Film / Video

The question that has been echoed for the past few years at Cannes may very well have a refrain here in the Twin Cities, albeit a quieter refrain. A recent article in the New York Times Magazine (”New Wave on the Black Sea“, A.O. Scott) brings to light two films that made brief appearances in the past, but also three films coming up at the Walker starting next week. The New Romanian Cinema section of the Expanding the Frame program will include Cristian Mungiu’s critically acclaimed 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days (2007) and two films from Cristian Nemescu, Marilena From P7 (2006) and California Dreamin’ (2007).

First, let’s do a little local Romanian recap. The film that started this whole critic-coined and director-refuted “New Wave” was Cristi Puiu’s The Death of Mr. Lazarescu. Mr Lazarescu premiered at Cannes in 2005 and landed in the Twin Cities June 2006 at the Parkway Theater when the theater was in a state that was more dismal than the plot of the film (a two-and-a-half hour film about, well, the death of Mr. Lazarescu .) Locally it was well received but sadly under-attended. A mere ten months later, another high profile Romanian film made an appearance at the 2007 Minneapolis St Paul International Film Festival: Corneliu Porumboiu’s hilarious 12:08 East of Bucharest. (Corneliu Porumboiu’s 2005 short entitled Liviu’s Dream played at the 2006 MSPIFF.)

The big story of the three films coming up at the Walker is Mungiu’s 4 Months, 2 Weeks, 2 Days (Wednesday, January 30, 7:30pm) which won the coveted Palme d’Or at Cannes and basically showed up on everybody who’s anybody’s list for 2007. The more quiet story, yet perhaps the more important story, is that of director Cristian Nemescu who died at the young age of 27 in 2006. Nemescu was certainly heralded as a rising star, but seems destine to become the forgotten luminary. The Walker will provide the rare opportunity to see two of his films: Marilena From P7 (Thursday, February 7, 7:30) and California Dreamin’ (Friday, February 8, 7:30).

So if I didn’t see you at Cristi or Corneliu’s screenings, maybe I will see you at Cristian or Cristian’s screenings next week. (There will be a test on Romanian director’s names before each screening.) As for Utah, judging from the reports (one and two), I’m starting to wonder if Rob made the wrong decision.

435 minutes. Seven hours and 15 minutes. It’s not a lot of time. It’s less than half our waking hours on any given day, and the approximate time we spend sleeping each night. Ironically this is almost the exact amount of time I spent at work on Sunday. But I spent most of my 435 minutes at work Sunday thinking about the 435 minutes I spent in the Walker Cinema Saturday with Bela Tarr’s exceptional Satantango.

Prior to Satantango, I think the longest film I had seen in a theater was, unfortunately, Gone With the Wind. (If only Kurosawa could have come up with fifteen more minutes for Seven Samurai, I could have had a much better alibi.) At almost half the running time, I think it is fair to say that Gone With the Wind is about as far from Satantango as you can get, and would be little help in preparing me for the experience that Bela had planned for me. We modern movie-goers are trained to expect a two hour narrative, give or take 30 minutes for the proper resolution of conflict du jour. Once films push much beyond that two hour threshold, distributors seem to get twitchy, either demanding cuts or, in the most obscene circumstances, releasing one film in two parts. The industry seems convinced that audiences don’t have the tenacity for films over three hours. Fortunately, I don’t think Bela Tarr had the film industry or the film audience in mind when he crafted Satantango, a film that debunks all standards, and I was more than up to the challenge.

For the record, the Walker’s Saturday screening of Satantango was the third chance to see the film theatrically in the Twin Cities. The Oak Street Cinema hosted two screenings of Satantango earlier this year over a weekend that, coincidentally, I had family in town. (My family might have a base understanding of my obsession with movies, but asking them to accept that I would be busy for nine hours watching a movie would be crossing the line.) As the Facets DVD release of Satantango seemed to be on perpetual hold, I was convinced that I would never get to see this film. But it’s funny how things work out. It wasn’t long before I heard that Bela Tarr was coming to the Walker along with all of his feature films, including his new film than premiered at Cannes, The Man From London, and, of course, Satantango.

The biggest adversary to the screening Saturday was the “not-too-many-more-days-like-this” October weather. In my case, the leaf raking and garden cleaning would just have to wait. Nearly a hundred of us traded sunny and 61 degrees for a dark, rainy dance with the Devil, and, as the lights went down at 1:05pm, you could feel the collective energy of anticipation in the air. Nine hours later that collective energy had evolved into something else entirely (those of you there will have to help me out with this one), as we followed Bela Tarr down a path that was both visually mesmerizing and thematically devastating. Told in twelve sections (a tango, as mentioned in the program notes, six steps forward and six back, although I’m not sure where the going ‘forward’ part is) that weave together a communal story through multiple perspectives, each overlaying the other with cumulative significance. The long takes and extended scenes that Satantango is known for seem to break down that barrier that exists in traditional films between audience and character, and two hours into the film, I felt myself start to get restless in the unnerving physical presence of the doctor…and his writing…and breathing…and drinking. I wouldn’t call the result more intimate, but more tactile and sympathetic. The sustained tone of the film is nothing short of brutal, not unlike Kelemen’s “plodding along and plodding and plodding along” into oblivion.

The last three hours of the film were the hardest, both physically and mentally. I had grown tired of the two positions I could stretch my legs without putting them on the shoulders of the person in front of me, and the narrative thread of the film had taken a turn to something more divisive. With the fate of the villagers looming like an oppressive dark cloud, I struggled to assimilate the facts either into a straight narrative or an allegorical satire. As the credits began to role and the lights came up with most of the audience still intact, we all sat in stunned silence. There was no victorious feeling of crossing the finish line, but only what I can describe as a 435 minute heartache. Almost forty-eight hours later my head is still spinning with the overwhelming scope of the film and the irrepressible images.

The experience itself was emotionally overwhelming, to say the least. As I rode my bike home past the Saturday night revelers on Nicolette Avenue, I felt totally empty, almost outside of my skin. At the time, I had no idea how to answer, “How was the movie?” except to just nod, and say, “Yeah. Good.” (Of course the look I got was, ‘Come on, you just saw an eight hour movie and that is all you’re going to say?’) Collecting my thoughts about the film beyond a gut reaction seemed impossible, let alone trying to come up with a rudimentary analysis. Even comprehending the visual elegance and narrative balance that never seem to wavered in those seven hours is beyond me. I find myself revisiting scenes in my head and mapping exactly how they play out, but then getting confused about how the chapters stacked up and in what order. Was it raining the whole time? Or did it stop raining twice? And by the way, what happened to Kelemen after he picked up the doctor? Was he just a diabolical messenger sent to push us over the edge with his intoxicated rambling? And what exactly were the two officers typing up near the end? Was it simply Irimias proclamations? And what was with all the antagonism towards the bar owner? I really don’t know. In the end, Satantango has left me with one of the most amazing film experiences I’ve ever had and, of course, the inordinate compulsion to revisit the film…second screening anyone?

> Don’t miss the last installment of the retrospective this weekend with the regional premier of The Man From London screening Saturday at 7:30pm and Sunday at 2pm. It’s only 132 minutes.

If Michel Gondry’s recent Regis Dialogue and Retrospective left you wanting more, you only have a few more months left to wait. Gondry’s new film, Be Kind Rewind, starring Jack Black, Mos Def, Mia Farrow, Danny Glover, and Melonie Diaz is slated for limited release on December 21, 2007. (Assuming it will be here, a perfect Christmas Day movie!) The trailer just hit the web and it looks nothing short of hilarious. This will be the second film that Gondry has both written and directed after his 2006 Science of Sleep. Where Science of Sleep was a very personal film for Gondry, Be Kind Rewind seems to be more of a traditional comedy, at least as traditional as Gondry can be. The premise is that Jerry (Jack Black) is magnetized, literally, and as a result ends up erasing the all the video tapes in the Mike’s (Mos Def) video store. Instead of replacing the tapes with new ones, Jerry and Mike decide to personally remake the films (replete with special effects, as seen in photo at left.)

Check out the Be Kind Rewind trailer HERE.

Two more film directors die and I raise my ugly blog-head like the grim reaper. However, in light of last week’s local events it seemed trivial to eulogize two directors. As a result this post comes almost a week after the passing of Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni, (which is, at this point, not news) but only five days after the shocking collapse of the 35W bridge. Like most people that live in the area, I have spent those last five days trying to wrap my head around the bizarre accident and the surreal photos and testimonials. Understanding the full impact of the bridge collapse will take some time. Understanding the death of two elderly film directors is ultimately easier.

Both Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni died on Monday, July 30, 2007. Bergman was 89 and Antonioni was 94. Both worked in their later years, but that is where the similarities stop with these two. Ingmar Bergman was possibly one of the most iconic film directors, with his cool Norse intellectualism and preternatural staid symbolism and allegory. Bergman made over forty feature films and over a dozen television productions. Bergman himself admitted that most of his work was autobiographical, drawing upon his own experiences as the son of Lutheran minister. I’m not even going to pretend to understand the impact of his films at the time. Bergman exists to me in the form of VHS tapes, repertory screenings and Criterion Collections. His films have a rare amount of artfulness and unrelenting honesty that make them difficult, even now (or maybe even more so now.) He spent the last ten years of his life living and working in his home on Fårö Island in Sweden. An inexhaustible amount of information can be found on the Ingmar Bergman website published by the Ingmar Bergman Foundation.

I can just imagine film students of the Sixties and Seventies falling into the Bergman camp or the Antonioni camp of film appreciation. Whether or not there is any truth in that, I have no idea, but these filmmakers could not be farther apart in style. If Bergman’s films were grounded in faith (even though he had proclaimed to had lost his), Michelangelo Antonioni’s were grounded in the lack of faith. More than anyone, Antonioni charted the territory of the arthouse film where “nothing happens.” The majority of his thirty-some films remain shamelessly unavailable in the US, but if there is one thing I have learned from purchasing a bootlegged version his 1970 documentary about China (Chung Kuo), Antonioni was not afraid to try new things. Antonioni had an inquisitiveness about the world and the human condition and this translated into his art. Life’s ambiguity was a stage for Antonioni’s visual poetics. Antonioni suffered a stroke in 1985 that left him partially paralyzed, and limited his work. A very thorough biography on Michelangelo Antonioni can be found here on Senses of Cinema.

One can’t help but wonder what these two men would have thought about a shared date of death. They were contemporaries who would have been unable to ignore each other work. Dan Zak’s article in the Sunday Washington Post looks at where the two director’s paths did and didn’t cross. It is ironic that we are plucking quotes like this out: “Antonioni was suffocated by his own tedium, Bergman wrote in his autobiography.” and “Bergman was solely concerned with the question of God, Antonioni told the London Telegraph, whereas he himself was uninterested in unraveling spiritual mystery.” (from the Post article.) Their thoughts about each other will forever be joined together by fate, or, as Antonioni might have seen it, plain old ordinary chance.

Both will be missed, but their films live on.

Edward Yang, award winning Taiwanese director, died today from complications from colon cancer. Best known for his film Yi Yi (A One and a Two…) 2000, which won best director at the Cannes Film Festival, Yang was a member of the so-called Taiwanese New New Wave film movement along with Ang Lee and Hou Hsiao-hsien. Yang was born in Shanghai, but moved to Taiwan during the civil war and later moved to the US to study and become a citizen. His film career however, was firmly embedded in Taiwan, with many of his films unavailable in the US: In Our Time (1982), That Day on the Beach (1983), Taipei Story (1985), The Terrorist (1986), A Brighter Summer Day (1991), A Confucian Confusion (1994), and Mahjong (1996). He is credited for giving Chang Chen (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Three Times) his start in A Brighter Summer Day. He was planning on working with Jackie Chan on an animated feature entitled The Wind. For me, the news in quite shocking. As a director that I feel the world had yet to discover, Mr. Yang will be sorely missed.

Global Lens 2007 opened last night at the Walker Art Center. While it might have been cold and snowy outside, the Walker Cinema offered refuge with journeys to China and Algeria. From April 11-22 Walker hosts nine feature films from nine countries and a shorts program offering the same variety. Sponsored by the Global Film Initiative, Global Lens serves as a venue to emerging filmmaker and films that have little or no chance beyond the festival circuit. The past two years I have attended the series I have been amazed by the subtle power that these films. To their credit, the films are the complete antithesis of a Hollywood film, but as a result lack the marketability that is so important to distributors these days. The Global Film Initiative obviously plays by different rules, and provides much need support to international films that tend to fall through the cracks. I was curious about the series, so decided to ask Dean Otto, Walker Film/Video Assistant Curator, a few questions about the series:

KS: This is the fourth Global Lens and the third that the Walker has partnered with the Global Film Initiative. Was that first year impeded by the Walker expansion or were we late-comers to the series?

DO: Actually, this is the fourth time that we've partnered with the Global Film Initiative. We presented their first touring program in January 2004 and there was the break during the construction of the Walker expansion. We did some catch-up work though after we opened in screening two of the touring programs across one season in September 2005 and May 2006.

The Walker is one of fourteen U.S. partners with the Global Film Initiative. How did you first get in contact with the Global Film Initiative?

While he was still with Cowboy Booking, Noah Cowan (now the Co-Director of the Toronto International Film Festival) asked to meet with Cis Bierinckx and I during the Toronto Film Festival to ask if we would have any interest in being a site for the Global Lens series. As their mission was to support emerging filmmakers from developing countries, provide distribution to those films, and to create curriculum guides for a few of the films to encourage high school students to become engaged with international cinema and the issues raised in the films. We said yes immediately as it fit into our plans to focus on global programming and to screen work from emerging filmmakers and follow their work over the course of their careers. I was really drawn to the educational component as well. I really feel that many Americans can't or won't travel abroad and particularly to places outside of Europe . Though cinema, this may be the only way Americans can experience these other cultures and it's essential to promote cross-cultural understanding.

The list of Board Members is impressive by anyone’s standards: Pedro Almodóvar, Béla Tarr, Lars von Trier, and my favorite crazy man Christopher Doyle, just to name a few. How active are the Board members in finding and selecting films?

They are an advisory board who helps the GFI staff to identify emerging filmmakers and projects to consider for funding and distribution. I can find out more details of projects they've identified over dinner with GFI's chair Susan Weeks Coulter who is visiting the Twin Cities today.

If the Global Film Initiative did not exist, what would happen to these films?

Many of the films would have languished unproduced or undistributed. Lately, more film festivals have developed funds to support filmmakers from countries without established national arts councils to help independent filmmakers. The Rotterdam Film Festival has the amazing Hubert Bals Fund which was celebrated in a series at the Walker in April 2003. The Berlin Film Festival has also launched a similar fund and the Egyptian director Yousry Nasrallah who was here to introduce a screening of his film MERCEDES in March 2006 was one of the first recipients of a grant from them. I think its fantastic that these festivals are helping to foster production in addition to exhibition.

I’m pretty excited to see Li Yu’s DAM STREET . I saw Li’s first feature FISH AND ELEPHANT a few years back, and thought to myself “this is a very brave filmmaker.”

I agree. Since completing DAM STREET she's completed a new film LOST IN BEIJING that premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in February. The screening was controversial as the version she wished to screen was not approved by the Chinese censors.

What are some of the highlights, in your opinion, of Global Lens 2007?

I was really blown away by the cinematography and complex narrative structure of A WONDERFUL NIGHT IN SPLIT. Director Arsen Anton Ostoijic is clearly a director to track. I was surprised by the dark humor in KILOMETRE ZERO and disturbed by the familial tension in THE SACRED FAMILY.

All the films screen at least twice. Will there be any special guests at any of the screenings to take note of?

As in the past we've invited the local academic community to introduce a few of the screenings. Jason McGrath from the Asian Literatures and Languages Department at the University of Minnesota introduced the screening of DAM STREET last night. Joëlle Vitiello of the French and Francophone Studies department at Macalester College was here to introduce ENOUGH as well. Joëlle had just bought the documentaries of Djamila Sahraoui who directed ENOUGH so that was some amazing synergy. Our good friend Fernando Arenas of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies at U of M will be here on Sunday, April 15 to introduce the screening of ANOTHER MAN'S GARDEN. Fernando is working on a chapter on films from Mozambique for his new book.

Any idea what might be on the dock for Global Lens 2008?

I wish I knew. The Global Film Initiative staff rarely gives hints about their slate of films until everything is finalized. I didn't know the selections for this edition until December.

——-

See these films while you can. Check out the full schedule of Global Lens 2007 screenings here.

Friday 4/13 A Wonderful Night in Split 7pm, Fine Dead Girls 9pm

Saturday 4/14 Of Love and Eggs 1pm

Sunday 4/15 Another Man’s Garden Noon, Kilometre Zero 2pm, Dam Street 4pm

Tuesday 4/17 The Sacred Family 7pm, On Each Side 9pm

Thursday 4/19 Global Shorts 7pm, Dam Street 9pm

Friday 4/20 On Each Side 7pm, The Sacred Family 9pm

Saturday 4/21 Dam Street 1pm, Of Love and Eggs 3pm, Fine Dead Girls 7pm, A Wonderful Night in Split 8:30pm

Sunday 4/22 Global Shorts Noon, Enough! 2pm, Dam Street 4pm

Preeminent French magazine Cahiers du cinema went online last week with “issue zero” of their e-Cahiers du cinema. It’s a test issue with only 20 or so pages translated into English, but the next issue, online March 9, will be translated from cover to cover. Started in 1951, the influence that Cahiers du cinema has had on film and film criticism can not be overstated. Given the iconic nature of the print magazine, there will no doubt be a fair share of detractors. The editors had this to say (as posted by Twitch):

“Dear friends,We invite you to discover the ‘issue zero’ of e-Cahiers du cinema. The ‘e’ stands for ‘electronic’ as well as for ‘English’…The March 2007 issue will be the first to be published simultaneously in French on paper and, in its entirety, in English at www.e-cahiersducinema.com. This issue will arrive on newstands on March 7 and on line March 9. The double evolution of Les Cahiers (the paper magazine plus the magazine on line, the French magazine plus the English edition) comes in response to the two great movements of our times, toward digital distribution and toward the globalization of the media… To publish in English, of course, is a way of reaching a larger of new readers, but we hope it will also be a way of making a different voice heard in the world–a way of proposing a fresh, rigorous and contemporary approach to the cinema and its place in present day culture.”

As a magazine-hound and a film fan and a non-French speaker I couldn’t be happier. But purists are already debating the mere possibility of correctly translating the content of Cahiers. (Check comments to Greencine post.) Personally, I think the online edition looks awesome, and if they want to translate “A woman in trouble” to “The story of a woman who has some problems,” so be it. What would Bazin think? When it came to films, he may have been a bit of a formalist, but as a journalist, I think he was a little more pragmatic.

Some hardy individuals helped themselves to a complementary glass of champagne for making it to the finish line at 3:20am this past Monday morning in Berlin. What was this extreme sport of endurance? It was the world premiere of the restored version of Fassbinder’s infamous TV mini-series Berlin Alexanderplatz at the 57th Berlinale. I think it is quite possible that the Walker’s own assistant curator Dean Otto may have partaken in the competition. (We will have to wait and see how he fared.)

The screening started at 10:00am on Sunday morning and drew to a close 17 hours and 20 minutes later - not for the faint of heart film fan. Inevitably a screening like this is just as much of an event as it is a viewing, and perhaps even a competition. We have had our own versions of stamina cinema here in the Twin Cities: Bela Tarr’s 7 hour epic Satantango recently played across town at the Oak Street, and the University of Minnesota’s DocuLens Asia Film Series hosted Wang Bing’s 9 and a half hour underground documentary West of the Tracks. I personally like this idea of pushing your film viewing to the limit. I’ve often been accused of squandering my time in movie theaters, so I’m glad to see my vice gaining some momentum.

Another sign of stamina cinema gaining mass appeal, AMC has announced that it will screen all five of the Best Picture Oscar nominees in a row on Saturday February 24th (locally at Southdale and Arbor Lakes) that adds up to over 12 hours at the multiplex. 30 bucks will get you into all five of the films, starting at 11:00am with Babel and ending at with the plucky Little Miss Sunshine, AND a free popcorn AND a free drink AND free refills! Despite the fact that I have seen four of the five and found them, for the most part, unworthy, I am still very tempted.

Rumor is that Criterion will be handling the restored Berlin Alexanderplatz on DVD in the US, and I look forward to seeing it in all its restored glory. Will I watch it in one sitting? Probably not. Would I spend 17 hours in a cinema to see it? Absolutely!

Spiegel article on the Berlinale screening of Berlin Alexanderplatz.

Wow. Seeing Fireworks, Rabbit’s Moon, Scorpio Rising and Kustom Kar Kammandos restored was like seeing them for the first time. For the people who were at this sold out event, I think there is no denying how special the night was. Listening to his stories left me in awe at the life Dr. Anger has lived. Indeed, at the presentation at the Walker Cinema on Friday night I think the audience was just as enchanted, if not more so, with Dr. Anger’s storytelling as they were with the restored 35mm prints of his films. Thank you Dr. Anger.

It is hard to imagine seeing Fireworks in 1947, which still seems so bold and shocking. To quote Anais Nin who saw the film at the time “At someone’s house I was shown [Anger’s] film Fireworks. The sadism and violence revolted me, but the film has power and is artistically perfect. It has a nightmare quality. Everyone had mixed feelings, horror and recognition of Kenneth Anger’s talent.” That talent is still easy to see today.

This Sunday’s New York Times had an interesting article by A. O. Scott (”The World is Watching. Not Americans.“) lamenting the lack of foreign film appreciation here in the U.S. To quote the article: “The movies are out there, more numerous and various than ever before, but the audience - and therefore box-office returns and the willingness of distributors to risk even relatively small sums on North American rights - seems to be dwindling and scattering.” As much as I like to join in on any doomsday proclamation and wax poetically about the way things used to be, I wonder if things are all that bad.

Until I win the lottery and build my own multiplex and start playing films for myself, I don’t think I will ever be satisfied with what sees screen time in the Twin Cities. However, I do think the Twin Cities is blessed with a small group of smart and scrappy (and, yes, somewhat beleaguered) independent film organizations. At the heart of A. O. Scott’s article are the foreign films topping many critic’s lists for 2006 such as The Death of Mr. Lazarescu and Pan’s Labyrinth. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu had a two-week stint at the Parkway, and while I’m sure no records were broken for viewership, astute Twin Cities cineastes saw this film. As for Pan’s Labyrinth, look for records to be broken: I stood in line with everyone else this weekend to see this film at the Uptown theater. (When I enquired about their weekend business, the ticket seller said that on opening night they had sold out, which hadn’t happened at the Uptown for three years. Two points for foreign language films!) Once agian, from the article: ” If you have seen Three Times or L’Enfant - to name two other hits of the 2005 Cannes Festival that came and went here in the blink of an eye last year despite choruses of critical praise - then you can perhaps feel the flush of specialness that comes from belonging to an exclusive coterie.” Yes! I do feel that flush! Three Times had four screenings at the Walker in September and L’Enfant played at Landmark’s Edina Theater for a week. Furthermore on the flush of specialness: “All the more if you are familiar with the festival-only titles on some critics’ lists of undistributed movies, like Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Syndromes and a Century or Pedro Costa’s Colossal Youth.” While I am holding out for a screening of Regis alumn Weerasethakul’s Syndromes and a Century, I am feeling a particularly exclusive coterie flush about Colossal Youth that screened at the Walker in October.

No, it’s not all that bad, but the reality of the market is pointed out in an IndieWire article: “So far, in 2006, less than 10 films have crossed the $1 million mark, but here’s an even more startling statistic: Of the more than 100 foreign-language films released so far this year, less than a quarter have broken $100,000 in ticket sales. (In 2005, by comparison, about half of the 128 foreign-language titles released made well over $100,000.)” Wow. If nothing else, this is a plea to support those smart and scappy programers, where ever you are. The exclusive coterie is there…waiting for you.

• Kyoko Kishida, star of Woman in the Dunes, passed away on December 19 at the age of 76 from a brain tumor.
• Joe Barbera, half of the Hanna-Barbera animation team, also died Monday at the age of 95.
• Non-Fox News watchers may not be aware of it, but the word is out: penguins are liberals. Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto lambasted Happy Feet for being "an animated Inconvenient Truth." He was offended that these anti-oil drilling, anti-commercial fishing and global warming believing penguins were preaching to his children!
• Paramount Home Entertainment announced that they will (finally) be releasing Twin Peaks: The Second Season on DVD April 10th 2007.
• Film Comment's critics poll for 2006 is out, as well as Indiewire's poll. (Go Mr. Lazarescu!)

It is my pleasure to introduce to you our new blogger, Mike Lyon. A current intern in the Film/Video department, Mike and I not only share a desk, but we also share many interests in film. As a matter of fact, conducting an interview felt a little like talking to myself. In the Asian Film Fan Death Match, it is really unclear at this time who would win! I may have more DVDs, but Mike has more degrees (and I think we all know which one matters more).

Please help me welcome Mike into our cozy little cyber community by bestowing him with many comments and questions to his posts! Before unleashing his brains and brawn on the WAC Blog, I asked Mike a few questions for a little insight into the filmic goings-ons in Mike’s mind:

More than anything, I think being a film fan means scouring for information. These are good times for scouring: more periodicals than ever and the world wide web of way too much information. Where do you get your info on film?

Almost entirely from the internet, actually! For the last decade my primary academic focus has been Asian film, and to keep absolutely up to date I rely on a combination of country-specific websites and email correspondence! For those with similar interests I highly recommend Midnight Eye, Darcy Paquet's Koreanfilm.org and several less comprehensive but respectable Hong Kong-centric sites, Monkeypeaches and Love HK Film. A number of people I went to film school with have excellent film blogs that keep me up to date on the east coast scene, especially Mike Anderson's Tativille and Termite Art, run by six other folks I went to school with who work or have worked for The Village Voice. I don't jive with many print critics but I greatly respect Andrew Sarris, Amy Taubin and J. Hoberman...

I lay awake at night fretting about the great films that I haven't seen, and, even more so, the great films I don't even know about. Give me five of your hidden gems and reasons why you think they have been slighted.

1. Baise-moi (2000) Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinh Thi - For starters, it screened a grand total of 3 times in the US back in 2001 and was never released on DVD. But I think there are a lot of things about this film that scare people who are in the business of distributing movies - it's militantly feminist, directed by two Frenchwomen who formerly worked in the adult film industry, has a number of unsimulated sex scenes, is shot entirely on digital with a French-punk soundtrack, the lead actress committed suicide and there isn't a single "feel good, revelatory moment" in the entire picture. That said, I think it's brilliant and exceedingly well-made; a truly challenging, deeply pessimistic gem.
2. Made in Hong Kong (1997) Fruit Chan - One of my favorite films, Made in Hong Kong just never got the chance it deserved outside of Hong Kong - and today it's not available anywhere in the world on DVD. But it's massively important in terms of Hong Kong film history in the same way that On the Waterfront is important to American film history - the first completely independently produced feature film to receive massive critical and commercial success in its home country. Set right before the handover of Hong Kong from Great Britain to China in 1997, it follows three poor Hong Kong kids facing (like Hong Kong itself) the loss of their individuality under the shadow of socialism.
3. Blessing Bell (2002) Sabu - This was my favorite feature of 2002, but it never even screened in the US (or anywhere outside of Japan besides the festival circuit). Sabu is a unique director in that his films get lots of festival play and a fair share of critical acclaim, but few of his features have ever been picked up for distribution and none have been released on DVD outside of Japan! Thankfully, there are a couple of great fansubbers out there that translate all of his films and sell them on eBay. Blessing Bell features Susumu Terajima, arguably Japan 's greatest character actor, as a factory worker who, on discovering that the plant he works at has been shut down, embarks an epic and completely mute journey through Tokyo, on foot. It’s really moving and, at the right times, absolutely hysterical. It will make anyone a Sabu fan for life!
4. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) Shane Black - I feel like I've been on a one-man mission over the past year to get everyone I know to see this film! Robert Downey Jr plays a small-time crook pretending to be a detective and Val Kilmer steals the show as a respectable private eye named Gay Perry. It's smart and extremely clever without being overly-precious or cloying, and it's very, very funny. It's definitely the most accessible film on this list because it's the only one you can readily find on DVD anywhere in the English-speaking world ^_^ It was in and out of the theatres in a flash, but it's tailor-made for a cult following and screams for a sequel.
5. Vibrator (2003) by Ryuichi Hiroki - Again, a recent favorite of mine that simply didn't open wide (it screened for one day in NYC in 2004) and has subsequently missed out on a DVD release. An alcoholic woman takes a ride with a lonely truck driver and decides to stay with him for a couple days as he makes a long trek across Japan . It's a short, deceptively simple film that is infinitely rewarding. And it has a truly unique take on the road/buddy picture.

What are five films that you are particularly looking forward to seeing in the theater?

There are so many! Off the top of my head:

• Confession of Pain (Andrew Lau/Alan Mak)
• The Good German (Steven Soderberg)
• Children of Men (Alfonso Cuarón)
• Pan's Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro)
• Black Book (Paul Verhoeven)

In the absence of a Robert Altman RIP post here on the WAC Blog, let's pay respects with your top five Altman films.

1. Nashville (1975)
2. McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)
3. The Player (1992)
4. The Long Goodbye (1973)
5. M*A*S*H (1970)

Altman is one of the few directors that I can also list a Childhood Favorite: Popeye! (1980)

Who is your favorite director right now and why?

Probably Wong Kar-Wai, who is the perennial favorite! For years I have considered his Happy Together (1997) to be my personal favorite film and that's on top of loving every other picture he's made. I'm a very nostalgic person and there's something about the dreamlike narrative, saturated colors (usually from cinematographer Chris Doyle) and ever-present sense of longing that permeates every frame that transports me in a way that no other filmmaker can. I'm optimistically skeptical about his next film, My Blueberry Nights, which will be the first time he's filmed in the US with English-speaking actors. Hollywood traditionally treats Hong Kong implants of all calibres like raw sewage...

What was a defining moment in your film fandom? When did you cross that line of being a film goer to a cineaste?

It's a very vivid memory, actually. I was fourteen and a friend of mine got a hold of A Clockwork Orange, which is a little extreme for a fourteen-year-old but of course, that was the whole reason we tried to get our hands on a copy! At the risk of sounding somewhat demented, it really changed my life. It was the first time I had ever watched a film and become consciously aware that there was something else at work, that the film was more than the "surface" story of a murderer and rapist who is rehabilitated. It was probably the first time that I truly considered the manipulative power of the cinema, to make me sympathize with a character like Alex; it was certainly the first time I glimpsed social commentary and metaphorical intent.

The proverbial deserted island question: You are forced to go to a deserted island where there is an endless supply of Laotian rock rats and durians and mineral water. Amazingly, in the middle of the island is a great home theater. But, oh no, you only have room for one feature film, one television series, and one album. What would they be and why?

Argh, so cruel! I know I'll say one thing now and tomorrow my mood will be completely different. Nevertheless:

• Deserted Island Film: Happy Together may be my favorite, but it might be a little too depressing to be my sole companion for who knows how many years! If the test of time has shown that there's a film I can watch over and over again and still have fun every single time, it's Star Wars. If I could bend the rules, I'd take the whole original trilogy ^_^
• Deserted Island TV: I am proudly obsessed with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so that's a no-brainer. Seven seasons of pure allegorical goodness!
• Deserted Island Album: I guess I dropped my iPod in the water, huh? Choosing one record may be the toughest of all! The Beatles' White Album would be good because of the stylistic variety and that little extra bit of length to keep me from getting bored. Maybe I could play Helter Skelter loud enough that a passing cruise ship might hear...

Okay, we know about Mike the film nut...tell us something else that makes Mike Lyon tick!

I'm married to a brilliant gal named Maggie, I play guitar, I collect comic books and Nobuyoshi Araki Polaroids, I recently got my Masters in Film Studies from NYU Tisch, I run a website dedicated to exploitation films, right now I have a beard, I try to read one novel a week, and I have an unhealthy obsession with David Bowie. And I love making lists. Maybe I should reformat my response into the form of a list...

It's not often that you see an indy film actress in the ticker tape online news, but I only found out about the sad news of Adrienne Shelly’s death in the shadow of the foul play media. Shelly will forever be galvanized in my mind as the woman who could easily trade quips with Martin Donovan in Hal Hartley's Trust. In Trust (and also Hartley's Unbelievable Truth) she represented a girl facing the impossibility of adulthood and unwanted responsibility. Although I can't comment on the rest of her career, those two films were particularly important to 19-year-old me. (She also played Jerry in Factotum, but someone is going to have to help me figure out who this character was: yes, I saw the film but who was Jerry? I don't remember Adrienne Shelly in this film. I am a loser.)

She was found hung to death on Wednesday, November 1st. What seemed to be a puzzling suicide to those who knew her has turned into an unbelievable and unconscionable murder. A 19-year-old man has been arrested and charged with her murder.

Adrienne Shelly had recently written and directed a film entitled Waitress due for a 2006 release.

Next week, the Walker will be showcasing Hu Tai-li’s Stone Dream as part of DocuLens Asia, a forum and film series put together by the U of M Institute for Advanced Study's Asian Film Collaborative. But Stone Dream is just one of the many screenings and Hu Tai-li is just one of the many filmmakers that DocuLens Asia is bring to Minnesota. The film series pulls together over a dozen Asian films (most screening at Nicholson Hall on the U of M campus) in the ever-booming documentary field with films from China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, and India. The Forum, running November 2 - 4, will include visiting filmmakers and scholars from just as many countries.

To shed some light on the full extent of the Series and Forum, I asked frequent Walker Cinema visitor and ever-enthusiastic cinephile, Professor Leo Chen, from the U of M's Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature Department to answer a few questions.

What is your role in the DocuLens Asia Forum and Film Series?

My colleagues at the U and I have been talking about the urgent need to increase both the campus and community interests, as well as, awareness in Asian cultures. I suggested the topic and themed events on Asian Documentary for the Asian Film Collaborative of the Institute of Advanced Studies at the U and I helped organize the DocuLens Asia series and forum.

What is the Asian Film Collaborative?

Asian Film Collaborative consists of faculty members and graduates students at the U who are interested in introducing, promoting and discussing Asian cultures and civilization through the universal medium of cinema. We are one of the many collaboratives housed within and sponsored by the U’s Institute of Advanced Studies. Our interests and plans are not only introducing and engaging with the fastest growing region of the world, but we also would like to bring Asian cultures to Minnesota and reciprocally bring Minnesota to Asia. People who are interested in Asian cultures are welcome to join us.

How did you settle on focusing the Forum and Film Series on documentaries?

Documentary is the most happening scene in film making throughout Asia today. The much wider accessibility of digital filmmaking, particularly in terms of cheaper and mobile camera and editing apparatus, have been paving paths for the many documentary projects and movements made by civilians, both professional and layman alike, and all walks of life, picking up and turning the camera lenses towards their own life as well as the various aspects of societies in Asia. With the convergence and conflation of economic platform of globalization, ever acceleratingly facilitated by the instant digital transmission and exchange of images, documentary film and the various modes related to documentary filmmaking continues to saturate our lives, not just in Asia but in United States as well. The Twin Cities, for example, has many active documentary filmmakers, with lively documentary film clubs, churning out wonderful projects concerning both local and universal issues. I thought it will be interesting and informative for us to see what’s happening in Asia through the lens of Documentary and DocuLens Asia is meant to not only enliven our awareness of Asian cultures but also try to bridge our cross-cultural exchange and appreciations as world citizens.

The Film Series has been such a great opportunity to see documentaries that are never going to see much, if any, exposure here in the U.S. How did you find and choose your selections for the series?

As a filmmaker both in documentary and feature film myself, I am always paying attention to the world of documentary filmmaking and as a professional habit I try to keep track with the fastest growing and most fascinating fields of documentary filmmaking in Asia and the U.S. Many of the films are selected by my colleagues at the Asian Film Collaborative for their cultural significance, in-depth exploration and aesthetic exposition. We also try to make the selection more representative, although not necessarily comprehensive, of the energy and innovative outburst of creativity happening in Asia today. This really is a rare and much needed opportunity for us to see the other side of the world and through our exposure to and learning from Asian societies. We can not only better understand our fellow residents of the earth, and hence ourselves, but also better position ourselves for an engaging in life at large.

Were there any films that you want to screen for the series but couldn't get for whatever reason?

There are many films we cannot accommodate within our limited time and resources. Films such as the Villager’s Documentary films from China, a retrospective of Japanese director Shinsuke Ogawa, and many more interesting documentary films from Asia that can not make it here this time. I do hope that more interests and institutions will find Asian documentary a worthy cause to continue and broaden its dissemination.

These films have a refreshing disregard for so-called market forces of the film industry (aka Hollywood), with very localized and personal intentions but, nonetheless, global relevance. Even though Asian documentaries are finding their way into international film festivals, it still takes something pretty special, like your Film Series, to see them. Where do these films fit; what is their market and who is their audience?

The distribution and exhibition of documentary film traditionally has a limited market and we usually ended up vying with the art house cinema for the much smaller theatrical screening space and time in terms of distribution. Some travel the film festival circuits, and some goes straight to the Public TV channels. Every once in a while some topical documentary films would garner media attentions and got a good run at the box office in the United States. But that’s about as good as you can get. With the burgeoning documentary movements in Asia, however, the situation is a bit different and the changing is towards the exciting growth.

Some Asian documentaries enjoyed not only platform theatrical release but also earned impressive ticket sales in their home countries, such as Taiwanese documentary about earthquake survivors Life (2004) which became the highest grossing film including commercial releases that year. Several documentary-styled feature films from Asia also made it to the theaters here, such as Mountain Patrol - Kekexili (2004) from China. We certainly hope that there will be more theatrical release of documentary, but that issue has to be discussed within a larger framework of the economy and infrastructure of U.S. film industry.

Can you tell us a little bit about Stone Dream and what makes Hu Tai-li such a unique filmmaker in Taiwan?

Stone Dream is a unique documentary in terms of its politically sensitive subject matter on the tumultuous history between Taiwan and China. It is also an interesting case provoking much debate in Taiwan about the moral economy and responsibility of documentarian, particularly when dealing with the issues of production and distribution within the critical perspective of a global transnational cultural industry. Hu Tai-li, director of Stone Dream, aims to document the ethnic mixing and acculturation among different immigrant groups in Taiwan through the life of an elderly veteran named Liu Pi-chia who was the subject of the trailblazing documentary on a humanist subject by an innovative pioneer director Richard Yao-chi Chen in 1965 called Liu Pi-chia. A visual anthropologist, Hu invests "professional" effort by using extensive footage drawn from her fieldwork. Liu is a "Mainlander," referring to the roughly three million people who retreated to Taiwan with the KMT regime in 1949, and Hu tries to show how he finally admits that he is a "Taiwanese" after more than half a century's life on this island, and is willing to die here. The political conflict between Mainlanders and so-called Taiwanese, namely those who emigrated from coastal China several hundred years ago, has intensified since the 1990s, particularly after the shift of ruling power in 2000 to the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). In the case of Liu, his wife is Taiwanese Aborigine, and the geo-political identity of Liu's stepson is clearly oriented towards Taiwan instead of China, in stark contrast to the father. Criticisms from both the Taiwanese academe and independent journalism pointed out that the veteran's words in film's conclusion conveniently match the DPP government's political propaganda advocating an assimilated identity for Taiwan. At stake here is the director's way of asking questions, eliciting the veteran's final reply anticipated and to a certain extent functioning as a politically correct message to meet the mainstream demands of society and the ruling party. The message in the film carries good will, but it obscures the fact that the collective psyche of most Mainlanders in Taiwan is not as easily managed as this film suggests, and the political/psychological discrepancy between most Mainlanders and Taiwanese is still an issue and much threatening political crisis.

Political issues aside, for which every audience should be the judge, the film does connect existential questions with historiographical concerns, all conveyed in a beautiful and mesmerizing feast of images and sound.

What are some other highlights of the Forum and Conference?

Without sounding too promotive, in terms of highlighting the events, I think we are very proud to present many important Asian filmmakers along with their films. These are wonderful opportunities for us to engage in conversation with the most cultural-shaping practitioners of documentary film in Asia. DocuLens Asia also presents an impressive array of scholars, from both the States and international academic communities, whose research and discussion of the cultural history, narrative functions and formal aesthetics of Asian documentary will enlighten and help us understand the significance and cultural implication of documentary films from Asia, the most important art form and media, to quote Dziga Vertov’s Kino-Pravda statement, from last century and increasingly more so into this century.

I have the French DVD of West of the Tracks, so I was able to watch it at my own pace (needless to say I didn't watch it all in one sitting). What do you think Wang Bing's intentions were with this nine-hour documentary? It's a pretty huge commitment for a viewer!

Wang Bing’s West of the Tracks is one of those behemoths, along with Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah (1985) and Andy Warhol’s Empire (1964), that had most certainly marked the landscape of cinematic culture in general and documentary film in particular. As a cultural monument, West of the Tracks is not only a record of both the ideals and disintegrations of an industrial socialist aspiration and the generations of life that peopled the site, but the nine hour long documentary also a very beautiful elegy capturing a disappearing way of life with the waning ideology that propelled it, with the existing national economics and mode of production brushed into dustbin by the real and some might argue the only existing behemoth - the transnational globalization of capitals. Lamenting the decay and rusting of the steel factory complex in Manchuria, West of the Tracks documented the lives and flesh among the steel, and through the pathos and ethos on screen it also preserved a vestige of some short-lived metal sheen coming through the by-gone age and aspiration of Chinese socialism, splintering its aura and shining the sublime through the pixilation and ebbing torrents of a post-socialist sublimation.

For those of us who didn’t make it to the left party, all puns intended, here is the chance to be united, like the “Workers of the World, Unite!” It is a wonderful feeling of camaraderie with fellow cinephiles, being re-united, watching the whole nine hours of West of the Tracks together. Meanwhile, we can also imagine the camaraderie of fellow workers who share a belief in a better society through revolution, through steel and blood, no matter how irrelevant it may sound today, that had united many before, among and after us.

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Cinephiles Unite!!

I picked up my first copy of Giant Robot in 1997 after a long stint in Asia. Having this magazine that also seemed to have one foot in Asia and another in North America was a good way for me to quell my so-called “reverse culture shock.” Since then I have become a quiet disciple of Giant Robot. They have turned me on to more music, books, art and films than I can number. At the heart of the magazine are co-editors Eric Nakamura and Martin Wong who will be visiting the Walker on Thursday October 5. As resident Asian film geek and GR fan, I was just short of bouncing up and down in my chair when I found out Eric and Martin would be visiting. (Okay, maybe I was bouncing a little bit, but nobody saw.) In all seriousness, I have a great amount of respect and admiration for all the tenacity and energy that has gone into the magazine since it's DIY beginnings in 1994. I selfishly seized the opportunity to ask them a few questions (some filmic, some non-filmic) and Eric and Martin graciously agreed:

I may have my ear to ground when it comes to Asian film, but Giant Robot never fails to offer up a handful of very cool bands, books, and art that are completely off my radar. How do you do it? How do you keep it so fresh? Do you guys ever sleep?

Martin: I sleep, but not much! There’s always tons of stuff I want to do every day, whether it’s read a book, see a band play, watch DVDs, check out an art show. We never run out because any one of those things leads to something else. It’s unending. Hopefully, our genuine excitement about the stuff we cover comes through in our magazine.

Eric: I sleep too, and it’s usually enough. I’m into many things, and everywhere I go I see something, I’m always checking stuff out. It’s pretty much a part of my life, so of course it’s always new, and it’s easy. And stuff for me, includes food, weird things people do, and shit on the streets.

Wanna share some new discoveries with us?

Martin: I’ve been into this Chinese writer, Ma Jian. I bought all of his translated books and spent a lot of time trying to track him down only to realize that he doesn’t do interviews. Oh well. His books are still great. I definitely recommend The Noodle Maker and Stick Out Your Tongue.

Eric: I like good food, I blog, I’m starting to paint, I listen to the Buddha Machine, I shopped at the Uniqlo store in NY (it’s inexpensive!), and I like art by Susie Ghahremani and Jack Long. I’ll be going to Japan and Hong Kong, so hopefully, I’ll see many more new things.

In some respects it is a good time to be an Asian film fan: small labels like Panik House, Artsmagic, and Discotek are putting out some great titles on DVD; more and more Asian directors like Takashi Miike, Park Chan-wook, and Johnny To, who would previously be marginalized as cult directors, are making an impact on the festival circuit; and Asian film is getting more screen time than ever in the US. On the other hand, you have things like Memoirs of a Geisha, a cheesy remake of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Pulse, and Wong Kar Wai making a movie with Jude Law and Norah Jones! Is this just the necessary “take the good with the bad” scenario? Or is this just the beginning of a US homogenization process on Asian film?

Martin: It’s definitely easier than ever to find cool movies from Asia. I think that’s great. Yes, film festivals mean we have more chances to see obscure and imported movies on the big screen. And yes, there are plenty of domestic releases. But the relative cheapness of Hong Kong DVDs (even for Korean, Japanese, and Thai films) plus region-free players might be the most empowering thing for true movie dorks like us.

I can’t really comment on the U.S. remakes since I never watch them, but I have to admit that the trailer for Scorsese’s version of Infernal Affairs looks pretty good!

Eric: In general, making weird-sounding films or remakes is just a direction. Each director wants a challenge. I think since I work with artists, I see this often. However, when it’s just about money, then it’s another story. Since we’re in LA, we hear about some of the bad crap that goes on in Hollywood.

There is so much that I’m excited about in Asian film: the strong re-emergence of Thai film, Korean film doing some serious ass-kicking at the box office, Mainland China's independent documentary scene, Katsuhito Ishii's Funky Forest, and honestly just the sheer diversity of what's going on out there. What are you guys excited about in the Asian film scene?

Martin: After heavily getting into Japanese and Korean films, I’m going back to HK cinema. Election 2 is incredible, and I think Daniel Wu’s Heavenly Kings is inspiring, too. It’s cool that some of the younger actors in the industry aren’t content to act in mainstream movies, but want to rock the boat, too.

Eric: I see much less. But I liked Jet Li’s martial arts film, Fearless. That showed a lot of heart to make a rad kung-fu flick that’s mixed with his philosophy-that made the film special. It’s nothing brand new, but in the end, it’s sort of like the cherry on top, since it’s Jet Li in a fine moment.

I have a serious addiction to late ’80s/early ’90s Hong Kong films--I love them way more than is rational and I never tire of watching them. Do you guys have any guilty pleasures you want to admit to!?

Martin: I have to admit that I’ll watch almost any movie with Hsu Chi. She’s been in some pretty bad movies, and I’m not even talking about the pornos.

Eric: I’ve seen The Killer about 20 times and Chung King Express about 10 times.

Huge thanks to you guys for indulging me. We are all looking forward to your visit to the Twin Cities and the Walker. Now, just one final, but very important question: Who's your favorite Ugly Doll character?

Martin: I like the special-edition ninja version of Babo. He’s decked out for a secret mission, but still wants a hug.

Eric: I have a bizarre handmade Uglydoll that you’ve never seen, and probably never will — but who knows.

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Keep up with what Martin is doing here.

And keep up with what Eric is doing here.