Still from Good Cats (Hao Mao), 2008

As attested by the remarkably choreographed festivities at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Chinese know how to party—and nothing was spared for the recent celebration of the People’s Republic of China 60^th Anniversary party on October 1, with special attention paid to showcasing military strength. This momentous occasion marks the longest Communist party rule in history, and although the last 60 years have been met with much criticism and unease, and marked by intense economic, political, and cultural growing pains, China’s unique blend of communism and capitalism is undeniably large and here to stay. Chinese filmmakers (those both inside and outside of the border) are in a unique position to process and reflect their current cultural moment. Many different Chinese film programs around the world are running this fall to celebrate and recognize these filmmakers and this unique and important time in history, including our own film series, The People’s Republic of Cinema which runs November 4-23.

In the scheme of things, 60 years is a drop in the bucket for China’s immense history as one of the oldest civilizations on the planet, but the transformations the “New China” has undertaken are radical on a global scale. The process of modernizing an ancient culture coupled with an inflexible political climate, an environmental crisis, a growing consumerist culture, the tension between Eastern and Western values, a construction zone taking over every major city, and a new generation striving for individualism and creative freedom present enormous challenges.

I experienced this first hand in 2006 on a study trip through the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Spending time with Beijing and Shanghai art students, hip-hop artists, and filmmakers allowed a privileged glimpse into the tensions they experience and make work about. I met some boys in Shanghai who strongly identified with American hip-hop and had started a group that traveled throughout southern China and rapped in Mandarin, Japanese, and English. (Most of the music they knew about had come through Japan, as the Japanese have an easier time finding American music and have been interested in hip-hop culture and paraphernalia for quite some time now.) The 021Crew, as they call themselves, recognize the challenges referenced in hip-hop music (the struggle for self-expression, distrust of government transparency, freedom, individualism, social and class distinctions, and the tension between generations) as parallel to their own. A few of them had studied abroad in Toronto and London, and were presented with new visions of China then the ones they had grown up with. None of them knew about the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989 (it is impossible to find information about this when in China, as it is a restricted online search), nor did they feel comfortable discussing it in public. In fact, after learning about it, they said, “That’s not my China!” And although they felt extreme pride in their country, they longed to experience different freedoms they felt were denied them. Through hip-hop they are able to express themselves and their ideas in ways they couldn’t otherwise. To them, it is a platform of revolution, but the difference is the prescribed action. As language and the written word are the embodiments of knowledge and the foundation of Chinese culture (traditionally, at least), I wonder if in some strange way Chinese hip-hop is an attempt to be a contemporary equivalent.

My Chinese painting professor who led the trip had grown up in a much different China. In fact, as a young boy he had left school to become part of the Red Guard and march all over southern China with other boys his age. The changes he has seen in his lifetime, although subjective and unique, chart the transformations (I struggle to use the word progress) many have experienced on a large scale.

Here is a list of some other festivals celebrating and recognizing the “New China,” and although there probably won’t be fireworks or choreographed parades, I hope you can make it out.

The People’s Republic of Cinema

Walker Art Center

Minneapolis, MN

November 4-23, 2009

http://calendar.walkerart.org/canopy.wac?id=5308

China Independent Film Festival

RCM Museum of Modern Art

Nanjing, China

October 12-16, 2009

http://www.chinaiff.org/html/EN/

LENS ON CHINA

Portland Art Museum Northwest Film Center

Portland, Oregon

September 24-November 5, 2009

http://www.nwfilm.org/screenings/21/207/#1379

NYFF Masterworks: (Re)Inventing China
A New Cinema for a New Society, 1949 – 1966
Film Society of Lincoln Center

New York City

September 26 – October 6, 2009

http://filmlinc.com/nyff/china.html

China Classic Film Festival

Confucius Institute, University of Wales Lampeter

Wales

October 1-31, 2009

http://www.chinaclassicfestival.com/

2009 Tokyo China Film Festival

Tokyo International Film Festival

Tokyo

October 18-25, 2009

http://www.tiff-jp.net/en/lineup/title_24.html

New Zealand Chinese Film Festival

New Zealand’s Pacific Culture and Arts Exchange Center

New Zealand

October 15- November 8, 2009

http://www.nzcta.co.nz/events/

FILMING EAST FESTIVAL

British Academy of Film and Television Arts

UK

October 3-31, 2009

http://www.filmingeast.org/

www.bafta.org/whats-on/global-spotlight-china,828,BA.html

RAINDANCE FILM FESTIVAL

UK-China Film Association (UCFA)

London

October 3-10, 2009

http://www.raindance.co.uk/site/index.php?aid=3797

VISIBLE SECRETS: HONG KONG’S WOMEN FILMMAKERS

Cornerhouse

Manchester, England

October 9 -November 3, 2009

www.cornerhouse.org/visiblesecrets

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Jesikah Ruehle bio:

+Loves being an intern in Film/Video at the Walker

+Graduated last year from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a BFA in Fiber and Material Studies and Film/Video

+Loves to ride her bike and experiment in the kitchen

+Is a hairstylist at FIVETWOSIX salon in St. Paul

+Some of her favorite filmmakers are Chris Marker, Shirin Neshat, Doug Aitken, and Stan Brakhage

+Is an escapist and consequently spends a lot of her free time looking up places to travel to

Formally, the film is deep-dish pleasure. Cinematographer Ed Lachman (using the Red camera system) enables Solondz to raise his visual game to a new level; the richly colored compositions are as bold as the dialogue. —Variety

After a four year hiatus from filmmaking, Todd Solondz is back with his latest feature Life During Wartime. Not to be confused with the Talking Heads song, Life During Wartime is an un-sequel (more of a variation to) Happiness because it stands alone as a singular body of work. Solondz (who made quirky indie favorites like Welcome to the Dollhouse, Storytelling, Happiness, and Palindromes), does not stray too far from his prior films in regards to his controversially dark themes (child abuse, suicide, incest, etc), but does in the regard of compassion. The characters in Life During Wartime have undergone life and the most brutal of its hand, and the way in which Solondz depicts them is with utmost honesty. His ability to tactfully comment the less than savory elements of human behavior—although at times uneasy and unsettling in nature—solidifies the understanding of the people in the film, of society’s capacity of growth and compassion.

While it is not necessary to see Happiness before seeing this film, there are subtle and very funny references to the previous film for those who are familiar with this work. The same characters, played by different actors, have moved on. Their lives have changed, but the memory of something terrible from the past lingers as three distant sisters reconnect and create a portrait of those seeking love and rebuilding family, all to the backdrop of mounting fear of terrorists.

The Walker will be hosting a sneak preview of Life During Wartime on Wednesday October 28^th at 7:30 pm.

It’s a big film weekend in the Twin Cities. Our Joel and Ethan Coen series continues with screenings of Fargo; Intolerable Cruelty; O Brother, Where Art Thou; No Country for Old Men; and The Ladykillers.

With all of our screenings, we’ve certainly had the newest from the Coens, the locally filmed A Serious Man, on our minds.  That one, a sort of unofficial, off-site appendage to our series, opens exclusively at the Uptown Theater this Friday, October 2.

As if that weren’t enough, if you didn’t catch the screening of No Impact Man at the Walker, it too opens up this Friday, exclusively at the Landmark Lagoon Cinema.

Also, the 10th anniversary Sound Unseen Film Festival continues.

See you at the movies!

Tony Manero is not a name often associated with Chile’s dark days under Pinochet’s regime. For those unacquainted with the 1971 film Saturday Night Fever, Tony Manero is the charismatic character John Travolta plays.

Naturally the question to consequently follow is how exactly do the dots of Saturday Night Fever and Pinochet connect? In a simple response, through Pablo Larrain’s latest feature Tony Manero. But in actuality, the answer is not that easy.

Derived by both Larrain and actor Alfredo Castro, Tony Manero makes political and social commentary on Chile (and the United States, simultaneously). Released in 1978 in Chile, Saturday Night Fever came about in one of the bleakest and most miserable times during General Augusto Pinochet’s rule. Director Pablo Larrain and actor Alfredo Castro shared the role of writer, and as the film shows, were able to develop a story that not only exists in allegorical, but also in literal terms.

On the surface, it seems that the film is merely about a social outsider who is unable to break his obsession with Saturday Night Fever and consequently the American Dream. Because of his deep commitment to the film, he finds himself in a routine of watching it in the local theatre repeatedly, auditioning for Chile’s version of Saturday Night Fever, and eventually embodying a dark mutilated version of the character Tony Manero and perhaps Pinochet himself.

With the historical understanding of Chile and the time period, Tony Manero embodies the psychological process of living in a country that undergoes a deep cultural change, which defines how citizens act and relate to the world.

The film has garnered quite a bit of attention as of late. In a recent article from the Village Voice, J. Hoberman writes,

“Impassive but alert, Raúl not only internalizes Tony’s version of the American dream, but memorizes Tony’s lines for use in the four-actor version of Saturday Night Fever he’s staging, with an inexplicably adoring cult of losers, in a grungy Santiago cantina. Raúl’s obsession is complemented by a total disinterest in any human contact… Feasting on this bizarre fascist posturing, Larrain suggests that, with his sordid charisma, Raúl is a miniature Pinochet—reproducing the brutality of the state in his willingness to steal, exploit, betray, and kill in the service of a fantasy.”

Larry Rohter from the New York Times also did a piece on the film that is worth checking out.

As Pablo Larrain stated in an interview,

“I wanted to tell the little story of a man obsessed with what is foreign to him, who lives in a country going through the cultural process which defined our actual way of acting and relating to the world. A prowl on the process of a common man and what surrounds him; or as well, a fragment of something bigger that cannot be seen, because finally, the dance of Raul Peralta’s is, to me, the dance of all Latin-Americans. The dangerous air of underdevelopment and it’s delirious wild abandon that saw itself very much exposed and threatened during the seventies, in the middle of the military dictatorships that struck our region.” (Tony Manero Press Packet)

And that he does.

Tony Manero screens as a part of the Premieres: First Look Series in the Walker Cinema September 11, 7:30 pm, September 12, 4:00 pm, September 12, 7:30 pm, September 13, 3:00 pm. For more information, visit the Walker website.

The first takes place on September 15th as a part of the “A Think and a Drink” member program with the screening of Herb and Dorothy, a documentary about the legendary art collecting couple the Vogels. Herb and Dorothy, he a retired postal worker and she a retired librarian, have built one of the most influential and extensive modern art collections to date. The documentary features a handful of artists the couple has collected from and consequently developed a relationship with over the years.

This event is free to Walker members.

Walker Film/Video is also pleased to announce, as a part of the Premieres: First Look series, the screening of No Impact Man on September 16^th in the cinema. The documentary is based around author Colin Beaven’s (and consequently his wife and daughter) 2007 initiative to live a no-impact lifestyle. What started as perhaps a farfetched idea spiraled into a high-traffic blog, news stories, and documentary film, but ultimately the transformation from the Manhattanite lifestyle Beaven and his wife Michelle were accustomed to.

Co-Directors Laura Gabbert and Justin Schein followed Beaven’s family as they changed habits and adapted to their new lifestyle. The film and blog have created quite a stir, not only about the concept of living a no-impact lifestyle, but also around Colin Beaven’s motives (rumored as a gimmick for his new book). Regardless of your take on the issue,  it seems best to actually see the film and decide for yourself. Viewers have reacted across the spectrum, from being moved by the lifestyle concept, to not being sold on the Manhattanite’s motivation. And now it is your turn to see the film (for FREE!) and make your own mind up.

Co-Director (and native Minnesotan) Laura Gabbert, who has a lush history with Walker Film/Video (participating in Women with Vision and other programs) will be in attendance for the screening along with a Q&A session following the film.

Check out the No Impact Man blog and/or book for more background on the project.

No Impact Man will be playing at the Landmark Cinema beginning October 2nd.

So Yong Kim at the Women with Vision Festival at Walker

Treeless Mountain, So Yong Kim’s second feature film is back in Minneapolis. The film screened this past March in the Walker Cinema as a part of the Women With Vision series and is now being released nationwide. The Landmark Cinema (Edina) will be screening Treeless Mountain beginning on Friday July 17^th. I strongly encourage anyone who missed the March screening to attend the film or even those who attended to see it again.

The New York Times and critics alike have praised the movie since its premiere at the Toronto Film Festival. From the unobtrusive camera , to the child-non-actors, Treeless Mountain is wistfully captivating, telling a story reflecting the director’s memories of growing up in Korea.

“Ms. Kim, her camera hovering gently and unobtrusively around the girls as they play, quarrel and daydream, turns their intimate moments into a quiet, poignant drama of abandonment and resilience.”—A.O. Scott, New York Times

“Rarely has a child’s POV been as evocatively emulated as it is in So Yong Kim’s Treeless Mountain, a work of tremendous poise and poignancy that assumes and articulates the perspective and emotional tenor of its two juvenile protagonists.”—Nick Schager, Slant Magazine

In March, So Yong was in attendance to introduce the film and answer a few questions from the audience post screening.  You can find the audio files from this conversation along with a previous blog post about the film on the Walker website.

For more information about So Yong Kim & the film, visit the Oscilliscope website and the Landmark website for screening times.

In a meaty, 5,000-word feature in last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, critic A.O. Scott brought together a number of recent American independent films under the rubric “neo-neo realism,” proposing that they might serve as an answer to the question that “seems to arise almost automatically in times of crisis” – that is, “What kind of movies do we need now?”

Besides provoking an immediate and rather, uh, spirited counter-critique from The New Yorker’s Richard Brody – a critical clash covered on Indiewire here – it turns out that you may have recently seen – or soon will see – many of the films Scott thinks we need now, right here at the Walker. Lance Hammer’s Ballast premiered here last fall; and the “luminous, poignant” Treeless Mountain by So Yong Kim, just a few weeks ago. Coming up are Tulpan May 8-10 and a mini-retrospective Under the Radar: The Films of Ramin Bahrani; Bahrani’s films Man Push Cart, Chop Shop, and the new Goodbye Solo are a focus of Scott’s feature.

The gist of Brody’s problem with Scott’s analysis – and with cinematic realism in general, be it the neo-realism of post WWII Italy or the neo-neo genre coined by Scott, is that “the willful rejection of complexity and ambiguity; a sympathy for ciphers based on their social position and reinforced by the downbeat warmth of the performers.”

Seems like a pretty harsh assessment, but you can read his full argument yourself – and then (wait for it!) turn to Scott’s own response to Brody on the New York Times’ Carpetbagger blog, observing, among other things, that he was not attempting to define “a style or a school or a movement, but rather a cinematic ethic that has surfaced in different forms in different nations at different moments and that now seems to be flowering in some precincts of American independent cinema.”

Of course, each critic’s argument is much more complicated than what is conveyed here. But no matter which side you might take, we’re just pleased to be screening so many films that have become a part of this kind of debate, which takes place all too seldom these days.

On a related note: As part of his retrospective here, Bahrani is teaching a master class on next Friday, April 3. Whether you’re attending it or not (or for that matter, whether you’re a filmmaker or not) his just-posted Indiewire article dissecting the opening scene from his new film Goodbye Solo is invaluable-an insightful and detailed look into the art of filmmaking.

Easing the pressure somewhat is the virtual consensus that Ballast is a true work of art – you can read the critical hosannas in Variety , the New York Post (!), and the New York Times (be sure to check out the beautiful audio slide show that accompanies that review) – but Hammer is also getting considerable press coverage related to his distribution decision. Going the DIY route means signing on for a huge amount of work that normally would have been done by others (for a price, of course – not just in terms of dollars, but also creative control).

As Manohla Dargis wrote recently, also in the New York Times, “With the support of some publicists, Mr. Hammer and Mr. Raphael will attempt to do what usually takes an army of handlers and entire studio departments to pull off. Mr. Hammer is creating the poster artwork and making the trailer, and together they are booking mainstream theaters and also taking “ Ballast” around the country to universities, film clubs and art centers, just the way many independents have sought and found audiences for decades.”

In that same article, Dargis offers an excellent and concise history on the rise and decline of independent filmmaking since the 1980s; for her part, she doesn’t believe that the recent closings of a number of small film companies is necessarily a bad thing – not, at any rate, for “those who think films have worth beyond their box office returns” or for filmmakers whose “aesthetic sensibility and worldview are of no economic use and interest to the studios or to most audiences either.” Ballast seems to fit on both those counts.

Incidentally, the Times really seems to love this film, not just for itself, but for the larger story it tells about independent, highly personal filmmaking. It figures into this Times story from last summer about DIY distribution, which is geared more to the layperson, and this story from critic Dennis Lim, which traces the story of how Ballast came about – a long, circuitous process that involved an extensive road trip through the Mississippi Delta. Lim also notes that when it comes to techniques, the filmmaker took inspiration from Robert Bresson and Wong Kar-wai, as well as Mike Leigh, the subject of a Walker film retrospective, Mike Leigh: Moments, screening October 3 – 25, as well as a Regis dialogue on October 15.

In the article, Hammer also makes another connection, one worth considering while walking through galleries of Eero Saarinen’s work here and at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Having graduated from USC’s architecture school, he believes what he learned there prepared him for filmmaking – perhaps even better than film school would have. “ Architecture’s about having faith in something unformed,” he points out, “which you then have to manifest materially.”

(By the way, here’s a more in-depth, industry-oriented story about Hammer’s decision to self-distribute Ballast, from indiewire.)

rest in peace

Art Forum

San Francisco Gate

New York Times

Walker Art Center Collections and Resources

(portraits by Larry Keenan)