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.

The Bourne Cinema Filmography: Asghar Farhadi, "About Elly" (2009)

About Elly (Darbareye Elly). 2009. Written, directed, production and costume design by Asghar Farhadi. Cinematography by Hossein Jafarian. Edited by Hayedeh Safarian. Sound by Hassan Zahedi and Mohammad-Reza Delpak.

Cast: Golshifteh Farahani (Sepideh), Taraneh Alidoosti (Elly), Shahab Hosseini (Ahmad), Mani Haghighi (Amir), Merila Zarei (Shohreh), Peiman Ma'adi (Peyman), Ahmad Mehranfar (Manouchehr), Rana Azadivar (Nazzie), Saber Abar (Ali-Reza).

About Elly is a psychologically penetrating film in which a woman’s disappearance gives rise to all sorts of complex issues of morality (both within an Iranian context and without), and questions of culpability and responsibility for tragedy.  The film ever so subtly switches gears from an observational and lightly comic portrait of Iranian middle-class life to a much darker morality play, and astutely demonstrates how both of these modes can be two sides of the same coin.  The story begins innocently and benignly enough, as a group of university friends from Tehran go for a vacation at a beach house near the Caspian Sea, where they engage in various sorts of horseplay, games of charade, volleyball, and other activities, taking advantage of the holiday to shake off the constrictions of their workaday lives.  The group consists of a couple of married couples and their kids, as well as the title character, Elly (Taraneh Alidousti), a shy kindergarten teacher and an outsider to the group who is reluctantly dragged there by her friend Sepideh (Golshifteh Farahani), whose child is in Elly’s class.  Beneath the surface of this deceptively idyllic situation lies deceptions and secret personal agendas, beginning with Sepideh’s true purpose in bringing Elly on this trip: to set her up with Ahmad (Shahab Hosseini), a divorcee living in Germany who is now in Iran on a short visit, and in the market for a new wife.  When the rest of the group catches wind of Sepideh’s attempts at matchmaking, they join in on trying to bring the two together.  Elly resists, for reasons that are revealed only much later.

Farhadi proves to be quite adept at carefully controlling the tone of his film, and by so slowly and patiently setting up the situation and the complex nexus of relationships between the characters, he succeeds in deceiving the viewer as well, lulling us into the notion that this film will continue in this comic mode.  However, about 45 minutes or so into the film, the mood abruptly shifts gears when one of the children is swept out to sea while playing on the beach.  The child is eventually rescued, but an even more serious situation arises when Elly, who had been watching the children, herself goes missing.  At this point, the web of deceit tightens on all of the film’s characters, as all the lies, casual and serious, necessary and unnecessary, come back to haunt them, and the consequences of these lies are unforgiving.  Although some of the deceptions arise from particular proprieties necessary in Iranian society (for example, introducing Ahmad and Elly to the old woman who rents them the beach house as newlyweds), others are much more problematic and in many cases a function of serious breaches of ethics, committed in an attempt to save face or avoid problems with the police.  The brilliance of Farhadi’s script and direction (he won the Silver Bear for best director at the 2009 Berlin Film Festival) becomes most apparent in the later stages of the film, as he deftly maps out the shifts in the perceptions and behavior of the characters toward each other (as well as the viewer’s perception of the characters), as one secret after another is revealed.  Farhadi’s cast is uniformly excellent, especially Farahani, who compellingly registers Sepideh’s shock at how her seemingly innocent matchmaking has taken such a tragic turn, as well as the way her character, like others in the film, is revealed to not be what it initially appears.

About Elly screens on April 6 at 8:30pm, April 7 at 6:45pm, and April 8 at 1:30 at the Walter Reade Theater as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center's retrospective "Asghar Farhadi's Iran." Click here to purchase tickets.

"Love Will Tear Us Apart" Review: Lee Sang-il's "Villain"

Villain (Akunin). 2010. Directed by Lee Sang-il. Written by Shuichi Yoshida and Lee Sang-il, based on the novel by Shuichi Yoshida. Produced by Tomoyo Nihira and Genki Kawamura. Cinematography by Norimichi Kasamatsu. Edited by Tsuyoshi Imai. Music by Joe Hisaishi. Production design by Yohei Taneda. Costume design by Kumiko Ogawa. Sound by Mitsugu Shiratori.

Cast: Satoshi Tsumabuki (Yuichi Shimizu), Eri Fukatsu (Mitsuyo Magome), Masaki Okada (Keigo Masuo), Hikari Mitsushima (Yoshino Ishibashi), Kirin Kiki (Yuichi's grandmother), Akira Emoto (Yoshino's father), Kimiko Yo (Yuichi's mother).

One of my favorite recent Japanese films is the complex crime drama/lovers-on-the-run story Villain, screening as part of Japan Society’s film series “Love Will Tear Us Apart.”  Below is what I wrote on this film when it screened at the 2010 Busan International Film Festival.

The finest film to date from Japanese-Korean director Lee Sang-il (69, Scrap Heaven, Hula Girls) is this tale of murder (based on a novel by Shuichi Yoshida, who also penned the screenplay) rendered in complex shades of gray.  Villain gains its tremendous power from both its excellent performances (not only by the leads Satoshi Tsumabuki and Eri Fukatsu, but the stellar supporting cast), and its intriguingly ambiguous scenario, which challenges easy moral and character judgments.  The “villain” of the title would at first appear to be Yuichi (Tsumabuki), who commits murder during one terrible night in a fit of rage.  But as the circumstances of the night are slowly teased out during the course of the film, and the context surrounding the murder is gradually revealed, we come to learn than Yuichi isn’t the only one worthy of being tagged with that titular appellation.  Two other possible candidates are the flighty, superficial Yoshino (Hikari Mitsushima), whom Yuichi pines for initially, but who herself pursues the rich playboy Masuo (Masaki Okada), who is contemptuous of anyone he considers beneath his station.  All three of them figure into the murder at the center of the story.  Yuichi is eventually forced to go on the lam, where he encounters Mitsuyo (Fukatsu), a shy and lonely woman who impulsively joins this fugitive, determined at all costs to see the goodness that exists at Yuichi’s core, convinced that his act of murder is not in his nature, but forced upon him by circumstance.  The film itself appears to endorse Mitsuyo’s point of view, until an occurrence very close to the end seems to turn that completely on its head.  Lee Sang-il throughout demonstrates an assured, compelling command of visuals and narrative flow, staging the chaotic maelstrom of events with a masterful hand.  Fukatsu won a well-deserved best-actress prize at the Montreal World Festival; her performance is extraordinary, and her role proves to be the film’s most crucial one.

Villain screens at Japan Society on March 9 at 7:30.  Click here to purchase tickets.

"Love Will Tear Us Apart" Review: Hong Sangsoo's "Tale of Cinema"

Tale of Cinema (Geuk jang jeon). 2005. Written and directed by Hong Sangsoo. Produced by Hong Sangsoo and Marin Karmitz. Cinematography by Kim Hyung-koo. Edited by Hahm Sung-won. Music by Jeong Yong-jin. Sound by An Sang-ho.

Cast: Kim Sang-kyung (Kim Tong-su), Uhm Ji-won (Choi Young-shil), Lee Ki-woo (Jeon Sang-won).

Tale of Cinema, Hong’s sixth feature, is an incredibly witty and playful meditation on the confluence of life and cinema. Over the course of twelve films, Hong has created a unique and fascinating body of work, unabashedly auteurist and boldly inventive. From the start, Hong’s films existed in opposition to conventional methods of storytelling, and he makes use of a relatively limited set of character types and milieus (usually the filmmaking and academic worlds) to experiment with narrative structure in his films. Recurring patterns of human behavior, character and narrative mirroring, and repetition run throughout his films. Along with that, he offers funny, painful, awkward, and brutally honest depictions of male and female relationships. Tale of Cinema added some intriguing new wrinkles to his cinematic strategy: this time (as the English title makes clear), cinema itself is his main subject matter. Similarly to some of his other films (The Power of Kangwon Province [1998], Virgin Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors [2000], Turning Gate [2002], Woman on the Beach [2006]), Tale of Cinema makes use of a bifurcated structure with echoes and mirrors in each half. However, while the structures of these other films serve to complicate and deepen our understanding of the characters and their situations, in this film we are invited to reflect on its own status as a cinematic object. To this end, Hong introduced some visual elements that have become stylistic hallmarks of his subsequent films, most prominently the frequent use of the zoom lens. The first time I saw Tale of Cinema (at the 2005 New York Film Festival), I found this quite disorienting, since Hong’s visual style up to that point consisted of minimal camera movement and practically no optical effects. Also new for Hong was the use of a voiceover and much more liberal use of non-diegetic music. All of these elements, including quotes from, and echoes of, his earlier films in Tale of Cinema serve to enhance our awareness that we are indeed watching a film, making what happens to the main character perhaps a cautionary tale.

Tale of Cinema has a loose, improvisational, and comic feel that is quite charming. In the first part of the film, an aimless student (Lee Ki-woo) meets up with a young woman (Uhm Ji-won) he has known in the past, and convinces her to join him in his quest to kill himself. However, things don’t quite go according to plan, as they often do in Hong’s films. In the second half, Tong-su (Kim Sang-kyung), a failed filmmaker, has become convinced that his successful and celebrated film-school classmate has stolen his life story to make one of his films. After watching this film again at a retrospective devoted to the director, he spots the film’s lead actress (Uhm Ji-won again) outside the theater, and begins to doggedly pursue her. For those who haven’t yet seen Tale of Cinema, I won’t reveal the connection between these two halves, since that would lessen the sense of discovery that is at the heart of this film’s considerable charm. Those familiar with Hong’s previous films will sense a subtle optimism that doesn’t exist in his earlier films. Hong, as usual, elicits engaging performances from his leads, Lee Ki-woo a natural as the childish and self-involved suicidal young man, Kim Sang-kyung (who also starred in Turning Gate) quite funny as the bizarre (and possibly delusional) wannabe director, and especially the strikingly beautiful Uhm Ji-won, who deftly pulls off her tricky dual role.

Tale of Cinema screens March 8, 7pm as part of Japan Society’s film series “Love Will Tear Us Apart.”  For the rest of the screening schedule and ticket info, click here.

This post is my contribution to the 2012 Korean Cinema Blogathon, hosted this year by New Korean Cinema and cineAWESOME! You can read all the other entries here.

"Love Will Tear Us Apart" Review: Shinya Tsukamoto's "Vital"

Vital. 2004. Written, directed, edited, photographed and production designed by Shinya Tsukamoto. Produced by Shinya Tsukamoto, Keiko Kusakabe, Koichi Kusakabe, and Shinichi Kawahara. Music by Chu Ishikawa. Sound by Yoshiya Obara. Special makeup effects by Takashi Oda.

Cast: Tadanobu Asano (Hiroshi Takagi), Nami Tsukamoto (Ryoko Oyama), Kiki (Ikumi Yoshimoto), Kazuyoshi Kushida (Hiroshi's father), Lily (Hiroshi's mother), Go Riju (Dr. Nakai), Jun Kunimura (Ryoko's father), Ittoku Kishibe (Dr. Kashiwabuchi).


Shinya Tsukamoto’s beautiful film Vital (2004), one of the great highlights of Japan Society’s film series “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” continues his filmic exploration of the human body. Several of his other films (the cult classic Tetsuo the Iron Man and its two sequels, Tokyo Fist, Gemini, Bullet Ballet, A Snake of June [also screening in the series]) focus obsessively on the materiality of the body, and specifically on the various ways it can be smashed, violated, and exposed. However, in Vital, Tsukamoto goes deeper, literally, digging into the mysteries of human consciousness and what constitutes life.

Hiroshi (Tadanobu Asano), a medical student, wakes up from a coma, caused by a traffic accident in which his girlfriend Ryoko (Nami Tsukamoto) perished. Hiroshi, described by Tsukamoto as a “modern-day Leonardo da Vinci,” returns to his anatomy studies, making detailed drawings of his dissections.  Meanwhile, he struggles to piece together his memory, which was severely damaged by the accident. Asano, who is often quiet and nearly somnambulistic during much of this film, maintains a quietly brooding presence, which draws us into his character’s travels through his consciousness, gradually revealing more details of his life and his relationship with Ryoko before the accident. Through the crucial clue of a cadaver’s tattoo, Hiroshi comes to realize, in the film’s most perverse twist, that the body he is dissecting in his anatomy course is in fact that of his dead girlfriend. Ryoko, whom it seems nursed a desire for death, requested that her body be entrusted to the medical school for the students’ use.

Tsukamoto bathes his film in an icy blue palette and exhibits a striking sense of architecture and space, which is quite effective in exploring the contrasting spiritual realms his protagonist explores. During the time he is dissecting Ryoko’s corpse, he experiences frequent visitations from her, and in this way, he travels between the worlds of the living and the dead. When Ryoko was alive, they often flirted with this boundary through their kinky sex games of erotic asphyxiation. Hiroshi existed in the area between life and death during his coma, and ultimately he must choose whether he wants to be with Ryoko in her world, or remain in the world of the living.

Even though there is more than a hint of necrophilia in this scenario, Vital is remarkably free of exploitative elements and is quite restrained in its approach. There are many memorable and arresting images, such as superimposed cremation smokestacks, and the scenes of Ryoko’s visitations, especially one where she performs an anguished dance on a beach. One of the most moving passages in the film is the combined funeral and med-student graduation, where there is a deep respect expressed for the sacrifices the medical subjects and their families have made in the quest to expand human knowledge. “We owe them thanks,” the anatomy class professor intones before the students begin dissecting. And even though the essential question of the path Hiroshi ultimately chooses remains unresolved at the film’s conclusion, this is well in keeping with the deeper mystery the film poses of what constitutes human consciousness, a mystery which we are nowhere close to solving.

Vital screens at Japan Society on Saturday, March 3 at 7pm as part of its film series “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” an impressive selection of provocative films featuring twisted, obsessive, and extreme love stories from both Japan and Korea.  Several celebrated auteurs are represented here; besides Tsukamoto (whose latest film KOTOKO opens the series), the series offers films by Koji Wakamatsu (his latest film Petrel Hotel Blue and two earlier films from the 60s and 70s), Hong Sangsoo (Tale of Cinema), Kim Ki-duk (Bad Guy, Dream, Time), Nagisa Oshima (In the Realm of the Senses), and Lee Chang-dong (Oasis).  Click here for more information on the series and to purchase tickets.

The Bourne Cinema Filmography: Bela Tarr, "The Outsider" (1981)

The Outsider (Szabadgyalog). 1981. Written and directed by Bela Tarr. Cinematography by Ferenc Pap and Barna Mihok. Edited by Agnes Hranitzky. Music by Andras Szabo. Sound by Bela Prohaszka.

Cast: Andras Szabo (Andras), Jolan Fodor (Kata), Imre Donko (Csotesz), Istvan Bolla (Balazs).

Bela Tarr’s second feature The Outsider, which recently screened as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Tarr retrospective “The Last Modernist,” right at the outset sets up a juxtaposition of scenes that clearly sets out the filmmaker’s stance on the state of contemporary Hungarian society.  The film’s protagonist Andras (Andras Szabo), who we first see playing violin for the patients at the mental hospital where he works, gets into a vicious fight with a patient who refuses an injection he is trying to give him.  In the next scene in a bar (where Andras spends most of his free time, given his proclivity for drinking), a man resists being tossed for refusing to pay for his drinks.  In other words, there is no difference between “normal” society and a mental institution, at least in the world of The Outsider.  Andras struggles to cope with the difficulties of existing in this world, and resists, just as strenuously as the mental patient and the deadbeat bar patron, becoming a conventional, “responsible” member of society.  From the many lengthy conversations that make up much of this film, details about Andras’ life emerge: initially a promising musical talent, he was thrown out of conservatory training, and has spent his life working many different jobs, including his nursing work at the mental hospital.  He loses this job, as well as most of the others, due to his drinking.  Andras, true to the film’s title, cannot fit in either the artistic world or the working world, and he makes as much of a mess of his relationships with women as he does with his jobs.  He insists on paying child support for a woman whose child is probably not his, which puts a strain on his relationship with Kata (Jolan Fodor), another woman he takes up with afterward.  One of the film’s best scenes occurs in a nightclub where Andras is working as a DJ, when he has an argument with Kata, and where they scream at each other over the ear-splitting volume of the dance music.  The sonic wall preventing the two from hearing each other reflects the wall Andras has put around himself, an ultimately futile attempt at insulation from the demands that society insists he conform to.

The style of The Outsider will be a bit of a surprise to those more familiar with Tarr’s later works, beginning from Damnation (1988), to his latest and reportedly last film The Turin Horse (which is currently playing at the Elinor Bunin Monroe Film Center at Lincoln Center).  In contrast to the deliberately paced, somber black-and-white films with hypnotically long takes and incantatory repetition (especially in the case of The Turin Horse), The Outsider has a documentary-like, self-consciously “realist” style that has been compared to the films of John Cassavetes.  The rough-and-ready chaotic camera framings, while not as elegant as Tarr’s later works, does effectively convey the working-class struggles depicted in the film, which has potent affinities to other similar kinds of films being made in Eastern Europe at the time.  Tarr’s early films, despite their stylistic differences with later ones, show that Tarr consistently had an intense focus on how human beings struggle to interact with and understand the environments they find themselves in.

Here's a musical scene from The Outsider:

DVD Review: Atsushi Ogata's "Cast Me If You Can"

Cast Me If You Can (Wakiyaku monogatari). 2010. Directed by Atsushi Ogata. Written by Atsushi Ogata and Akane Shiratori. Produced by Atsushi Ogata, Eric Nyari and Eriko Miyagawa. Cinematography by Yuichi Nagata. Edited by Masahiro Onaga. Music by Jessica de Rooij. Art direction by Kazumi Kobayashi. Sound design by Yasushi Eguchi.

Cast: Toru Masuoka (Hiroshi Matsuzaki), Hiromi Nagasaku (Aya), Masahiko Tsugawa (Kenta Matsuzaki), Keiko Matsuzaka (Toshiko Kuroiwa), Tasuku Emoto (Masaru), Edith Hanson (Jane), Ai Maeda (Sakura), Atsushi Ogata (Convenience Store Manager), Akira Emoto (Homeless).

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

The Japanese title of Atsushi Ogata’s romantic comedy Cast Me If you Can is “Wakiyaku Monogatari,” which translates as “Tale of the Supporting Actor.” The supporting actor in this particular tale, and the main character in this story, is Hiroshi Matsuzaki (Toru Masuoka), a long-time bit player currently playing a cop on a TV drama.  He harbors dreams of finally becoming a leading man, and seems close to that opportunity, having been cast as the lead in a Woody Allen remake.  He is very good at disappearing into his roles; in fact, he is so good at this that this ability bleeds into his real life, to the point that he is continually mistaken for other people, a running gag that this film makes potent and funny use of.  His struggle to assert his own identity is made even more difficult by having to live under the shadow of his father Kenta (Masahiko Tsugawa), a famous playwright.  One case of mistaken identity gets Hiroshi embroiled in a tabloid scandal that threatens his big role, and with the help his friend and wannabe spy Masaru (Tasuku Emoto), he sets out to clear his name.  In the midst of this chaos, Hiroshi meets Aya (Hiromi Nagasaku), an aspiring actress; while they begin a tentative courtship, Hiroshi’s identity issues and many other distractions threaten their budding relationship.

With Cast Me If You Can, Ogata attempts a mode of filmmaking which is quite unusual in a Japanese context: an American-style romantic comedy.  He employs much more subtle humor than the typical zany, variety-show style slapstick which is more common in Japanese comedies.  Instead, Ogata grounds his humor in dialog and situations in which he both honors and tweaks romantic comedy formula, which make the humor that much more potent.  One great example is late in the film, in which Hiroshi delivers his passionate confession to Aya in the convenience store where she works; while fulfilling its normal function in this sort of film, the location of the scene, as well as its priceless punchline, also cleverly parodies this often clichéd convention.  The films of Woody Allen are an explicitly acknowledged influence, not only in the narrative but in several walk-and-talk camera setups.  But similarly to the way Ogata handles the romantic comedy genre, this doesn’t at all feel derivative, but is instead nicely woven into the rich fabric of this film.  Also remarkable is how exportable and cross-cultural the comedy is here (consciously so; Ogata originally wrote his script in English and translated it to Japanese), and the generosity with which all the characters are treated, which filters down into the smallest roles.  The main characters are all surrounded with vivid supporting ones, all of whom make memorable impressions, from Hiroshi’s dwarf-like agent and a flirtatious female arresting officer, to a parallel romance involving a café waitress that plays out in pantomime in the background. 

As with any romantic comedy, the success of such an endeavor rises and falls on the chemistry between its leads, and Cast Me If You Can certainly scores here.  Toru Masuoka is nicely understated as the hapless victim of mistaken identity, and effectively renders his character’s transformation as love is introduced into his life.  But the major standout is Hiromi Nagasaku, who is terrific as a plucky and energetic young woman who is relentless in the pursuit of her dreams, and who lights up every scene she is in with her warm, and irresistibly sunny persona.

Cast Me If You Can is now available on DVD from Seminal Films, and can be purchased at Amazon.

Also, if you're in the L.A. area, there will be a screening and Q&A with director Atsushi Ogata and producer Eriko Miyagawa on March 1, hosted by USC and the Japan Film Society. Click here for screening info.

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.