Summer Movies Update: Old friends, New Love.

So lately, the summer film promise felt inflated.  I recall thinking about all the wonderful films out there, and then when it came down to it, not really feeling there was a movie I wanted to watch.  As a result, I found myself revisiting old friends in a new venues.

Cleo 5 to 7.  I have to thank a paramour for introducing me to this film.  He gave it to me and said, watch this.  You will love it.  And so one night, on my small television with an attached VCR and a  warped coat-hanger antenna that could channel PBS decently, I watched the film.   Like any great work of genius, the story unfolded in such a powerful, beautiful way, that what was being told was far larger than what was on-screen.  I was in medical school at the time, and I watched the film three more times that night.

The film is  simple in premise and ambling in style.  A pop singer named Cleo is awaiting a test result to see if she has cancer.  During that time, she deals with her friends, acquaintances, work collaborators, her lover, an old friend, a silent film, the streets of Paris and a new aquaitance who himself is facing an uncertain, ambiguous fate, and ultimately, she deals with herself.  Over this period of time, she grows away from her own vanity as a pop star, woman, and person,  finds her own importance arbitrary, forgets her own affectations, and discovers a world greater than herself and in the process, a rebirth and redemption.  Not too shabby for two hours, eh.  The last shot may be the most beautiful ever filmed, and I think Agnes Varda as a filmmaker and a person bares so much of herself in this film, that despite the simple premise---there are numerous ways to read the story.

Anyhow, I recently saw the film at the SF MOMA with Kris, who of course took immediate pleasure in seeing a young Michel Legrand onscreen, who he labelled as "surprisingly dreamy."  He also commented that he loves how a person can make a living in Paris selling hats.  But I think that's also a relic of the past.

Take This Waltz.  I was really excited to see this film, though I hadn't seen Sarah Polley's first feature which everyone loved so much, Away From Her. Like her previous film,  this film has  a female director, a female protagonist, seems to have dealt with the prospect of married love in an interesting way.  I think I enjoyed the film but mostly, I left the theatre feeling an overwhelming sense of frustration that lingered for a full day after.  Which speaks to the power and failure of the film, I think.

I do feel this film is a modern day Anna Karanina, in a way.  It is about a married woman struggling with her own attraction to a handsome man across the street and trying to reconcile her inner longings with the structure of her everyday life.

What infuriates me about this film is that these people are not real people.  The girl appears to do freelance, but a whole lot of nothing, which allows her to stew in her own emotions a little too much.  She's over-marinated and overcooked, and may suffer from what SNL describes as "white people problems."  The men of question in her iife are no better: the neighbor is an artist who drives a rickshaw by day.  Perhaps, her husband is a little better and different in that he is working hard towards a professional goal....a ridiculous one, but it speaks to a VISION in LIFE greater than oneself.  Maybe these people needed to spend the day with Cleo.

The film is beautiful to watch and there are some inspired sequences.  Dialogue is awful.   Sounds like a high school diary of a lit mag editor listening to too much acoustic singer songwriters.  For example, Margot, the main character, discusses her phobia about flight connections, and instead of sounding sympathetic, she just sounds pathetic and pretentious.  That said, had Polley just made a movie without the dialogue, left in the beautiful sequences of attraction and chaste flirting, and ended it ambiguously at a near-goodbye with a dream of a future that may never happen, the film may have been perfect.  But the film expounded on what happened, resulting on an interesting and unforgettable rotating montage and finally ended with some level of resolution before ricocheting back into some level of cinematic ambiguity.  I don't think I'd recommend anyone to watch this film, and yet it lingers in my mind more strongly, which I think is a sign of success.  Who knows.  Maybe it requires a second watch.

Singin in the Rain.  What needs to be said about this film, that hasn't already been said?  It's saturated in color, humor and joy.  And though I've seen the film probably a hundred times, it boggles my mind how two directors could accomplish this level of freshness that keeps fresh even after multiple viewings.

Moonrise Kingdom.  So I have a love-hate relationship with Wes Anderson.  Most people who love him do.  I am a staunch advocate of his early works: Bottle Rocket, Royal Tennenbaums, and Rushmore.  I have seen Rushmore a 100 times.  I had the film in my video player of the same television-VCR combo that followed me to medical school and played Cleo for me many years later.  I liken the film to Great Gatsby in how it expounds on a certain level of disillusionment intrinsic to the American Dream as it was originally peddled.  But that's another blog entry.

Anyhow, I feel after Tennenbaums, Anderson's films seems much more preoccupied with artifice than the visceral feeling of emotions that can give the artifice life.  For example, I loved what he did with the vision of India in Darjeeling Limited, the details he noticed, the colors, but as a story, the film fell flat.  I liked Fantastic Mr Fox but it did not linger in my mind the day after I saw it.  So by no means did any of these endeavors result in a  piece of work that I could liken to literature.  I sometimes thinks he needs to start writing with Owen Wilson again.

I was so ready to hate Anderson's next film, and yet it was as if he found himself in a language beyond the Kinks and parent-child dilemmas.  In the trailer, Moonrise Kingdom had me at the opening guitar notes of Francoise Hardy's "Le Temps de Amour."   He found a new way to revisit old themes: a fevered ascension of minor-note arpeggios culminated into a major chord epiphany.  Moonrise Kingdom the film lived up to its promise.  The artifice was beautiful, yes, but the two young leads added something to the dialogue---real, unfettered, non-ironic, bonafide sincerity.  Also, this is the first time Anderson was dealing with a love story between a boy and a girl.   A troubled boy and girl.  Two misfits, bonding over storytelling, campfires, dreams, and a vague sense of adventure as a means to refuge and salvation.  It's old territory, but a pleasant one to visit, nonetheless.  It may not have the thematic heft of the earlier masterpieces but I think a well-realized love story is a cinematic marvel in its own league.

I may have to see this one again, but I will say this: Well-played, Mr. Anderson.  I tip my hat to you.

Movie Log

So I have decided to embark on my own movie log of films that I adore.  I have always wanted to write reviews of films on my blog and now that fellowship is coming to a close, with a new portable laptop in tow, I have no excuse, at least during the summer.  My god, I haven't had summer vacation in so long, though I'm not sure if it will be a real summer hiatus.

So the notable films of this year have been French for me:  Kid on a Bike and Declaration of War.  The latter is a very imperfect film, even with its moments bordering on being too precious, but its very visceral depiction of a love story in the midst of circumstantial crisis ( their kid with cancer) was memorable, moving, and beautiful.   I felt the most memorable scene for me was when the parents escape the hospital where they child sleeps, go to a party where they smoke, dance, kiss strangers, and act like two lovers with no responsibilities in the world.  In these scenes, you feel that rush of being young, or exploring possibilities, or having not to answer to anyone....until at the end, the couple finds themselves on a couch, separated by friends, looking at each other with tears in their eyes, while listening to a girl singing to a room of partygoers now lulled by exhaustion and a lingering sense of satisfaction of having fulfilled the night's promise.  That scene was worth the price of admission alone.

The only film that came close to moving me in the same way was A Kid on a Bike, another strange love story of sorts.  It's about a women inexplicably capable of a rare, patient love for an angry, abandoned child.  There are multiple beautiful scenes between the child and the woman but what makes the film a masterpiece, aside from the gorgeously spare and elegant use of Beethoven, is the ending, when the child's transformation through this woman's love proves to be far more profound than anyone guessed.  That even when facing the fickle nature of ordinary human beings, he is capable of sacrifice, love and forgiveness for all the cruelties in the world because he knows a steadfast source of love.

NOW for the shit list:  1) Damsels in Distress.  2) Snow White and the Huntsmen.  I always loved White Stillman.  He has a knack for dialogue and creating a unique social universe in a film, which is a rare talent as a filmmaker.  And he does it with Damsels in Distress.  And Greta Gerwig has screen prescence and can deliver Stillman's lines unlike any heroine ever has ( Chloe S. comes in at a close second for my favorite Stillman film Last Days of Disco.)  That said, the script had no direction and felt like a student film that was done impromptu.  It felt completely pointless and arbitrary, where character development felt zig-zag at best.

As for Snow White, well---it may be the most blatantly derivative film I have ever seen.  I am pretty sure it was conceived on the premise of some Hollywood hotshot thinking to himself, How can we package Lord of the Rings for the Twilight demographic so we can target all the fanatics?  And then he goes, Aha!  Didn't Snow White have dwarves in it?  We can have them walking hills to Celtic music sung by Enya and cast Kristen Stewart and we've got ourselves a winner.   There's even a blatant "She's the one" shenanigans, and the generously antler-ed Spirit of the Forest, ripped off from Princess Mononoke, even makes a cameo.  The only good thing about the film is Charlize Theron.  In fact, had the film actually just focused on her, who clearly is more beautiful than Stewart, despite what a Mirror says, the film may have been more interesting.

I can't help thinking of that genius bit in Annie Hall where Woody Allen's character Alvy Singer points out that he was always more interested in the insecure Queen than the Little Miss Perfect Snow White.  I agree with him. The Queen's neuroses made her a more full-bodied, alluring, and complex specimen of beauty, inside and out than the oblivious, silly Snow White who seemed more intent on cleaning up the Forest.  Damn straight!

Punchdrunk

This company is more than a muse to me, though it is that, prompting me to finish works that have gathered dust over years. The company is sort of a manifesto, a religion, blurring the line between what I think is impossible and possible, real and fiction, giving real heft to fancies that I otherwise wrote off as frivolous and not worth realizing in the light of day. And I had the great fortune of meeting Felix Barret, having him hug me, kiss me on my cheek, offer a job ( that I had to sheepishly decline), and sign my Sleep No More mask.

Anyhow, I happened to first see Sleep No More the weekend I first saw Mcqueen's Savage Beauty exhibit at the Met ( and also saw Mark Rylance in Jerusalem.) The three together make for an extraordinary series exploring the dark romantic mysticism of the landscape in the British Isles. It was a sunny weekend in May in Manhattan but the ghosts of the moor loomed nonetheless.

So it was a matter of time before the two found each other and created a visionary experience together. Punchdrunk helped put on McQ's show recently. And it seems by all accounts AWESOME.

http://www.graziadaily.co.uk/fashion/archive/2012/02/20/watch--mcq-autumn-winter-2012-live-stream.htm

http://www.graziadaily.co.uk/fashion/archive/2012/02/23/all-the-secrets-behind-mcqs-spectacular-show--exclusive.htm

Juxtapostion: Time as a Place. ( aka A Forgotten Corner of this World, Full of Love)

I happened to be reacquainting myself with the land of the social network, when I found myself watching a little film about a man and his home and then reading a poem about memories. The film is about a man who is the type of obscure NY character who gives the city its quintessential stature as a hotbed of idiosynchorcies, the whole spectrum of humankind's attributes crammed into a slender island, invigorating its shifting architectural landscape with an awesome collage of individuals. While reading about this individual and all the little stories and objects he has collected, I encountered a poem about the struggle we have with our own past and memories, a tug of war that we all deal with to some extent everday and that summarizes who we were, who we want to be and how that informs who we are now. The poem was sent by Aditi in Bombay. The film was shared by Roger Ebert in his incomparable Twitterfeed.

The juxtaposition makes for an interesting pairing.

The link to the film:
http://vimeo.com/37093042#embed

The poem:

Hard Life with Memory Wisława Szymborska

I’m a poor audience for my memory.
She wants me to attend her voice nonstop,
but I fidget, fuss,
listen and don’t,
step out, come back, then leave again.

She wants all my time and attention.
She’s got no problem when I sleep.
The day’s a different matter, which upsets her.

She thrusts old letters, snapshots at me eagerly,
stirs up events both important and un-,
turns my eyes to overlooked views,
peoples them with my dead.

In her stories I’m always younger.
Which is nice, but why always the same story.
Every mirror holds different news for me.

She gets angry when I shrug my shoulders.
And takes revenge by hauling out old errors,
weighty, but easily forgotten.
Looks into my eyes, checks my reaction.
Then comforts me, it could be worse.

She wants me to live only for her and with her.
Ideally in a dark, locked room,
but my plans still feature today’s sun,
clouds in progress, ongoing roads.

At times I get fed up with her.
I suggest a separation. From now to eternity.
Then she smiles at me with pity,
since she knows it would be the end of me too.

A Girl Called Battle

Part II The Quiet Arrival of a Pearl

Before we fully descend into didactics regarding magic and metamorphoses, let us return to our heroine, Battle, who we left in the company of her grandfather. Over time, her grandfather, as the designated patriarch, grew weary of his family, whom he regarded as a bunch of louts made useless by leisure and a crippling sense of entitlement, but in Battle, he recognized a mutinous spirit. So as a last-hope maneuver to groom a capable heir, he insisted that Battle should shift residence and live with him.

Her grandfather arranged for a pick-up, late at night, to diffuse any fanfare and overwrought good-byes. While waiting for his car, Battle sat quietly and patiently in the parlor, cutting a small but formidable figure among the shadowy pile of trunks. She pressed smooth the hem of her frock and tugged on her coat, trying her best to suppress the sense of anticipation. After some time, she wandered to the front windows, disappearing among the heavy drapes and pressing her forehead against the cold glass. She eyed the desolate streets at night, her breath clouding the glass, fogging the lamplight and when she wiped it away in a single streak, there it was, waiting for her, as if summoned from from the sleight of her hand---her grandfather's sleek, black automobile.

Her grandfather's building, the tallest in the entire metropolis, emerged from the stunted scenery of stacked edifices like an imperious dark monolith, checkered in windows and tapered at the top as a means to comply with pesky zoning clauses preoccupied with the blockage of sunlight to the underlings below. Though most floors housed the various enterprises that kept the family coffers well-fed, her grandfather sanctioned the topmost floors for his own personal space. It was here, hidden in the geometric arrays of marble, glass, steel and all variants of gleaming surfaces, where he situated his secret study, the one place in the whole austere, over-polished spectacle where he could truly be himself. He shared this room with his granddaughter under sworn secrecy. No one, not even his late wife, knew of this special secret wing. Except for his architect, steward. And solicitor, of course.

Battle spent hours in the evening, in this very room, sitting in a dusty landscape of toppled books, peeling Chinoise wallpaper, bottled boats, unfurled maps, disemboweled toys from curiosity shops, animals skins and relics from extensive travel that her grandfather gently pillaged from natives through feigned comraderie. Her grandfather regarded this room as an education, a rare and real oppurtunity to undermine an upbringing intent on fashioning her into an accomplished lacy bauble and subsequently, unbeknownst to everyone else, he groomed her with a freer sense of destiny.

However, just as soon as could realize a certain emancipation for Battle, he fell ill. He spent his last days in a bed, pouting with a pipe in his mouth, which he refused to relinquish even when his forlorn physician occasionally pressed two fingers on his wrist while eyeing a pocketwatch. Lying in bed for a prolonged period of time, he found, much to his own amusement, that his room resembled a family tomb, with tall dark marble walls, vaulted ceiling, windows composed of large sheets of glass faceted against each other, overlooking the clouds, the sky, the oblivion beyond. It also did not help that the usual entourage of stolid spectators parked themselves by his bed, waiting for the inevitable cue for tears, the usual histrionics, and eventual inquiry regarding assets.

So while he did derive some temporary pleasure in using his illness to emotionally blackmail his family members, he was determined that his granddaughter did not become a part of the farcical moodpiece surrounding his demise. In an act that many chalked up to senility---though those who knew him, knew better---- he sanctioned the construction of a darkwood dory/miniature ship with old sails that his granddaughter could play in during the day and sleep in at night. He enjoyed seeing the people seated at his bedside, dressed in black, frowns on their face, stoically braving clouds of sawdust, hammering and drilling. The project helped dissipate the whole lot of them, so that finally, the only people left in the room were those that were absolutely necessary. And Battle. When the ship was completed, she dangled off the masts, looking beyond at the stretch of clouds from the windows with a telescope and wishing her ship could set sail, with her grandfather onboard, onto the welcoming sky of clouds.

From then on, everything that happened in Battle's life happened in the company of her bedridden grandfather: her lessons, her meals, her manufactured adventures on her ship. For a period of time, it was their own little paradise and it appeared that perhaps her grandfather may have warded off the grim predictions regarding his health. But one morning, he knew it was time. Last words were spoken, but the very last was left for his grandaughter. She was kept aside dutifully by his steward, until she was led to his bedside. For once, he had nothing to say to her, seeing all that he constructed and built left on her brave, little shoulders. He tirelessly made all necessary arrangements to ensure her future and finally, at this moment, he could lay his eyes on her, knowing that it was up to her what to make of these next chapters. He quietly placed the key to his secret study in her palm and slowly raised his arms for a final embrace. As he held her in his arms, she rested her face onto his frail chest, feeling it rising and falling, the muffled sound of his heartbeat beneath, until she felt it all collapse, with his last breath. It was then Battle, who had been so brave through the whole ordeal, who gladly played on the ship he made for her, finally let out a sob. And the tears would not cease. Not the day after, months after. Not a year after.

She refused to leave her grandfather's bedroom, even when his furniture was shifted away into storage. Eventually, her own furniture was moved into the room, while she continually cried, sitting in her nightgown at all times of the day, in her ship, under an over-sized chandelier. Her grandfather's old solicitor who was given the responsibility of over-seeing her upbringing and financial security made sure she had some level of education. So she'd be dressed, fed, and taught in her bedroom, which happened, even through a perpetual syncopation of whimpers and sobs. It almost became like breathing to her, and regarded as such by most who encountered her on a daily basis. The tears, though, functioned as a self-imposed shield by which to preserve the grief, that last moment with her grandfather, keep everyone and everything else away. It was, after all, the last time she really felt love.

One night, Battle slept in her ship, quietly sobbing, burying her face into the white pillows and sheets that glowed in the moonlight, when suddenly she felt something bounce off her quilt and roll onto her hand. It was a single radiant pearl, warm, iridescent and beautiful in the blue light of the night, when suddenly she stopped crying momentarily and her eyes trailed up the ripples of the sheets up to the side of the ship, where she saw the beady eyes of a little brown mouse, perched from the edge of the ship, its fur mangled, its little paws hovering below its face. For a moment, she almost felt she could speak to it, and it could speak to her in plain language, that it came to her bedside as if to comfort her; it understood her tears, her sobs; it understood her; however, realizing herself, her momentary bout of insanity and the inconcievable notion that this residence--this sanitized fortress sealed in marble, concrete, and steel, suspended so high in the sky--- could be suspectible to vermin, she let out a loud scream, that vibrated through the hallways and woke up the entire staff.

From the bottom of her door, she saw the lights darting below, growing brighter, the scurrying footsteps rushing towards the door. At that moment, she felt a cold hand on her own and looked at the mouse and realized, the mouse was not a mouse anymore but in fact a boy. A boy with light brown skin and soulful, jewel-green eyes, soot on his cheeks, shivering and frightened---it was Rust. He had turned himself into a mouse and her scream woke him up from his own self-imposed transformation. He pleaded with her, his hand on hers,"Please! Help! I mean no harm!"

Hearing the footsteps stop at the door, Battle motioned him to one of the long, large drapes by the window, "Hide there!" He slid behind them swiftly, just as the doors crashed open. Her grandfather's old butler stumbled at the entryway, halting an eager army of of maids in nightgowns and shawls, armed with lit candles. "Little Miss, whatever is wrong?"

Embarrassed and puzzled, she wiped away her wet cheeks and smiled, which alarmed the entire staff even more than her scream, as they regarded her perpetual stream of tears as a tiresome yet routine by that time. She assured them, "Oh I'm sorry. Just a bad dream."

"Anything we can do for you?"

"That'll do, " she insisted. The butler nodded, in slight disbelief, unsure of what to make of her suddenly docile, even cheerful behavior, and reluctantly closed the door. When she was sure they were gone, Battle whispered, "You can come out now." When she heard nothing, Battle quickly rushed behind the drapes in search of Rust but could not find him. She looked, wandering around her ship, peering in her wardrobe, lifting the lid of her jewelry box, crawling under tables, yet suddenly she noticed the secret entryway to her grandfather's study was ajar, letting out a cold draft. She walked up the old wooden staircase into the room that she did not have the courage to reenter after her grandfather passed away. The boy was nowhere to be found, but she rediscovered all the knick-knacks, the old books and maps, reentering memories so vivid that they ressurected an old sense of love, and just as her fingers traveled along these objects, she found a hole in the small glass window in the room---the only way by which the boy/mouse entered and escaped. She slipped her hand through the window, her fingers feeling the cold, thin air, wondering if that mouse-boy grew a pair of wings and flew away,yet half-expecting to feel him touch her hand once more, whisking her away into a starry sky, far away from this mythical tall tower inpenetrable to the rest of the world.

When she returned to bed, she found the pearl nestled in the soft, white sheets. It was likely dislodged from a disregarded piece of jewelry from her own collection, some little trinket she must've worn without thinking many times over, yet sitting in her palm, in the dark, it never looked lovelier.

A Girl Called Battle

Part 1 Introduction

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Battle and a boy named Rust, two children destined to meet each other but were gifted with very different yet unusual circumstances. Battle, though an orphan, grew up among people of considerable wealth and oppurtunity. Despite an early inclination towards playful tantrums and kicking good times in mudpits, a committee of remote relatives silenced her to a vast schedule of lessons, forcing her to spend her days with a book balanced on her head while she gurgled french, ate with a salad fork, rode white horses, and played wronged virgins in lackluster balletic performances. She often cried in the evening for reasons largely unknown to herself, but she derived some pleasure reconstructing old war diaoramas in her grandfather's company while he sipped brandy, smoked his pipe and eyed his vast collection of photographs featuring fat Victorian beauties.

Rust literally grew up in the underground, in an abandoned loop of subway track where a large tribe of urban gypsies, proud heathens, and mystical vagabonds set up camp. His mother was a noted clairvoyant who made peculiar candles that could make or break the fortune of those who dared to light them. His father, despite an uncanny resemblance to Rasputin, had a successful career in vaudeville as an acrobat and comic, but he harbored a secret talent for transformation with the help of a magical tambourine. Very few ever witnessed the miracle. Rust himself never saw this particular trick, though he once caught an indirect glimpse of it, seeing his father's silhouette against a bonfire morph into beasts, bird, and curious pieces of furniture.

Needless to say, Rust grew up in an unusual neighborhood, full of communal festivities and obligatory freakshows. But sometimes, Rush would find himself in a nook near the surface, contemplating this familiar darkness in his life and wonder about the mountains and pasture, the soil from which the wicked herbs and mythical flowers grew, the very foliage and blooms that disingrated when they were submerged into his world, becoming merely a a wafting scent from an upside-down, dried bouquet. It was while he was pondering these very thoughts, one day, that the subway track rumbled, and the dust from obliterated cement rained from a sunlit crack above. And Rust gazed at this vision--this cloud of silt suspended in a slit of sunlight--as if it pulsated with magical possibility. For right above lived that other world he only knew briefly while at school or at the carnival, that strange land above where people regarded the sun not so much as a source of romance as much as regularity and routine.

It seems odd to most but it was perfectly normal to Rust, that he developed an ecstatic curiosity for the mundane. Soon after. he toiled over elaborate plans for expeditions. He scaled buildings, crawled through vents, swung on ropes, slid into dark corners just to glimpse a man sip brandy while engaging in stoic conversation over finances with his wife, witness a poor student smell a steaming pie before wielding an eager knife, admire a clerk finger through the crisp edges of paper files, and wonder at artful slosh of suds while a girl from the tennants tended to her laundry.

Rust could not feign invisibility flawlessly, however. Whether it be because of over-inquisitive neighbors or the serendiptous arrival of unsuspecting cops, reports of a peeping tom circulated throughout various neighborhoods.And even though they were uncommonly supportive of their son's hungry mind and strange inclinations, Rust's parents got particularly worried after an ugly incident involving brush with law enforcement and some angry dwellers armed with kitchen utensils, the entire intriguing chase culminating with a showdown on a tower and Rust dangling happily from the hour-hand of a large clock, sixty feet up in the air. Sternly, his father insisted," Due to the boy's inelegant method of mischief, he must be inititated into OUR special way of dealing with matters." So for his thirteenth birthday, both his mother and father recruited his Uncle Boris to give Rust a special present: his first spell.