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Monday, October 26, 2009

LINKS :: Apichatpong WEERASETHAKUL

@ 10/26/2009 02:40:00 PM By HarryTuttle
Apichatpong WEERASETHAKUL (born 16 July 1970; Bangkok, Thailand) = 39 yold in 2009
5 (feature) films / 4 screenplays (1st film: 1993/latest film: 2009)
INSPIRED BY : ?
C.C.C. films (strict model in red) : White Malady?; Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives; A Letter to Uncle Boonmee; Mobile Men; Luminous People; Emerald; The Anthem; Syndromes and a Century; Worldly Desires; Tropical Malady; Blissfully Yours; Mysterious Object at Noon; Thirdworld; Like the Relentless Fury of the Pounding Waves
INFLUENCE ON : ?
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010) 113' part of the installation The Primitive IMDb - Cannes 2010

A Letter to Uncle Boonmee (2009) 17'40" short from installation The Primitive IMDb -
Phantoms of Nabua (2009) 10'40" short from installation The Primitive -
Mobile Men (2008) 3'15" segment in Stories on Human Rights IMDb -
  • Kick The Machine (Official website)
  • "Beyond The Frame: Mobile Men" By: Rob Dennis (Vertigo UK, Vol.4 No.3, Spring/Summer 2009)
  • (add link here)
Sud Vikal / Vampire (2008) 19' Short Louis Vuitton -
Unknown Forces (2007) Installation
Luminous People (2007) 15'22" segment in O Estado do Mundo IMDb - Cannes 2007
Morakot / Emerald (2007) 11'50" short -
The Anthem (2006) 5' Short - Frieze Art Fair 2006
Sang sattawat / Syndromes and a Century (2006) IMDb - Venice 2006
Ghost of Asia (2005) 9' Short with Christelle Lheureux IMDb -

Worldly Desires / Memories to the Jungle 2001-2005 (2005) 42' Short with Pimpaka Towira IMDb -
Sud pralad / Tropical Malady (2004) IMDb -

  • Kick The Machine (official website)
  • "Ivres de la jungle" By: Dider Péron (Libération, 19 May 2004) [FRENCH]
  • "Course mythologique à travers la jungle à la poursuite d'un homme tigre" By: Jean-François Rauger (Le Monde, 20 May 2004) [FRENCH]
  • "Traque chamanique dans la jungle du désir" By: Jacques Mandelbaum (Le Monde, 24 Nov 2004) [FRENCH]
  • "La magie opère" By: Louis Guichard (Télérama, #2863, 24 Nov 2004) [FRENCH]
  • "Moins on est de fous, mieux on filme" By: Annick Peigné-Giuly (Libération, 25 Apr 2005) [FRENCH]
  • "Tropical drive, Mulholland Malady" By: Hervé Aubron (Vertigo FR, #27, Mar 2005) [FRENCH]
  • "Un trou dans le mur" By: Charles de Meaux & Cyril Neyrat (Vertigo FR, #27, Mar 2005) [FRENCH]
  • "Tropical Malady" By: James Quandt (in Apichatpong Weerasethakul, FilmmuseumSynemaPublikationen; Vol. 12; Vienna; April 2009)
  • "The Strange Story of a Strange Beast. Receptions in Thailand of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Sat Pralaat" By: Benedict Anderson (in Apichatpong Weerasethakul, FilmmuseumSynemaPublikationen; Vol. 12; Vienna; April 2009)
  • "Texte zu Weerasethakul. Eine Sammlung" A collection of texts by Weerasethakul By: Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Cargo, ?) [GERMAN]
  • "The Rupture. A Thai interpreter of Malady explains his split decisions" By: Chuck Stephens (The Village Voice, 21 Jun 2005)
  • "For those who have seen Tropical Malady" By: Brian Darr (Hell On Frisco Bay, 8 Apr 2007)
  • (add link here)
46664 / Give 1 Minute of Your Time To AIDS (2003) 1' Short -

Hua jai tor ra nong / The Adventures of Iron Pussy (2003) IMDb -

  • Kick The Machine (official website)
  • "The Adventure of Iron Pussy and other collaborations" By: James Quandt (in Apichatpong Weerasethakul, FilmmuseumSynemaPublikationen; Vol. 12; Vienna; April 2009)
  • "Texte zu Weerasethakul. Eine Sammlung" A collection of texts by Weerasethakul By: Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Cargo, ?) [GERMAN]
  • (add link here)
Second Love in Hong Kong (2002) Installation with Christelle Lheureux
Sud sanaeha / Blissfully Yours (2002) IMDb -
  • Kick The Machine (official website)
  • "Extase thaï" By: Philippe Azoury (Libération, 17 May 2002) [FRENCH]
  • "Un moment de bonheur arraché à la jungle" By: Thomas Sotinel (Le Monde, 18 May 2002) [FRENCH]
  • "Apichatpong Weerasethakul, l'endémoniste" By: Brice Pedroletti (Le Monde, 18 May 2002) [FRENCH]
  • "Septième ciel" By: Amélie Dubois (Les Inrocks, 9 Oct 2002) [FRENCH]
  • "Blissfully Yours" By: Louis Guichard (Télérama, #2752, 9 Oct 2002) [FRENCH]
  • "Sensuellement hypnotique" By: Annie Coperman (Les Echos, 10 Oct 2002) [FRENCH]
  • "Si singulier 'Blissfully Yours'" By: Didier Péron (Libération, 19 Oct 2002) [FRENCH]
  • "Love in the Afternoon" By: J. Hoberman (The Village Voice, 1 Jun 2004)
  • "A Sewer Rash, a River in Eden and a Stream of Tears" By: Manohla Dargis (NYT, 24 Sept 2004)
  • "Une maison dans les bois" By: Catherine Ermakoff (Vertigo FR; #31; 2007) [FRENCH]
  • "FOCUS: Blissfully Yours. Towards the Wondrous Void" By: Tony Rayns (Vertigo magazine UK, Vol. 3 No. 4, Winter 2007) PDF
  • "Blissfully Yours" By: James Quandt (in Apichatpong Weerasethakul, FilmmuseumSynemaPublikationen; Vol. 12; Vienna; April 2009)
  • "Texte zu Weerasethakul. Eine Sammlung" A collection of texts by Weerasethakul By: Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Cargo, ?) [GERMAN]
  • (add link here)
Haunted Houses Project Thailand (2001) 60' -

Masumi Is a PC Operator (2001) 6' Short from installation Narratives IMDb -

Dokfa nai meuman / Mysterious Object at Noon (2000) IMDb -

  • Kick The Machine (official website)
  • "Un jeu d'enfant" By: Cyril Neyrat (Vertigo FR, #27, Mar 2005) [FRENCH]
  • "Mysterious Object at Noon" By: James Quandt (in Apichatpong Weerasethakul, FilmmuseumSynemaPublikationen; Vol. 12; Vienna; April 2009)
  • "Texte zu Weerasethakul. Eine Sammlung" A collection of texts by Weerasethakul By: Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Cargo, ?) [GERMAN]
  • (add link here)
Boys at Noon (2000) 23' Short IMDb -
Malee and the Boy (1999) 25' Short IMDb -

Windows (1999) 17' Short -
Goh Gayasit / Thirdworld (1997) 17' Short IMDb -
Mae Ya Nang / Like the Relentless Fury of the Pounding Waves (1994) 22'37" Short IMDb -

0116643225059 (1994) 5' Short IMDb -

Kitchen and Bedroom (1994) Short IMDb -

  • (add link here)
Bullet (1993) Short IMDb -

  • (add link here)


GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
  • "Les surprises du cinéma thaï" By: Seno Joko Suyone, Arif Firmansayah, Akmal Nasery Basral (Courrier International, #720, 19 Aug 2004) [FRENCH]
  • "Sur les traces de Tropical Malady" By: Jean-Marc Lalanne (Les Inrockuptibles, 24 Nov 2004) dossier 8p. [FRENCH]
  • "Un trou dans le mur. Entretien avec Charles de Meaux" By: Cyril Neyrat (Vertigo FR, #24, 5 Dec 2004) PDF
  • "Tropical drive, Mulholland Malady" By: Hervé Aubron (Vertigo FR, #27, Mar 2005) [FRENCH]
  • "Un coup dans la machine. Apichatpong Weerasethakul" By:Antoine Thirion (Vertigo Fr, #30, Apr 2007) [FRENCH]
  • "Two Letters" By: Mark Cousins & Tilda Swinton (in Apichatpong Weerasethakul, FilmmuseumSynemaPublikationen; Vol. 12; Vienna April 2009)
  • "Resistant to Bliss: Describing Apichatpong" By: James Quandt (in Apichatpong Weerasethakul, FilmmuseumSynemaPublikationen; Vol. 12; Vienna; April 2009)
  • "Cinema of Reincarnations" By: Kong Rithdee (in Apichatpong Weerasethakul, FilmmuseumSynemaPublikationen; Vol. 12; Vienna; April 2009)
  • "Touching the Voidness. Films by Apichatpong Weerasethakul" By: Tony Rayns (in Apichatpong Weerasethakul, FilmmuseumSynemaPublikationen; Vol. 12; Vienna; April 2009)
  • "A Man Who Can Recall His Past Lives. Installations by Apichatpong Weerasethakul" By: Karen Newman (in Apichatpong Weerasethakul, FilmmuseumSynemaPublikationen; Vol. 12; Vienna; April 2009)
  • "AUTEUR, AUTEUR: After Tropical Malady" By: Graeme Hobbs (vertigo UK, Vol.4 No.3, Spring-Summer 2009)
  • (add reference here)

BOOK on Apichatpong WEERASETHAKUL

GENERAL ONLINE ARTICLES

INTERVIEW

TEXT BY Apichatpong WEERASETHAKUL
  • "Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Syndromes and a century. Carnet d'un cinéaste" (Cahiers du cinéma, #618, ?) [FRENCH]
  • "Ghosts in the Darkness" By: Apichatpong Weerasethakul (in Apichatpong Weerasethakul, FilmmuseumSynemaPublikationen; Vol. 12; Vienna; April 2009)
  • "Texte zu Weerasethakul. Eine Sammlung" A collection of texts by Weerasethakul (Cargo, ?) [GERMAN] on Mysterious Object At Noon, Blissfully Yours, The Adventure of the Iron Pussy, Tropical Malady, Syndromes and a century
  • (add reference here)

WEBSITES

DOCUMENTARY ON Apichatpong WEERASETHAKUL
  • (add reference here)
Please complete, correct when needed. This is an ongoing resource page to be updated.
Tags : , 9 commentaires

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Werckmeister Harmonies

@ 10/17/2009 03:29:00 AM By Just Another Film Buff
Pick up the ordinary film that chronicles the rise of fascism prior to the second world war and you know what to expect – a nation penalized for the first war, a corporal in resentment, his becoming a key figure, formation of ideology, those mesmerizing speeches, rise to power and finally, the ruthless extermination of humans. Well, you know the routine. Rare is the case that such a film is historically inaccurate or morally flawed, but what is troubling is that a single person is made the focal point of such monumental passages of history – as if satisfying our need for a villain as we do for a hero. Not that I am in defense of any such individual, but how on earth can a single person independently cause the galvanization of a whole nation? However convincing his words and however significant his moves are, it is finally the mass and the intentions that run through it that make it possible. From what can be seen as an adversarial position, Béla Tarr’s Werckmeister Harmonies (2000) chillingly exposes the other side of the loudspeaker – a film that is to the ordinary documentary what Goodfellas (1990) is to The Godfather (1972).

Like most films by Tarr and similar directors, Werckmeister Harmonies does not rely heavily on its plot. Based on a book, The Melancholy of Resistance by László Krasznahorkai, Werckmeister Harmonies plays out in an unnamed town in an unnamed country in an unspecified year (though images indicate a year in the eighties). The whole town seems to be in a state of total fear and insecurity after the arrival of a certain circus whose performers include a dead white whale and a man called The Prince. Unrest ensues as the town mailman János Valuska (Lars Rudolph) witnesses the place fall apart, unable to do anything about it. János is the epitome of curiosity and learning about nature and creation for him seems to bring abundant joy. He often attends to György Eszter (Peter Fitz), a music theorist whose interest lies in exposing mistakes of the past. At this terrible time, Tünde Eszter (Hanna Schygulla) – the Satan figure of the story – tells Valuska that she would restore “order and cleanliness” within the town if only he gets her ex-husband, the theorist, to gather a few important signatures. But “order” too, seems to be a subjective term.

Werckmeister Harmonies does form an interesting companion to Tarr’s magnum opus Sátántangó (1994) in some ways. While Sátántangó is about the disintegration of a collective will due to fear, passivity and plain ignorance, Werckmeister Harmonies is about the formation of one because of the same factors. The characters, too, seem to repeat themselves across the films. The working class in Werckmeister Harmonies (the foreign workers) succumbs supposedly to the speeches of The Prince owing to its ignorance and social condition whereas, in Sátántangó, the same group (farmers) buckles under the conflict between personal and collective will and, simply, the inability to adhere to an objective. The inebriate doctor – the only sign of intelligence in Sátántangó – is not much different from the music theorist here. Tarr teases us with questions about the role of intellectuals in revolution in both films. Both the doctor and the music theorist, perhaps disillusioned by the state of the affairs, force themselves to become apolitical and into a personal shell out of which they come out only in order to maintain it so (The doctor leaves the house to get his quota of booze whereas the theorist, to avoid the return of his wife to his house). And the only “sane” person – Futaki in Sátántangó and János here- who sees the misfortune coming is completely helpless and battered about by the mindless workers and the spineless intelligentsia.

The element that seems to be a new addition in Werckmeister harmonies is the tangible presence of a middle class. Leftist filmmakers have maintained that the prime reason for the rise of fascism is the complacent nature of the bourgeoisie and the political and social passivity that it seems glad to wallow in. Here too, the bourgeois seems unwilling to give up that position. They are never seen outdoors in the film, they are contented with having sex and delivering monologues about the state of the world. Neither are they desperate and active enough to be The Prince’s followers nor do they seem capable of pursuing higher interests. The doctor notes about the farmers in Sátántangó: “They haven’t a clue that it is this idle passivity that leaves them at the mercy of what they fear most”. But here, it seems like it is the middle class that is too short-sighted to see the doom heading towards them and hence too happy maintain status quo.

In the film, The Prince apparently quotes that people who are afraid do not understand. Tarr too seems to be concerned with the notion of fear, ignorance and violence being stimulants of fascism and presents them as the three sides of a triangle with each one perpetuating the others. Being the Wong Kar Wai of monochrome, Tarr employs black and white colours extensively and in an expressionistic fashion to juggle with the ideas of ignorance and knowledge, fear and courage and war and peace. János’ shuttling between his desire to learn and the inertia imposed upon him by the townsfolk culminates in his witnessing of the inevitable streak of violence. In what may be one of the most effective and chilling depiction of violence in cinema, we see the rabid folks enter a hospital and put down its inhabitants. There is complete detachment by the camera which continues to track away as ever to leave a lump in your throat. It’s a sequence that is so stunningly choreographed that it almost deserves to be called beautiful despite its nature.

In his superb article on the ontological entities of the filmic medium, Mani Kaul reflects upon the Deleuzian theory of time and movement in cinema. Watching Tarr’s later films, now, seems like a practical demonstration of the theory. It is a unanimous opinion that it is Tarr’s shot composition – seemingly endless, rich in detail and “atmospheric” – that captures the attention of the viewer first. Where other films subordinate time to the action and space under consideration, Tarr’s sequences have time as the primary axis on which movements are choreographed. Instead of questions like ‘What will he do next?’, we are forced to ask questions like ‘When will this motion end?’. What this does in essence is to make each second of the sequence precious and the audience conscious of the same. And why this seems to work exceedingly well in films like Werckmeister Harmonies is because it provides that sense of impending doom – of the inevitability of a massacre – throughout the film.

Tarr presents us an utterly bleak world where death seems to be the only destination for all its inhabitants. He creates a colourless land that is flat, barren and infinite – an isolated world where almost no two social classes are seen in the same frame, except János himself who seems to percolate everywhere. In my favorite of the 39 shots in the film, János and the theorist walk without speaking a single word for a long time. Tarr, unusually, frames them both, in profile, in the same frame such that they seem stationery with the world moving behind them – choking them into the frame and sealing the fate of their journey. The world in Werckmeister Harmonies is devoid of any notions of Faith and Karma. It’s a Godless universe like Tarr’s own (as the director has claimed in interviews). But perhaps there is God here, but not one that goes by the conventions. Towards the end, when János tries to flee the town, an enigmatic black helicopter – a possible nod, along with the army tank in the town, to the Spider God of Through a Glass Darkly (1961) and Silence (1963) respectively – forces him to return back. It’s worse than God’s indifference, it is Satan’s Tango. It is in this instability where people like The Prince – a distorted version of the circus director, whose troupe is the whole town – take advantage, create a symphony of destruction and well, play God.

But that is the exact kind of narrative that seems to suit our “ordinary documentary”. The Prince can easily be called the root cause of the entire disturbance, but that would only be too easy. We actually never know if The Prince (or the whale) is responsible for it at all. The whale is dead and hence a mute observer and The Prince, who speaks in a foreign language and whose words we obtain only secondhand, isn’t even seen in the film. In what may be a “whale” of a Macguffin, Tarr tempts us to pin the blame on the two foreign entities. But it eventually becomes evident that it is the people themselves – the workers and Tünde Eszter – who are the fascists, taking the mute and the invisible “guests” as pretext for violence. Violence that exterminates the apathetic bourgeois, persuades the hermetic clerisy out of its shell and makes the working class the pawns of a power game. One may remember Tarr’s sarcastic take on “Let there be Light” in Sátántangó, where the doctor seals off every possible entry of light into his hut (and where this film seems to take off from, in a way). At the end of Werckmeister Harmonies, the only survivor in this war, Tünde Eszter, who is the most patient and diabolically thoughtful of all the characters in the film, goes on to rule. I can see Mr. Tarr chuckling as he quotes “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth”!
Tags : , , , 1 commentaires

Monday, October 05, 2009

LINKS :: Albert SERRA

@ 10/05/2009 12:49:00 AM By HarryTuttle
Albert SERRA (born 1975; Banyoles, Girona, Cataluña, Spain) = 34 yold in 2009
3 films / 3 screenplays (1st film: 2003/latest film: 2008)
INSPIRED BY : Richard Fleischer; Andy Warhol; Rainer Werner Fassbinder; Lisandro Alonso ?
C.C.C. films (strict model in red) : Birdsong ; Quixotic
INFLUENCE ON : ?
Fiasco (2008) Short YouTube 4'16"
  • "¿Y esto?" By: Quintín (la lectora provisoria, 27 Nov 2008) [SPANISH]
  • (add link here)
El Cant dels Ocells / Birdsong (2008) IMDb link - Cannes 2008

Honor de Cavalleria / Quixotic (2006) IMDb link - Cannes 2006

  • "El cielo del Quijote" By: Daniel V. Villamediana (Letras de Cine, #11 - 2006) [SPANISH]
  • "Albert Serra, Quichotte et sang chaud" By: Jean-Philippe Tessé (Cahiers du cinéma, #613, Jun 2006) [FRENCH]
  • "Playing with Fire: The Craziness of the Quinzaine des réalisateurs" By: Christoph Huber (cinemascope, #27, 2006)
  • "Contemplative cinema and Honor of the Knights" By: Doug Cummings (Film Journey, 8 Jan 2007)
  • "C'est Don Quichotte qui vous appelle" By: Emmanuel Burdeau (Cahiers du cinéma, #621, March 2007) [FRENCH]
  • "Honor de Cavalleria d'Albert Serra" By: Serge Kaganski (Les Inrockuptibles, 13 Mar 2007) [FRENCH]
  • "Le mythe de Don Quichotte resitué dans un film idéaliste" By: Isabelle Regnier (Le Monde, 15 Mar 2007) [FRENCH]
  • "Tracking Shots" By: Scott Foundas (The Village Voice, 11 Sept 2007)
  • "Reflections of Don Quixote" By: Matt Zoller Seitz (NYT, 21 Sept 2007)
  • "Le monde à 360 degrés. Honor de cavalleria d’Albert Serra" By: Cyril Neyrat (revue Vertigo, #30, Sept 2007) [FRENCH]
  • "'Glory Knight' and positive anti-Yoshichika" By: ? (Malka y Mafalda, 25 Jun 2008) [JAPANESE]
  • "Honor de cavalliera d’Albert Serra" (sic) By: Elina Lowensohn (Objectif Cinema, ?) [FRENCH]
  • "Honor de Cavalleria" By: Albert Serra (Capricci, May 2010) [FRENCH]
  • (add link here)
Crespià, the film not the village (2003) IMDb link - Festival Internacional de Cinema de Catalunya
  • (add link here)


GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
  • (add reference here)

BOOK on Albert SERRA
  • "Honor de Cavalleria" By: Albert Serra (Capricci, May 2010) [FRENCH] shot-by-shot analysis
  • (add reference here)

GENERAL ONLINE ARTICLES

INTERVIEW

TEXT BY Albert SERRA
  • "Barcelona" By: Albert Serra (Ekran Untranslated, Apr-May 2007) [SPANISH]
  • "Le chant des oiseaux documents" By: Albert Serra (Cahiers du cinéma, #641, Jan 2009) [FRENCH] note d'intention + scenario of El Cant dels Ocells
  • "Pourquoi travailler avec des amateurs ?" leçon de cinéma, Moulin d’Andé-Céci, Editions Capricci, 2009 video 13'47"
  • (add reference here)

WEBSITES

DOCUMENTARY ON Albert SERRA
Please complete, correct when needed. This is an ongoing resource page to be updated.
Tags : , 2 commentaires

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

LINKS :: Lisandro ALONSO

@ 9/30/2009 12:29:00 PM By HarryTuttle
Lisandro ALONSO (born 2 Jun 1975; Buenos Aires, Argentina) = 34 yold in 2009
4 films / 4 screenplays (1st film: 2001/latest film: 2008)
INSPIRED BY : Fernando Birri (Tire dié, Los inundados), Héctor Babenco (Pixote), Jorge Preloran, Nicolas Sarquis (Palo y hueso), Lumière, Abbas Kiarostami, Werner Herzog (Aguirre)?
C.C.C. films (strict model in red) : Liverpool ; Fantasma ; Los Muertos ; La Libertad
INFLUENCE ON : Paz Encina ?
S/T sin titulo (2009) Short - BAFICI 2009
Liverpool (2008) IMDb link - Quinzaine des Réalisateurs Cannes 2008
Fantasma (2006) IMDb link - Cannes 2006

Los Muertos (2004) IMDb link - Cannes 2004

  • "Le deuxième souffle" By: Jean-Philippe Tessé (Cahiers du cinéma, n° 590; May 2004) [FRENCH]
  • "L'épopée stupéfiante d'un solitaire" By: Jacques Mandelbaum (Le Monde; 15 May 2004) [FRENCH]
  • "Des acteurs vierge de cinéma" By: Thomas Sotinel (Le Monde; 15 May 2004) [FRENCH]
  • "Lisandro Alonso : géométrie variable" By: Emmanuèle Frois (Le Figaro, 15 May 2004) [FRENCH]
  • "That's How a Man Lives" By: Andy Rector (FIPRESCI; 2004)
  • "L' oubli et l'oubli" By: Sylvain Coumoul (Cahiers du cinéma, n° 595, Nov 2004) [FRENCH]
  • "L'enfer vert" By: Vincent Ostria (Les Inrocks; 3 Nov 2004) [FRENCH]
  • "Bouffée d'anxiogène" By: Didier Péron (Libération; 3 Nov 2004) [FRENCH]
  • "Los Muertos" By: Jacques Morice (Télérama; 3 Nov 2004) [FRENCH]
  • "Lisandro Alonso filme son tropisme pour la vie sauvage" By: Thomas Sotinel (Le Monde; 6 Nov 2004) [FRENCH]
  • "Los Muertos end credits" By: Zach Campbell (a_film_by, 23 Feb 2005)
  • "Los Muertos, 2004" By: acquarello (Strictly Film School, 19 Feb 2005)
  • "Los Muertos, 2004" By: Mohit Sabharwal (The New Delhi Biscuit Company, 24 Apr 2005)
  • "Lisandro Alonso. Bevrijd in de jungle" By: Gabe Klinger (Filmkrant, #270, Oct 2005) [DUTCH]
  • "Films That Got Away" By: Andy Rector (KINO SLANG; 1 Jul 2006)
  • "Got Your Goat" By: Nathan Lee (The Village Voice; 27 March 2007)
  • "Los Muertos" By: Matt Zoller Seitz (NYT; 5 Apr 2007)
  • "Los Muertos", "Quiet City" By: Michael Atkinson (IFC; 28 Jan 2008)
  • "Los Muertos (Lisandro Alonso, 2004)" By: grunes (Dennis Grunes, 23 Jul 2008)
  • "Lisandro Alonso『Los Muertos』" By: maplecat-eve (maplecat-eve Diary; 5 Oct 2009) [JAPANESE]
  • (add link here)
La Libertad (2001) IMDb link - NYFF 2001

Dos en la vereda (1995) short

  • (add link here)


GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOOK on Lisandro ALONSO
  • (add reference here)

GENERAL ONLINE ARTICLES

INTERVIEW

TEXT BY Lisandro ALONSO

WEBSITES

DOCUMENTARY ON Lisandro ALONSO
  • (add reference here)
Please complete, correct when needed. This is an ongoing resource page to be updated.
Tags : , 10 commentaires

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Still Life

@ 9/13/2009 01:57:00 PM By Just Another Film Buff
Sohrab Shahid Saless’ Still Life (Tabiat-e Bijan, 1974) is, barring Kiarostami’s Homework (1989), the greatest Iranian film that I’ve seen. To see that even during the pre-revolution era, when the escapist cinema of Hollywood and its imitations were much more popular, such uncompromising and quality films were being made is both surprising and hope-instilling. Typically European in its form but uniquely Iranian in its content, Still Life is the kind of movie that contemporary contemplative cinema takes off from. Produced by a newly formed group called Kanun-e Sinemagaran-e Pishro (Centre for Avant-Garde Filmmakers), that also produced some of Mehrjui’s early features, the film was one of the many films that were discontented with the existing way of governance. Although never overtly political, Still Life not only manages to critique deeply the disparity that existed between villages and cities of the country during the Shah’s regime, but also remains one of the best works from the country till date. Let’s wait and see what the present-day Iran brings in reply to this masterwork.

Still Life documents a period in the life of Mohammad Sardari (Bonyadi), a veteran employee of the railway services living in a rural part of the country and whose sole job is to close and open a railway crossing few times a day. He is waiting for a festival bonus from the department that is long pending. He is married and his wife (Zahra Yazdini) supplements his income by weaving carpets and carrying out minor tailoring jobs. We are only given such utterly quotidian details from his everyday life – he operates the railway gates in the morning, he rests at his accommodation near the crossing, he returns home for lunch, he goes back to operate the crossing for the evening train, he returns home for dinner and he sleeps - but that is all there is to Sardari. We are also given a few glimpses of his son who returns home for a day from the military service and a bunch of customers who exploit Sardari by underpaying him for the carpets his wife has woven. One day he receives a letter from the railway department that intimates him of his retirement from service. Sardari is unable to comprehend the meaning of the letter and starts to believe that he has been unreasonably given the sack. Heartbroken, he decides to go to the department headquarters located in the city and find out the reason.

Saless’ style is remarkable here. Almost throughout the entire film, he presents us long, uninterrupted extreme long shots of Sardari going about doing his routine at the railway crossing. Even when the old man is home, Saless and cinematographer Hushang Baharlu give us mostly medium and long shots that are filmed with the camera placed at the ground level, sometimes reminiscent of Ozu. In either case, Saless’ eye is that of an ethnological documentarian - interested in what his protagonist is doing, but never wanting more than that. The mise en scène is spare, stripped down to bare essentials, with a chunk of space between the characters and the camera. Even gestures, dialogues and movements are reduced to an absolute minimum. Watching the indoor scenes in Still Life is like gazing at an aquarium in which the fishes indifferently perform the same mundane activities over and over again. Halfway into the film one is acquainted with the routines of the old man and his wife. He comes home, rolls his cigarette, and starts smoking and she continues to stitch clothes and weave carpets. Even when their son returns home after a long time, conversations are perfunctory and the character functions are unhampered.

But what is singular about Still Life is the way it handles cinematic time. Saless, while letting us witness individual scenes unfold in real time – be it entire dinner sessions or railway transitions – without hindrance, shuffles the order of these scenes in a way that disregards chronology. In one scene in the film we see the couple’s son return home and in the next one, he is missing. And then he’s back in the subsequent one. Soon one notices that most of the scenes could have taken place in any arbitrary order in real time and each of those orders is essentially irrelevant, given the idea of the film. What’s the use of chronology when time repeats itself by going in cycles? In Jeanne Dielman (1976), Chantal Akerman used each day of the protagonist life’s to illustrate its microscopic deviation from the previous. She seemed to be essentially constructing a spiral out of Jeanne’s life – a structure that made her life seem to go in circles but which, in actuality, ends only in annihilation. Saless, on the other hand, treats time as some form of stray deadlock that could only be resolved by an alien intervention. Within this loop, all time is one and each day is virtually indistinguishable from the other.

In one scene that comes towards the end of the film, Sardari visits the railway headquarters to seek an explanation for the retirement notice. In the building, he notices a pair of officers scanning through old photographs reminiscing about the past and talking about plans for the weekend, And just there, Saless provides the most overt and powerful contrast between the life in rural and urban Iran. The officers with a lush past and a busy future stand directly in opposition to Sardari, whose past is almost non-extant and whose future promises nothing different. Still Life would definitely form an interesting companion piece to Antonioni’s Blowup (1966), which seems to resonate more and more with the years. Both Thomas (played by David Jennings) and Sardari are perfectly alienated creatures who pass through life without an iota of an idea about their place in the world. Only that their geographical locations are poles apart. Thomas is one of cinema’s many alienated urbanites trying to impart a meaning to their lives. On the other hand, Sardari is the rare villager who believes that life will go on as it is and who is nudged to action only when that belief is shattered. But in essence, both of them are individuals wallowing in their own world unable to snap out of it.

Even with all its serious themes, Still Life isn’t entirely humourless. There is a constant undercurrent of dark comedy throughout the film (In a masterstroke of black humour, Saless has Sardari regularly tune the alarm clock!), but, like all the other elements of the film, it remains extremely subtle and never thrusts itself upon us. Instead, Saless builds one stretch of time upon another, elevating the film from the territory of mere narrative cinema to the realm of the philosophical, the experiential and the contemplative. In the shattering last scene of the film, we see Sardari, who is now forced to accept the reality that he can no longer work at the railway crossing, vacating his quarters. After he loads the cart with his possessions, he decides to check the house one last time for any object he may have forgotten. As he stands in the middle of the now-empty house, gazing at the room of whose inanimate furniture he had become a part of through the years, Sardari notices the final remnant of his life at this place – a piece of mirror hanging on the wall. He reaches out to collect it and, in the process, looks at himself for the first time in the film. Mohammad Sardari has indeed become old.


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