Satantango - La león

Split screen comparison of the opening sequence of both Satantango (1994/Tarr/Hungary) and La león (2007/Otheguy/Argentina) by Michel Reilhac (Arte, France) 16 Mar 2010 [FRENCH]

Casting a Glance (James Benning)

Présentation de Spiral Jetty et casting a glance au Jeu de Paume from Independencia on Vimeo. 21' [FRENCH/ENGLISH] Jeu de Paume, Paris. 24 Oct 2009.
James Benning, Raymond Bellour, Cyril Neyrat, Antoine Thirion.

Table ronde James Benning au Jeu de Paume from Independencia on Vimeo. 1h47' [FRENCH/ENGLISH]. Jeu de Paume, Paris. 24 Oct 2009.
James Benning, Raymond Bellour, Cyril Neyrat, Antoine Thirion.

Passif ou pensif

Il en résulte un cinéma exigeant, nécessitant une attention soutenue. Les plans sont longs, fixes et peu nombreux, de plus en plus sans paroles, animés de mouvements minimaux, et généralement fondés sur la mise en valeur des processus de répétition ou de variation naturelles, climatiques, industrielles, politiques, historiques, etc. Une partie de la difficulté vient de ce que tout est posé sans précaution. Infliger cette autre temporalité pourra être perçu comme une posture violente. Tout du moins exaspérante au premier abord. Puis, comme un geste comique et émancipateur. L'exaspération dûe à la durée longue et à la répétition, lorsqu'elles ont assez identifié le motif à partir duquel surviennent les variations, révèle une richesse infinie. C'est un cinéma qui rétribue largement ces efforts. La récompense vient quand la quantité de paroles dans le film est inversement proportionnel au bavardage dans les têtes des spectateurs. Quand le film a réussi à produire cette atmosphère pensive ; non pas passive et contemplative, mais méditative, absorbée, concentrée et active.

"De James Bolex à H.D. Benning. intervention #4" par Antoine Thirion (Independencia). Extrait.

Dardenne masterclass 2010 (Paris)

La Master class de Jean-Pierre et Luc Dardenne
( forumdesimages ) FRENCH 1h40'

A free-film-verse by Andzrej Wajda

Tatarak*
A free-film-verse by Andzrej Wajda

Does the genre exist at all? Can we imagine a deliberately freely composed film-poem in which the required formal rules of poetic speech can’t be easily found? Where rhymes and cadences do have their unique rhythm, consonances and dissonances and the loosely interwoven elements create their own tone and lyrical ambiance, - although never in the regular way. Wajda’s Tatarak seems to realize this unusual enterprise and regardless of its surprising fragmentation or decisive combination of unrelated “story-parts”, we are touched by this music and are open to feel the profound emotional authenticity of the work.

Tatarak is built up from three or maybe four components in order to bring about a captivating whole. Not an easy venture! The departure point, according to the director, was a short story rooted in the past, written by his favorite writer, Iwaszkiewicz, dealing with the memories of a woman who has lost her two sons in the Resistance. The second source has been the discovery of a doctor about the fatal illness of his wife, remaining unknown to her. However a sudden desire and attraction that spontaneously stirs in her for a young man, has to be related to this inner premonition of death. Finally, a seemingly totally self-contained monologue in one single take by the leading actress: Krystyna Janda who tells the tragic end of her husband’s last days, frames the movie. These are her own words, offered to the director, since the defunct husband used to be his closest friend and chief cinematographer in many of his former films. No wonder that for a few scenes the making of the film has its place within the movie, as well.

Mourning, remembrance and desire, pain and moments of light are gently bound together. The melancholy is not simply enveloped in foreboding darkness but sometimes it brightens in breathing, lively passion. Telling silences, moving back and forth movements in space and time carry along the rather few episodes.

The film starts with the view of the waving river, shining, peacefully. No threatening undulations disturb its floating silkiness. How to foresee that it will be the watery grave of the young man who drowns in it while intending to bring to the woman the lethal plant? The opening image doesn’t “foretell” the tragic end and we will only later, “aftermath” understand that this was the film within the film. Yet, despite the intricate structure and order, in the way as life and movie making are intertwined, it undeniably becomes the metaphor of the work: that of passing time and sorrow.

After this evocative first vision a truly courageous jump leads and contributes to the deliberately “ broken unity” of Tatarak. The mentioned monologue of Krystyna Janda. We are in a totally dark room, black covers, black wall and shirt dominate the vision. Light spots on her blond hair, a slight beam of light through a narrow window while the actress, the real suffering widow, spells out her most personal and grievous lament. Her body is restless, she moves around the room, struggling with words and emotions as she tries to remember and revive the last terrible days of the agonizing husband. Her words are the simplest, the mentioned fragments of events are the most trivial; the efforts to get the final medical report from the hospital; to accompany him home in the car while he had to piss so often; the petty troubles with the plummer… But the unyielding puzzled remorse of her actress self: “how could I perform this very night on the stage?” recurs to her repetitively, or another time: how did we still want to dream about a common trip to Italy?....How to be ready to the end?....Irrevocable moments, - we know that indeed, the text is written by herself, paying farewell or homage to the most beloved one, addressing him once again, since this has been the only possible way to accept her participation in this movie.

This single long take, with the shivering truthfulness and most startling simplicity, is an upsetting prelude. It anticipates the major motifs of the coming story: death, and the ensuing mourning, the irresolvable grief as it accompanies one like a pertaining shadow. However nothing extraordinary makes it overly dramatic. On the contrary. Wajda-Krystyna relates the tormenting, mundanely passing time in the most detailed way and plain account. Unendurable minutes follow unendurable minutes, until the last spoon of soup can be swallowed, before the body becomes cold… Because death is not merely maddening, but revealed-remembered in its natural, physical reality, as well. For it is part of everybody’s life, it ensconces itself in our body, sometimes more latently, sometimes in a more manifest way - its hunger and presence is violent, merciless, ravaging and forceful. The living body always contains mortality in itself. The woman’s sensibility presents both extreme aspects of it: only through bodily actions and moments we are used to experience the almost non-receptible reality.

Wajda tackles this weight without the slightest pathos. Human pain is unadorned, common destiny, shared by everybody, once we get closer to the raw fact, witnessing it, we inevitably do and do not understand its simple verity. The beauty of the film resides just in this bare directness.

There is an overall subtle luminosity in the way Wajda treats the ramifications of his composite story. The different parts, fragments of past and recent events, are floating like the river, tenderly from one ”landscape” to the other. We absorb the events as a continuous flow. The theme of death is the basis of consonances, and the different settings and epochs the adapted dissonances. They may live next to each other. Although the actress in the film within the film and in real life has different destinies, but the figure, the living person is the same. The marvelous Krystyna Janda who is keeping together the “broken unity”.

Yet, I cannot abstain from alluding to one questionable trait in the unfolding story: the woman’s motivations regarding her exceptional sensitivity. In the performed film she is struck not just by the irremediable death of her two children during the war, but at the same time, she herself is hit in her body, too, by a mortal malady, announcing already in her bones, that death is not before long awaiting her. True enough that in the original novella by Iwaszkiewicz the major thread of the story is the tragedy of the lost children. This marks the mother forever; therefore Wajda insisted so much on maintaining this original departing point. It is a pity that the scenes in which the children’s room and the talk about them takes place, cannot evoke the real emotional force. ( Except, maybe, the short oneiric moment of the rolling ball... ) Otherwise it appears more like an illustration, overused flash back, of a long passed event. No wonder, that in the development of her daily life a new element got incorporated, her personal sickness, and willing-unwilling it grows psychologically more significant. As her state of mind takes further shape the half known but feared “sentence” becomes more decisive and believable than the original cause. Thus, suddenly we arrive at having two grave, identical (?) motifs which define her life.

Is it not true that two reasons are often less than a single one, instead of reinforcing the impact, it looses believable power? Wouldn’t be enough to signal the trace of a threatening illness, felt only deep down and not consciously, to substantiate her impulsive interest toward the handsome young man? Her erotic desire, to laugh, to touch and embrace, enjoying the skin of a young male is dictated by this repressed fear from “never more”, by the anxiety of the end. It does not spring from the painful memory of her dead children! The double “explanation” becomes exaggerated, reducing the force of the unexpected emotional outburst. Her longing, rising from this middle aged woman, is more visceral than any direct memory, therefore I do believe that it wouldn’t need the justification of the former loss of her sons, twenty years ago.

Although this partially forced dramaturgy may disturb a bit the impact of the film, other great values eclipse it and contribute to the magic of Tatarak. First of all the exceptionally refined an intense camerawork, by the great cinematographer Pavel Edelman (Polanski's acclaimed master). The particular lyrical tone, thanks to the depth of the colors and the image in general, brings about a unique ambiance: restrained, somberly magnificent, spare and staggering. Sometimes close to deliberate black and white, the colors radiate a mood of sorrow. Iwaszkiewicz preferred themes: Eros and Thanatos appear in a specific condensed entity. The slow and rare camera movements, the calm to have a patient look at the surrounding environment, whether it is the peaceful river or the tastefully furnished dining room; the patient feel of the weight are just the most expressive feature of the style, corresponding deeply to the subject matter.

The never theatrical and convincing acting greatly enhance the warm simplicity of the movie. Performers, like the young man: Pawel Szajda, transmitting the common sense and free charm of a today’s country boy; the wonderful, aged visiting parent-friend, smartly marked by history, Jadwiga Jankowska-Ciesleka, and the disciplined, elegant doctor, Jan Englert. All play their parts in the chamber music perfectly adjusted. Everything fits to the atmosphere of the landscape and interiors. Sober yet painterly.

It is a free verse, as I felt from the very beginning, avoiding any customary strict form, yet, keeping, through all its multifarious sources and story-fragments, a touching “drive”, it remains moving, leaving emotionally penetrating impressions.

Yvette Biro

______
Notes :
* The title Tatarak is the Polish name of a poisonous water plant which is called Sweet Rush and became the English title in many countries for the distribution.

The Aesthetic of the Meandering Camera

The Aesthetic of the Meandering Camera:
An Analysis of Three Filipino Independent Films

by Alvin B. Yapan

Paper read during the 5th Annual Southeast Asian Cinemas Conference
Ateneo de Manila University, 22 November 2008

Aesthetically, we could say that Philippine independent cinema positions itself, consciously and or unconsciously, in opposition to mainstream. Instead of staged mise-en-scene, we find a production set-up with the most minimal intervention. Whatever the location provides will do. Instead of well-known actors, we have locals acting in the film. Instead of polished lighting and audio design, we find available light and live sound. Dialogues are not dubbed. Instead of film negatives, there is digital filmmaking. These aesthetic choices seem to be more borne out of necessity rather than by any political stance. Independent would mean that filmmakers do not rely on the studio or network system to finance their production. But there is still a need on their part to earn a profit, if only to continue producing more films. This is the case for example of Jeffrey Jeturian’s producer Atty. Josabeth Alonso. The same could be said for ufo Pictures, which produced Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros [The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros](2005) and Endo [Love on a Budget] (2007), and other independent production outfits. Furthermore, Philippine independent cinema could also not speak of a definite political movement comparable, for example to the Latin Americans who theorized what is now dubbed as Third Cinema.(1) The union of independent filmmakers here in the Philippines, for instance, only came after the marked proliferation of independent films rather than spurring the said phenomenon. However, the boundary between what is borne out of necessity and what is politically motivated is always contestable. What is certain is that the aesthetic of this independent cinema contrasts itself against the polish of mainstream cinema.

To say however that this aesthetic of independent cinema borrows largely from the documentary genre is misleading. Relating this aesthetic also to that of documentary drama (docu-drama) would need a lot of qualifications. It is safe to say that Philippine independent cinema created a peculiar and an entirely different species of film. Since the history of Philippine cinema is particular in its own, it is following a very different trajectory from other third world cinemas. Kubrador [The Bet Collector] (2006), Serbis (2008) and Ranchero (2008) are already showing us the aesthetic tendencies of this kind of cinema. These are just tendencies. There are always exceptions. Being produced several years apart however, by different directors of varying backgrounds, and produced by varying production outfits, these three films would show us how this aesthetic tendency has been a consistent choice among directors in giving their work filmic form. This is an aesthetic largely characterized by hand-held tracking shots almost always providing the audience with an over-the-shoulder perspective of a particular character as he/she explores a confined space. Sometimes, over-the-shoulder perspectives would be interrupted by zoom ins or outs to variations of close-up, medium or full body shots. Long takes are also usually employed. But always, in the three films chosen for this study, camera movement is constricted within a claustrophobic, labyrinthine space: the slums for Kubrador, the dilapidated cinemahouse for Serbis, and the prison for Ranchero.

These aesthetic choices are due to a confluence of a number of factors, not just production constraints, as has been mentioned earlier. Another is the venue and audience that film festivals and local universities provide, instead of the usual local popular audience. Being mainstream, the gloss is intended for the popular audience who buy tickets in commercial cinema houses. Independent cinema however has a different audience. It targets more the studentry being required by their professors to watch, therefore the academe, and also the art film enthusiasts. While mainstream cinema mainly functions as entertainment, independent cinema derives its function from being socially relevant. Thus the predilection of independent cinema for topics on poverty and social concerns not usually palatable to the popular audience. Topics that could spur debate in classes and other venues.

This move by independent cinema to develop its own aesthetic away from the mainstream, said to be enslaved by popular tastes, instead of shaping them, is no longer surprising or new to Philippine history. All we have to do is look at parallels in Philippine literary history and to the age-old debate between Salvador Lopez and Jose Garcia Villa, both of them condemning the popularization of literature during the American period. Salvador Lopez’s answer however was to go the way of social relevance, while Villa went for art for arts’ sake. Bienvenido Lumbera in his essay “Kasaysayan at Tunguhin ng Pelikulang Pilipino” [History and Prospects of Filipino Cinema] already recognized these two strands in Philippine cinematic history, citing Lino Brocka as an illustration of the first and Ishmael Bernal of the second, which focused more on formal experimentations.(2)

Between the two strands, social relevance seems to be the direction that a majority of independent filmmakers are taking. Here is where we find the motivations for the grants given by Cinemalaya, Cinema One Originals, Cinemanila, and others. These festivals still opt, for instance, for narrative features rather than experimental films. Not so much an experimentation on form but an adventurousness in terms of theme and topic. Narratives features would mean that the film should still be accessible to the general public and not just to arthouse enthusiasts. It is just that the narrative theme and topic of these features veer away from the staple genres of comedy, action, drama, bomba and horror of mainstream cinema.

When independent cinema however derives its weight from being socially relevant, there appears the question of the aptness or effectivity of its chosen aesthetic. Perhaps this is why there is always the nagging question of whether this kind of aesthetic, instead of creating awareness, exoticizes the very condition it wishes to criticize. Dissecting the aesthetic of the three Filipino independent films chosen for this study, we find that it has three elements. First is the single location shooting. Of course production-wise, it is a matter of exigency. But aesthetic-wise however this single location shooting (wherein the camera meanders inside the slums for Kubrador, the dilapidated cinema house in Serbis and the prison in Ranchero), has but one option in relating to the space it utilizes. Since the camera does not leave the place, it dwells or lives in it. The space depicted would always come out as something habitable. It is not therefore surprising that in the three films we get to see all the characters residing in the places mentioned. In Kubrador, we see Amy (Gina Pareño) adeptly navigating the labyrinthine spaces of the slums. We see how the slums provide space for social interaction, to establish social relationships, despite being physically constricting. Life as it were persists. In Serbis, the dilapidated cinemahouse does not only provide business for the Pineda family but also a home, in its cavities, dark rooms and unused corners. Perhaps most striking of all is how Ranchero starts with Richard (Archie Adamos) lazily wakes up and goes about his daily routine of washing his face and brushing his teeth. But as the camera slowly zooms out, in one long take, we discover that Richard is inside a prison cell. The message is quite clear. These places, to the camera, become surprisingly habitable. Individuals do inhabit these spaces. In dwelling in these places, the camera seeks to make the slums, the cinema and prison familiar to the audience. They become just like any other regular home.

Aside from this revelation however this kind of treatment of space runs out of possibilities. It is therefore not surprising that the three films presented here all ended with their characters getting trapped in these spaces. Kubrador for example effectively renders on screen how Amy eerily gets lost in the slums despite its familiarity. In Ranchero, Richard’s hope of getting released from prison that day gets snuffed when violence erupts inside the prison he considers home. There is no salvation in these spaces. In Serbis, the only answer Alan (Coco Martin) finds is to abandon this space entirely. Its habitability is just an illusion the individual creates for himself to endure living in these spaces. This kind of insight has already been achieved in Lino Brocka’s films, for example in Maynila sa Kuko ng Liwanag [Manila in the Claws of Neon] (1975) where Julio Madiaga (Bembol Roco) literally gets cornered at the end of the film. And even then, this narrative sensibility has already been criticized, by Ricardo Lee no less, who at that time lamented about the inadequacy of stopping at social awareness in terms of social analysis. The title of his essay was “Ang Lipunan Bilang Isang Bilangguang Putik.” [The Society as a Mud-Prison] (3) This aesthetic does not present new insights in terms of treatment of space other than presenting the reality of this space as being shockingly habitable despite its poverty. In this sense, the three films are exoticizing poverty in their treatment of space. Exoticizing when we use the definition of Mikhail Bakhtin in his study of chronotopes (or time spaces) in narratives. He says: “Exoticism presupposes a deliberate opposition of what is alien to what is one’s own, the otherness of what is foreign is emphasized, savored, as it were, and elaborately depicted against an implied background of one’s own ordinary and familiar world.”(4)

What is new however in these three films and which are absent in the Brocka films are the singularity and presence of the involved camera. And this is the second element. We do not see panoramic establishing shots being done for their own sake. If ever there is a panoramic shot, it is always from a specific character’s point of view. When we explore the slums, cinemahouse and prison, it is through the eyes of their inhabitants. The camera participates in the subjectivity of the characters. The camera is not looking from the outside, or looking in at the lives of the characters. The camera is one with the characters. The camera is not presenting the characters to the audience. The camera shares in the experience of the characters. Viewing these three films then, there is a felt immediacy in watching the screen because of this camerawork.

The effect of this is first, the sympathy of the camera is almost always already biased for the character. The character’s integrity is no longer in question. The mere choice of the character is already a choice to side with him. The film then would unravel as an explanation of this choice. Why of all the many characters in the said space, the camera chose to follow this specific character. So that if the film fails, this choice becomes an apology for the shortcomings of the character. This is where perhaps this kind of aesthetic nears to that of the documentary, because the choice of topic in a documentary would already bias the camera to this character.

Serbis is not an exception to this even if the film follows multiple characters as they navigate the dark corridors of the cinemahouse. Serbis merely extends this aesthetic element to its limit. Despite the multiple characters, the camera treats them as one character living inside the cinemahouse. There is a singularity in the consciousness of the multiple characters. When Alan for example finally decides to abandon the place, it is telling that the camera does not follow him with a tracking shot. Instead the camera opts to stay with the perspective of the cinemahouse, looking at Alan from afar as he disappears in the crowd. Serbis in the end is not a story of multiple characters, but a story of place if we are to use the conventional categorizations of classical narrative. The character here is the cinemahouse. Thus when Nanay Flor (Gina Pareño) declares “Andaming dapat ayusin sa lugar na ito,” [There is a lot to fix in this place] this statement effectively sums up the entire film.

This aesthetic element however has its limitation. And this limitation resides in this very same strength of showing with an immediacy the subjectivity of a character. The fact that it shows the subjective world of the character, it presents the character’s predicament of being trapped in his/ her own world. When before, in the detached, observing, objective camera, we observe the characters as being beset from outside by different forces they are however helpless to fend off; now we see the characters as too self-contained in their own subjectivity. In Kubrador for example, Amy has no sense of the illegality of her work as a bet collector. To her, and we are forced to share this view by the aesthetic stance of the involved camera, she has to go through the motion of bet collecting to survive. The need for survival justifies her participation in the illegal numbers game. In Ranchero, the violence of prison life remains hidden only to reveal itself in the end with a violent riot among the inmates. There is an absoluteness in the rendition of a consciousness that is almost stifling. This would explain why there is a different take that is gaining currency now among films tackling poverty. Instead of picturing poverty as stifling, the characters are presented as happy and contented with their predicament. They do not problematize their predicament. They share the same problems as those of other social classes. It just so happens that they belong to a different social class. They also have their childhood. They also love. They also have dreams. There are no outside forces impinging on this absolute consciousness.

We then go back to the inadequacy of the first aesthetic element discussed earlier: that of ending with the sense of being trapped, which is always the endpoint of realistic or naturalist narratives. It is telling therefore why in Kubrador, the periodic relief of Amy’s character comes from a ghost, an absent unreal entity. At this point, what we are already looking for is the sense of agency that these aesthetic choices would withhold or provide us, the audience. It would appear that the singularity of the involved camera does not provide the audience with agency in the viewing experience. Because whatever insight this aesthetic element could provide would always be in accordance to a specific character’s interpretation of reality, which is almost always just a perpetuation of the same oppressive conditions.

With the detached objective camera, the audience is provided sufficient distance from the character to arrive at his own conclusions. The audience could have an entirely different insight from the character’s realization at the end of the film. But with the singular involved camera, the audience is forced to empathize with the character however delusional he or she may be.

The third element of this aesthetic of the meandering camera is time. The films under study are all set not only in the present, but in the quotidian. Both Serbis and Ranchero happened only in one day. Kubrador’s timeline spans only two days. Since this kind of aesthetic for the most part employs real time, it presents the conditions as they happen. Again the strength of this element lies in its capacity to bring the audience to participate in the day-in-a-life activity of the character. Its limitation however resides in the very nature of the present as something unstable and provisional. It is not surprising that all three films ended abruptly, with no neat conclusions. Just like all real life experiences at the end of the day. Neat conclusions for this aesthetic element would result in propaganda or proselytizing, since it would betray the fictitiousness of an orderly narrative. Perhaps this is the reason why, documentaries would always end with caveats on how or where their subjects ended up. Are they still alive or are they already dead? Because these would reveal in a non-categorical manner the point of the documentary. Independent film however could not afford this without breaking the illusion of its being fictional.

In conclusion, the aesthetic of the meandering camera has its strengths and limitations. But, so is any other aesthetic. What this paper has explored are the implications that these aesthetic choices would bear on the capacity of film to function in whatever manner, be it for entertainment or for social analysis. Kubrador, Serbis and Ranchero have already shown us the limits and full potential of this kind of aesthetic I dubbed as the meandering camera. I am not advocating that we abandon this aesthetic for a more objective and detached camera to provide the audience some distance from the subject. What I’m trying to say is that if this asthetic is already becoming a tendency among filmmakers positioning themselves against mainstream aesthetic, these are the limitations that they have to contend with which have deep ethical implications, as discussed. These are the dangers they will be falling into especially if this aesthetic would become a major factor, and I believe it is becoming one now, in negotiating a space for contemporary Philippine cinema in the local and international scene.

Alvin B. Yapan

References:

• Bakhtin, Mikhail. The Dialogic Imagination. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981.
• Lee, Ricardo. “Ang Lipunan Bilang Isang Bilangguang Putik.” Katipunan: Dyurnal ng Panlipunang Sining at Agham Blg. 3 & 4 (Hulyo & Oktubre 1971): 96-106.
• Lumbera, Bienvenido. “Kasaysayan at Tunguhin ng Pelikulang Pilipino/ The History and Prospects of the Filipino Film.” In The Urian Anthology, 1970-1979. Ed. Nicanor Tiongson. Manila: Manuel L. Morato, 1983.
• Stam, Robert. Film Theory: An Introduction. United Kingdon: Blackwell Publishing, 2000.

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notes

1. Robert Stam, Film Theory: An Introduction (United Kingdon: Blackwell Publishing, 2000), 94-5.
2. Bienvenido Lumbera, “Kasaysayan at Tunguhin ng Pelikulang Pilipino/ The History and Prospects of the Filipino Film,” in The Urian Anthology, 1970-1979 , ed. Nicanor Tiongson (Manila: Manuel L. Morato, 1983), 22-47.
3. Ricardo Lee, “Ang Lipunan Bilang Isang Bilangguang Putik,” Katipunan: Dyurnal ng Panlipunang Sining at Agham Blg. 3 & 4 (Hulyo & Oktubre 1971): 96-106. [Society as a Prison of Mud, Katipunan: Journal of Social Arts and Science #3&4]
4. Mikhail Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981), 101.