meaning in the moving design

Wendy & Lucy
There are films with nothing but narrative- 2-hour-long "and then and then" movies that entertain through distraction. All Bollywood films and most of Almodovar's movies fall into this category. (Not complaining, btw, I love these films; they are always the easiest to digest, no matter what mood I'm in).

Then there are other films, ones that say virtually nothing, offer scant dialogue and long looks; where nothing moves but each still moment is thoughtfully milked. Wendy and Lucy is one of those films.

Nothing happens. A drifter (Wendy) and her dog (Lucy) are trying to get to Alaska on a shoestring budget and encounter a snowballing set of problems enroute. That's pretty much it. The barebones story is told in pregnant pauses, using nothing but the rawest of materials- its tiny cast and the keen eye of its director- to make it move.

Michelle Williams (who has, by the way, done some awesome stuff since Dawson's Creek) is brilliant in this. She's pretty much a one-woman show, actually. There are cameos by Will Oldham and Larry Fessenden (who co-produced with Todd Haynes) but really, it's all Williams and director Kelly Reichardt. We are voyeurs sitting beyond the camera, watching Wendy struggle to hold it together, but only barely. The story is told through her concerned look as she carefully counts her money and rubs her cold feet; her head hung low in her lap after countless hours detained; the back of her head as lines of sunlight cast shadows on her back...

It's hard to describe in writing why films like this work. It's a little like slowly panning through a a series of very emotive photographs. Anyone who's ever spent any time drifting aimlessly on their own can probably relate to the long gaps of silence in the film, and anyone who hasn't might gain some insight into what it's like. It's quiet. It's lonely. It's full of horribly mundane events. You are left with nothing but your own muteness and the weight of your problems... and it can feel pretty damn stifling. It's a very real story, right down to the banality of Will Oldham's "drunk drifter" rant.

Granted, the story/non-story does run on a little too long, and by the end, my attention was starting to wane. If Wendy and Lucy had been a short film, it would have been an absolute work of genius, hands down. But as it was, it was still pretty damn good.


The Silence of Lorna
I really really like the Dardenne brothers. I've only seen 2 of their films, so if they are beginning to get formulaic, well, I haven't noticed, and whatever, I like the formula (which I would attempt to sum up as "trying to fold all the cruelty of the world neatly away into your wallet, only to have it leak and stain and get horribly messy").

Lorna is a professional "wife" involved in an elaborately organized marriage scheme. A native Albanian, Lorna married to obtain a Belgium citizenship, and plans to end the marriage (by murder or divorce) and swiftly marry a Russian, also looking for EU citizenship. The sham marriages are organized by goons, who are effectively Lorna's agents, or pimps if you will, though there is no sex or abuse involved- this is purely a business transaction.

This is perhaps the prevailing Dardenne theme- business as usual. All of the film's characters play this out; show no emotion. This was exactly the nerve-wracking part of watching L'enfant- I was so emotional and horrified by what the characters were doing and, at the same time, totally frustrated by their utter lack of conscience. Well, this time, the brothers let in a little crack of emotion and I felt like I got what I wanted. Just vindication that no one can go through these incredibly personal and emotional experiences without feeling something, or without having those feelings manifest into something else. Repression can bend emotions into a weird kind of... indigestion sometimes.

I'm not bored of the brothers yet. I do think watching their films is a bit of a test of character, like either you feel too much and it's hard to watch... or you don't, and you wonder what's wrong with you.

[Sidenote: The Silence of Lorna makes a really good counterpoint to Wendy and Lucy- both are voyeuristic character studies of a female protagonists who a) struggle to remain emotionally "sober" in the midst of a somewhat hostile environment; and b) are simultaneously held back and propelled forward by their economic situations. It's sort of like the micro and macro for me- W&L is a small, personal story told in a small confined space. You sort of come out feeling like an imploded silent ball. SofL is not really about Lorna, more about the attitude or politics that she stands for, or the societal norm or necessity that she must act out. and once the film has appalled us with this cold, blaise as-usual attitude, then it moves inwards, and we see what all this baggage does to one woman's psyche; how it all comes spilling out. The two films both push emotional buttons, but the method and the effect are very different- one feels very real; the other, very symbolic. It's pretty interesting.. to me, anyway.]

OM SHANTI OM
There's very little to say about this one, except that it was thoroughly entertaining, had a great cast, great songs (one was called "Pain of Disco"... awesome), great dancing, and a very awesomely ridiculous storyline that I absolutely loved. Even the credits were great.
I've never seen a Bollywood film I didn't like.
Wait, that's not true.. there was that ghetto futuristic sci-fi Bollywood flick I fast forwarded through once...
Ok, well all the other ones totally kicked ass.

I'm out of steam, I can't write about film anymore. I feel like I've just thrown up a big gurky puddle of trivial thought and I'll be walking around for the next few days just nodding and smiling out of fatigue. Good time to ask me for something special.

My Magic
I never thought I would describe a movie where someone puts a spike through his tongue as family friendly, but it seems right, so I'm just going to go with that...

Eric Khoo's My Magic tells the story of Francis, a depressed, grossly alcoholic single dad struggling to take care of his son. Francis works at a club, and occasionally impresses the bartender with magic tricks to coax free drinks out of him. The higher-ups catch wind, and soon concoct a plan to exploit Francis by showcasing him in a freak show at the club. Determined to provide his son with a chance for a brighter future, Francis allows the stakes of his freak show performance to get higher and higher.

Ive never seen anything else by Eric Khoo, so I'll just call it like I see it. By all indications, Khoo is a master juggler of conflicting emotions. This is a kid's movie with very adult themes. Khoo's balance of humour and pathos is just incredible, and is especially apparent in his portrayal of Francis. Khoo paints the alcoholic father as raw, vulnerable, and painfully pathetic, but nevertheless revels in taking light-hearted pokes at him. So in watching it, I am simultaneously struck with both empathetic shame, and a chuckle at his expense. It's... not quite a "Ha Ha" kind of funny, more like a sad, swallowed smile, but these small comedic touches pervade the film, and make much of the latter half bearable, as Francis is exploited to increasingly degrading levels.

I also don't know anything about the state of Singapore's racial harmony/disharmony, so I won't theorize on that, although Khoo does seem to be saying a lot there, especially given the film's ending. A minor point of interest for me (I think in light of the fact that I am living in a foreign country and often find myself oscillating between two, sometimes three different languages every day) is that the film shows not only how diverse Singapore is, but that all those diverse cultures bleed into an odd socks cesspool of language mixing. Most of the film was in Tamil, but Francis regularly interacts with others in Cantonese and Taiwanese (and maybe Hindi??), all with spots of English in between.

It's hard to label My Magic. It's either an incredibly harsh kid's film or a film meant to scar the soft at heart. All I know is that I wasn't its intended audience (I am neither young nor soft), and so yes, at times it was too cheesy,too melodramatic and the stiffness of the acting did get to me. But I kind of feel really forgiving about all that. I still enjoyed the film... although I sort of suspect it's because I'm reading some race/class disparity theme in there that may not actually exist...

Whatever the case, it's fair to say that this is not a film that exactly leaves you skipping gleefully out of the theatre, but still, it does it's best to soften the cold-hearted blow. Khoo's cynical message "The world is a cruel place, you will learn that one day," is wrapped in bubble gum kid gloves, almost as if we are being introduced to the cruelty of life through the innocent eyes of Francis' son. And because of that, there was a hint of magic that lingered as the credit rolled. Not quite as sweetly bittersweet as the ending of Harold and Maude, but still pretty comendable. It's certainly peaked my interest in Eric Khoo.

Timecrimes
The problem wth time travel films is that the movie ends near the beginning, so it tends to be a tedious road back and forth through the same territory as the movie progresses. And unless you put an ingenious twist to it, or unless you pray for a dumb audience, well... it runs the risk of coming off a little redundent.

I was first introduced to Nacho Vigalondo while I was working in short film. His 7:35 in the Morning, a black and white suicide bomber musical, was ironic, cheeky and thoroughly awesome. After watching his second short, Choque, I started to get a feel for Nacho's humour, and it agreed with me, very much so. I went to see Timecrimes purely because it was Nacho's first feature length film and I was super curious and excited to see how he'd manage.

The storyline is one of those that works best the less you know... mainly because there isn't much to know. It's a simple premise with some complicated cracks in between. Erm, so fair warning- mini spoilers ahead...

Hector has just moved into a new house and decides to relax in the yard with his binoculars. Only instead of the birds and the bees, Hector spots a naked woman in the nearby forrest. Upon wandering into the bush to check up on her, Hector is attacked by a mysterious, menacing bandaged man. Hector is chased into the arms of a budding young scientist (played by Nacho himself) who, unbeknownst to Hector, has been fiddling with a time travel machine. Throw Hector into said machine, shake, stir in some hubristic folly and add a twist of naive intention and you've pretty much figured out the rest of the story.

So personally, I guessed how the story would play out somewhat early in the film, and while I still found it entertaining, it definitely started to peter out for me in the last half hour. It's kind of a "fool me once" situation, where what was novel the first time around gets to be a little dry on the second go. Retracing the same scenes from different perspectives can be interesting... but it's much more effective in small doses, methinks.

Nacho, however, should get mad credit for doing so much with so little. It's a cast of four, and there are only a few locations. Like Primer, another sci-fi indie flick, Nacho compensates with a smart story. This is a budget film that doesn't feel budget at all, even despite the b-movie theme.

The script is tight... unfortunately, I found it a little too tight. Uncomfortably tight. The fun of sci-fi movies for me is the unknown; being able to let my imagination run wild with endless possibilities and "what if"s. There is no room for that in Timecrimes, every little detail is explained. I felt like my imagination was locked and sealed into Nacho's AHA! box, and I found that kind of stifling.

Having said that, Hector- a balding, befuddled everyman- makes a great anti-hero, and Nacho's comedic touches are impeccable. I have incredible respect for this guy on all sides of the camera and I think he is immensely talented. All in all, it was really good for a first feature... I just wish I had more to latch onto and make my own.


24 City
Will somebody please oh please fire Jiang Zhangke's musical arranger?!

Fictional narratives that incorporate documentary elements can work. Gary Burn's Radiant City, and Haskell Wexler's Medium Cool come to mind, but I'm sure there are countless others I'm forgetting. Documentaries that incorporate fiction? Hmmm... not if you're supposed to take them seriously. Ok, there was "dramatization" in A Thin Blue Line, but I'd argue that that was more of a necessary evil than a plus; the story is what made that movie. And Marlie Matlin pretty much ruined What the $@#* Do We Know? for me...

I bring this up because 24 City is one such animal. Jiang weaves documentary interviews with scripted scenes; has real interviewees sit alongside actors pretending to be interview subjects.

Obviously, the risk of doing this is that your audience may be able to discern the real interviews from the scripted ones- a rather jarring effect. Credit to the actors, but the difference was obvious to me. There is a HUGE difference between a personal story that someone haltingly and hesitatingly tells a camera, and one that has been fictionally crafted; the latter is always guilty of being too cute, too flowery... to arty.

Beyond this bare flaw, Jiang's narrative arch for the film seems confused, or at least it confused me. I simply don't get what he's on about... is it supposed to be a nostalgic love letter to Chengdu? A statement against the tediousness of factory work? A cry for the loss of work pride in the face of China's development frenzy? Jiang's interviews all take turns supporting and refuting each of these themes, and the result is a whole lot of staged talk with scant moments of genuine pathos that all fail to tie together.

Jiang's style also rubs me the wrong way. His method of having various interviewees, family members and anonymous strangers stare at the camera for a minute of silence seems like a poor Digibetaman's version of Koyaanisqatsi. What's more, they're not even close ups, so it isn't particularly uncomfortable for the viewer, if that's what he was going for. Most jarring of all is Jiang's choice of music, which I can only assume he arranges himself because it is consistently bad in his films.

Jiang, word to the wise- cantopop love songs and electronic mandopop DO NOT fit your scenes of factory workers, nostlagic shots of Chengdu and sob stories about coal mine workers. WTF??

Jiang is sort of a Cannes darling, and has earned some serious arthouse cred. Well, I've seen two of his films, and I don't see what all the fuss is about, so I think I'm done with this guy.


*PS- I knew I was a film geek, but I really didn't know I was this much a film geek.
I... apologize.

If China Post was a newspaper that people actually read, I may never write in this town again. Thankfully, this is not the case, but I'm not exactly celebrating.

There's this movie, it's called Cape No. 7. It's huge here, people are freaking out over it. I first saw and reviewed the film back in June. It was, as I saw it, a light-hearted comedy full of local humor and great characters that lost itself in an over-ambitious, unforgiveably sappy story. More hype than substance. Then this happened. And this squirmy little cutsie commercial film is now like a rusty screw burrowing its way into my gut.

It's not hard to see why it went to Number 1 in Taiwan. Up until now, Taiwanese filmmakers have largely consisted of arthouse auteurs, more bent on alienating or depressing their audiences than entertaining them.

Let's take Tsai Ming-liang for example. I've never seen any of his films in its entirety, although I did catch a few minutes of The Wayward Cloud when I was working at TIFF... before I left because I was falling alsleep. I don't actually recall, but there's a chance I was actually the TIFF publicist for this one. All I remember is that one flip through the press kit made me dub this film "the watermelon porn musical." And indeed, (ssshhh) that's actually how I sold it to the press. Well... my press. To our left, we have a bunch of semi-nude women with buckets on their head trying to seduce a man with a giant penis head on his head. To the right, the doctor is checking her melons. Apologies for the tiny jpegs.

Set in a place like Taiwan, where the cute per capita ratio is ridiculously high; where what people look for in a pet is whether or not it will fit in their handbag and everyone gets daily email dosages of cute cat and cute panda photos, Tsai is... well god, he's like his giant penis head man set amidst a display of hello kitties. This IMDB article kind of sums up Tsai's relationship with Taiwan:

Berlinale Winner Says He May Not Release Film In His Homeland
A Taiwanese film that won the International Critics Prize at the Berlin Film Festival last Saturday may not be released in Taiwan if any of its sexually explicit scenes are ordered deleted by local censors, the film's director told reporters in Taipei. Returning to Taiwan after receiving the award for outstanding artistic contribution, director Tsai Ming-liang vowed not to distribute his film, The Wayward Cloud, in Taiwan "unless in its totality." The Taipei Times observed today (Wednesday) that movies are generally barred from showing genitals, sexual intercourse or nudity. But Tsai commented, "Audiences are smart enough to tell if it is pornography. This film can jerk tears. Can a porn film have [that] effect?" Ironically, the film deals with two porn actors.

The result is two-fold. It means that the handful of hardcore cinephiles in Taiwan have a higher tolerance for pretentious arthouse than most, and that everyone else will go screaming for the first cinematic exit door. Enter Cape No. 7. It's inoffensive, funny, immensely accessible and has Taiwan written all over it. Instant mass appeal. Taiwanese audiences have been starving for its simplicity for years. It's a bad film, but it's good for Taiwan.

So, for fear of stepping on another landmine, I'm not even going to bother embarassing myself. Every time I try to share my opinions about a movie, I get slammed. The Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival has started, I'm going to post my thoughts here, safely, where I know no one will read them.

Oh, and if you're wondering about the title of this entry? It's a line from the film.

INDIA, JANUARY 2007


hindi devotional song intro



After 5 showerless days of sloshing around in the mountains, I decided to take refuge in a small village to recover the feeling in my legs. I'd heard about a place near Kalimpong, some community tourism initiative started by a former Indian army major. It was way beyond my budget to stay there, but I thought, "what the hell, I deserve a break." So off I went. After 4 hours in a jeep, along a rickety mountain pass road with hairpin turns and potholes that would launch my stomach into my throat, I arrived in a small village surrounded by nothing but green and mist. I was taken up to a ginormous house, and greeted by the benevolent father figure of the village, the army daddy, my host.

The Major (as he was known) had very strong opinions about what was wrong with India, and how he was going to fix it. He spoke about the unsustainable influx of people migrating to the city every year, and how villages like the one we were in were being abandoned. People were giving up these vast expanses of fertile land for a shack in the city slums, in hopes of raising themselves up economically; of capturing their share of India's newfound wealth. The Major thought this was ludicrous. He said he wanted to show the people who lived here that they had resources; that they had a different, arguably more valuable kind of wealth at their disposal. So he started a community initiative with the expressed purpose of keeping people in the village, to stymy the flood of urban migration.

It went a little something like this: the Major approached a handful of villagers and asked to build a one-room tourist guesthouse on their property, which he paid for. Then he organized people- tourists- to come stay there, offering them freshly-cooked local meals, peace, quiet, serenity, and the all-important "authentic local experience." All the money went to whichever family played host. The Major provided the capital, gave informal English lessons, and set up a small English school in the village.

Sounds good, no? It was for the most part... the only strange thing was that I think the whole set up was meant for a.. different kind of tourist. The guesthouse was an elegant raised woodframe house, lavishly decorated with local handicrafts and antiques with a cute little porch out front. Pretty much the swankiest accommodations I've... EVER had, and quite a step up from the cement holes I'd stayed in everywhere else in India. On top of this, the family I stayed with never really interacted with me (they were kind of shy on account of the language barrier) and their daughter was in charge of "taking care" of me... which made me feel like she was my servant girl... which in turn made me extremely uncomfortable. She was nice, but afraid to chat for fear of offending me, so would serve me my food, call me "madam," bow, and leave.

Anyone who knows me can probably imagine how horrified I was at this; can maybe even feel the awkwardness of that situation oozing out of this blog entry. The last thing I wanted was to be reminded of my privilege as a rich, galavanting Westerner. It was the faux tourism experience in full effect, born of good intentions, but horribly contrived nonetheless.

Thankfully I (and my lucky travel fairy) believe in making our own fun. The first night, as I was sitting alone on my cute little porch wishing I had... someone to talk to, I heard faint singing. "That sounds live," I thought. So I grabbed my recorder and went out into the night, following the sound of the music. I walked into a house where about 20 kids were gathered in a pseudo circle, singing and dancing joyfully with a harmonium and drum accompanying them. I sat down and made myself scarce, indeed no one really paid me any mind for a long time. After a while, some began to notice. The girls would glance back at me and smile or nod, and then whisper amongst themselves. Some came up and offered me food but mostly they just kept singing. I was sitting next to the harmonium player, and he just kept smiling at me. It was a shy but immensely gracious smile. I can still remember it, and yes I'm smiling right now thinking about it.

What struck me most about that night was how carefree they all seemed, and how I didn't feel like a part of the equation at all. They weren't singing and dancing for me, they were just doing it, from somewhere inside themselves, a spiritual place I have never known, but feel humbled to have witnessed.

Travelling often suffers from Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle: the measurement changes the result. I travel because I am awed by different cultures, different worlds, different ways of being. But often, by the very act of witnessing it, the... "purity" of those worlds is compromised. For this reason, certain moments stand out- those rare, rare occasions where the laws of physics do not apply, and the universe makes someone else's world immune to my eyes and my presence.

... I feel a big philosophical argument welling up in my throat, so I'm going to stop here and save that for another rainy day. I've started archiving my stuff at archive.org, so more samples can eventually be found here. Be patient, these things take eons to upload...

Enjoy.

hindi devotional song1

I've been reminiscing about my old job lately. Here is a draft from... oh, almost a year ago:

My job is a lot like endlessly making and solving crossword puzzles. Most weeks, I love it, because I get to do my own thing, or even if I have to do someone else's thing, I get to work something about zombies into whatever test sentence or multiple choice question I'm writing.

Usually the requirements are quite straight forward: make a sentence with this word at this vocabulary level, no more than 15 words. There is quite a bit of range though, from clear cut assignments to outright mindfucks. Akin to the difference between, say, a 10-day Buddhist retreat and ... being Mormon. For life. This was a Mormon kinda week. Check out my assignment:

My instructions (oral) were as follows: Write 30 synonyms and 20 antonyms using words from the list below, 15 for Type I test, 15 for Type II; 15 sentences must use words from the list below marked with *, and 15 must use words marked with **; make the sentences for Type II b/w 12-15 words and ALL the words in every sentence must be under Vocab Level 2 (which is maybe Grade 5 reading level) and contain context hints for the fill-in-the-blank answer.

Exhale.

To amuse myself, I decided to come up with a list of unuseable antonyms for the word list I was given, which included: pronunciation, cigarette, tobacco, cattle, forestry, coincidence, chamber, birthplace, automation, circuit, sought, allege

ANTONYMs for:

pronunciation (noun)- contours of silence, means of communicating incoherently, the art of gurgle

birthplace (noun)- deathsite, or place-where-you-were-not-born

cattle (noun)- cow, or cluster-of-animals-that-are-not-cows

cigarette (noun)- bounteously healthy herbal remedy not wrapped in paper

coincidence (noun)- I didn't expect to see you here, Barb! What an unamusing and expected event that that bears absolutely no relation to anything! (word count:22)

allege (verb)- The arrested suspect remarks convictionlessly that he was not in the house.

On these special days, when I'm ready to pull my hair out and cry in frustration, I turn to one trusty document in my folder, marked Job Hilarity. This is where I store all the priceless Chinglish I come across in my editing work. Some of them are actually grammatically incorrect, but others just hint at the total cultural disconnect between my Western brain and my adopted Asian home. The following are sample sentences that got the axe:

Don't poke fun at the poor little girl. She is miserable enough having lost her left arm.

The actress loses her mind with too much stimulation.

All the aliens working in Taiwan should also pay their taxes.

The prime minister of Thailand was forced to quit his job after he illegally appeared on a TV cooking program.

Even though the people were all from the Middle East, none of them were terrorists.

Some scientists argue that paranormal phenomena do not necessarily indicate an upcoming earthquake.

And here's the stuff I wrote, or specifically, the stuff I got paid to write (cue fist pump):

I did my boss the service of showing up on time today.

Gina was taken captive by a group of Amish men, who forced her to give up her iPod.

Picture description: There is a very small man with an obsessed look on his face. There's a picture of a castle behind him, a giant bomb flying towards said castle, a pic of guy with a crown with a big X across his face and of the little man wearing the crown. In front of him are 2 or 3 sleepy looking losers who don't really look capable of attacking a castle. One of them is picking his nose. Another is holding a fork.

What may we infer about the group?

1. They have many obstacles ahead of them.
2. They will surely go on to win the championship.
3. They are the children of the revolution.
4. They will soon be living a life of fame.

Sigh... It's all about making our own fun, isn't it?

I just found this on a random napkin in a random pocket, thought I'd share:

I just scarfed down an ice cream cone the length of my face in 5 minutes flat. I should've known better. Taipei summers and ice cream cones do not make for clean time. I took the cone with its flimsy 3x3 napkin, ice cream piled to my hair line, thought "uh oh" and started chomping down. i now have one massive ice cream headache and a sticky hand.
Seriously, what 30-year-old do you know walks around struggling with a melty ass ice cream cone all dripping down her arm?
Grow up. Get a cup.