Globalized Addictions:A talk with MIDI Z, director of ICE POISON (BING DU)

One of the more well-hidden discoveries of the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival was ICE POISON, a cinema veritae-inspired tale of poverty and drug affliction in the breathtaking rural environs of Burma and neighboring parts of China. To make the film, director MIDI Z returned to his native Burma after a lengthy stay in Taiwan, where he studied filmmaking. Populating his film with both professional actors and natives of the provincial areas where he shot the film, he sought to achieve a truly lifelike depiction of the Burmese people, with their relatively lethargic pace, in the face of increasing worldwide industrialization. Z, along with Taiwanese lead actress Ke-xi Wu, discussed the inspiration for the story, challenges of maintaining a sense of realism, and adventures of filming in areas without permission.

MondoCurry: You lived in Burma at a very young age. How much of situations shown in your film were familiar to you growing up?

MIDI Z: I was born in Burma and  went to Taiwan when I was 16 to study Chinese. In 2008 I returned to my hometown for the first time in ten years.  I met my mom and my childhood friends. At that time a guy who escaped from Thailand was arrested at the border and put in jail. He used crystal meth, or “ice Poison,” and got crazy. He’s still living in my hometown. I met with him but he didn’t realize who I was anymore. And I did some research about the family and wrote this story.

(The story) is about how Burma is changing. Many businessmen come to Rangoon to for trade. And most of the people, the lower class people, like the farmers at the base of the mountain, will plow the fields but the harvest is very poor. So most of them imagine what they could’ve done to make a better life. They imagine making a better life…like in this story, the father buys a motorcycle to run a scooter taxi…But mostly (these native Burmese) aren’t suited for this modernized life.

For me this is a common story that is happening everywhere. In my view, this is not just a story about Myanmar. It’s about globalization everywhere.

MC: For some viewers, there may appear to be various forms of drug use. Can you give some context to clear up any possible confusion?

M Z: (the old men smoking in front of houses) is nothing bad, it’s just like smoking tobacco cigarettes with a water pipe. But crystal meth is also so easy for people to get. For example a boy, after graduating from junior high school, can get a job and then get the ice very easily. One reason people get into it is to help escape something.

MC: There are a few very surreal and distorted visuals when characters are taking ice. Can you talk about how you came up with the way you showed the drug’s effects?

M Z: It is based on the truth. I interviewed so many friends after I did research. Actually, one of my classmates in Burma was just 13 years old when he started to use ice and. It’s a common situation…You bring a bag of ice to a hotel in China, and then waiting in the hotel for the buyer…In his case, before the buyer came, he was just curious so he started using. After that he fell asleep for two nights. When he woke up, he was arrested by the police. His memory became distorted.

MC: Did you work with a lot of non-actors on the film?

M Z: Yes, in my previous 3 films most of the supporting actresses were not professionals. But their real life was connected to the story. That is why it is really easy for me to get their performance. But the main character, like (Ke-Xi Wu) has always been played by a professional.

MC: How do you work with the nonprofessional actors to get the performance you want?

M Z For the nonprofessional, it’s very easy. I don’t tell them how to act. I just told them the main structure of the story and main point of the dialogue, but they can be free to act their own way as long the main subject of their dialogue is maintained. They can move wherever they want. Sometimes it is difficult to capture them because they move. But the professionals, they realize the camera too much. We should discourage them from showing their realization of the camera. 

I think for the professionals, they feel their character needs to cry or act or perform. And it’s very easy for them. But sometimes I’ll just say to the actors to sit there, and do something very natural, for example, have a conversation with the mother. It’s no performance…

MC: How did you feel about improvisational acting?

Ke-xi Wu: I was a stage actor before and I especially liked improvisation. To me it’s not very stressful. It is very challenging. In the beginning, around 2009,  I had a lot of experience to learn about this way of acting.

MC: Oftentimes it appears that only one camera is used, and scenes are filmed with one long shot. Was this done to capture the Burmese pace of life?

M Z: Yes, mostly one camera was used and filming was only one take. In such type of story, timing is important. It’s all about waiting.  The poor people are waiting for changes. They may be waiting for a phone call from Mainland China, so the long shot from the camera will show this timing….

MC: The selling of drugs comes across as matter of fact, not so dramatic…

MIDI: They show up like a guest and just come in and give the person something and get the money. It’s so normal and simple.

MC: Was it a typical situation that police would be there waiting, like what happens in the film?

MIDI: Maybe the police would come to arrest the woman. They would let her go if she pays. They wouldn’t just be arresting her because of the law. No…everyone everywhere has his own reason to do something. Here they are doing that to make their living.

MC: The reaction of the male lead also seemed very genuine, and not necessarily heroic…

MIDI: Yes, that is very human. Actually Ice Poison is a very mainstream narrative, a dramatic story. But I didn’t allow it to happen in a dramatic way because I wanted to make a film very realistic.

MC: The setting has a natural beauty. Did you know what you were looking for when seeking out filming locations?

MIDI: I was very familiar with the setting because I lived there for 16 years. Doing research, I found some places. There is one scene on a hill. Just 100 meters from this hill is the CIA station. During the shooting, they came to us and asked ‘what are you doing?’ Then I went to negotiate with them.

K W: That scene was shot without a D.P.

MIDI: I just told the actress ‘ok, now the cinematographer will be the director. You are going to be shooting and I am going to negotiate with the police.’

K W: We quickly finished two shots and then pretended we were tourists.

MC: Is there anything else that you feel might be misunderstood by an international audience that you would like to make clear about the film?

MIDI: At the beginning people may think it’s political or about drugs but really it’s a story about globalization. It occurs even in America and Europe.

MIDI Z’s next project is expected to be a love story about immigrants in Thailand. ICE POISON has been screened internationally at various festivals.

me on twitter = @mondocurry

Connection Session: A discussion with the director and participants of LOVE AND ENGINEERING

One of the highlights of this year's Tribeca Film Festival was LOVE AND ENGINEERING, a documentary from Finland about a group of engineers who explore a scientific approach to the nature of attraction and forging successful relationships. Both humorous in its following of subjects that are oftentimes charmingly out of tune with others around them, and insightful in its earnest pursuit of the factors that make certain people click, it was clear that the conditions around this production were not ordinary.

During the festival I had an opportunity to speak with the film's director Tonislav Hristov and two of its subjects, Atanas Boev and Todor Vlaev, about the collaborative nature of making the film, what is involved in undertaking a carefully constructed documentary production in Finland, and some of their reactions to what transpired while it all unfolded. 

Mondocurry: How did you come to meet around this project?

Tonislav Hristov: I Was doing my first feature length documentary, The Rules of Single Life, . And on my trip back to Bulgaria, I met Anatas on the airplane, and he was an old friend of mine. He said that he saw the film but it was ‘ok,’ but didn’t like it so much. It was about some single guys who are trying to find love. (Anatas) said to me ‘this is not working, listen to me, I’m an engineer and I know a better way. ‘

Atanas Boev, director Tonislav Hristov, and Todor Vlaev (left to right)

Atanas Boev: (Tonislav) was doing an artistic approach and my ideas was that a systematic or sequential approach would be much better.

 MC: At the beginning of the film, we see you talking about ‘hacks‘ for attracting people. When did you start thinking about these?

AB: Actually I had been in a long term long distance relationship. I was trying to let it go and get myself together and address the problem. I went online to find some research and I found out there’s already plenty. But it was addressed in a nonscientific way. It’s like the stuff you find in an online shopping guide. I took up the challenge to do it in a proper scientific way.

MC: The subjects of the film are all engineers. Could you give your definition of what being an engineer is?

Todor Vlaev: We are all IT engineers. One guy is good at programming, one guy is working with software, another guy working with networks… It just happens that IT is such a big field in Finland. Most of the guys are somehow connected to software or IT. An engineer can be a very broad term. It implies that you studied something technically and you basically use rules and science to create things.

TH: Before I got my film school degree, I got an engineering degree too.  So this was a bit of a personal agenda for me. I was a machine engineer. I wasn’t in IT.

MC: Affected working together when knowing subject vs not so familiar with?

TH: I always make documentaries about people who I know or subjects that I am really aware of. Finding funding for those films takes a very long time. There are hundreds of commission editors that will ask you so many questions about the subject of your film. I know in America it works a little different. Documentaries here are done more in a guerilla style, I think it’s called, where you just take the camera and follow things and wait for something to happen. But for a bigger budget you have to find your subjects, then the story, then you sell the idea a bit. Maybe show a trailer, and then you start making the proper film. So you have to be really well prepared for what the film will look like. You don’t need to know what’s going to happen at the end but you should at least know what’s going to happen in the first third of the film. The way I do films is with really big equipment like very heavy cameras with equipment and lighting so it’s kind of a different way. It’s not a cheap way to do it. And then when the guys get used to the equipment and the lighting and everything, then they can relax and be themselves. It’s the opposite of doing it with a small camera and running around.

MC: How do you try to keep from influencing the subjects being filmed?

TH: The only way is that they need to get used to the lighting and the camera. And also we are very close friends. The cinematographer is also a very good friend. So we make this core group to work and feel comfortable in.  Once they feel comfortable in that, they are themselves. It’s the only way. And if they don’t feel comfortable, it’s very clear there is some problem and we try to deal with it.

For example in the original story,  there was another engineer also, but then he kind of dropped out of the film because he didn't really fit with how things were going.

AB: I also took this responsibility. If we're going to do science, I will tell how the experiments are going to be and what experiments we will do…(Tonislav) didn’t have any way to influence us. He didn’t mess with the experiments and I didn’t mess with where the camera shoots, etc.

TH: And of course beforehand we know very well what the shooting day is going to be like because we have the permissions and the laboratory and the people involved. We cannot just go anywhere with a camera in Finland. We needed at least 2 or 3 weeks in advance to prepare for one shooting day. It’s this kind of process.

MC: Are there any experiments that you had to leave out of the film and regret not being in the final cut?

TH: I believe the best we had were in the film and if we didn’t take any out it would be really long. In the original idea, somewhere there were more proper professors involved. We even shot some talking heads like interviews between Atanas and conversations with the professors. We had 2 or 3 or even more professors. We decided to not concentrate on the science and the professors’ point of view of what’s happening to the engineers.  We’d just let the experiments happen and the engineers themselves realize what is happening and basically concentrate on what is character driven, not someone narrating it.

  

MC: Because of friendships, was there collaboration or separation of filmmaker and subject?

AB: We collaborated with the other subjects.  They took their tasks very seriously. They were checking things online as we were checking things like how to design a proper experiment.

TH: It has never been like that for me. They are not just my subjects, they are my friends.

TV: Yeah all the time we discussed where are we going, what are our new ideas, what can we do, and as Tony mentioned when you need permission to go somewhere, they're not gonna just let four random guys get into the university. We had the support of the producers.

MC: Were there experiment results that surprised you?     

TH: It was really interesting when we did this test about smell and the body. There were some pretty nice reactions from the women…For example we had an experiment where we had the t-shirts of very handsome actors who were running and we put the t-shirts together with their t-shirts and we asked the women which smelled best. Because there’s this idea that if you are in better shape and eat very healthy, that’s what most actors do, then your smell is much more pleasant. Some of the results with these women were exactly the opposite. One woman really liked the guy who was the shabbiest. Of course most of them loved the actor’s t-shirt’s smell. But there were 1 or 2 who were strongly into the other guy, which was really interesting. This was a result that we couldn’t predict. There were many such kind of results.  

Td: One thing was about the experiment with these jokes that we were writing. Markus made this kind of matrix so you could see what kind of girls like what jokes. And mostly they didn’t like them at all. But there was this one girl, number 6, and she rated everything pretty good. So she liked most of the jokes even though they were pretty bad. The girl was a lawyer and very intelligent. And she had a very weird sense of humor. The weirdest and the craziest jokes, she liked the most.

AB: Even for the engineers with a weird sense of humor, there is a proper girl who liked that.

MC: Is there one person who you all felt changed most significantly over the course of the film?

TH: That was Todor. That’s why he ended up the biggest character in the film. Of course the other guys were also changing throughout but Todor was trying the most. And that’s why it was so visible. It didn’t matter if the other guys were around, he tried to go out of his comfort zone. He tried to use what we were talking about, he was trying to change and this is why it was so good.

A: I also had the same opinion. He’s the one that put in the most effort.

Td: There were some guys that put in more effort as far as actually researching and reading papers. But I think you see that emotionally I changed the most.

MC: You really seemed to show a lot of self awareness. Do you feel it’s a result of being in the documentary, or just participating in the experiment?

Td: Well yeah, it’s everything. I’m pretty interested in why I feel a certain way so it’s a very self-centered thing. But for a long time I’ve been obsessed with self-improvement. On many kinds of levels from sports to emotional resilience, so I’m constantly analyzing this sort of thing. If you ask me about anything, I’ll try to figure it out. But I’m told sometimes (I) shouldn’t think so much about these things. But this is how I am. And it’s kind of hard when you realize sometimes things are hard to change, even if you understand them.

MC: The music in the film really gels with the images and sets a mood. Can you talk about coming up with it? Any influences?

TH:  (Peter Dundakov) is a very good friend of mine. We worked on a few movies together. He did the music beforehand. I have to be honest it was pretty rough because I was fighting with him and sometimes it got really aggressive. I had some vision about the music and he was giving me some other things, which is great. The composer has to give you some other things. But he was trying to convince me and I hate when someone is trying to convince me of something I don’t like.  There were fights and there was shouting. But it happens with everyone. He’s a brilliant guy and did a great job. It’s a friendly kind of thing but it’s not an easy process. And even at the end, of course the music was good because it took us one and a half years. We were working constantly on the music. At the end it was really exhausting but of course I’m gonna work with him again, there’s no question.

I wanted something like Moby’s music, which has a feeling that is more like human. It has the voice. It has the humming. And then there is this melodic beat. Then I had this other music by this brilliant DJ, Caribou. I really liked it and in some working trailer with which we pitched the film we used Caribou for the soundtrack especially these two songs Jamela an (  ). they were the last two songs on the album, Odessa.

MC: There was a very impressionable image in the film of rows upon rows of blinking lights in a very large room…

TH:  Assembly.org is the website. Basically every winter and summer an event is held in Helsinki. In the summer it comes up to 10,000 people. They’re all in the same ice hockey hall. They sit together and connect their computers.

AB: Everywhere they are sitting. It is the Woodstock for IT guys. In 2004 they actually had over 10,000 people.

TH: They go together, they play, they do animations.  They do music. It’s a huge LAN party for 4 or 5 days and everyone sleeps and is doing stuff in the same spot. It’s a really huge thing in Scandanavia.

MC: There is also a lot of imagery showing homes with various of screens set up. Does this affect the ability to form relationships?

TH: I’m not so sure. Of course everything affects the way we are.  But I think this has more of an effect on the comfort zone

AB: They form their own kind of nest there.

TH: I think when you are surrounded by gadgets they make you feel more comfortable and secure and this is what makes it hard to go out of the comfort zone.  Everyone should know that when you are in this comfort zone there will never come a girl to knock on your door and say let’s watch a romantic film. It doesn’t work like this. So you have to go out of this nest. And that’s why we are surrounded by gadgets; because they make us feel good.

A: This is why the Google Glasses is the IT guys’ attempt to bring the nest with them.  My advice to all the IT guys is to leave the Google Glasses at home if you are going for a date. Because otherwise you are never going out of that comfort zone.

MC: Did completing Love and Engineering point you in direction of what you would like to do next?

T: Yeah we are already writing a third part of this romantic series, called the mathematics of divorce. It’s about an algorithm of predicting when a couple will divorce. Because Finland has the highest rate of divorces in Europe. So we think there must be some reason for it. It’s going to be a very humorous kind of thing but still a very serious subject.

Tonislav Hristov has been an active documentary filmmaker. Prior to LOVE AND ENGINEERING, he  made 'The Rules of Single Life' in 2011. He also made 'Soul Food Stories,' a documentary about the interaction of individuals from different religious backgrounds living in Bulgaria, which was nominated for the Golden Gate Award at the 2014 San Francisco International Film Festival. 

Ace photography and positive background atmospheric vibes provided by Chocko. Check out his photoactivity on his instagram.

Kinda like being there: Tribeca (my) Final Day: Storyscapes @ The Bombay House Of Imagination at Dune Studios

A visit to the Bombay Sapphire House of Imagination Storyscapes exhibition Saturday, and not seeing any movies, was a very fitting ending to my stint contributing coverage of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival to Unseen Films. With all of these films vying for space in the my cerebral cortex, it was fun to move around the innovative space, share some movie highlights with other attendees, and take in some thought provoking art installations.

  

Situated in what from the outside looked like a very ordinary office building on the west side of Soho, the layout inside was very engaging. With 2 floors being used to house the various interactive works on display, as well as two theaters and plenty of bars where the folks from Bombay Sapphire and their colorful concoctions made it very easy to have a drink or two…or three, it was not a place that one wanted to leave anytime soon after arriving.

The virtual reality based exhibitions I tried out, Clouds, Rise, and Use of Force were all impressive in their use of the Oculus Rift, a combination of goggles and headphones that leaves the viewer completely focused on what is presented before them (as well as behind and to the side). The technology, already being developed in tandem with gaming software, presents you with a seamless view of a virtual space that changes as you shift your head in any direction. The seated exhibit, Rise, encourages the viewer to explore this feature. Two futuristic figures appear posed in various positions that can only be seen when one scrunches their neck to gaze up or down, or at times rotate one’s head more than 90 degrees. In Clouds one can choose different content to explore by focusing one’s attention on a question appearing amongst intricate patterns of light. It works very intuitively, though the artist statements at the end of each path were a bit difficult to concentrate on in the crowded space.

Use of Force presents a real life incident and allows one to walk about a somewhat open space to get closer or further from the focal point. Again I was impressed at how tilting one’s head smoothly changed the angle at which you could take in the content. While it is a very brief moment you are taking in, Use of Force, along with the other exhibits suggested fascinating possibilities of how this technology could be applied, perhaps in the not too distant future. I could imagine tutorials where the ease of use could make it possible for learners to access information in what they feel is the most practical way. Virtual museum spaces could offer this feature as distraction-less and thoroughly absorbing experiences.

And yet, my personal highlight of Storyscapes was not as technology based, but still very innovative. Writer, performer Nathan Penlington, in collaboration with commercial director Fernando Guitierrez de Jesus presented a part live monologue (performed by Penlington) and part film celebrating, informing about, and pulling the audience into the world of Choose Your Own Adventure, a popular series of books aimed at elementary – high school aged students. It was a significant part of many childhoods, my own included, which allowed readers to be the main character and decide the course of the story. Penlington’s passion for the books became quickly evident as he gave an account of the series’ history that showed how very thoroughly he knew these books. Upon entering, everyone was given a device with 5 buttons so that they could choose from a set of choices, with the majority vote guiding the way. At first it was used to gauge the audience on things like their favorite fatal ending from amongst 5 highlights Penlington culled from the series. Looking back at these as an adult added a whole new level of appreciation for series creator and author Edward Packard’s dry wit, and I would now add Choose Your Adventure as a primary suspect in influencing my future dark sense of humor.     

Things transitioned seamlessly into the real life adventure, in which we voted on the course Penlington pursued in tracking down the one time owner of a complete set of the books he acquired on Ebay. A personal journal found within prompted him to seek out its author who very possibly lived through a troubled past. This course initially lead to a bit of disappointment on my part. I was ready to play the game, apply my skills of reason and guide one or more characters to the most exciting ending of a fictional story possible, and perhaps more importantly stay alive! The fact of this being real past events would indicate that all parts of this story had happened, meaning things did work out the way they did. Perhaps many of the choices were mere distractions and if some things had gone astray, I would assume, there was a way to lead things back on course. However some very intriguing ideas come about over the course of the production.  While being a very revealing look at Penlington’s personality, it also directly takes on the question of when it is appropriate to pursue a story versus respecting a subject’s privacy. One also begins to look at the results of the audience choices with heightened anticipation and at times, the vote is very close. If the results do not in fact have a massive effect on the journey’s outcome, its manner of unfolding, while a bit long in parts, truly gets the audience to suspend disbelief. I could imagine this being a very engaging small theater production, of particular intrigue with chatter of a Choose Your Own Adventure movie being in the early stages of development.

With the various names and none too obvious location, the House of Imagination feature of Tribeca can be somewhat elusive, escaping my notice in previous years. I would definitely want to make it a part of my Tribeca experience from now on.

Peering into the Oculus Rift

Old age & existential death: Mine and the majority's favorite fatal Choose
Your Own Adventure ending in Choose Your Own Documentary

A user's view of Force, shown to people on the outside

A piano triggers various voices in On A Human Scale

Artifacts of an incident in The Use Of Force

Navigating the virtual space of The Use Of Force