San Diego Asian Film Festival 2014 Review: Tsai Ming-liang's "Journey to the West"

Journey to the West (Xi you). 2014. Written and directed by Tsai Ming-liang. Produced by Vincent Wang and Fred Bellaiche. Cinematography by Antoine Heberle. Edited by Lei Zhen Qing. Music by Sebastien Mauro. Sound engineering by Frederic Salles. Sound editing by Xavier Dreyfuss.

Cast: Lee Kang Sheng, Denis Lavant.

(Note: this review was originally posted on Asian in NY.)

At last year’s Venice Film Festival, where Taiwanese master auteur Tsai Ming-liang’s most recent feature Stray Dogs premiered, Tsai announced that it would be his last. And indeed, Stray Dogs, which contained references to just about every other film in his oeuvre and featured most of his regular actors, did have the feel of a final statement. However, this was before Tsai won the Grand Jury Prize at Venice, so it remains to be seen whether this will encourage him to continue, and prove his “retirement” to be as lasting as Steven Soderbergh or Jay-Z’s.

The most hopeful sign that this will be the case is the fact that just a few months after Venice, at the Berlin Film Festival, Tsai debuted another major work, Journey to the West, a sublime, contemplative creation that is one of his finest. Of course, this is not to be confused with Stephen Chow’s recent big-budgeted blockbuster hit of the same name. Other than the fact that the two films share a title and are based in their own ways on the same classic Chinese narrative, you’d be hard-pressed to come up with two works more dissimilar, or that seem more to exist in separate universes.

Tsai’s Journey to the West evades any sort of easy classification. At just a few minutes shy of an hour, it doesn’t quite qualify as a feature. It also exists far outside the realm of narrative cinema, and is more akin to an art installation.

This is the sixth in Tsai Ming-liang’s series of short films starring his regular lead actor/perennial muse Lee Kang-sheng as a slow-walking monk making his travels in various urban centers around the globe. This ongoing project was inspired by a performance Lee gave in a stage play Tsai wrote and directed called “Only You,” in which Lee walked very slowly on the stage. As Tsai writes in his statement included in the Journey to the West press notes: “His performance was so perfect that I decided to film it. His walking, so special and so slow, recalls that of Xuanzang, the holy monk of the Tang Dynasty, who traveled thousands of kilometers seeking the holy scriptures.”

The series began with Tsai’s 2012 short “Walker,” shot in Hong Kong, which established the template: Lee Kang-sheng, dressed in red monk’s robes, barefoot, head down and arms out in a supplicating gesture, walks very, very slowly, his infinitesimal progress across the frame existing in sharp contrast to the bustle of the city and the people around him. Lee represents a meditative oasis in the midst of the rapid activity that surrounds him, and the films are the apotheosis of Tsai’s inimitable style of wordless contemplation, his riposte to the fast-cutting and over-plotted narrative noise of most other films.

Journey to the West moves the (non)action to Marseille, France, and this time Lee’s monk gains a disciple of sorts, in the person of inimitable French actor Denis Lavant, best known for his collaborations with iconoclastic French auteur Leos Carax (Lovers on the Bridge, Holy Motors). The film consists of 14 shots, most of them relatively brief, save for two lengthy centerpiece scenes. It begins with a very long shot, a nearly ten-minute close-up of Denis Lavant’s face as he is reclining. With the only sounds on the soundtrack Lavant’s labored breathing, we are invited to contemplate every wrinkle and crevasse on Lavant’s uniquely craggy visage. In this and every subsequent shot, Tsai challenges us to view images in a very different way than we are used to, the regard the act of seeing as a sort of contemplative meditation, the slowness and austerity of the shot forcing us to engage actively with the image, rather than be a passive consumer, as in most other films. In this goal, Tsai succeeds immensely, with exquisitely composed artistry and rather unexpected humor.

The film’s two longest shots perfectly illustrate this. The film’s longest shot is a nearly 20-minute shot of Lee slowly descending a staircase down into a subway, the camera imperceptibly moving to capture his deliberative descent. The delicate movement, colors, and composition of the frame is mesmerizing and simply stunning. Sunlight shines in a halo surrounding the monk, as dust motes fly in the air. The reactions of the people who go past him are also fascinating to watch. The monk mostly has the side of the staircase he is descending to himself, as most of the other commuters going into the subway regard him as an obstruction to get around, and a brief object of curiosity. The only person who regards him closely is a little girl who lingers at the top of the stairs, staring at him curiously as she seemingly waits for a relative to pick her up.

The other long scene features Levant; before this, Lee and Levant are kept apart, existing in separate shots or in scenes where Levant is close to the camera while Lee is a figure in the distance. However, in a long scene in front of an outdoor café, Lee does his slow walk in front of a group of curious and amused onlookers and passerby. As Lee walks, Lavant suddenly appears behind him, walking slowly as well, mirroring Lee’s slow movement almost perfectly, his mimicry a supreme expression of inspired devotion.

Journey to the West ends with its most surprising and striking shot, an upside-down view of a scene, where the mirrored surface of a canopy occupies three quarters of the frame. We scan the scene for the iconic red-robed monk, but we don’t find him. After awhile, the familiar presence appears, entering the upper right of the frame. And with that the film ends, with this postscript from Tsai, quoting the Diamond Sutra:

All composed things are like a dream,
A phantom, a drop of dew, or a flash of lightning,
That is how to meditate on them,
That is how to observe them. 

This perfectly expresses the philosophy behind, and the beauty of, the sublime cinema art Tsai Ming-liang has been creating for over two decades. Hopefully, this isn’t the last we’ve heard from this endlessly brilliant artist of cinema.


Journey to the West screens on November 10, 8:40pm as part of the San Diego Asian Film Festival, preceded by the short "Walker." For more information, and to purchase tickets, visit the festival's website.

San Diego Asian Film Festival 2014 Review: Lou Ye's "Blind Massage"

Blind Massage (Tui na). 2014. Directed by Lou Ye. Produced by Wang Yong. Written by Ma Yingli, based on the novel "Tui na" by Bi Feiyu. Cinematography by Zeng Jian. Edited by Kong Jinlei and Zhu Lin. Music by Johann Johannsson. Production design by Du Ailin. Costume design by Zhang Dingmu. Sound by Fu Kang.

Cast: Qin Hao, Guo Xiaodong, Huang Xuan, Zhang Lei, Mei Ting, Huang Lu, Jiang Dan, Huang Junjun, Mu Huaipeng, Wang Zhihua, Wang Lu.

(Note: this review was originally posted on Twitch.)

Often controversial Chinese filmmaker Lou Ye delivers one of his finest films with Blind Massage, a delicately observed and artfully directed ensemble drama, based on the novel of the same name by Bi Feiyu. Putting aside, at least for the time being, the intensely sexualized scenarios that marked some of his previous films (Summer Palace, Spring Fever, Love and Bruises, Mystery), Lou immerses us in a unique world - that of the blind - that's never been captured on film in quite this way. Sighted professional actors playing blind, including some Lou regulars, mesh seamlessly with actual non-sighted and partially-sighted amateurs to create a broad canvas encompassing several stories that are all engrossing and beautifully rendered.

Blind Massage begins with an offscreen narrator (who is heard intermittently throughout the film) telling the story of Xiao Ma (Huang Xuan) who lost his sight in a car accident that killed his mother. After he learns that his blindness is permanent and not a temporary condition as he'd been led to believe, he attempts suicide by cutting his own throat. After being saved, he is taught Braille and later joins the Sha Zongqi Massage Center in Nanjing, where blind and partially sighted masseurs and masseuses service customers and are provided with a home and livelihood. This is also where most of the action in the film takes place, in this bustling, crowded environment where joys, pain, and passions play themselves out in a way that is quite mesmerizing to behold.

After the opening credits - which, appropriately in a film about the blind, are read aloud rather than printed onscreen - we are introduced to the other workers and residents of the center. As the narrator tells us, the film initially takes place in the "golden age of blind massage." The center is run by two men with opposite personalities: the garrulous, self-styled ladies man Sha Fuming (Qin Hao) and the more subdued and serious Zhang Zongqi (Wang Zhihua). Sha's old classmate Wang (Guo Xiaodong), fleeing Shenzhen with his tail between his legs after losing his shirt on bad stocks, asks Fuming for a job, since Wang is also a trained masseur.

Wang brings along his fiancé, the partially sighted Kong (Zhang Lei), a sassy and flirtatious young woman who very quickly becomes Xiao Ma's object of erotic obsession. Sensing Xiao Ma's frustration over his unrequited desire, his friend Zhang Yiguang (Mu Huaipeng) takes him to Nanjing's red-light district, and to a very different kind of massage parlor, where Xiao Ma meets Mann (Huang Lu), a beautiful young prostitute; they soon forge a much closer relationship than the normal hooker-client one. However, Xiao Ma still can't let go of his feelings for Kong.

Meanwhile, Fuming falls head over heels for a new masseuse, Du Hong (Mei Ting); she fends off his advances, and generally finds the other male workers' obsession with her beauty to be a burden. Also, Wang has to defend his younger brother from some scary loan sharks; he backs them off by performing a startlingly violent and rather gory bit of self-sacrifice.

Lou Ye and screenwriter Ma Yingli weave all these stories together with sensitivity, compassion, and an elegant artistry that is often stunning. In a presumably similar way to Bi Feiyu's source material, these blind characters are not held up as objects of pity nor are their stories presented as vehicles for cheaply inspirational uplift. Instead, they appear to us as full human beings, with the same joys, laughter, pains, suffering, and sexual desires as so-called "normal" people. They're not over-romanticized, either; some of them are seen committing some rather negative and unsavory acts. At the same time, the dignity with which they practice their craft and carry themselves is quite remarkable; one of the films' best scenes has the blind workers leading sighted visitors safely out of the building during a blackout.

Blind Massage also finds a wonderful way to approximate for sighted viewers the experience of blindness; vertiginous close-ups, blurry and impressionistic visual textures, and odd angles form a great deal of the visual schema of the film. This is a great testament to the talents of cinematographer Zeng Jian, who won a Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution at this year's Berlin Film Festival for his work. Also contributing greatly to the evocative mood is Icelandic composer Johann Johannson - who also scored Lou Ye's previous film Mystery - who provides a spare, minimalist score that beautifully undergirds the rich landscape of human emotions that Ye and his collaborators have so vividly created.

Blind Massage screens on November 8, 3:45pm as part of the San Diego Asian Film Festival. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit the festival's website.

Review: Jang Jin's "Good Morning President"

Good Morning President. 2009. Written and directed by Jang Jin. Produced by Lee Taek-dong. Cinematography by Choi Sang-ho. Edited by Kim Sang-beom. Music by Han Jae-gweon. Production design by Kim Hyo-shin. Sound by Im Hyeong-geun and Choi Tae-yeong.

Cast: Jang Dong-gun (Cha Ji-wook), Lee Sun-jae (Kim Jeong-ho), Goh Doo-shim (Han Gyeong-ja), Lim Ha-ryong (Choi Chang-myeon), Han Che-young (Kim Yi-yeon).

Now that South Korea has just elected its first woman president, Park Geun-hye, now would be a good time to look back on a Korean film that imagined, or maybe anticipated, such a thing happening: Jang Jin's 2009 film Good Morning President. This was an entertaining, gently satirical portrait of Korean politics by one of that country's top commercial directors. I saw this film when it opened the Busan International Film Festival (then "Pusan") in 2009. During the press screening and conference earlier that day, Jin had some choice words concerning Ms. Park's father, 1960's and 70's dictatorial president Park Chung-hee. Below is the review of the film I wrote at that time.

Jang Jin’s latest film, Good Morning President, the opening night film of this year’s Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF), is above all else a slickly packaged entertainment, a diverting work that solidifies this popular director’s unerring commercial instincts.  If that sounds like a somewhat backhanded comment, let me assure you that it isn’t; the ability to deliver an effective crowd-pleaser can be an achievement as worthy of praise as any art film director’s attempt to create an auteurist masterwork.  Jang certainly delivered the goods with his new film.  As of this writing, Good Morning President is currently the top film of the Korean box office, remaining in that position for two weekends now since its release on October 23, handily overcoming stiff competition from very high-profile foreign releases, including the Michael Jackson concert documentary This Is It.

Jang’s film is a panoramic portrait of the political and personal lives of three successive fictional Korean presidents: Kim Jeong-ho (Lee Sun-jae), who at the outset is on his way out of office; his much younger successor Cha Ji-wook (Jang Dong-gun), dubbed “the Korean JFK”; and Korea’s first woman president, Han Gyeong-ja (Goh Doo-shim).  If any political satire (which Jang’s scenario would seem ripe for) exists here at all, it’s of the gentlest kind possible; one imagines what a more irreverent director, for example Im Sang-soo (The President’s Last Bang), would have done with this material.  As Jang himself said at the press conference for his film, his interest mostly lies in delving into the personal lives of the political figures he examines, and bringing the often remote personage of the Korean president down to a much more human level.  The three presidents of Jang’s film are shown struggling to balance their responsibility to look after and protect their citizens with the demands of their private lives.  Much of the humor of the film, as well as its more emotional moments, arises from the conflicts that result from these opposing personal/political forces.

Korea is a very old country with a very young democracy; its first democratically elected president, Roh Tae-woo, took office in 1988.  South Korea’s preceding presidents were essentially dictators in all but name; the last two that preceded Roh, Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan, seized power in military coups.  Jang mentioned in the press conference that he grew up in the era of Park Chung-hee, who despite the reforms he instituted that brought rapid technological advances to Korea in the 1970’s, was also a very socially repressive and despotic figure who smothered any political or cultural elements that he considered a threat to his hegemony.  Jang talked of the oppression he personally felt living through this period; we can infer from this that “Good Morning President” is in part a celebration of the fact that with democracy, the president is now a much more humane figure, more accessible to the people he (or she, in this film) serves and far more accountable to them.  This by no means should imply that South Korea is now an idyllic paradise; Jang doesn’t lose sight of the country’s political problems.  If one could anthropomorphize South Korean democracy, it would currently be a 21-year old; the growing pains and relative immaturity of such a person is sometimes observable in Korean politics.  And though Jang does not dwell on this, he is clearly aware of that fact, and it gives a definite frisson to the comedic elements of his film.

While this year’s PIFF had much more visually inventive and formally daring films, Good Morning President was a good choice with which to open the festival, a superior commercial entertainment that was a tasty appetizer to the more substantial meals offered afterward.  I would be remiss here not to mention the great cast Jang has assembled, starting with Jang Dong-gun as Cha Ji-wook, making a very high-profile return to the screen after a four-year absence.  Jang is much more than a handsome face here (although that is certainly an attraction, especially for his female fan base); he nicely conveys the slick operator as well as the more genuine person that coexists within his character.  Goh Doo-shim is also fascinating as the Korean female president; although it is admirable that Jang doesn’t unduly underline her status as such, one wishes Jang offered some more pointed commentary on how her character navigates Korea’s still rather patriarchal society.  Nevertheless, Goh provides much heart to her role, and she works well with Lim Ha-ryong, who plays the first husband, and who is more often than not an embarrassment to the president.  (If Cha Ji-wook is the Korean JFK, then President Han’s husband is the Korean Billy Carter or Roger Clinton.)  Their love/hate relationship provides very potent comedic and romantic sparks to the film.  The beautiful Han Che-young also shines in her much more limited role as President Han’s spokesperson and President Cha’s old flame.

2012 African Diaspora International Film Festival Reviews: "La Playa D.C." and "Toussaint Louverture"

The 20th edition of the African Diaspora International Film Festival screens in New York from November 23 through December 11, 2012 at Teachers College at Columbia University, Symphony Space, NYIT Auditorium on Broadway, The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and the Black Spectrum Theatre. Below are reviews of two major highlights of this year’s festival.

La Playa D.C. (Juan Andres Arango, Colombia, 2012)

Chosen as an official selection of the Un Certain Regard section of the year’s Cannes Film Festival, La Playa D.C. marks an auspicious debut of 35-year old director Arango, who delivers a unique vision, by turns harrowing, heartrending, and humorous, of his native Colombia. He transforms the familiar coming-of-age story with wonderfully evocative cinematography by Nicolas Canniccioni which vividly renders Bogota’s unique geography of harsh concrete jungles surrounded by lushly verdant greenery, as well as a pulsating hip-hop soundtrack that perfectly mirrors the restlessness of the film’s characters. La Playa D.C. follows Tomas (Luis Carlos Guevara), a 13-year old Afro-Colombian whose life experience makes him seem much older, and his struggles to keep his head above the dangerous waters of poverty, drugs, and street life in the capital. His family was forced to flee the civil war on Columbia’s Pacific coast, eventually making their way to Bogota. Tomas’ older brother Chaco (James Solis) has recently returned from being deported from “El Norte,” i.e. the US, and is saving money to return to his family’s hometown, and perhaps make a second attempt to escape the country. His younger brother Jairo (Andres Murillo) has succumbed to crack addiction and now owes a debt to drug dealers after smoking away the product he was meant to sell. With a mostly ineffectual mother and a hostile stepfather, Tomas is forced to take to the streets to survive. He hopes to make a living with his artistic skills in a very specific way: carving out elaborate haircut designs for the young Afro-Colombian teenagers who adopt this as a major part of their fashion and cultural identity. Arango is especially adept at giving us a visceral sense of how this community is looked upon as outsiders in their own country and subject to race-based hostility. This is pertinently illustrated in one scene in which Tomas and Chaco are chased out of an upscale mall by security guards solely based on their physical appearance. La Playa D.C. gives us a glimpse of a nation that is woefully underrepresented in world cinema, and it excels in immersing us in its environment with stylistic flair and humanistic sensitivity.

(Nov. 24, 6pm and Dec. 3, 8pm)




Toussaint Louverture (Philippe Niang, France/Haiti, 2012)

This year’s festival centerpiece, this two-part, three-hour epic made for French television, represents, as far as I know, the first successful attempt to get the story of the famous Haitian revolutionary leader who organized a famously successful slave revolt and eventually won Haiti’s independence from France. Actor Danny Glover, among others, has tried for decades to create a cinematic rendering of this historical figure. This production is mostly successful in rendering the scope of this remarkable man’s life, as well as the complicated political and military machinations necessary for Louverture to free his people. Shot in France and Martinique, Haiti itself being unsuitable for actual location shooting, the film’s budgetary limitations are fairly obvious, most notably in the lack of elaborate battle scenes. This is especially unfortunate, since Louverture was as renowned for being a canny military strategist as he was for being a freedom fighter. Someone more versed in Haitian history than I am will have to judge whether, and how much, narrative compression and dramatization have come at the expense of historical accuracy. Still, Toussaint Louverture does a very good job in illustrating the complex thicket of racial politics and strategic alliances that went into the process of Haiti’s independence. Also, Jimmy Jean-Louis is a riveting presence as Louverture, and brings an impressive sense of gravity and a sense of the human being behind the historical figure.

(Dec. 1, 5pm)



For more information on these and other festival films, and to purchase tickets, visit ADIFF’s website.

New York Asian Film Festival 2012: Review Roundup

The New York Asian Film Festival kicked off last night, and it will continue at the Walter Reade Theater, Japan Society, and Tribeca Cinemas through July 15. Click here for more info and to purchase tickets.

My NYAFF 2012 preview is now up over at Film-Forward. Below are brief reviews of the opening night films.

War of the Arrows (Kim Han-min)


A costume drama of breathless immediacy, Kim’s third feature employs the Manchu War of 1636, during which the Qing Dynasty of China invaded and enslaved hundreds of thousands of Koreans, as the backdrop for thrilling chases and convincing scenes of archery. The second half of the film is basically an extended chase scene, and the opening sequence hits the ground running, as an accused traitor is hunted down and executed in front of his two children, themselves in hiding from the authorities. Cut to 13 years later, and the two grown-up siblings Nam-Yi (Park Hae-il) and his younger sister Ja-in (Moon Chae-won) have been raised by friends of their father, with Ja-in about to marry Seo-Goon (Kim Mu-yeol), the son of the family. Nam-Yi fritters away his days in drunken despair over forever being branded the son of a traitor, and though he vehemently opposes his sister’s marriage, he is powerless to prevent it. On his sister’s wedding day, his family has the misfortune of being directly in the path of the Manchu invaders, and his sister, along with their entire village, is captured and enslaved. Nam-Yi escapes the carnage and finds a renewed sense of purpose in fulfilling his father’s parting directive to take care of his sister, and relentlessly pursues the invaders to rescue his sister. Standing in his way is Jyu Shin-ta (Ryu Seung-ryong), a methodical, cold-blooded killer who is the head of an elite squad of Qing Dynasty troops. They pursue each other by proxy as Shin-ta follows Nam-Yi’s trail of fallen Manchu soldiers. This is superior action filmmaking in every sense, with camerawork as swift as the arrows that soar throughout, and an uncomplicated, primal heroes-and-villains story rendered with plain and direct, yet incredibly elegant freshness.

Vulgaria (Pang Ho-cheung)

Hong Kong director Pang is often at his best in bawdy comedy mode (Men Suddenly In Black, AV), and his latest film Vulgaria, NYAFF’s opening night film, finds him firing on all cylinders. Based, according to its director, on actual incidents in the Hong Kong film industry, Pang has made an incredibly filthy movie that achieves its perversity solely through dialog, without a trace of nudity … without human nudity, anyway. In this sense, you could see Pang as Hong Kong’s answer to Kevin Smith, except with actual filmmaking talent. Framed as the recollections of an opportunistic, scruples-free producer (Chapman To) spinning true-life tales in front of a class of film students, Vulgaria’s jokes and gags come fast and furious, and they all hit their targets. A certain level of familiarity with the Hong Kong film industry, especially its Category III sex-and-violence sector, will be required to get all the jokes. (It especially helps if you’ve seen the recent HK softcore saga 3D Sex and Zen: Extreme Ecstasy, whose star Hiro Hayama here plays himself). All the actors are game, and acquit themselves with riveting energy and verve, as they navigate this world of triad investors, product placement, extreme cuisine, and as the hilarious cherry on top, drunken bestiality (perhaps Clerks 2 was an inspiration here?). Among Vulgaria’s many delightful qualities is a fantastic breakout performance by Dada Chan as a model/aspiring actress/video game designer named Popping Candy, so called because of her unique blow-job technique. She takes what in other hands would be a throwaway role and transforms it into a soulful one, and makes clear that there is a fierce intelligence behind her pulchritudinous beauty.

Boxer’s Omen (Kuei Chih-hung)

This bizarre (to put it very mildly) Shaw Brothers horror/fantasy production from 1983 has a thin sliver of a plot involving a man (Philip Ko) who travels to Thailand to get revenge against a kickboxer (Bolo Yeung) who killed his brother in the rung during a match. But this is where things get weird: he goes to a Buddhist temple to get help from the monks, and gets caught up in a good-and-evil battle spanning centuries. This is the type of movie the term “midnight movie” was custom made for. The extreme, gross-out imagery – a character consumes his own regurgitated food, which is regurgitated again and stuffed into a corpse’s mouth, which is then sewn into the skin of an alligator – only escalates, with ever scanter logic, with each minute of screen time. Bats, spiders, skulls with their brains made into soup, a writing zombie woman (emerging from an alligator corpse) who is later flayed and dissolved into maggots – all these and more, so much more, are thrown at us in a nearly sadistic assault on the senses. Add to that a couple of entirely gratuitous sex scenes, and you have the kind of what-the-fuck whatsit that you’ll only find at NYAFF.

Tribeca Film Festival 2012 Review: Seung-Jun Yi's "Planet of Snail"

Planet of Snail (Dalpaengi-eui byeol). 2011. Directed by Seung-Jun Yi. Essays and poetry by Jo Young-chan. Produced by Min-Chul Kim and Gary Kam. Edited by Simon El Habre and Seung-Jun Yi. Music by Min Seonki. Sound design and sound editing by Sami Kiiski.

(Note: this review has been cross-posted on Twitch.)


My personal favorite of all the films I viewed at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, Seung-Jun Yi’s mesmerizing and lovely documentary Planet of Snail slowly and patiently reveals to us the dimensions of the love story at its center.  The film explores the daily lives of Young-chan, a deaf and blind man, and his companion Soon-ho, a woman whose growth has been stunted by a spinal disability.  As much as we can celebrate Planet of Snail for its myriad exemplary qualities in terms of filmmaking and its sensitive and deeply respectful portrayal of its subjects, it can also be greatly appreciated for what it is not.  It most emphatically is not a maudlin, earnest social-problem documentary that dwells on the difficulties of their existence and holds them up as sentimental objects of pity.  Instead, with uncommon gifts of close observation and an unhurried, meditative pace, we are taken into their tactile way of perceiving the world, communicating with each other by the Braille they tap out on each other’s hands.  They have full and rich lives of both quotidian daily tasks and art creation and appreciation and, on the evidence of this film, are a good deal more in tune with and attentive to the world they live in than most of us so-called able-bodied folks.

“All deaf-blind people have the heart of an astronaut,” Young-chan at one point says in the voiceover that punctuates the film’s episodes, and reveals himself as a poetic observer of both his own condition and of the universe that surrounds him.  In addition to being a talented writer who regularly enters literary contests and reads stories with a Braille reader he carries around with him, he is also a sculptor, molding clay into animals and human figures.  This latter skill, especially, is indicative of his playful sense of humor; one of the figures he sculpts is a man pissing into a chamber pot.  Young-chan’s reference to himself as an “astronaut” ties into the film’s title; he perceives of himself as a visitor to this world who comes from another world of silence, isolation, and darkness, using his sense of touch to make sense of and revel in the natural world.  His love of nature manifests itself in such activities and putting his hand out to feel the drops of a spring shower, and literally hugging trees in a public park.

Of course, Young-chan is not alone in this quest to interact with the world.  Soon-ho is his nearly inseparable, loving companion each step of the way, assisting him with such daily needs as their meals (tapping out on Braille what and where the food is), as well as other activities as his essay writing and his playwriting (he composes a religious play for his church and is a consultant to another theatre production about deaf-blindness).  Their evident love for each other and mutual dependence on each other is such that it makes their friends envious.  The symbiotic nature of their relationship is revealed in a remarkable scene in which they work together to change a round fluorescent light bulb, an elaborate operation that they achieve with a satisfied sense of accomplishment. Even though Soon-ho at one point says that it would be ideal if they both died at the same time, she comes to recognize the importance of Young-chan’s developing his own self-sufficiency.  Late in the film, Soon-ho nervously watches from a distance as Young-chan attempts to navigate the streets by himself, and later sees him off on a shuttle bus to a facility where others can care for him as well.

Yi shot Planet of Snail over the course of two years, an extended period of time that deepens the intimate feel of the documentary, as well as enhancing the natural beauty of the visuals, which depict the passage of time and the changing of the seasons with a delicacy that is quite affecting.  This is an extraordinary work that is one of the most life-affirming viewing experiences I’ve ever had at the movies, and it’s hard to me to conceive of anyone else who’ll disagree with me after seeing it for themselves.

Planet of Snail opens later this summer at Film Forum, from July 25 through August 7.  Click here for more information at Film Forum’s website.

Tribeca Film Festival 2012 Review: Alex Karpovsky's "Rubberneck"

Rubberneck. 2012. Directed by Alex Karpovsky. Written by Alex Karpovsky and Garth Donovan. Produced by Garth Donovan, Michael Bowes, and Adam Roffman. Cinematography by Beecher Cotton. Edited by Garth Donovan and Alex Karpovsky. Music by James Lavino. Production design by Lindsay Degen. Sound by Charlie Anderson and Will Lautzenheiser.

Cast: Alex Karpovsky (Paul Harris), Jamie Ray Newman (Danielle Jenkins), Amanda Good Hennessey (Linda Harris), Dennis Staroselsky (Chris Burke), Dakota Shepard (Kathy), Sean Sullivan (Detective Timmons), Richard Forbes (Detective Ford), Mariana Basham (Marsha Burke), Gabriel Kuttner (Ken).

(Note: this review has been cross-posted on Twitch.)

Actor and director Alex Karpovsky has been a fixture in the past few years in low-budget American indies, many of which have fallen under the rubric (though I hate the term) of “mumblecore.”  In many of these films, both directed by himself and by others, he is an affable and sardonic presence, who has drawn comparisons in many quarters to Woody Allen.  Often in the characters he plays, a darker undercurrent is revealed that lies underneath the friendly façade presented to the world.  Up until now, at least in what I have seen so far of his work, this all existed more or less solidly in the realm of comedy.  However, Rubberneck, his latest film as director and lead actor, takes him into very different territory; it is a moody and atmospheric piece, full of creeping dread, an emotional reflection of its tortured protagonist.  It is essentially a stalker tale, in the mode of such films as Psycho and Peeping Tom; as a result, the narrative trajectory goes pretty much the way one would expect once the obsessive nature of its main character becomes fully established.  But as the cliché goes, it’s about the journey, not the destination, and Karpovsky delivers a compelling and skillfully rendered trip through his character’s trauma-scarred psyche.

Paul Harris (Karpovsky), Rubberneck’s central character, is a scientist at a research laboratory in suburban Boston, a starkly antiseptic environment that fits the mask of logicality and normalcy that Paul wears, and which gradually slips away as the film progresses.  This unmasking is set into motion in the aftermath of one weekend Paul spends having a sexual tryst with his co-worker Danielle (Jaime Ray Newman).  Danielle considers this a one-time thing, to the dismay of Paul, who eight months later, is still unable to let go, and spends his days in tortured awkwardness at still being in Danielle’s presence daily at work.  Even though he applies for work at other labs, he can’t quite bring himself to leave his job, perhaps in the hope of rekindling, or rather, beginning a relationship with Danielle.  His only solace during his longing is the time he spends with his sister Linda (Amanda Good Hennessey) and her son, as well as satisfying his sexual desires with Kathy (Dakota Shepard), a paid escort he frequents.  Whatever faint hopes Paul harbors of getting anywhere with Danielle are dashed when she begins seeing Chris (Dennis Staroselsky), a new employee at the lab.  This unleashes the desperation, anger, and violent impulses that Paul heretofore has very carefully hidden from others, leading to extreme and irreversible consequences.

Rubberneck, written by Karpovsky and Garth Donovan, impresses less with the explanations behind Paul’s pathologies than it does with the use of its suburban settings and eerily stark interiors that surround the protagonist and immerse the viewers fully in his headspace.  Also impressive is Karpovsky’s performance, rendering with chilly intensity this withdrawn and often opaque character who in many scenes in the film is silently lurking and watching.  Incidentally, this year’s festival offered viewers a chance to get a sense of Karpovsky’s range as an actor, and to compare his work in Rubberneck with his more comedic role in Daniel Schechter's film Supporting Characters (which I also highly recommend).  Both films mark the continuing emergence of a remarkable talent both in front of and behind the camera.

Tribeca Film Festival 2012 Review: Kim Nguyen's "War Witch"

War Witch (Rebelle). 2012. Written and directed by Kim Nguyen. Produced by Pierre Even and Marie-Claude Poulin. Cinematography by Nicolas Bolduc. Edited by Richard Comeau. Production design by Emmanuel Frechette. Costume design by Eric Poirier. Sound by Claude La Haye.

Cast: Rachel Mwanza (Komona), Alain Bastien (Rebel Lieutenant), Serge Kanyinda (Magician), Ralph Prosper (The Butcher), Mizinga Mwinga (Great Tiger), Starlette Mathata (Komona's mother), Alex Herabo (Komona's father).

(Note: this review has been cross-posted on Twitch.)

I am of two minds when it comes to cinematic depictions of the African continent, in both fiction and documentary films.  On the one hand, the sad reality is that civil war, corruption, political instability, and famine are inescapable features of many African countries, due to the legacy of European colonialism and the subsequent failings of indigenous leaders.  On the other hand, focusing on such subjects leads to a narrow and skewed view of a continent with rich history and culture, especially considering the fact that many films about Africa are made by non-Africans.  However sympathetic and respectful these outsiders to the cultures may be, there often remains an inescapable aspect of voyeuristic tourism, aimed more at appealing to Westerners than to African people themselves.

At first blush Canadian filmmaker Kim Nguyen’s fourth feature War Witch would seem to conform to the usual trends.  Shot in the Democratic Republic of the Congo but not the specific setting of the film, which is rendered as an unnamed sub-Saharan African country, War Witch deals with the phenomenon of child soldiers, a subject that has been explored in numerous films and TV reports.  The usual issues of the loss of innocence and war trauma are dealt with here as well, so there is certainly nothing ground-breaking or particularly novel in what Nguyen offers us, at least as far as subject matter goes.  What elevates this film above many others, however, is the fable-like atmosphere that informs both the performances and the visual aesthetic.  Also taking the film to a uniquely memorable place is the stunning standout performance by the young actress Rachel Mwanza, a nonprofessional found by Nguyen on the streets of the Congo capital of Kinshasa, who went on to win the best actress award at this year’s Berlin Film Festival.  Mwanza ably carries War Witch almost entirely on her soldiers, never less than convincing at every turn.

War Witch is built around the conceit of Komona (Mwanza), narrating her story to her unborn child, one product of the war that is waged around her, and of which she has been forced to become an active participant.  Twelve years old as the story begins, Komona is taken away from her village by invading rebel soldiers and drafted into the rebels’ child army, but not before being compelled to do the first killing that will haunt her throughout the rest of the film.  We are taken through the roughly three years following her abduction constituting her war experiences.  Komona’s own parents have been replaced by her rifle; the rebel soldiers tell her and the other children that “this is your mother and father” during their training.  Komona’s sadness and fear begin to be alleviated by Magician (Serge Kanyinda), an albino fellow child soldier who takes it upon himself to befriend and protect her.

During a battle with government soldiers, in which Komona is one of the few survivors, the rebels believe she has magic powers that can predict when they will be attacked and protect them from government bullets, and designate her as a “war witch,” and to eventually become the personal property of the rebel leader Great Tiger (Mizinga Mwinga).  Magician sticks by Komona’s side through all of this, and they eventually make their escape from the rebel army to live with Magician’s uncle the Butcher (Ralph Prosper).  Rachel and Magician are able to lead a somewhat normal existence, which includes a humorous episode in which Rachel sends him on a quest to track down a rare white rooster before she will allow him to marry her.  However, the civil war proves inescapable, and they are both drawn back into its murderous embrace.

War Witch has a dreamy, fairy-tale quality that meshes surprisingly well with the more violent aspects of this tale, and Kim Nguyen ably mixes the fantastical elements of his story with a documentary-like aesthetic to create a richly textured work.  The entire cast, a mix of non-professional Congolese actors and professional Canadian actors offer impressive support to the revelatory central performance by Rachel Mwanza, especially Kanyinda as Magician.

War Witch won the Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature at Tribeca, as the award for Best Actress in a Narrative Feature for Rachel Mwanza.

Tribeca Film Festival 2012 Review: Lynn Shelton's "Your Sister's Sister"

Your Sister's Sister. 2011. Written and directed by Lynn Shelton. Produced by Steven Schardt. Cinematography by Benjamin Kasulke. Edited by Nat Sanders. Original music and sound by Vinny Smith. Production design by John Lavin.

Cast: Mark Duplass (Jack), Emily Blunt (Iris), Rosemarie DeWitt (Hannah), Mike Birbiglia (Al), Mike Harring (Tom, in photos).

(Note: this review has been cross-posted on Twitch.)

There are many pleasures to be had in watching Your Sister’s Sister, the fourth feature by writer/director Lynn Shelton (We Go Way Back, My Effortless Brilliance, Humpday), one of the great highlights of Tribeca 2012.  For example, there is the nuanced and lived-in feel of the performances; the way each scene is meticulously mined for maximum comic/dramatic value; and the burnished cinematography that makes great use of the overcast atmosphere of the Pacific Northwest to envelop everything we see in its moody embrace.  But beyond all this, there is the great pleasure of seeing Shelton so beautifully build and expand on her already impressive achievements, delivering (as always) the laughs that come from her characters being placed in rather uncomfortable situations, but adding an emotional weight that enhances both the comedic and serious moments to brilliant effect.

Shelton’s two previous films My Effortless Brilliance and Humpday focused on male friendship and rivalry, and how this can often descend into a mano-a-mano battle of wills, each side loath to back down from whatever emotional position they choose to assume.  Such a rivalry forms the backbone of Your Sister’s Sister, but there are two significant differences.  First, the relationship is between that of brothers, which serves to intensify this sort of rivalry even further, due to the emotional and familial bond that comes into play.  But most importantly, this relationship has already occurred offscreen before the film begins, and is already at an end.  This is because one of the brothers had been dead for a year as the action commences; we are first introduced to the surviving sibling, Jack (Mark Duplass), brooding in a corner as a death anniversary gathering is happening, where the participants share their memories of Jack’s brother Tom.  After Al (Mike Birbiglia) shares a fond memory of a night at the movies with Tom watching Hotel Rwanda, an inebriated and agitated Jack dumps cold water on the proceedings by giving a toast suggesting that Tom wasn’t quite the saintly figure eulogized by his friends.  As one can imagine, this act effectively ends the celebration, bringing Tom’s friends down to Jack’s own depressed level.

This proves to be one breach of decorum too many for Iris (Emily Blunt), Jack’s best friend and an ex-girlfriend of Tom’s.  She stages an intervention with Jack after the party, prescribing a period of exile at her family’s cabin on an island in the Pacific Northwest.  Iris conceives this isolation for Jack as emotional rehab, to shake him out the aimless, depressive slackerdom he has indulged in during the year following his brother’s death.  With literally nothing else better to do, Jack accedes to Iris’ demands, biking out to the cabin.  However, this planned solitude is not to be, as Jack unexpectedly comes upon Iris’ sister Hannah (Rosemarie DeWitt) taking up residence there. (Even a simple set-up such as this plays out in a hilariously awkward and nicely staged scene; Shelton misses few opportunities to humorously reveal character.)  Hannah is also using the cabin as a refuge from her own emotional turmoil, having just ended a seven-year lesbian relationship, drowning her sorrows that night in a bottle of tequila.  That tequila is the catalyst for an ill-advised (and also hilariously awkward) sexual encounter between the two, and a complicated situation that becomes even more so when Iris decides to join Jack at the cabin, unaware that her sister is also there.  This sets into motion a chain of consequences that reveals connections between the three (as well as their links to the deceased Tom), in which hidden motives and desires, long suppressed, rise to the surface.

Shelton’s usual method of making her films involves extensive work with the actors in which they fully collaborate with the director in creating their characters, inventing backstories, and using on-set improvisation to flesh out interactions between them, resulting in often startling and unexpected moments.  One great example is one scene in which Hanna tells an embarrassing “bush story” about Iris. (To clarify, the particular bush involved is not the horticultural kind.)  Iris gets revenge on Hannah for telling this story in front of Jack by rather cruelly causing Hannah to unwittingly breach her vegan diet.  As can be expected, all this results in a lot of talk, and definitely much of this film, similarly to her others, is very dialog-driven.  But that is not all there is to it, although there is great dialog here; Shelton doesn’t neglect dynamic staging, and she clearly has thought much more about composition and showing the relationship between her characters and their setting.  I’ve already mentioned the cinematography, and again I’d like to highlight the great contribution of cameraman Benjamin Kasulke, whom Shelton has worked with on two other films, who provides rich visual texture here.

The performance work by all three principal actors is stellar.  Mark Duplass (no slouch as a director himself, along with his brother Jay) has played similar characters in other films, but here he lends a sense of melancholy that is bubbling just under the surface, which leads to an outpouring of emotion at the end of the film that is quite emotionally moving.  Emily Blunt and Rosemarie DeWitt are never less than convincing as the siblings who form a female counterpart, perhaps, to the brothers who have been separated by death.  Their emotional trajectory eventually takes center stage, pushing the film out of its light comedic territory into something weightier, though never humorless or overly ponderous.

Tribeca Film Festival 2012 Review: Stephen Maing's "High Tech, Low Life"

High Tech, Low Life. 2012. Directed and photographed by Stephen Maing. Produced by Stephen Maing and Trina Rodriguez. Edited by Stephen Maing and Jonathan Oppenheim. Music by Brendon Anderegg, Brad Hyland, and Kevin Micka.

(Note: this review has been cross-posted on VCinema.)

Stephen Maing’s timely and fascinating documentary High Tech, Low Life, examines the subject of journalism and internet censorship in China through the eyes and experiences of two very different citizen journalists.  Both are people from humble backgrounds who found a new calling using the power of blogging and the internet to uncover stories hidden from the public by the government and to give other people like themselves (often in worse circumstances) a voice and an outlet for their grievances that they have been denied in official channels.  High Tech, Low Life has its world premiere at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

27-year-old Zhou Shuguang, known by the blogger handle “Zola,” before embarking on his new internet life, was a vegetable seller from Fengmuqiao, Hunan Province.  “I used to be a nobody before I discovered the internet,” he says by way of introduction.  After deciding on impulse to investigate the forced eviction of citizens of a neighboring province by city developers, and posting what he found on his blog, the overwhelming response and the measure of fame he received encouraged him to pursue citizen journalism full time.  The next major case we see him reporting on is the rape and murder of a young girl by a high official’s relative, and the apparent subsequent cover-up of this crime.  This episode is illuminating not only for its demonstration of Zola’s tenacious efforts to expose the government’s complicity in protecting well-connected criminals, but also the potentially negative aspects of Zola’s attention-seeking personality.  Zola gets his information by disavowing any sort of journalistic identity, posing as simply a curious onlooker and blogger.  He attends the dead girl’s public wake, and rather ill-advisedly snaps a photo of himself smiling by the girl’s coffin, drawing an outraged comment on his blog condemning his lack of respect for the dead.  Certainly, there is an egocentric aspect to Zola’s activities: he often wears a T-shirt emblazoned with his own image, and at one point he takes a picture of himself that makes it look as if he is leaping over the Great Wall of China, which he makes into a large poster that he displays at a Chinese blogger conference.  However, he consciously sees himself as a representative of the youth of China, with their distracted, short attention spans, and his brash, outsized antics seem designed to appeal to them.  And of course, it’s not only about fame, since there are far safer and less controversial ways of achieving fame than flouting censorship; he is no activist, but he tirelessly strives to bring to light practices of corruption and exploitation in his society that are kept from the public.

57-year-old Zhang Shihe, known as “Tiger Temple,” lives in Beijing, and has a much more low-key personality than the younger Zola.  Similarly to Zola, he got into citizen journalism pretty much by accident: he witnessed a brutal murder being committed in public and posted stills on his blog.  It was eventually taken down, but not before being circulated widely by others on the internet.  Tiger Temple finds the outlet for literary expression and his wish to help others less fortunate that had heretofore eluded him, regularly traveling on his bike to the countryside and reporting on farmers who have been neglected and ill-treated by government authorities.  He interviews and reports on people who have had their land used as dumping grounds for toxic industrial and human wastes, and on those who have suffered the broken promises of government to assist them during changing agrarian policies.  Tiger Temple’s age and personal background provide a sense of history and cultural context that forms a counterpoint to Zola’s relative inexperience.  Tiger Temple’s family suffered from persecution during Mao’s Cultural Revolution, in which his family lost everything and he became homeless; thereafter Tiger Temple embarked on the itinerant lifestyle that he practices today.  Tiger Temple, also in contrast to Zola, sees his brand of journalism as activism and advocacy for the people he reports on.  He arranges for legal representation for the farmers, and he also tries to help the homeless in Beijing around Tiananmen Square find housing after the city destroys their makeshift shelters. 

The film alternates between Zola and Tiger Temple’s separate trajectories, until the two finally meet at a Chinese blogger’s conference.  During their meeting, Tiger Temple sizes up Zola immediately: he calls him a “playful warrior,” a great phrase that perfectly describes Zola’s approach to his journalistic activities.  Zola is also quite self-aware of his own generation: “We’re selfish,” he says of himself and others of his age; he sees this attitude as the first step in “breaking out of the Communist mindset.”

Zola and Tiger Temple are far from fire-breathing radicals, but their activities in reporting uncensored news nevertheless puts them squarely on the government authorities’ radar.  Even though both are careful not to call themselves “journalists” to avoid government regulation and censorship, this doesn’t prevent them from regularly being followed during their travels and having their plans thwarted.  Zola is refused permission to leave the country to attend a blogger’s conference in Germany, and Tiger Temple is detained in the middle of the night and forced to leave Beijing during a national conference.  Their efforts to evade the “Great Firewall,” China’s massive internet censorship mechanism, by providing information unfiltered by the state, cause them to be regarded as threats to national security.  The heat on them only increases during such sensitive times as the Beijing Olympics and the state uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, the so-called “Arab Spring.”

As indicated in title High Tech, Low Life, Stephen Maing gives us a thorough sense of how the latest technological tools can be used to illuminate the lives of those who live far from the places where such tools are commonly available.  In China’s case, many of these people are those who have been left behind, and often trampled under, in the wake of the country’s rapid economic progress.  High Tech, Low Life travels from Beijing to the remote countryside, binding the experiences of the two contrasting blogger personalities who are its subjects with evocative visuals that vividly illustrate the social context that surrounds these two men and their search for the truth.

2011 African Diaspora International Film Festival Review Round-up

The 19^th edition of the African Diaspora International Film Festival screens in New York from November 25 through December 13, 2011 at Quad Cinema, Teachers College at Columbia University, the Thalia Theatre, and the Schomburg Center for Black Culture.  This year’s festival features 63 films from 37 countries.  Some of the most interesting and eye-opening selections are the documentaries, a few of which I’ll review here. 

An African Election (Jarreth Merz, Ghana/Switzerland, 2010)

Jarreth Merz’s revealing and meticulously crafted film examines in great detail, and with unprecedented access, the inner workings of the 2008 presidential election in Ghana.  The election of Barack Obama earlier that year was a major aspirational influence on all participants in the Ghanaian election, who very consciously saw themselves as an important test case and example to the rest of the African continent.  The major question was whether an African country, especially one with a long history of rulers seizing power through military coups, could conduct a fully democratic election without it descending into the chaos of civil war.  Merz vividly details the twists, turns, and high drama of the 2008 election, especially the contentious period when, with neither of the two major political parties achieving a majority, a runoff election had to be held.  Things got especially tense during the runoff, with accusations of fraud and vote tampering flying fast and furious on both sides.  And even though a winner was eventually chosen without a bloody civil war, which becomes the cause for celebration (and no doubt, relief), unsettling issues remain unresolved.  Not the least of these are the many problems with the voting process itself, which often resulted in long lines and many hours of waiting for people wishing to cast their ballots.  Also, a civil war being narrowly averted seems to be a rather low bar with which to measure the success of an election.  Still, Merz’s film excels in its penetrating examination of democracy in action, which, while not always a pretty sight to behold, is always fascinating to watch.  An African Election will screen for an Oscar-qualifying weeklong run at the Quad, from November 30 through December 6, with shows at 1pm and 7:25pm daily.  Jarreth Merz will appear for Q&A sessions on December 2, 3, and 4.

The Story of Lover's Rock (Menelik Shabazz, UK, 2011)

Music documentaries are a frequent fixture at ADIFF, and a great example is this year’s opening night film The Story of Lover’s Rock, which sheds valuable light on an underappreciated and largely neglected music movement in 1970’s and 1980’s Britain known as “Lover’s Rock,” which was a distinct genre of reggae music which originated among black British people who were born to immigrants from Jamaica and other parts of the Caribbean.  Lover’s Rock was a softer, more romantic version of reggae that was a sharp contrast to the harder-edged, political, Rastafarian influenced music coming from Jamaica.  This music, along with its culture of “sound systems,” (live venues that served as an alternative network to mainstream radio, which mostly ignored Lover’s Rock), and methods of dancing to these baby-making tunes, were an escape from the racism and violence young people experienced at the time.  The Story of Lover’s Rock makes a powerful case for this musical genre as a mostly unacknowledged influence on British popular music, which spawned such figures as The Police, Culture Club and UB40.  Lover’s Rock music, even though its practitioners are still not widely known outside diehard devotees, remains alive through its travels to other countries, especially Japan, where latter-day fans eagerly embraced this music, and helped revive the careers of some of its artists.  The Story of Lover’s Rock will play a weeklong run at the Quad, from November 30 through December 6, with shows at 9:40pm daily.  Shabazz will appear for Q&A’s at the Quad on November 30, December 1, 2, and 3.

The First Rasta (Hélène Lee and Christophe Farnarier, France/Jamaica, 2011)

Jamaican reggae music is aesthetically, spiritually and politically permeated by Rastafarian ideology, which revered Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie I, and advocated healthy living, organic living, and of course, ganja.  Many know at least this much about Rastafarianism; what most may not know about is the story of the man who began the movement, Leonard Percival Howell, who is largely forgotten, even by those who follow a Rastafarian lifestyle.  Howell is the subject of the impressively researched and eye-opening documentary The First Rasta, which seeks to uncover the hidden, and governmentally suppressed, history of the man who existed as a constant thorn in the side to Jamaica’s government, both during and after British colonialism.  Howell lived his early life as a sailor traveling the world, where he picked up ideas from everywhere he went: Communism, Indian philosophy, Marcus Garvey’s back-to-Africa movement, the Harlem Renaissance.  With this eclectic mix of influences, he began a colony in Jamaica known as Pinnacle, where the guiding principle was self-reliance in every aspect, including farming and even creating a separate monetary system.  Howell and his people were often persecuted by the authorities, and Howell spent some time in prison, and was even institutionalized in a mental facility at one point.  An especially revealing fact emerges in the documentary: the most well-known aspects of Rastafarianism, wearing dreadlocks and smoking ganja, were directly influenced by Indians living in Jamaica at the time.  Howell also had an influence on reggae music as well; Bob Marley, the world’s most famous and celebrated reggae musician, derived his nickname, “Tuff Gong,” from Leonard Howell, who was known as “Gong.”  The First Rasta’s most moving passages concern music, much of it sung by now elderly followers of Howell, who are unstinting in their praise of their leader.  The First Rasta screens at the Quad in a weeklong run from November 30 through December 6, with shows at 5:25pm daily.

Love Lockdown (Nadia Hallgren, US, 2010)

A little closer to home (New York City, that is) is the short documentary “Love Lockdown,” which addresses the impact of the radio show “Lockdown Love,” which is a forum for loved ones of incarcerated people.  “Love Lockdown” follows one woman, Shoshanna, who uses the show to send messages to her boyfriend Felix, the father of her children who is currently in jail, as she anxiously waits to hear if he will be given a 10 year prison sentence.  The film sensitively follows Shoshanna’s struggles to cope as a single mother, with the fate of her family, and the possible long absence of the father, threatened with the looming sentence that hangs like a scimitar over all their heads.  The voice of the DJ is a conduit for the most impassioned and heartfelt feelings of those like Shoshanna who use it to communicate with their lovers behind bars.  Behind this lies the backdrop of the overwhelmingly black and Latino makeup of those incarcerated in U.S. prisons, which of course is its own sad commentary.  “Love Lockdown” screens November 27 at Teacher’s College at Columbia University and December 8 at the Schomburg Center, both times preceding Benedict A. Dorsey’s feature The Human Web.

For more information on these and other festival films, and to purchase tickets, visit the ADIFF website.

Preview: "Daggers: The Short Festival of Short Horror Films"

The third edition of “Daggers: The Short Festival of Short Horror,” a two-hour program of short horror films from around the world, returns to the Museum of Arts and Design in New York on October 20 at 7pm and October 22 at 3pm.  “Daggers,” curated by noted film critic Peter Gutierrez, puts a premium on displaying the eclectic nature of the horror film genre, and the diverse directorial talents working in this mode of expression, which is often unrecognized by the general public, who are used to the horror film being reduced to a very narrow set of stereotypical stylistics, mostly of the slasher film variety.  “Daggers” admirably works as a corrective to this notion, and finds its chosen directors employing a broad range of stylistic expression, encompassing comedy, gore, surrealism, psychological horror, the musical, animation, and many other artistic modes.

One interesting aspect of this year’s edition is that it affords us the opportunity to see earlier works by film directors who have garnered considerable attention on the film festival circuit.  The three films I chose to preview are very intriguing examples.  “New Born” is an Israeli film by Navot Papsushado, the co-director (with Aharon Keshales) of Rabies, which is billed as Israel’s first slasher horror film.  “New Born” is a much subtler work than that subsequent feature, a moody psychological film about a couple who may or may not have a baby who may or may not be alive or even exist.  Two viewings of this film were not quite sufficient for me to completely discern what exactly was going on, but Papsushado does a very good job suggesting just enough allusive, sinister behavior to keep us interested. 

“Next Floor,” the clear winner of the three films I previewed, is a sly, sardonic, and satirical French-Canadian film by Denis Villeneuve, who subsequently made two acclaimed features: Polytechnique (2007) and the Oscar-nominated Incendies (2009).  The intense drama of those two films are a sharp contrast to “Next Floor,” which features a group of pampered rich partaking of an impossibly opulent meal, with stomach-turning close-ups of knives cutting into animal flesh and seafood, presided over by a maitre d’ who, with the use of a uniquely constructed mansion, turns this feast into an elaborate, sadistic, ritualized sort of carnage.  The roles of master and servant are completely flipped around, and while the servants cater to their clients’ culinary desires, they very much have the upper hand and completely control the fates of the diners.  “Next Floor,” in conception, editing, and effects, is often breathtaking in its audacity and invention, and is a major highlight of this year’s festival.

“Treevenge” is by Jason Eisener, who went on to make Hobo with a Shotgun, a modern day homage to exploitation movies, and this earlier short is as blunt and unsubtle as that feature.  The premise is hilariously brutal and simple: Christmas trees, portrayed in the film as fully sentient creatures, stage a bloody revolt on their sadistic human masters, who cut them down, burn them, and humiliate them with tinsel and lights.  It’s the gore-horror version of The Secret Life of Plants.  The cheap gore effects and the broad playing by its cast add to this film’s goofy charm.

For more information on these and other films in the program, and to purchase tickets, visit the Museum of Arts and Design's website.

Japan Cuts 2011 Review: Masahiro Kobayashi's "Haru's Journey"

Haru's Journey (Haru to no tabi). 2010. Written and directed by Masahiro Kobayashi. Produced by Muneyuki Kii and Naoko Kobayashi. Cinematography by Masamichi Uwabo. Edited by Naoki Kaneko. Music by Junpei Sakuma. Production design by Jun'ya Kawase. Costume design by Masae Miyamoto. Sound by Shin Fukuda.

Cast: Tatsuya Nakadai (Tadao Nakai), Eri Tokunaga (Haru), Hideji Otaki (Shigeo), Kin Sugai (Keiko), Kaoru Kobayashi (Kinoshita), Yuko Tanaka (Aiko Shimizu), Chikage Awashima (Shigeko), Akira Emoto (Michio), Jun Miho (Akiko), Naho Toda (Nobuko), Teriyuki Kagawa (Shinichi).

(Note: this review has been cross-posted on VCinema.)

The masterful performance by legendary actor Tatsuya Nakadai is the most obvious central attraction of Haru’s Journey, the latest film by Masahiro Kobayashi.  Nakadai plays Tadao, an ornery, cantankerous character close to the end of his life, who despite his age is as impulsive, foolish, and self-centered as any typical adolescent, a fact that is remarked on by other characters in the film.  In the nearly wordless opening sequence, Tadao is furiously leaving his home, followed closely on his heels by his granddaughter Haru (Eri Tokunaga), who tries to keep him from leaving.  Taking great offense to Haru’s expression of dissatisfaction with their home life – she has been taking care of Tadao by herself in the years following her mother’s suicide – Tadao sets out to look for his long lost siblings, in the hopes that one of them will take him in.  Tadao, as portrayed by Nakadai, is a complex character: a man with many faults, a selfish man who has hurt nearly everyone around him, yet is not entirely unsympathetic.  Nakadai brilliantly portrays the multifaceted nature of Tadao – the charm and humor that attracts others to him, as well as the many negative qualities that just as strongly repel them.

Haru’s Journey is essentially a road movie, one that begins in Hokkaido (the usual setting of Kobayashi’s films), and winds its way through the towns of Japan’s northern region, as Tadao and Haru visit his siblings, and are summarily rejected by them for various reasons, mostly dealing with the long family history that is gradually revealed in the course of their trip.  Kobayashi recasts Ozu’s Tokyo Story in a sense; his film similarly involves a search for familial shelter on the part of its protagonist.  But while Tokyo Story concerned itself with intergenerational conflict, Haru’s Journey is more about conflicts within the same generation; Tadao’s siblings are still very angry with Tadao because of the selfish ways they were treated by him in the past and, in some cases, bitterly gleeful over his now humbled status as an impoverished supplicant.

Significantly, even though Tadao is the character we initially focus on, the film is not titled Tadao’s Journey.  This is because the true evolution of character occurs within Tadao’s granddaughter Haru, who comes to learn more about him during their trip, and also because she is the catalyst for all that happens.  A quietly wrenching scene occurs late in the film, when Haru confronts her estranged father (Teruyuki Kagawa) and demands answers to why he left her mother, an act Haru believes precipitated her mother’s suicide.

On the surface, Haru’s Journey seems to be much more conventional than Kobayashi’s previous austere, formally rigorous works such as Bashing and The Rebirth.  However, his new film represents an intriguing marriage of potentially sentimental and melodramatic material with an aesthetic style that pulls back from overheated emotion.  Kobayashi makes frequent use of long shots showing the forbidding landscapes he places his characters in, creating a distancing effect that is penetratingly observational.  His detached stance toward the characters and events serve to make the more emotional and conventionally dramatic scenes stronger than they would be without the countervailing elements he places around them.  Kobayashi makes full use of the talents of Tatsuya Nakadai, as well as the iconic presence he brings to this film, along with his association with such Japanese masters as Akira Kurosawa, Mikio Naruse, Kon Ichikawa, Masaki Kobayashi (no relation to Masahiro), Hideo Gosha, and others.  Kobayashi, however, doesn’t allow Nakadai’s legendary status to overwhelm his film, and allows generous space for visual schemes and fruitful interactions with the other characters.  Nakadai, with the aid of Kobayashi’s sharp, tough screenplay, never plays to audience sympathies, retaining his character’s hard edges and uncompromising stubbornness.  Eri Tokunaga is a subtly powerful presence as Nakadai’s foil, and while she may initially seem to be overshadowed by her veteran co-star, her steadfast and steady presence, as well as the emotional journey her character takes, makes an ever greater impression as the film progresses.

Deeply humanistic yet unsentimental, harshly rendered yet beautiful, Haru’s Journey both draws inspiration from and subtly critiques the sentiments of classic Japanese cinema, and proves, once again, that Masahiro Kobayashi is more than worthy to stand alongside the master filmmakers who created those earlier works.  Haru’s Journey, which deals with loss and survival among its themes, gains rather tragic resonance by events outside the film; it was shot in some areas that were devastated by the March 11^th earthquake and tsunami.  Appropriately, 50% of the ticket sales from its screening at Japan Society will be donated to the Japan Earthquake Relief Fund.