Cultivating Loneliness

Wrong Move (1975) - Wenders




A young, volatile wannabe writer Wilhelm (Rüdiger Vogler), first seen breaking the windows of his bedroom with his fists, leaves home at his mother's urging. On the way to Bonn, he encounters allegorical assortment of people who accentuate his (non) character. They are: old man who was a marathon runner in 1936 Berlin Olympics, his young mute companion- Mignon (13 year old Nastassja Kinski being very Loiita), an actress Therese (Hanna Schygulla) and a fat Austrian poet who tags along.


This early Wenders and Peter Handke collaboration is beautifully framed by Robbie Müller and is filled with these people pairing among themselves, talking philosophically while being on the road together. Wenders succeeds at creating a melancholic character, a young man without qualities, who can't commit to his object of desire and writing at the same time, who struggles with Germany's ugly past, who wants to experience life but doesn't quite know how. With the film's elliptical end, Wilhelm isn't even sure if he made the right decisions about everything thus far. He remains to be an observer of the world, detached, basking in his loneliness. Vogler has quiet intelligence to his approach and Wenders sets the tone right for his protagonist. I liked this gentle, contemplative film.

Nanking

City of Life and Death (2009) - Lu

Tackling a heavy subject matter, such as the rape of Nanking on film, is not an easy task. In City of Life and Death, director Lu Chuan (Mountain Patrol: Kekexili) does a skillful balancing act in this narrative treatment of the infamous event in history. It's not a nationalistic, didactic film by any means, but rather an uncompromising account of life and death in wartime. Shot in stark black and white and with many hand-held scenes, the film recreates what it must've been like in Nanking, the former capital of China under siege by Japanese aggressors, in 1937-38.


The film starts with a young, learned Japanese Lt. Kadokawa (Hideo Nakaizumi) exhausted and dazed from the constant march, far away from home, looking at the walled city in the distance. Then the shelling begins and brutal fire fight ensues between the invading Japanese soldiers and the ragtag of pre-communist Chinese Kuomintang fighters in the streets of rubble and dead bodies. The scenes are just as intense as the ones in Saving Private Ryan. Outnumbered and outgunned, Nanking is overtaken by the Japanese in 3 days in somewhat messy fashion. After massacring all the Chinese men who they deemed as soldiers by shooting, bayoneting, burying alive and decapitating, the Japanese army then proceeds to rape and pillage the city. John Rabe, a German businessman and a member of the Nazi party and his Chinese subordinates create an international zone where they house many Chinese civilians. And they become subjects to an unbelievable pressure by the occupying Japanese. They fend off the Japanese army in the beginning, but succumb to the victors' inhumane cruelty.


In Coppola's Apocalypse Now!, Capt. Willard is told to proceed his mission with 'extreme prejudice'. It is hard to watch the cruelties inflicted by the Japanese soldiers on the Chinese population, treating them as if they are sub-human: throwing a child out of the window to her death in front of her parents, making locals to choose one hundred women to be 'comfort women' in order to save the whole population, making women to choose only one family members to save, and the list goes on and on. When it's all said and done, the historically documented estimate puts the civilian death numbers at 330,000.


A big success in mainland China, but the film and its director Lu Chuan weren't immune to the public scrutiny by somewhat humanizing Japanese, by way of Kadokawa, who is the quiet witness of the whole atrocity. Well researched with many historical and personal accounts (including former Japanese soldiers), what Lu is trying to show us is that we all are capable of such acts in the face of war. Unflinching and devoid of melodrama in its representation, with great all around performances (Fan Wei and Qin Lan as Mr. & Mrs.Tang, Nakaizumi, along with many others) City of Life and Death is an important film that needs to be seen and discussed.


City of Life and Death is distributed by KINO INTERNATIONAL in the US and has its US premiere at Film Forum starting May 11th through 24th.

Save the Earth

Godzilla vs Hedorah (a.k.a. The Smog Monster) (1971) - Banno




For a Godzilla franchise movie, Godzilla vs Hedora is pretty sophisticated. The opening credit with 'Save the Earth' song is worthy of any 007 film credit. Very much a product of its time, the film is permeated with late 60s early 70s psychedelic visuals, music and cool animations sequences. There are disco club scenes, lava lamps, and a strong anti-pollution message. I don't know at what point Godzilla became a good guy, but he plays one here, against Hedorah the smog monster who pollutes Japan's air with sulfuric acid and grows bigger by sucking at the factory smoke stacks. Godzilla even develops its signature style by way of Bruce Lee by brushing his snout before kicking ass.


The film also features rare sight of Gozilla flying, albeit awkwardly. The Kaiju battles get pretty tiresome honestly, but it was pleasure finally seeing the Smog Monster, because my lady wanted to make sure she didn't dream it when she was young. For an edutainment film for children, this one scores big.

Save the Earth: Gozilla vs Hedorah opening sequence

Antz

Phase IV (1974) - Bass






The planets' unusual alignment in the solar system causes ants in New Mexico desert to gather collective intelligence and advance their territories, killing off all the other animals around them. From a shiny, teched-out bio-dome, Dr. Hubbs (Nigel Davenport, sort of workingman's James Mason) and his reluctant, number inclined assistant James (Michael Murphy) are trying to gather information on these super ants. Hubbs is a determined man and he will stop at nothing, even if it means sacrificing other humans around him. And soon they find that they are no match for these pesky creatures.


After being (accidentally) orphaned, a young, horse-riding, luminous country girl (Lynne Frederick) from the nearby ranch, also becomes marooned inside the dome and under attack.


Phase IV is a fascinating film. It's like Jaws but instead of one shark, you got thousands of ants trying to outsmart you. With effective extreme closeups and unexpectedly gorgeous visuals and the 70s pseudo science wtf-ness, it is a thoroughly enjoyable film.

Simple Life

The Naked Island (1960) - Shindo

On a small island, a family- father, and mother and two young sons, ekes out a living by cultivating an arid soil by transporting water from the main land by their wooden row boat everyday. It's a back breaking work and highly repetitive. Shot on black and white Cinemascope and accompanied by a memorable score (by Hikaru Hayashi) and without any dialogue, The Naked Island shows the resilience of human spirit against nature in its simplest terms. It's a thing of beauty.

To the Sea

Alamar (2009) - González-Rubio

There is a brief intro to how Natan, a fat cheeked, curious dark little boy came about, in snapshots with his Italian mother's narration. She was vacationing and fell in love with a local fisherman in Mexico. But their lives were completely different, so now the boy lives in Rome and dad comes over and takes him to his tiny fishing village for a while.


This 'for a while' is Alamar- the boy learns how to snorkel, fish, makes friends with birds, interact with the locals and nature while living in a house on stilts in the middle of the ocean with his dad and grandpa. This docudrama captures some very intimate moments of father-son relationship in the stunning backdrop. Beauty is in its simplicity. Alamar is slice of life doc at its best.

Trailer

Post-Modern Love

Three (2010) - Tykwer

I can't find any news article that says Tom Tykwer, the German director known for his celestial, kinetic action films, having a breakdown or going through traumatic events in his life. But I'm assuming he had to have been, because his new film, Three is extremely chatty, dense and very grown-up, unlike anything he has done prior.


His first German film since Princess and the Warrior, Three concerns a middle aged modern Berlin Couple, Hanna (Sophie Rois) and Simon (Sebastian Schipper) falling in love with the same man, Adam (Devid Striesow). Riddled with the post-modern themes, The film is in part, reminiscent of Don DeLillo's book, White Noise - it starts with Hanna and Simon obsessing over death. Their media soaked, technology savvy, slightly ironical professions reflect this as well (Hanna, a TV talk show host on philosophy, Simon, an art engineer who fabricates large installations for artists).


But however superfluous their jobs might sound, Tykwer's treatment of these characters is nothing but patronizing. And the characters are fully realized by Rois and Schipper. Self absorbed and childless, they are an emblem of modern, attractive, thirty/forty-something professional couple. Rois especially shines in the role of petite, wide eyed, klutzy Hanna, who expresses herself physically as well as verbally in many of the film's comic situations.


Hanna and Simon's midlife anxieties (health scares, death of the family members, stagnant sex life) come tumbling down when they encounter, on separate occasions, an attractive biologist Adam, who works at a stem cell research lab. Drawn to this wise, cherubic man, Hanna and Simon start having affairs with him unbeknownst each other. From then on, the film becomes an old Hollywood style, even Shakespearian, comedy of errors with a revelatory climax.


Adam is an obviously a metaphoric figure for cure, a new way of looking at things in this overwhelming, complex world where inevitable advancement in technology is rewriting the way we live, think and love.


Three is a handsome looking film that features effective split screen, rhythmic editing and playfully paying homage to early years of cinema with b&w sequences. It showcases Tykwer's regular DP Frank Griebe and editor Mathilde Bonnefoy's excellent skills to convey the hectic, technologically imbued world.


Written by Tykwer himself, the film is an ambitious and highly personal work. Does it work though? As the film approaches death, birth and sexuality in a very earnest fashion, it comes across as quite corny. It's much a do about nothing that is quite enjoyable. Mostly because of its likable actors. As I hear his new project being a big budget fantasy, Cloud Atlas with the Wachowskis, I'd like to think he snapped out of his midlife crisis quite unscathed.


Three plays as part of Kino! 2011: New Films from Germany at MoMA, April 27 - May 2nd

Director Tom Tykwer will attend the opening night of the exhibition to introduce the New York premiere of Three.

Children of the Bomb

Children of Hiroshima (1952) - Shindo

[Never before seen in the US, Kaneto Shindo's Children of Hiroshima, a searing anti-nuclear war film gets a theatrical release in a new 35mm print for a week (April 22nd through 28th), as a part of the traveling retrospective- The Urge for Survival: Kaneto Shindo, at the Brooklyn Academy of the Music (BAM). The retrospective will continue with Shindo's 11 other films until May 5th.]


Takako (Nobuko Otowa, director Shindo's muse and wife, seen in Naked Island, Kuroneko, Onibaba) is an elementry school teacher on a small island. She decides to visit her home town, Hiroshima, during the Summer school recess to pay respect for her family who perished when the atom bomb fell four years ago. She is also looking for surviving children from a kindergarten where she used to teach. She soon finds that many of her friends and colleagues are maimed, blinded and made infertile by the bomb.


Subtly didactic in his approach, Shindo never succumbs to cheap melodrama or bombastic sensationalism. Shindo's treatment of the fateful day, August 6, 1945 in flashback, is swift but effective- brief shots of ordinary people going on about their lives while the wall clock winds down to 8:15 a.m. Then static shots of the aftermath: bodies, burning sunflowers, burning bird cages frozen in time, culminate to a stock footage of mushroom cloud shot from Enola Gay. Even with Takako's sunny disposition and the stoic resignation of its citizenry, you can still feel the palpable collective scar left on the Japanese psyche by the bomb. "The thinking man on a stoop evaporated in an instant, but his thoughts still live on."


Shindo finds hope in innate goodness in people, in elders' sacrifices for the future generation and in shots of carefree kids swimming in the city's river. At the same time, he quietly indicts the evils of war and the use of nuclear weapon with shots (which bookend the film) of the school fields full of kids looking up at the sky while the sirens go off.


Forgotten for almost 60 years, the timing of the Children of Hiroshima's release can't be any more befitting than now, with Japan being on the verge of nuclear meltdown. The retrospective's proceeds will go to help Japan disaster relief effort.

Marriage Bliss

Possession (1981) - Zulawski

Mark (Sam Neill) comes back to Cold War Berlin after finishing some insidious gov't job, resulting his subject still wearing pink sox. He is taking a break for the sake of his family. It turns out, his wife Anne (Isabelle Adjani) is having an affair with a very odd, über German man, or so he thought. She disappears, comes back to tend their son, gets in to emotional arguments with Mark (both verging into hysteria), then disappears again. Mark puts a tail on her only to have the private detective he hired go missing. There is someone else, or something...


I remember watching this as a curious and horny teen late at night, not understanding what the hell's going on most of the running time. It was that mondo curio value (Isabel Adjani having sex with tentacled monster!) that attracted me. Ah, those were the days.


Possession is an omnifarious film that can result in multiple interpretations. I hear Zulawski was going through a messy divorce during that time. This gory deconstruction of marriage is both farcical to its supposedly sacred institution and emotionally acute. The physical manifestation of raw emotions in Possession has no equal in film, save von Trier's Antichrist maybe. Adjani is unbelievable as the woman who can't be possessed/dispossessed. The ten minute freakout scene in the subway station alone is worth the admission price. Sam Neill shows that he predates Bill Pullman in the fire-within whitebread department. Bruno Nuyten's dizzing, pre-steadycam cinematography is dazzling and desolate West Berlin with The Wall's omniscient presence is perfect for the setting of the best break-up film (sorry, High Fidelity fans) of all time.

She's Alive!

Android (1982) - Lipstadt

Kinski gets the top billing as a renegade scientist Dr. Daniel. But he's in the film about 30 minutes total. It's about a horny android named Max (credited as Himself) who is Dr. Daniel's assistant. When a trio of fugitives land in their remote space lab, Max makes an autonomous decision to take them in, largely because one of the fugitives is an alluring female, Maggie (Brie Howard). Dr. Daniel is mad but soon changes his mind when he too sees Maggie. The logic according to the mad doctor is, he needs a sexual stimulation from a female for his masterpiece, the perfect woman android Cassandra 3000 (Kendra Kirchner).


Metropolis references abound. Also it has a good deal of nudity and ending suggests that Android was conceived as prequel to Blade Runner or could be seen as one. For a Kinski whoring himself for a paycheck movie, this is pretty decent actually.

Women in Black

Women Without Men (2009) - Neshat

I've been an admirer of the works of the Iranian born visual artist, Shirin Neshat. Her use of Persian calligraphy and black & white images to convey the disparity and distance between the sexes in the Islamic world is truly beautiful and enigmatic. I've been wanting to see Women Without Men, her first narrative feature, ever since it came out.


Falling somewhere between an allegory and a straight historical narrative account of 1953 Iran, when CIA backed military coup reinstated the Shah, Women Without Men tells the entwined story of 4 women. Fakhri (Arita Shahrzad), a middle aged wife of a verbally abusive military general decides to leave Tehran and buy an orchard in the countryside. This beautiful orchard becomes a haven for Zarin (Orsolya Tóth), a prostitute whose clients become melded into one faceless monster, Munis (Shabnam Toloui), a politically aware unmarried woman, held prisoner in her own house by her strict brother and her friend Faezeh (Pegah Ferydoni), who's hopelessly in love with Munis's brother.


The magic realism of the source material befits well with Neshat's style. Visually, the film has some very powerful moments, especially concerning Munis who throws herself from the rooftop to escape her predicament and being resurrected.


Neshat's unsentimental treatment of these women is a bit too cold and detached to be emotionally resonant, but nevertheless, her powerful images leave indelible mark you can't easily shake off.

Manifest Destiny in Smaller Scale

Meek's Cutoff (2010) - Reichardt

I bet Kelly Reichardt has had several infuriating experiences sitting in the passenger's seat of a car driven by male drivers who suffered from 'never-ask-for-directions-when-lost' syndrome and been wanted to make a movie about it. This slight anti-western takes place in Oregon Trail in 1845. Three ox-carts driven pioneer families- the Tetherows (Will Patton, Michelle Williams), the religiously inclined Whites (Shirley Henderson, Will Huff) and the young Gatelys (Paul Dano, Zoe Kazan) with a blowhard guide named Meek (the great Bruce Greenwood, buried in stringy hair & beard and sounding like beetlejuice) get lost in the arid surroundings.


Stephen Meek is a quintessential foolhardy outdoorsman- arrogant, irrational and full of vanity. Soon the band picks up on Meek's bullshit, especially Emily Tetherow. She lets her displeasure known. He then asks her opinion on his philosophy about man and woman: "Woman is chaos and man is destruction." Emily answers with "I'll have to think about it." Whether Reichardt believes this to be true or not, in the end, it's Emily who becomes in charge of their destiny.


The drinking water is running low and the pioneers start dumping family heirlooms to lighten the load. The tension amongst them doesn't actually materialize until they capture a spying Peyote Indian (a violent savage, according to Meek). Meek wants to kill the savage right away but the Tetherows want to keep him alive since he might lead them to where the fresh water is. Gately girl (Kazan) takes the role of 'the one that goes crazy in the wilderness'. Ok, this being Reichardt movie, known for her minimalist aesthetics, nothing on the screen is too dramatic. Even Emily (with her bonnet tightly around her head, covering her facial expression most of the time- reminding me of a burqa on Muslim women) doesn't stand out much from the subservient the other two girls. Everything is understated.


Meek's Cutoff is a frontiers movie with a tinge of Aguirre. It's just a less dramatic take on manifest destiny. If Aguirre would register at 10 on the dramatic scale, Meek's Cutoff would be at about 0.5. But with good ensemble cast and beautiful yet pragmatic, mostly static cinematography and great tension creating soundtrack by Jeff Grace, the film is a quietly engrossing experience that doesn't provide you with an easy way out.

Moving Life

Still Life (2006) - Jia

The Three Gorges Dam, the largest man-made project in human history, has become a symbol of China's ambition to be a global superpower where some sacrifices are regarded as inevitable. Sound of hammering and sentimental pop ballads always in the background, Still Life's new urban development against picturesque mountains is nothing but still. It concerns two relationships being tested - the human cost of changing times. However small and trivial, Jia applies communal activities to connect people, dividing the film in to separate chapters - Cigarettes, Liquor, Tea and Toffee.

Unlike some of my peers, I was never wowed by Jia's films. I'm still not 100 percent convinced that Jia is a great director. Still Life, another one of his carefully composed, thoughtful narrative/doc hybrid on changing times in China, is very good indeed. Jia regular Zhao Tao's story of a wife of a workaholic is not really necessary and leaves the film somewhat asymmetrical.

My main gripe with him has always been his too polished style which betrays the subjects he's documenting. Same with this film. I like 24 City a little better.

My 24 City Review

God-given Talent

Andrei Rublev (1966) - Tarkovsky




Andrei Rublev works on two fronts. It works as an expansive Russian historical epic and it works as a contemplation on the god-given talent. Spanning three plus hours in 7 episodes, Rublev plays out like a good thick Russian novel. The famous monk is both the subject and spectator coming in and out of focus.

From the balloon ride that opens the film to Rublev standing dazed in the pillaged church with the snow falling to color part at the end, Rublev is a visually stunning film.

It's the young bell caster part at the end that really packs the punch. The reckless young man challenges himself in a grand scale. This spectacle tickles now old and reclusive Rublev who has given up painting. You don't acquire talent. You either have it or don't. If you do, you will be the subject of envy and jealousy and might pay dearly for it. But it's your duty not to waste it.

Lust for God II

Thérèse (1986) - Cavalier

Filmmaking that is as pure as its subject, Alain Cavalier tells the short life of Thérèse Martin, a young Carmelite nun who was canonized after her death and known for her writing. The film starts with Thérèse frantically trying to get into the convent because she can't wait to be wed (to Jesus) even though everyone says she's too young. She takes the matters all the way up to the pope.

Carefully framed and lighted, every frame in Thérèse resembles Rembrandt paintings. Catherine Mouchet's portrayal of clear eyed young girl who devotes herself to god with never wavering enthusiasm and warmth is totally convincing. Just as it becomes apparent that Thérèse is dying of tuberculosis, that her faith in afterlife is wavering, the film ends quietly, without any clear answers.

Cavalier doesn't seem to be interested in making Thérèse a religious propaganda or psychoanalyzing his subject. But he makes you wonder that if true devotion is only possible when you are young. Ignorance is bliss? An old nun tells Thérèse, "Don't worry, it's the first 30 years that's hard." Cavalier doesn't judge the little nun. He just presents her short existence matter of factly and there is a lot of beauty in it.

Lust for God

The Devils (1971) - Russell
Heavily censored and outright banned in many countries upon its release, Ken Russell's The Devils tells a story of witchery and political intrigue in the plague ridden 17th century France in true Ken Russell fashion - operatic, vulgar and very very entertaining.

Father Grandier (Oliver Reed) of city state Loudun becomes the leader against the Cardinal (and King Louis XIII's consort) who wants to consolidate power in all of France in order to suppress protestant revolts. Well regarded and loved by many women (including all the nuns at the local convent), Grandier is a very vain man. Mother Jeanne (Vanessa Redgrave), a deformed nun in charge of the local convent is sexually obsessed with Grandier. The news of his secret marriage tips her over the edge and into madness. Other nuns follow suit. Baron Loubardemont, under the cardinal's order to demolish Loudun takes this opportunity to carry out despicable exorcism (forced enema among others) on the nuns in their religious/sexual frenzy and therefore accusing Grandier of bewitching the lustful nuns. It all culminates to the raping of the statue of Jesus in the convent by naked crazy nuns and Grandier burning at the stake.

While poking fun at the organized religion and its faithfuls, Russell's bombastic filmmaking can be too much at times (especially crazy zoom-in/out shots in the orgy scene). Derek Jarman's set design - white tiled Loudun and David Watkins's hot-lights-in-your-face cinematography heighten the craziness. But it's Reed's performance (of his career) as a complex man of god that gives the film its gravitas. And orchestrating this much madness is an achievement in itself.

Homage to No Reason

Rubber (2010) - Dupieux

A nebbish looking man with many binoculars dangling from his neck nervously waits in the middle of the desert. There are empty wooden chairs on the dusty road behind him. A police patrol car pulls up, painstakingly knocking down every single one of the chairs. From the trunk of the car, a sheriff emerges and points out that there are no reasons behind many of the great movies. "In Steven Spielberg's E.T., why is the extra terrestrial's color brown? No reason." and so on.

Rubber is about a tire with psychokinetic power. It blows up people's head. It beckons the question why anybody would watch a movie about a tire with psychokinetic power. If all the spectators are dead, they (actors) can all go home. But we watch, hoping something would happen. And it does- heads blow up, a pretty girl takes a shower in a desolate motel room, more heads blow up, and so on.

It's like a funny idea stretched to an hour and twenty minutes. Too self aware and jokey to be a true cult classic, Rubber is a fun little movie perfect for a lazy Saturday afternoon.

*This would make a great double feature with The Red Balloon.

Crowded House

The Haunting (1963) - Wise





Robert Wise makes a G-rated film scary with the camera angle, movement, sound and tight editing. It's the usual setup- a paranormal studies in a haunted mansion, 3 chosen people, pounding at the door in the middle of the night, cold spots, etc. But it's so effectively creepy.

Julie Harris is mousy, easily irritable Eleanor, wrecked with guilt in the death of her mother. Claire Bloom is sexy Theo and young Russ Tamblyn is Luke, the heir of the haunted mansion. There is a great lesbian sexual tension btwn Eleanor and Theo throughout. But the real star is Wise's direction. There are no "boo" moments or ghosts, but he creates the glum atmosphere with great skill that really gets under your skin. I remember watching the terrible CG ridden remake of this and how nothing worked. Wise, a veteran filmmaker, shows you what you can achieve a lot with little things.

Perfectly Round Red Floating Object (and its hypnotic power!)

Le Ballon Rouge (1956) - Lamorisse

It's so simple yet so captivating and beautiful. You can't simply look away from the perfectly round red balloon for a second. I won't even investigate as to how Lamorisse achieved wrangling the balloon. It's pure magic. Yeah, that's it.

Although I would recommend seeing this on the big screen, you can view its entire 34 minutes on youtube:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Goliath killed his girlfriend?

Summer of Goliath (2010) - Pereda

The film starts with our unseen filmmaker interviewing bunch of kids in gorgeous close ups. Among them is Oscar, a handsome, sullen teenager. Everyone calls him Goliath because he is said to have killed his girlfriend. The details of Oscar's story from the testimonies are somewhat fuzzy. And so begins Summer of Goliath, a part documentary, part narrative, surveying the psycho-geography of fractured, violence ridden family lives in the small mountainous village in Mexico.

Summer of Goliath's a grittier Mexican version of Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. But it lacks humor and the spirituality of the Thai film. Nicolás Pereda takes the 'poetic' way to tell these impoverished people's lives where you are forced to live side by side with your mortal enemies, who have killed your loved ones.

Goliath's strength lies in the revealing interviews with its real village subjects. When it switches to the narrative side with Teresa Sanchez with her sad sack stories of woman being abandoned by her cheating husband for a younger woman, it falls apart. Her abandonment issue seems extremely trivial compared to the enrapturing beginning segment of the film.

With its 74 minutes running time, Summer of Goliath doesn't give you enough time to contemplate on what it means to be living in fear and anger, where drug wars and corruption are everyday occurrences. Still, with long takes and hand-held tracking shots and doc/narrative hybrid, Pereda seems to be cultivating his own voice.

Circle of Violence - Broken Loudly

Incendies (2010) - Villeneuve

A mother's last wish sends her adult twins Jeanne and Simon to Lebanon to find their father and a brother they never knew existed. The story cuts back and forth btwn the present and Nawal Mawan (Lubna Azabal)'s harrowing story of how the country's civil war btwn Christian nationalists and Arabs in the 70s killed her Arab refugee lover and tore her world apart.

Resembling a Greek tragedy, this 'circle of violence must be broken' parable is too heavy-handed to be taken to the heart. Azabal's performance is amazing and there are some great photography work to speak of, including the Radiohead accompanied opening. I really wanted to see this more than anything else at this year's ND/NF. But for me it was a major disappointment.

Price of Being Cool

The Social Network (2010) - Fincher

Fincher's at it again. He single-handedly banished consumerism from earth with his slick masterpiece Fight Club. With The Social Network, he destroys the idea of Being Cool with equally ultra cool dialog. He really has his fingers on the pulse of youth of today. Just how long he can keep up with these soulless reflection is anybody's guess.

Raise your voice!

Microphone (2010) - Abdalla

Watching Microphone now, which is basically a love letter to Alexandria, is all the more poignant considering what's been happening in Egypt for the last few months. Director Ahmad Abdalla succeeds in capturing the essence of the youth culture in the Egypt's second largest, cosmopolitan port city. This film was first conceived as a documentary- shot on HD with a small mobile crew. Then it later evolved into a narrative starring the TV/film superstar Khaled Abol Naga (who also serves as a producer) while keeping the small scale filmmaking intact. It features some of the best underground musicians and graffiti artists the sun drenched bustling Mediterranean city can offer.

Khaled comes back after 7 years of living overseas. He finds that his old flame no longer wants him, his father non-communicative after his mother's death and himself not knowing what to do with his life. While working at an advertising firm and wandering around the city, he encounters many young street musicians, artists and tech-savvy skaters. Collecting underground music becomes an obsession for him. He teams up with the local college film students who have been working on their thesis project about the street culture, and tries to organize a show.

The music is outstanding, Abdalla gives an ample time to each real performers (notably Massar Egbari, Y-Crew, Mascara, Soot Fel Zahma and Nossair) to express their thoughts through their diverse musical forms - hip-hop, metal, rock, etc. Some music reflect their discontent of the government and some connect with the other theme of the movie - love and heartbreaks. The disjointed breakup scene of Khaled and Salma is present throughout the film.

As Khaled and crew work on going over the hurdle that National Art Council set up for them, it becomes apparent for all to see that the old folks who are in charge will always embrace the old and never give a chance to the young generation to voice their opinion- there is a funny bit where a weaselly art council member announces that he decided to go for a friend of Umm Kulthum (perhaps the best known traditional Egyptian singer, born in 1893) instead of Massar Egbari for one of the government sponsored concert.

It's a bittersweet, elegiac film fluidly put together with the colorful, vibrant backdrop of Alexandria. It is a very portentous film, as the one of the characters in the movie says, "You move on, but live each day with a little bit of sadness."

Microphone plays as a part of ND/NF 2011, 3/29 8:30pm at MoMA and 3/31 6pm at FSLC. For more information and tickets, please click on ND/NF 2011 website here.

Minced Meat

The Set-up (1949) - Wise

An aging boxer, Bill 'Stoker' Thompson (Robert Ryan), who is always one punch away from...greatness, feels good today in Paradise City. It don't matter that his fight is not the top billing (it is the last fight of the day actually), that his manager is taking bribes from a gangster named Little Man for him to take a dive, or that his girlfriend is having a second thought about staying with the man who just might easily be turned in to a human hamburger. No, he feels he can take his young opponent, really.

The Set-up reminds me of this quote by Johnny Caspar in Miller's Crossing:

It's gettin' so a businessman can't expect no return from a fixed fight. Now, if you can't trust a fix, what can you trust?

Robert Wise creates a smoke-filled, sleazy, unglamorous, two-bit boxing noir. Citizen Kane-esque cinematography by Milton Krasner is just marvelous to look at. Fight scenes are realistic and crazy intense, amateurish and not stylized at all- no wonder Scorsese is a big fan of this. Fun to see Stoker's mood changing one minute to another, as he witnesses the joy and misery in fellow meatballs battling it out where paying spectators chant "KILL HIM!" from all four corners of the ring. Ryan, looking like a hero from Bellows' painting, slogs through a hellish fight, then being subject to the fury of the gang. Just how much of this can a man take? A great tight noir.