Jan

What do “10,000 Black Men Named George” have to do with Martin L King?

There’s a film about a pivotal labor activist, and with a peculiar title, that tells a sad story within its title, “10,000 Black Men Named George.” Thousands of “nameless” African American men worked as porters on the railroads. The man was Asa Philip Randolph, although his first name is rarely spelled out.

This is Martin Luther King’s weekend. His birthday is on Jan. 15th, while we await Monday to celebrate his profound legacy. Next to the most publicized personalities of January and Black History Month – Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Thurgood Marshall, Langston Hughes and William E. B. Du Bois – Mr. Randolph might be the least known.

It’s remarkable that the most palatable icon, Martin L. King, has not yet had a biopic made about him. In 1992 Spike Lee gave us “Malcolm X.” Ten years later, Julie Dash gave us “The Rosa Parks Story” with Angela Bassett for cable. And then, also in 2002, Robert Townsend, brought Showtime TV and us A. Philip Randolph (portrayed by André Braugher) and the porters’ story of toiling to improve Sleeping Car Porters’ work lives. “10,000 Black Men” potently sheds light on a little known portion of American labor relations, at the crossroad of African-American history.

The film’s first scene shows how their work might go, illustrating a common sort of clash with a client: when a porter sees a woman steal and stow Pullman towels into her luggage, he diplomatically reminds her not to do that. He tells her that the porters are charged for items, that end up missing. “Stunned,” she insists on telling his boss, the conductor, of this daring, uppity offense. When the conductor arrives, the porter stands there and take the situation.

While Rev. King deserves our reverence, he’s one of a small cadre of comet-bright icons – out of the 100s and 1,000s who deserve as much recognition. It’s an irony that so many activists in that list, above, had no films made in their names, save for Justice Marshall with CBS’ “Separate But Equal” in 1991. One worthy question is “why so few the movies have been made about even that set of almost 10?”

Pullman Porter Helping Woman (courtesy Creative Commons)

“10,000 Black Men” is a delight to watch, sneaking history lessons into a great story. The under-recognized André Braugher’s portrayal of Randolph is key. Late in the film there are pivotal scenes that highlight loyalty and betrayal. One climactic scene has a kindly elder porter, zealous about the movement, found out as a Judas, a double-agent. And then we see the hardship that Mrs. Randolph, an entrepreneur, endures when protests against on her husband force her to shutter her salon.

According to an excerpt of “Marching Together,” from google books, “the porter [union] election results forced the Pullman Company to recognize the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters as the porters’ and maids’ legitimate representative. More than two years passed before contract negotiations were completed,” 12 years to the day after they began their struggle.

In the 1920s and 1930s the porters were paid such meager respect that the patrons and Pullman Company didn’t care what the porters’ mothers had named them. It was easier to call “them” George, after George Pullman, the company’s founder. According to Rising from the Rails, a website that honors the porters, “They were hired…because they epitomized Pullman’s vision of safe, reliable, and invisible servants.”

Taking a way-back look at a movie reminds us of films that could be memorable and give us something, if we take the time for them. While some movies are “always” on cable TV, these aren’t.

Jan

Documentary, “Bad Writing,” asks what bad writing is, and stirs dramatic laughs

Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.

Author Gene Fowler once said that. That raises a question. Well several…

What is bad writing?
Can it be bad?
Who cares?
Why ask?

Whether or not you’re creative or artistic, if you’ve attended an English class or especially one on creative writing, you’ve been asked, or have asked yourself these questions?

poster (courtesy Morris Hill Pictures)

A smart, seriously funny documentary is taking a round about road to our screens, no matter which kind you watch. “Bad Writing” is a fun, witty and mostly great documentary from Vernon Lott. The film, from Morris Hill Pictures, deals with writing good – or well, that is.

If you’ve written before, at least before twitter came, you’ve wondered whether “it” was bad writing or good? And if you’re serious and diligent with your writing, that anxiety is deeper. For many people this is a routinely serious, even Sisyphean personal trial. The prospect of writing anything, especially something creative and that people will like, stirs agony among writers.

The early- and mid-20th Century had the Great American novel as the ultimate literary artistic goal those generations’. Vernon Lott, the film-maker, knows this. He strove for several years to be a poet, half-way sure that the stereotypic and romantic agonies of an artist’s path were needed. Then he woke up, shook himself and decided to ask renown writers about the craziness of that craziness.

Vernon Lott and George Saunders (courtesy Morris Hill Pictures)

According to imdb, “Bad Writing” was released on December 10th. It’s treading a narrow, cautious college-like screening tour. It’s a small, unconventional, fun and potent film that deserves attention. But it’s a documentary; few people seek out documentaries for an evening’s pleasure. In late October 2010, “Toronto Globe and Mail” columnist Liam Lacey concluded that the web, under the guises of Mubi and SnagFilms, is the new art house cinema.

“Bad Writing’s” a gem because it’s funny, has wit and answers many questions, both writerly and not, which nag people. You might call it a literary or artistic courterpart to Woody Allen’s 1972 film “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex,* But Were Afraid to Ask,” (if that movie had taken that question seriously, that is. …But not too too serious.) One of the dozen or so take aways comes when one of the writers tells Mr. Lott that “it’s” bad writing “if it doesn’t make sense outside the writer’s head.” That’s a howl. Hers is also an earnest answer. The film is just this reverent and serious.

Movies about writing are hard, or hardly dramatic because it’s a solitary activity. That’s probably part of why those movies made about it are about either people’s aptitude for or access to social support network, like “Freedom Writers.” Otherwise where’s the conflict? “Bad Writing” shows us.

But it’s flaws show in the last act. Sadly, this 60-minute film, on the romance, the rigors and the realities of writing, and one’s own ability, for it, is stuck in a 90-minute form that someone forced up on it. That last act peters into considering digital technology and Web 2.0 bode for writers meant for the tactile; it clashes with the romance and fun of the first hour. The clash doesn’t damage it, but wastes much of that hour’s momentum.

Vernon Lott and Steve Almond (courtesy of Morris Hill Pictures)

He interviews renown authors and professors to ask “what’s bad?,” “who cares?” and “why ask?” Of those dozen or so, Nick Flynn, George Saunders, Steve Almond and Daniel Orosco are among the funnest.

The mediated and educated worlds take writing seriously enough that “Bad Writing” strives not to; instead it releases some of the most rank of that bad, hot and self-congratulatory air. That technical irreverence sets the filmmaker up, and us, for a cute aside. While Mr. Lott meets with the founder of a San Francisco writers’ community, “Mortified,” (where people read often private, even intimate pieces that were never meant to be heard – and certainly not in public) He stumbles at least twice as he edits himself in the middle of asking it’s founder a question.

This documentary stands out in another funky way. The lighting stands are in the shots at least half of the time, cameraman’s hands and it even boasts screwed-up shots of only David Sedaris’ hands. It’s interesting to find a film that plays with or mocks the fourth wall, which is rarely discussed outside of film lectures. This film isn’t slick in the usual way. But it is; it’s potently executed (except for that darned last act). The substance of “Bad Writing” is more important to it than, how it’s dressed. You can laugh out loud while learning. How long’s it been since you did that?

If we were to grade this: 4.5 out of 5.

Nov

Giving Thanks for foreign films, which flirt with romance

The pilgrims wanted to find or create liberty for themselves by creating a new home away from Britain’s crown. (Never mind the conceit that they showed in taking the aboriginals’ land.) As moviegoers we go to foreign film, in part to move our experiences beyond America’s conventional-come-insipid, though often entertaining titles. Some of those are free from the constraints of American films’ style and grammar.

We do so much for love, or out of our idea of it. No matter whether that’s in pursuit of a special man, a special woman, or a film that reminds us that something can be special.

It could be for love...or a crime, with "The Secret in Their Eyes"

Forget “Love, American Style,” (which was an American TV program from 1969-1974) think beyond the North American borders, and those mental borders and the biases, which you might harbor toward American-style film storytelling. Let’s be thankful that we can watch foreign films that give us different, even disparate vantage points on romance (and tumultuous questions of justice, which are often and easily as thorny as those of love).

How about Love, Argentinean style?: “The Secrets in Their Eyes” ["El secreto de sus ojos" in Spanish] tells a tangled tale of the pursuit of justice and a second chance for an unrequited romance. A retired court officer, Bejamin Esposito, writes a novel in order to banish the demons of his career… The “New York Times’” take on it might be the most potent: is it “both a detective story and a tale of unrequited love.” “The Secrets in Their Eyes” boasts smart humor, a mature, sensitive a compelling investigative yarn that clashes with the “Law & Order” North American procedural way of considering crimes.

Who gets to see those often..?
Often enough..?

Think about Love, Spanish style: “Cell 211″ ["Celda 211" in Spanish] tells of a tangled prison riot where good is mistaken for bad. It’s an uncommon prison riot film, with a love story. This story, critiqued here, is a perverse melding of a charming love story, which turns wistful, and a prison uprising spanning one day, and which might remind you of the Attica prison uprising in 1971. Juan Oliver, a do-gooder, becomes a criminal, while he hiding for his own safety among violent criminals. He must bide his time until his new world returns to a realm of sanity, and he can squeeze his wife again in a hug.

These two films provide strengths and twists in narrative and character development that rarely happen in North American movies.

Love, French style is…such a worn out idea – a cliché. We have “Mademoiselle Chambon.” You might ask “why bother; what new angle is there!?!” Even if we consider the crush on teacher trope… What if it were your dad? What if he did nothing but respond to your teachers steady, increasingly intense interest in your dad?

Love. Lust. Mid-life questions. Wanderlust. These are at the foundation of “Mademoiselle Chambon.” The trouble starts after she asks the dad, Jean, to talk to her class about his work, construction. She likes him – a lot. As sordid as their tryst might become, their story demands and expects viewers’ patience.

We are treated to these innovative, challenging stories so rarely in North America (those viewers who want better concede and consent to conventional, banal film experiences). Be thankful for countries and cultures that defy America’s standards and expectations for the routine, the typical, the retrod.

Nov

Park Dae-min’s “Private Eye” is a fun South Korean detective yarn, with great twists

“Private Eye” is a great, interesting, smart and amusing South Korean genre detective yarn from director Park Dae-min. It’s title in Korean: “Geu-rim-ja sal-in.” This story takes place in 1910 Seoul, South Korea. A former policeman, now private detective, Hong Jin-ho [Jeong-min Hwang], concentrating on typical, banal cases of cheating lovers, helps a young, talented and ambitious medical student, Oh Yeong-dal [Dal-su Oh] who’s in a weird – awk-weird – situation: this med student finds a dead body (some government official’s son) in a grassy area and brings it home so he can do anatomical practical studies – this, instead of calling the police!

Wow. That is ambition..! …and a gouge in his ethical compass – but this yarn (for amusement not forensic intensity) drives that detail for a chuckled and nothing more. Enjoy and escape with this film. Don’t consider it. Just sit back with some friends and watch.

This is a fun part of the Pan Asian film festival at Minnesota Film Arts. Don’t think about “Private Eye’s” details, and then you’ll be in for some solid entertainment.

If the director, Park Dae-min, chucked about two of the story’s twists, it would be clearer, simpler and that much more potent. And about 20-minutes shorter. Every time the yarn seemed to be two beats from its end, there seemed to be at least one more 10-minute sequence and a new twist opening up. It was like “this just in! – Another story and character twist! One twist involved a suspect who, while cunning and somewhat politic, also had a twin who seemed pretty identical. The array of twists wasn’t bad, but it was tiring, especially when one twist entailed sexual perversion that did nothing to advance the narrative, the characters’ stories, or the potency of either.

Nov

China’s “City of Life and Death” is a brutal, confusing war story

What do you call a film experience that, while interesting and seen on handsome black & white film, you would only do again under duress: “City of Life and Death.” (The title is “Nanjing! Nanjing!” in Chinese.) This film dramatizes the epochal trauma to which Japan subjected their vanquished, the Chinese from December 1937 to March 1938.

This is a heck of a hurdle for an American audience, and especially for young people: American audiences have heard of World Wars I and II, and they remember that those wars were bookends for the Great Depression.

Few people probably remember that while the United States’ experience in World War I began in 1917, while Europe began three years earlier. But it’s too much to hope that most viewers know anything about the Rape or Massacre of Nanking, China, which occurred in 1937-38 – between those big wars, and after our Great Depression. This historical Chinese war film, “City of Life and Death,” is part of Minnesota Film Arts’ festival, In Search of Asia.

While this story isn’t about Nazism, it still is: it shows the Rape of Nanking. The first 30- or so minutes resemble Newsreel footage of the London Blitz: the depraved barbarism to which the Japanese subjected their Chinese foes leaves nary a whole build left resting upright or free from tumult. Basically switch out the Nazis for the Japanese and London, England for Nanking, China. Few people expect to be entertained by Holocaust stories, and only some by war stories, if they are brave enough to portray unromantic realities. “Schindler’s List” is exceptional; it provided warmth and humor to lighten that which is a separate 20-Century horror story.

While a film lover can, in theory, revere or laud foreign countries’ differing narrative and grammatical techniques, the reality can send an American’s mind spinning:

“City of Life and Death” takes at least 40-minutes to reveal its incidental ensemble of personalities. Only half of the ensemble has names that we hear. Also, it’s impossible to distinguish between the Japanese and the Chinese, no patches or flags until the middle. It’s confusing.
And there are three or four title cards, which while stylish and a refreshing hand-written alternative to the usual, are hard to read and remember before the film cuts to the next scene. “City of Life and Death” lacks an obvious narrative structure, where the acts and various plot points are made obvious.
While this story is a little over two hours, it feels, these obstacles make it feel like two and one-half.

Who does the film-maker want or expect to watch this? Or how small of an audience does the film-maker want? Watching this is a chore: like watching “Schindler’s List” with only maybe 10% of its warmth and humor or like gutting it out through the daunting, unrelenting misery that the McCourt family must endure in the first third of “Angela’s Ashes.” The Rape of Nanking is a fascinating topic, especially for people who love history. But why would someone want to watch this?!

It’s remarkable and a controversy in China: that a Japanese grunt soldier, Sergeant Kadokawa, [Hideo Nakaizumi] and others, is shown beyond villainy, as human.
Kadokawa is one of the few characters who has what resembles a subplot. He comes of-age in this hellish time. In the end, his regrets consume him. For example, two survivors of one of the early and many massacre scenes, a man and a boy, who are almost forgotten by the film-makers and the audiences, reappear in the last half hour. He lets the boy and man go to live on, granting them a reprieve from a proforma death sentence. Before doing so, Kadokawa says to the sky, “Life is harder than death.”

John Rabe's assistant

There was also the assistant to Nanking’s answer to Oscar Schindler in Germany makes a strong, defiant stand. After having witnessed his child’s murder and the violation of his wife, he tells his chief executioner “My wife is pregnant again,” with a resigned, although satisfied smile. A beat later, he is dead.

“City of Life and Death” probably appeals to a narrow niche of film-lovers who don’t trip over the kinds of obstacles in a story that were listed above. Other films have tackled this massacre tale and have satisfied their viewers.

If we were to rate this: 2 out of 5.

Nov

Ounie Lecomte’s “A Brand New Life” about a stubbornly loving orphan

Minnesota Film Arts presents “A Brand New Life” (which is “Yeo-haeng-ja” in Korean), from 2009, and French-South Korean film-maker, Ounie Lecomte, as a part of the In Search of Asia series at the St. Anthony Main cinema.

After an adorable elementary school-age girl, Jinhee [Sae Ron Kim], who clings to her dad, is left at orphanage by him, she must find a way to deal with it, but cannot. This, even after being treated well and finding friends.

How would you feel or respond if, at around age 10, your dad broke your heart by lying to you…because he had to?

What if he bought you a new ensemble and said that you two were bound for a trip, but deposited you with an orphanage? According to imdb, Ms. Lecompte’s own story inspired this film.

Jinhee’s dad deposits her at an orphanage, a way station for children whose lives might be lifted if middle-class families claimed them.

She has to deal with A Brand New Life in an orphanage.

From the moment that Jinhee – her beguiling grin that is – appears onscreen, she’s just a sweetie pie. Her effervescence hobbles your objectivity and skepticism. That story would be enough, but wait – there’s more. She just can’t get over the fact that her father won’t return – that this could lead to a more stable life for her.

While 10-years old may be old enough for a child to roll with that sock to the chin, Jinhee isn’t that child. She adores her father, so she refuses to accept her lot, and is doggedly stubborn about not rolling with punches that life has knocked into her. Jinhee’s story is partly one of her emotional arrest in the face of an unenviable situation. She might be Korea’s version of Shirley Temple, or an elementary-age Dakota Fanning if you like.

Jinhee and friend Sookhee chill out over pilfered cake

A key scene happens when the orphans attend church, where Jinhee sees a man whose resemblance to her father hits home. A beat after that, the pastor’s lesson about Jesus asking his father, “why hast thou forsaken me?” tells us just what agony is festering within Jinhee. It’s not that she likens herself to a martyr or as Messiah, but she is still struggling to reconcile her dad’s nasty, loving lie with her reality.

Either you sympathize with her refusal to roll with these punches, or you can find her as her soon-to-be good friend, Sookhee, [Do Yeon Park] will: “a wench,” who needs to stop being a baby! Children do not comprehend or consider their situations as adults do (or as we would like or expect adults to). They’re used to either being good or being punished. She’s being as good as she can muster, but she must still suffer.

Jinhee content with her father (who hasn't a head?)

If a screen title didn’t tell us that this is fiction, taking place in 1975, then the semi-documentary style might nearly have fooled me. But some of the shots are rarely found in documentaries. Otherwise we should compare this to a PBS film from its Point of View series, “Wo Ai Ni, Mommy,” a Chinese documentary on trans”racial” international adoption; there is a lengthy scene where the girl is smack dab in the middle of change. That scene is unsettling, with angst and agony. That’s a hint at why the pastor’s lesson registers with our aggrieved young protagonist.

This story is one that, as with Thomas McCarthy’s “The Station Agent,” from 2003, or other small, personal films, demands that you are patient – frankly, mature – enough to allow it to defy American expectations for pacing. That forecasts a niche audience who will have to seek out the opportunities to watch this. “A Brand New Life” isn’t slow, but is deliberate. It’s charming and quiet. Are you patient enough to let this child’s story unfold before you, or will you shift in your seat wishing that something, something cool would happen? The story defies American cinema’s banal conventions. But it was made by a French-South Korean film-maker.

If we were to rate this: 4 out of 5.

Oct

“Night Catches Us,” a bold, refreshing drama, has debut at Twin Cities Film Festival

Night Catches Us is Philadelphia-based independent filmmaker Tanya Hamilton’s first feature film. It made its debut at the Twin Cities Film Festival on September 30th. The heart of the film is the connection between Marcus Washington [Anthony Mackie of The Hurt Locker and Million Dollar Baby], a pragmatic drifter, and felon, and Patricia Wilson [Kerry Washington of The Last King of Scotland and She Hate Me].

Night Catches Us gives us relationships. And secrets. And reckonings. And reconciliations. That’s a lot for 90-minutes, but it works well, except for this film’s twitchy volume dial; occasionally the dialogue or score would drop or leap a few decibels. That’s only a problem when you’re trying to pay attention.

There are the political stories, and the erotic. Some secrets to protect those adults from truths, which hurt more than their chosen, accepted myths. Other secrets to protect a child, letting her keep her fleeting innocence. Maybe the film’s title comes from the idea that the night catches us with our guards down, and secrets more accessible.

There are three or so pivotal relationships are tense, each carrying historical baggage. On the political tip, Marcus must move past or through Dwayne AKA “Do Right” [Jaime Hector], a former Panther and local thug, who just knows that Marcus’ snitching killed a Panther. On the erotic tip, he rekindles with his lost lover, Patty (That’s Patricia, damn it!) after what she calls abandonment.

In this tight, largely segregated community, their neighborhood is family; that family’s post-1960s politics has cooled into the pragmatic. In order to keep Patty’s home space calm, Marcus confronts a morose, young, wannabe Panther, Jimmy [Amari Cheatom], who is ne’er do well, lost in the romance of activism. Amid Marcus’ confrontations and rekindlings, Patricia strives to smooth the scuffles, which he leaves in his wake – she wants him to stick around.

Marcus has to reckon with “Do Right” for being the snitch that the whole neighborhood “knows” he is, but that he knows he isn’t. “Do Right” needs to assert and affirm his defacto reign over the area. Marcus has meager time for that viril, righteous, boasting. That doesn’t slow “Do Right” even a bit.

The knuckle-head character, Jimmy [Amari Cheatom], is a forthright jab at the myriad young Black men who are lost, scared, and struggling, but dare not let on. Weakness does nothing for street cred. He’s like the cats who spout off Malcolm X or Stokely Carmichaels’ well-worn words, but barely understand how much study and struggle went into them. Jimmy knows too little to carry the words, or the respect that he expects to earn by speaking them. He is a lesson.

Marcus and Patty reconnect.

The budding rapport between Marcus and Patricia’s daughter, Iris, is significant and special for the trio. The girl’s point of view is also a door that connects this film to To Kill a Mockingbird through her Scout-like precocity. Marcus’ quiet strength endears and engages her. He resembles the father figure whom she has lacked, nevermind that Patty already has been sharing her home, bed and herself with one steady man. Marcus is a different refreshing one; in being so, he eases Patty’s burden.

This is an atypical, even radical film, particularly for a Black person, and especially a woman, to make, in at least three ways. First off, there’s no urban blight. Secondly, Patty’s household is basically in-tact, and thirdly we are reminded of or given a primer on the Black Panthers.

The film flaunts no prototypical ghetto blights – neither drugs, nor prostitutes, nor typical gun play, nor casual swearing. In addition to those omissions, Ms. Hamilton’s story is subtly radical. We have an improvised, functional nuclear family with the temporary trio. Both adults are smart, warm, and educated. That isn’t even the radical stuff: Marcus and Patricia’s respective stories provide a primer on the Philadelphia Black Panthers – at least in broad strokes.

Marcus and Iris get close

I ought not fawn over this film or the satisfaction. Chris Rock has joked about “Givin’ people extra credit for doin’ shit they’re already supposed to be doing.” I know: I’m a film snob, along with my other assorted snobberies. But I yearn for stories like this, that are quiet and simple, and which remind me of Akeelah and the Bee. When cynical or quietly bigoted Anglo money men drag their feet, they insist that there’s no audience. Night Catches Us is a splendid surprise. There are scant well-made films for thinking Black people (or for brown or beige one). I hope this refreshes viewers and draws them to the cinema when Night Catches Us comes out on December 3rd. I give extra credit, hoping that that emboldens other filmmakers who want to follow suit.

Ms. Hamilton found inspiration for Night Catches Us from and made connections to To Kill a Mockingbird. When she had just arrived in high school, she found some of her “aunt’s” things: memories from her activism, like an arrest outside the White House. She was engaged and curious. Her “aunt” wasn’t – at all. Both surprises, the discovery and the stern reticence, opened her mind. In some ways, the girl, Iris, is the filmmaker. Ms. Hamilton’s experience was the slow drip through her life, which impelled her to finally translate that experience, and soem dogged research into this film.

On the technical and aesthetic tips, even though this is Ms. Hamilton’s first feature, she already has a film grammar that distinguishes her work from most of her peers. In a conversation with her, she said that her thesis film at Cooper Union also showed her chosen editorial style: a taste for a mélange of dramatic, archival, and different types of animated footage.

The opening or title sequence can tell a lot about the film and its maker. Is it banal or conservative, is it boldly artistic or vibrant, does it command your attention and interest? Much as out television themes used to describe the show’s world, objective, and attitude, this title sequence does too. It uses hip-hop music, hip-hop influenced images, and movements between those two, to outline the world, history, and dramas within Night Catches Us. Bottom-line: is it used to support the story; in a robust way? These sequences rarely merit a conversation. You can debate whether it should draw our attention, whether it should be subtle and conservative, or should resemble children as W.C. Fields often supposedly said, “be seen and not heard.” I am already biased and convinced.

How about the editing style or aesthetic? I cannot recall the last film I saw that dared to exploit more than dramatic and archival shots in one film, consistently. Night Catches Us moves beyond that: it uses animation, two different types, and does it in as many ways. It’s refreshing. A crude, hand-made Black Panthers comic book of mediocre line drawings comes to moving, swaggering life before Iris eyes as she thumbs through it. It grabs out attention too. It’s a remarkable and motivating animation until Marcus tells knucklehead Jimmy the truth about the propaganda’s source. He pops Jimmy’s bubble, and deflates some of its militant sweetness and fire.

If we’re going to rate this film, 4 1/2 out of 5.

Aug

A splendid, vital “Wo Ai Ni, Mommy” (Chinese for “I love you, mommy”) from PBS

On August 31, PBS’ POV series presents Wo Ai Ni, Mommy (Chinese for “I love you, Mommy”). It’s a compelling, candid, and very satisfying story of transracial adoption, made by Stephanie Wang-Breal. A Jewish family, Donna and Jeff Sadowsky, in Long Island, New York, have already adopted a Chinese girl, Darah, from Guangzhou, China. They want to do it again, so their littlest will have a playmate. This time, an 8 year-old, Fang Sui Yong.

Donna and Faith Sui Yong Sadowsky embracing

The way Ms. Sadowsky describes her children, it sounds like they are all adopted, but since their non-Chinese children don’t stand out in a family photo, it makes you scratch your head.

According to the film, China opened itself to foreign adoptions in 1992; It’s been 18 years. And Wo Ai Ni, Mommy looks at the first 18 months of one adoption. Those months span from Sui Yong’s departure from China through her culture shock and conformity to America. We count down the 10 days in China to meet Fang Sui Yong and bring her to her new home, and then the days in America, which become weeks, and months. 18 months. This story is complex and intimate. It comes down to questions of “what is identity?,” “what makes a family?,” and many other often taboo ones about assimilation and “race.”

From the start, Faith slams into her first emotional cement wall: she’s really leaving, saying goodbye to her known world, to everything, and everyone she has know. She has a new name. She shows raw fear, discomfort, and bewilderment. There’s coaxing and gentle coercion that makes this ordeal, which everyone else is trying to celebrate, seem like a gentle kind of kidnapping. It’s an intense, lengthy, and wrought-up scene.

Faith Sui Yong Sadowsky holds the stars and stripes

Donna says that Faith’s full name will be Faith Sui Yong Sadowsky. She thinks it’s right, respecting her Chineseness – but that’s soon forgotten or just doesn’t come up. Maybe we don’t hear her full name because most scenes take place at home, and there isn’t a dramatic enough scene for either Donna or Jeff to blurt, “Faith Sui Yong Sadowsky!”

In the final act of her story, on video, Faith tells her dad that she feels more American than Chinese. After having striven to learn English and conform to America, her Chinese has faded. She no longer feels comfortable with it, especially among people who still use it. We sense that she has turned a page; she’s wary of her next American chapter. It’s implicit, but clear.

In-turn, her sense of twoness, her dual Chineseness and Americanness, has also changed. To some people, this often connotes a destructive portion of American culture. It often also helps someone who is, and still isn’t yet, accepted to feel connected to a mental and cultural anchor. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois’ “The Souls of Black Folks,” addressed this, a century ago:

“One ever feels his twoness, — an American, a Negro; two warring souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.”

When you replace Negro with Chinese, within the concept of social duality, the experiences are companions. In Wo Ai Ni, Mommy Faith Sui Yong Sadowsky’s “dogged strength” has changed in important ways.

Controversies, rhetorical and emotional, about transracial adoption abound. Faith will live, be loved, nurtured, and probably succeed in life. That’s twice as much as many children get.

Wo Ai Ni, Mommy is one excellent telling of a transracial adoptee’s special experience.

If we were to rate this, 4 1/2 out of 5.

Jun

Modern thrillers: 50 years of mind games since Hitchcock’s “Psycho”

Alfred Hitchcock’s seminal suspense thriller “Psycho,” had its New York City premiere on June 16 in 1960. That was 50 years ago. It was released nationwide that August.

It’s daunting to think back through five decades of psychological thrillers to ask yourself whether any of those that followed can rival this one. Many filmmakers have dared to imitate Mr. Hitchcock’s instinct and flair; Gus Van Sant was delusional and egotistical enough to remake “Psycho” itself several years ago. There are some stories that just ought never be tampered with.

So you gotta wonder: if you’re gonna reminisce about the best, most unnerving who-dun-it films, where do you start?! But wait. Before you lunge toward an answer, consider that approximately two generations, and a very different aesthetic, separate us from that which makes “Psycho” special. The best thrillers emphasized suspense, not gore. They are mind games. A viewer’s patience was very important. The experience is about foreshadowing, wondering, and worrying about that which lurks behind dark corners or overly gentle smiles. The editing wasn’t nearly as fast with “Psycho” as we expect it to be in the 21st-Century. It’s unfair to compare any film to Hitchcock; No filmmaker’s work wins against his.

There are those titles that you might dare to compare with “Psycho,” but which are so renown that there’s barely a point in doing so. You could name Jonathan Demme’s “Silence of the Lambs,” from 1991, but it’s not like that had to crawl its way to a profit or renown. Practically everybody knows it. The film’s inspiration and source material shares common threads with the novel on which “Psycho” was loosely based. Still, “Silence of the Lambs” is strong and distinct enough to stand on its own mind games with the audience.

I can help you catch him, Clarice.

David Fincher’s “Se7en,” from 1995, is in a similar situation. While it may have earned fewer column-inches in newspapers and magazines back then, it won’t take many people very long to recall that film’s creepy and utterly grotesque crime scenes.

...The shower scene.

All you have to do is utter “the shower scene” to start a conversation about “Psycho.” And that’s not necessarily the most gringe-worthy scene. But there are a couple suspense stories that deserve your attention.

“Presumed Innocent” was adapted in 1990 from Scott Turow’s profitable 1987 novel. It’s the tale of a sometimes happily married chief deputy prosecutor whose colleague and former mistress is found dead. When his boss names him to prosecute her murderer, then all roads seem to point to him. The truth is more complex, surprising, and shocking – it presents an ethical and moral dilemma that jeopardizes his family.

Here’s the trailer:

“One False Move,” written by Billy Bob Thornton and directed by Carl Franklin, is about Los Angeles police detectives cooperating with a small town Arkansas sherriff, in pursuit of a deadly and unstable trio of murderers. The killers themselves are on the trail of a drug score. This is a thoughtful and smart take on a crime film that calmly considers questions of “race.” At the time, this film’s major actor was Bill Paxton, who plays the sheriff, Dale. He’s one of the most subtle and interesting protagonists. He’s key to the pacing and the story’s simplicity. “One False Move” is a little film. It’s a subtle psychological thriller that grows far smarter and more complex, and more engaging than you expect.

While you can probably name good solid suspense thrillers, they might lack the taught pacing and well-developed narrative that these ones offer.

Jun

“Winter’s Bone” A brave detective story with a tough, teen girl lead

Story:

“Winter’s Bone” is the refreshing story of a tough 17-year-old broad in the Ozarks, Ree Dolly, played by Jennifer Lawrence. I could describe her in more polite or delicate language, but I doubt that she would. Her story amounts to an odyssey as she locks horns with her rural, often criminal neighbors and family. Her dad, Jessup, put their house up as collateral for his bond when he was put in jail on drug charges for making meth. With his court date imminent and himself missing, Ree, hearty and hardened beyond her years, is saddled with fixing this.


Ree runs

Her mom can’t; she’s ill, seems catatonic. Her brother and sister are too young. In pleading for her neighbors’ cooperation, even empathy, she says, “they’re too young to even feed themselves yet.” You might call this film is a petty detective story is worth your time is because of Ree’s fight against the dire consequences for the family. This young broad’s story exemplifies a relentless love and commitment to her family, her siblings.

“Winter’s Bone” had its premiere, at least its Minnesotan one, on June 2nd at the Walker Art Center, where director Debra Granik introduced it and answered questions afterward.

Ree has to track down and deliver her father, even if it’s just evidence of his death, in order to keep her home. She doesn’t want to step on anyone’s toes, but those are the least of her concerns. She must feel like Harry Truman, a 20-century Missourian. After President Roosevelt died he said, “I felt like the moon, the stars and all the planets had fallen on me.” So, she’s willing to be denied, lied to, yelled at, bullied, and gang-beaten. She won’t take “no.” As long as her brother, sister, and mother are at-risk.

Location and culture as character:

Neither Ree, nor her family of sometime foes, are the only memorable characters. South Missouri and its poor, and often criminal subculture, are characters as much as “Winter’s Bone’s” characters are. The traditions dictate how people live their lives and treat one another.

In the introductory scenes, Granik, uses the sparse, poor kitchen where Ree prepares the breakfast to illustrate their poverty. The local morning radio show plays in the background. It plainly announces the community’s goings-on. This illustrates the work-a-day attitude of the area where the criminals and innocents alike make their ways. Soon enough we see the trailers and the shanty-like structures that the residents claim.

Ree comforts her brother while she has so little to spare

This ambiance reminds me of rural Nebraska, where a 1990s independent film,”Boys Don’t Cry,” takes place. So few TV or film stories, or at least good ones, about poor, rural peoples’ lives have been done; it’s very hard to spotlight useful comparisons. That’s why this film is refreshing and thankfully it’s potent story and well-developed characters make it stand out.

During the Walker Art Center’s Q&A, Ms. Granik said that “there are enough ‘ands’” that none of the details or characters should come off as stereotypes or digs at Hillbilly’s. By “ands” she describes social and moral contradictions; those people who are both tender and brutal, or aloof or cooperative, depending on the circumstance, or just how far down the wrong road their passions or uninterest have careened.

“Winter’s Bone” is memorable, maybe indelible. But there’s a caveat: The most memorable scenes are also the hardest to take. This is a world where the women’s strength must never rival a man’s. Her neighbors and family would just as soon punish her, in a way straight out of a Yakuza movie, if she won’t take their gruff, plain-spoken, yet subtle hints to back off. This is a world where contemporary gender equality is a foreign concept.

Ms. Granik describes the story and source of “Winter’s Bone” on the Sundance Film Festival’s “Meet the Artist”

Early on, when she presses her uncle, Teardrop, to stop being cryptic, but be straight with her, he grabs her up by her throat, as he might to discipline a hound, to deliver his insistent point. Basically: “Shut up and suck it up!” He sets the community’s tone and attitude toward her straights. Finally after an elder’s convinced that she’s pushed too far, his wife – who had already abundantly established that neither of them is to be troubled – leads a small gang of women to beat Teardrop’s point home to her – barbarically. It’s bloody.

And Ree pushes on. Warily.

The film’s only flaw is a dream montage that stands out so much from the whole story’s style that it distracts you. It’s very brief. But I don’t know why it was there either.

It comes out in wide release on June 11 and an even wider on June 26, depending on where you are.

Why bother?

We have a strong, perseverant female lead character
It’s a refreshing, but simple, even innovative, detective story
The narrative and characters are thoroughly developed, as adapted from the novel
We are introduced to, or reminded of, a very different way of life, in South Missouri

Will Wright. Digital Journalist. Reporter.

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