Amazing Grace

Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami (2017) - Fiennes

How do you demystify someone without sacrificing all the enigma and mystery around the subject? Sophie Fiennes, documentarian extraordinaire behind two highly entertaining Zizek docs and one on artist Alselm Kiefer just does that with one of the most iconic figure in fashion and music, Grace Jones. Instead of doing typical chronological biography highlighting her hits and movie appearances over the years with bunch of boring sit-down interviews, Fiennes just follows Jones around on stage, behind-stage and hotel rooms as she treads in her stilettos. Bloodlight and Bami shows the cultural icon dealing with musicians and others on the phone herself to make the record. Her phone manners in her booming bariton are sometimes aggressive, sometimes cloying, other times aggressively cloying.

Then we follow her to Jamaica, where her family is. She goes to church where her brother is a pastor and her mother sings, eats jerk chicken, slurp oysters and takes care of her grown up son. At age 69, Jones is still electrifying on stage and still stunning as a bronze statuette. Fiennes just let her be her magnificent self. The result is one of the best documentaries in recent years.

Žižek Remains Hopeful, So Should You

The Pervert's Guide to Ideology (2013) - Fiennes

Why is it easier for us to visualize the end of the human race, than the end of the free-market capitalism? This is the driving question behind the latest collaboration between Slavoj Žižek, the superstar philosopher/psychoanalyst/cultural critic of our time and director Sophie Fienne's in their new documentary, The Pervert's Guide to Ideology. It's their second film since the widely successful The Pervert's Guide to Cinema in 2006. Clocking at 135 minutes, Ideology is arguably less entertaining than its predecessor despite the charming presence of the famed philosopher in several iconic movie backdrops, gesticulating wildly and sounding like the Eastern European Sylvester the Cat. But this film is a denser, more serious examination of our consumerist society that asks many of the important questions of our time, and will require your full attention. As the film jumps briskly through various components of ideology, I suggest seeing the film more than once to absorb Žižek's whole thought process.

For a person who grew up in Communist Slovenia during the Cold War, and hailing from a Marxist/Anarchist perspective, Žižek is equally critical of all ideologies -- the Soviet Communism, Fascism, Capitalism and religion. With various examples of Soviet era war films and Nazi propaganda, he demonstrates the manipulative nature of ideology.

While this film is intellectually complex and sometimes hard to follow, there are many brilliant moments that you just have to nod and smile. One of these is in the beginning, with John Carpenter's hidden gem of the Hollywood Left, They Live. Žižek begins his dissertation by the dumpster in a back alley in LA, where the epic fist-fight between Roddy 'Rowdy' Piper and Keith David takes place, because David's character refuses to put on the sunglasses that will let him see the hidden messages used by the yuppie aliens to control the human race ("Obey", "Money is your God" etc - all the good things about the Reagan years). Ideology is essentially the filter that we see the world through.

Žižek uses different cultural examples to demonstrate how historic ideological movements manipulate the masses. Beethoven's 9th Symphony -- Ode to Joy, a world famous melody associated with a vision of fraternity amongst all human beings, has been appropriated by many political movements: Nazis, Marxists, Maoists and even the Shining Path -- believe it or not, these were all 'utopian movements' in their own minds. It was the national anthem of the apartheid government of Southern Rhodesia (present day Zimbabwe) and is now the anthem of the European Union. After the long historical montage, you are relieved to see Žižek sitting in the Korova Milk Bar from Clockwork Orange. The genius of Beethoven is not only utopian vision in music, but the realization that there are those who will always be excluded from this utopia, as illustrated by the carnivalesque version of the symphony's fourth movement heard in the scene where Little Alex prowls the shopping mall.

Žižek dissects our advanced, capitalist system using Freudian psychoanalytic terms and Western philosophy, giving variety of cultural examples for the laymen: Sound of Music, Kinder Eggs, Starbucks, coke, Titanic.... He takes us to the Mojave Desert -- the gravesite of derelict airplanes, for us to witness the amazing amount of waste created by the current economic system. For those who are not familiar with Plato's Republic, he sites Dark Knight to explain the 'Noble Lie', a conservative view of the society where it is necessary for the rulers to lie because the public can't handle the truth.

All this heady, intellectual inquiries are at times too much. Fiennes deftly moves from one iconic movie setting to another connecting the dots and continuing visual threads to keep up with our motor-mouthed host and keep the film afloat. The movie settings are perfectly matched with the originals and the visual gags are clever and funny.

Capitalism is the only revolution that survived because it thrives on economic crises and social turmoil. Why do people loot during the riot? Žižek uses an example of the London Riots of 2011. In our consumerist system, people's frustrations in social and economic injustice can be only expressed by stealing objects. We go back to his main question for the finale:

Why do we so easily envision asteroid hitting the earth or the end of days rather than seeing a moderate change in our economic system?

I saw him speaking eloquently about the possibilities of envisioning a different kind of world for our future at the Zuccotti Park, during Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011. With The Pervert's Guide to Ideology, he is suggesting us to examine the past, learn from mistakes and be a little bit of a realist in seeing the world.

The Pervert's Guide to Ideology opens 11/1 at the IFC Center followed by other markets.
Slavoj Žižek and director Sophie Fiennes in person Fri Nov 1 & Sat Nov 2 for Q&As following 6:45 shows.

Plus book signing with Žižek for his new book Less Than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism, Sat Nov 2 at 9:45pm – books on sale at lobby concessions stand.
Please visit IFC website for tickets.

More Real than Real

The Pervert's Guide to Cinema (2006) - Fiennes

The three part lecture on cinema from past to present presided by philosopher Slavoj Zizek is an wild ride. 'Pervert' refers to the moviegoer as a peeping tom living out his/her desires from a safe distance. You can take it face value, or not. Take your pick. Either way, it's super entertaining.

The bathroom scene in Psycho after the killing is an example Zizek gives, where Norman Bates scrubs the blood stain off of the tub. Bates meticulously gets rid of all the evidence. It goes down the drain to the other side, to netherworld, never to be seen again. In Coppola's Conversation, the clogged toilet overflows with blood to confront the audience with an uncomfortable secret. When "The shiiiit comess back up!," the distance of our fantasy and reality gets compromised.

Then there are fantasy and sex. You can't have sex without fantasy in films. But when fantasy is realized or being close to being realized, it becomes a nightmare. Lynchian world is a prime example, so is Hitchcockian universe.

There are layers in films where fantasies become more real than reality. Zizek's analyses of films become more relevant in the internet age and transcends beyond simple Freudian interpretations. I don't have to tell you about 'putting on a persona' in social networking or role playing games.

The very recent incident in my life is a testament of this. Someone hacked my email account and sent everyone I know a spam, causing a huge embarrassment for me. Then there is a guy who has been stalking me on the internet forums. Even though I hardly know him other than from some tit-a-tat sessions on these boards, he used that spam mail against me on a website I regularly write for which has no connection to him at all. The anonymity gives you carte blanche to be whatever on the internetz, and it always ends up on the naughty side. The films tell you a lot about yourself- your darkest, dirtiest desires, Zizek informs us with his unmistakable thick Eastern European accent and wildly gesticulating hands. Now this is my kind of entertainment!

Lilith's Garden

Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow (2010) - Fiennes



Anselm Kiefer, a well regarded post-war German artist who is known for his metaphoric, history resonating (especially German war past) work, using paintings and sculptures made with organic/inorganic materials. Fiennes documents Kiefer's large scale projects in Barjac, Southern France. With tunnels and burrows and glass boxes, it's a labyrinthine industrial space where every room is filled with Kiefer's rough and organic creations. Anchored by an interview in the middle of the film between Kiefer and a German Journalist where we get most of the information from (his artistic intentions, philosophy, etc.), the doc is not a biographical one. Except when the artist is at work, giving his team and assistants various instructions (mostly in French) on location filled with fork lifts, kilns, cranes and cement mixers, the film is without narration.

Fiennes leaves the process and the work speak for themselves, and it's fascinating. The combination of long smooth tracking and crane shots and the nature of Kiefer's post apocalyptic, industrial work involving concrete, twisted metal and lots and lots of broken glass with the György Ligeti soundtrack are comparable to Tarkovsky images.

I really liked him making connections with the sea (where we all come from) and the books (human knowledge, which serves as foundation literally and figuratively in his works) and the giant cement towers surrounded by nature, invoking Lilith from the bible (hence the title). A great doc.