Unspoken Cinema

  After a year without audience, the Festival des 3 continents is back in public, in theatres, in Nantes, between the 19th and the 28th of november 2021 ! And I will attend this year's edition. Last year won, ex-aequo, for the Mongolfière d'or, both : 精神０ ( Seishin 0) / Zero / Professeur Yamamoto (2020/Kazuhiro SODA/Japan) 남매의 여름밤 / Moving On (2019/YOON Dan-bi/South Korea) And they will both be projected on Sunday 28th of november. In the lineup, many contemplative gems are featured : TSAI Ming-liang's Days Apichatpong WEERASETHAKUL's Blissfully Yours Whisky by Juan Pablo REBELLA & Pablo STOLL Alamar by Pedro GONZALEZ-RUBIO La vie sur terre by Abderrahmane SISSAKO Mysterious Object At Noon by WEERASETHAKUL And Life Goes On by Abbas KIAROSTAMI Tug by Jon LAZAM A River Runs, Turns, Erases, Replaces by ZHU Shengze (DOCU) Pedro by Natesh HEGDE Follow the round tables and news on their YouTube channel . * * * My reviews from the festival at Unspoken Cinema : La...

On the occasion of the release of Inland Sea on digital platforms (25 November 2019), Rock Salt Releasing contacted me to review it and offered me to interview the filmmaker Mr. Kazuhiro SODA and his producer and wife Kiyoko KASHIWAGI. Both are working jointly since  Mental  (2008; Observational Film #2).You may find his other films on his website  (at Laboratory X).   Kazuhiro SODA used to be a director-editor of 20 min TV documentaries for the NHK, between 1997 and 2004 : a series of over thirty portraits of NewYorkers. But the intensive TV practice and timing was everything he didn't want to do. Thus he conjured up his " Ten Commandments of Observational Filmmaking " and went on to produce his own feature length films independently (self-financed, directed, edited and never scripted). Trained as a fiction director, his vocation for documentaries was initiated by the films of Frederick Wiseman.  I could draw parallels between some of his films and Fre...

Opening sequence : A brief black screen with the sound of water nearby, so that the film starts by titillating our ears first with a calming, soothing tonality. The soundscape lingers as the screen opens, in black & white, on an embankment with the setting sun straight ahead. Two old people, backlit beautifully, are busy working ; one crouching over a bucket full of water and the other bending over an entangled fishing net. – Konnichi wa, says the cameraman off-screen as the old lady turns to the camera, and replies likewise. The film begins with a welcoming greeting (as we are casually introduced to who will become the two main characters of the film). In the foreground, the old lady calls for Wai-chan in the distance. But she soon adds he doesn’t hear well. Cut to the reverse shot, looking back at the lady, and slowly panning toward the legs of the old man who has sit in the shade of a shack. Tilt up, revealing his head, hidden under a cap. Close up of his face, e...

Opening Sequence   Up close, a white cat basking in the sun on the pier, then it walks off screen. Painterly framing of the Ushimado bay, with micro islands in the distance, and a tree branch striking the foreground of the frame top like a Japanese etching. Another view of the bay from higher ground, with the sea cluttered by oyster farms and a boat crossing at mid-screen. Now the camera is handheld onboard of a fisherman boat, looking in at an oyster rack approaching. It’s made of bamboos. Cut to a crane flying off of one of those racks. Face of the fisherman through the windshield of his driver cabin. The fisherman is walking on the bamboo rack without leash or safety gear, wearing a yellow vinyl overall finished with boots. Whip zoom on him crouching to untie one rope. Several shots of him retrieving the ropes. Back on the boat, the hydrolic crane is pulling out of the water a bunch of ropes tied together, revealing clustered oysters hugging the ropes as the ensembl...