Like Anna Karina's Sweater

Spend a night with Monte Hellman

Once again, the Cinématek at the Brooklyn Academy of Music is presenting another wonderful event -- this coming Wednesday, August 4th, they will be screening a new print of The Shooting, followed by a Q&A with director Monte Hellman. Hellman is one of American cinema's unsung masters, and his two best films (The Shooting and Two-Lane Blacktop) are existential takes on two of the cinema's most popular genres -- the western and the road film. Both are near-masterpieces, but unfortunately not spoken of (or screened) nearly enough. The Shooting, which stars Jack Nicholson, Warren Oats, and Millie Perkins, finds several characters wandering through the desert, each chasing after the same man, but for different reasons. Described as falling somewhere between Anthony Mann and Sam Peckinpah, Hellman has fashioned a classic western tale that is a metaphor for the brief fame that Lee Harvey Oswald experienced. (There are even echoes of the Zapruder film.) If Hellman's commentary on the Two-Lane Blacktop DVD is any indicator, hearing him in person should prove to be an enlightening experience. Filmbrain will certainly not miss this one. Wednesday, August 4th at 7:00 PM. Q&A moderated by Kent Jones (Film Comment)

61st International Venice Film Festival

The lineup for the 61st Venice International Film Festival was announced today. Some pleasant surprises, such as Im Kwon-taek's latest, Haryu Insaeng, Mike Leigh's Vera Drake, Jonathan Glazer's somewhat experimental Birth, Claire Denis' L'Intrus, and of course Hou Hsaio-hsien's Café Lumière. Todd Solondz, Wim Wenders and Arnaud Desplechin are also in there with their latest efforts, and Filmbrain hopes that Wenders can pull himself out of the slump he's been in for years. Solondz seems to have returned to his Welcome to the Dollhouse roots -- his latest, Palindromes, is described as a film about an awkward thirteen year-old girl. (Hey, it worked once. . .)

John Boorman will head the jury, whose members include Wolfgang Becker (dir. Good-Bye Lenin), Spike Lee, Helen Mirren, Dusan Makavejev (there's a nice surprise!) and Scarlett "I had sex in an elevator with Benicio Del Toro" Johansson. The opening night film will be Steven Spielberg's The Terminal, giving the Italian audience the opportunity to hate it as much as Americans did. The festival runs from September 1-11, and the full lineup can be found here.

Jazz Hands! (Or: The power of Fosse)

This past Tuesday night, while New York City was being hit with a rainstorm of near-biblical proportions, Filmbrain was (while soaked to the bone) at the video store returning a DVD that was disturbingly late. While waiting on line, he noticed that they were watching Bob Fosse's All That Jazz on their new huge 16x9 monitor. After paying his late fees (about twice the cost of the DVD), he found himself glued to the film, as were two other people. Over the next forty minutes, the crowd swelled to about twenty-five. We all stood there, silently watching the last third of the film (with its amazing musical numbers) until that final shot of the body bag being zipped and the Ethel Merman begins. Was it the rain? Was everybody simply looking for a bit of shelter, or was it the infectious nature of the film? Filmbrain hadn't seen it since the early nineties and had completely forgotten how great it is. (Is it passé to admit loving this film in 2004?) Though technically not a musical, there is so much more life to it than Rob Marshall's Chicago. (Oh, if only Fosse could have directed that!) Who can forget Jessica Lange as the angel of death, Ben Vereen as O'Connor Flood, John Lithgow as the Harold Prince-ish Lucas Sergeant, and of course Roy Scheider as Joe Gideon. (Does anybody know what became of Erzsebet Foldi, who played the daughter?) Bye bye life. . .

Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Week 5

The most wonderful thing about last week's quiz wasn't that SO many of you (close to 250!) correctly identified Ursula Andress as the piper from a dream sequence in 1967's Casino Royale, but in learning that this site exists: a definitive database of films that feature bagpipes. (Thanks to Krista for finding it.) Casino Royale is one of Filmbrain's earliest film memories. His father worked for Columbia pictures at the time, and it seemed for a while the whole house was wall to wall Casino Royale. (Filmbrain can still hum you the entire soundtrack.) Though it's a mess of a film (not one, but five directors) it's actually Filmbrain's favorite James Bond film. What other film can boast the talents of Orson Welles, Peter Sellers, David Niven, Woody Allen, William Holden, John Huston, Jean-Paul Belmondo, and Jacqeuline Bisset (as the lovely Miss Goodthighs)? Even more impressive -- the writers on the film include Terry Southern, Billy Wilder, Ben Hecht, and Joseph Heller! If you haven't seen it, you owe it to yourself -- if only for the Sellers and Allen segments. Congratulations to Bill H for 'piping' in with the first correct answer, and a special mention to Jerry K who identified the director of that sequence (Joseph McGrath). This week -- hard or easy? Filmbrain can't decide. He will say that there is an indirect clue in the list of names above. Name the sailor and the film. As usual, send your guesses to this address. Good luck!

Short Cuts

After taking a few days off last week for some well-needed beach rest, Filmbrain returned to a crammed inbox full of interesting items. Here are a few worth noting.

The big news is that New York City has a new movie theater, and it is devoted exclusively to Asian and Asian-American cinema. Named The ImaginAsian, its inaugural program is a wonderful five-day Takashi Miike festival. Filmbrain highly recommends seeing Visitor Q (wonderfully disturbing) and Audition, both of which are being shown on Wednesday and Thursday of this week (7/28, 7/29). The theater will also be home to the 2004 Korean Film Festival in August (more on that later this week). The ImaginAsian is located at 239 East 59th St. between 2nd and 3rd Aves.

Filmbrain also discovered two film blogs that are worth mentioning --

harrylimetheme (great name) is the blog of Ben Slater, a cub reporter for Indiewire based in Singapore. Not only do we get interesting news about the Singapore film scene (and censorship problems), but the site also includes his interviews with Filmbrain faves Kim Ki-duk and Tsai Ming-liang (even though he lost the tape of the interview!)

Tom Vick's Asian Cinema Blog is....well, the title says it all. Tom is a film programmer, writer, and filmmaker living in Washington D.C., and his blog is an excellent source for Asian film-related news.

Both blogs will be added to Filmbrain's Blogs of Distinction list.

Filmbrain was thrilled to hear from Jerry Schatzberg's people about his official website, Jerry Schatzberg.com. Though at the moment the site focuses more on his photography than his films, there is a very generous sampling of photographs, broken down into categories -- Personalities, Fashion, Reportage, etc. (Check out this wonderful shot of a young Charlotte Rampling.) As you may recall, Filmbrain was over the moon about finally catching Puzzle of a Downfall Child, and he's working his way through the rest of Schatzberg's filmography. (Reviews of Scarecrow and Panic in Needle Park are in the works.) With any luck, he'll have the chance to interview Schatzberg in the near future.

Congratulations to both Karen Cinecultist and Like Anna Karina's Sweater regular commenter Marleigh Riggins on their new gigs within the -ist empire -- The Cinecultist has begun covering film for New York's Gothamist Arts + Events, while Marleigh can be found unleashing her acerbic wit on left-coast's LAist. (Oh, and Marleigh -- somehow Filmbrain missed your birthday -- many apologies, and happy belated 24th!)

Last but not least, Filmbrain was going to go on a rant about the abomination that is IFC's Ultimate Film Fanatic game show, but there's no need -- Aaron Out of Focus has done a wonderful job of it already.

Each Man Kills the Thing He Loves

After the confusion he experienced with Ardor, Filmbrain decided to seek out every contemporary Korean "wife committing adultery" film. Though there are a still more to see, it's unlikely any film can surpass Jung Ji-woo's Happy End for sheer originality in its handling of the subject. At the very least, it confirms beyond any doubt that Choi Min-sik (Oldboy, Chihwaseon) is one of the greatest actors currently working in film. Though he utters just a handful of lines in the film, his performance will both break your heart and scare the hell out of you. Set during the 1999 fiscal crisis where unemployment in South Korea skyrocketed from 2% to 8% in under a year, Happy End daringly presents an unfamiliar situation that was in reality becoming more commonplace -- the husband acting as domestic caretaker while the wife goes off to work. While Hollywood has tackled this subject in a lighthearted way (Mr. Mom) this was a real blow to Korean masculinity. Casting Choi Min-sik (best known at the time for tough-guy roles) was an inspired choice. Here he plays Min-gi, an unemployed banker unable to find work who has been relegated to taking care of the house, the baby, and his wife Bora (Jeon Do-yeon). Jung wastes no time showing us that Min-gi and Bora have swapped roles not only within the household, but in societal stereotypes as well. He spends his days sitting in second-hand bookstores reading romance novels and crying at night while watching bad television soap operas. In between, he is a Baby-Bjorn-wearing househusband responsible for keeping their lives in order. Bora works at an exclusive English-language school (for children of the wealthy), mistreats and shows no appreciation for her husband, and is having an affair with a man who works for her (who also happens to be a former lover). [Note: spoilers follow.] A good portion of the film follows Min-gi from his initial suspicion to his finding and gathering evidence of his wife's affair. With virtually no dialog, Choi skillfully manages to convey the incredible pain and disillusionment he must be experiencing. It's almost too much to bear -- we keep waiting for him to confront his wife, but he never does. It's only when Bora endangers the life of their child that Min-gi realizes he has to do something, yet his decision to brutally murder her and frame the lover in the process is hardly what we would have expected. At first glance it may appear that Jung has fashioned a simple misogynistic "she done him wrong" story. In actuality, Happy End is much more of an exposé of the double standards that exist in Korean society. In one of the few conversations between Min-gi and Bora, she chastises him over his handling of the domestic responsibilities -- he doesn't know where to buy the cheapest groceries, or find the freshest bread, etc. She tells him that until he finds work, he will have to do a better job at running the house -- a double dose of humiliation. As Kyung Hyun Kim points out in his book The Remasculization of Korean Cinema, Min-gi's murder of Bora is "subconsciously legitimated by viewers not because she is a woman, but more importantly because she is just as bad as any working man." (p257) Bad husbands, as depicted in Korean cinema, are often shown having affairs and denigrating their wives' contribution to the household. Yet 'normal' masculine insensitivity towards domesticity never leaves the audience hoping that the wife will kill her husband. Bora is punished for exhibiting masculine behavior simply due to her not being born a man. Audiences are willing to accept a neglectful father, but a mother -- that is beyond the pale. Jung most likely caught many people off-guard with this one, hence exposing a terrible double standard. A very effective approach. (Of course, a somewhat ambiguous ending is thrown in -- just to leave us wondering if the murder even took place at all.) Happy End is an important film, and was especially so in 1999. In the last few years the divorce rate has skyrocketed in Korea -- in 1990 it was 11%, this year it is at 50% -- Bora might no longer be concerned about the stigma of divorce as she did in 1999. Recent Korean films (especially those by Hong Sang-soo) have taken a very different approach to the "wife-as-adulterer" character (i.e., Turning Gate) in that these women do have the option to walk away from marriage, but they too (like men) want the best of both worlds. Comparing this film with Ardor is an exercise in futility -- they're chalk and cheese. Though not a masterpiece, Filmbrain is still assigning Happy End with a must-see status, simply for Choi Min-sik's performance. (Available on Region 1 DVD -- Netflix has it as well.)

A Mule's Tale

One of the main reasons Filmbrain has little use for most contemporary Hollywood (and to a certain extent indie) output is their complete lack of concern for character development. Their world is all about high concept -- a talking pie, a businessman who swaps souls with a twelve year-old girl, Bruce Willis, etc. Too often in these films, characters do things in the final reel that are in no way justified by their behavior for the previous seventy minutes or so. Filmbrain has experienced this in all genres -- the action film, the comedy, the drama -- full of talking 'things' who have not had any proper development and whose outcomes are either completely unbelievable or such that you no longer care about them and their actions -- they are simply devices to move the plot along to the next big set piece. As a screenwriter, this is particularly annoying for obvious reasons. (Let's not even get started on the sad state of dialog in Hollywood today.) Every so often a small film comes round that just gets it right. Joshua Marston's Maria Full of Grace is one of them. This story of a seventeen year-old girl from Columbia who decides to become a mule (smuggling drugs inside her stomach) is an excellent example of a perfectly constructed screenplay. (Marston has said in interviews that he worked on it for several years -- and it shows.) This is not a film that's going to change the world, win loads of awards or start a cinematic trend -- but it should be required viewing for aspiring screenwriters/filmmakers. The decision to place copious amounts of heroin inside of your body is clearly not an easy one. Besides the incredible risk of being caught, the risk of death is quite high. Marston does a wonderful job in the first act showing (not telling) us so much of Maria's character, that her later motivations and actions are not only justified, but understood. In an early scene, Maria (Catalina Sandino Moreno) is shown kissing her boyfriend, but her eye is wandering -- to what, we're not sure. Wanting to make love, her boyfriend suggests going to her place, but Maria would rather climb with him to the roof of a decaying building. His threats and protestations do nothing to sway her -- her resolve is stronger than his machismo. There are many such scenes in the early part of the film that result in our knowing so much about her, that it makes the remainder of the film not only more believable, but creates an emotional attachment to the character. (The same can be said for the two other women who become mules -- their development is equally as impressive.) The second act -- the journey to New York with the drugs -- is filled with amazing tension, yet avoids the trap of over-doing it. The pace of the film doesn't unnaturally pick up, the cuts don't get shorter, and there's no ominous music track to remind us that there's tension. The entire sequence is handled in a manner one rarely finds in such a junior talent. The final third is set in NYC, mostly in the Columbian section of Queens, and it's an interesting counterpart to the first third. Though a stranger in a strange land, Maria is quick-witted, intelligent, and empathetic enough to figure out how to deal with the various characters she comes across. (Especially when compared to her friend and fellow mule Blanca.) Maria's focus is such that being in New York City barely even registers with her. There's no ooh-ing and ah-ing about the big city, nor any shots of her staring up at skyscrapers -- that's not relevant. Not only is she trying to find a solution to a problem that arises with the drugs, she's at the same time dealing with a very important issue in her own life, and every decision she makes must take another life into consideration. Though the ending might be a tad idealistic, its optimism isn't forced (too often the case) nor does it seem reworked based on test screening results from Sheboygan. At the moment the film has limited distribution (Fine Line was concerned that many people wouldn't want to read subtitles.) But if the sold-out crowds at both Manhattan theaters are any indicators, this will go wide(r) shortly. See it if you can.

100 films pour une Vidéothèque Idéale

In 1993, as part of the centennial celebration of cinema, Cahiers du Cinema (greatest film magazine ever) had their critics come up with a list of 100 films that would make up the perfect video collection. Not necessarily the greatest films, but 100 that best represent what "cinema" is. Filmbrain's Gallic friend/antagonist Nicolas found the list on the UNESCO site (of all places), and it's a fascinating document.

First off, a little breakdown -- 38 American films, 35 French, 7 Italian, 3 German, 3 British, 3 Japanese, 2 Chinese, 2 Russian, 2 Swedish, and 1 each from Spain, India, Denmark and Canada. Slightly heavy Franco-American skew, no? Of the 3 films from the UK, two are by American Stanley Kubrick, thus leaving Stephen Frears as the true sole representative. (Similarly, the three Hitchcock films are listed as American -- including 1932's Number Seventeen -- was Hitchcock making films that early in the states?)

The first thing one notices about the list are the absent directors. There's no Bresson, no Ozu, no Scorsese. Even Cahiers du Cinema fave Nicholas Ray is missing. Yet James Cameron is on the list with The Abyss. Go figure. (Cameron is mis-credited on the list as the director of Angel of Vengeance, which must be Ms. 45 by Abel Ferrara). Citizen Kane is there (to be expected) but so is Mr. Arkadin. Avant-garde cinema has scant representation, but there is a porn film included -- 1991's Rêves de Cuir (Dreams of Leather), described by some as the greatest porn film ever made. (Filmbrain hasn't seen it -- please comment here if you have!)

Some of the titles were pleasant surprises -- The Blues Brothers, A King in New York (Chaplin), Blood Simple, Once Upon a Time in America, The State of Things (Wenders) and a selection of Tex Avery cartoons.

Then there are the ones that Filmbrain is having a hard time rationalizing -- the aforementioned Cameron film, Blake Edwards' Switch (yikes!), and Joe Dante's Inner Space. Whereas having an Ed Wood film on the list is understandable, do My Beautiful Launderette, 36 Fillette and the Paul Newman helmed Rachel, Rachel truly deserve to be included?

The complete list can be found HERE, and Amazon France sells the special issue of Cahiers du Cinema that was devoted to the subject.

Have a look and feel free to comment here. Filmbrain is curious to hear what others think.

Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Week 4

Well, well, well. . .Quiz Week 3 seems to have stumped many of you. There were some clever guesses (The Pianist, Gangs of New York) and some straight-up elephant guesses -- but would Filmbrain ever own Jumanji or Operation Dumbo Drop? [Shudder.] The answer of course is Emir Kusterica's 1995 masterpiece, Underground. Congratulations to those that got it, and especially to Girish, who chimed in first with the correct answer. (At the moment there are loads of people with two correct answers, but nobody has answered all three correctly.) This week -- much, much easier. Identify the star, and the title should easily follow. As usual, send your guesses to this address. Good luck!

September 11, Voyeurism, and Goslolis

Filmbrain had only enough time this week to catch one program at the 2004 New York Video Festival held at Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater. The program notes describe Yutaka Tsuchiya's Peep "TV" Show as a film about a group of young people in the Shibuya section of Tokyo who are obsessed with voyeurism and Internet porn. While that's not entirely incorrect, it fails to mention a much larger subject surrounding it all -- the reaction to the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Specifically, the difficulty some "borderline personality" types had in grasping the reality of the incident. As a New Yorker, Filmbrain's initial reaction while watching the film was one of slack-jawed disbelief -- nobody who was in New York at that time had any difficulty with the reality of it, and the air we awoke to for weeks afterwards was an olfactory reminder of the day. Needless to say, any film that incorporates the events of September 11 is going to be judged rather harshly by those of us who lived through it. A film like Love Collage, which worked 9/11 into the film purely for exploitation purposes, received a rather cold reception at the Tribeca Film Festival. There was mixed reaction tonight to Peep "TV" Show, and much whispering could be heard amongst audience members when footage of the planes hitting the towers was shown, and when this oft-repeated quote came up: 2,843 people were blown to hell when a fireball hit the World Trade Center. It was such a beautiful sight. With a beer in one hand, I was glued to the TV. Everything is going crazy. I want to peep at the corpses under the rubble. Shocking words, but as the film progresses you begin to understand what Tsuchiya is getting at, and he is mighty brave to take the chance. The film begins with the premise that to many people in Japan, the events of September 11 (which were splashed non-stop all over the media) looked just like a film. The events that followed, leading up to and including the war in Iraq, became extensions of that "entertainment". Taking place between August 15 and September 11, 2002, it follows a group of disparate characters (all societal "outsiders") who seek a new reality -- but it's not clear at first if this is catharsis or rather a simple voyeuristic need. Filmbrain was reminded of American reality TV shows, and how with each passing year audiences desire/require an even greater invasion into people's lives. Seeing another human's weakness, frailty or humiliation has become tantamount to entertainment. As the film opens, Hasegawa (Takayuki Hasegawa) is sitting on a crowded street in Shibuya, taking voyeuristic shots with the pinhole camera he has sitting at his feet. At night he secretly films young women and couples through their windows. He has just launched a website (Peep "TV" Show) that contains not only his voyeur videos, but also text about the movements of terrorist Mohammed Atta in the days prior to September 11. Moe (Shiori Gechov), a young gosloli (or Gothic Lolita -- one who dresses in elaborate Gothic looking baby doll outfits), suffering from post 9/11 malaise, stumbles across Hasegawa's site, but his depictions of reality (which include putting a cat in a plastic bag) don't do much for her. Soon the two join forces, and the content they capture (a couple arguing to the point of violence, voyeur shots of a crowded ladies bathroom in a shopping mall, or simply Moe's lonely existence at home laying on her bed) helps them to recapture the reality they feel they have lost. The film includes portraits of other individuals who are suffering from similar symptoms, and Tsuchiya used real people in these roles -- the boy who hasn't left his room in years, and lives solely through the internet; the businessman who is angry at "those in charge" and who lives for nothing more than his pill-induced sleep; the convenience store clerk who dreams of being a revolutionary. Their on-camera confessions are the most powerful sequences in the film, and really quite moving. Tsuchiya takes full advantage of the video format and succeeds in giving the film a truly voyeuristic feel with various CCD devices, and POV shots from the floor, high corners in rooms, through windows, etc. Filmbrain spoke (in extremely broken Japanese) with Tsuchiya and his co-screenwriter (a gosloli herself) after the film, particularly about their thoughts on showing the film to a bunch of New Yorkers -- something they were both understandably very nervous about. The film is clearly not for everybody, and it's possible that some will be offended (Filmbrain witnessed at least three angry people after the screening.) Filmbrain needs a few more days to fully digest the film, but it was the first time he gave serious thought to how the events of September 11, 2001 played out in other countries. Not on a political level, but simply in terms of human reaction. (More may be added to this post in the next few days.) Peep "TV" Show is clearly one of the most controversial films of 2004, and Filmbrain hopes it has the chance to reach a wider audience. (It will be shown at the Chicago Underground Film Festival in August, according to the director.)