Good Morning Vietnam

Vertical Ray of the Sun (2000) - Tran







One of the most rapturously beautiful films I've ever seen. Tran's composition, his use of space and natural light make Hanoi's everyday life like a fantasy. The cinematography (shot by Hou Hsiao Hsien regular Mark Lee) is equally stunning indoors/outdoors. The film concerns 3 sisters and their spouses and love interests. It's a typical infidelity themed melodrama but it's so gorgeous to look at. Now let's have some sticky rice and tea for breakfast while listening to Lou Reed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNVPJGeh ... Pw&index=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHzIedf4 ... Pw&index=2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuzG8PyR ... Pw&index=3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8kf7CvC ... Pw&index=4

My Top 10 Favorite Films of 2013

I admit it. I like making lists, ever since I was in elementary school. I kept notebooks of pop song charts (similar to Billboard's) week after week throughout Junior High and High School years. I'm not as obsessive as back then now. I wonder where those lined notebooks have gone....

I always feel giddy about making an year end list each December/January. It's one of the rare pleasures that makes the dreadful Christmas/New Year Holiday season a tiny bit tolerable. It was a remarkable year for films. But I feel I wasn't as vigorous as I was in 2012, going out of my comfort zone to find more challenging cinema. Nonetheless ended up watching some great films, thanks to New York Film Festival and unlike past few years, many of my favorites came from the US filmmakers.

I was pussyfooting around and changing my top 10s according to industry standards, whatever that is- usually only listing films that got domestic theatrical distribution. But this is my blog and I feel like meeting that particular restriction silly in this day and age, with plenty of sources to watch films. So I decided to consider all my film festival and series viewings as well from now on.

So without Further ado:

*Click on the titles for full reviews

1. The Act of Killing - Oppenheimer

Crazy. The Act of Killing stars former paramilitary gangsters in Indonesia (preman they are called, from English words free man), who carried out killing estimated one million people accused of being Communists in the years 1965-66. But unlike other countries where peace and reconciliation (however difficult and uneasy they have been) came after horrendous dictatorships and mass killings (think of most Latin America), in Jakarta, most of the military who came to power 50 years ago are still in charge, with the help of the organized street gang known as Pancasila Youth, which boasts 3 million memberships. It's quite unfathomable by Western standards: killers are roaming proudly, telling people their grand, detailed stories, even on TV talk shows. It's the winners who write history. For losers, there isn't anyone left to voice their opinions- as the protagonists in this documentary says, "we exterminated them all". Joshua Oppenheimer asks one such gangster, the lean, flamboyant Anwar Congo if he can reenact killings in front of the camera. Without any irony or shame, Anwar goes along with it in detail with his fat sidekick compatriot Herman in tow. He demonstrates the easiest, most efficient way to kill a human being. It's the truth. That's how it happened. But as Anwar goes through garish movie-making business (complete with dancing girls and waterfalls and John Barry's 'Born Free' playing in the background), his conscience start to catch up with him. He admits having nightmares of haunting ghosts of the people he killed. Adi, his friend from killing days flies over with his family to be in the film, coldly observes that if the scene they are doing is too good, everyone who sees it will realize that they were worse (cruel and sadistic, in their words) than the commies they were accusing of being. Adi doesn't have any qualms about his past deeds and he sleeps fine at night. George Bush invaded Iraq even though Saddam had no WMD. Americans wiped out American Indians. Again, it's the winners. Geneva conventions? Human Rights? Please. Morality shifts for the winners.

But it's Anwar playing a victim getting tortured and killed that breaks him. He goes silent, then asks the filmmaker that if what he's feeling, the fear that takes over his whole was what was happening to all the people he killed? Oppenheimer tells him, "No, it was much much worse. You are just playing part in a movie. But those people you killed, they knew they were going to die." The Act of Killing might be the most powerful and cathartic documentary I've ever seen. It's no wonder Herzog and Errol Morris got involved in executive producing it. The credits of The Act of Killing is still riddled with 'Anonymous' from co-director down. The political situation in Indonesia is still too dangerous for many people who are involved. It's certainly the most important movie this year, any year.

My interview with director Joshua Oppenheimer

*According to the film's website, streaming, DVD and Digital downloads will be available on Jan. 7th. Please visit the film's website be clicking here.

2. Blue is the Warmest Color - Kechiche

Ketchiche doesn't leave out the sexual nature of this rather conventional film about first love. Amazing performance by its star Adèle Exarchopoulos.

3. Hors Satan - Dumont

As I wrote more indepth about Bruno Dumont's examination on faith in the review of his new film Camile Claudel 1915, Dumont's fast become one of my favorite directors of recent years. He certainly is charting a new territory in filmmaking.

4. Inside Llewyn Davis - Coen

Finally, A Coen Bros movie with a heart!

5. Her - Jonze

Jonze possesses a sensibility and acuteness of a generation who grew up on computer. This film is a cult classic in the making.

6. Museum Hours - Cohen

Observational, fluid and quietly affecting, one of the real surprises in the 2013 movie going experience.

7. Exhibition - Hogg

Human relationship expressed with space and sound, this is Joanna Hogg's breakthrough film. I am expecting more great things from this talented director.

8. Paradise: Love - Seidl

I'd love to witness Seidl's method first hand. Even after reading about his method and interviews I still have no idea how he brings out the worst of human tendencies in ordinary people.

My interview with Ulrich Seidl

9. 12 Years a Slave - McQueen

A masterful filmmaker still honing his narrative storytelling skills. His brevity to tackle things other artists wouldn't dare is truly commandable.

10. Only Lovers Left Alive - Jarmusch

Jarmusch, you are too cool for skool.

The rest:

Beyond the Hills - Mungiu
Bastards - Denis
Only God Forgives - Refn
Like Father, Like Son - Kore-eda
Paradise: Faith - Seidl
A Touch of Sin - Jia
Gravity - Cuaron
Nobody's Daughter Haewon - Hong
You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet - Resnais
Stoker - Park

Midas's Little Brother

Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) - Coen

OK. I won't call the Coens movies soulless anymore. They are immensely smart people/filmmakers who play by their own rules and no one elses. I still remember their Oscar acceptance speech for No Country for Old Men, "OK, we'll go back to our sandbox now." Inside Lewyn Davis is the only way they know how to show their tender side- by making their main character a total dick. Llewyn (Oscar Isaac) is a young proto-hipster folk singer from Queens, doing the rounds at clubs and coffee houses in Greenwich Village. The year is 1961 and the Village is not quite the boho it had become. He's an all around asshole, who's been couch-surfing at the mercy of ever shrinking pool of friends. His arrogance, bad manners are always testing people's patience. Llewyn is a talented singer but terrible at human relationships, even though he is a folk aka 'people's music' singer. Music industry people see through this and won't give him time of day and Llewyn himself is very aware of this predicament as well. Everything he touches turns into shit (according to his ex gal pal Jean, played by Carrey Mulligan) and his life's going in circles, literally.

There are plenty of chances the Coens turn the movie into corny redemption tale, especially with a cute cat and Llewyn's father in a home, but they don't. Llewyn starts as an asshole and remains one throughout. But at the same time you can't take your eyes off of him and chuckle at his misadventures. He is not a misunderstood genius nor mopey eternal teenager and his misery is his own making and no one else's. It's the first time I feel that Coens are not making fun of genre tropes nor doing grossly technical/verbal exercise. You still feel for the Llewyn. This might be my favorite Coen Bros movie.

Life as Art as Life

An Oversimplification of Her Beauty (2012) - Nance










Gotta say that I admired Terence Nance's film more than I enjoyed it. There is no doubt that Nance is talented- who wrote, directed, did an animation and music all by himself. It's rare to find someone so original and graceful in his ability to express himself visually. One can also tell that this project is a true labor of love: there are more than a dozen animation styles applied here- stop motion, water color, drawings, whatsit...all achingly beautiful. It also takes a form of movie-within-a-movie, starting with a short How Would You Feel which dates back 2006. This on-going autobiographical examination on relationship is in part his train of thoughts, part her train of thoughts, part documentary, part reflection of those thoughts, endlessly repeating like a mobius strip.

The thing is, you have to drown out Nance's neverending monologue after a while and just give in to the visual aspect, because its narrative doesn't lead you anywhere. The project started out as a short and it should've remain as a short. He is a undeniably super talented guy in an obsessive relationship, but not a storyteller.

The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic at The Park Ave Armory 12/14/13

What a visual feat! Robert Wilson's Life and Death of Marina Abramovic was an experience that I will not soon forget. Ever since I realized that I missed seeing Black Rider, a musical that was Wilson's collaboration with Tom Waits and his Three Penny Opera, I was determined to see this. The avant-garde theater director's staging of a biography of the famed performance artist Abramovic is a close collaboration of Wilson, Abramovic, Willem Defoe and singer Antony from Antony and the Johnsons.

Dafoe serves as an devilish MC, gyrating through the 67 year old artist's bio, illustrating her harsh childhood in a militarily decorated, strict communist household in former Yugoslavia. Mixing amazing Balkan music with exceptionally powerful and beautiful Antony's singing voice and striking lighting schemes, watching Life and Death is unlike anything I've seen before. Abramovic here is a subject and a cast of an ensemble but not a performance artist. As a whole, it is an Wilson's piece through and through, artistically speaking. The two hours and forty minutes with intermission in beautiful The Park Avenue Armory on a snowy night Manhattan, I definitely wanted it to go on a lot longer. Too bad that the beautiful snow fall earlier turned into a heavy rain as we got out of the theater and made a real mess on the street. We wanted to frolic in the snow taking the experience in. Instead, Nicole and I opted for the cigar bar nearby and puffed our night away.

Selective Memories

Muriel ou Le temps d'un retour (1963) - Resnais

The film is set in Boulogne, a port city up north just on the other side of the English Channel. It is rapidly modernizing city with the remnants of WWII destruction still very much lingering. Same is true in the inner lives of Muriel's inhabitants- Helen (Delphine Seyrig), a widow with a selective amnesia who can't let go the memories of a past lover, Alfonse. He shows up at her request accompanied by a young woman claiming to be his niece. Helen's stepson Bernard (Jean-Baptiste Thierrée) also carries a terrible secret from his military days in Algeria.

Even though characters are talking about material things, joking about shady constructions of the new glass and concrete buildings that might 'slide right out to the sea,' and a cruise ship that ran aground at the bay, one can sense that there is a sense of doom over the ugly city. The youngun's wants to get away from it while older folks are stuck in only happy, fantasy oriented memories.

The film is structured like someone's scattered memories. Intentionally drab color palette and ugly 60s buildings are quite contrasty with visual elegance of Last Year at Marienbad, which was made just 2 years earlier (both shot by Sacha Vierny). Muriel is no less impressive at contemplating memories, fantasies and collective scar left in people's psyche in postwar Europe. I actually prefer this to Marienbad.

Orphaned

Nobody's Daughter Haewon (2013) - Hong

It's quite amazing that Hong's been making the same film with little variations for close to 20 years now with an unwavering consistency. Sure, as his reputation has grown as one of the leading Korean auteurs on the international film stage, and his films now feature European art house staples (this time around, Jane Birkin). But the scope of his films has remained pretty much the same. Nothing really new here- having an affair with older professor/movie director, copious amount of drinking and smoking, and wrestling with that sinewy entanglement called human relationship. But you can't not end up falling for Haewon (Jeong Eun-chae), a pretty college student who's about to be orphaned because her mom's permanently relocating to Canada. Her married professor/director wants to continue their 'secret' affairs and gets mad jealous and clingy at the same time, even though they both are tired of their predicament. Very enjoyable and endearing.

I have no desire to see Frances Ha. I don't know why Hong's films are much more attractive to me than Noah Baumbachs. Haewon and many of Hong's films ring true to me in portraying human relationships.

Kora on 66th Street Subway Platform

Kora is an African string instrument prevalent in West Africa- Mali, Senegal, Guinea and other places. I've recorded this back in October. In close proximity to Juliard, the 66th St. 1 Train station platform attracts amazing array of street musicians. This man was too good for me not to record. I just wish I had a better recording device than my 7 year old ipod with a mic attachment at hand.

Listen at:
https://soundcloud.com/floatingartist/1-train-66th-street-lincoln

High Noon in Space

Outland (1981) - Hyams

High Noon in space. Sean Connery plays, O'Niel, a middle management type company sheriff or security officer or whathaveyou of the mining colony in Io, one of Jupiter's moon. Because he is a loudmouth, he's been getting kicked around from the both sides and ended up in the shithole like Io with his less than enthusiastic family. As a matter of fact, his family bolts in two weeks. The company station in the orbit is secretly supplying some kind of red jello type drug that makes mining workers super productive. The side effects of it is hallucination, suicidal tendencies, etc. Many heads get blown up inside spacesuits because of this. As O'Niel catches up with what's going on, the asshole general manager (Peter Boyle) scorns him on acting like a fucking hero and making trouble. He contacts the mothership and have them send some space goons. The big Casio clock ticks down from 40 hours until the goons' arrival. 40 HOURS!

It's unfathomable in this day and age to have nothing blown up or having yet another plot twist every five seconds in a big budget Hollywood action movie. Outland is refreshing in its simpleness. It builds up tediously, showcasing some good old Sci-fi FX goodness and beautiful production design. O'Niel even has enuff time to visit a titty bar and chug a coupla drinks before the showdown. I appreciate that in a movie.

Body Art

Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present (2011) - Akers, Dupre

I didn't know Abramovic's MoMA show in 2011 was such a big deal. I do remember seeing the glimpse of her sitting in a chair against one gleeful patrons after another when I went to see William Kentridge show then. She drew a lot of crowd. I've never been a fan of performance art and just ignored her exhibition completely when it was on.

The film is a great introduction to her body of work. Born in former Yugoslavia, it was her communist hero parents' strict upbringing that shaped her as an artist that primarily uses her body to express. Her 60s-70s radical performance art is not quite dissimilar and equally annoying in that 'radical feminist art', 'I am naked and will balance myself on a stake' way. She and her long time partner/lover Ulay performed the war of the sexes until they broke up after The Great Wall Walk, where they walked from opposite end toward each other. The rest of the film leads up to her MoMA performance. I have to say I was moved by her sitting in one place day after day facing different people for three months. At 62, she looks great and her stamina is astounding. The performance brings out different reactions and emotions out of people. It's quite affecting. I'm very excited about seeing her new performance piece in Robert Wilson's Life and Death of Marina Abramovic next weekend.

Much More than a Feminist Parable

The Wall/Die Wand (2012) - Pölsler








It is very hard to disregard The Wall as a 'what-if' tinged sci-fi in the tradition of Twilight Zone that The Simpsons is so keen on ripping off of. Based on a 60's novel by Marlen Haushofer, the film tells a frumpy, middle aged woman (played superbly by Martina Gedeck) suddenly finding herself cut off from the rest of the world overnight by an invisible wall in the wilderness of the stunning Austrian Alps. It's as if the time has stopped outside the wall. The old couple it the neighboring cabin on the other side of the wall has frozen in their daily activities. Yet, the nature prevails: the birds chirp, the trees sway in the wind, the stream gently flows.... It's just her and her dog, Lynx, alone. She slowly accepts this nightmarish fact and starts a journal, cataloging her thoughts and activities in the back of an old calendar she finds in her cousin's hunting lodge. She goes on long treks to map out the limits of her territories. She learns herself how to survive by hunting and growing crops. The seasons change, and she slowly begins to enjoy living in nature. Crippling loneliness is compensated only by Lynx and other animal friends. Taking care of her animals become her sole reason to go on. But her peace is not meant to last long.

The star of the film is undoubtedly its spectacular setting and cinematography. As our unnamed protagonist treks, works and rests in four seasons in day/night time, we are presented with the majestic Alps scenery. Contemplative, and strangely moving by the end, The Wall doesn't come across only as some sort of a feminist parable on the modern world. The whole experience is much more than that.

Heaven on Earth

The Garden of Earthly Delights (2004) - Majewski



Two lovers, Claudia (Claudine Spiteri) and Chris (Chris Nightingale) both pursuing their doctorate: she studying Hieronymous Bosch's painting, he, nautical engineering, in one of the most picturesque, arty cities in the world, Venice. Claudia's thesis is that Bosch believed in paradise on earth. It's something we create for ourselves in our short time on earth. This rings more true because she is dying of throat cancer. The lovers roam around the forever waterlogged city, reenacting many of the details in the painting, all faithfully documented by Chris with his handheld video camera. This premise might sound a little too self-indulging in that snobby Euro-art way and Spiteri's coquettish British accent hits you as more than annoying. But when all is said and done, it's an affecting contemplation on art, life, death and beauty. I'm definitely going to see more of Majewski's films.

Oh, this will make a great double feature with Museum Hours.

War, What is it Good for?

Shame (1968) - Bergman

Jan (Max von Sydow) and Eva (Liv Ullman) are a childless couple living rustic life in an island. Through their conversation it is revealed that they are former musicians in an orchestra before it was disbanded, presumably, because of the looming war. It also seems that the couple's having some marital problems. Eva wants a baby but Jan doesn't. Eva loathes Jan's passivity and escapist tendencies. The war comes roaring in with jet planes and bombs. The war- destructions, dead bodies, fire, threats, media manipulation..., brings the worst in the couple and heightens the rift between them. The life of the couple is turned upside down, inside out, thoroughly exploited and exhausted by both sides of the fence.

I've never seen the horrors of war this frightening in b&w. The fear and anxiety Bergman, von Sydow and Ullman bring to the screen are amazing. Shame is a complex anti-war film. The setting, its fuzzy time frame are almost expressionistic against realistic performances of the actors. It denounces war, any war and shows how it sucks humanity out of normal people. And what an ending- as they aimlessly float in purgatory treading through full of dead corpses, Eva recites a rather erotic dream. She says she tried to remember something somone had said, not remembering that pleasurable moment. Art is dead (as indicated in Jan's dream that starts the film), love is dead, all that is left is shame of losing them.

Collective Amnesia

12 Years of a Slave (2013) - McQueen

Masterful filmmaking. It does limit the shameful American slavery experience to 12 years and have unwanted famous faces popping up to say hello. But McQueen's focus is all on Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and his unjust slavery. Even Michael Fassbender's powerhouse plantation owner Epps doesn't eclipse Solomon and other slaves' harrowing experiences. The punchline is that without a big payback or satisfying epilogue, we are left to grapple with the fate of the fellow slaves Solomon leaves behind at the end.

It gave me a pleasure seeing this in a packed theater the day after Thanksgiving in one of the beautiful screening rooms of the Brooklyn's cultural mecca, BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) with very mixed audiences. I couldn't help but comparing this film to the best film I've seen this year, The Act of Killing- for both dealing with a collective amnesia of sort, especially when witnessing older white audiences wincing in their seats during many of the film's difficult moments.

My minor issue with the film is what Solomon went through in the film didn't feel like 12 years. If McQueen's intention was that of a surprise that, indeed it's been 12 years and his kids are all grown up, that he's been unjustly kept as a slave, it didn't work for me. It would have a better impact if there was some kind of indication of passage of time. I totally understand how that come across as anything but cheesy, but McQueen would have found the way to show it, just like the rest of the film not being anything but cliché. Definitely among one of the best this year.

Melancholic Landscapes

Une femme en Afrique (1985) - Depardon



Photographer/director Raymond Depardon equates his unfulfilled desire with the vast, empty desert. The whole film is told by an unseen narrator observing a young, androgynous French woman/traveling companion (Françoise Prenant) as she mumbles back sweet nothing to the camera in various stages of undress. The main draw of the film is not the Woody Allenesque neurosis of the narrator. It's the scenery from Djibouti to Alexandria, seen from the balcony, train, boat and plane, mostly over the young woman's shoulders. Depardon captures the melancholy of the desert landscape like no other.