2007 TIFF: EASTERN PROMISES—Robert Koehler Cinema Scope Review

The reviews are pouring in on David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises, and all-in-all they're quite favorable. It scored the highest among the select jury compiled by Screen Daily at the Toronto International and, perhaps even more importantly, scored the Cadillac People's Choice Award voted on by TIFF audiences.

This is one of those films where I appreciated getting some words out early on by way of review and interview before being swept up by the critical flashflood. I do have to take a moment, however, to commend Robert Koehler for his great write-up for the Fall 2007 issue of Cinema Scope. He writes: "Eastern Promises is a fascinating case of a film made under the intense gaze of a supreme auteur and written by the separate but equally potent hand of a writer [Steve Knight]. Where one ends and the other begins defies trace, in the same way that Cronenberg's closing shot on a possibly contented Nikolai defies any easy conclusions."

Koehler had two insights that I thought were superb. The first is his observation that Cronenberg's films frequently indulge "deliberately contained and even hyper-claustrophobic worlds" made up of "families, offices, and social networks" and that "[a] great deal of Eastern Promises entails these networks, how they define characters, and conversely, how character definition can also be deceiving."

Broaching the subject of how one can be deceived by a sharply-defined character, Koehler then deftly and astutely articulates "the double identity of Nikolai, a medium through which a guise, a lie, is the only means to uncover truth. Right now, there's no combination of director and actor that displays a hotter fire and cooler intelligence than the Cronenberg-Mortensen tandem. The actor is perfectly matched to the director's new concentration on the Real, but he's also acutely—even obsessively—conscious of the powers of role-playing as they inform character, so that both his paired Tom-Joey personae in A History of Violence and his even more mysterious Nikolai in Eastern Promises trace patterns of concealment-to-disrobing."

I love that insight and Koehler's amplification of it by describing Nikolai's literal disrobement in the bath house sequence: "[I]n a blistering, brutal and intimate fight in a bath house, Nikolai is naked, battling for his life in an ironic twist of mistaken identity. (The man who isn't what he seems to be is taken for someone else altogether, at which point Eastern Promises reaches a peak of narrative ecstasy.)"

Kudos to Koehler for these enlightening comments.

Cross-published on Twitch.

2007 MVFF30—Michael Hawley Previews the Line-Up

The Mill Valley Film Festival ("MVFF") is arguably the Bay Area's second-most important annual film event in terms of both size and prestige. And like its big sister to the south, the San Francisco International, it's celebrating a landmark birthday this year. At a press conference last week, the line-up was announced for the 30th edition and as usual, it's an impressive collection of both high and low profile films which will see their local (and in some cases, North American and World) premieres, taking place October 4 to 14.

For most of these 30 years I've had to put on blinders and pretend the festival didn't exist. Without a car to transport me to its various North Bay venues, I found that ignorance was, if not exactly blissful, then certainly less tortuous. That all changed in 2004 when I got wind that Ousmane Sembene's Moolaadé was playing the festival. Here was a film I absolutely could not miss, even if it meant crawling to San Rafael on my hands and knees. Fortunately, nothing quite that dramatic was required of me. All I needed to do was get my butt on a Golden Gate Transit bus which would pick me up a few blocks from my home in the city and drop me off a few blocks from the Rafael Film Center. Since then I've been able to partake of its pleasures, albeit in a limited way. Late night screenings are a no-no, unless I want to spend the night on a bench in the bus terminal. And getting to the festival's two venues in downtown Mill Valley by public transport remains very problematic.


As in the past, this year's festival is awash in films that are, in the words of MVFF programmer Zoë Elton, "big films with independent spirit." Every one of them will turn up in local cinemas between now and Xmas, but for those who can't wait (and those wishing to bask in the presence of movie stars and big-name directors) the festival provides some awesome opportunities. The star-gazing kicked off last week with a pre-festival screening of Into the Wild, with director Sean Penn and star Emile Hirsch in person. This year's Opening Night will find Ang Lee (who gets a special tribute this year) presenting his Venice top-prize winner Lust, Caution. Meanwhile, director Tamara Jenkins and star Laura Linney will appear with their opening night co-feature, The Savages. Jennifer Jason Leigh also gets an in-person tribute this year, coinciding with the local premiere of Noah Baumbach's latest, Margot at the Wedding. The Closing Night film will be The Kite Runner, director Marc Forster's screen adaptation of Bay Area writer Khaled Hosseini's immensely popular novel. Both Forster and Hosseini are expected to attend the event.


Other directors expected to attend the festival with their latest projects include Todd Haynes (Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There), Suzanne Bier (the renowned Danish director making her English-language debut with the Halle Berry/Benicio Del Toro-starring Things We Lost in the Fire) and first-time director Ben Affleck (Gone Baby Gone). Films with noteworthy directors not expected to attend the festival include Woody Allen's Cassandra’s Dream, Wes Andersson's The Darjeeling Limited, and Julian Schnabel's Diving Bell and the Butterfly (the only film in the festival from this year's Cannes main competition).

It's swell that the festival is bringing such esteemed films and artists to the Bay Area, but personally, I'll wait for the theatrical releases (although I'd go see Todd Haynes or Suzanne Bier in a heartbeat if the scheduling were different). For me, it's the lesser-known titles, films we may never have another chance to see on a local screen, that will prod me to get on that bus and head north.

When I first glanced at the festival line-up, I was struck by the wealth of films from sub-Saharan Africa. (If I remember correctly, the only homegrown narrative feature from the region in last year's fest was a revival of the nine-year-old Taafe Fanga from Mali.) For starters, I'm thrilled the festival will be showing Cheick Fantamady Camara's Clouds Over Conakry from Guinea, which won the audience prize at this year's FESPACO African film festival. Family drama Djanta from Burkina Faso and historical epic Laviva from Nigeria also look very promising. The latter is a prime example of Nigeria's booming digital-cinema industry, which is itself profiled in the festival documentary, Welcome to Nollywood. Another interesting sounding documentary is Iron Ladies of Liberia, which is not about a cross-dressing African volleyball team. Instead, it profiles the country's first female president and her largely female cabinet.


Filmgoers wishing to experience firsthand the justified hype of New Romanian Cinema will have an excellent opportunity to do so on Sunday, October 14. On that day, the festival will screen three recent Romanian features back-to-back at the Rafael Film Center. The first two are from 2006—the impressive The Way I Spent the End of the World, which I saw earlier this year at Palm Springs, and The Paper Will Be Blue, which I unfortunately missed at that same festival. The third is the U.S. Premiere of Cristian Nemescu's California Dreamin’, which won the top prize in the Un Certain Regard section of this year's Cannes film festival. It stars Armand Assante, of all people, and its director tragically died in a car crash while the film was in post-production. The film has been compared to the work of Emir Kusturica, and is perhaps the film I am most looking forward to in this year’s festival. (12:08 East of Bucharest, incidentally, was my top film from last year's MVFF.)


The Middle East is also well represented at MVFF30 with a total of nine features. From the emerging cinematic hotbed of Israel we have Jellyfish, which won the Camera d'or at Cannes for best first feature, and Beaufort, winner of the Silver Bear at Berlin for its director, Joseph Cedar. Other films from the region include Caramel from Lebanon, The Colors of Memory, Red Robin and Kobra's Decision from Iran, Crossing the Dust from Iraqi Kurdistan, and two more from Israel, The Secrets and Little Heroes.


Hopscotching around the globe, I find plenty of other intriguing titles to consider. I definitely plan to catch the two non-Bollywood Indian features 7 Islands and a Metro and Possession. Days of Darkness by Canadian auteur Denys Arcand should also be worth a look. There are two more Berlin victors to consider—Golden Bear winner Tuya’s Marriage from China, and Germany's Yella, winner of the Silver Bear for its lead actress, Nina Hoss. And how can I resist films from such perennially under-represented countries such as Greece (Uranya), Uruguay (The Rind) and Inuktitut-speaking Canada (Kiviuq). I would dearly love to see Irina Palm (Marianne Faithful becomes a sex club hostess to pay for a grandson's expensive operation), but it's not playing in San Rafael and is not available on screener. A cursory look at the festival's extensive Valley of the Docs section reveals a number of diverse films about musicians such as Anita O'Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer and Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten. Oh, and did I mention that the Marin Symphony Orchestra will be performing a live score to Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin? So many movies, so little time, and this represents just a fraction of what's on offer. Have a look at the program and please let me know if there's anything else I shouldn't be missing.

2007 TIFF—Cochochi

As part of the "deal" I struck with the press accreditation committee at TIFF, I was to place write-ups at both Twitch and Greencine and, thus, my "dispatch" to Greencine was shaped by films seen from both the Masters and Discovery Programs (namely, The Man From London, El Pasado, Ulzhan, Flight of the Red Balloon, Alexandra, Blind, King of the Hill, La Zona, and The World Unseen). The one Discovery title that did not meet the Greencine deadline was the Mexican film Cochochi, the first-time feature of writer-directors Israel Cardenas and Laura Amelia Guzmán, with Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna sharing executive production credits.

Cochochi, which ran in the Horizons Program at the Venice Film Festival, received a five-minute standing ovation. Variety's reviewer Alissa Simon was less than gracious, however, describing the film as "attenuated", "simplistic", "stiff" and "stagy", consigning it to festivals where audiences "have a so[f]t spot for this sort of thing." Consider me proudly just such an audience and, apparently, I am not alone; TIFF's Deisel Discovery Award—voted on by the festival press corps—was awarded to Cochochi.


I like Jason Buchanan's succinct yet sensitive synopsis for All Movie Guide: "Two young indigenous brothers from the La Sierra Tarahumara region of northwest Mexico return home from Benito Juarez elementary boarding school, only to find their fates pulling them in opposite directions in director Laura Amelia Guzmán's dramatic meditation on the value of culture and the cost of progress. Evaristo and Luis Antonio Lerma Batista have graduated from boarding school. Though 12-year-old Evaristo would like nothing more than to continue his education, learn Spanish, and lead a bicultural existence, his 11-year-old sibling couldn't see things more differently. Antonio is thrilled to be finished with school. Despite being a considerably bright student, Antonio would much rather spend his days on the family ranch than in the classroom. As both brothers take their tentative first steps into the adult world, they are assigned the task of delivering a package to a faraway community and lent the family horse to get the job done. After taking a wrong turn down a narrow and winding canyon, Evaristo and Antonio decide to tie the horse to a tree and attempt to find a way out. Upon returning some time later, the brothers discover that the horse is missing and they decide to split up. Now, as Antonio searches for the horse and Evaristo sets out to deliver the package, these two brothers will experience a side of Tarahumara culture that can't be taught in a classroom."


Cochochi (which fragrantly translates into "land of the pines") succeeds precisely for its simplicity and the organic feel of its being improvised from the inside out. Real-life siblings Antonio Lerma Batista and Evaristo Lerma Batista "enact" the two Tarahumara brothers (or Raramuri as they call themselves) who—in effect—are two sides of the same coin. As the Buena Onda synopsis amplifies: "For the Lerma Batista family, school represents a loss of time and money. In fact, children are sent to elementary school just because there they are fed and taken care of for free. If Evaristo keeps studying he would have to go far away and wouldn't be able to work in the community of Okochochi where, every day, he learns about Tarahumara cultural heritage. Meanwhile, Luis Antonio (Tony), 11 years old, is very happy to have finished school forever. Even though he is a smart kid and has a strong chance of securing a grant to move on to high school, he prefers to live life on the ranch, where the kids grow up at very young age. Now Tony and Evaristo are not kids anymore, but small adults who can take care of themselves and make their own decisions."


How they each arrive at decisions that ultimately serve their natural instincts is inferred by the presence of their grandfather's white horse. Tony suspects the horse has been robbed and sets out to find the thief. Evaristo is convinced the horse broke free because he didn't know how to properly tie a knot. In time Tony's suspicions are diffused as it becomes clear that, yes indeed, a loose knot might be the cause of their loss, but—rather than lay blame on Evaristo—he gently mollifies his brother by saying that knowing how to tie a knot is not something they teach you in school. After mining for excuses to tell their grandfather about why they lost the horse, the boys reach an honest bedrock and the film reaches for a resolution where each achieve individual integrity.

One user comment at IMdb complained that the acting was terrible and that the subject matter would have best been served by the documentary format. I find such a critique shortsighted and culturally imperious. The filmmakers have indeed taken tender care to capture an indigenous momentum of life that is gradually disappearing but it is exactly the lack of emotional affect (too readily conflated with "acting") that provides authenticity to Cochochi. The telling of this tale is on Raramuri terms. The directors not only allowed them to develop the script from their own experiences but relied on them to translate Spanish into their native dialect. If there are moments when the characters appear to be thinking about what to say next, it's because they are actually translating what needs to be said.


As Chiara Arroyo reports to Screen Daily, Ramirez and Guzman came up with the story for the film after meeting the two boys, who lived with their uncle and aunt in San Ignacio de Avareko, a town with more than 2,000 Raramuri. The story developed from a question posed to the boys: what would happen if you lost your grandfather's horse? This collaborative artistry is what impresses me most about Cochochi.

"Their daily lives are a source of simple stories and life lessons with universal appeal," Ramirez explains, "They keep their own traditions."

Diego Luna adds: "This is a very important project for us. We are working with young and very talented people and are very happy to be part of it because it has so much integrity and soul. This is the kind of film we would like to see more often in Mexico."

Perhaps with the attention the film has received at both Venice and Toronto, Luna's hopes will bear future fruit.

Cross-published on Twitch.

2007 TIFF—Redacted

I find Brian DePalma's latest film Redacted lurid, loud and uncomfortably entertaining. Though I was immediately taken to task for using "lurid" as a description ("That's much too easy," I was criticized), I hold to my guns because—as things go here in the Wild West—they're all I have to shoot with. This is no time to give up my gut reactions just because they aren't fully articulated or—God forbid—consensual.

Redacted premiered at the 2007 Venice Film Festival, where it earned a Silver Lion "best director" award for its brutal docudrama reconstruction of the Mahmudiyah killings, the real-life rape, murder, and burning of Abeer Qasim Hamza al-Janabi, a 14-year-old Iraqi girl in March 2006 by U.S. soldiers, who also killed her parents and younger sister. These horrific events offered DePalma the opportunity to once again approach the critique enunciated in his earlier Casualties of War (1989), albeit by way (unfortunately) of a more current war.

In certain respects, Redacted has more in common with George Romero's Diary of the Dead than it does with the recent onslaught of documentaries harrowing the war in Iraq. Both parry and thrust at the many-headed Hydra known as mainstream media coverage to demonstrate how—as soon as one lie is revealed—five more spring into place to control the spin, let alone the masses. Both turn to the democratized press of blogs and YouTube footage to texturally diversify reportage from the front. How I wish I could have sat down with Romero and DePalma at one of Toronto's ubiquitous Second Cup cafes with a videocam and a laptop to edit together today's version of the truth. Wouldn't that have been a truth and a half?


Because it does come down to editing, doesn't it, as a mechanism of social control? That's what DePalma appears to be criticizing, evident by the film's title and laugh-inducing opening credits. What the mainstream media elides or redacts is precisely where accurate reportage becomes questionable and that's a process we should never lose sight of; vigilance being requisite. I commend DePalma's efforts to get at what "really happened" with the rape and murder of an Iraqi girl by American soldiers; I just question his methodology a bit. The FBI prosecution of Steven Green—upon who Redacted's character Reno Flake is based—is fairly well-documented. It's not like those facts have been purposely kept from the American public. Perhaps—more than the psychological profile of Green's "antisocial personality"—DePalma wants to restore our attention to the corpus delicti. The film's final image is what has been hovering in the prurient imagination of its audience throughout the film: the charred, raped body of the young girl shot pointblank in her face. Though admittedly a shocking atrocity, I suspect DePalma enjoyed bringing it to us a little too much just as we enjoyed watching it a little too much, comparable to the grisly murders in some of DePalma's other crime thrillers, not the least being the slashed mouth of the Black Dahlia. The stylistic equation between DePalma's thrillers and his foray into Iraq is why I call the image—and the narrative leading up to it—lurid. Deep down inside, I think it was intended to be; like unattractive photos of a murder scene. That's also not to say it shouldn't have been intended that way. Perhaps exactly the image none of us really want to see is precisely the image that should be seen? But then again, something seems so fundamentally disrespectful in fetishizing this particular atrocity.


I'm grateful to Richard Porton's incisive essay "Imperial Hubris: Iraq on Screen" in the Fall 2007 issue of Cinema Scope for helping me gain a handle on what it is about Redacted that doesn't quite hit the mark for me, even though I accept it for being exactly the film DePalma aimed for and achieved. Casualties of War profoundly impacted me. Redacted titillated me. Therein lies the difference. Though Porton didn't have the opportunity to view Redacted before writing his Cinema Scope piece, several of his insights nonetheless apply. Namely, that in the liberal zeal to reveal how "un-American" such "bad apple" atrocities remain, an equally questionable practice of colonial expropriation is being applied for the primary purpose of entertainment. While the conscience of PFC. Eriksson haunts me to this day, the whimpering contrition of Lawyer McCoy rings a bit hollow. To borrow from Porton (who is actually writing about In the Valley of Elah): "Unfortunately, these sordid events have much less to do with a critique of the war than they do with providing [Lawyer McCoy] with a cathartic, 'healing' experience. All of these clumsily plotted epiphanies point to the intrinsically American phenomenon of reducing political entanglements to personal crises that can be assuaged, and most likely erased, by what Phillip Rieff once termed 'the triumph of the therapeutic.' " Perhaps more than questioning the basic rationale for the American invasion of Iraq, films like Redacted diffuse our feelings of helplessness by offering scenarios of our sullied ideals. Redacted didn't tell me anything I didn't already know but it rubbed my nose in charred blood. As horror movies go, I guess I can't complain.

Cross-published on Twitch.

10/09/07 UPDATE: At The Greencine Daily Dave Hudson has gathered together the reviews coming in on Redacted from this year's New York Film Festival. He's headlined of particular interest Jürgen Fauth's entry on the redaction of Redacted, complete with YouTube footage of the press conference.

2007 TIFF: Eastern Promises—The Greencine Interview With David Cronenberg and Viggo Mortensen

Following up on my review of David Cronenberg's latest, and in the wake of Eastern Promises winning TIFF's Cadillac People's Choice Award (with its attendant cash prize of $15,000), here's an interview I conducted with Cronenberg and his leading man Viggo Mortensen in San Francisco shortly before TIFF 2007, courtesy of Greencine.

Photo by George Pimentel, courtesy of WireImage.

2007 TIFF—Lars and the Real Girl

Ryan Gosling’s winning streak continues with his radiant performance as Lars Lindstrom in Craig Gillespie’s crowd-pleasing dramedy Lars and the Real Girl; an unconventional yet poignant love story. Lars is a kind, self-effacing young man whose development has been arrested by his mother’s death during childbirth. Abandoned by his older brother Gus (Paul Schneider)—who leaves home first chance he gets because he’s unable to shoulder his family’s sadness—Lars grows up strapped to his father’s heartbreak and never successfully transitions into manhood. After their father dies, Gus returns with his pregnant wife Karin (Emily Mortimer) and moves into the family house while Lars recedes to live in the garage, wary of human contact. It is Karin’s pregnancy that toggles repressed fears in Lars—he becomes concerned that something is going to happen to her—and his loneliness is heightened by watching how much Gus and Karin are in love. Lars seeks a solution through the Internet; he finds someone to love. The only catch is that the girl he finds to love—Bianca by name—is an “anatomically correct” love doll; made to order out of silicone.


With traces of what made Jimmy Stewart such a beloved actor—Harvey springs instantly to mind—Ryan Gosling, supported by a consummate cast, delivers a nuanced performance that ranges from laugh outloud comedy through the film’s darker, difficult cadences as Lars individuates through Bianca, his transitional object, with the guidance of his compassionate physician Dagmar (Patricia Clarkson) and the support of a small town community that truly cares about him. Above all, the film succeeds for taking an outlandish premise and making it emotionally accessible and believable. By film’s end the audience has invested as much energy in Bianca as Lars’ neighbors and in the process discover feelings they didn’t know they had.


Paul Schneider excels as Lars’ brother Gus, a fellow who has selfishly taken far too much for granted and is at wit’s end to cope with his brother’s dilemma. His comic turns are charismatically underplayed, the perfect straight foil to Gosling’s unsettling antics. Emily Mortimer provides a caring heart’s anchor. This is an emotional transformation that is a delight to behold.

Cross-published at Twitch.

THE WAR—DOC Film Institute Preview Marathon

Earlier this year Ken Burns participated in the “Witness to War” program curated by the International Center for the Arts and San Francisco State’s DOC Film Institute by previewing two of the programs from his work-in-progress, The War. The DOC Film Institute is pleased to bring Burns back for a marathon preview of his and Lynn Novick’s epic 15-hour film, The War, on September 14-16, 2007, at the Letterman Digital Arts Center in the Presidio of San Francisco. Burns will be present each day at selected screenings to introduce episodes and answer audience questions.

A seven-part PBS documentary, The War chronicles the Second World War through the lives of American men and women enmeshed in the shattering events of the time. Six years in the making, The War’s intricate plot focuses on the stories of American citizens from four towns – Waterbury, Connecticut; Mobile, Alabama; Sacramento, California; and Luverne, Minnesota. The DOC Film Institute is screening the film one week prior to its premiere on PBS stations nationwide on September 23, 2007.

The 294-seat Premier Theater at the Letterman Digital Arts Center, ordinarily closed to the public, features state-of-the-art audio-visual technology to provide audiences with an unparalleled experience for The War. A 2K digital cinema projector and digital surround sound offer a pristine cinema experience.

“When Ken saw Episode One of The War at the Premier Theater when we hosted a screening in March, he told me that he’d never seen the film under such excellent conditions,” said Steve Ujlaki, director of the DOC Film Institute. “We’re excited to bring the entire film to LDAC for people to experience Ken’s full vision.”

The DOC Film Institute will preview The War’s seven episodes over three days:

Friday, September 14

Episode One: “A Necessary War” 7:15 p.m.

Saturday, September 15

Episode Two: “When Things Get Tough” 12:00 p.m.
Episode Three: “A Deadly Calling” 2:30 p.m.
Episode Four: “Pride of our Nation” 5:30 p.m.

Sunday, September 16

Episode Five: “FUBAR” 12:00 p.m.
Episode Six: “The Ghost Front” 2:45 p.m.
Episode Seven: “A World Without War” 5:15 p.m.

Tickets are available in a special weekend pass for all episodes at $125 general/$50 students. Individual tickets are also available for $25 general/$10 students. Tickets may be purchased via TicketWeb (http://ticketweb.com). Tickets will also be available on site the day of the event, cash only accepted.

2007 TIFF—Silent Light

Cycles fit seamlessly within cycles in Silent Light, commencing with the gradual shift from a starlit night to a dawn punctuated with the awakening sounds of the countryside; an image Carlos Reygadas bookends in reverse to close his third incandescent film. It is as if to say that whatever the toil and torment of an individual life, whatever its sad and ragged cycle, it is subsumed by the larger rotational cycle of the earth, and witnessed by stars whose light has been rendered silent by traveling a vast distance. Even the light of our closest star informs and suffuses the landscape with tender loyalty, suggesting an abiding consciousness to everyday life. Silent Light is by far the best film I’ve seen at this year’s festival, marking a maturity in Reygadas’s vision and a striking purity of the cinematic image.

The cycles are reflected seasonally as well when Johan (Cornelio Wall Fehr) meets Marianne (Maria Pankratz) in a summer field of black-eyed susans. He has fallen deeply in love with her and believes her to be his “natural woman”, causing him to question his marriage of 20+ years to Esther (award-winning Manitoba novelist Miriam Toews). He is seduced as well by the idea that “a brave man makes destiny with what he’s got.” Snow has blanketed the fields by the time Johan consults his father for advice. He is anguished about being unfaithful to his wife, though he has never deceived her and has communicated his affair with Marianne, and troubled by the effect his affair might have on his six children. His father can’t tell him what to do but reminds him that the devil is implacable. Johan is quick to assert that we cannot rely on gods and devils to claim responsibility for human events; all implacability resides squarely within him and the needs that are his to feel.

Then, of course, there is the cycle of life and death. Reygadas reminds us that love can die from lack of care as easily as a person can die from the loss of love, struck down in the middle of nowhere by the weight of rain. Yet—with exacting difficulty and sacrifice—peace can restore love to life, and spirit—so frequently configured as a small butterfly—can escape through an open window into landscapes lit with telling silence.

Carlos Reygadas has achieved some remarkable accomplishments with Silent Light; not the least being his startling reminder of the polyculturalism of Mexico. Accustomed to the Spanish-speaking campesinos of his earlier films and their abject poverty, he turns his lens on Plautdietsch-speaking Mennonites living in an affluent community outside of Chihuahua. He diversifies his compassion.

The movement of his camera has become even more eloquent. The dizzying effect of infatuation is felt as Johann rides his truck in circles around his best friend while singing a randy ranchera. The interaction between landscape and individual is demonstrated skillfully by the shift of camera as a pickup turns a corner on a dusty road. The superimposed reflection of furrowed fields on a window through which we see a dead body is a further reminder of the polyvalence of image; of cinema’s chance at poetry.

Cross-published on Twitch.

09/15/07 UPDATE: James McNally at Toronto Screen Shots offers up his own response to Silent Light and has generously provided an MP3 of Reygadas at his Q&A following the public screening.

12/13/07 UPDATE: In anticipation of the YBCA screenings of Silent Light, SF360's Max Goldberg explores the film's "stacked spirituality" and draws the line against "churlish critics who cry aestheticism."

"Reygadas' measured compositions, cutting, and camera movements are simply too fully integrated to be dismissed out of hand," Goldberg argues. "Reygadas' camera is an agent of compulsive, self-sustaining beauty. His use of the little jewels of light produced by shooting into the sun, for instance, is quite unlike any other I've ever seen." He describes the film's bookend shots as "two unfathomably elapsed dollies which seem to tear right into the fabric of space and time."

Meanwhile, over at the San Francisco Bay Guardian Johnny Ray Huston—tinged with a touch of Christmas—asks if Reygadas's Silent Light is a holy light? He emphasizes the film's opening and closing shots "has the audience seeing stars" and that Reygadas's vision is "stratospheric" with an uncanny "merging of the cinematic and the choreographic."

With some eloquent reservations—"Try as he might, Reygadas can never quite tell a straight story when he fixes his gaze on human subjects"—Huston nonetheless sifts wonder from the project, concluding that the film's "starry-eyed beginning and end prove that Reygadas's scrutiny of the ineffable is far from complacent. If cinema is a corpse, his kiss just might bring it back to life."

2007 TIFF—Blind

Actress turned filmmaker Tamar van den Dop not only suggests that love is blind in her first feature; but, implies that it must be blind. Beauty is not so much within the eye of the beholder as within the mind of the beholder. Loosely based upon Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Snow Queen”, Blind is an admittedly conventional love story but with a provocative, questionably happy ending. Then again, aren’t all “happy endings” truly questionable?

Ruben Rietlander (Joen Seldeslachts) has gone blind. Enraged by the situation, he is hostile and violent with anyone his mother hires to help him, until Marie Tinnen (in a commanding performance by Halina Reijn) answers his mother’s ad for someone to read to him. Marie is a mysterious woman who does not like to be seen by others. Ten years older than Ruben, she is also an albino, scarred both physically and psychologically. Through Marie we are reminded that parental words are the first mirror in which a child sees their reflection. Brought up on verbal abuse, followed quickly by physical trauma, Marie has survived by hiding in books, which she prefers to life. She is the perfect person to read to Ruben because she loves books so intently. He is soothed by her gentle voice and imagines her young and beautiful. His imaginings and subsequent desire awaken love in Marie and—shielded by Ruben’s blindness—she lets down her guard. And then the unforeseeable happens; Ruben is given the chance to gain back his sight. Will love survive?


Tamar van den Dop says that the winter landscape of her story “is a metaphor for the frozen state these characters are in. Ruben can only see with his hands; Marie freezes at the mere thought of being touched.” She describes Blind as “a dark tale about true love” and sees it as “an ode to storytelling and the possibility of fleeing into it.” Admitting her fascination with stories, Tamar van den Dop questions: “What happens to us when we listen to music, watch a good film or read a good book? Where do we go? Why does some poetry silence us? Why do we stand in front of a particular painting for so long? We have temporarily gone to another place. For a short time, we are able to use the force of our imagination to conjure up other worlds. We need stories. We need to be able to escape from reality.”


One of the film’s most compelling images is when Ruben imagines giraffes in the snow. The incongruity of the image makes him smile to himself, repeated at film’s end. True to Andersen’s palette, the film is snow white, blood red and black as barren tree branches. Gorgeously lensed by Gregor Meerman and shot in location in Bulgaria, Blind conflates imagery to distill poetry: facial scars are to snow crystals what snow crystals are to drifting apple blossoms. Blind is a film that deserves to be seen.

Cross-published on Twitch.

TIFF 2007—The Orphanage (El Orfanato)

In Jungian parlance the puer is the archetype of the eternal child. And any Jungian worth his salt will advise that—as attractive as eternal youth might seem—it leaves behind a wake of emotional devastation. Perhaps of all the stories that have been patterned on the puer, none is more widely known and loved than J.M. Barrie’s story of Peter Pan, which first-time Spanish helmer Juan Antonio Bayona and script writer Sergio G. Sanchez rework to shudderingly horrific effect in El Orfanato (The Orphanage), premiering in North America at this year’s TIFF after word of mouth earned it much acclaim at Cannes. My hand remained over my mouth through most of this movie; a sure sign that I’m ready to stifle a scream.


Guillermo del Toro’s executive production of The Orphanage lends winning pedigree to the project but the film survives quite on its own merits and through its own tonalities. As Time correspondents Richard and Mary Corliss have identified, The Orphanage retains Pan’s Labyrinth’s “vital vibe: the sense that all crafts of filmmaking are bent to leading us into another, darker, magical world.” The magic that exists in Bayona’s world is riddled through and through with dark secrets, haunting grief, love tethered to loss, and the demanding recriminations of memory.


The influence the dead exert over the innocence of children has been explored by a pantheon of filmmakers—Jack Clayton’s The Innocents (based on Henry James' Turning of the Screw), Alejandro Amenabar's The Others, Victor Erice’s Spirit of the Beehive, Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist, M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense, and (as already mentioned) both Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth and its predecessor The Devil’s Backbone. That the essential vulnerability of children is a light that beckons the unsettled spirits of the dead lost in the dark is replicated in this story by a lighthouse whose sweeping arcs of light illuminate the otherwise darkened corridors and hidden cobwebbed passages of the orphanage.


Fondly recalling playing “statues” with her beloved childhood friends at the Good Shepherd Orphanage before being adopted and taken away, Laura (Belen Rueda, The Sea Inside) returns as an adult with her husband Carlos (Fernando Cayo) and adopted son Simon (Roger Princep) to reopen the orphanage—which has long fallen into abandoned disrepair—as a haven for challenged children. Yet the childhood game of statues becomes a menacing leitmotif as the ghosts of children in the orphanage gradually advance upon Laura each time she looks away, blaming her for having left them to their tragic fate and claiming Simon as compensation. Just as the orphanage is about to reopen, Simon disappears without a trace and after six months of looking for him, with everyone around her presuming him dead, Laura remains convinced that he is somewhere within the orphanage, which luringly hints of his presence.


The Orphanage likewise tips a hat to another classic tale of the puer, Antoine St. Exupery’s The Little Prince wherein the reader is taught that it is only with the heart that one can see rightly and that what is essential is invisible to the eye. Aurora (Geraldine Chaplin)—a gaunt medium counseling Laura through a truly hair-raising seance—reiterates the same to Laura: “Your pain gives you strength; it will guide you. Seeing is not believing—it's the other way around.”

Richard and Mary Corliss summarize the film’s atmosphere succinctly: “[A]t the end, you'll realize that the filmmakers had something deeper in mind and heart: the need for a bereft woman to reunite, at whatever cost, with the people she has loved, wherever they are.” Variety’s Justin Chang describes The Orphanage as a “tale of a grown-up Wendy figure grieving her lost boy.”


Along with a riveting performance throughout by Belen Rueda and sinister and creepy appearances by both Geraldine Chaplin as the medium and Montserrat Carulla as a social worker, The Orphanage has impressive and handsome production values for a first feature. Screen Daily’s Peter Brunette astutely attributes this to Bayona’s accomplished manipulation of “mise-en-scene and props, especially the otherworldly dolls that appear throughout the film.” Chang commends editor Elena Ruiz’s effective use of “briefly cutting to black between scenes” to compound the shifting framing devices of cinematographer Oscar Faura, whose camera Richard and Mary Corliss describe as “relentlessly gliding, creeping, tracking toward the eeriest mystery, or backing away from it to reflect our fear.”

It’s already clear to me that—with only having seen a handful of titles from the TIFF lineup and many more to go—The Orphanage will remain one of my favorites through the final tally.

Cross-published on Twitch.

SILENT CINEMA—The Evening Class Interview With Daisuke Miyao

In 1889, Rudyard Kipling penned "The Ballad of East and West", which began:

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!

Though a plea for parity among races (albeit through Christian eyes), the opening line of this stanza—"East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet"—has come to stand for the inassimilability of Asian culture within Western culture. In its early years Hollywood had much to do with promoting this stereotype, using Kipling's stanza as intertitular comments in silent films where Asian characters were scripturally maligned. Notably, in Cecil B. DeMille's The Cheat (1915) Sessue Hayakawa portrays Tori, a transgressive individual who is brought to trial for having seduced and branded Edith, a white woman who—to be honest—is as culpable as Tori in the course of events. However, when the proceedings come to trial, the degree of their mutual culpabililty is recontextualized so that Edith's wrongs are undone and Tori's maximized. Just before the final courtroom scene, Kipling's axiom is presented as an intertitle to predict the course of events. The same message had been included as an intertitle a year earlier in another Hayakawa film, The Typhoon (1914), just to name a couple of examples.


Thus it seems completely appropriate that the Museum of Modern Art has chosen to entitle their retrospective "Sessue Hayakawa: East and West, When the Twain Met." This series, organized by Charles Silver, Associate Curator, Department of Film, likewise features commentary by Daisuke Miyao and is poised to open this Wednesday, September 5, running through September 16, 2007.

As I've written earlier, Daisuke Miyao is the author of Sessue Hayakawa: Silent Cinema and Transnational Stardom (London, Duke University Press, 2007), upon whose erudition the MOMA retrospective has been structured. I'm quite fond of this volume and it has inspired much thought. Though full of biographical detail, it is not so much a biography as it is a study of how Hayakawa's "star" was made to shine in the early years of the Hollywood studio system. Tethered to the myth likewise promoted by Hollywood of America's capacity to assimilate foreign cultures, Hayakawa became a constructed personality between cultures, never wholly welcome in either, though eventually claimed by both with pride and ambivalence.

With the advent of the MOMA film retrospective close on the wake of Miyao's volume on Sessue Hayakawa, I felt it was a good time to interview Daisuke Miyao for The Evening Class.

* * *

Daisuke Miyao: Thank you for your enthusiastic written response to my book.

Michael Guillén: It's my pleasure. It's a fascinating study and I want people to know about it. When did you see your first Sessue Hayakawa film? And what motivated you to research and write about him?

Miyao: The project started in 1993 when I was still a graduate student in Tokyo. There was a film series at the Tokyo National Film Center for American Film and some Hayakawa films were included in the series. I was looking for a topic for my Masters thesis and I was literally struck by Hayakawa's sensational performance in The Cheat and in other films like The Typhoon; I was flabbergasted. I began to aspire to know more about this fascinating Japanese actor in Hollywood and started to do some research and found out nothing. There was one autobiograpy—Zen Showed Me The Way—written by Hayakawa; but, other than that, I was not able to find any substantial work on this Japanese star. When I came to the United States in 1995 to study at NYU in cinema studies, I seriously started to think about research on Hayakawa and here we are.


Guillén: Your meticulous research is a blessing. I imagine I'm like most Americans who are primarily familiar with Hayakawa through his later work, such as his Oscar-nominated performance in Bridge Over the River Kwai. It's only been recently through Jeff Adachi's documentary The Slanted Screen, which I caught at San Francisco's Asian-American International Film Festival, that I became aware of Hayakawa's work in silent films, none of which I've seen in their entirety. That's why I was so excited to hear about the MOMA program. Is it true that the retrospective may travel West to the Pacific Film Archives?

Miyao: I have been talking to PFA and, hopefully, we can show something from Hayakawa's filmography maybe early next year.

Guillén: I hope so! One of your book's most intriguing aspects is that—though filled with biographical detail—it's not a straightforward biography. It falls more into the realm of reception studies. Can you talk some on your research methodology and how you decided to approach the construction of Hayakawa's stardom?


Miyao: Of course, I have been interested in Hayakawa's personal life too, in terms of what he thought, what he did at various points of his life, but for this project I was more interested in the mechanism of Hollywood starmaking and his reception in different locations, like Japan and Europe. I was also so attracted to his work, his films, so I decided to talk more specifically about his films, his acting, and some sociopolitical and ideological background or context behind his stardom in the U.S. and the simple effect of time on the reception of his star image in Japan and Europe. That was my basic strategy behind this work.

Guillén: What's truly fascinating is this negotiation that went on to create his image and the variable effect it had on both the East and the West. As a Chicano, I'm especially looking forward to seeing Forbidden Paths, which you highlighted as a film by which Hollywood promoted a racial hierarchy, with the Japanese being a "model minority"—and Mexicans less so—in service to a model of white racial supremacy in the U.S. Notwithstanding, Hayakawa was characterized as hi-kokumin by the Japanese, an insult to their nation, or a national traitor. Can you speak to that?

Miyao: The reception or appreciation of Americanism or American culture in Japan is an ambivalent issue. As a latecomer to modernization, as a modern nation, Japan—well, there's a famous saying "Japanese thought; Western technology"—the government officials and intellectuals aspired to catch up with modern nations like the U.K., France, the United States, and Germany since the late 19th century. They were eager to import new modern technologies, including cinema, from the West. At the same time, they were concerned about the issue of nationalism. Hayakawa was located at a very strange and ambivalent position in the history of early 20th century Japan. He represented Americanism on one hand; but, at the same time, he was a successful Japanese figure in Hollywood so this balance between Japaneseness and Americanism always haunted Hayakawa and the reception of his stardom in Japan.

Guillén: It's a thought-provoking conflict. I admire several of the conflicting polarities you address in your book, such as the American obsession with "Japanese Taste" hand-in-hand with the American fear of the "Yellow Peril." Has this conflict softened at all over time?


Miyao: The situation is pretty much similar, even in these days. There's a sort of adulation or adoration of Japanese culture, including animation or pop culture. But at the same time, there's a term called technocentrism which degrades Japan as a nation of just technology and contains the fear of "the East." I think there's an ambivalent attitude towards Japan and its technological culture.

Guillén: With regard to "Japanese Taste", clearly in just the last few years there has been a revival of Japanese cinema as arthouse fare. That association isn't a new one but it appears to be making a major revival. There has been one traveling retrospective after the other—Ozu, Mizoguchi, Naruse, Inamura, PFA will soon be profiling Tomu Uchida—one Japanese director after the other has been paraded before American cinephiles, as if to harken back to when "Japanese Taste" (particularly in objets d'art) was being consciously utilized as a strategy by which the American Middle Class was acculturated and refined. A strategy was in place as well, as you've elucidated in your book, to morally legitimize cinema over theatre, which was categorized as decadent. Aren't all these retrospectives of arthouse Japanese directors just playing into the notion of "Japanese Taste"?

Miyao: I guess so. Because Japanese cinema has become a film genre, or category, which has been appreciated by, as you say, film aficionados as a sort of "high culture"—even though some filmmakers like Takashi Miike or Shinya Tsukamoto are appreciated by cult core fans—but, still there is a certain hierarchy, compared to Hollywood blockbuster films like Transformers. There's a certain distinction between popular films and art cinema like Japanese films.

Guillén: Have you any thoughts on the current trend towards Hollywood remakes of popular Japanese films? That strikes me as a continuing ambivalence—both a love for and an aversion against—Japanese culture.


Miyao: One obvious reason is that—now that dvd markets are so important for the Hollywood film industry—anything related to the Asian market fascinates Hollywood to explore foreign markets. The domestic market is still important but—within the context of the globalization of film culture—Asia is a huge market for Hollywood.

Guillén: Can you speak about the upcoming MOMA film series and how you became involved in that project?

Miyao: My participation with the MOMA retrospective is somewhat personal. It's like a full circle for me because the 1993 retrospective in Tokyo, some of the films came from MOMA. Charles Silver, MOMA's curator, he gave a lecture at the retrospective and, since then, Charles and I have become good friends. When I was writing the book, Charles was saying, "When this book is finished, let's do a film festival at MOMA." So it's been a personal and productive friendship.

Guillén: And it feels timely. Can you speak to what the importance is of understanding the process by which Hayakawa became a silent screen star? And why that's of importance to contemporary audiences?

Miyao: What I want to suggest is that film culture has been a transnational cultural form since the very beginning of its history. Hollywood took the initiative of the film markets—speaking of style, technology, communication and transportation of stars and personalities—but, film is a global cultural form. It has been always, so to speak, even though there have been lots of conflicts, negotiations, and discriminations. Speaking more specifically, sure, these days there are some successful Asian films and Asian stars in Hollywood and at international film festivals, but to me it's nothing new. …I hope this MOMA retrospective continues to further discussions on international and transnational communications through cinema.

Cross-published on Twitch.

THE FALL OF '55—Connections to the Larry Craig Scandal

At Frameline earlier this year I befriended and interviewed Seth Randal whose film The Fall of '55 sold out its first screening. Quite by chance I was in Boise no less than a few weeks later and was given a personal tour by Seth and the film's historian Alan Virta of the "scene of the crime", so to speak.

On his blog The Daily Dish—responding to the recent Larry Craig scandal—Andrew Sullivan linked his comments to Randal's film. Today's readers of The New York Times will find an op-ed piece co-authored by Seth and Alan Virta on the historically relevant connections between Idaho's original same-sex scandal and Larry Craig's personal defeat.

LISTS—Michael Hawley's "Tabulation of Deprivation" (A.K.A. 50 Films He Wishes Would Come to the Bay Area)

Way back in April, just prior to the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF), local film writer Johnny Ray Huston posted an interesting list of 50 films and videos on the SF Bay Guardian Arts & Culture Blog. They were all works which—for one reason or another—had yet to play the Bay Area. Being a compulsive list-maker myself, and one who feels personally slighted when films I want/need to see bypass our local theaters and festivals, I set about compiling my own home-town tabulation of deprivation. Four months later, I realize it's gotten to be now-or-never time. With Venice and Toronto about to begin, I'll be needing a list that's a helluva lot longer than 50 if I wait any longer.

Most of these films were made during the past two years, and none had their world premieres later than this past January's Big Three: Berlin, Rotterdam and Sundance (meaning there's nothing from this year's Cannes.) Also, none have been released on Region One DVD, to the best of my knowledge. Perhaps a dozen are films I've already seen outside the Bay Area, either at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, or during two vaguely recent film-going jaunts to Paris. They're on the list because I want my Bay Area movie buddies to have the chance to (hopefully) enjoy them as much as I did.

I'm aware that a number of these 50 films have received perfectly God-awful reviews, which may help explain why we haven't seen them. But when it comes to directors, actors, subject matter or countries of origin that interest me, I usually prefer to seek out the bad and ugly, as well as the good, and then judge for myself.

A list like this will of course have an extremely short shelf life. With the Mill Valley and Arab Film Festivals in October, and the Latino and 3rd i Festivals in November, I'm optimistic that at least a few of these films will soon be coming our way. I anticipate that our local cinemas and rep houses will also do their part. Just days ago I learned that two films originally on the list, Aki Kaurismäki's Lights in the Dusk and Bahman Ghobadi's Half Moon, will be screened at the Pacific Film Archive (PFA) in October.

Finally, you'd think that living in second best place in the nation for cinephiles would leave one with little or nothing to complain about. You would be wrong. So without further ado…


4:30—Singapore director Royston Tan's follow-up to 15, which was one of my 10 favorite films of 2004. I foolishly passed on seeing this at Palm Springs, certain that the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival (SFIAAFF) would bring it to us this spring.

Abeni—In 2005, the PFA had an evening of films from Nollywood, the nickname given to Nigeria's burgeoning video industry. One of the highlights of that program was Tunde Lelani's Campus Queen, and this is his latest.


Alatriste—The most expensive Spanish-language film ever made, starring Viggo Mortensen as a 17th century army captain. Nominated for 15 2006 Goya Awards.

Alexandria . . . New York—81-year-old Egyptian director Youssef Chahine is considered by many to be the greatest Arab filmmaker of all time. His latest film Chaos, is set to premiere at Venice this year. Meanwhile, I'd sure like to have a look at this feature from 2004.

Armenia (Le voyage en Arménie)—The latest from Marseilles auteur Robert Guédiguian, whose working class dramas (Marius and Jeannette, The Town is Quiet) frequently star his wife, the sublime French actress Ariane Asacaride. The SFIFF brought us The Last Mitterrand in 2005, but the Bay Area has also yet to see 2002's Marie-Jo and her Two Lovers and 2004's My Father is an Engineer.

Bad Spelling (Les fautes d’orthographe)—Teenagers run amok in a French boarding school, with Olivier Gourmet and Carole Bouquet as headmaster and mistress. One of many French films on this list, proving the necessity for a Bay Area version of New York's "Rendez-Vous With French Cinema", or LA's "City of Angels/City of Light".


Blame it on Fidel (La faute à Fidel)—A nine-year-old girl finds her world turned upside-down when her parents become leftist radicals in early 1970s Paris.

Carnaval of Sodom (El Carnaval de Sodoma)—Mexican master Arturo Ripstein's first narrative feature since 2002's The Virgin of Lust.

Close to Home (Karov La Bayit)—A film about the experiences of two teenage girls serving in the Israeli military. This played in dozens of US festivals earlier this year and was a surprising omission at last month's SF Jewish Film Festival.

Cobrador: In God We Trust—Mexican director Paul Leduc's anti-globalization tale starring Peter Fonda. I confess to not having seen a Leduc film since 1986's haunting Frida, naturaleza viva.


The Consequences of Love (Le conseguenze dell'amore)—Paolo Sorrentino's debut film about a Mafia hit man holed up in a Swiss resort hotel was one of the best received films of Cannes 2004. It was subsequently a box office success in Europe, but never registered in the States (not even at our own annual New Italian Cinema series). It appears that his 2006 follow-up, A Friend of the Family, will suffer a similar fate.

Container—Swedish director Lukas Moodysson (Lilya 4-ever, A Hole in My Heart) takes a break from reminding us what a horrible, brutal world we live in and tries his hand at something truly experimental.


El Custodio—Argentina continues to make some of the most urgent and interesting cinema in the world. This film by Rodrigo Moreno was one of the hits of this year's New Directors/New Films series in NYC.

Destricted—This collection of seven erotic shorts from the likes of Gaspar Noe, Larry Clark and Mathew Barney played at Sundance and Cannes in 2005 and then completely disappeared.

Day Night Day Night—Julia Loktev's controversial accounting of a young woman's final hours as a Times Square suicide bomber didn't make much of an impression on me when I saw it at Palm Springs. Still, it deserves to be seen by Bay Area audiences. If Salt Lake City, Santa Fe, Milwaukee and Atlanta have seen it, why haven't we?

Drama/Mex—This Acapulco-set teen drama has been called the Mexican version of Kids.


Gift From Above (Matana MiShamayim)—Dover Koshashvili had a nice festival/arthouse success with his 2001 film Late Marriage, set within the Georgian community in Israel. As far as I know, his next film has never been seen in North America. I saw it in Paris in 2005, loved it and would jump at the chance to see it with English subtitles.

The Great World of Sound—One of the few Amerindies at Sundance this year to pique my interest, it's about phony record producers who travel the country bilking gullible amateurs.

I'm a Cyborg, but That's OK (Saibogujiman kwenchana)—The new Park Chan-wook.

In the Pit (En el hoyo)—This Mexican documentary about the construction of a super-highway was featured in Landmark Theater's Spring FLM magazine, but has yet to be released. I saw it at Palm Springs and was underwhelmed, but I'd happily sit through it again to re-experience that jaw-dropping finale.


Invisible Waves—I have a feeling we'll be seeing Pen-ek Ratanaruang's newest film from this year's Cannes (Ploy) before we'll see this poorly-received film from Berlin 2006. This is another one I passed on at Palm Springs, certain it would play one of the Bay Area's spring fests.

Johanna—I've heard both awful and fantastic things about this 2005 filmed opera set in a mental hospital, which was produced by Bela Tarr.

Ken Park—I saw this Larry Clark shocker at a Parisian multiplex in 2003 and can sort of understand why it was never released in the US, either in theaters or on DVD. Two particularly outrageous scenes are the stuff of legend. I've heard rumors of a clandestine invitation-only screening at the Castro several years ago.

Khadak—A young nomad makes a shamanistic journey across the frozen steppes of Mongolia in this Sundance 2007 Grand Jury Prize winner.


The Last Communist (Lelaki komunis terakhir)—In 2005 the SFIFF had a wonderful side-bar on New Malaysian Cinema, but they've neglected to follow through. All of the directors in that sidebar have since released new films, but with the notable exception of Yasmin Ahmad, none have been seen in the Bay Area. This is one of two films by Amir Muhammed that I'm quite anxious to see (the other is 2007's Village People Radio Show.)

Life is a Miracle (Zivot je cudo)—Something's truly wrong when a two-time Palm d'Or winner like Emir Kusturica makes a film and we don't get a chance to see it. Fortunately, I had the pleasure of catching this Cannes 2004 entry in Paris two years ago (albeit with French subtitles), and wonder if I'll have to return to Paris in order to see his film from this year's Cannes, Promise Me This.

Mary—Abel Ferrera's 2005 contemporary take on the Mary Magdalene legend. Again, I have a feeling we'll be seeing his latest work, Cannes 2007's Go Go Tales, before we get the opportunity to see this.

The Matsugane Potshot Affair (Matsugane ransha jiken)—A new film from Nobuhiro Yamashita, director of the fabulous Linda Linda Linda.

Never Forever—Another 2007 Sundance Amerindie that sounded interesting. Vera Farmiga is married to an infertile Korean-American husband, and to save their marriage ends up taking an unusual path to pregnancy.

No Place Like Home—Perry Henzell's 30-year-old, finally-completed follow-up to 1972's The Harder They Come had its world premiere at Toronto last year. Two words . . . Grace Jones!!!

OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies (OSS 117: Le Caire nid d'espions)—French comedies are rarely my thing, but this stupid/smart retro spy film was one of the most enjoyable experiences I had at Palm Springs. I wrote more about it here.


The Other (El Otro)—From Argentine director Ariel Rotter, this year's Silver Bear winner from Berlin.

Paraguayan Hammock (Hamaca Paraguaya)—This difficult, but intriguing bit of minimalism by Paz Encina is the last of the New Crowned Hope films waiting to make an appearance in the Bay Area. I saw it at Palm Springs, and would gladly take a second look.

The Pool—Documentary filmmaker Chris Smith (American Movie, The Yes Men) makes his narrative feature debut with this Goa-set tale about class distinctions.


Rain Dogs (Tai yang yue)—More independent Malaysian cinema from Ho Yuhang, director of 2004's Sanctuary.

Retribution (Sakebi)—This is the latest film by prolific Japanese creep-meister Kiyoshi Kurosawa that has yet to come our way (we're also waiting for 2005's Loft). Both were ignored by the SFAIFF and the SFIFF, which surprised me in light of their previously strong support of his work.

Right of the Weakest (La raison du plus faible)—The latest from Swiss actor/director Lucas Belvaux, director of 2002's ground-breaking Trilogy (On the Run, An Amazing Couple, After the Life).

Les Saignantes—Opportunities to see contemporary, home-grown African films in the Bay Area are increasingly rare these days. Even this year's New African Cinema series at the PFA consisted of a meager four features. That said, I still have hopes of someday seeing this 2005 feminist sci-fi tale from Cameroon.


Southland Tales—Richard Kelly's much-anticipated follow-up to Donnie Darko was considered to be THE disaster of Cannes 2006 (and was at the top of Huston's list of 50 films). Rumor is that some version of it will arrive in theaters later this year.

Still Life (Sanxia haoren)—This 2006 Venice Golden Lion winner from Chinese director Jia Zhang-ke was perhaps the most glaring omission from this year's SFIAAFF and SFIFF. When we finally see this, it will hopefully be accompanied by the film's related documentary, Dong.

Tachigui: The Amazing Lives of the Fast Food Grifters (Tachiguishi retsuden)—The latest animated feature from Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell).

Takva: A Man's Fear of God—This Turkish film about the personal hypocrisy a devout Muslim faces when his lot in life suddenly improves has garnered raves at every festival it's played.


Taxidermia—György Pálfi's (Hukkle) fabulously disgusting allegory on recent Hungarian history would have been such a natural programming choice for the SFIFF's Late Show series, SF Indiefest or the recent Dead Channels festival. Yet another reason I'm glad I went to Palm Springs.

Time (Shi gan)—Kim Ki-duk's 2006 plastic surgery parable. His latest film, Cannes 2007's Breath, also waits in the wings.

To Get To Heaven First You Have To Die (Bihisht faqat baroi murdagon)—This sly, little black comedy from Tajikistan suggests that perhaps murder is the ultimate aphrodisiac. Another film from Palm Springs and one of my favorites of the year so far.

Transylvania—Perhaps Asia Argento's stature as Queen of Cannes 2007 (with films by Abel Ferrera, Catherine Breillat and Olivier Assayas) will help get this 2006 Tony Gatlif film released. My write-up from Palm Springs is here.


Tuya's Marriage (Tuya de hun shi)—Chinese/Mongolian Berlin Golden Bear winner about a disabled married woman's search for a new husband.

The Untouchable (L'intouchable)—Isild le Besco re-teams with director Benoît Jacquot (À tout de suite) for this story of a young woman who travels to India in search of her father.

VHS–Kahloucha—This Tunisian documentary about a prolific amateur filmmaker got raves at Sundance and elsewhere.

Welcome Europa—Bruno Ulmer's stylized documentary about male immigrants literally prostituting themselves in order to survive in today's Europe.

Introductory illustration courtesy of Brian White.