New Directors/New Films 2010 Review: Lixin Fan's "Last Train Home"

Last Train Home. 2009. Directed and photographed by Lixin Fan. Produced by Mila Aung-Thwin and Daniel Cross. Edited by Lixin Fan and Mary Stephens. Camera operated by Shaoguang Sun and Lixin Fan. Music by Olivier Alary.

The sharp contrast between the lives in cities and countryside always truck me. Submerged under the glamour of the modern metropolis, the poverty in the vast rural area is overwhelming. As I traveled, I started to focus on the migrant workers, whom I believe have contributed the most to China's prosperity but benefited the least... On a national level, China is dashing to become a richer country. Should tradition, morality and humanity be drowned in a world of tireless rumbling factories is the question we should ask.

-- Lixin Fan, from his director's statement.

Every winter, the world's largest human migration occurs in China, as many of its 130 million migrant workers in the cities make the arduous trek home to their families for the Chinese New Year. These scenes of the teeming masses of humanity clogging train stations, desperately trying to get their only chance all year to visit their loved ones, are some of the most startling images of Lixin Fan's superb, heartbreaking documentary Last Train Home. Fan, a Chinese-born, Montreal-based filmmaker, began his career as a journalist for the Chinese national TV broadcaster CCTV, and as the above epigraph indicates, it was there that he began to be interested in the ever widening gap between the rich in the cities and the poor in the countryside as China embarked on its dizzying rush toward world economic dominance. However, as China isn't exactly a bastion of journalistic freedom, it's not too far off base to speculate that Fan moved into independent filmmaking (as well as to Canada) in order to more freely explore the massive societal upheavals that have occurred in China as a result of its drive toward greater prosperity. What Fan illuminates with penetrating acuity and sometimes uncomfortable intimacy in Last Train Home is the fact that this prosperity is largely the result of the efforts of these many millions of migrant workers, who travel many miles from their rural homelands to Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and other industrial hubs to toil for many hours in factories to make the products that those in more affluent parts of China and overseas enjoy. However, these workers have very little share in the massive riches that this activity brings to others. They are low-paid, have very little rights to workers' compensation and social services, and, most pertinently for this film, are prevented from bringing their families with them, due to China's very strict residency laws. This serves to break families apart, as parents are forced to be away from their children for months and sometimes years at a time, leaving children to be raised by their grandparents and other relatives. The absence of parental structure and authority causes a whole host of problems, not the least of which is delinquency and aimlessness among the younger generation.

These issues are given indelible life by the case of the Zhang family, the troubled unit Fan focuses on in the film. Zhang Changua and his wife Chen Suqin are factory workers in Guangzhou, who left their village home in Sichuan province and their newborn daughter 17 years earlier to seek work in the cities. They have since regularly sent money home, while their daughter Qin and younger son Yang were raised by their grandmother, so that their children will have enough money to attend school, and hopefully, escape the hard fate of their parents. Tragically, these hopes are dashed by Qin, who has grown up with seething resentment at what she sees as essentially abandonment by her parents, who are virtually strangers to her, since she has seen them so seldom over the years. She feels oppressed and smothered by their expectations of her, and sees their parental authority over her as illegitimate. "All they care about is money," Qin says at one point, her voice dripping with scorn. She also hates having to work on the family farm with her brother and grandmother, and describes her school as a "cage." Her restlessness and yearning to be rid of these strictures on her personal freedom eventually leads to Qin fulfilling her parents' worst nightmare: she drops out of school and becomes a factory worker in the city. Qin doesn't really enjoy this work either, but she takes solace in the fact that she at least earns her own money and can feel that she has greater freedom, however limited or illusory it may be. Qin's mortified mother and concerned father embark on a rescue operation to convince Qin to return to the village and finish her schooling; they also want to ensure that her brother doesn't follow her example. They all go back home for New Year's, Qin sullen and reluctant. Back home, this sets the stage for a dramatic confrontation, one that is predictable if we pay close attention to Qin's moods, but is no less shocking and tragic.

Last Train Home bears some stylistic resemblance to another recent Canadian documentary about China, Yung Chang's Up the Yangtze, which followed stories centering around the Three Gorges Dam project. Fan worked on that film as an associate producer and a sound man, and Chang was a consultant on Fan's film. Both directors share an emphasis on individual stories set against a larger societal backdrop, and making clear how the macro and micro aspects of their subjects' situations entwine. Fan eschews voiceover and uses music sparingly, constructing his documentary with a dramatic arc similar to fictional films. Fan prominently name-checks Jia Zhang-ke in interviews as a major influence; and indeed, Fan's concerns dovetail with Jia's ongoing project to record the effects of China's massive social changes on the daily lives of people. Fan, however, brings an intense intimacy to his material that is all his own. Fan's camera (he did his own cinematography) is an unseen character of this drama; it is not the Frederick Wiseman-like objective fly-on-the-wall, but rather a sympathetic confidante. Fan's prodigious gifts of observation (in abundant evidence in his depiction of the massive crush of travelers at the Guangzhou train station, just barely controllable by the police) honor all his subjects, whether they are the main characters like the Zhangs' or someone glimpsed for a few seconds, affording them the respect and dignity that they are too often denied. The overwheming impression that I took away from Last Train Home was not how unique the Zhangs were, but to the contrary, how typical they were. A film just as compelling could conceivably be made of the lives of any of the millions taking the trains every year, and I think this is Fan's main contention. A country that compels so many to tear apart their own families and toil away at numbing, repetitive labor with little to look forward to except a never-ending struggle, is a country that is deeply in trouble, despite the efforts of governments to whitewash this fact, or offer temporary distractions such as the Olympics. It is a situation that will eventually prove to be unsustainable. Last Train Home, beyond being a deeply moving work of art, is a passionate wake-up call, vividly illuminating issues that the powers that be will ignore to their peril.

Last Train Home screens tomorrow at 12pm at the Walter Reade Theater as part of New Directors/New Films 2010. It will be released later this summer by Zeitgeist Films. Click here to purchase tickets.

A Drifting Life

Betelnut (Bing Lang). 2005. Written, directed and photographed by Yang Heng. Produced by Liu Jinhou, Yang Heng, Tian Xiaopo and Wang Hongwei. Edited by Tian Kun. Music by Wu Jun. Location sound by Shen Jin Guang. Sound production by He Bin. 

Cast: Tian Li, Liang Yu, Wu Ming, Dai Qi, Xiong Heqing, Zhu Ju, Gao Yi, Tian Linfeng, Duan Zhoujin, Ji Jiaxing, Xiang Peng, Fan Chao, Duan Zhouqian, Luo Xiadong, Wang Shengcong, Long Zeli, Quan Limin, Liang Xiaolong, Xiong Hui.

"Life seems so cheap sometimes." This statement by a girl succinctly expresses the philosophy of the aimless characters of Yang Heng's debut feature Betelnut, a quietly stunning film that finds great beauty in its stillness and austerity, rendering the actions of its characters within a rich musique concrete-like sound design and an intricately arranged visual field that makes us pay attention to the tiniest detail of its images. Yang often has major events of the film occur in extreme long-shot, obscured behind objects, or otherwise somewhere other than in the foreground. This serves to paint a compelling portrait of the restless youths in the film, who while away a hot, lazy summer by drifting on boats, voice chatting and playing video games at internet cafes, smoking, chewing betelnut, and having the occasional drunken binge in a karaoke bar. This all occurs in the ultimate dead-end town: there seem to be few opportunities or job prospects, no school, adults, or controlling authority, and the boys indulge in petty crime and thuggery. One of the characters manages to escape this place at the conclusion (although it's hard to say for how long), while the others remain trapped in this endless, nothing existence.

Set in Jishou, Hunan province (Yang's birthplace), Betelnut focuses on two young boys, Ali and Xiao Yu, who while away the days hanging out by the river and drifting on the boat where one of them live. They steal motorbikes and sell them to make money, which they use to hang out in internet cafes and drink at karaoke clubs. They are consciously take-no-shit tough guys, but they have major weak spots that manifest themselves, and in some sense are exploited by, the two girls they pursue romantic relationships with. One of the boys encounters a girl in an internet cafe, chatting with another boy online. He runs into her again after he meets her again at the gas station where she works. His friend pursues a girl who happens to already have a boyfriend. But romantic attachments here are just as ephemeral and tenuous as the other parts of their lives. Just as the boys assert their freedom to take what they want and beat down anyone else who gets in their way, the girls assert their freedom not to be attached to anyone, and to be free to be with anyone they wish at any time. This, naturally, creates some violent conflicts in the course of the film.

This is very familiar material, and fairly standard in films dealing with young people. The difference is in the bold and radical style Yang imparts to the material. The long-take aesthetic is a common mode of Asian art cinema; Hou Hsiao-hsien and Tsai Ming-liang are two of its better known adherents. Yang, however, takes this even further than other filmmakers, allowing the sense of oppressive stillness and heat of the environment to permeate our consciousness in a visceral fashion. Yang's approach to landscape composition has been compared to Chinese classical painting, and this pastoral serenity, combined with Yang's mostly fixed camera, proves to be a sharp contrast with the dramatic events that occur within this scenery. This effect is aided greatly by the superb sound design, which fills in significant narrative details and makes the film an even more vivid experience. Yang proves himself a major talent with Betelnut, a film which greatly rewards patience and observation. Yang's subsequent feature Sun Spots pushes this style even further, and there he comes up with even more lovely and mesmerizing results.

Betelnut screens tomorrow at 6:45 at Asia Society, as part of its series "China's Past, Present and Future on Film," highlighting recent independent Chinese films. Click here to purchase tickets. Use the discount code "asia725" to buy tickets at the $7 member rate.

The Top 40 Films of 2009 (25-21)

25. Adela (Adolfo Alix Jr., Philippines, 2008)

A day in the life of the title character, rendered with exquisite sensitivity.  Read my review here.





24. Flower in the Pocket (Liew Seng Tat, Malaysia, 2007)

Read my review here.





23. Somers Town (Shane Meadows, UK, 2008)









22. The Beaches of Agnès/Les Plages d’Agnès (Agnès Varda, France, 2008)

If The Beaches of Agnès is indeed her final film, as she has indicated, she couldn't have created a better swan song.  This is a glorious capper to a brilliant career, a memoir with saucy humor and heartbreaking poignancy.



21. Tyson (James Toback, US, 2008)

The Top 40 Films of 2009 (30-26)

30. The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema (Sophie Fiennes, UK/Austria/Netherlands, 2006)

Your friendly neighborhood Lacanian, Slavoj Zizek, is your irrepressible guide on this immensely entertaining trip through the hidden psychological wormholes of such films as Hitchcock’s Vertigo, Psycho, and The Birds; David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive and Blue Velvet; Coppola’s The Conversation; The Matrix (“I want a third pill!”); and many others. Zizek is beautifully staged by director Sophie Fiennes in both the actual locations of the films he discusses, or in soundstage recreations. Even after two and a half hours, you’ll be left wanting more; you’ll never see these films in quite the same way again.









29. Of Time and the City (Terence Davies, UK, 2008)

Terence Davies’ exquisite reminiscence of his native Liverpool is a lyrical return for this great filmmaker whom we haven’t heard from since 2000's The House of Mirth. Blending archival footage with newly shot scenes, Davies connects it all with his riveting voiceover, depicting his love-hate (but mostly love) relationship with his city, and how the elements that gave Liverpool its character are nearly gone. Along the way, he recounts his contentious relationship with Catholicism and his first homosexual stirrings. Of Time and the City is a master class in montage and the use of music, most notably in an incredible sequence concerning the Korean War, set to the Hollies’ “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother.” Davies has a wicked and caustic sense of humor, for example in his description of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation, or as he puts it, “The Betty Windsor Show.” And the way he dispenses of and dismisses the Beatles is priceless. Welcome back, Mr. Davies. You’ve been away far too long.


 

 
28. Rembrandt’s J’Accuse (Peter Greenaway, Netherlands/UK, 2008)


Greenaway’s examination of Rembrandt’s masterpiece The Night Watch is a compelling master class in visual analysis, art and political history, as well as a masterfully constructed detective story. Reviewed here.



27. Big Man Japan/Dai-Nipponjin (Hitoshi Matsumoto, Japan, 2007) 


Japanese comedian Hitoshi Matsumoto took six years to write and direct this inventive debut film, which takes the grand tradition of kaiju eiga to deliriously surreal heights. Reviewed here.



26. Yasukuni (Li Ying, Japan/China, 2007)


Li Ying’s documentary on the politically contentious titular shrine in central Tokyo puts the viewer in the perilous place where history, memory, and political agendas violently collide, with searing and indelible results. Reviewed here.

The Top 40 Films of 2009 (35-31)

Happy New Year! Now, on with the countdown.

35. Humpday (Lynn Shelton, US, 2009)

Showing up most of the other pop-culture depictions of so-called “bromance” for the shallow, witless exercises they are, Humpday concerns two straight men who, on a drunken dare, plan to have sex with one another on camera for an “art project” that is “beyond gay.” Shelton explores this concept with both uproarious humor and penetrating psychological insight. Despite being lazily lumped in with other low-budget American indies termed “mumblecore,” Shelton’s film spiritedly resists easy labeling. Much like her previous feature, My Effortless Brilliance, Shelton examines male friendship and the psychological games men play with one another with a sharp acuity that is only enhanced by the fact that she happens to be a woman. Ben (Mark Duplass), with a stable job and family life, and his long lost buddy Andrew (Joshua Leonard), a self-professed neo-bohemian free spirit, have a lot to prove to one another, which leads to their ill-advised experiment. Ben, especially, feels a great need to demonstrate that he is not the staid square Andrew thinks he is (it is Ben who conceives the porn film idea), and that Andrew is not as free as he thinks he is. Ben’s wife Anna (Alycia Delmore) is an essential ingredient of this mano-a-mano one-upmanship; she reveals herself to be a different woman than her husband thinks. Shelton closely collaborates with her actors on character and dialogue, but the sensibility of her films remain uniquely her own; she is definitely a talent to watch in 2010 and beyond.





34. Where the Wild Things Are (Spike Jonze, US, 2009)

Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers’ indie-rock remix of Maurice Sendak’s classic is a kid’s movie for adults, expanding on Sendak’s spare, evocative text to create a somber yet visually exhilarating film. Young Max (Max Records) flees his troubled home life, which he has increasingly little control over, to become a little despot lording over the land of monsters he sails away to. The story’s psychological complexity, left latent in the original version, is fully brought to the fore in Jonze and Eggers’ interpretation.



33. Valentino: The Last Emperor (Matt Tyrnauer, US, 2008)

The perennial clash between art and commerce is vividly dramatized in this brilliant documentary on the iconic fashion artist Valentino, whose life path was set as a young boy when he saw Fellini’s La Dolce Vita. Click here to read my review for Meniscus Magazine.



32. Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wes Anderson, US, 2009)

Who would have thought Anderson’s most deeply human film would star a bunch of furry critters? His last two films The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and The Darjeeling Limited found him burrowing ever deeper into fastidiously art-directed wormholes. However, with Fantastic Mr. Fox, his adaptation of Roald Dahl’s book, Anderson finally makes the leap into the sublime that has long eluded him. Stuffed with glorious bric-a-brac and demonstrating an eye for detail that recalls Jacques Tati, this film is a feast for the eyes, as well as deeply affecting.



31. Two Lovers (James Gray, US, 2008)

As fun as it was to watch Joaquin Phoenix’s whacked performance art pieces such as his David Letterman appearance and his attempts to perform hip-hop, it was a real shame that they overshadowed and perhaps doomed the commercial fate of Two Lovers, which contains one of his very best performances. Leonard (Phoenix), a mentally troubled, fragile soul, finds himself torn between two women (Gwyneth Paltrow and Vinessa Shaw), both alluring in their own ways. Gray makes a shift from the operatic expansiveness of We Own the Night to the much more intimate spaces of Two Lovers, his mastery of form remaining intact.

The Top 40 Films of 2009 (40-36)

With this post, my last of the year (and the decade), I begin looking back on the past year's best films. 2009 was an embarrassment of cinematic riches, so much so that I refuse to submit myself to the "tyranny of ten," as the estimable critic Jonathan Keifer terms it, since there were far more than ten films that deserve recognition as great achievements. So herewith, in a nod to the great Casey Kasem, begins a Top-40 countdown of the year's best films. Everyone has their own rules for inclusion, and here are mine: if a film had or began its commercial run, or played for at least a week in New York during the calendar year 2009, it was eligible. The vagaries of film distribution being what they are, many of the films on my list were not actually made in 2009. That said, here we go.

40. Zombieland (Ruben Fleischer, US, 2009)/Drag Me to Hell (Sam Raimi, US, 2009)

A double shot of exhilarating B-movie bliss. Fleischer picks up John Carpenter’s mantle and delivers a stylish, hilarious road movie that traverses a post-zombie apocalypse America, with breathless verve and invention. The denizens of this blasted landscape include: Jesse Eisenberg (who is also in another film much higher on this list), refining his virginal-neurotic persona, suggesting a younger Woody Allen; Woody Harrelson, aces as a swaggering zombie hunter with an acute hankering for Twinkies; and the cherry on top is a priceless Bill Murray cameo. Raimi interrupts his Spider-Man movie career to return to his roots with an appealingly old-school Gothic horror that has a dash of topicality (an ill-advised bank foreclosure decision sets the mayhem into motion), but is mostly an opportunity for Raimi to prove himself a master of shock mechanics and to fuck with our heads in the way only he can.

DRAG ME TO HELL: Movie Trailer. Watch more top selected videos about: Drag_Me_to_Hell, David_Paymer, Justin_Long, Alison_Lohman, Jessica_Lucas, Lorna_Raver, Universal_Pictures, Horror, Sam_Raimi, DRAG_ME_TO_HELL

39. The Informant! (Steven Soderbergh, US, 2009)

The curious case of Mark Whitacre: Soderbergh’s latest is a slippery object, at once mainstream star vehicle and odd experiment, at once parodic and subtly chilling. As unsettling and elusive as its protagonist (portrayed by Matt Damon in one of his best performances), The Informant! has an oddly anachronistic feel: even though the action takes place in the early 90’s, the wardrobe, production design, and Marvin Hamlisch score evoke the ‘70s, referencing such paranoiac cinema touchstones as Coppola’s The Conversation, which this film often seems like a bizarre parody of. This is the true(ish) tale of the whistleblower who dropped the dime on his employer Archer Daniels Midland, who perpetrated a massive industrial price-fixing scheme. Unbeknownst to his FBI handlers, Whitacre himself was just as deceptive about his motives and actions as his employers, if not more so. The film gives no ground to the viewer on which to stand as far as audience identification goes: almost everyone is just a different degree of a liar. As such, it perfectly reflects our post-economic collapse world.


38. Summer Hours/L’heure d’été (Olivier Assayas, France, 2008)

A sun-dappled, elegiac pastoral evoking the films of Jean Renoir, the spiritual grandfather of practically all the great French directors who followed him, Summer Hours captures the ephemeral nature of life and what we collect during it, even more accurately evoked by its French title. The death of a family matriarch (the wonderful Edith Scob) occasions a debate and familial conflict over the true value of art works, and what it really means when family heirlooms are put on display at a public museum. The grown children, who are scattered around the planet, deal with the severed family bonds in often diametrically opposed ways. As much as Summer Hours laments things lost, it is not without optimism; we are left with a strong hint that the youngest generation, who while at play in the family garden make their own life discoveries (often with a pop and hip-hop soundtrack), and who have the best hope at surviving in the current world, deciding what should be preserved and what should be discarded.



37. Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, US/Germany, 2009)

Regardless of their ostensible subject matter, all of Tarantino’s films are really about his all-encompassing and unabashed love of cinema, and Inglourious Basterds expresses this love on his largest, most elaborate canvas to date. A history-rewriting, wish-fulfillment fantasy that shoehorns within it many references to German cinema of the period, it may have ranked higher on my list if there were a bit more depth to its pyrotechnics. Still, it’s a tremendous achievement, and Tarantino reveals himself to be a brilliant Hitchcock acolyte in the way he gains maximum tension from very long dialogue-heavy scenes with tense undercurrents (e.g. the brilliant opening sequence).



36. Old Partner/Wonang sori (Lee Chung-ryoul, South Korea, 2008)

This beautifully constructed documentary about an old farmer and his work ox was a surprise sleeper hit in its native Korea, and opens this week at Film Forum. It actually had a run this spring at the Imaginasian Theatre, which almost no one noticed. Now that more people in this country are aware of this film’s existence, hopefully they will discover the charms and beauty of Old Partner, an intimate elegy to a way of life that is rapidly disappearing.

Best Korean Films of the 2000s: Roh Gyeong-tae, "Land of Scarecrows" (2008)

Land of Scarecrows (Heosuabideuleui ddang). 2008. Written and directed by Roh Gyeong-tae. Produced by Roh Gyeong-tae, Antonin Dedet, and Kim Jae-Chung. Cinematography by Choi Jung-soon. Edited by Choi Hyun-suk. Production design by Eum Jin-sun. Music by Lee Jaesin. Costume design by Choo Jung-hee.

Cast: Kim Sun-young (Jang Ji-young), Jung Duwon (Loi Tan), Bich Phuong Thi (Rain).

One of the most original, boldly experimental, and beautiful works of Korean cinema this past decade, with indelible and haunting images that remain with me, is Roh Gyeong-tae's second feature Land of Scarecrows. An evocative tale of gender confusion, arranged marriage, adoption, and environmental devastation, Roh's film was largely dismissed and misunderstood by most critics, and notwithstanding its being awarded the New Currents prize at the 2008 Pusan International Film Festival, it didn't get the audiences or critical notices it deserved. Below is what I wrote on this film when it screened at Pusan.

For a jaded filmgoer and film festivalgoer like me, surprises can often be few and far between. Whether it is the latest Hollywood super-spectacle or the most obscure, experimental art film, most films nowadays are variations on the familiar and endlessly overdone. So it is quite a pleasure to come across such a film as Roh Gyeong-tae’s Land of Scarecrows, a true masterpiece whose elliptical, initially challenging style is nevertheless eminently accessible. Roh’s second feature, which shared the New Currents Award (for best first or second film) at this year’s Pusan International Film Festival, is one of the great discoveries one always hopes to find at a film festival, especially one with as vast a selection as Pusan’s.

Opening with a cryptic image of two mudang (Korean female shamans) performing an elaborate ritual dance, Land of Scarecrows alternates between two locales: Honghae, a rural area of South Korea, and the Philippines. The film follows a number of characters, the three most significant being Jang Ji-young (Kim Sun-young), an amateur installation artist who also happens to be a transgender woman living as a man; Rain (Bich Phuong Thi), a young Filipina who dreams of living in Korea; and Loi Tan (Jung Duwon), an ethnic Korean young man who was brought from the Philippines as a foster child. A beautiful and lyrical alchemy, not dissimilar to the artworks Ji-young creates, brings these characters together and unites their destinies into a tapestry that is mesmerizing to watch.

Land of Scarecrows melds humor, melancholy, and an ethereal sense of spirituality in a way that elevates it far above the sort of pretentious, self-consciously arty films that are far too prevalent at film festivals. The phenomenon of Korean men seeking arranged marriages with Southeastern Asian women is presented in a very humorous way, with repeated scenes of nervous potential brides being sized up by their suitors. Ji-young meets and marries Rain at one of these marriage agencies, of course with Rain initially being unaware that her new husband is a biological woman. Their relationship, however, isn’t played for laughs and in fact leads to some of the most poignant moments of the film. The film is also full of beautifully-rendered scenes that could stand alone as short films, such as Ji-young and Rain’s initial meeting, and a later scene in a karaoke bar where Ji-young belts out a plaintive, romantic song.

Roh Gyeong-tae, a former stockbroker who previously made a number of experimental short films and the feature The Last Dining Table, emerges as a major talent with Land of Scarecrows, which has a richly textured look and an unusual approach to storytelling that yields great rewards. This makes it all the more gratifying that the New Currents jury, headed by French New Wave icon Anna Karina, recognized this extraordinary work.

Land of Scarecrows is available on DVD from YesAsia.com.

2009 Pusan International Film Festival: Sights and Sounds of Busan

I will wrap up my coverage of this year's Pusan International Film Festival with an assortment of pictures and video I made during the festival. Below is a Flickr slideshow of photos and some videos I shot that I hope will give at least a small sense of what it was like to be there, and some of the experiences Busan offered beyond the films.

Wes Anderson, "Fantastic Mr. Fox" -- Q&A at MOMA, 12/7/09

Wes Anderson spoke recently at the Museum of Modern Art following a screening of his latest film Fantastic Mr. Fox, his wonderful, beautifully crafted stop-motion animated version of Roald Dahl's classic book, the first film by Anderson that I've loved since Rushmore. Animation was a logical step for him, since his live-action films are already rather cartoonish. Fantastic Mr. Fox is one of my favorite films of the year -- watch this space for the rest of them.

Best Korean Films of the 2000s: Song Il-gon, "The Magicians" (2005)

The Magicians (Mabeopsadul). 2005. Written and directed by Song Il-gon. Produced by Lee Young-ju. Cinematography by Park Young-jun. Edited by Choi Jae-kun. Music by Song Il-gon and Loveholic.

Cast: Jung Woong-in, Jang Hyun-sung, Lee Seung-bee, Kang Kyung-hun, Kim Hak-sun.

A major trend of the past decade in film is the ever increasing prevalence of digital technology. Song Il-gon's The Magicians, a 95 minute film shot in a single take, is one of the finest films in this medium. Song, one of Korea's most interesting filmmakers, was educated at Lodz Film School in Poland, whose alumni include Kryzstof Kieslowski and Roman Polanski, and this undoubtedly contributes to his very distinctive style of filmmaking. Song previously made two digital features, Flower Island and Git (Feathers in the Wind), in both cases exploring the unique creative possibilities inherent in the medium. The Magicians was originally a 40 minute short, titled "Magician(s)," included in the omnibus "Digital Shorts By Three Filmmakers," an annual project of the Jeonju International Film Festival, in which three filmmakers are invited to make short films using digital technology. The 40 minute version, while impressive technically, never quite shook the sense of being a show-offy stunt. However, as a feature, it gains much depth and emotional resonance, transforming into a moving and, despite its somber subject matter, ultimately uplifting meditation on memory, spirituality, and the coexistence of the past and present.

The Magicians is set in and around a bar in a wooded area far from the city, where the three surviving members of the rock band Magician gather, as they do each year, for a memorial for their female guitarist Jae-eun (Lee Seung-bi), who committed suicide three years earlier. The bar is run by her boyfriend Jae-sung (Jung Woong-in), who created this remote retreat as a way to deal with his grief. The bass player (Jang Hyun-sung) and female vocalist (Kang Kyung-heon) also reminisce and are still shaken by the loss. Jae-un herself appears as a ghostly presence, hovering unseen among her living friends. Within the film's single take, flashbacks before Jae-eun's suicide and the circumstances leading up to it are handled with boldly theatrical techniques: music cues, lighting changes, and a character's movement out of the bar or up a staircase takes us back into the past. The natural setting, and the presence in the film of a fifth character, a monk leaving his monastery and looking for a snowboard he left at the bar, suggest the spiritual presence suggested by the title of the piece. By using the digital medium to evoke the past, The Magicians shares similarities to another groundbreaking digital film, Alexander Sokurov's Russian Ark, which traveled through centuries of Russian history. Song's film is much more intimate, observing the connections between a small group of people who will never escape their past, and we are left with the suggestion that this is not necessarily a bad thing. For better or worse, our relations with others, whether happy or tragic, are part of who we are, and it is folly to attempt to hide or run from it.