Pop Psychology

Still of the Night (1982) - Benton

80s pop psychology abound, Still of the Night is simple but effective, moody noir. Meryl Streep plays a mousy, mysterious woman working at an auction house who may or may not be a murderess. Roy Scheider is Sam, a psychiatrist whose patient gets murdered. Streep is unbelievably attractive in this! The high point is the night in Central Park chase sequence and a creepy dream sequence beautifully shot by master cinematographer Nestor Almendros. It's one of those films that lingers you for days, if not years.

This Film is Gazing Back at You

Visitors (2013) - Reggio

Koyaanisqatsi (1982), a genre-defining, landmark film that features stunning time-lapse photography and the hypnotic Philip Glass's score, expanded boundaries of film. It garnered cult following and spawned countless imitators in commercial, documentary and narrative film world (most recently, Samsara). Its director, Godfrey Reggio, followed it with Powaqqatsi (1988) and Naqoyqatsi (2002) to complete the long intended trilogy.

Reggio insists his films are not experimental, but rather, experiential. He asserts this notion again with Visitors, his new film in more than ten years. It's a visual tone poem presented in stunning monochrome 4K. Like his previous -qatsi trilogy, 'life unbalanced' theme is still present. But consisted of only 74 shots, the film is much more graceful, subtle, abstract experience. As for the meaning of the film, it is anybody's guess. Watching Visitors is not a passively immersive experience like Cuaron's Gravity. Its inhabitants (including a lowland female gorilla) in mostly closeup look directly at you. The film is watching you watching the film. It requires audience to be active participants to interpret the meaning of the film themselves.

Philip Glass's score makes up the other half of the film and it's just as awe inspiring. Unhurriedly, one piece of music ends and the other starts accompanying the crisp imagery, perfectly in tune with what's being seen. It's beautiful, powerful and deeply moving. After experiencing Visitors, I purchased its soundtrack the same night, so I could listen to it away from its visual partner. I realized how rare it is for a film soundtrack to stand on its own. It is by far, the finest orchestral writing I've heard from always masterful Glass.

Except for the view from the moon SFX shots, the scope of the film seems much narrower than his previous films- New Jersey for urban decay and Louisiana Everglades for nature in time-lapse photography and aforementioned human & animal portraiture. But it's a majestic film going experience. It wouldn't be a stretch to call Visitors a little mute brother of Malick's Tree of Life.

Visitors received its world premiere at the 2013 Toronto Film Festival and will open theatrically on Friday, January 24 at the Landmark Sunshine Cinema, New York, with a national rollout to follow. Please visit the film's official website for more information.

Mirage

Another Sky (1954) - Lambert











A comely English Governess Rose (Victoria Grayson) arrives in bustling Marrakech, Morocco. She is hired by aging socialite Selena to keep her company and do house chores. She is escorted by Ahmed, a stoic Arab who shows her around the town. Even though she doesn't speak much French or Arabic, Rose gets by with the help of Ahmed, who seems to understand everything. One day at the party, thrown by a flamboyant American Bancroft at a former Sultan's palace, Rose lays her eyes on a young Arab musician, Tayeb. After several rendezvous arranged by Ahmed, Rose is head over heels for Tayeb. His sudden disappearance makes Rose to abandon everything and go on a whirlwind journey into the foreign desert landscape.

Writer Gavin Lambert, a friend of writer Paul Bowles (Shetering Sky, Up Above the World) perfectly captures the melancholy and loneliness of the desert in his only film. Elegantly photographed and with great local music, Another Sky is a beautiful film about magnetic force of the desert landscapes, being lost while searching for something unattainable, a mirage.

Interview: Hirokazu Kore-eda on Like Father, Like Son and Parenting

Regarded by many as the best contemporary Japanese filmmaker and spiritual heir to the master filmmaker and humanist, Ozu Yasujiro, Kore-eda Hirokazu has been making quiet, deeply affecting films about childhood, family and death. I told myself not to cry while watching his new film Like Father, Like Son at the New York Festival last fall, but couldn't help tearing up at the end.

Soft spoken and a with gentle demeanor, Kore-eda was exactly how I imagined him to be when I sat down for an interview, one early October morning.

Many of your films deal with family and childhood and this film is no exception. I'd like to know about the origins of this particular film which involves a 'switched at birth' story.

For the last couple of films I tried to incorporate my life in it as much as possible. I tried to incorporate motifs and things from my life, the subjects that are close to me. In terms of this movie I think the starting point was what happened with my daughter. I actually didn't have very much time to spend with her. While working on my last film, I Wish, I was away for about a month and when I came home after being away for that duration, she recognized me as a father but I could see that there is this 'resetting' in her mind as to who I was. She was three at the time. Then when I was leaving the next day, in the hallway to say good bye, she said, "Please, come again." [laughs]

It was shocking to me. Then it came to me that even though we are connected by blood, a father has a very different existence and relationship, compared to that of a mother to a child. So I actually panicked. I thought, "this is not good." And based on that experience it made me to think about the ties between the parents and the children. Especially time. The time we spend together, compared to just blood ties - all these went into making this film.

So then do you feel closer to Ryota (played by Japanese TV and pop star, Fukuyama Masaharu) more so than Ryudai (Franky Lily)?

That's right. Ryota. And making him the main character, I thought about 'who would be the least appealing character in terms of who you want to raise your child with. And that was the type I'd like the least.

Fukuyama Masaharu, who plays Ryota is a big star in Japan. Did you have him in mind for the role?

I wasn't conscious about him playing the role when I was working on the screenplay. It was Fukuyama who approached me and wanted to work together. This offer from him was the starting point. I thought I'd portray him in a different way than the way he is usually portrayed before. So that was how it happened.

I couldn't help wondering about your method working with child actors. In films like Nobody Knows, I Wish and now Like Father, Like Son, you capture the moments of pure delight in their faces that is too real to be just them acting and being in characters.

It actually starts with an audition process, forming communication with them to see whether they understand what I'm saying and I understand what they are saying- that's where it all starts. Once that communication is formed with the premise (of the film) then we move audition into rehearsals. It's not that I'll pass out the scripts to them or give them lines to say. It's more of doing a particular scene with me or a person who's going to play the father and just to see how to say the words, have them hear through their ears and have them come out of their own. It's a natural process. Out of hundred children, there are maybe five or six who I'll be able to interact in this way, with those I'll bring them to the set. In terms of the lines, I don't feed them lines, I try to incorporate their words and vocabularies into the lines I create. So i consider myself sort of borrowing their words and returning them. They are the inspiration of those lines. I might say something like, 'try to say something like you did last time or say what you told me the other day'. That's how I've been working with children the last ten years or so.

Has the Great Eastern Earthquake that hit Japan and The Fukushima disaster which has been going on since then changed anything for you as a filmmaker?

Yes, it is something that I am conscious of. It's not really about something that has affected how I express myself. That's something I don't really know for sure. There's probably a portion which unconsciously incorporated into my work, but it's not really simple. Of course there are a lot of works regarding the subject and it's important. But I really think that we are not going to be able to digest everything that's happened until, maybe 5 or 10 years down the road, in terms of its impact on Japanese society.

[He pauses for a long time, then continues]

But I think this time, in terms of making this film, there were couple of motivations for it. One was definitely had to be the earthquake. I think it really enforced the idea of bonds in Japan. The idea actually became very trendy. In a way, it wasn't so good in Japan before (in that regard). But the idea of bonds and people supporting each other and all of Japan becoming one has become very common in Japan. I've been thinking about that, about how we can reduce that feeling to a small community that is family. So I think in terms of how I came up with the idea for the movie about a man and his bond with his family, I suppose the earthquake played the role.

There is always a sense of optimism I feel in your movies. Is it your inherent nature as a filmmaker to portray childhood or the next generation in optimistic light? Is it why you always go back to the subject of family?

In Japan, the word optimism doesn't have a positive connotation. It has a tinge of 'escape from reality'. I wouldn't use the word to describe my work. I don't like making films about downcast or pessimistic side of life. That's just not what I do. The thing about making movies about family is that it is a troublesome subject but also essential. Something that you need.

I know that you support the younger generation of filmmakers by producing their films. Nishikawa Miwa (Dear Doctor, Dreams for Sale) is one of them. I'm just wondering how you go about supporting certain projects with younger directors. And can you tell us some young directors you can think of that we need to know about?

Some of them I supported have already been in my crew so there is a connection already there. And when I actually read a script by someone and it seems interesting, I'd support them. That's usually the process. It may not be so in the film world, but in the Japanese TV community where I came from, it is pretty common practice to help younger pupils. And also I don't have any director friends, so it's a good way for me to make friends who are directors. [laughs] Young directors, young directors….

[Thinking really hard… asking others]

Yamashita Nobuhiro (Linda, Linda, Linda) and Nishikawa Miwa, come to think of it they are not that young. they are all in their forties. [we all laugh] Right now, they are the two I can think of…

Avatars

The Congress (2013) - Folman







Ari Folman (Waltz with Bashir) returns with a trippy new live action/animation feature. The selling point of this highly ambitious parody on stardom and movie industry, loosely based on Stanislaw Lem's The Futurological Congress, is first and foremost its dazzling animation. The look of The Congress is decidedly retro - a combination of Astro Boy, Fantastic Planet, Betty Boop on acid.

The story concerns Robin Wright, a middle aged former actress who lives in a airplane hangar with her two kids, Sarah and Aaron. Hollywood had tired of her because she's been a 'difficult' actress all her career. Her long time agent Al (Harvey Keitel) visits her with one last offer which seems to be the norm for the aging actors in the business ('Keanu has done it!') - total body scanning. Once she is scanned completely into the computer system, she will never be able to work again. But her computer generated younger self, forever at age 33-34, will star in whatever studio demands. She will be handsomely rewarded. Aaron having some sort of sensory debilitating disease and half-threat from the ruthless Miramount studio head Jeff (Danny Huston), Robin reluctantly agrees to the deal.

Twenty years later, she visits Miramount again to attend the animated world of Congress, where they announce sensory altering drugs where people can drink the portion of the celebrities of their choosing and become like their idols until the drug wears off. By now Robin's computer generated self is a mega action babe and no one recognizes her old self except for Dylan (voiced by John Hamm), an animator/scan artist who has been in love with her since her 'retirement'. She opposes the drug that suppresses individualism and promotes hiding behind mask in public and pays the consequences. Then there is an animated revolution...

Folman's take on our technology imbued society where people wear masks/live through avatars is an overly ambitious project, so much so its narrative structure has visible cracks everywhere. Yet by the end, you are so dazzled by its colors and style, you find yourself standing dazed, covered in its electric rainbow mist, asking what just happened.

First Look 2014 at The Museum of Moving Image

MoMI (Museum of Moving Image) presents First Look, a bona fide film series showcasing new works by established filmmakers and first timers alike from all corners of the globe, carefully selected by the esteemed curatorial staff (first by Critic Denis Lim now David Schwartz and Aliza Ma). Quietly nestled in post-New Year hangover days with crazy award season just around the corner.First Look is fast becoming one of the most sought after film series in New York City. The series runs from January 9 - 19.

This is where I first saw Chantal Akerman's gorgeous new film Almayer's Folly and Philippe Grandrieux's loving documentary, It May Be That Beauty Has Strengthened Our Resolve: Masao Adachi, on the Japanese New Wave great Masao Adachi in its inaugural edition two years ago. Last year, the series graced me with Bruno Dumont's seldom seen 2011 masterpiece, Hors Satan (one of my very favorites of last year) and a beautiful three-hour documentary on the remote island of Corvo and its inhabitants off of Azores, It's The Earth, Not The Moon.

This year, they are presenting 13 features and 6 shorts on two consecutive weekends, including Godfrey Reggio's new film The Visitors with Philip Glass's score, Glass will be presenting the screening along with Steven Soderberg. The opening night's film, Little Feet is a new work by American Indie staple, Alexander Rockwell (In the Soup, Somebody to Love). I am particularly interested in seeing the Chilean offerings, The Quispe Girls and The Summer of Flying Fish, as well as Ape (pictured above) by Joel Potrycus. For any cinephiles, First Look offers a great start to a new year.

Please go to the MoMI website for more info, schedule and tickets.

Vision Board 2014

Our friend Crystal had her beginning of the year party/get-together/let's-all-draw-something thang at her apartment. We had to trek all the way up to Washington Heights in a slush mess of a weather and there were more than 20 of us drawing on our 'vision board': a piece of wooden board where we draw our personal vision of the new year on our hands and knees. There was homemade coconut, plantains & vegetable stew with beans and rice- Crystal's family's from Puerto Rico = a damn good stew. And I drew this for myself. Since I don't draw regularly, I was quite intimidated by all the artists around me. But I think it came out alright:


Happy New Year Everyone!

Whaling as Art

Drawing Restraint 9 (2005) - Barney
In pictures:
















Japanese culture seems like a perfect match for artist Matthew Barney. In Drawing Restraint 9, his feature length film project, he takes on the ritual of whaling with the help of his girlfriend Bjork. Unlike his Cremaster Cycle films, Drawing actually has something resembling a plot. After elaborate giant whaling ship launching ceremony, two foreigners in fur coats (Barney and Bjork) gets invited (hauled in a basket) on board. Separately they get groomed and put on Matthew-Barney-hybrid kimonos (made out of animal hides) and attend an elaborate tea ceremony with Matthew-Barney-hybrid tea set (made out of various sea shells and sea creatures). In the mean time, the crew are busy hauling in some kind of manufactured sea log and what looks like a gigantic spine made out of wax in place of an actual whale. The night comes and the violent storm hits. The ship is taking in water, slowly submerging B and B. They start cutting each other's legs off with ritual daggers under water, then transform themselves into whales.

Continuing the theme and motifs from his Cremaster Cycle and marrying them with whaling - sperm, sperm whale, wax, blubber, amber gris, etc., Barney creates some stunning images accompanied by Bjork's score. All the rituals are loooong drawn out, but luckily, there are no repetitions of images or movements. I can't think of an art project that is this big in scale and ambitious yet quite coherent. Drawing Restrain 9 is quite an experience.

Sink or Swim

Drowning by Numbers (1988) - Greenaway






Satunning: visual symmetry, use of background/foreground, lighting, insanely elaborate mise-en-scene.... Drowning by Numbers is just out of this world. The work of a true obsessive compulsive. The plot involves women, all named Cici, drowning their husbands.

A Nightcap

Merci pour le chocolat (2000) - Chabrol
Delicious. Since it is a Chabrol film, I knew going in that it won't have a satisfying ending. I enjoyed the heck out of it nonetheless. He lays all the traps first, going through characters' histories and slowly building up the tension. A simple intrigue- a remote possibility of 2 babies switched at birth, expands to a full blown murder mystery centered around the chocolate factory heiress Mika (Isabelle Huppert), her pianist husband Andre (Jacques Dutronc) and Jeanne (Anna Mouglalis) who might or might not be Andre's daughter. Mika's motives are not well defined but hinted throughout the film. It's not those puzzle pieces that relishes in their own cleverness that only happens in movies. There is no internal logic in Chabrolian world, just a lot of intrigue and people behaving mysteriously but not in a calculated way. I feel that I can easily get lost into his world. More Chabrol please.

Top 20 Discoveries 2013

Looking through the list, I admit my film viewing wasn't as adventurous as the last year's. I don't even have anything before 1969 on the list. Shame on me. I did exercise some concerted effort to explore certain filmmakers which I never consciously have in my film viewing previously, ever. Still there are so many filmmakers to explore...

Top 20 in order watched:
*Click on the titles for full reviews

Life and Nothing More... (1992) - kiarostami

Kiarostami's moving picture continues. A middle aged man and his young son are on the road to Koker, a northern rural town leveled by the devastating earthquake in 1990. It is only revealed later on that the man is a film director (a Kiarostami stand-in) who is looking for a child actor who starred in his previous film, Where is Your Friend's Home? (AK's 1987 film also taking place in that region). As they encounter monstrous traffic jam and many victims of the 'god's will', the line between reality and fiction evaporates: the traveling pair encounters an old man who was also in the said film, carrying a porcelain sink to his house amid devastation around him. He explains, "You never know when you need it." When asked if the big house he is entering (but doesn't have a key to) is his, he replies, "This is not my house. It's only my house in this film. My real house collapsed in the earthquake."

Shot shortly after the real earthquake that took the lives of 50,000, and based on his own experience driving around (with his real son), Life and Nothing More... shows resilience of the people amid a horrible disaster. As they make ends meet, digging out their household items from debris, they still look forward the better future. They fidget a TV antennae to watch a World Cup match in ruins. With Through the Olive Tree (a fictional 'making-of' Life and Nothing More...) as the third film taking place in Koker, these films are seen as the Koker Trilogy. There are many elements here that are present in his later films: interior driving shots, wide scenery long takes, no close-ups. Elegantly simple and captivating throughout with an open ending, Life and Nothing More... is a beautiful film.

Taste of Cherry (1997) - Kiarostami

Inquisitive dialog, just like intimate questionnaires in documentaries is where it's at with all Kiarostami's films, staged usually in moving cars. The beauty of Taste of Cherry lies in its simplicity- a man drives around looking for someone to assist him in his suicide. They don't have to do the deed. He will take sleeping pills and lie down in an already dug up grave. In the morning, they can put some earth on him if he's dead. They will be rewarded handsomely. First, a young soldier runs away after finding out what the man is up to. Second, a seminary student from Afghanistan objects because of his religious beliefs and tries to dissuade him. Finally, an old taxidermist agrees to it, because he has a sick child.

Kiarostami lets us know that we are watching a film. With Louis Armstrong's St. Jame's Infirmary playing at the end over the image, he tells us that death is inevitable for all of us and makes us think. His cinema is precious because it doesn't resemble any other. If Tarkovsky tried to make us feel the 'passage of time' with his virtuosic camera movements, framing and lighting, Kiarostami succeeds in astounding simplicity, in one hour and forty minutes. Life is a moving car. Done. The impact is still immense. The abrupt intrusions of continuity in the middle and at the end are quite delicious in cinematic terms. It all fits nicely with his theme of life, death, cinema, reality... just amazing!

Hadewijch (2009) - Dumont

Austere and sincere. Another masterpiece from Dumont.

The White Ribbon (2009) - Haneke

Masterful examination on the existence of 'innocence'.

It's the Earth Not the Moon (2011) - Tocha

Loved every single moment of this 3 hour Portuguese documentary.

Le pont du nord (1981) - Rivette

Loveliness of Pascal Ogier is just an icing on the cake in this playful comedy by one of the unsung heroes of French New Wave.

La captive du desert (1990) - Depardon

Desert + Sandrine Bonnaire = cinematic heaven

Céline et Julie vont en bateau (1974) - Rivette

One of the classics I hadn't seen that I was able to get to this year. It lives up to all the praises.

A Nous Amours (1983) - Pialat

One of the best cinema debuts ever- 16 year old Sandrine Bonnaire ignites the screen. Pialat's uncompromising direction goes down in my book as one of the best coming of age movies of all time.

Coup de Torchon (1981) - Tavernier
The most hilarious Jim Thompson adaptation ever!

Emperor's Naked Army Marches On (1987) - Hara

Crazy documentary. You can totally see the continuation of Japanese New Wave in this anti-gov/anti-war film.

Peppermint Candy (1999) - Lee

Dehumanization of a man who experienced the Gwangju Massacre in Korea, 1980, told in reverse timeline. It's definitely the best Korean film I've ever seen.

City of Sadness (1989) - Hou

Hou's history lesson of Taiwan is masterful and affecting.

Mon Oncle Amerique (1980) - Resnais

Slowly getting into master filmmaker Resnais's artistry. There are still so much to explore in his filmography!

Mandala (1981) - Im

I grew up watching Im Kwontaek's films. I was too young to appreciate them back then. Beautiful, if not a little conventional storytelling. If you want good films about Buddhism, look no further than Im's films.

Heart of Glass (1976) - Herzog

This was One of my blind spots in Herzog's filmography. As expected, a grand experience at the cinema.

35 Rhums (2008) - Denis

So simple yet so perfect. This quiet family drama reaffirms why Claire Denis is one of my favorite director of all time.

Caravaggio (1986) - Jarman

I was planning on taking large volumes of screenshots from this visually stunning film. But it turns out the dvd I got from netflix is too scratched to play on my computer. I'm seriously thinking about buying this. Jarman was a true visionary. Taking on the well known cocky post-Renaissance painter Amerighi Caravaggio's life with his painterly, dramatic style that surpasses even the best of Greenaway's bombastic visuals, he shows the painter's lust for life and disdain for what was socially acceptable in a very Catholic era. Young Tilda Swinton and Sean Bean are sculpted with theatrical light skillfully thus their youthful beauty immortalized on the celluloid forever. Nigel Terry (King Arthur in Excalibur) plays famed painter with messy private life who was attracted to many of his subjects, including young Tilda and Sean. It wouldn't have worked if it was done by any other, but when Jarman mixes old and new (modern costumes, typewriter etc), transcending time and space, it works wonders. Amazingly beautiful and playful, I am totally blown away by this.

Days of Eclipse (1988) - Sokurov

Yes, Sokurov is quite different from Tarkovsky as a director and visual storyteller. I realize that after seeing this film. It's quite hard to describe this 'Sokurovian cinema'. But this film was an eye opener.

Shame (1969) - Bergman

What more can I say about this? Bergman is a true master of cinema.

Directors explored:

Jacques Rivette:
Le pont du nord
Celine et Julie vont en bateau

Maurice Pialat:
A nous amours
Loulou
Police

Abbas Kirarostami:
Life and Nothing More
Taste of Cherry
Homework
The Reoprt

Hou Hsiao Hsien:
City of Sadness
Millennium Mambo

Bruno Dumont:
Flandres
Hadewijch
Hors Satan
Camille Claudel 1915

Alain Resnais:
Mon oncle Amerique
Muriel
Vous n'avez encore vu

Raymond Depardon:
Une femme en Afrique
La captive du desert
L'homme sans O'ccidental

Alexandr Sokurov:
Days of Eclipse
Mother and Son
Moloch

Hong Sangsoo:
In Another Country
Nobody's Daughter Haewon

Top 20 Discoveries 2012