2010 NZ FILM FESTIVAL Pt2
POETRY
To champion Secret Sunshine (as some have) for steering clear of the manipulative, melodramatic and/or violent tropes that dominate much of Korean cinema ignores the fact that Lee’s film has little of the substance one finds in the work of his more sophisticated peers, notably Hong Sang-soo and Park Ki-yong. I also disagree that the film portrays (as one critic put it) “a personal faith able to absorb debilitating grief”. I would say that the film does the exact opposite. Faith (and even God Himself) ultimately fails the central character, Shin-ae. The culture of faith depicted in the film is the sort that attracts people seeking emotional or psychological shelter, affirmation and security. The closing shot of the film — a slow pan across a messy backyard that comes to rest on a patch of wet earth — leaves us in little doubt that Shin-ae’s future (and ours for that matter) will lead to a blunt full-stop. It's a strong image on which to bring the film to a close, but it was an arduous journey getting there.
Speaking at a press conference after the release of Poetry, Lee betrayed the immodesty of his intentions when he said, “Poetry is more than a literary genre. It is what is invisible, what cannot be calculated in monetary value... Poetry is not a little flower. It is the world. It is life. No matter how ugly the outside is, there is always something very beautiful inside.” Such comments would be easier to digest if the emotional pleading in his films wasn’t so calculated and disingenuous. For me, his films pander to the audience, relying on exposition through dialogue and gratuitous appeals to the emotions, to the extent that it’s difficult (for me at least) to engage with his films or trust him as an artist.
It’s obvious that Yun Jung-lee is ‘playing' the central character of Mija. One is so aware of her technique that even her hat and scarf overact! But she’s not alone. Many of the performances are writ-large, reminiscent of gestural silent film acting where everything was aimed at the back row. The depiction of ‘normal everyday people’ in Lee’s films is contrived and patronising, and the near-trademark addition of a character suffering a debilitating condition allows Kim Hira to portray Mr Kang (an aging stroke victim) with all of the bathos at his disposal. To be fair, this appears to be Kim’s first role, so it would be just my luck to discover the guy wasn’t acting!
Lee insists on telegraphing and over-emphasising every nuance, leaving little room for the viewer to negotiate their own way through the film. Consequently, there is little subtlety, but there are one or two nice moments, such as when Mija’s hat is lifted by a sudden gust of wind (prefiguring an important later event), or when raindrops spot the blank page she struggles to make a poetic mark on. But straight after this effective shot Lee goes and pops Mija in the shower where she can ‘hide her tears’. Groan.
In the closing moments of Lee’s ironically titled film, something approaching real poetry emerges in much the same way that Secret Sunshine closed on a genuinely sombre note. I won’t spoil it for you by revealing what it is, but I will say that despite my negative opinion of these two films I recognise that Lee has undeniable talent, and I can understand why audiences (and critics) are fond of his films. My hope is that there might be a tougher and more substantial side to Lee that has yet to emerge.
TWO FOR THE WAVE
For cinephiles familiar with legendary French filmmakers François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard, Emmanuel Laurent’s Two in the Wave will be an easy watch. For those who have yet to explore this rich cinematic legacy, Laurent’s concise documentary serves as an ideal introduction to two exceptional artists who defined the loose collective known as the Nouvelle Vague.
The film charts the personal relationship and gradually divergent paths of the two men over one of the most significant decades in film history, from the revelatory impact of their debut features–Truffaut’s Les Quatre Cents Coups (The 400 Blows, 1959) and Godard’s À bout de souffle (Breathless, 1960)–to perhaps unavoidable and permanent rift between them. Along the way, we learn that the two obsessive film-buffs met at film club screenings in the late 40s and that they wrote passionate and outspoken film criticism for Cahiers du Cinema in the 50s before transforming their critical theories into filmmaking. The newspaper clippings that dominate the visual style of the film also dominate its content, which for the most part eschews analysis in favour of biography.
The left-wing Catholic film critic André Bazin had a huge influence on Truffaut and Godard. One of the founders of Cahiers du Cinema, Bazin was something of a father figure to them–on a personal level for the once-troubled Truffaut, on an intellectual level for Godard, and on artistic levels for both. Bazin’s criticism looked for ‘patterns in the tapestry’ of a filmmaker’s work, connections in style and content that defined an authorial voice (which of course came to be known as Auteur Theory). Bazin may have significantly influenced Godard’s anti-bourgeois impulses, as well as the mystical/philosophical ruminations that have appeared in his work since 1980.
Godard always maintained that cinema is political, but Truffaut argued that art needs no justification. Ironically, Truffaut’s films would come to resemble the kind of cinema he once vehemently criticised, what he called 'le cinéma de papa', while Godard moved further to the left politically and artistically, at times pushing Brechtian alienation so far that some viewers found his films irritatingly impenetrable. But the political thrust of his work may, to some extent, mask a battle against his own bourgeois instincts, which may also have been the impetus for his occasional hostility towards Truffaut. The infamous letter he wrote after storming out of a screening of Truffaut’s Day For Night (1973) led to an irreconcilable rupture. There might also be some truth in Truffaut’s outraged reply in which he accused Godard of narcissism. Laurent stays well clear of such speculation, favouring an uncritical presentation of indisputable facts combined with general approbation.
Throughout Two in the Wave, Jean-Pierre Léaud is presented as the locus for the tug-of-war steadily brewing between the directors–the big-brother support of Truffaut, for whom Léaud was his autobiographical stand-in, against the artistic and political growth offered by Godard, with whom he made nine films, many of which were key films of the period. Laurent also offers the pouting presence of Isild le Besco as a stand-in of sorts for the viewer, an embodiment of ever-new generations of cinephiles researching this iconic period, flicking through newspaper clippings and traipsing around locations connected to the story. She also (unintentionally) represents the youthful vanity of the Nouvelle Vague, and the attractive young women in Godard’s films with their sensuous, idealised, unambiguous sexuality and the voyeurism they engendered.
One could speculate on how Truffaut might have progressed as a filmmaker had he not died so young (aged 54), but apart from a few notable exceptions, he had long been a spent force. That may be a little harsh, but Truffaut’s work could be numbingly mid-brow. Godard, on the other hand, remained vital – and still is. It’s tempting to read their divergent paths as attempts to transcend their backgrounds. Truffaut: under-privileged and lower class, making artful films with commercial appeal. Godard: wealthy and bourgeois, making politically committed (and credible) films with challenging cinematic rigour. It’s easy to agree with Truffaut’s assertion that Godard changed cinema forever, but of course, the wealth of cinematic achievement in the 60s goes way beyond the work of one man. The significance of Michelangelo Antonioni alone cannot be overstated, let alone Robert Bresson, Ingmar Bergman, Miklos Jansco, Jean-Marie Straub and Danielle Huillet, Jacques Rivette, Alain Resnais, Jacques Tati, Federico Fellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Luis Buñuel, Satyajit Ray, Glauber Rocha, John Cassavetes, Andy Warhol, Stan Brakhage and the American Avant-garde, Stanley Kubrick, the Czech New Wave, the Japanese New Wave, the British New Wave, and so on and so forth.
Yet, the impact and enduring legacy of the Nouvelle Vague is extraordinary, and it would be no overstatement to say that Godard is one the greatest cineastes in world cinema. The depth and rigour of his oeuvre is astonishing, and I suspect that few cinephiles would claim to have not only seen this enormous body of work but to have absorbed it. Works such as Helas Pour Moi (Woe is Me, 1993) for example are difficult for anyone to grasp in one sitting. As with nearly all of Godard’s ‘second wave’ films, it is a complex, richly-layered, witty meditation on love, life, the ID, the ego, the Universe, and of course, cinema. This exceptional film is one of many expansive, late-period Godard masterworks–beautiful to look at, gorgeous to listen to, and endlessly fascinating to ponder. Few filmmakers demand such a concentrated and reflective viewing attitude as Jean-Luc, whose films are far from casual every-day viewing. For films such as those, we have Truffaut, and I would like to think that François, the former widely-feared film critic and voracious cinephile, would agree…
TRASH HUMPERS
There were moments in grunge-poet Harmony Korine’s faux-found-footage poke in the eye, Trash Humpers, where one wondered if he was deliberately inciting viewers to walk out of his film, and a goodly number obliged. Trash Humpers provoked more walkouts of any film in the festival. Hopefully, those who stayed were meaningfully stirred, although if the comments I overheard in the foyer are any indication, the style of the film held more interest than its intellectual content, which is a pity given that Trash Humpers is veritably bursting at the seams with socio-political rage.
In this respect, Korine’s film shares something of the philosophic intent found in the work of Ulrich Seidl, Bruno Dumont, Sharunas Bartas, Michael Haneke, David Lynch, and bad-boy auteurs such as Lars von Trier and Gaspar Noe. It’s easy to miss (or dismiss) the underlying rage the fuels the work of these filmmakers by getting caught up in diverting discussions over accusations of misanthropy or didacticism. For example, the ‘sermonising’ that Haneke is often accused of doesn’t alter the fact that his films are sincere meditations on moral and political paralysis. Trash Humpers is no different, although Korine’s approach is decidedly less rarefied, a million miles away from Haneke’s so-called ‘glacial reserve’.
There is considerably more seriousness of intent to Trash Humpers than its wilfully slapdash and self-consciously confrontational surfaces suggest. Cinephiles may sense the influence of early Werner Herzog, particularly Even Dwarfs Start Small and (especially) the implicit horror of Land of Silence and Darkness, which Korine uses to comment on societal deafness, blindness and mute apathy. I’m tempted to suggest that there are echoes of South Park, Beavis and Butthead, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, A Clockwork Orange, the music of The Residents, and the stick-figure animations of Phil Mulloy in Trash Humpers, but only because Korine’s film expresses the same critical contempt for the pornographic misanthropy of the social and economic plunder of our times and an equal concern for the resulting psychosocial corrosion. Throughout the film, we pass neon crosses advertising business as usual in God’s many and varied hiding places, while the distant hum of long-haul trucks grinding inexorably along the veins of the country provides a low background drone, like an ominous chord sounding from a broken organ in the church of mammon.
It goes without saying that Trash Humpers stands in stark contrast to the specious tropes of mainstream commercial cinema. Where ‘movies’ lull us into reassuring slumber, Korine’s new film attempts to shake us awake. An artist with considerable intelligence and passion, Korine is obviously concerned about the state of the world, firstly and most pertinently as an American disturbed by the expansionist policies and internal despair of his own country, but also as a global citizen coming to terms with unprecedented avarice. Indeed, if one thing characterised the festival for me this year, it was the stunned and incredulous response to the greatest act of larceny the world has known.
INSIDE JOB
The global economic crisis (a term that implicates everyone in the financial collapse, thereby justifying the fact that the world’s most vulnerable will again shoulder the burden of the unregulated actions of a relative handful of venal individuals and organisations) was the subject of Charles Ferguson’s exceptional Inside Job. This film set the tone of the festival for me, to the extent that the innocent mention of Lehman Brothers in Frederick Wiseman’s La Dance was enough to send ripples of unintended meaning throughout Wiseman’s film and nearly every other film in the festival.
Watching Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith’s insightful documentary, The Most Dangerous Man in America (a film about the politicisation of Daniel Ellsberg, a one-time aide to Robert McNamara whose acts of conscience contributed to the end of the Vietnam War, and Richard Nixon’s contemptuous presidency), I was reminded that well-chosen documentaries have long been indispensable festival fare. I’ll never forget the impact of Allan Francovich’s On Company Business back in 1981, a dense 3-hour exposé on the activities of the CIA that played no small part in shaking me out of my slumber. At that time, one could reasonably expect such films to reappear on television, but such hopes vanished by the late-80s. Today, even with the Internet and the excellent Maori TV, the festival remains an important platform for films that foster awareness, understanding and engagement with the world. Alas, interest in films with political content seems to have withered. Francovich’s lengthy study attracted a sizeable audience to the Civic 30 years ago, whereas the turnout for Inside Job was conspicuously thin. Could it be that I was one of the few Aucklanders who didn’t know all there is to know about the events that led to the banking collapse? I guess so.
Perhaps people chose not to see the film because they already knew (as I did) that this was yet another documentary about white-collar greed. We all know that when it comes to money, greed goes with the territory. Some of us might even envy those sharp enough to work the system and come out a winner, even if it is tinged with mendacity – haven’t we all bent the truth to serve our own ends once or twice? Even if those guys went too far (we might think to ourselves), the powers-that-be won’t allow the financial system to collapse, will they? Anyway, doesn’t the film clash with a French comedy?
Yes, well, those guys certainly did go too far, in fact, it was a surprise to discover that the scam involved sums in the region of 600 trillion dollars, a lot when you consider that the global GDP is only 54 trillion. Despite the fact that deregulation of the financial sector was responsible for the meltdown, many are still convinced by such ideologies. What’s more, despite the magnitude of the crisis, no one has yet been held accountable, and many of those who sanctioned the scam are now advising Barack Obama – at his request!
In terms of bank robberies, there has never been one quite like it. As the title suggests, the film is the ultimate heist movie, and like a good post-modern heist movie, the master criminals get away. The layers of collusion, corrupted ethics, and outright conflicts of interest are mapped out with great clarity and precision, as are the principles of ‘derivatives’ and ‘credit default swaps’, a system where corporations made huge profits by insuring themselves against the inevitable failure of their own financial products.
Inside Job is slickly made, but it's mercifully free of the irritating Errol Morris style of audience-engagement employed in Collapse. I can’t say whether director Chris Smith succeeded in his intention of getting the audience inside the head of Michael Ruppert, whose ideas and predictions about peak oil and the slippery slope he warns we are on are the basis of his film. Ruppert is such a curious figure, it’s hard to tell if Smith is sympathetic towards him or not. Did Smith set out to portray Ruppert as a socially estranged blow-hard with conspiracist tendencies? It’s hard to say, and in any event, it hardly matters because Ruppert manages to convey his ideas regardless, some of which are hard to argue against. But he is an unsettling presence, and the sense of danger beneath the surface of the man nearly undermines his argument. There’s little to recommend Collapse on an aesthetic or formal level, but it might make an interesting double bill with Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.