Sundance London 2012 - LUV

LUV is an earnest film with flashes of brilliance, but ultimately it stretches credulity too far to be taken seriously. Written by Justin Wilson and directed by Sheldon Candis (YOUNG CAESAR), it tells the tale of a young kid called Woody living with his uncle and grandmother in Baltimore. The opening scenes clash with every preconception we have from watching The Wire. His clothes for school are neatly laid out and he's getting a proper breakfast.  But Woody's day takes a wrong turn when his Uncle - an ex-con ex-dealer trying to go straight - decides to take Woody under his wing and teach him about "real life".  This, it turns out, encompasses a quick lesson in firing a gun and driving a car - clumsy foreshadowing anyone?  Woody doesn't actually do much for half the film. He just watches his Uncle get drawn back into the game.  They share some sweet moments but the relationship is always slippery and slightly sinister - and I love that delicacy of writing.  

The problem is in the second half of the film when Woody becomes a Mary Sue figure, and the finale is quite simply absurd.  At the Sundance London screening, the director asked us to accept the film as a fable rather than as a realistic portrayal of events, but frankly there wasn't enough in the stylistic choices within the film to support this reading.

On the positive side, the film contains strong performances from Common as the Uncle and Michael Rainey Jr as Woody.  There's also some nice cameos from Dennis Haysbert, Danny Glover and the legendary Michael K Williams.  The tech package, however, leaves something to be desired. A lot of the film takes place outside at night at the Red One's inability to capture true deep black is a problem. 

LUV played Sundance and Sundance London 2012.

Sundance London 2012 - CHASING ICE

CHASING ICE may well be the most important movie since AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH.  And I say that as a self confessed greedy capitalist bastard and sceptic about all social activism, causes, and anti-corporate whining.

For me, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH was a movie that raised awareness but also raised questions about the veracity of climate science. Was the climate really changing and if so, was human activity the cause?  And most importantly would changing human activity  reverse the damage or is it already too late?  What CHASING ICE does is, for the first time, give powerful, irrefutable, visual, easily understandable evidence that climate change is happening, and at a pace that is frightening.

Jeff Orlowski's documentary does this by basically shadowing a nature photographer called James Balog, in his worse time lapse photographic melting glaciers.  That all sounds much simpler than it really is. The doc (as penned by Mark Monroe -THE TILLMAN STORY) shows exactly what a labour of love it has been.  Balog and his team have had to hike up to some of the most inaccessible and hostile places on earth to install cameras to take the photographs - designed bespoke equipment to withstand the gruelling climate - and at no small cost to Balog's health.  It becomes clear that Balog didn't start out as a climate change evangelist. He was just a guy who took amazing photographs of nature, and somehow stumbled onto this story.  But once he found it he pursued it with a passion that seems at times reckless, and produced visuals that deserve to be seen by the widest possible audience.

CHASING ICE answers he question of whether climate change is happening. It is. Naysayers need to just get over it.  That said, CHASING ICE doesn't get to the part about whether governmental action to alter human behaviour would reverse the change.  That's fine: that's not Balog's job.  But it sure does throw down the gauntlet to the rest of us.

The run-time is 76 minutes.

Sundance London 2012 - THE HOUSE I LIVE IN

Eugene Jarecki's Sundance award winning documentary, THE HOUSE I LIVE IN, is a powerful and insightful examination of the US war in drugs. Inspired by the family history of his family friend and employee, Nani Jeter, Jarecki comes to the topic with fresh eyes and enquiring heart.  He interviews everyone from cops, judges and prison officers, to dealers, addicts and their families.  He brings in medical experts and historians of social policy.  Most prominently, Jarecki brings in investigative journalist turned screenwriter, David Simon, the man who created The Wire. 

I came the this documentary a little complacent that because of obsessive viewing of The Wire and reading in this subject, I wasn't going to learn anything new.  But I was wrong.  Where Simon gave us a deep and penetrating analysis of once city, from he Senator down to the kid on the corner, savagely indicting current policy, Jarecki takes a broader view.  He traces the war's origins to the early decades of the last century, when drug use was criminalised to provide enforcement agents with a hook upon which to arrest elements in society that were an economic threat.  And, then, with the urbanisation of the black population, the situation was compounded by housing policy that concentrated the "target" populations and made a simplistic policing policy of low level arrests easy and efficient to organise.  

The irony is that policies that were once either designed, or had the unintended consequence of marginalising the urban black poor, are now capturing the rural white poor, as disenfranchised blue collar workers are turning to meth.  Simon in particular makes a strong case for the war on drugs as basically as a class war, in which Americans rendered economic valueless are conveniently rounded up and incarcerated.  It's powerful stuff, even more so when an historian compares the marginalization of these people to the marginalization  of the Jews in 1930s Germany.

It's testament to the intelligence of his documentary that that parallel isn't pushed too far.  But after two hours witnessing the futility of a policy that takes people with no economic opportunity and further punishes them, we need as provocative an ending.  The result is a documentary that is in the best tradition of agitprop, well organised enough for the viewer with no prior knowledge but with enough new material for the armchair specialist.

THE HOUSE I LIVE IN played Sundance 2012 where it won the Grand Jury Prize - Documentary. It also played Sundance London.

Runtime - 117 minutes. US rating - R.

This is not a review of - 2 DAYS IN NEW YORK

Because Sundance projected the film for 30 minutes without subtitles, then faffed about for 10 minutes, then cancelled the screening. In all my years of going to LIFF and watching c50 films per fest, I've never seen something like that happen. Just sayin'

Sundance London 2012 - FOR ELLEN

So Yong Kim's anaemic "drama" is a cinematic dead end, in which very little happens and I cared even less. The first hour of this short 90 minute flick forces unto spend time with a feckless loser called Joby  (Paul Dano) a wannabe rocker and deadbeat dad who's suddenly realised that he's about to lose custody of his kid and is looking for everyone else to fix a situation he's gotten himself into.  But even that description sounds too energetic for a film that doesn't deign to trade in mere dialogue and narrative arc. The only thing the poor viewer has to cling on to is e occasional flash of humour and awkwardness from Jon Heder (NAPOLEON DYNAMITE) as Joby's lawyer.  By the time we see Joby interact with his kid, the Ellen of the title, there's precious little screen time left, and we really get is crass sentimentality. I really can't find anything redeeming in this entire exercise.

FOR ELLEN played Sundance, Berlin and Sundance London 2012. The run-time is 94 minutes.

Sundance London 2012 - NOBODY WALKS

NOBODY WALKS is a beautifully made drama in which very little happens and yet the viewer feels intimately connected to each character, and invested in the emotional response to a new situation.  The performances are subtle and brave, the visual design of the film stylised and impactful: the overall effect one of establishing and maintaining an uneasy tone where seemingly banal occurrences hide emotional crises.

The single plot point that sets the movie off is the introduction of a newcomer to a family that is playing at being beautiful and privileged but evidently isn't functioning at some basic level. The newcomer is vibrant, sexy Martine (Olivia Thirlby) - a young experimental filmmaker from New York. The family consists of Julie (Rosemarie Dewitt), her daughter Kolt (India Ennenga), her husband, Peter (John Krasinki) and their son.  Peter is a sound designer helping Martine out with her film, but while he feels an attraction to her its her that initiates a relationship.  This doesn't go unnoticed by Julie, who is also facing temptation from her inappropriately keen patient (Justin Kirk). Meanwhile, the daughter, Kolt, is envious of Martine's flirtation with Peter's assistant David; equivocal about dating the sweet but unexciting Avi; and sleazed upon by her Italian tutor.

What I love about this film is that characters do things that may or may not be morally reprehensible but their motivations and the morality of their actions is always ambiguous and the more interesting for that.  Is there something more honest in Peter's reaction to Martine than in Julie's response to her parent?  And what are Martine's real motives? Is she consciously exploiting her sex appeal or a victim of men projecting their desires and assumptions onto her.  It's this kind of provocation that makes NOBODY WALKS such an elusive and fascinating film.  I hope it gets the distribution it deserves.

NOBODY WALKS played Sundance and Sundance London 2012. The run-time is 83 minutes.

Sundance London 2012 - SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED

I guess it was a sure bet.  Any movie based on a cutesy internet meme (see above graphic) was gonna rub me up the wrong way.  SAFTEY NOT GUARANTEED is the kind of hipster, quirky, indulgent comedy that I hate.  In fact, even calling it a comedy is a stretch given that it peddles the gentlest of gentle comedy.  I only laughed out loud three times, so on that basis it fails the Wittertainment 5-Laughs rule.  I predict that this will end up like last year's lauded hit, LIKE CRAZY. That was another movie the indie community loved and I hated. It too ended up in a bidding war at Sundance only to fail at the box office.

The problem with the film is that everything about it is so contrived that goofy that there's nothing to relate to - no point of entry unless you're also a wannabe oddball hipster.  It also contains precious few proper jokes (as mentioned above), and uneven tone, as it skirts past various genres. I blame Derek Connolly's pretentious script and Colin Trevorrow's lacklustre direction.  Performances are mostly so-so.  Aubrey Plaza (PARKS AND RECREATION) does her snarky, moody thing, but predictably melts when she meets Mark Duplass' oddball paranoid wannabe time-traveller.  They meet up because she an intern at a magazine and her boss Jeff is faking interest in the madcap scheme so as to write a funny story on the guy.  Jake M Johnson provides the only real laughs as Jeff, nicely playing against the "nice Nick" character in THE NEW GIRL.  As for Karan Soni's Arnau, it's nice that we people of Indian origin are starting to get more airtime in movies, but does it always have to be a clichéd geeky hard-working student? I'm starting to get offended.

SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED played Sundance 2012 where Derek Connolly won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award. It also played Sundance London. It will play SXSW 2012 and will be released in the USA on June 8th.

Sundance London 2012 - SHUT UP AND PLAY THE HITS

So I walked into the screening of SHUT UP AND PLAY THE HITS having never heard of the band LCD soundsystem nor caring that it was a super influential synth rock group that had apparently retired at he top of its game with a show at Madison Square Gardens last year.  

And this new concert film by British directors Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace (BLUR: LIVE IN HYDE PARK) made no concessions to viewers who Kent not know what the fuss was about.   We get a short clip from the Colbert Report where the schlubby middle aged front man tells us he wants to retire and do non specific stuff. He likes coffee. And then we're into songs from the last gig interspersed with the random clips of the post concert wind down. 

This, it turns out, is a genius choice. The music, and the lead singer James Murphy, speak for themselves. The music, it turns out, is amazing. A kind of David Byrnes-esque synth pop. And the footage makes you feel like you're right in the mix of the concert. And the off stage footage gives you an idea about the crazy-sane decision to quit. 

Watch this flick.  It doesn't matter if you've heard of the band (and I'm sure everyone but me has!). This is great music, and a great doc.

SHUT UP AND PLAY THE HITS played Sundance and Sundance London 2012.  It will be released in the US this summer. 

Sundance London 2012 - THE QUEEN OF VERSAILLES

THE QUEEN OF VERSAILLES says everything that needs saying about the cycle of greed between consumers and banks that collapsed with the Global Financial Crisis.  And it does so not by interviewing Wall Street bankers and earnestly explaining the securitisation market, but by taking us into the stupendously large home of the Siegler family, whose fortunes were magnificently swept up in the boom bust cycle.  

Papa Siegler was the king of timeshare.  Credit fuelled his business at every level. Poor American families bought his units on credit -subprime credit as it turns out - and he in turn used the massive revenues he was generating to build ever more resorts and build ever more palatial houses.  The lines between business and personal wealth were blurred.  He mortgaged the gigantic Versailles house - the biggest house in America as it turns out -  and ploughed the money into building a timeshare tower in Vegas.  And when the credit cycle burst, he found himself in dire straits.  

Papa Siegler comes across as a stern, hard-ball businessman: tenacious, clever, hubristic at the start, and bloodied but unbowed at the end. His self awareness about the opiate of cheap finance does him credit.  He is prickly, but sympathetic. But the really fascinating character is his second wife, a college educated girl who became a beauty queen, and married this man, thirty years her senior. With her plastic body and botoxed face, her seeming inability to curb her spending, and her lackadaisical approach to household management, Jackie would be easy to mock.  But it's a tribute to director Lauren Greenfield that Jackie is not caricatured through editing but is allowed to come across as a sympathetic character. She seems to genuinely care about her friends and neighbours getting foreclosed upon, and to be genuinely worried about her stressed out husband. She loves the good life, but she's willing to stick by her husband for better or for worse.

What I love about this documentary is that it shows you the morbid excess of consumerism -especially when put it in contrast with the lives of the Filipino nanny - but it also shows you how these people aren't bad people.  It's hard to get perspective on the whirlwind when you're in it.  To me, this movie is the flip side of the brilliant MARGIN CALL, which made a similar case for empathising with the Wall Street bankers who were running on the same hamster wheel of greed as the sub prime borrowers. We were all drinking the same Kool aid.

THE QUEEN OF VERSAILLES played Sundance and Sundance London 2012. It will be released in the USA on 6th July 2012.

AVENGERS ASSEMBLE - that ole Whedon magic!

Joss Whedon's Avengers Assemble is about as good as it gets for a superhero blockbuster movie.  The action set pieces are thrilling; the emotional stakes are high; and in Robert Downey Junior, Whedon has found the perfect avatar for his trademark pop-culture savvy wit.  The movie itself is the logical culmination of all those marvel adaptations we've seen in recent years, from the less successful (Hulks inter alia) to the commercially successful (Jon Favreau's Iron Man) to the hammy (Thor) to the more emotionally satisfying (Captain America.) 

In this flick, the MacGuffin is the tesseract: a blue cube that apparently unleashes untold energy that can be used for good or ill.  When Thor's resentful brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) comes to earth, wanting to use the tesseract to bring in an alien army, it's up to Samuel L Jackson's slippery government agent to unite the superheroes and save the world.   

Whedon does a masterful job of handling a wide cast of characters, of whom the audiences have different levels of familiarity.  He uses a prologue to set up Loki's theft of the MacGuffin then quickly moves to a couple of scenes that set up the new characters of the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansen)  and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and re-establish Dr Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo).  From there we're into the meat of the story:  whether the Avengers can put aside their personality differences and learn to work together. This take us through spectacular action set pieces in a flying aircraft carrier/ supherhero lair and an alien obliteration of midtown Manhattan. 

For me, the brilliance of Whedon isn't just the witty dialogue, although that sure goes a long way to lighten up a movie that's basically about macho blokes beating each other up.  His genius is that he can crack jokes while simultaneously giving characters emotional doth and complexity in a few short scenes.  This is particularly true of the way in which he depicts Bruce Banner as a deeply sympathetic, borderline suicidal genius struggling with "the other man".  What's amazing is that Whedon/Ruffalo's Banner is simultaneously the most emotionally interesting and realistic character but also the one that generates the biggest belly laughs. His scenes in the final battle where he thumps Thor and throws Loki around like so much confetti are absolute crowd-pleasers. 

And that brings me to the final reason why Whedon has made the best summer blockbuster I've seen in a long time: he knows how to direct action!  Too many modern films have action sequences so frenetic that it's hard for the viewer to keep pace with the choreography of what's actually happening.  I'd blame Michael Bay, but I think among the better quality filmmakers, the desire to imitate Paul Greengrass' Bourne films is also to blame.  Whedon gives us all the loud bangs and crashes but never, never, let's us lose sit of the bugger picture. He keeps us engaged at every turn. And that's what makes AVENGERS ASSEMBLE a superhero movie with wit, heart and exhilarating action.  I can't wait for the next installment. 

AVENGERS ASSEMBLE AKA THE AVENGERS is on global release. The running time is 143 minutes. The US rating is PG-13 but parents be warned: there's a sneaky quim joke!

Sundance London 2012 - LIBERAL ARTS

LIBERAL ARTS is a trite, cliché-ridden, entirely unbelievable movie that runs too long, and bores during its run-time.  Written by, directed by and starring Josh Radnor aka Ted in HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER, the movie reads as a mash-up of rom-com set pieces, with pretensions at saying something more profound.  

That profound insight is basically that most of us reach a point where we're happy in our small contained world, and once we leave it, life is basically a series of disappointments. For some kids, that'll be high school. For others, when they leave college.  For some lucky folk, it's when they retire. The point that the movie wants to make is that no matter how tempting it is to go back to that place of nostalgia, it isn't healthy. You have to move on and grow up.

All of which is fair enough.  I can relate. That could've been the backbone of an interesting movie. But what we get instead is half a film showing a soupy meet-cute and falling-in-love story between Radnor's 35 year old arrested development book-worm and Elizabeth Olsen's 19 year old Liberal Arts college student.  They share music mixes and feel uplifted by Schubert!  To make this bearable, Radnor needed to be a lot more self-aware and ironic with the material than he was. The second half of the movie zings all over the place, with one plot twist involving Olsen that rang hollow - another plot twist featuring a depressed student called Dean ( a very impressive turn by John Magaro - want to see more of him) that seems to come from another film altogether - and so many resolutions and endings that the film drags itself out worse than RETURN OF THE KING.

In the midst of all this, Richard Jenkins' reluctantly retiring Professor gets too little screen time. Allison Janney's brilliantly acerbic Professor gets just enough but steals the show. And Zac Efron has a charismatic cameo. But all this does is to reinforce the feeling that what we have here is an ill-written jumble of scenes, some of which work, some of which don't - a hammy sensibility aiming at something better. All of which is coupled with a pretty basic technical package.

Move along. There's nothing to see here. 

LIBERAL ARTS played Sundance and Sundance London 2012 and will be released in Australia on September 20th 2012.

Help Jeff Chiba Stearns complete his documentary Mixed Match

The Canadian animator Jeff Chiba Stearns, director of the inventive documentary One Big Hapa Family (see my review) is raising funds on IndieGoGo to complete his latest film Mixed Match - a documentary designed to raise awareness about the need for more mixed race bone marrow and cord blood donors.  The sooner this documentary can get the message out to the wider community, the more lives will be saved.  The IndieGoGo campaign ends in 33 hours and your help is desperately needed.  Go to IndieGoGo to learn more and DONATE NOW!!

If you cannot donate money, you can help by getting the word out.  I also recommend putting yourself on the national bone marrow registry so that you can help save lives.  See the bottom of this post for information on how to do this for Canadians and Americans.

In the words of the filmmakers:

The Story

Mixed Match is an inspirational, emotional, and evocative feature-length documentary that explores the need to find mixed ethnicity bone marrow and cord blood donors to donate to multiethnic patients suffering from life threatening blood diseases such as leukemia.  This live action and animated film is a dramatic journey focusing on the main characters’ struggles to survive against incredible odds. 

The documentary will lead the viewer through the lives of young patients and families struggling to overcome life-threatening blood diseases.  While presenting medical concerns, Mixed Match will be a character-driven documentary that will highlight a number of exceptional, courageous, and inspiring participants. The film will follow recently diagnosed multiethnic patients in search of donors, some of whom must struggle to hold on to hope through countless rounds of excruciating chemotherapy as they spend months searching for a match.  A patient who is in remission after a successful stem cell/marrow donation will also be documented.  Another patient’s story is told through his surviving family members, as he was not able to find a suitable marrow match and, as a result, ultimately succumbed to his illness.  Lastly, the documentary will feature a joyous and heartfelt reunion between a donor and patient after a successful transplant, as the two meet for the very first time.  

Mixed Match is an important human story told from the perspective of youth who are forced to discover their identities through their deadly illnesses and how their mixed backgrounds threaten their chance at survival, thus highlighting why in this day and age, knowing our history and cultural heritage still matters.

The film is being produced by Meditating Bunny Studio Inc. (www.meditatingbunny.com), working very closely with Mixed Marrow (www.mixedmarrow.org).

The Impact

Race and ethnicity play a critical role in finding a marrow match for those suffering from fatal blood diseases. It is a lesser-known fact that in order for a marrow or stem cell match to occur between a patient and a donor, genetic markers on cells must line up.  Because these markers are inherited from parents, their children are a blend both of their parents’ markers.  Thus, for mixed patients, their mono-racial parents and relatives will not likely be a match, and their siblings only hold about a 1 in 4 chance of being a match. Many markers on the cells are specific to certain ethnic groups so multiethnic people have a difficult time when their tissue typing has unusual or uncommon combinations.  To put this in perspective, if your background is Egyptian, Japanese, and Russian, there is a likely chance that only another person with a similar ethnic blend could be a possible donor if you are diagnosed with leukemia.

Mixed Match addresses the fact that every year over 30,000 people in North America are diagnosed with life threatening blood diseases. For many patients, a bone marrow transplant is their only chance at survival. Currently, in the US, of the 7 million registered bone marrow donors and 100,000 cord blood donors, less than 3% are multiethnic.  This statistic, although proportionate to the population of mixed people in the country, poses a substantial challenge to a mixed patient given the endless variety of possible genetic combinations in the registry.  Finding a multiethnic marrow match in the public registry has been compared at times to “finding a needle in a haystack” or “winning the lottery.”  Therefore, this is a very timely and important issue. 

According to the 2010 US Census, the number of people who associate with having more than one ethnic background has increased by almost 50% since 2000.  Despite the rapid growth of the multiracial population in almost all reaches of the world, many people do not realize the risks that lie ahead for mixed people with blood diseases, and the hardship that comes with an almost endless search for a donor match.  

In Canada, there are only 1,694 searchable registrants identifying as multiethnic out of the over 277,000 that are currently on Canada's stem cell Network according to OneMatch.  We need to increase this number to help save lives. 

With this film, we are setting out to achieve two goals:

Spread awareness of the challenges and complexities faced by mixed people with blood diseases.

Encourage all people from all backgrounds to join the bone marrow registry and donate core blood to increase the likelihood of finding multiethnic marrow matches.  There are some rare cases where mixed people find matches from monoracial or people of different mixes so it's important to have everyone's support!

Other Ways You Can Help

Another great way to help us complete this movie would be to spread the word about this fundraising to your friends and acquaintances, as well as visiting the Mixed Match page (www.facebook.com/mixedmatch) and clicking the like button so we can keep you updated on our progress.  Of course we encourage you to join your national bone marrow registry and hopefully help save a life.  Please check out www.blood.ca (OneMatch) in Canada andwww.marrow.org (Be The Match) in the US for more info on how to register.  

Check out a CBC radio interview where Jeff, the director, talks about the importance of making Mixed Match at this link: http://www.cbc.ca/nxnw/featured-guests/2012/03/29/jeff-chiba-stearns-documentary-mixed-match/ 

Sundance London 2012 - UNDER AFRICAN SKIES

In 1986 Paul Simon went to South Africa, and collaborated with black South African musicians to create Graceland, an iconic album that introduced the West to the vibrant South African music culture, and arguably did more than anything to raise consciousness about the disgrace of Apartheid - then at its violent height.

Problem was, in going to South Africa, he broke the UN cultural boycott, and despite sound advice from Harry Belafonte, failed to go under the auspices of the ANC. Unsurprisingly, when the album came out, the praise for the music was almost drowned out by the political controversy.  Was Simon exploiting African musicians? Were they right to tour with him? Was his project well-meaning but ultimately destructive of the anti-apartheid struggle?

Joe Berlinger's documentary explores these issues in depth thanks to unlimited access to Paul Simon, Belafonte, Dali Tambo (Simon's most vocal opponent, and son of the former ANC leader) and the musicians who played on the album. Berlinger uses video footage of the original sessions and 2011's 25 year reunion concert to frame interview footage, and to take us through the timeline of the controversy.

Paul Simon comes across as devastatingly honest, but slippery in his reasoning.  He knew he wanted to go record with these musicians - it was an obsession - and he knew he was on thin ice so didn't tell Harry.  He claims again and again that he was invited to go - as if the volition of the South African artists over-rides the ANC - but he was the one who pushed his record label for introductions, and most of the artists had never heard of him.  To my mind, Simon is on more solid ground when he points out that the boycott twice punished the oppressed.  It was designed to isolate white South Africa (hence the importance of maintaining the cricket and rugby boycotts) but the black South African musicians were effectively cut off from cultural exchange too.  That said, Simon remains ambiguous to the end, even through the Q&A.

The documentary is provocative and Joe Berlinger is admirably even handed - allowing the opposing sides to present their arguments clearly and calmly. But it's almost too cool - too detached - too focused on the politics and not enough on the power of the music.  The near two-hour run-time felt long (longer than the fast paced 150 minute MARLEY), and I was impatient for the documentary to end.  For me, this is a movie that's really a 60 minute TV political doc. 

UNDER AFRICAN SKIES played Sundance, Newport Beach and Sundance London 2012. It does not yet have a commercial release date.

Nippon Connection 2012

Nippon Connection starts next week in Frankfurt am Main and once again has put together an impressive programme of events.  I put together the animated shorts screening Spaces In Between: Indie Animated Shorts from Japan (Thursday, May 3, 20:00).  The title of the programme is a nod to animation guest this year Atsushi Wada.  Wada won the Silver Bear at this year’s Berlinale for his latest film The Great Rabbit (2012).  The programme features work by top indie animators from Akino Kondoh to Kōji Yamamura.  This event will be followed by a filmmaker’s talk with Wada at 22:30.  I will write more about the animated shorts later this week.

I will also be giving a lecture called Kihachirō Kawamoto’s Quest for the Ultimate Expression of Puppets  where I look at the diverse influences on him as an animator (Friday, May 4, 18:00). This presentation is based in part on the chapter I wrote for the Directory of World Cinema: Japan 2 (Intellect Books, 2012) edited by John Berra, but will feature images and film clips that could not be included in the book.  It will be a kind of a visual journey through the early part of Kawamoto’s career.

I have also organized one of the children’s events this year.  There will be a book reading (in Japanese and German) of the first of the popular children’s books Rita and Whatsit(Rita to Nantoka/Rita und Dingsda) followed by five episodes of the children’s animation series.  The books were originally written in French by Jean-Philippe Arrou-Vignodand illustrated by Olivier Tallec.  They were adapted into animation through a co-production between Planet Nemo and Nippon Animation.   The series is not only great entertainment for kids, but fascinating for animation fans because Nippon Animation employed not only in-house animators but also indie animators to direct individual episodes (see Anipages).   Planet Nemo is currently working on the English release of the 26 episode series.

Other events sure to delight animation fans are screenings of Makoto Shinkai’s Children Who Chase Lost Voices from Deep Below (2011) and the digital shorts series Onedotzero: J-Star 11 which features Mirai Mizue’s Construction (2011).  Mizue’s Modernand Modern No. 2 will also be screening as part of the Wada event mentioned above.

On the opening night of Nippon Connection, I am planning on attending Kaneto Shindo’s Postcard(2010).  Shindo (b. 1912) is one of the oldest working filmmakers in the world, having celebrated his hundredth birthday last Sunday.  I believe the oldest, still actively working film director is Portugal’s Manoel de Oliveira (b. 1908).

One must-see event on the programme is the rare chance to catch a live Benshi performance.  Beshi Ichiro Kataoka and the musical group Otowaza are presenting Jirokichi the Rat (1931).  The film is one of only about 20 silent films made by the celebrated trio of director Daisuke Itō (1898-1981), actor Okochi Denjiro (1898-1962) and cinematographer Karasawa Hiromitsu (1900-80) to survive in its entirety.  It was groundbreaking in its day for its use of close-ups and exciting action scenes.    

Yonghi Yang’s feature film debut Our Homeland (2012) will also screening at the festival.   I was deeply moved by her documentary Sona, the Other Myself (2010) at Nippon Connection 2010 and am excited that Yang will also be a guest at the festival this year.  I am also looking forward to seeing Nobuhiro Yamashita’s latest film My Back Page(2011).  Yamashita is a festival favourite with his films Linda, Linda, Linda (2005) and A Gentle Breeze in the Village (2007) having been warmly received at the festival in past years. 

Nippon Retro this year celebrates protest culture in Japanese documentary films.  Rare documentaries from the sixties including Shinsuke Ogawa’s The Oppressed Students (1967) and Summer in Narita (1968), Noriaki Tsuchimoto’s Prehistory of the Partisans (1969) and Minamata: The Victims and their World (1971), and Keiya Ouchida’s Underground Square (1969) will be playing along contemporary fare like Yuki Nakamura’s Amateur Riot (2010) and Ying Li’s Yasukuni(2007).

There are a number of events dedicated to the events of March 11, 2011.  Isamu Hirabayashi’s 663114(2011) will screen as part of the animation event I mentioned above.  There will also be a screenings of 3.11 Tomorrow, the Sendai Short Film Festival Project, Yojyu Matsubayashi’s  Fukushima: Memories of a Lost Landscape (2011),  Toshi Fujiwara’s documentary No Man’s Zone (2011), Masaki Kobayashi’s Fukushima Hula Girls (2011), and much more. The Japanology department of Frankfurt’s Goethe University will also be giving a number of papers examining the current state of things one year after the disaster in Fukushima.

I am looking forward to seeingShinya Tsukamoto’s critically acclaimed film Kotoko (2011).  In addition, Nippon Connection will see the international premiere of Nobuhiko Obayashi’s Casting Blossoms to the Sky (2011).  Other intriguing films being screening this year include Hitoshi Matsumoto’s latest film Saya Zamurai (2011), Takashi Miike's Ichimei (Hara Kiri: Death of a Samurai, 2011), Kei Umezawa’s documentary Coming Out Story (2011) examines the hard realities of the life of a transsexual, Phillipe Grandrieux’s documentary about legendary screenwriter and filmmaker Masao Adachi It May Be that Beauty has Strengthened our Resolve (2011), and Neil Cantwelland Tim Grabham’s KanZeOn (2011).  

This is only a taste of the films and events on offer at Nippon Connection 2012.  Head on over to their website to learn more.  I look forward to seeing you all there!

Help Save the Hannah Carter Japanese Garden

One of the finest examples of a Japanese garden in North America is under threat in California.  The Hannah Carter Japanese Garden was designed by Nagao Sakurai in collaboration with Kyoto garden designer Kazuo Nakamura in 1959 and constructed between 1959 and 1961.  Nagao Sakurai is considered one of the top Japanese landscape designers of the twentieth century and designed several notable gardens in the United States including the Japanese Tea Garden in Central Park in San Mateo, the Zen Garden in the Japanese Tea Garden of Golden Gate Park (San Francisco), the Japanese Rock Garden in Micke Grove Regional Park (Lodi, CA) and the Nishinomiya Japanese Garden (Manito Park in Spokane, WA).

The Hannah Carter Japanese Garden was modelled on the gardens of Kyoto and is a considered a rare place of natural beauty and quiet retreat in the Los Angeles community of Bel-Air.  It is named after the wife of Edward Carter, who donated it to the University of California in 1964.  Through a series of agreements, UCLA accepted the donation and agreed to keep and maintain the garden in perpetuity.  UCLA went back on its word in 2010 when it secured a court decision to allow them to remove the “in perpetuity” requirement

In November 2011, UCLA announced plans to sell the garden, citing rising maintenance costs, deferred maintenance, and the lack of attendance due to limited parking.  Funds from the sale of the garden would be used to support UCLA's academic programs.   The university listed both the house and garden for sale in early March 2012, after removing several valuable art objects that are integral to the design of the garden earlier this year.  There are no protective covenants or requirements calling for the garden to be maintained or preserved.  As a public institution, UCLA is required to accept the highest bid in the sale.

UCLA’s decision to sell this important piece of cultural heritage garden seems to me to be disrespectful to the family of Hannah Carter and insensitive to the historical, cultural, and environmental value of the garden.  It is very short-sighted of UCLA not to have considered reaching out to garden, conservation, and Japanese studies organizations to look at possible partnerships for maintaining this unique piece of cultural heritage for future generations.    Learn more about the garden and its history on The Garden Conservancy website.

According to the Terra Luma Design website, the garden features a stone carved over a thousand years ago with the Buuddha seated in 16 different positions of worship.  They also include a dead link to the garden’s UCLA webpage and quote the Garden Guide as describing the garden’s cultural significance thusly:

The complex aesthetic values of traditional Japanese gardens stem mainly from Zen Buddhism.  Among Zen concepts expressed in garden design are asymmetry and a preference for the imperfect and for odd numbers;  naturalness and an avoidance of the forced and artificial; hiding part of the whole to achieve profundity with mystery; a quality of maturity and mellowness that comes with age and time; tranquility, simplicity, and austerity.

You can show your support for by signing the petition and forwarding it to others who are interested in saving this cultural landmark.  The Coalition to Save the Hannah Carter Japanese Garden is also urging people to write individual letters to each of the UC Regents by May 4^th.  Click here to learn more.  

Image Forum Festival 2012

This year marks the 26th edition of the Image Forum Festival (April 29 - May 6, 2012) – the annual celebration of experimental film and video in Tokyo.  The line-up is diverse and features 35 programmes for a total of 206 works including short films, feature length films and installations.  I will just mention a couple of the events that I would go and see if I could. 

The animated short programme is as strong as ever.  Programme A is called JAPAN ANIMATION PANORAMA and features works by Nobuhiro Aihara, who passed away last spring, as well as Atsushi Wada’s Silver Bear winning film The Great Rabbit.  I am most excited to see that there's a a new work from one of my favourite women animators Mika Seike!  The full line up for Programme A is:

Longing for Venus (金星の夢) by Mitsuo TOYAMA (2011)       

Michiyuki Onsen-hen (みちゆき温泉編) by Ryo TANIGUCHI (2011)

GIGI-GAGA by Nobuhiro AIHARA (2011)　       

SKY by Nobuhiro AIHARA (2011)            

Red colored bridge by Keiichi TANAAMI (2012)               

Moth Pattern(蛾鑑)　by Mika SEIKE by (2012)

gala gala by Yoshihisa NAKANISHI (2012)         

Akerata asobi, Wasureru manako (開かれた遊び、忘れる眼) by ALIMO (2012)

Hito no Shima(人の島) by ALIMO(2011)

The Great Rabbit (グレートラビット) by Atsushi WADA (2012)

MODERN No.2by Mirai MIZUE (2011) 

AND AND by Mirai MIZUE (2011)           

In addition, Isamu Hirabayashi’s Noburo Ofuji Award-winning animated short 63114 (read review) is playing in programme G which is a screening dedicated films that are responses to the devastating earthquake, tsunami, and ensuing nuclear disaster of March 11, 2011.  

Programme J has an intriguing line up of shorts from Europe:

On the Water’s Edge by Tommaso de Sanctis (England, 2010)

Sleep by Claudius Gentinetta + Frank Braun(Switzerland, 2010)

Spoken Film 1by Wojciech Bąkowski (Poland, 2007)

Journey to Cape Verde by José Miguel Ribeiro (Portugal, 2010)

544/544 (up/down) by Thomas Mohr (Netherlands, 2011)

ich fahre mit dem fahrrad in einer halben stunde an den rand der atmosphäre

(i go with my bicycle within half an hour on the edge of the atmosphere)

by Michel Klöfkorn (Germany, 2011)

The Eagleman Stag by Michael Please (England, 2010)

Thomas Mohr’s film, which interprets The Requiem of Hanne Darboven, can be viewed on Vimeo.

Programme K features a selection of recent films by Chinese animators and experimentalists – I am afraid I don’t have time this week to figure out all the names and titles in English but here is the screening list for those who can read Japanese:

影夢人生　ツァオ・フェイ / 中国 / ビデオ /10 分 /2011

穀物配給切符　チェン・シー + アン・シュン / 中国 / ビデオ /19 分 /2011

兎通り　フォン・ウェイ / 中国 / ビデオ /8 分 /2007

蕨採り　ジァオ・イェ + ホアン・ヤン / 中国 / ビデオ /9 分 /2003

水滴　ホアン・ヤン / 中国 / ビデオ /3 分 /2005

私の、私の　レイ・レイ / 中国 / ビデオ /5 分 /2011

ダブル・フィクレット　ワン・ハイヤン / 中国 / ビデオ /4 分 /2012

あなたに会えたら　リュウ・ジャーミン / 中国 / ビデオ /6 分 /2010

唖　ルオ・ハイミン / 中国 / ビデオ /5 分 /2008

臼　スン・ハン / 中国 / ビデオ /3 分 /2007

鼓動　シー・レイ / 中国 / ビデオ /8 分 /2011

若者と地球の神秘　ワン・ウェイスー / 中国 / ビデオ /8 分 /2011 

To learn more, check out the full Image Forum Festival programme (JP only).  

MARLEY

Kevin MacDonald (THE EAGLE) returns to the documentary format with this insightful, beautifully edited documentary about Bob Marley. MacDonald inherited this "troubled" project after Scorsese and Demme left, apparently during the editing process, but it's clear that MacDonald was able to go back and shoot extra footage because his voice is occasionally heard interviewing Marley's family and friends. As a result, this is a project very much in the style of TOUCHING THE VOID. MacDonald comes to the material with a clear, curious head, but stays in the background - letting Marley's contemporaries (to whom he has exceptionally good access) speak for themselves.  MacDonald does not flinch from emotionally and politically tough issues - Marley's multiple girlfriends - the difficulty his children had in breaking through the entourage to his get to their father - Marley's political naivete - often playing for the "people" but hijacked by nasty political factions, and African dictators. 

The documentary begins at Nine Mile - up in the verdant hills of Jamaica - far away from the cliched image of Montego Bay.  Marley grew up in rural poverty, doubly cursed by being of illegitimate and mixed race parentage.  An outsider, he becomes fiercely competitive (even with his own children), strongly disciplined about his music, his route to escape. He followed his mother to Trenchtown, the Kingston ghetto, and made his early forays into the music business with the Wailing Wailers - a kind of Motown clean-cut boy band influenced by local ska and mento music. After a brief excursion to the US, following his mother, frustrated at his lack of success, he returns to Jamaica and his musical style and philosophical self-confidence seems to turn on his becoming a Rastafari.  The documentary spends a good amount of time examining what this religion meant to Marley, and why an outsider might have felt drawn to a minority "cult", itself the subject of prejudice, which preached "one love". 

But for me, the movie really became compelling when it got to its final hour, and Marley's final years.  When Marley was such a potent icon that he was being used by politicians. When Jamaican politics descended into gang violence between crypto-Communists and crypto-Fascists.  When Marley ships equipment to Zimbabwe at his own expense to celebrate independence, but sees his audience tear-gassed.   I love that MacDonald manages to open out from a music documentary into a sad documentary about the tragedy of independence - so many former colonies descending into political chaos or tyranny. That for me, is what makes this documentary, and Marley's life and early death, tragic. (So much so that I wasn't the only person crying in the cinema.) This clash between his harsh experiences; his idealism; and the contested politics against which he had to operate. Even the images of Marley over the final credits are problematic.  Is his music an evangelical rallying cry that has touched people across the world, even today? Or has he become another icon exploited by the merchandising men, like Che Guevara - a face on a T-shirt?

MARLEY played Berlin  and SXSW 2012. It is currently on release in the UK, USA and Ireland. It opens in Belgium on May 9th, in the Netherlands on May 10th, in Germany on May 17th, in Portugal on May 24th and in France on June 13th. 

MARLEY has a runtime of 144 minutes and is rated PG-13 in the USA and 15 in the UK. 

Another Glimpse at the Yayoi Kusama documentary Princess of Polka Dots

Filmmakers Heather Lenz and Karen Jonson are sharing another glimpse at their documentary in progress Kusama: Princess of Polka Dotswhich examines the life and career of the extraordinary artist Yayoi Kusama.  Today they posted a new video on Youtube:

This 7-minute clip was put together for the Kusama retrospective at the Tate Modernin London (9 February – 5 June 2012).  I have been impatient to see this film since I first discovered their 2007 trailer:

However, it would seem that they are still trying to raise enough tax-deductible donations to cover the costs of archival image licensing and the cost of post-production.  You can support this promising documentary by donating money here.  If they can secure financing they hope to get the film out to festivals sometime this year.

I also learned this week through a posting on Brainpickingsthat Kusama has illustrated Alice in Wonderland.  A brilliant pairing of art and fiction which has gone directly onto my birthday wishlist for this year:

udara udara (うだらうだら, 2007)

The short-short udara udara (うだらうだら, 2007) is young animator Ryo Hirano’s first foray into animation.  Photographs of natural settings are overlaid with cute, hand drawn creatures who sigh, hum, fart, buzz, and sneeze along to a percussive beat.  Hirano did both the animation and the soundtrack himself. 

It’s a simple, straightforward scenario, but it already demonstrates themes and motifs that one sees throughout Hirano’s animation career so far: a fondness for mixed media, an awareness of the relationship between the rhythms of the soundtrack and the rhythm of editing and animation movement, and the use of creatures that are part human, part animal, part pure fantasy.  Most importantly, the film foregrounds the sense of humour that has made Hirano’s films stand out among the films of his young peers.

Watch the film for yourself:

Learn more about Ryo Hirano on his official website.

Filmography

2007  udara udara (うだらうだら)

2008  Future Man (蟻人間物語/Ari Ningen Monogatari)

2008  Midnight Zoo (深夜動物園/Shinya Dōbutsuen)

2009  music video orchestra (collaborative work for Omodaka)

2009  The Kappa’s Arms (河童の腕/Kappa no Ude)

2009  Ichigwankoku / One-Eyed Country (一眼国/Ichigankoku)

2009  Guitar (ギター)

2010  Kensaku Shōnen (検索少年, Tabito Nanao music video)

2011  Hietsuki Bushi (ひえつき節/Omodaka music video)

2011  Space Shower TV Station ID

2011  Holiday (ホリデイ)

BATTLESHIP - Surprisingly good!

I appreciate the irony of me telling you to ignore the critics - at least the paid ones - because BATTLESHIP is a lot of fun. And I say this as someone who couldn't watch TRANSFORMERS and generally doesn't do mindless action summer blockbusters.  I can see why the critics are being sniffy. BATTLESHIP is, no pun intended, an easy target to hit.  It has more than it's fair share of ludicrous action sequences and clichéd dialogue.  Its plot is a pick'n'mix from BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, INDEPENDENCE DAY, STAR WARS and TERMINATOR - utterly predictable from start to finish.  And worst of all, it stunt-casts a Sports Illustrated model (Brooklyn Decker) and a pop star (Rihanna). It's also pretty long.

But forget all that. Here's the deal.  NASA has sent  out signals to an earth-like planet that have resulted in an early-invasion alien task-force targeting a satellite station in Hawaii, putting up a forcefield that keeps out the US navy.  Luckily, BSG-stylee, a few ships are trapped inside the field, and it falls to them to destroy the alien force, eventually decommissioning an old battleship complete with vets on board.  Part of this involves tracking the alien ships, battleship game style, by trying to hit grid co-ordinates. Meanwhile, on the island, a geek, a girlfriend and a war-vet come together to knock on the communication satellite via which the aliens are due to bring in the rest of the invasion force.

There are a lot of battles and fights and whatnot and the vis-effects are all top-notch.  But what makes the film a success is that it takes its time establishing character, so that when it gets to the battles we actually care about the outcome and the character development they engender. The movie starts with a clean-cut Naval officer Stone Hopper (Alexander Skarsgard) witnessing his love-able loser brother Alex's (Taylor Kitsch) attempt to woo the daughter of an Admiral (Brooklyn Decker).  The intro is genuinely funny, just as the opening scenes with Kitsch as John Carter trying to break jail were really funny.  And what this movie does right is that it recognises that Kitsch has a Harrison Ford like loveable-rogue quality and rather than squashing that (as in John Carter) it actually lets it run throughout the movie.  All the way through we have him wise-cracking even as he becomes more mature and takes on command of the ship. 

Moreover, whenever, the dialogue gets too hammy, you have another character commenting on that. A lot of critics have criticised Kitsch's character using the line "I have a bad feeling about this" after a destroyer has pretty much been shot to shit. But I think they're missing the fun that the screenwriters are having with the genre they're in. How else can  you explain having Hamish Linklater play the science geek Cal looking basically like a young George Lucas?  And a couple of times he even explicitly says things like "who talks like that?!" This is a movie that internalises its own critique - it knows it has a mockingly self-indulgent attitude toward the genre conventions its playing with.

What's interesting is that this self-indulgent, gentle mockery sits alongside a very earnest, patriotic streak that runs throughout the film.  Early on, we have a scene where Korean War vets are saluted.  They play a key role later on.  And real-life vet Gregory D Gadson plays a pivotal role in the island storyline.  I like the fact that alongside all the action sequence nonsense, the movie looks us straight in the eye and shows us the true cost of war - men with their limbs shot off.  And it doesn't do this is in a sensational way - it just quietly makes its point.

So for me, BATTLESHIP is pretty much the perfect summer blockbuster. It's a mindless action movie that actually has a lot of intelligence - combining respect for vets with a conciliatory attitude towards the US' historic enemies.  It deals in cliché, but does so in a funny and self-aware manner. And we finally get a movie that understands that Taylor Kitsch is best used in a role which shows off his easy charm.  I'm all about this movie and look forward to the sequel.

BATTLESHIP was released on April 12th in Belgium, France, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Taiwan, the UK, Australia, Denmark, Germany, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Finland, Iceland, India, Italy, Japan, Spain and Vietnam. It opens on April 19th in Hungary, the Czech Republic, Greece, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Turkey.  It opens on May 11th in Brazil and Colombia; on May 18th in Canada, Paraguay and the USA.