“Rejoice and Shout” is a feature-length documentary, from director Don McGlynn, about the history of Gospel music. It’s described as a rhythmic, ancestral pillar that African-Americans used to sustain themselves and to keep sane during their centuries in slavery. It told the audience that, at least at church, beyond the anglo gaze, “I am Somebody!”
One of the Blind Boys groups (courtesy Magnolia Pictures)
A staple of the documentary genre is cutting between archival and interview footage. This film does that. It tells an interesting, surprising and entertaining story, omitting any dogma that you might expect. It runs down the time-line of the genre and its innovations, some typical, others “unholy.”
It shows at the Edina Cinema for a week starting on July 8. This documentary provides a who’s who of the indelible and most potent Gospel artists, also dredging up memories of folks who time might have forgotten. “Rejoice and Shout” makes clear that as long as the music is understood as honoring God, then it should please Him and in-turn his followers.
It tells about Gospel music’s pivotal personalities, trends and game-changing innovations, it tells about clashing sensibilities of faith and styles of music. At the heart of some innovations is a question: isn’t it unholy marry rap with gospel, or blues with gospel, or any popular music with that pious one?
Mavis Staples (courtesy Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
This story tells us how Thomas A. Dorsey, while ultimately revered, caught hell for having mixed the blues with Gospel, making what some considered heretical. (Ray Charles had similar clashes when he took those chances.) It tells us how Rosetta Tharpe, who may be less known than Mavis Staples, inspired the latter to take up the guitar; before Ms. Tharpe did it, Ms. Staples hadn’t known that it was possible. And without the Dixie Hummingbirds, The Temptations might not’ve been.
Many documentaries are more creative, with editing, location and other choices, and take chances with their storytelling. “Rejoice and Shout” is a strong, competent film.
“Circo” is a 75-min documentary, by Aaron Schock, about a family-run Mexican Circus. This is a very interesting tale of a job on the margins, in a country, Mexico, that’s on the margins of the Western world’s media radar. In “Circo,” a family, the Ponces, is born into, grows up in and lives and works in its own small, struggling family-run circus. Compromises, troubles and strained & clashing loyalties make the circus that is the family and its work.
A grand entrance (courtesy Hecho a Mano Films)
The Mexican economy isn’t kind or gentle to this family. Too many small-scale circuses compete among one another for dwindling and poor audiences. Ironically the Ponces are among them.
This opens at Minneapolis’ Lagoon Cinema for a week on May 20th.
The circus is surviving, squeezing out enough money for the Ponces to subsist. Theirs is a nomadic lifestyle. They’re nomadic entertainers in a world that has little use for that entertainment; their story is special, maybe unique.
The mom, Ivonne Ponce, wants her children go to school, to prepare to have choices and careers away from the circus. Instead the dad, Tino Ponce, was raised holding his loyalty to parents above all (where his dad relies on and expects him to keep the one successful family circus afloat). His father has three other sons, each of whom is struggling with his own circus.
Ponce daughters preened to promote Circo Mexico (courtesy Hecho a Mano Films)
The children want for a 20th-Century childhood, with playtime, school and neighborhood playmates. This brand of childhood, before labor laws and longer life expectancies, takes us back the eras when people toiled until their 30s, and didn’t know a playful youth. There’s a scene, just beside the entry to a trailer, where grandpa trains his youngest grand daughter in contortion; as she cries and wails it brings back images from the abusive training that made parts of Jet Li and Jackie Chan’s training infamous.
This documentary raises several interesting topics about family loyalty, zeal for “old-time” or “by-gone” values, work ethic and child rearing; unto themselves these are worthy of an essay, but not here. Very few movies deal with any of these in smart or interesting ways, much less all in one story.
“Circo” gives us a gander at a way of living, of working, of loving and is foreign to the U.S. It’s a well-told tale that deserves to be scene. Even though the final act is confused about its purpose or how it wants to leave us; it should be trimmed by 15-minutes – it drags.
At first glance, a movie where a couple of guys talk about politics, identity and oppression doesn’t sound like “good times!” But hold on or you might miss out on the laughs and wit! “Two Indians Talking” is just that (but also more).
Movie cousins Adam and Nathan (courtesy Kiss Dust Pictures)
This story gives us two young Native men on their way to a meeting where they expect to have a bunch of Cree folks join them, a dozen or maybe dozens. The greatness is in the extraordinary irony: their partners don’t show, so we don’t watch a cadre of zealous activists prepare an ambitious protest – a stand. They need help to block a major road and make a point. Instead we’re flies on the wall as the guys chew their cud and clash on their divergent ideas of Indianness.
This buddy story is splendidly written with subtle humor that helps us to enjoy a show that could have been a drawn-out chat fest. Another remarkable detail is that, while we hear plenty of First Nation names mentioned, we don’t know which one these men claim.
We know we’re in for something special, or at least well-informed and thoughtful from the start: the college-educated one reminds his cousin, “people don’t rebel because they’re looking for a fight. They rebel because their tired of suffering!” The waiting, the discussions, the anxiety about their absent partners brings a sense of Samuel Beckett’s play “Waiting for Godot” to this – either absurdity or tension.
Adam, Nathan and pretty, smart diversions (courtesy Kiss Dust Pictures)
As good as this picture is, and these two men are, they have partners in this. A few pretty women come into the picture, as well as a funny man of few words.
One slight irritation is that, while the two men are realistic, they are also stock: one, Adam (Justin Rain), is 20 something, has been to college and self-confidently refers to Friedrich Nietzsche, Edmund Burke, and other historical voices. He’s clean cut with a wheat complexion. His counterpart and cousin, Nathan, (Nathanial Arcand) is older, husky, darker and quicker with his anger and indignation over the centuries of whites’ feet on Natives’ necks. Their conversation shows all of these, even if it’s only implied.
When the chat fest “Before Sunrise” came out 15 years-ago, on “At the Movies” Roger Ebert conceded that these kind of movies can be their own obstacles: they’re rarely done well, so that someone will want to pay attention. “Two Indians” is another of those exceptions, even though some viewers’ patience while sympathetic, will be tested.
These “Two Indians” reward our patience with a great, witty climax that can’t help but jerk a hearty chuckle or cackle out of us: the last thing we’ve come to expect happens. It glows with irony.
Coming-of-age movies are common enough that, if you throw a rock at one, you could knock down a bunch at once. And those good ones that take place during a decisive wartime you can count on a hand. “Winter in Wartime” (“Oorlogswinter” in Danish) is an intense 2008 drama, from the Netherlands, set in the 1940s from director Martin Koolhoven and Sony Classics.
This shows at the Edina Cinema for a week starting on April 8th.
Michiel rushes to help his father (courtesy Sony Classics)
This poignant drama of a boy’s awakening in wartime opens with 14-year-old Michiel, (Martijn Lakemeier), the mayor’s son, playing with his friend as they scavenge from a just crashed fighter plane in the woods. Director Koohoven uses a hand-held camera and whimsical music that emphasizes these boys’ carefree life. That sets the tone for just how much this young man will have to grow up. Neither Michiel nor his seemingly meek dad knows yet, but he has some pivotal growth and daunting questions before him.
What’s more? He finds betrayal far closer to home than anyone should. He’s deeply disappointed by his seemingly meek dad, and uses his uncle, Ben, as his role model.
Young man, Michiel, needs his dad (courtesy Sony Classics)
Michiel wants a project, and a sense of purpose beyond family. He finds that in Jack, a young Royal Air Force pilot, hiding from the Nazi’s who’ve occupied Denmark. While it’s a simple act to ferry food to a soldier hiding behind occupied lines, the adventure and sense of purpose help Michiel to feel useful, and beyond his years. Michiel makes plans for Jack’s escape. Here Michiel learns to embrace his independence & budding manhood.
But when surprising obstacles come, the stakes rise. The chances grow perilous and Michiel’s lessons grow harsher, beyond what he could be expected to handle.
And then drama hits his family: his harshest lesson comes when his dad is taken by the Nazis. He had glad-handed and placated the Nazi’s, presumably to protect his family. With his dad out of the picture, he relies on uncle Ben even more as a surrogate. But that brings a crucial and cruel twist for Michiel.
When you feel this movie’s power, you might try to think back to the last movie like this, which affected you as much as this one. There are very few coming-of-age in wartime movies – timeless ones anyway. 1987′s “Empire of the Sun” comes to mind, and maybe 1990′s “Europa, Europa,” as you scratch your head. “Summer of ’42,” from 1971, is the most spot-on comparison.
A curious, carefree young man (courtesy Sony Classics)
In “Summer of ’42,” another 14-year-old boy, an American, deals with the mysteries and angst of lust and love, with sexual awakening and self-discovery being the point here. Michiel’s is just as vital a story, about his sense of identity, political and social questions, and those of what makes a man, a strong man are in play here.
Questions of what it is to be a man – harshness and softness – have abounded for centuries and been answered in as many ways. “Summer of ’42″ and “Winter in Wartime” each take a good, smart look at both ends of the extremes of manly conduct.
As with many films, this one’s pulse begins to pound as the end approaches. You never know what twists the final act will bring. A soul-rattling introduction to betrayal.
Without a number score: See it, ideally at a theater.
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?
Dec 10, 2010 marks 60 years since Ralph J. Bunche, Ph.D. became the first person of color to earn the Nobel Prize for Peace. He a mid-20th-Century icon, whom many – far too many – people have forgotten. He earned the Nobel Prize for his work in 1950 as the UN mediator who brought about the armistice between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, all Arab neighbor countries. In Bunche’s era, as much of an institutional insider as he was the “ultimate model Negro,” he was also seen as an “international Uncle Tom. An enigma.” Except for the last item, Mr. Bunche was Sidney Poitier’s diplomatic contemporary.
If you wonder about Black diplomat characters in movies, Secretaries of State Colin L. Powell and Condoleezza Rice, from Oliver Stone’s 2008 film “W,” might pop to mind. But Ralph Bunche probably won’t. Most Americans probably presume that the other two were the first renowned peace-makers of color.
Ralph J. Bunche, Ph.D.
Mr. Bunche has been described in many more ways: Mr. UN. Diplomat. Scholar. Professional optimist. Nobel Laureate. Enigma. African-American. Peacemaker. That final duo is the most remarkable here: He was the UN’s first black undersecretary-general, and the first black person to earn a Ph.D. in political science from Harvard.
The dearth of educated, cool-headed, urbane characters of color is a part of a chronic stereotypes that plagues North America’s culture, psyche and attitude: the black thug, or black buck. He is malevolent, barely educated and a committed criminal, often epitomized by at least one character in myriad “keepin’ it real” type homeboy movies, which had a zenith in the 1990s. The black diplomat’s image smashes that stereotype nicely, showing a non-violent, goal-oriented alternative to quashing conflicts. We just rarely consider these characters or their stories.
There are well-known films about Anglo diplomats, even though we rarely see those stories that way:
Fernando Meirelles’ 2005 film “The Constant Gardener,” adapted from John LeCarré’s novel, about a mid-level Foreign Service officer who investigates and scrutinizes his wife’s suspicious death across real and political borders.
Robert Harmon’s 2004 made-for-HBO film “IKE: Countdown to D-Day” recounts Gen. Dwight Eisenhower’s diplomatic feat in orchestrating the joint force Invasion of Normandy, Operation Overlord.
Stephen Frears’ 2006 joint European production “The Queen,” portrays the delicate diplomacy between both Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Tony Blair as they dealt with Princess Diana’s death in 1997. It’s a compelling window into the taciturn world of the Royals.
But when you want to consider brown, black and beige diplomats in movies, there are slim pickin’s. Still there are some…engrossing, even atypical choices.
The $64-million question, “why are peacemakers of color, formal or not, rarely movie characters?” is best posed and considered away from here, amongst friends, over a meal. These portrayals don’t simply matter – they’re vital, so that those youngsters of color, who are curious and engaged by questions that cost them their cool points, or their street cred, can see worlds beyond their neighborhoods.
Let’s consider the few, which you can embrace:
Sir Richard Attenborough’s 1982 film “Gandhi” recounts Mohandas K. Gandhi’s extraordinarily and exceptionally patient toil toward India’s independence from Britain’s tyranny. Never
mind, that an Anglo actor, Ben Kingsley portrayed Mr. Gandhi… (shaking head – with vigor) He became more than a diplomat, transcending that over more than two generation’s time, to personify a cause.
Spike Lee’s 1992 film “Malcolm X” recounts Malcolm Little’s equally exceptional transformation: he grew from a Zoot suited hipster, through a period of self-education and ill-informed zeal for Elijah Mohammed’s version Islam, to someone, who after an epiphany in Mecca on a Hajj, commits to conventional Islam. After this, he acted as a peace maker. The film nearly omits this final phase.
Pete Travis’ 2009 British-made film “Endgame” tells a nail-biting story about the African National Congress’ [ANC] Minister of Information, Thabo Mbeki’s, negotiations for Nelson Mandela’s release and toward majority rule in South Africa.
Coming to terms with a South African black majority
As we consider commercial movies, we must visit a difference sort, the documentary, if we want to watch a film about this anniversary man: William Greeves’ 2001 documentary about him for PBS, “Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey,” makes the “Uncle Tom” and enigma questions clear, but also shows why Mr. Bunche deserves to be revered.
“Gandhi” begins with a surprise, Gandhi’s assassination. This convention biopic about this simple man who became much more than simply a man is difficult to compare to the others. The film’s style is very different from, maybe older than, the others. The scenes in “Gandhi” seem to cycle through sequences: he speaks, he then observes the masses’ response and he leads another protest and the government responds. This with increasing tension and peril.
Few people probably consider Malcolm X a diplomat or peace-maker, either in Lee’s epic film, or because of pop culture. With the movie it’s easier to explain: it had to move at a break-neck pace. Investing a mere three hours on a person, who’s formidable and potent legacy was four decades in the making, entails agonizing cuts in order to make a film that people will go to. The film has a “History vs Hollywood” moment, as in the History Channel’s program, because Mr. Lee omits the diplomatic outreach that Mr. X did in the wake of his pilgrimage, and while he was in the Middle East and North Africa.
His fiery, volatile rhetoric fell on conservative Anglos’ ears like merciless blows, while he was never connected with violence (Ossie Davis referred to this in his eulogy), his passion, wit and candor made him seem like he was.
The most potent peace making comes at the mid-point. And it boasts shock and awe: after a member of the Nation of Islam is injured while in police custody, Malcolm leads a march from that police station to a Harlem hospital, where he patiently deals with the police. An NYPD captain [Peter Boyle] confronts him about a mass – what the captain calls a mob – of black Muslims and an angry, raucous bunch behind them. Theirs is a professional, but brusque confrontation. After Malcolm dismisses his men, the captain declares, “that’s too much power for one man to have!” Ironic.
While the last 45-mins of “Malcolm X” takes place during and after the Hajj, all the peace making that Lee’s break-neck pace gives us was a news conference. He candidly answers questions about bringing charges against the United States to the United Nations.
Thabo Mbeki sits among the minority, asking that his people not be treated as one
The negotiations in “Endgame” between Mr. Mbeki [Chiwetel Ejiofor] and Prof. Willie Esterhuyse [William Hurt] were scenes of suspense without pyrotechnics, other than rhetoric. But that rhetoric held two people’s rights, freedoms and sources of pride at stake, or maybe for political ransom. In reality, while the film emphasized Mbeki and Esterhuyse’s coming-together, it also suggests that two other supporting personalities were at least as potent as they were: Willem de Klerk, Pres. de Klerk’s brother, and Michael Young.
In a YouTube video Mr. Ejiofor describes, a minute into it, how the director, Mr. Meirelles, chose to exploit the political thriller genre in order to grab viewers to what might otherwise be a piece about talking heads. This is a quiet and cerebral experience that demands viewers’ patience.
Even though there are three titles and three exceptional films that show brown and beige men as peace makers, the most recent one, and closest to feature-length, is also tells the most direct engrossing story of peace making work. “Endgame” is that. Far fewer people will sit down for a three-hour film experience. Patience is a quickly evaporating trait. But a political thriller that lets viewers peer through an oft-guarded window can win viewers.
A Danish media producer, Mads Brügger, draws two fellow Danes, and Korean adoptees, to perform bad, amateur comedy as an effort at cultural exchange with North Korea. His Korean-born comrades are Jacob Nossell, a self-described spastic, and Simon Yul Jørgensen. The “documentary” is called “The Red Chapel” (“Det røde kapel” in Danish). The exchange is merely a ruse for Mr. Brügger: he wants the opportunity to film inside this sealed state, to record and expose the state’s brutal, repressive system.
The Danish-Korean adoptee "comics": Simon and Jacob
In the beginning, after having shown just how meager Jason and Simon’s skills are and how amateur their intentions, Mads asks the viewer via voice over: why would North Korea allow a comedy show that’s this bad to go forward unless they intended to exploit it for propaganda? Good question. That’s an interesting premise for a documentary.
How many reality-based, comedic documentaries are out there, or how many political documentaries have been made for laughs? Hmm. This documentary, a guerilla version, is strange. The humor is semi-amusing, more silly than funny. Simon and Jacob are sympathetic and very smart when Mr. Brügger leaves them enough on-screen long enough for this to register.
It’s too bad that Brügger named no non-partisan sources – no sources at all – for his often haunting assertions. His opinions or conclusions are his currency here. He uses no international public documents are cited to corroborate his words. This bodes poorly if this is to be taken as a real documentary, instead of documentary style, or just called verité.
There are documentaries and documentary-style (verité) films. The New York Times’ chief film critic, A.O. Scott, recently wrote about how the description or definition has become murkier and murkier. A “documentary?”: documentaries are essentially long-form journalism. To document. To record and then report.
According to Merriam-Webster:
“to provide with factual or substantial support for statements made or a hypothesis proposed;
especially : to equip with exact references to authoritative supporting information.”
Among Scott’s observations, he recommends that people who watch docs ask themselves what agenda the film or its maker has. In a perfect world, journalism‘s lone agenda is to build a story on a foundation of accurate, reliable and corroborated facts. People can insist that reality TV is documentary, but that hot air coughs up into frost when you consider that those scenarios are contrived and conjured.
The verdict: if you accidentally bump into the DVD, why not take a gander? Otherwise…
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.
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.
Minnesota Film Arts’ In Search of Asia festival opened on Wednesday November 3rd with “That Girl in Yellow Boots,” a drama by Anurag Kashyap. At that hour, this was the film’s one showing.
Twenty-year old Ruth [Kalki Koechlin] is a mixed Indian-British girl amid a minor odyssey toward…whom else…her long since light-footed father, for which she finds perverse closure (naw, it ain’t that!) in the end. Ms. Keochlin also co-wrote this story. On a student VISA, she makes her way as a masseuse, and actually does a few legit jobs sans “happy ending” – or handshake as she calls it.
It asks questions of love, which are as interesting as they are awkward, and taboo ones about sexual boundaries.
When she isn’t working as a soft-core hooker, she spars with and then spurns an Indian hustler boyfriend, who seems to only want same as her clients, but authentic intimacy. Essentially she’s an illegal, white British sex worker, whose odyssey – outside from an exploitive and world-widening sojourn in Mumbai – is to pursue the Indian father, whose own figure and face is a mystery to her – and who abandoned family after older sister’s mysterious death. That want for a dad wreaks a cornerstone of Ruth’s morose, exotic reality and lifestyle.
From Indian cinema we expect three-hour plus fantastical musicals where the color palette is often as boisterous as the music. “That Girl in Yellow Boots” is a radical detour from that set of expectations. While Ruth’s story is about love, it’s more about how she protects herself, cordoning herself from intimacy and keeps her control within her own clutches.
Late in her story, after her boyfriend writhes through his self-installed detox, he asks why she does massage; she blurts confiding “because I need somebody..!” She does splendid and remarkable if also typical work of avoiding opportunities for that intimacy (or is it a reckoning) for which she’s hungry.
Her dad, Arjun Patel (which may or may not even be his name), for whose attention she yearns, married Ruth’s mother for perverse reasons different from love: those we know are awkward, those we learn of make our skin crawl, our jaws gape. Her dad is the key to twisting the scimitar, which his abandonment had already shoved into her gut, into a hemorrhaging emotional gouge.
Ruth is in a toxic emotional situation, but she’s no Dorothy visiting Oz; she’s an impressionable youth, but also deftly politic and cunning: She’s solidifying her Hindi in order that no one exploit her. She also knows how and when to offer bribes so that she can work via her student VISA so she can work and avoid jail. Snarky people ward men off from women who have “daddy issues” because enormous messes lay in those women’s wakes. Chris Rock said that a father’s main job: “keep my daughter off the pole.” Ruth’s mindfuck is at least as bad as that reality.
It’s difficult to name comparisons to this story. For the scope of the taboos, which “That Girl in Yellow Boots” picks at hint at “Priest”, from 1994, the self-righteous polemic against Catholicism’s suite of shortcomings, for the rough, incendiary potency. When it comes to director Kashyap’s twist in the final act, consider the ending to Adrian Lyne’s “Jacob’s Ladder,” from 1990, about “a traumatized Vietnam war veteran finds out that his post-war life isn’t what he believes it to be…” per imdb; that messed with your mind and messed you up! That last jerk or twist of emotional perversion in the end here…is at least as profound as what we get from Jacob’s bodybag being zipped up.
Imdb and wikipedia provide some peculiarities and head-shaking confusions in regards to this drama: each describes Ruth’s story as a thriller. I disagree: this is a drama that has brief segment of suspense, in the last act. This falls well short of flirting with an Alfred Hitchcock sensibility.
