Blue Island (2022) Hot Docs 2022 NDNF 2022 CAAM Fest 2022

Tze Woon Chan's BLUE ISLAND will kick you in the knees and drop you to the floor. One part recreation, one part documentary and one part essay, the film is nominally a look at the protests in Hong Kong from 2019 and 2020, but the truth is the film is a mediation on the city and it's inhabitants and how both are being crushed by the Chinese government.

I am not certain where to start. Perhaps with the fact I was uncertain at the start. The film begins with a recreation of an escape from Mainland China to Hong Kong in 193 by a young couple. Its a recreation, as much of the film is, but it sets the tone for the long reach of the fetid finger of the Beijing going back decades. I wasn't sure what the film was doing with the recreation but I soon fell into the notion of the people being interviewed giving life to the past and the events that helped to shape them and their view of the world. Quickly my apprehension drifted away as I got lost in the talk of their lives, of their hopes and fears and the reality of life under an oppressive government.

To be honest I am having a hard time putting my thoughts in regard to the film into words. This was a film I felt on a visceral level more than an intellectual one. It's film where the the thoughts followed behind the feelings. 

The power of the film is best represented by the long sequence at the end where Chan reduced the tragedy of Hong Kong down to a level on one to one. Tragedy is best understood hen it's personal and one on one. Chan achieves this by showing us the faces of the people arrested and their charges brought by the government. Its simply close ups of the people we saw in the film looking at us. It left me misty. It was a reaction that was earned, and reaction that burned the level of injustice deeply into my heart. Yes I knew it was bad, but in every other iteration it was distant-even if it was only arms length. In this final sequence, one that was built up to by the previous hour and a half the distance closes and we face to the face with the injustice because we are essentially reaching out to touch the a friend who is in danger.

I was rocked. 

And sometime on I'm still processing, still trying to put words together to really express the power of this film.

Currently on the festival circuit, the film has played Hot Docs, New Directors New Films and will soon  play CAAM Fest 2022.

Once Upon a TIme in Calcutta (2021) NDNF 2022 4/30

Epic drama this is a tale of the city and those that crisscross through the life of a woman named Ela.  Her daughter recently has passed away and she is left drifting. She lives with her husband but live in separate rooms. She needs money but can't sell the theater she was left by her father because her step brother haunts it. She turns to working for her ex-boss a schemer running scams. She also tries to connect with a lost love.

This is a seemingly simple film that grows deeper as it goes on. The more we learn, the farther in we get the more the film expands into a something greater than we had first thought. This is not about just the characters, or humanity but the city and the cycle of life. We are on a wheel of change that everyone and everything must contend- whether they want to or not.

I love this film a great deal. This is one of the few times where I love the use of ONCE UPON A TIME... in the title. I love it because it infers the scale- both epic and small scale. I love how we are seeing a tale that is being pulled out of a city.

This is one of my favorite films from New Directors. It's a film that caught me unaware and delighted me, even as it broke my heart in a million pieces.

What I also loved is this is one of times where I have to thank the programmers of the NDNF series. This film ties in perfectly with other films such as WHITE BUILDINGM, CITY AND THE CITY, and others to form a mini sidebar.

Highly recommended

Children of the Mist (2022) NDNF 2022

If you ever wondered if the director of a documentary will put their camera down and intervene then CHILDREN OF THE MIST will answer that question since director Ha Le Diem steps up and stops a kidnapping when her subject Di is made the target of kidnapping.  She is being kidnapped so that despite being only 13 she is to be married off to a local boy who fancies her. This despite the fact the legal age of marriage in Vietnam is 20. It seems that in remote areas of the country, the kidnapping of young brides is still practiced.

CHILDREN OF THE MIST is the story of DI. She is a young girl on the verge of womanhood, who sees a future outside of the village. She is curious enough to want to expand her mind and continue her education as far as she can. However she is also at the age when the young men around her are contemplating taking her for a bride. It is a fate she is not looking forward to since she sees what the practice has done to her older (but not my much) sister who already has two kids. Over the course of the film we watch the rhythms of the village and watch as the old ways refuse to die.

I was riveted. I was shocked.

This film was absolutely not what I was expecting with the result that the film became something deeply moving. I sat in my seat watching events unfolding, uncertain at times if I was really seeing what I was seeing, an totally shocked as things played out. I mean there is a weird disconnect between the violent removal of the young woman and the matter of fact way it was carried out.

You need to see this.

One of the must sees for New Directors New Films

Onoda – 10,000 Nights in the Jungle (2021) NDNF 2022

Onoda hit me like a ton of bricks. The true(ish) story of a soldier who remained on station alone for decades, seemingly forgotten by his army moved me. There is something about the notion of duty and honor and all of the motions tied up with that really hit home for me.

While the film is based on the life of Hiroo Onoda who remained in the Phillipines for 30 years after the end of the second world war, it is not a historically accurate on his story. The film is not based on Onoda’s memoirs but uses the work of Cendron and Gérard Chenu’s biography and archive as a jumping off point.  Director Arthur Harari and Vincent Poymiro take his story and fashion it into an emotional tale of a man trying to stay alive and do what he feels is his duty. It’s a film rich with ideas, themes and especially emotion. Onoda is not a crazed soldier, he is something much more complex and Harari and Poymiro explore the inner landscape of the man. We are moved by his plight.  By the time the film ended and we saw his journey home I was misty. I felt for him.

To be honest there is a lot going on in this film and I need to see it again a few more times to really feel comfortable discussing it. Its not that there is anything wrong with the film, more that there is so much right with it that I don’t know where to start. I don’t know what I should discuss and what I can leave for you to discover. Yes the film runs almost three hours and it’s a very full three hours. Every moment is carefully constructed to move things along either narratively or emotionally. This is a film where long takes and silences are just as important as motion and dialog. In trying to write on this film I have run into the best sort of a problem , how do I express how a film makes you feel and how it alters how you think.

Frankly I am in love with this film. 45 minutes into watching it I shot off a brief Tweet that I was watching a film that was making me wonder why more people weren’t talking about it. This film that reminds me of all the films from the early to mid 1970’s that opened my eyes to what cinema outside of Hollywood was like. This is a throw back to the grand  days 40 or 50 years when “art cinemas” where opening the minds of regular people to cinemas as literature.

This is one of my favorite films the year so far.

Highly recommended

Robe of Gems (2022) NDNF 2022

Natalia López Gallardo first film as director is a hard film to describe. Following a number of people in Mexico who end up looking for a missing person in the country.

While absolutely a beautiful film, with some stunningly stage sequences and images that burn into your brain for all time, ROBE OF GEMS is narratively confused. Gallardo strives very hard to make a film that you have to work with  but ends up making a film that isn't very clear.  Watching the film I stopped it a couple of times to look at material on the film in the hope of finding something that I felt a I missed and didn't catch by replaying a sequence or two.

This is a film that is very much about something- though it's not completely clear what that is. Actually this is a film that is clearer when you read the official material- which for me is a big no no, since it is my feeling everything we need should be on the screen.

A beautiful and visually haunting miss.

Pilgrims (2022) NDNF 2022

 

Is a solid drama.  It’s a bit low key and as such it may not appeal to everyone but for those who connect with it it is a nice little character study.

The film concerns Paulius who is the brother of Mateus. Mateus was murdered four years ago and he still hasn’t gotten over it. Traveling with Indre, his brother’s girlfriend at the time of the murder, he seeks to reconnect with his brother by revisiting the places, and people, his brother touched in the last hours of his life.

Let me be up front, there are no grand revelations about the events. What I mean by this is this is not a whodunnit, we know who did it and they were tried for the crime. What we are investigating is the interior landscape of the human heart. How does the was heart try to fix itself when it is broken. This film tries to figure that out.

This is a quiet little drama which has a big impact if t clicks with you. If you like a film where how someone acts and moves says as much as what it spoken this film is for you. I say that because there were a couple of times when I was taken aback by a look or a gesture which seemed to say more than the words. Both Giedrius Kiela and Gabija Bargailaite are wonderful.

I really liked this film a great deal. In a festival where the head is more often  tickled over the heart, it was nice to have a film that moved me.

White Building (2021) NDNF 2022

 

Based on the director's own experiences WHITE BUILDING tells the story of a young man who is still living with his parents in a white apartment building. Run down and in a prime location for redevelopment his family is forced to choose whether to fight or go.Meanwhile his friends are leaving the city in order to take high paying jobs over seas.

Time marches on and leaves us all in the dust. How we choose to deal with the changes is the focus of the film. This is a small intimate tale that echoes out of it specificity of Cambodia to anyone living in a world that is rapidly changing. It is the story of how we are not always the captains of our fate except in how we choose to deal with the changes.

This is a small, beautiful film with a real emotional kick. Definitely worth a look for anyone who likes serious drama when it plays New Directors New Films

The New Directors New Films 2022 Curtain Raiser

The annual Museum of Modern Art  Film at Lincoln Center tag team  film  festival New Directors New Films starts this week. This annual festival show cases new films from newer filmmakers that are making waves across the world. The films tend to be more art house than grindhouse. This is a fest that is more aimed at more serious films.

I know, that may have turned those of you who love Hollywood’s blockbusters away, however, at the same time they always screen a number of films you may not see anywhere else.  If you want to see smaller films that are worth a look this is the place to go

I should say that I know there is no way you’re going to come out of this festival loving everything. It’s not possible since the films selections are all over the cinematic spectrum with films covering everything you can imagine literally from art house to the grindhouse. (While they don't dwell on the grindhouse they do occasionally visit it as when a few years back they screened the action masterpiece THE RAID).

As this posts I’ve seen a good number of the films and once again the selections are all over the place. There is the wondrous FIRE OF LOVE about the romance of two vulcanologists, CHILDREN OF THE MIST about a young woman in danger of becoming a kidnapped child bride, to the moving dramas  PILGRIMS ,ONODA 10,000 DAYS IN THE JUNGLE ,one of my favorite films of the year, about a Japanese soldier who spent decades in the jungle, and ONCE UPON A TIME IN CALCUTTA about the change of people and places in the title city. Each film looks and feels different from each other despite falling into similar categories. I have not liked everything, however I completely understand why everyone was programmed.

Lest you think that I am saying something bad by admitting there were films that I didn’t like, I am not. I don’t think the programmers are aiming to give you a great film out of the box every time, rather I have always thought that the fest aimed to show the appreciative audiences where cinema might be going. As I said above, the films are coming from new and newer filmmakers. They are telling stories we haven’t heard before and/or pushing the boundaries of what cinematic story telling can be. I see as many films in the series every year not because I expect to like everything , but rather to have my mind opened about how the rest of the world sees film and the big screen mode of telling stories.

If you love cinema and want know what it can do, really do beyond the visual effects, you must attend New Directors every year.

As I said I’ve seen a bunch of the films. Some like these saw previously:

FIRE OF LOVE

NANNY 

RIOTSVILLE USA 

CATHEDRAL (This is Liz Whittemore's review from Sundance. We will be running another review closer to the play date)

And these I saw for the fest....

HOT IN DAY COLD IN NIGHT is Park Song-yeol's mannered film about a couple trying to make ends meet. Its a quirky film whose charms are going to delight many in the New Directors New Films audiences, who are the sort to like the off kilter. I don't have much more to say about it than that.

SINGING IN THE WILDERNESS is a documentary about a Christian church choir in Little Well Village in China. The film follows as they rose to prominence, and were co-opted by the Chinese government.  Its a thoughtful film that covers a great deal of territory from life in general, to notions of belief as well as government inference. Its a film that is deceptively simple,  hiding a complex under belly. Its a film I have to sit with before I can write it up fully. As such consider this a pointer.

I have also finally seen Dos Estaciones. I am not going to review the film. I mention this because I know the chatter out of Sundance, which in some circles was insanely, great,  influenced my feelings. I want to sit with the film and go back in. Similarly I'm not attempting THE CITY AND THE CITY because I know I am the wrong one to write it up.

Full reviews of several more films will follow close to the time they screen at the festival.

For more information and tickets go here.