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Bombay Beach: Alma Har'el Interview

A little history on Bombay Beach first:

The desolate and surreal Salton Sea in California stands as a formidable metaphor for the broken American Dream. The largest lake in California, it was created when the Colorado River flooded the windswept desert, carrying the river's entire volume into the Salton Sink over a period of Approximately two years. A dam was built and water filled the basin- the Salton Sea was born. As the height of American optimism in the 1950s, the Salton Sea fueled a recreation boom, and the inland desert sea became an inviting vacation destination. Today, after series of floods, the lack of water outflow, and the high salinity that has killed off the fish, Bombay Beach is little more than a shanty ghost town in the poorest county of California. The broken-down signs from the '50s and the sunken, ghostly Marina are still there to remind the community of the dream that once was the Salton Sea- and is now a pool of dead fish in the middle of the desert.

Known for her music videos for Beirut (Postcards from Italy, Elephant Gun), Bombay Beach is the first feature by the Isreali-born director Alma Har'el.

How did this unique movie come about?

I wanted to make a documentary with dance sequences in it. I am very interested in dances and movements in films. Sometimes people express themselves better without words. I'm also interested in people who are not professional dancers expressing themselves that way.

Why Bombay Beach? How did you end up there?

It all started with when I was doing location scouting for the music video, 'Concubine' by Beirut. Whenever I do music videos for Zach (Condon) and Beirut, I feel certain responsibilities to portray their music truthfully because I love their music. Their music is a constant inspiration to me.

I met Mike (Parrish) who's in the movie on the beach playing with other kids. So I asked him if he wanted to be in the music video and he said yes. Then his parents came and we talked. There was an immediate connection. So I asked them if I could comeback and visit their house and shoot there. After the music video came out, I showed it to the Parrish family and they loved it. They were touched by how they were portrayed in the video. So I moved in and lived with them for three, four months, documenting their lives.

Yes, I was going to ask you about the organic nature of this film. Everything seems so natural and spontaneous.

Nothing was really planned. They let their guards down since I was hanging out with them all the time. I'd call Ceejay and ask him if I could shoot something with him and he would say, "I'm doing nothing, come on over," or "I'm going to town, you wanna come along?" Everything was very natural. But at the same time, I could go to places in their lives where there were fantasies and dreams and dance and music. So it was a combination of those things. It's that shift between reality and fantasy that we ourselves experience everyday and every minute of our lives that I find interesting.

There are so many documentaries out there that are exploitative of their subjects. But this one doesn't feel that way at all.

I know some people think that this film is exploitative. My only intention was to be with these people and create something beautiful together. And I kept all the potentially harmful stuff to them out of the film. I didn't want to show anything against their will. And I'm very glad that they loved the film.

That's great. They saw the film!

Oh, of course! They were with me at Tribeca Film Festival. Pamela and Benny came out to New York for the premiere. It was their first time out of Bombay Beach and coming to New York. It was all new experience for them. It's so crazy that we meet some people in the out of nowhere and be together in New York and everything. I showed the film to Red and Ceejay and they were very happy too.

I keep in touch with everyone from the film. Benny is off the medications now and doing a lot better. Ceejay has gotten a full football scholarship and living in Minnesota now. Red is still alive and kicking, still selling cigarettes, drinking whiskey and hanging out with all his lady friends. He is now installing solar panels on his trailer so he can get free electricity.

When the DVD comes out there are going to be three little shorts for each characters about where they are now. In it you will see them watching the film and they will tell you what they think about it.

How much footage did you end up with at the end of the shoot?

Gosh, about one hundred sixty hours. I had to cut out two beautiful dance sequences. One is with Pamela dancing alone in a warehouse with her voice over, reading her letter to her husband who's in jail. Beirut did the music for that sequence. It's probably my favorite dance sequence. It just didn't fit the movie because I didn't want to move away too far from Benny, since he is the one I focused on. But you will see it on DVD.

So the movie ends and the credits roll and I don't see a crew list. You pretty much did everything by yourself!?

I had a small HD camera and wireless microphones. That's about it. That's how I could get all the intimate shots.

It's one of the most intimate documentaries I've ever seen. And it's also beautifully shot too.

I go down there every other week. After the movie came out, I took some of my friends and asked them if the place was as beautiful as they imagined. They all say it's more beautiful. Granted I shot many of the scenes at sunset, there is something really magical about that place. You just have to go there to see it for yourself.

Your husband (Boaz Yakin, director of Fresh, Price of Rubies, Remember the Titans) is also a filmmaker and serves here as a producer. But I don't see the resemblance in your filmmaking.

That's why we get along so well. (laughs) There is no competition between us, no confusion of who's who, because we are so different. But we always learn from each other and compliment each other.

So you just meet people and you inspire them and they inspire you, is that how it works in your filmmaking?

Pretty much. I love to be around creative people. That's the most important thing to me.


Winner of Best Feature Documentary at 2011 Tribeca Film Festival, Bombay Beach opens this Friday, October 14th at the IFC Center (in LA Oct. 21st). Following its theatrical release, the film will have a VOD and itunes release via Focus World on November 1st.

I Missed Your Heart

Hanna (2011) - Wright

Saoirse Ronan is Hanna, a girl trained to survive by her dad Eric (Eric Bana). She only knows the world from the books her dad reads to her in their hut in the arctic circle. Dad tells her when she's ready, she can flick the switch box- some type of GPS device, anytime, to face the world. Kate Blanchet is Marrisa, a cold CIA agent in their trail. Hanna is a modern day Brothers Grimm tale completed with an abandoned amusement park ending. More than anything, Hanna is a tautly designed film: from amazingly choreographed fight scenes to teenage girl bff innuendos to sun drenched photography to the perfectly in tune soundtrack by The Chemical Brothers, there is no room for fat at all. On top of that, Blanchet chews up the scene in her best in recent years as a woman who chose not to be a mother (this sounds cheesy but it ain't).

Never seen Joe Wright's films before (Pride and Prejudice, Atonement) but he is a very gifted director. The 'perfectly engineered soldier' theme is nothing new, but Wright is less concerned about that. Hanna is a beautifully crafted, smart, funny film that floats above its genre conventions. I just wish I went and saw it in the theater. One of the best films this year for sure.

Fleeting Moments

In the City of Sylvia (2007) - Guerín

A young man, new in town, sits at an outdoor cafe, looking at all the women around him. Thank god he is just sketching them on his pad. He doesn't seem to possess a camera dangling from his wrist shooting low angle whatever. Then he starts following a beautiful red herring (Pilar López de Ayala) through the streets. There is hardly any dialog in the film. Music of the various street musicians and street noises become its soundtrack.

Life is an accumulation of fleeting moments, missed opportunities. Guerín emphasizes those wonderful moments and makes almost a thriller out of it. It's done very delicately and carefully, still its beauty constantly threatening to sabotage the whole immersing-into-movie experience.

Coney Island Baby

Little Fugitive (1953) - Ashley/Engel/Orkin



I could've gone crazy with the screengrabs on Little Fugitive. But I controlled myself. This simple, 16mm shot, entirely overdubbed movie is the original ode to Coney Island before the Warriors or other Coney Island themed movies. Truffaut cited the film as the inspiration for the French New Wave (he was talking more about 400 Blows, obviously).

Joey, an eight year old neighborhood kid gets tricked into believing he shot and killed his older brother, runs away to Coney Island and spends a whole day riding various amusement park rides, hanging out on the boardwalk falls asleep on the beach. It's simple as heck but extraordinarily beautiful. The film's look reminds me of Robert Frank photos .

Perfect Storm

Take Shelter (2011) - Nichols

As far as a-neurotic-man-going-crazy, predicting-end-of-days movies are concerned, there are only two possible outcomes - either he remains crazy and the sun comes up tomorrow, or "he was right all along". For the sake of those who haven't seen this movie, I'm not gonna get into that. What's worthwhile is seeing Michael Shannon slowly but surely going nuts. As he demonstrated previously- bug, My Son My Son, What Have Ye Done? among others, he is good at that sort of thing.

Curtis is a normal family man in Ohio. He has a beautiful wife, Sam (Jessica Chastain of Tree of Life- being typecast as a perfect mid-western housewife) and a button nosed but deaf daughter. He works at a construction firm. Lately he's been having nightmares- massive thunder and lightening storms, oily rain, birds dropping from the sky, people acting weird... Like a proud male he is, he hides his irrational fears from his wife but slowly and surely prepares for a storm shelter and seeking head doctors without telling her. His erratic behavior gets him fired from his job and alienate from his friends and community and even from his wife. I'm glad Jeff Nichols didn't take Jesus route and downplayed the environmental factor. He is more interested in the visceral, immediate reaction of Curtis rather than contemplation as to what it all means. It's Nichols who showcased Shannon's talent in his debut, Shotgun Stories. This is definitely a Michael Shannon show. He is fantastic as always, embodying a skulking everyman with his stoicism and macho pride. So is Chastain, as a reprehensive at first, then strong willed, compassionate wife. Take Shelter could've been twenty minutes shorter. The pacing really drags.

Barebone

Ossos (1997) - Costa

There are two big questions I asked myself: What is cinema for? What's the truthful representation?, after watching Pedro Costa's Ossos, the first part of the so-called 'The Fontainhas Trilogy' and the only one shot on 35mm. From what I've read about him and Fontainhas so far, Costa was in transition from making films the typical way - big crew, money, equipment... the whole circus, to barebone, to get something more real, substantial, obscure yet concrete. In Ossos, characters barely talk even though there are constant chatters, noises of the city slum around them. Their hunched stature, sad eyes, small gait tell you as much information as in-dept urban safari documentaries. There are no big melodramas or triumphs in this part of the town in Lisbon. Of course, they have emotions, just like anybody else. They are just harder to detect. If anything, Ossos is an impression of a place deeply rooted in its people. The premise of the film resembles L'enfant by Belgian neo-realists Dardennes: young parents, a new born baby. But Costa's drama doesn't arise from two pitted people or the baby baiting. His scope is wider and his aim higher, reflecting these people's resilience, their refusal to die. It's a beautiful film. And I'm still working on the answers to the questions.

Cabinet of Curiosities

Through the Weeping Glass: On the Consolations of Life Everlasting (Limbos & Afterbreezes in the Mütter Museum) (2011) - Brothers Quay


Stephen and Timothy Quay's Through the Weeping Glass: On the Consolations of Life Everlasting (Limbos & Afterbreezes in the Mütter Museum) was shown at The Museum of Modern Art over the weekend (Sept. 24th), with the brothers in attendance as part of limited 3-city tour (Philadelphia, LA and New York). It had a world premiere at The College of Physicians of Philadelphia on Sept. 22nd and will be shown at Cary Grant Theater, Sony Pictures Studios, LA, hosted by The Museum of Jurassic Technology on Sept. 27th. Subsequent to the premiere screenings, the film will be available for purchase on DVD with an accompanying booklet.


When I first heard about the Brothers Quay Mütter Museum project, I couldn't think of any filmmaker who's more fitting. Situated in The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, Mütter Museum hosts medical oddities, anatomical and pathological specimens, medical equipments and grand volumes of medical books. It's literally a cabinet of curiosities; a perfect playground for visionaries like Brothers Quay. Known for their Eastern European influenced, breathtakingly beautiful, found object stop motion animation shorts in the early 90s and the two gorgeous, feature length literary adaptations- Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream That One Calls Human Life (1995, from Robert Walser's Jacob von Gunten) and Piano Tuner of Earthquakes (2005, from Adolfo Bioys Casares' The Invention of Morel, of which, Alain Renais' Last Year at Marienbad was also loosely based on), Through the Weeping Glass is the London based (from Philadelphia originally) twin filmmakers' first American project.


The film opens with a young woman visiting a skeleton on display. The skeleton belongs to Harry Eastlack, a young man died of rare disease called Fibrodysplasia Ossificants Progressiva, where cartilage in your bones ossifies and you slowly become immobile. We are told by the narrator (narrated by Derek Jacobi) that young Harry could only move his lips when he died. The young woman is his sister, looking at a skeleton through a two way mirror, showcasing stunning visual sequences.


The brothers make use of the museum's many artifacts: the flip human anatomy books, photos, the skulls and fetuses in jars. But their approach is not of the morbid fascination of a teenager, but a compassionate one. They are aware that there are stories behind each skeleton, each body. The film ends with the story of famed conjoined twins Chang and Eng Bunker as we see the plaster cast of their bodies and their preserved shared liver.


Shot on HD video and lasting mere 31 minutes, Through the Weeping Glass is not quite up to par with their previous films. Starting as animators working mostly in miniature, their strength always has been their visual precision and impeccable craftmanship in creating painstakingly detailed netherworld. Even with the 35mm transfer from digital (thanks to MoMA), their visual elegance suffers greatly here. It is revealed through the Q & A session and following the 'making of' documentary that there was no funding available for shooting 35mm for them in a long while. So they resorted to using a small DSLR camera. Shooting in the narrow corridors and limited space of the museum also posed many challenges.


Next year, MoMA is planning the Brothers Quay retrospective, chronicling all of their works including their sculptures and drawings. Hopefully it will garner more interest in their works and make funds available for their future endeavor.

"Paper That Lasts a Thousand Years"

Hanji (2011) - Im

Hanji, a film about the traditional Korean papermaking, is the 101st film by the prolific Korean director Im Kwon-taek (Chunhyang, Chihwaseon: Painted Fire). It plays as part of MoMA's second annual Yeonghwa: Korean Film Today, which runs 9/23-9/30.

Park Joong-hoon plays Pil-yong, a lowly government employee, newly appointed to the cultural bureau that oversees the economic revival of the hanji (traditional Korean paper) industry in anticipation of the restoration of The Annals of Choseon Dynasty: the chronological record of the last Korean empire, which is written more than 500 years ago. It is said that a good hanji would last a thousand years, hence preserving what's written on it. Pil-yong's job is to gather ragtag of hard-drinking, proud craftsmen to produce the best quality hanji for the restoration job. Without prior knowledge of paper making and facing layers of bureaucratic red tapes, it's an uphill battle for our hero. It's also no easy task while taking care of his sick wife at home and dodging advances from a beautiful and aggressive documentary filmmaker (Kang Soo-yeon).

Unlike other Korean films that showcase blind national pride steeped in sentimentality, Hanji actually makes the case with scientific facts. The world's oldest surviving printed Buddhist sutra (Dharani sutra) dates back to A.D. 751 from Shilla Dynasty, printed in hanji. From certain mulberry pulp, to the right glue, to the purity of water used, a lot of ingredients are factored into making the best quality paper. It literally needs to be fit for a King.

Im's style may not be seen as flashy and hip as other Korean filmmakers, but he has been quietly chugging along, dipping into various subjects and producing quality films since the early 60s. Lately taking an anthropological approach to the filmmaking, Im has been chronicling the disappearing Korean culture- namely, pansori (traditional singing/storytelling in Seopyeonje, Chunhyang and Beyond the Years). This time, it's hanji, the traditional Korean paper.

The film is not without melodrama. Pil-yong's infidelity and the financial difficulties haunt him and his wife. But for him, hanji making becomes something that is bigger than himself. Im doesn't let the characters bogged down in their fears and insecurities though. The life goes on, so does the film. With well rounded characters, Hanji is a solid and mature film that celebrates the passion for something you love, even though that passion might seem a little nutty to others. As the couple and the documentarian follow one eccentric papermaker to the remote waterfall deep in the mountains under the moonlight, trying to recreate the old method of papermaking to a T, one character says to another, "We all must be little crazy to be here."

For tickets and more info, please visit Yeonghwa: Korean Film Today at MoMA website.

The Outsiders

Few of Us (1996) - Bartas









We are introduced to a vast wintry landscape below through the helicopter windshield. A young woman (Katerina Golubeva) is dropped off in the remote village where its inhabitants seem like the Eskimos in the far north. She shares a smoke with an old reindeer herder. There is a bit of magic realism with the bedroom overgrown with vegetation. But the welcome is short lived. At the gathering of the villagers at night, Kat watches their drunkenness in silence from one corner of the room. She sticks out like a sore thumb, since she is taller than everyone around her. Did she come to the place looking for acceptance or solace? After a knife fight with a couple of drunken local men, she flees the village on foot. No one helps her. Some even pretend not to notice her struggle.

Few of Us is no anthropological survey or gooey, touch-y feel-y travelogue where everyone gets along. It's a cold, unforgiving world for the Bartas' outsiders. Their loneliness is accentuated here with breathtaking scenery and the village's physical remoteness. The film is gorgeous as usual. Bartas holds the static shots for good 2-3 minutes, so they can come alive before your eyes . Again, his no dialog approach fits much better here with the isolation and sadness of the characters than other interloper films like Varda's Vagabond (which I love very much but now obviously not as much as this). I loved it. It surely becomes one of my favorites of all time!

Fleeting Present, Free Future

The House/A Casa (1997) - Bartas





Except for the brief narration in the beginning, the film is wordless. A young man wakes up in a grand decrepit mansion. The house is inhabited by various people in many different rooms. There is no decipherable communication among them. They eat and drink together at the table under the grand chandelier. One room is occupied by a man who plays chess against himself, one filled with naked giggling children, one with an accordion player, and so on, and so on. Everywhere you look, it's a beautiful decay. The house is steeped in cold, damp melancholia.

A Casa is perhaps the most visually stunning film I've ever encountered. Time stands still in this mansion. Yet present is too fleeting: one can't be sure if it really exists. Its dreamlike visuals are neither nightmarish or overly pleasurable. There is something deeper at work here. I resisted the temptation of regarding each room as some type of metaphor and seeing the film as a Mathew Barney style slick moving art installation. Watching the film, one can still feel the dark days of the former Soviet rule lingering in those soulful faces. They speak thousand words with their stares. And no one captures Eastern European melancholy like Bartas. The film climaxes with the Christmas Supper scene and fireworks. I was in non-narrative film heaven. A truly rapturous experience.

Waiting for the Miracle

Lourdes (2009) - Hausner

Lourdes, a small town in the Southwest France, famous for the Virgin Mary apparition is the mecca for the handicapped or terminally ill pilgrims in the hopes of a miracle. A young wheelchair bound woman (Sylvie Testud) is one of them among others in one of the groups. She has multiple sclerosis. She can only move her neck and barely move her arms. You get from the small chats she has with the nurses and priests, she is a lonely woman and the pilgrimages are the only way to be out and about. She doesn't seem too religious.

Lourdes is a quiet film. There are no big show of emotions or a religious epiphany. But the film is in no way strictly procedural either nor is it straight out character study. With static shots and slow zoom-ins, Austrian Jessica Hausner's film creates both sense of security and limited mobility. When the supposed miracle happens, rather than the true jubilation, Hausner hints at uncertain future and only slightly points out the hypocrisy in true devotion- Why her and not me? I'm much more religious, and so on. Not quite sure what to make of this film. I didn't mind its understated approach and Testud's performance carries the human warmth, but it's quite underwhelming. Elina Löwensohn as the mother superior and Léa Seydoux as a frumpy nurse make up the supporting cast.

Jungfrau

Blonde Venus (1932) - Sternberg


Helen (Marlene Dietrich), a stage performer, first seen in racy skinny dipping scene with a bunch of other frauleins in a German town, is swept off her feet by an American scientist who marries her and relocate her to NY. They are not rich living in a small apartment but have adorable 5 year old son now. I guess back then being a scientist didn't pay for shit. Ned is diagnosed with the radium poisoning and in need of treatment. Helen volunteers to go back to the stage to make money, despite Ned's passive aggressive protests.

Blonde Venus gets weird as it becomes a road movie in the middle. Its very melodramatic material is accompanied by the glamor lighting suited for its angular star. There are three musical numbers, the standout being 'Hot Voodoo'- an overtly Rudyard Kippling racist minstrel show but you can get to see Dietrich in a gorilla suit. It's enjoyable until the end comes around, because you get to hate Ned's baseless moral grandstanding. Young Cary Grant makes an appearance as a millionaire homewrecker as well. Luminous Dietrich is much better than the material that is given to her.

No Medicine for Melancholy

Melancholia (2011) - von Trier

A lot of people I know want to kick Lars von Trier in the balls if they were ever given a chance to do so. They think he is the biggest a**hole on the planet. That he is an arrogant, nihilistic artist constantly laughing at our expenses. His recent Hitler love at the Cannes didn't win him any favors either. Everything about him feels like a put-on, including his enfant terrible persona.


Personally I find his films to be quite simple, that there are no real depth or originality in them. Case in point, my favorites of his remain, to this day, to be Elements of Crime and Europa, both technical marvels from the cinematic filmmaking point of view. Over the years, he became one of the few filmmakers whose outside the movie set antics and their films are so entwined, I have a hard time separating them when reviewing. After watching two of his most recent, most 'personal' films to date and hearing about his crippling depression, I began to realize that he is indeed a hateful person and he's not faking any of it.


Accompanied by Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, Melancholia begins with an overture, which tells the audience what to expect. Shot in the same glossy way on the super speed camera as the beginning of Antichrist, visually it's both fantastic and frightening- as the planet Melancholia is fast approaching the earth, birds are dropping like rain, a horse falls to the ground under the darkening sky, all the earth dwelling insects take to the air and Kirsten Dunst in her white wedding dress, floats in the stream. von Trier continues with his exploration of his fears in Melancholia, another deeply personal film. This time, the anxiety comes from facing the end of the world.


The film is in two parts: simply titled Justine and Claire - the two sisters who have very different outlook on life. The film starts with the wedding reception of Justine (Dunst) in a gigantic castle by the lake. The bride and groom are late for their own wedding reception. At first, they appear to be a sweet young couple but soon afterward, we realize that Justine is feigning her smiles and happiness. Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and her super rich husband John(Kiefer Sutherland), who arranged the wedding are getting visibly impatient with the non-cooperating bride. By the end of a long grueling reception, the unsuspecting, lovelorn-puppy groom (Alexander Skarsgård) isn't the only casualty of a heartbreak. And there is a planet small enough not to be threatening (yet), but visible to the naked eye in the sky.


The second part of the movie starts with the aftermath of the wedding. Justine, having failed at the attempt of getting out of her melancholic state by a marriage, is back to square one. She is an unresponsive, catatonic mess. It's Claire who takes an active mom role, taking care of her little sister. In the mean time, planet Melancholia from Scorpius Constellation is approaching closer to the earth by day. John, who knows about these matters tells concerned Claire that everything would be okay. That according to the calculations by all the leading scientists point to Melancholia squeaking by us and it would be a spectacular celestial show. Claire is not convinced. They have a young son and she wants him to have a future. Ironically, as the fateful day approaches, it's Justine who's calmer and more together than 'normal' Claire.


von Trier takes the visual cues mainly from the paintings of Caspar David Friedrich, a German Romanticism painter who's known for his 'gaze' paintings where you as a viewer complete the painting by observing a figure gazing into the landscape in front of him. The old Flemish painting of winter landscape and John Everett Millais's famous Ophelia are also recurring images. There is a scene in the castle library, where Justine frantically replaces all the open art books containing abstract paintings with the images of the aforementioned paintings and other classics, a futile attempt to place an order in her chaotic mind landscape.


I can see why so many great actors always flock to von Trier projects despite all the bad things he says about actors. These are hammy parts where you can exercise your craft. Dunst basically channels the melancholic director's outlook. Justine has hit the rock bottom. Her last attempt at happiness and normal life miserably failed. She's got nothing to lose. Therefore, impending doom of all humanity doesn't scare her. Gainsbourg is also great as maternal Claire, who loses her grip as the end approaches. Justine calmly informs Claire, "Don't you think I'm afraid of that stupid planet." Superb supporting cast includes Sutherland, Skarsgård, John Hurt as the jolly father of the sisters, Charlotte Rampling as the cynical mom whose world wary presence explains Justine's origin and Stellan Skarsgård as smarmy boss of the advertising firm Justine works for.


I'm not saying von Trier's dickishness is any way excusable on account of his deep depression. But I think I understand him better after seeing his latest movie. It's stark, nightmarish and without hope. As Justine says with conviction, "We are all alone in the universe. I know this." Therefore, there is no need for the empty human rituals like niceties and being polite. When it's all said and done, I have to admit, Melancholia is still an amazingly gripping movie going experience. Whether I like his films or not, I still find myself being a salivating lapdog every time he comes out with a new film. It might be the a**hole/sad clown side of me connecting with him.


*According to the interview came with the press kit, his new project is called Nymphomaniac and there's going to be a lot of self mutilating involved.

I Hate Kids

Gloria (1980) - Cassavetes

My goodness. Gena Rowlands chews up the screen and spits it back out in your face. Gloria is no nonsense middle aged broad up in the Bronx. When her neighbors, a mixed race family (headed by Buck Henry) gets wiped out by the mob, she is left with the only survivor, 6 year old boy with wild curly hair, Phil. And she hates kids (especially hates her neighbor's kids, she tells their mother once). Gloria has a shady mob connections from the past and many times throughout the film contemplates ditching the kid. But for some reason, she always ends up shooting her way out with the smartass Phil tightly attached on her waist. On the run, they change series of holdouts, showcasing sleazy NY in the late 70s. In true Cassavetes fashion, the dialog is nonchalant and action immediate. It's all Rowlands though. Not exactly a dog, but she is definitely not a typical Hollywood pretty. Can't see anyone else playing this role.

Fishbowl

La Face Cachée de la Lune/Far Side of the Moon (2003) - Lepage




The 60s Soviet-American space race plays a big part in Far Side of the Moon, a poignant drama about two brothers looking inward after their mother's death. Philip and Andre (both played by director Robert Lepage) are brothers who are polar opposites. Philip is a hopeless Ph.D candidate whose thesis on space race as human's ultimate narcissism just got rejected for the second time. He works as a telemarketer and is always broke. Andre is a gay, vain, successful TV weatherman. Even though he is older, klutzy Philip can't manage life's problems and chastised by Andre all the time. Philip is the type who makes life more complicated for himself. Jealousy and envy play the part in their relationship.

Ever since I watched Robert Lepage's visually striking Le Confessional, I've been dying to see another of his films. Adapting from his play, the renowned Canadian theater director showcases his visual artistry. Using archival footage of USSR astronauts, constant visual jokes with washing machines and a fishbowl and great transitions btwn past and present, Lepage examines the complex relationship of our desire to explore outside world and being reflective of ourselves. It's a touching and contemplative work that is personable and full of creativity. A great film.

My Sharunas

Three Days (1991) - Bartas






It's a gray Lithuanian port town. Some young derelicts are trying to find a lodging (to sleep together?) but the town is full of groggy, unfriendly people. That's about it. Not many words are uttered and there is no music, other than the ones from the dance hall across the street. There are no distinguishable characters or names. Some unique faces here and there. It's also drama free. Decrepit lots, basements and cold, wet surroundings. Nevertheless Sharunas Bartas sees glimpses of beauty everywhere. It's in gestures, flickering lights, that uncontrollable, sad laughs of young Katerina Golubeva, the sight of a thousand years old blond street urchin smoking.

Unlike other films of this kind (Gus Van Sant's Death Trilogy comes to mind), Three Days feels deeper, that there is history behind this dreariness and quietude. It's not alienation nor loneliness I feel. It's a moment of awkwardness, a moment of kinship that counts. No words necessary. There is a scene right after they get kicked out of a lodging house. In the dark alleyway, Bartas camera first lingers on the three protags where baby Golubeva laughs hopelessly, then takes off to the side to show another vagrant eating an apple under the dim lights. We still hear her laugh but the camera remains on the old chum eating voraciously.

Bartas, where have you been all my life? R.I.P. Yekaterina, I'll miss you.

Tiananmen Love Story

Summer Palace (2006) - Lou

Spanning 15 years of the recent tumultuous Chinese history and the world over (from The Berlin Wall, Tiananmen Square, Hong Kong Handover to Iraq), Summer Palace tells a story of young love. It starts as Yu Hong (Hao Lei) from Tumen, a small town near Chinese-North Korean border, gets an acceptance letter from Beijing University. After settling into a cramped but lively dormitory life, she befriends Li Ti (Hu Lingling) and falls madly in love with Zhou Wei (Guo Xiaodong). Their relationship is rocky and full of drama and involves lots of screwing. Even though not overtly political, their youthful energy explodes at the Tiananmen Square and quickly dissipates. After finding out Zhou Wei having an affair with Li Ti, the heartbroken Yu Hong drops out of school and goes back home. Zhou Wei and Li Ti move to Germany with Li Ti's boyfriend who has connections.

Lou Ye, along with his cinematographer Hua Qing, captures intimate moments of the bustling youth scene during the pivotal moments in China. For the characters, their lives have been altered forever and they will never be able to duplicate their friendship, their love. It's Lou's homage to his generation which endured all these changes. A bit overlong, but very beautiful film.

Lady Issues

The City of Women (1980) - Fellini
In Pictures:






Fellini obviously has issues with women, so as von Trier. But when Fellini does it, it just comes out funnier and much more charming. It's just the way it is. Again, mindbogglingly creative, thoroughly exhausting.