but all of them feel more like ideas and types rather than the real people who have graced his earlier works. In response, one might argue that the real character is the movie theater itself, which Tsai certainly shoots in a loving, attentive manner, exploring its spaces and the different views offered among its seats, hallways and bathrooms. There are recurring hints at a narrative but there really is none; it's just people moving around and occasionally running into each other. King Hu's classic martial arts film DRAGON GATE INN plays throughout the film inside the theater, and for me the film is most interesting as a thoughtful tribute to the brilliance of Hu's artistry -- Hu was a groundbreaking innovator in capturing the beauty of human physical presence, whether locked in combat or staring each other down, and Tsai approximates this with his numerous moments of people sizing each other up in the theater. The decrepit theater could also work as a moving metaphor for the derelict state of Taiwan's film industry, run aground by home video and foreign import entertainment. Overall it feels more satisfying as a conglomeration of ideas rather than as a viewing experience, more conceptual than real. This may take another viewing to fully assess.

My overall impression of the film wasn't helped by the Q&A session with Tsai that followed. I had encountered Tsai two years before when he screened his masterpiece WHAT TIME IS IT THERE? in the same theater, and at that time he seemed so self-effacing, so confident in his demure demeanor. This time he came off like one of those spiritual guru hucksters, in his case marketing the peace and tranquility found in his movies as the antidote to modern civilization. He kept talking, in a manner both proud and defensive, about the virtues of the slowness of his filmmaking -- but that slowness isn't a virtue in itself, it's what you do with it. He's done amazing things with pacing in the past, but in this film it seemed too deliberate, as if he were trying to stretch out a small concept for a short into a full-length feature. He seemed uncharacteristically preoccupied with the commercial outcome of his films, ending his Q&A with an exhortation to everyone to get the word out about his movie. It's unsettling to think, given that Tsai has a larger audience now more than ever, that he would be more preoccupied with growing his audience, one would think otherwise. #7 for 2003 IMDb releases between CRIMSON GOLD and KILL BILL #30 for new films seen in 2003 between SO CLOSE and IN THIS WORLD

Kill Bill, Vol. I (2003, Quentin Tarantino)

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0266697/

aka LOST IN TRANSLATION, VOL. II. where Quentin gets to actualize his wet dream of Asian exploitation, ejaculating geysers of blood everywhere and somehow missing something that made his Oriental source texts so special in the first place. I "get" that this is intended for fun and stylish kicks, as its defenders staunchly proclaim, though I have to wonder how much of this is a cop-out defensive argument. In any event it's the kind of argument that closes out any serious discussion, so I'd might as well shut up. Except that I'll say that the B-films he ripped off, er, pays homage to, were by and large endowed with a critical sense of honor and humanity (or the lack thereof) among their characters -- they were not cardboard characters engaging in cartoonish action, which is more than I can say for this film. Fittingly enough, the most emotionally compelling moments come in an anime sequence (involving pedophilia, which is probably why it had to be depicted as anime). Nonetheless it's a given Tarantino executes his simulation of greatest B-movie hits with aplomb, even if his homage has no insight to shed even in terms of formula (even DiPalma's FEMME FATALE had that much going for it). I guess I'll close by using the OTHER cop-out rationalization favored by reviewers, that we should just wait and see how the second half of the diptych bears out before coming to any real conclusions. #8 for 2003 IMDb releases between GOODBYE DRAGON INN and LOST IN TRANSLATION #34 for new films seen in 2003 between DEMONLOVER and LOST IN TRANSLATION

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