Hey folks, Harry here with the a report from Quentin Tarantado, who attended the Cinemanila Film Festival in the Philippines. I have to say... I love the word, "CINEMANILA!" Ever since this email came in, I've been saying "CINEMANILA!" I love that word, and deem that all film from the Philippines be deemed to belong to the world of CINEMANILA! Tarantado got to see some pretty wonderful films, so go through and check it out...
Dear Harry
Last August 14 to 24 was the Cinemanila Film Festival. They showed a lot of films, but due to time and budget constraints I was only able to watch a few.
Among the significant films they showed (I'm listing all that I DIDN'T see, though I pissed blood because I missed them): Dogville, Kitano's Dolls, Year of the Devil, The Crime of Father Amaro, The Tracker, Buttoners, Talk to Her, Welcome to Destination Shanghai, Legend of Zu, and more.
The ones I DID see are:
Edi (Poland) Piotr Trzaskalski
Edi is one of two extremely slow films I saw. My reactions to the two are opposites. I like this one. Maybe because it's got lovely gray on gray photography (Polish are SO good at this), humor, a fatalistic view of life and castration. It's an irresistible mix plus I really feel for the protagonist: life just keeps screwing me like a gang rape. Funny thing is, I felt good after the movie. Someone has worse problems than I do and he still manages to be upbeat in the end.
Madame Brouette (Senegal) Moussa Sene Absa
This is the only disappointment in the festival. It's about a murder and did the woman kill her philandering hubby or not? It seems to be based on a folk tale in Senegal. I suspect it may have been a play before, because their approach is theatrical. I hated all the actors here because they seem to have only two modes: slutty flirting and shouting at the top of their voices. I just don't understand their motivations. Is there something about Senegal (their culture, their acting) I didn't get?
The Man Without A Past (Finland) Aki Kaurismaki
Deadpan comedy. I heard of Aki in 1990 and I regret I only saw my first Kaurismaki film this year. Yeah, I like deadpan and this movie is so deadpan it makes fun of its deadpanness. Love it, love it!
Japon (Mexico) Carlos Reygadas
One of the things II like about the movie is the photography. Shaky handheld, grainy, with gray on gray colors. It's the other one of the slow movies I mentioned, and as a whole I DON'T like the movie because it's ponderous and it takes itself seriously (what for? I feel it didn't earn that right. Andrei Tarkovsky earned the right to be ponderous because he tells a story slowly, but he has style, storytelling flair and he still manages to create dramatic tension even when it's slow but I'm NOT bored to death like I nearly was several times in this movie.) Reygadas doesn't have Tarkovsky's skills, at least not yet. Now, I may not like the film, but it's a harrowing experience because of the
SPOILER STARTS
geriatric love scene, which certainly woke me up. I wasn't aroused (but it's funny I shouldn't be, I'll be doing the same some day) it's just not something you see everyday.
SPOILER ENDS.
Infernal Affairs (China) Wai Keung Lau, Siu Fai Mak
From AICN I expected this to be a real shoot-em-out that will out Woo Woo, or even Tsui Hark's Time and Tide. Waddaya know, it's even better. Instead of blatant shootouts, it creates tension from the beginning and increases the tension to near-screaming levels because there are so FEW shootouts that would spell instant relief. The elevator scene in the end just ranks up there with the DAS BOOT ending (watch both and you'll kinda see what I mean, you'll cry out, "after all THAT, then THAT happens!!! aaaaiiiieeee!").
City of God (Brazil) Kátia Lund, Fernando Meirelles
Bad Boys has more expensive action, but no Bruckheimer can imagine giving guns to kids this young. Anyone can die Anytime, and if you enjoy being kicked in the balls, this film delivers. Love it! (saying that in a high falsetto voice).
Whale Rider (New Zealand) Niki Caro
It's a good film, encourages us to love our heritage and the environment, etc. etc. Problem is, I saw this sandwiched between "City of God" and "Infernal Affairs", so you have to forgive me if I can't drum up the enthusiasm. Lousy planning on my part, mea culpa, and by the way, nuke the whales.
Swimming Pool (France) Francois Ozon
I saw "Water Drops on Burning Rocks" last year (a reference to sauna baths? Oh well. Fassbinder wrote the original play and that title, not Ozon) and I was aghast at the combinations (gay, lesbian, transsexual humor) in a very short film. Swimming Pool isn't as sprightly, but Ozon is a very good storyteller, and he kept me intrigued and happy, always a good thing in a mystery/drama. There's tension regarding the mystery, tension between the characters, tension between the young actress (Ludivine Sagnier) and Charlotte Rampling (who, at her age, is still HOT, yowza!). Ozon is smart, not only wowing us with how many levels this deceptively simple story has, but also wowing us with the diversity of his movies.
24 hour Party People (UK) Michael Winterbottom
Is this a TRUE story? I have to take any claim that it's true with a grain of salt. The lead character quotes John Ford saying that if there's a helluva difference between truth and legend, print the legend. They probly make this in that spirit. It's so audacious, brazen and unbelievable that I wonder if the truth could be any stranger (but hey, it often is anyway. Life: boring but really weird). Shot entirely in video, it recreates the 70's and the 80's when New Wave and Punk Rock was born, specifically following the life of Tony Wilson who made a record label called The Factory, started the very-in club called The Hacienda and promoted a lil' group called New Order. It's as psychedelic as its subject. (notice how I spell and USE "it?s" and "its" in the sentence and I tell ya, there?s a difference!) I almost had as much fun as they did onscreen. If Michael Winterbottom decides to film an epic about the 2004 National Budget, I'm so there.
Bob Dylan: Don't Look Back (USA) D.A. Pennebaker
If Harry really hated Masked and Anonymous, he should watch this one as a cure for his suffering. This is my first Pennebaker movie, an old one from 1967 and I'm really amazed that Dylan would go onstage with guitar and harmonica and sit and sing. And the audience would POLITELY listen. This is the age of Rolling Stones and the Beatles, right? Girls screaming, tossing their undies at Tom Jones? In that sense, it's an extremely shocking documentary, up there with child labor documentaries.
Fetch a Pail of Water (Philippines) Jeffrey Jeturian
Fault me for mentioning this one, it's Filipino. It's a slice of life movie about an apartment dwelling with poor folk. The history of this thingie is as interesting as the movie (made with the kind of simple matter-of-factness, pathos and comedy Truffaut would like). A Filipino producer, the matriarch Lily Monteverde gave the edict to young filmmakers to go forth and multiply (actually, she said, give these no-names a break to direct a film and I'll give them 3 million pesos each, roughly $60,000, but there had to be gratuitous sex and violence so she can recoup some of her costs) and lo and behold, some movies that came out were actually good: Fetch a Pail of Water, Woman on a Tin Roof (Mario O'Hara) and Sisa (also by Mario).
Belleville Rendezvous (Belguim) Sylvain Chomet
Reviewed many times in AICN. Hey, they're right. Finding Nemo compared to this one is like Gigli compared to Citizen Kane. Why is there so much TALK in movies? Belleville puts them all to shame (and it saved costs on the subtitling). Didn't Eric von Stroheim say when they started yakkin' the industry started dying? (Maybe he said it in German...)
If you use this, I'm Quentin Tarantado.
