Drop everything and come to Shaw Lido tonight (Sept 19, Mon, 9.30pm) to see Pina, which I saw two days ago and can’t wait to see again. Here’s why:

It’s a vision of the future of 3D cinema. Even more than James Cameron’s Avatar before it, Pina makes a single-handed, multi-bodied case for what 3D cinema should look like if it is to take pride in being a legitimate art form. The elaborate planning needed to capture famed choreographer Pina Bausch’s dances—ingenious with space, and filmed nonstop before live audiences—even implies that 3D might be the key to restoring lost staging practices and less hyperactive editing styles to the movies. (Ironic that this newfangled “gimmick” should offer itself as a potential messiah to all the ever-lamenting Hollywood classicists.)

It’s the hulking Citizen Kane of dance retrospectives. As if its groundbreaking use of deep cinematic space wasn’t enough of a clue, Pina stakes its claim to being the Citizen Kane of dance retrospectives by revealing Bausch to us through the legacies and people she left behind, in ways that defy easy summary. Instead of filming regular talking heads, Wenders layers the testimonies of the dancers of Bausch’s Tanztheater Wuppertal over clips of their faces. More than one reminisces about Bausch’s penetrating gaze, which read them more clearly than they could give voice to, so it’s almost like Wenders is trying to exhume Bausch’s very gaze.

It was almost never made. The attention that Pina accords to the Tanztheater Wuppertal dancers grows even more poignant when you learn that Wenders cancelled plans to make the film after Bausch died unexpectedly, just a few days before filming was initially slated to begin. It was at the behest of these dancers (and Bausch’s fans worldwide) that Wenders decided to press on. “Dance, dance, or we are lost,” cries the movie’s subtitle as the credits end, and I can’t think of a more fitting rallying cry for these people who, through Bausch’s influence and choreography, ask to be found.

CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS
Just as Pina feels infused with the spirit of all the dancers that surrounded its making, Cave of Forgotten Dreams has the head and heart of the people that accompanied its making: academics. It isn’t a knock to say that this documentary about the Chauvet Caves, which hold the earliest cave paintings known to man, feels much like the movie an archaeologist or art historian or anthropologist would have made.

I daresay director Werner Herzog is a little bit of all those respectable professions, and he defers even more to the small group of actual professors in his midst who, like his filmmaking team, have been allowed a rare visit to study the caves under limited time and conditions (no touching, no straying from the narrow central walkway, etc). Yet Herzog’s own specific penchant for spelunking for people’s stories and dreams shines through (an archaeologist he interviews turns out to have been a unicycle-and-juggling circus man), even if his inimitable deadpan sometimes makes his meditations on the subject more portentous than his documentary-101 approach otherwise affords.

A woman getting pounded into by a man oblivious to her distraction, turmoil, inner life: Any cinema that attends to such an image surely has an eye to that woman’s strengths and vulnerabilities in other ways that surprise and resonate.

Which of these performances do you most admire, or look forward to seeing? Do you know of others like them?

• Melanie Lynskey in Heavenly Creatures (1994)
• Julianne Moore in Safe (1995)
• Zhang Ziyi in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
• Nicole Kidman in Birth (2004)
• Tang Wei in Lust, Caution (2007)

Lina Lamont as “Yvonne”: Pierre will save me. Pierre!

“Rouge Noir”: Pierre is miles away, you witch!

Lina as “Yvonne”: No, no, no!

“Rouge Noir”: Yes, yes, yes!

— Singin’ in the Rain (1952)

Stromboli: There! This will be your home, where I can find you always!

Pinocchio: No, no, no!

Stromboli: Yes, yes, yes!

— Pinocchio (1940)

How do you prefer your “No, no, no” and “Yes, yes, yes”?

• With Jean Hagen’s helium-frizzed flutiness and an uncredited actor’s mustachioed villainy in Singin’ in the Rain
• With Dickie Jones’ fear-struck protests and Charles Judels’ hulking malevolence in Pinocchio

Mention your pick in the comments below!

Schindler: There’s no way I could have known this before, but there was always something missing. In every business I tried, I can see now it wasn’t me that had failed. Something was missing. Even if I’d known what it was, there’s nothing I could have done about it, because you can’t create this thing. And it makes all the difference in the world between success and failure.

Emilie: Luck?

Schindler: War.

— Schindler’s List (1993)

Valmont: Now, yes or no? It is up to you, of course. I will merely confine myself to remarking that a “no” will be regarded as a declaration of war. A single word is all that is required.

Merteuil: All right.

Merteuil: War.

— Dangerous Liaisons (1988)

How do you prefer your “War”?

• With Liam Neeson’s suave amorality in Schindler’s List
• With Glenn Close’s vindictive divadom in Dangerous Liaisons

Mention your pick in the comments below!

Potentially unavailable tickets
For some reason, Jang Hun’s Secret Reunion, François Ozon’s Potiche and Heiward Mak’s beside(s,) happiness are not available for booking through SISTIC at the moment. I’m not sure what’s going on here, and what other showings might also be unavailable, but this unpredictability makes ticket-buying rather inconvenient.

Misleading “bundle discount” [REDACTED: See comment below]
On the SIFF Ticketing page, it mentions a bundle discount in which you can “purchase 10 tickets in a single receipt to enjoy a 10% discount”. But according to the SISTIC ticketing agent from whom I bought my tickets, this only applies if you’re buying 10 tickets to the same screening. This would make the wording on that discount far too misleading, unless I’ve been misinformed. (It made no difference to me, since I’m still a student, but it would certainly be an annoyance to others.)

Treat this as an alternate set of recommended movies if the ones I’m watching don’t take your fancy! I’d go to these myself, except I can’t possibly be in two places at once.

WHAT I’M MISSING (BEFORE FLYING OFF):

A Night with Boo Junfeng
Lido 7 – 16 September, 9.30pm
Why I want to watch this: Boo Junfeng is one of Singapore’s most promising young filmmakers, with a knack for the familial drama of unsaid things (and pensive semi-autobiographical leading men). I’ve only seen three of his films (Katong Fugue, Keluar Baris, and his only feature film Sandcastle), so I’d have loved to have seen his handpicked selection of five of his own short films.
Why I’m missing this: It overlaps with Yu Li’s Buddha Mountain, which was nominated for Best Film, Best Director and Best Performance at the Silver Screen Awards—a tripartite I can hardly bear to miss out on, especially since Junfeng’s rising status promises a DVD anthology or festival tribute of his short films sooner or later.

Everyone’s Gotta Start Somewhere: The Singapore Edition (90 min)
Sinema – 17 September, 3.30pm
Includes: A Family Portrait (dir. Boo Junfeng, 2004), Dick Marlow (dir. Wesley Leon Aroozoo, 1995), Paradise (dir. Liao Jiekai, 2005), Nadim (dir. Loo Zihan, 2005), Tak Giu (dir. Jacen Tan, 2004), The Nightmare and the Wedding (dir. Wee Li Lin).
Why I want to watch this: Argh. The debut short films of all these now-established directors among the Singapore filmmaking community: what a thing to miss!
Why I’m missing this: I might not mind dropping Werner Herzog’s 3D cave-painting documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams for this, but I wouldn’t miss Wim Wenders’ far more acclaimed 3D modern-dance documentary Pina for the world. Sadly, I can’t possibly teleport right from the end of this short film screening to the Lido theatre where Pina will immediately begin, so I’d just have to forego this one.

Floating Lives (dir. Nguyen Phan Quang Binh, 2010, Vietnam, NC16, 113 min)
The Arts House – 18 September, 1.30pm
Why I want to watch this: It’s been nominated for Best Director and Best Cinematography at the Silver Screen Awards.
Why I’m missing this: I’d have to rush down to the Arts House from the Lido theatre after a screening of Jang Hun’s Secret Reunion, only to somehow teleport back to the Lido afterwards for Jeon Kyu-Hwan’s Animal Town. On a day when I already have three screenings scheduled? Forget it.

Nosferatu (dir. F.W. Murnau, 1922, Germany, PG, 94 min)
LASALLE – 21 September, 7.30pm
Why I want to watch this: Murnau is one of the genius directors of the silent movie era, and Nosferatu is perhaps his most acclaimed work after his glorious and humane Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, the last great silent masterpiece. Plus, vampires! People like those, right?
Why I’m missing this: Another issue caused less by direct scheduling clashes than the inexplicable distances between the festival’s various screening venues. I wouldn’t relish racing down from LASALLE to the Lido for my next screening, Park Jung-bum’s The Journals of Musan. I’d expect, thankfully, that Nosferatu will still be screened in rep theatres for many years to come, and readily available on DVD.

On Tour (dir. Mathieu Amalric, 2010, France, TBC, 111 min)
The Arts House – 22 September, 9pm
Why I want to watch this: GlenH kindly recommended this movie as “pretty genial (although ultimately melancholic), loosely structured and surprisingly well-directed film with Amalric front and centre (upgrade to a must see if you’re at all a fan of the guy).” I’m not familiar with Amalric beyond his unmemorable villain in Quantum of Solace, but Glen’s recommendation (and the movie’s Cannes 2010 Best Director prize) really seals the deal…
Why I’m missing this: … except that I can’t get from Sinema, where I’m seeing an anthology of Singapore short films, to the Arts House in just ten minutes. Local short films are notoriously hard to watch apart from festival screenings such as these, so I’ll take my chances coming across the Cannes award-winner at some other time and place.

But I’m breaking my long silence, because this is the first year I’m looking forward to the Singapore International Film Festival after having been broken-in to the arthouse realm, and the line-up is mouthwatering. Kudos to the festival programmers!

Below the jump, you’ll find the current list of movies to which I intend to buy tickets, once the box office has opened on Sept 2. I’ve basically picked each movie for at least one of three reasons:

1. It’s been nominated for Best Director at the festival’s Silver Screen Awards competition, an endorsement I trust handily more than Best Film;
2. It hails from South Korea, whose country’s auteurial output I’ve been unjustifiably enamoured with ever since watching Lee Chang-dong’s Poetry and (more importantly) Bong Joon-ho’s Mother last year; or
3. It’s been directed or acted in by filmmakers that I’m intrigued to know more about, namely Werner Herzog and Wim Wenders in their 3D documentary showdown, as well as French acting goddess Catherine Deneuve.

So please:

1. Check out the SIFF schedule yourself and think about which movies you’d like to watch. I’m already getting a 10% discount for buying tickets to this many movies, so if you’d like to hop on, let me know before this Friday.
2. Let me know if there are any movies I’m not seeing that you think I should! Sadly, there are some juicy choices that I’ll have to miss, either because I can’t be in two places at once, or because I’ll be flying back to Chicago for my sophomore year in the wee hours of Sept 23.
3. Stay tuned. I’ll have more to say about the SIFF, now that I’ve essentially defibrillated this blog…

WHAT I’M WATCHING:

Rolling Home with a Bull (dir. Yim Soon Rye, South Korea, PG, 106 min)
Lido 2 – 16 September, 7.15pm
Nominated for Best Performance at Silver Screen Awards 2011

Buddha Mountain (dir. Li Yu, China, NC16, 105 min)
Lido 2 – 16 September, 9.30pm
Nominated for Best Film, Best Director, Best Performance at Silver Screen Awards 2011

Cave of Forgotten Dreams (dir. Werner Herzog, Germany, G, 90min)
Lido 4 – 17 September, 3.30pm
3D documentary about the Chauvet Cave, which holds the earliest cave paintings known to man. Directed by a key figure of New German Cinema

Pina (dir. Wim Wenders, Germany, PG, 106min)
Lido 1 – 17 September, 5pm
Lido 4 – 19 September, 9.30pm
3D documentary about groundbreaking dance choreographer Pina Bausch, who died two days before filming began. Also directed by a key figure of New German Cinema

Secret Reunion (dir. Jang Hun, South Korea, TBC, 116min)
Lido 2 – 18 September, 11am
Nominated for Best Film, Best Performance at Silver Screen Awards 2011

Animal Town (dir. Jeon Kyu-Hwan, South Korea/USA, R21, 97min)
Lido 7 – 18 September, 3.30pm
Nominated for Best Film, Best Performance at Silver Screen Awards 2011

The Yellow Sea (dir. Na Hong-jun, South Korea, R21, 157 min)
Lido 7 – 18 September, 6.30pm

Potiche (dir. François Ozon, France, M18, 103 min)
Lido 5 – 19 September, 7.15pm
Features major French actress Catherine Deneuve in a comic star turn.

beside(s,) happiness (dir. Heiward Mak, Hong Kong, TBC, 54 min)
Sinema – 20 September, 7pm
Nominated for Best Film, Best Director at Silver Screen Awards 2011

The Journals of Musan (dir. Park Jung-bum, South Korea, M18, 127 min)
Lido 7 – 21 September, 9.30pm
Nominated for Best Film at Silver Screen Awards 2011

Singapore Short Film Finalists 2 (M18, 77 min)
Sinema – 22 September, 7.30pm
Sisters (dir. Lincoln Chia) and Hentak Kaki (dir. James Khoo) both nominated for Best Film, Best Director at Singapore Short Film Competition
Band of Mischief (dir. Kenneth Lee) nominated for Best Director, Best Performance
First Breath After Coma (dir. Logavel Balakrishnan) nominated for Best Performance

If there’s any doubt what Belle’s life as a princess will be like after the credits have rolled, this shot provides the answer. ”Far-off places, daring swordfights, magic spells, a prince in disguise”: she’s been there, and more besides. Is there another movie—an animated children’s film, no less—that has so compellingly explored the complex emotional territories of filial self-sacrifice, mob hysteria, the politics of mental illness, and full-blown romantic despair? One imagines Belle will now be content if everything else were to be found just in books. I know I would be, if I had a library like that.

]]> http://www.againstthehype.com/2011/04/beauty-and-the-beasts-best-shot/feed/ 2 http://www.againstthehype.com/2011/04/heavenly-creatures-best-shot/ http://www.againstthehype.com/2011/04/heavenly-creatures-best-shot/#comments Thu, 07 Apr 2011 02:00:55 +0000 Colin Low http://www.againstthehype.com/?p=1841

Back in 1994, Peter Jackson already showed a great facility for having his camera swoop around the vistas of New Zealand. The above swirling shot of Heavenly Creatures might well recall the iconic opening of The Sound of Music—until we hear Juliet Hulmes’ bawling seep into the soundtrack. Using a sunny, animated landscape shot to indicate a tormented interior? Yowza! Indeed, no screencap can do justice to the persistence with which Jackson and his editor Jamie Selkirk keep the camera alive and moving throughout Heavenly Creatures, by means of trailing the wild swoops, fancies and injustices in the minds of its adolescent leads. Come back to us, Peter Jackson!

I’ve tried. I swear I’ve tried. But after numerous repeated viewings, I still look upon Vivien Leigh’s Blache DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire and wonder what gains the feisty, ever resourceful Scarlett O’Hara thinks she’ll get out of posturing so self-consciously and pitching her voice around the range of a twittery coo. It’s a testament to Leigh’s legendary performance as that other Southern belle in Gone with the Wind that it haunts this role too. Yet Leigh is so much more stiffly heightened here, even while keeping within a similar vein of theatricality, that we can’t quite say she’s approaching Blanche as an aged, more destitute remainder of who Scarlett once was either (though now that I would’ve liked to see).

Now, I know a good number of critics whom I admire are fond of how Leigh’s Blanche so clearly knows she doesn’t hold up to the light. And I grant that her overt, somewhat off-putting theatricality does give credence to her antagonist Stanley Kowalski, whom Marlon Brando embodies with slurred, masculine brutishness without turning himself over to a Raging Bull-esque caricature of ego-bruised paranoia. Brando’s Stanley is astute enough to catch just how much flirtation is going into a request for a cigarette, or how much disdain is intended by his wife’s curt naggings about being a pig at the dinner table. This version of A Streetcar Named Desire thus retains a thrilling charge, as we take to Stanley’s clear-eyed grasp of how Blanche’s presence truly encroaches on his marriage and poker-night fiefdom, even as we grow horrified at the lengths to which his inability to stomach Blanche will eventually go.

Failed oppositions
But much as A Streetcar Named Desire enthralls us through these shifting allegiances, I still would have liked for the movie and actress both to have more thoroughly sold me on Blanche’s fantasies and frailties. As written, Tennessee Williams’ masterpiece richly evokes the dialectic between two ways of ekeing out space for oneself, in a life that doesn’t ever serve things up the way you want them. Between a hardbitten refusal of sham, and a wholehearted embrace of romantic fantasies. Between a resolve to assume the worst in people, and a dependence on the kindness of strangers.

It hence feels like a lapse on this dialectic, if not outright treachery, that the movie doesn’t animate itself when Blanche breaks out into a twirl amidst radio jazz and a lantern’s glow; the camera stays cruelly rooted as she dances herself in delusion, just before Stanley charges in to hurl the radio out of a window. Likewise, in the movie’s most overt statement of purpose, Leigh bulges her eyes and hardens her voice as she makes her Norma Desmond-ish pronouncement that “Deliberate cruelty is not forgivable.” What are the gains from burlesquing Blanche in this way? Perhaps one might find the tragedy in her patent self-deceit, but it feels like the kind that forces us into a chilly remove—especially since Williams has stripped her of a moody Gothic estate to help her along, and as noted, director Elia Kazan leaves her to fend for herself amid the grimly realist mise-en-scène.

At best, I can countenance Leigh as fearlessly tamping yet another angle to the dialectic, battling Brando’s gut-tethered Method approach with her own clinical, estranging Brechtian affect. But we know who won this war. We are all Brando’s children, and much as I appreciate the difficulty of Leigh’s work, the drive to accept an actor as fitting naturally into her mise-en-scène makes this Blanche a hurdle I have yet to cross. The most fascinating moment in this movie, for me, is hence reflected in my pick for best shot above. Stanley, who has not long ago burst his top at Blanche’s phoniness, watches as Blanche molts an unvarnished flare of emotion at a dead lover’s letters. Blanche, for her part, will soon shift into a posture of businesslike calm to meet Stanley’s invocation of the Napoleonic Code. Watch as they arrive at some odd understanding, if only for just a while.

A Streetcar Named Desire | 1951 | USA | Director: Elia Kazan | Screenplay: Oscar Saul, Tennessee Williams | Cast: Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, Karl Malden