http://thisisalive.com/
Very good exhibition!
With many onirique objects using captors -, crystals growing, pearlings, skins grown from tea culture, bio-training of vegetation - growing bottle gourds into shower heads by forcing the plant into plastic forms...
I love everything in this exhibition!
http://fondation.edf.com/videos/en-vie-aux-frontieres-du-design
Saturday, 31 August 2013
Friday, 30 August 2013
Voestalpine Klangwolke; 49 quadrocopter in outdoor-formation-flight / Ars Electronica Futurelab / Linz, Austria 2012
voestalpine Klangwolke
voestalpine Klangwolke ; ars electronica light show :: 49 quadrocopters
Linz, Austria
Wednesday, 28 August 2013
sl Gacha event at Arcade 2013, Sept
I discovered this high quality sim - The Arcade - a few months ago, it was not in action. Artists in sl are also artists in rl, so here we are! An interactive online animation game!
In 2007, there were many high quality sims, a lot of them have disappeared. I wished I could visit them again with my knowledge of sl now. Maybe Linden Lab could /will do something about it? (Such as the Clock Island Sim.)
The coming up event at the Arcade is a wonderful time to see whats going on. I have visited an Arcade Museum in Sans Francisco a few years ago, the games, and toys, and machanical juke box, oracle distributors are so much fun for everybody. Though it was nearly empty of visitors and the displays dusty and probably not functioning anymore. Sl is a wonderful platform to play all these arcade games. And the Gacha event - is for luck! Chinese people love to play "luck" games. Gambling, random win falls. Looking forward to see this in sl. Maybe a machinima on this?
http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2013/08/arcade-gacha-september.html#more
In 2007, there were many high quality sims, a lot of them have disappeared. I wished I could visit them again with my knowledge of sl now. Maybe Linden Lab could /will do something about it? (Such as the Clock Island Sim.)
The coming up event at the Arcade is a wonderful time to see whats going on. I have visited an Arcade Museum in Sans Francisco a few years ago, the games, and toys, and machanical juke box, oracle distributors are so much fun for everybody. Though it was nearly empty of visitors and the displays dusty and probably not functioning anymore. Sl is a wonderful platform to play all these arcade games. And the Gacha event - is for luck! Chinese people love to play "luck" games. Gambling, random win falls. Looking forward to see this in sl. Maybe a machinima on this?
http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2013/08/arcade-gacha-september.html#more
Art Kaohsiung 2013 Sept 13-16
高雄藝術博覽會 執行委員會
地址：臺北市松山區八德路三段12巷51弄17號1樓
聯絡人：賴珮竹 小姐
電話：+ 886-2-2577-1676
傳真：+ 886-2-2578-8659
Email：art.kaohsiung@gmail.com
地址：臺北市松山區八德路三段12巷51弄17號1樓
聯絡人：賴珮竹 小姐
電話：+ 886-2-2577-1676
傳真：+ 886-2-2578-8659
Email：art.kaohsiung@gmail.com
Taiwanese Comic Artist + Japanese Comic Artists
※ 引述《hakk (hakk)》之銘言： : 是畫不出好的主題還是其他問題呢??? : 我個人覺得畫不出好題材是個很大的因素,日本,台灣熱門人氣,冷門漫畫我幾乎 : 都有在看,但日本漫畫有的人物畫的超醜,但劇情就是會讓人想再看下去,甚至有 : 些主角讓我覺得很廢,很機車,但也會因劇情因素繼續看下去 : 不過還是很佩服那些追夢漫畫家 如果你有看日本漫畫的話, 你應該會發覺, 他們的後記裡, 有時會討論他 們的編輯. 而這些編輯不僅是催促他們的作畫進度, 也包括, 為他們的劇 情提供意見, 給予修正, 以及幫漫畫家搜集資料. 在日本, 編輯對內容的 影響力絕對是巨大的. 這種分工其實對內容的品質穩定性非常重要. 日本的漫畫家低齡至高中生 的, 或者在高中畢業後就作畫的, 例如島本和彥, 他們才二十歲出頭, 而 且一出來工作就是當漫畫家, 自然地, 我們很難期待他們在內容上很有深 度, 因為他們的處世經驗和學問都應該不足. 編輯分擔了部份工作. 讓他們專精於畫技和分鏡的培養, 而補足他們不足 的地方, 日本的編輯的學歷高, 態度偏向客觀, 市場化. 而且年紀比漫畫 家要大, 所以以前輩的身份去控制作品的品質. 這種分工對內容是很重要 的. 觀察日本漫畫從得獎作品或投稿作品, 變成連載的, 你會發覺, 他們的人 物和背景設定上, 往往初期品和連載作品, 都有出入. 例如光速幪面俠裡 的角色人設, 栗田的造型就有大變化. 這是因為漫畫家有創意, 但不見得 能成熟的表達, 也不見得合市場, 編輯可以大幅的以客觀角度修正. 當然 地, 日本的漫畫家也接受了受編輯干涉, 最終達致分工互利. 我不是臺灣的漫畫家, 不是業界人仕, 所以不清楚臺灣是否, 及能否如此 , 但是無疑, 對於臺灣來說, 因為銷量和收入的差異, 請一個有這樣能力 的編輯不容易而且很奢侈. 編輯不僅需要有知識, 有美感, 而且他對市場的反應靈敏. 所以我想, 臺灣普遍應該是沒有辦法做到這種細緻的分工. 據我所知, 韋宗成的漫畫之所以受歡迎, 除了他個人的創意外, 他背後的 編輯對他的支持也很大. 韋宗成的創作, 罕有地和日漫一樣, 有編輯指導 了並修正了他漫畫的市場方向和包裝. 這點是韋宗成能夠比較常出現會紅 的作品的原因, 因為他願意讓「創作者的創意」及「市場者的感知」結合 , 建立起有商業價值的作品, 而不是單純只依創作者喜好的作品, 也不是 完全無視創作者的作品. 無論多少人批評韋宗成的漫畫是嘩眾取寵, 政治題材也好, 他的馬皇降臨 能夠賣到 20000 本以上是客觀事實. 這證明了, 政治題材有市場, 會紅, 而這是絕對能商業化還是會成功的. 相比之下, 不論反對的人怎樣主張這 種玩弄政治題材只是小把戲, 要像日漫一樣, 做大幻想, 大冒險, 海賊王 , 多種深度題材才是王道, 賣的數量很可能連這的十份一, 甚至百份一都 沒有, 是現實, 甚至沒辦法做出來. 所以務實的做法, 應該就是像這樣, 採納的並不是日漫的題材, 而是日漫 的生產模式 (漫畫家 + 編輯, 甚至加上專業編劇), 接納臺灣市場和日本 主場的不同, 專注於不會被日本市場直接競爭的部份. 實際的慢慢建立生 產模式和市場. 土壤生成, 大家開始重新接納臺漫之後, 就會有培養更多 不同種類作品的空間. 而不是跳步問為何臺灣沒有島耕作, 沒有鋼之鍊金 術士, 底層尚未建立, 何來空中樓閣? 更不要說, 日本漫畫的底層, 是由大量的色情漫畫撐起的, 多少漫畫家未 成名之前, 都是要靠畫色情漫畫這種消耗品去謀生和鍛練畫技. 即使是四 葉妹妹的作者, 成名前也是畫色情漫. 大丈夫能屈能伸, 人家也有卑微的 時代, 也是踏過了那種時代才會有成功的日子, 想要跳過而直接成功, 是 不切實際的. 在日本, 色情漫畫家會很受尊崇嗎? 不會. 所以臺灣漫畫家不受尊崇, 臺 灣家長討厭漫畫, 也不是問題. 色情漫畫讓底層的漫畫家能夠用畫畫的方 式謀生, 成長, 糊口而繼續當漫畫家, 讓他們生存到有成功的時候. 而不 需要去賣雞排, 做和漫畫完全無關的工作謀生, 這也是關鍵. 能生存, 不 怕被看不起, 最怕不能生存. 並不是畫功的問題, 像日本的賭博墮天錄畫功又好在哪? 也不是劇情的問題, 日本也有很多劇情很難看還是能賣的漫畫. 更不是創意的問題, 創意是到處都有的. 亦不會是人口問題, 香港的人口比臺灣更少. 而是方法的問題, 多些適應現實情況, 不斷的改變方法, 現實會證明那是 行得通或者行不通的. 本土的高中生活(Young Guns, L-Man), 兵役(兵齊 步, 笨笨狐的兵籍資料袋, 狗臉的歲月), 本土政治(馬皇), 本土民生( 543 系列), 民國史(大同萌會)都是臺灣市場被證明有效, 而且不會被日 本波畫直接競爭的部份. 方法和方向, 都是存在的, 事在人為而已.
絕望先生在中國 8 月 25 至 26 日 CWK G-6 攤位有售 | 本同人志完成度長期保持 62% 本同人志完成度長期保持 62% ...Tuesday, 27 August 2013
Sunday, 25 August 2013
Expanded animations 2013 ars electronica
What used to be clearly defined borders between genres and varieties of digital animation have disappeared. E xpansionist tendencies are apparent everywhere. Digital Expanded Animation (www.expandedanimation.com) is a conference for experts from around the world—students, teachers, artists and theoreticians—to exchange ideas about the blurring of borders, peripheral areas, and trends/future developments in the field of computer animation. Participants will view and discuss, in particular, experimental and hybrid forms in a broad, interdisciplinary field at the nexus of art, industry, R&D and science.
Introduction & Welcome
09:40 – 10:00 Jürgen Hagler & Alexander Wilhelm / Expanded Digital AnimationExploration 1 // Mapping the Landscape: Theory and Art
10:00 – 10:40 Suzanne Buchan / Pervasive Animation10:40 – 11:20 Virgil Widrich / in/out – digital/analog Bilder zwischen digitalem Realismus und analoger Glaubwürdigkeit
11:20 – 11:40 Short Coffee Break
11:40 – 12:30 John Gerrard / John Gerrard / Exercise
12:30 – 14:00 Lunch Break
Exploration 2 // Collapsing Boundaries: Performance, Interaction and Data Narration
14:00 – 14:30 Karin Wehn / Conquering New Ground: Animation on the Move14:30 – 15:00 Friedrich Kirschner / Computer Animation in a Performance Context
15:00 – 15:30 Joreg / Completing Reality – About Rmperceptible Realtime Computer Graphics
15:30 – 16:00 Benjamin Wiederkehr / Thoughts on Animation in Information Visualization
16:00 – 16:30 Coffee Break
Exploration 3 // Unlimited Fields: Transformation and Interpretation
16:30 – 17:25 Semiconductor / A-Z of Noise17:25 – 18:20 Quayola / Memo Akten / Hybrid Spaces of Animated Painting and Sculpture
http://www.expandedanimation.com/
Thu 5. 9.
Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz
Saturday, 24 August 2013
ars electronica 2013, Sept 5-9th 2013, Linz :: Schizophrenia Taiwan 2.0; Japan Media Arts Festival; Japan Media Arts Festival; Total Recall – The Evolution of Memory
http://www.aec.at/center/en/
Schizophrenia Taiwan 2.0
Taiwan is simultaneously center and periphery; embodies progress and tradition; represents East and West, what is Chinese both internally and externally. The tension between its well-defined national identity and the still unsettled legal status with respect to mainland China is omnipresent and manifests itself in people’s everyday lives. “Schizophrenia Taiwan 2.0” addresses these contradictions and dualities, and—in an allusion to Heiner Müller’s 1997 play “Die Hamletmaschine”—conjures up a Taiwanmachine of its own. Like Müller’s work, “Schizophrenia Taiwan 2.0” revolves around the technological progress that is revolutionizing the world by fracturing traditional narrative structures and advancing media to the status of central economic factor. Born between the era of color TV and that of smartphones, and born in a country responsible for a considerable share of the world’s production of high-tech devices, Taiwan’s young media artists are fully aware of the potential as well as the risk of globalization and cybernetics. Their works reflect the challenges that are now facing Taiwan and the entire world.
A reception and guided tour of “Schizophrenia Taiwan 2.0” for media outlet representatives will be held on Thursday, September 5, 2013 at 5 PM. Accompanied by Ambassador Lien-Gene Chen, curator I-Wei Li will conduct the ladies and gentlemen of the press through the exhibition. This gathering is hosted by the Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Japan Media Arts Festival – A New Platform for Memory
Since 1997, the Japan Media Arts Festival has been honoring outstanding artistic achievement in a broad spectrum of genres ranging from animation and comics to media art and computer games. The festival also functions as a showcase to provide greater visibility for the prizewinning artists and their work. A best-of show curated from among a total of 3,503 entries from 71 countries will be exhibited in early September at this year’s Ars Electronica in Linz.
Project Beehive
In the spirit of this year’s festival theme, Ars Electronica is trying out a new and different form of festival documentation. Instead of filming the goings-on at the festival as neutrally, as objectively as possible, and then storing the categorized material in our in-house archive, we’re going to be focusing of a subjective festival experience this time. To do it, a crew of students from Queensland University of Technology is being equipped with wide-angle Actioncams and sent out into the hustle and bustle. What they cover and how they do it is completely up to them. What they most definitely shouldn’t film is the stuff that producers, curators and artists consider interesting and worthy of digital immortality. Instead, they should go out and capture what appeals to them. Once the swarm has scoured the festival grounds for sweet images, it’s time to buzz back to the Beehive, the Mobile Ö1 Atelier on Hauptplatz. Here, they can turn in their SD cards, upload their files, and finally view their material on a jumbo wall tiled with screens. This kaleidoscope juxtaposes diverse perspectives and points of view without the slightest effort to privilege any one of them, and thus delivers insights into the festival that radically differ from those that could be gleaned from an archive. Project Beehive doesn’t aim to document what went on at Ars Electronica 2013 but rather how it was experienced.
Total Recall – The Evolution of Memory
This year’s Ars Electronica Festival is set for September 5-9 in Linz. The 2013 theme is TOTAL RECALL – The Evolution of Memory. The festival program includes, as always, a diversified lineup of symposia, exhibitions, performances, interventions and concerts. Details will be posted over the coming weeks to http://www.aec.at/totalrecall/en/. Plus, thought-provoking background info and interviews with participating artists and scientists will be made available on the festival blog at http://www.aec.at/aeblog/en/.
press release “International partners of the 2013 Ars Electronica Festival: Schizophrenia Taiwan 2.0, Japan Media Arts Festival, Project Beehive” / PDF
![The Unconscious Voyage / Wan-Jen CHEN](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vu3EdrarFy47ARFgG6iqEjPCtFy4FiYpeHCgm1VA-N56nTrh5rmo33Y5SyLyw6PwLMoZUGIp7sfNzgy9UPoPYeifCNZom4JWayKItMrQNU7Ki57QlwOmELsMdUdLN5eCd-AQ=s0-d "In the "Unconscious Voyage" there is no axis of time and space. Various pedestrians walk around endlessly, coming and going, not unlike ghosts. No one stops, there is no time to do so. Anxiety can be sensed in the seemingly ordered paces. The only option is to keep on going.
credit: Wan-Jen CHEN")
Schizophrenia Taiwan 2.0 / The Unconscious Voyage / Wan-Jen CHEN / Printversion / Album
Schizophrenia Taiwan 2.0
Taiwan is simultaneously center and periphery; embodies progress and tradition; represents East and West, what is Chinese both internally and externally. The tension between its well-defined national identity and the still unsettled legal status with respect to mainland China is omnipresent and manifests itself in people’s everyday lives. “Schizophrenia Taiwan 2.0” addresses these contradictions and dualities, and—in an allusion to Heiner Müller’s 1997 play “Die Hamletmaschine”—conjures up a Taiwanmachine of its own. Like Müller’s work, “Schizophrenia Taiwan 2.0” revolves around the technological progress that is revolutionizing the world by fracturing traditional narrative structures and advancing media to the status of central economic factor. Born between the era of color TV and that of smartphones, and born in a country responsible for a considerable share of the world’s production of high-tech devices, Taiwan’s young media artists are fully aware of the potential as well as the risk of globalization and cybernetics. Their works reflect the challenges that are now facing Taiwan and the entire world.
A reception and guided tour of “Schizophrenia Taiwan 2.0” for media outlet representatives will be held on Thursday, September 5, 2013 at 5 PM. Accompanied by Ambassador Lien-Gene Chen, curator I-Wei Li will conduct the ladies and gentlemen of the press through the exhibition. This gathering is hosted by the Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Japan Media Arts Festival – A New Platform for Memory
Since 1997, the Japan Media Arts Festival has been honoring outstanding artistic achievement in a broad spectrum of genres ranging from animation and comics to media art and computer games. The festival also functions as a showcase to provide greater visibility for the prizewinning artists and their work. A best-of show curated from among a total of 3,503 entries from 71 countries will be exhibited in early September at this year’s Ars Electronica in Linz.
Project Beehive
In the spirit of this year’s festival theme, Ars Electronica is trying out a new and different form of festival documentation. Instead of filming the goings-on at the festival as neutrally, as objectively as possible, and then storing the categorized material in our in-house archive, we’re going to be focusing of a subjective festival experience this time. To do it, a crew of students from Queensland University of Technology is being equipped with wide-angle Actioncams and sent out into the hustle and bustle. What they cover and how they do it is completely up to them. What they most definitely shouldn’t film is the stuff that producers, curators and artists consider interesting and worthy of digital immortality. Instead, they should go out and capture what appeals to them. Once the swarm has scoured the festival grounds for sweet images, it’s time to buzz back to the Beehive, the Mobile Ö1 Atelier on Hauptplatz. Here, they can turn in their SD cards, upload their files, and finally view their material on a jumbo wall tiled with screens. This kaleidoscope juxtaposes diverse perspectives and points of view without the slightest effort to privilege any one of them, and thus delivers insights into the festival that radically differ from those that could be gleaned from an archive. Project Beehive doesn’t aim to document what went on at Ars Electronica 2013 but rather how it was experienced.
Total Recall – The Evolution of Memory
This year’s Ars Electronica Festival is set for September 5-9 in Linz. The 2013 theme is TOTAL RECALL – The Evolution of Memory. The festival program includes, as always, a diversified lineup of symposia, exhibitions, performances, interventions and concerts. Details will be posted over the coming weeks to http://www.aec.at/totalrecall/en/. Plus, thought-provoking background info and interviews with participating artists and scientists will be made available on the festival blog at http://www.aec.at/aeblog/en/.
press release “International partners of the 2013 Ars Electronica Festival: Schizophrenia Taiwan 2.0, Japan Media Arts Festival, Project Beehive” / PDF
Schizophrenia Taiwan 2.0 / The Unconscious Voyage / Wan-Jen CHEN / Printversion / Album
Chinese presence at Venice Biennale 2013; and the Encylopedia theme of the main show; vw tent, igloo tent
Chinese presence at Venice Biennale 2013; and the Encylopedia theme of the main show.
Before going to the Biennale this year, I didnt have much time to do research.
The Encylopedia theme of the main building had a lot of very interesting work by artists who had a full time occupation that is not "professional art" making.
The Art Brut type of work is the most powerful because its mainly spiritually, and emotionally engaged. All the other conceptual abstract representation of what "the artist really was trying to investigate" seemed pale. After all its been many years, that people have moved from "beauty" to "craftsmenship" to "conceptual art brilliance" to "ordinary people could be artist too" to the definition play of "Duchamp's Urinal - ready made", to social networking media art", there were also philosophical, spiritual healing type of magic, voodoo work.
There are also political messages concerning money, middleman, horses w legs sawed off as a symbol of lack of power in a society. And others who engage in personal poetic explorations - collaborations with biology, urban city data, the artwork themselves expand to include cross-disciplinary fields of information.
Other very well executed pieces include video of fabricated stories, re-constructing fictive histories - fables, dreams (Carl Jung's private album) and hand made scrap books of countless around the world trips - many artists had a personal issue concerning "healing".
A lot of the exhibited work concerns themes of ordinary peoples everyday wishes and dreams and not the abstract "what is art" type of ponderings. Because of this, I like the show very much.
I was very surprise at the number of Chinese participants at the Venice Biennale - and the small number of art criticism on the web.
From the catalogues there were lots of interviews on the curators, how, why, who financed it type of questions - very concrete practical questions that we all want to know though usually in art exhibitions of this type - a high profile non-commercial event of long history with a pure art reputation. It might seem an approach that is "not pure art" more "business, or the business of how to set up an art show".
I am interested in these questions.
More coming...
http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/news-opinion/news/2013-07-03/a-chinese-biennale/
===
Meanwhile ::
VW tent for double room camping
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zooer2mYG20
===
Before going to the Biennale this year, I didnt have much time to do research.
The Encylopedia theme of the main building had a lot of very interesting work by artists who had a full time occupation that is not "professional art" making.
The Art Brut type of work is the most powerful because its mainly spiritually, and emotionally engaged. All the other conceptual abstract representation of what "the artist really was trying to investigate" seemed pale. After all its been many years, that people have moved from "beauty" to "craftsmenship" to "conceptual art brilliance" to "ordinary people could be artist too" to the definition play of "Duchamp's Urinal - ready made", to social networking media art", there were also philosophical, spiritual healing type of magic, voodoo work.
There are also political messages concerning money, middleman, horses w legs sawed off as a symbol of lack of power in a society. And others who engage in personal poetic explorations - collaborations with biology, urban city data, the artwork themselves expand to include cross-disciplinary fields of information.
Other very well executed pieces include video of fabricated stories, re-constructing fictive histories - fables, dreams (Carl Jung's private album) and hand made scrap books of countless around the world trips - many artists had a personal issue concerning "healing".
A lot of the exhibited work concerns themes of ordinary peoples everyday wishes and dreams and not the abstract "what is art" type of ponderings. Because of this, I like the show very much.
I was very surprise at the number of Chinese participants at the Venice Biennale - and the small number of art criticism on the web.
From the catalogues there were lots of interviews on the curators, how, why, who financed it type of questions - very concrete practical questions that we all want to know though usually in art exhibitions of this type - a high profile non-commercial event of long history with a pure art reputation. It might seem an approach that is "not pure art" more "business, or the business of how to set up an art show".
I am interested in these questions.
More coming...
http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/news-opinion/news/2013-07-03/a-chinese-biennale/
===
Meanwhile ::
VW tent for double room camping
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zooer2mYG20
===
Saturday, 10 August 2013
Published Film criticisms in Chinese and English
Published Film criticisms
1// "康城/ 颐和园/ Luxury Car/马天尼"
Critical Narration: "Cannes/ Summer Palace/ Luxury Car/ Martini";
published by City Magazine of Hong Kong; July 2006
2// Film Criticism in English Online :: Digital Communities : Gather
1 The Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976878929
(or, please scroll down)
2 Cannes 2006
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976876136
(or, please scroll down)
I have never liked Jim Carrey as an actor, not so much because of his acting, but because of the roles that he played. I appreciate his corporal expressions and the difficulties and talents that’s required to play the stand up slapstick comic roles that has always been his roles; so when Kate Winslet mentions in an Actors Studio presentation - thanks to YouTube - that Jim plays another kind of role in Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, and that it was a special film for Jim, I decided to see whats Jim like when he plays a straight character?
Surprise, not only was Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Kirstin Dunst, but all the players in the movie were really good! And what a well constructed story! From the inventive premise to the details, the actors skills, economy of expressions – and the director’s attention to consistencies in intriques when one hint has been launched it would be recalled and reinforced later in the story; we remember oh, yes, that happened back at the beginning, yes, that’s why… Many subtle weaving in and out of a story that play on several levels. The story was not only built on the fantasy of scientific erasure of memory, but echoed real life, don’t we all erase as we go along? The film is poetic as it builds on the narrative and maintains a leg on a philosophical level.
The Dunst character had playful sex with her co-worker the technician, who was in love with her and just finished having sex with her at the patient’s (Jim) home during his session of erasure in state of sleep. Something went wrong, the doctor had to come personally in the middle of the night to straighten out the mess. The technician had to witness her two timing him! While the doc tried to make emergency fixes at the patients house, I found it odd why the technician decided to just go outside– when he sensed an intimacy developing between the doc and Dunst (he should have been jealous if he cared about Dunst, but strangely, he was shown more like, being delicate; the script was so smart here, ... it left the trace of a little tail…)
The seduction scene between Dunst and the Doc was very well scripted –while Jim was sleeping and getting his memory erased. So natural, but suddenly we realised something : that for the Dunst character, it’s a second take, the doctor was sheepish because he knew something that Dunst didnt – we could erase the memory of a person, but our character, who we fall for remains the same. The Dunst character fell in love with the doctor because she adored intelligent people as she herself aspired to becoming intelligent. As the wife arrived outside just in time to see them kissing framed in the window in full view from the street… the doctor tried to explain and to stop his wife from driving away, the Dunst character frantically apologised to the angry wife that… sorry…she's just a stupid girl, it's just a one time mistake. Then the wife glared at her and said, no, I give him back to you!! Even as an angry wife – she had to resign to reality – Dunst couldn’t help herself…Dunst already had her memory erased but the situation was still the same.
Revelation, even if our memory had been erased, our character remained. Given favorable circumstances, we would still fall for the same person as our character determined our fate. The theme of the movie thunders here and smartly straight to the heart through the side characters who were graced with critical turning point moments.
Kirsten Dunst was very natural and lovely as a contemporary woman in love with her boss. Her elegant slim body, not anorexic, but svelt ... and dreamy soft expressions had been cast perfectly – we all love to have such a girl friend, pretty, kind, uncomplicated, easy going, contemporary : she liked to relax, get stoned and also aspired to be intelligent- positive light character. The Dunst character contrasted with the Kate Winslet character; a wilder sensual, also not anorexic woman with no self censorships, maybe she doesn’t exactly “fucks her way” with everyone but she had no problem with going after what her heart told her- did what she liked and erased her memory on impulse. Saying goodbye abruptly. Whereas the Dunst character had her memory erased to make it easier for her to continue working within proximity of the source of her love and pain.
The rest of the story are variations of how the two : Jim and Kate character meet again, the acceptance or non acceptance… as time, memories unfold.
Jim Carrey played his role well, unreproachable, but there is something in his presentation that made him not quite a memorable low key nervous type – even when he stayed quiet, eyes down, arms folded inwards, his presence is loud. Not that of a soft spoken insecure person. How could he have played this type of withdrawn introvert dramatic role? I have no answer.
Lets say if I had never seen any Jim Carrey movies, I wouldn’t have been wowed by his screen presence in this movie. He’s a very good actor and very professional. There must be a role that lets him play other roles aside from slap sticks – if he had wanted to - and at the same time deploy his range of dramatic talents.
As for Kate Winslet, she was superbly cast, human, not made up too beautifully like a star. A man would fall in love with her character – because she was not a feigning-to-be-weak woman, but she was really someone a little broken, someone who needed a man– more sentimental than practical needs: just opposite sex tender loving care, not super-man Man – when she’s gone overboard, depleted by her own unruly energy. Winslet was alive and kicking, yummy in her role.
A selection of Criticisms of films, Cannes 2006
:: 9 June 2006 :: sg Chow
Luxury Car (****)
A finely controlled performance by the star – she managed to be both the bar hostess and good daughter without hiding either side of her at the same time. Very well paced and the father, the boyfriend, the police, all very experienced and acted well.
The thuggery scheme to attack a driver to rob and steal a luxury car seems almost too simple – but believable - this is a land of pioneers, people are out to grab what they could in anyway they could think of – including sacrificing one member of the thugster team – simplicity, and ruthlessness in petty crime.
Taxidermia(****)
A very pungent humoured, well executed to millimeter precision Hungarian film – well orchestrated, witty, well acted, superbly casted in everyway.
The story of a three generation family with the focus on the grandfather/father/son, lineage of male figures. In each generation, the Man, has to deal with his destiny in the best way he knows how. Very sharp witted and special communist/socialist film from the Eastern Block. Absolutely marvellous. The story has scenes of exaggeration, simultaneous double message in all the scenes –revelations of the mishaps and injustice of the one in power with concrete evidence, and at the same time presented as a farce, a comical pastiche of unending moments of absurdity of life, we could not help laughing at the predicament of the heros – very rich with macabre humour, and soft happy scenes too, comic book flippancy, and irony mocking high culture spiels.
The film is a rich embodiment of entertainment with serious messages at every turn. A film worthy of collection in personal archive of film.
Over the hedge (**+half)
Digital animation about animals stealing food from a suburban house. Fun.
Volevo solo vivere(***)(holocaust victims who lived to tell the experience)
The testimony of victims of concentration camps. The details revealed told by people in their 80's crying, remembering the suffering that they had to endure for no reason other than racism. And people acting on orders of their boss, the bourreau does not feel personally responsible for their acts, when its over, they just drop their guns and go home to their wives and children as if its just a job which ended.
The victim said, she just thought, what if I just pick up this gun and shoot him right now for all the sufferings that he caused me… but she said, it only lasted a short moment, because the difference between her and these bourreaus is that they are able to execute without any reflexion whereas she could not. That is the difference between a human being and a bourreau.
This film lets the victim speak to us, that strange things are able to happen due to people following orders without critical judgements – as they feel that they are not responsible for the idea – they are just the machine of executioners. However, as an independent person with individual brains; if you were an underling just following orders, doing a dirty job, would you be exempt, clear in your conscience, from responsibility of atrocities done to others ?
Babel (****)Very moving picture.
The opening is natural, dry, desert, how a sheep herder got a rifle – modernity in this arid dry place – jealousy between the older brother and the smarter younger brother – just a hint, naturally played and story details well constructed. Brotherly love and competition, innocent child’s play with a new toy this rifle that shoots 3 miles range – to test it, they aim for moving targets, like hyenas, and a bus – without considering the dangerous consequences as children do – it turns into an international terrorist fears, governments are geared into actions, causing humongous after effects for the villages –
And the Americans tourists couple (Brad Pitt and Cate Blancett) with couples problems, the two have different priorities: the man always needing to explore away-from home challenges, dragging his wife to his explorations as an attempt to reconciliation who is a bourgeois woman, who fears backward country’s (she brings her own knife and fork and forbids use of ice cubes to cool a warm coca cola) two people traveling in time with different life style issues – she was in the bus and got shot from the rifle testing game by the shepherds son; she risks bleeding to death, this fearful ordeal brings the two people closer together –
meanwhile, their house keeper nanny a Mexican woman who lived in USA for 14 years wants to attend her sons wedding in Mexico (from San Diego, just a few hours drive away), because of the accident of her employers, she had to find a solution – in the end, she took the risk of bringing the two white children to the Mexican party crossing the border, and long stretches of desert land with cactus – the children learns about Mexican children’s games, twisting a live chickens head off and seeing it run, at first foreboding to such games then truly enjoying the party too, chasing the chickens etc. – visual richness and sharp comparison of cultures, between the rich (protected soft games) and the poor (direct live action with real blood, killing of animals ), who’s got the power, the customs officers grilling the Nanny at the end, a severe no non-sense hardness, punishment of no re-entry to her existing job – she lost her dreams the things she worked for since 14 years for one evening of attendance to her sons wedding – very realistic and totally believable strongly constructed story.
The Japanese part is set in Tokyo – linked to the Moroccan part via the rifle - a well to do business man who gave his rifle to his Moroccan guide during his hunting trip – he has existential problems, his wife committed suicide with a gun, this trauma is passed onto his mute/deaf teenage girl - the social problems of this rich handicapped pretty young girl, through her attempts to be accepted by young men, we see the games Tokyo youths play, drugs, whiskey, sex plays – loneliness, repeated innocent rejections which cumulatively becomes very hurtful – the family lives in a penthouse Tokyo chic high rise tower environment, cold luxury apartment with starkly designed sleekness, the masculine powerful man’s home without any sign of feminine touches, he has no wife –– compared to the Marocan shepherds home, arid, tough, dry, mud sheds with holes and wife and teenage daughter who consents to peeping tom brothers… family values, love and attention –
Mexican vibrancy, drinking, music, party dancing, renewal of older peoples romance, mother and son, hopes for a better future in America – American efficiency, kindness, lost, problem in couples relations due to differing needs in existents – Home life is a standard cushioned well to do surroundings with family helper – the whole movie is a rich tapestry well mastered and convincing in everyway. Four existences, four home lives, and styles of living, concerns in their daily existences – these issues drive the stories forward revealing a contemporary world in its larger political clout distribution and in the smaller personal qualities of life, from the material to the spiritual. Something for everyone with humanity at it’s heart.
a short film by Francois Ozon (***)
Stylised and v gd Dramatic philosophic discourse of love by a young man facing his girl friend who is always late for meetings. How the guy sees it and how the girl sees it and their rupture and how sorry the guy feels – all due to an exaggerated sense of pride. Marvelous elocution, handsomely shot, the text /script is by a famous writer. Very finely crafted.
Marie Antoinette (**+half)
I really enjoyed “Lost in Translation” for its imprecise ambiance, and the nuance of being lost, therefore I prepared with great expectations for Marie Antoinette.
I accept Americans having visions that are not-native French, not focused on French history, choosing to tell a personal view about a famous Queen and all – however, the movie is truly disappointing. I enjoy lush operas, beautiful cakes, shoes, fancy dinners, glossy court decors, artifice in playfulness, mondanity exchanges, so on so forth, but this film shows all of these as a series of quick flashes like so many flat flashing postcards – it is not sumptuous, not delicious as decadent people in their playful frivolity do when they enjoy these things, nor the dialogues any different from American teenagers! But these are King and Queen – how could they speak in such an unlikely tongue, without any royalty feelings with believable conduct matching to their privilege positions? (For example, two teenagers, say one from a middleclass merchants home and another from a middle class professors home, and another from a working class new immigrant – wouldn’t they speak differently from their respective positions? As teenagers carry over the speech patterns from their family, they are a miniature of their family - how come the King and Queen talks like they are at a backyard barbecue? They might not necessarily talk authentic royalty talk, but there should be some sort of pride in their bearing etc. vis-a-vis their servants, and to each other, so on so forth)
We could say Sophia Coppola has poetic license to do whatever she wants to – but having made so much effort to acquire all the settings, and the audience really didn’t get that much out of the finesse promised from the title – maybe this is fast food royalty. We show you the labels and that’s enough.
This film is a giant size wasted opportunity. To show the elements that Sophia wants to show, she doesn’t really need the authentic setting – why insist on shooting on real grounds, having the “setting” doesn’t a king and queen made, I think. Why do this story? When the reality swerves so much away from the original track, it is as if Sophia wants to borrow the fame of the defunct Antoinette to boost up the credibility of an adolescent queen story. If the central character is not named Marie Antoinette – but say, a fairy queen from some fable land - would it have changed the validity of the movie?
The part at the Trianon, where Marie-Antoinette has to strip herself totally – including ridding herself of her pet dog… in history there was a confirmation of such an event, but would it have been shown like this – to us the audience? After all she is the dauphine… we as audience couldn’t have seen her naked like this fully in display from a distance – I have trouble getting any sense of feeling of being privileged like the royalties that they were, I am not even talking about authenticity to the French original, but just as a fictive constructed feeling of royalty… it doesn’t have to be authentic, but if we were to believe in “court” manners, stuffiness, hostility, etc. There should be more tension and oppression in a natural flow, nuances in the story line. But we were simply told directly that “this is ridiculous” (uttered by Kristen Dunst), and the King similarly without any sense of kingliness – he might have been an adolescent interested only in locks – but he is a king, a pampered privilege king who should conduct himself with something kingly and not simply like a spoilt taciturn American Youth.
The film is shallow, little story tension, even the puffy pastry, the visual candies were not exploited fully – as this was THE film that the French allowed for filming at Versailles we wait for great privileged views of special Royalty details (authentic or fictive but we knew Sophia Coppola was not going to make a historically correct film so we waited for the fictive fun filled royalty) – but Sophia seems to be not that interested. Its like the joke of an American visiting the Louvre in 15mn because he has a taxi waiting for him outside… he’s not interested but he wants to say yes, he has factually visited the Louvre.
Sketches of Frank Gehry (***)
V gd, aside from creativity process in architecture which I am familiar with nothing new here, whats interesting is that it reveals Gehry had been seeing a psychoanalyst for over 20 yrs to help cope w uncertainties of his life, failure in marriage and profession, etc. humanly presented – yes, its alright if you need to talk to a specialists, people are stressed out in the contemporary world.
Gehry talked about how he stopped doing work “just for make a living” and began his own style – even though he had a hard time to make ends meet, he was so relieved once the decision was made – message: if you are true to yourself you come through the tunnel in the end)
The Mountain of the Scribes (***)
During Spanish colonial domination power struggle between the administrator and a Francisan Bishop who wanted to build a university in the Andes –story of the history of a famous university, the scene of the central character a yg talented scribe, a monk, peeping over the monastery wall at yg girls going to the wash is just right in the right tone, the internal power struggle within the Franciscan Bishop is subtly revealed, just right, dialogue is v gd. A historical epic film, story well told and details of lives in a closed milieu.
Southland tales (**+ bonus half)for the visual richness in spite of, or, because of an unusual messiness
The settings looks very expensive and stylized, but the story is very messy – set in some strange future time with pop comic type of evil characters and women who uses voice transformers for extorsion, porn stars world view and business sense, phony deaths… mess of threads going in different directions; the film is like a train crash dragging all kinds of non-sense marvel comic type of secondary events, drawn out very long, felt like wasted 3 hrs watching it. However, after viewing the chaotic constructions in the end, we remember it being very strange, with a lot of details of all sorts. I wouldn’t exactly call it a good film, but something stayed, we don’t forget certain scenes of the film. Like a race horse that's gone out of control, I wonder just why was this movie made?
Bai Ling plays a dark Asian mysterious erotic side kick to the evil one, very well acted, good body language, dancing and vamping, and dialogue (none of the stilted unnatural phonetically instructed speech tones that I have seen in recent films such as in Memoire of a Geisha). I have watched Bai Ling in various movies from straight roles to vamps, she is v talented and always expressive and alive - in speech, body language and her interviews are always intelligent with a level of human common sense. An attractive mix of intelligence and natural physical gifts, this is an Asian actress who merits more roles in different settings to fully deploy her talents.
1// "康城/ 颐和园/ Luxury Car/马天尼"
Critical Narration: "Cannes/ Summer Palace/ Luxury Car/ Martini";
published by City Magazine of Hong Kong; July 2006
2// Film Criticism in English Online :: Digital Communities : Gather
1 The Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976878929
(or, please scroll down)
2 Cannes 2006
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976876136
(or, please scroll down)
3// Film reviews in English on Digital Communities : Secondlife/Real life Weblog
http://swannbb.blogspot.com (list of titles under : Story Teller)
Movies & Film Writing Sample - New York+Paris, NY
January 07, 2007 01:59 AM EST
(Updated: January 08, 2007 07:12 PM EST)
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comments: 2
Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, (film :: 2004)
7Jan07, sg Chow I have never liked Jim Carrey as an actor, not so much because of his acting, but because of the roles that he played. I appreciate his corporal expressions and the difficulties and talents that’s required to play the stand up slapstick comic roles that has always been his roles; so when Kate Winslet mentions in an Actors Studio presentation - thanks to YouTube - that Jim plays another kind of role in Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, and that it was a special film for Jim, I decided to see whats Jim like when he plays a straight character?
Surprise, not only was Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Kirstin Dunst, but all the players in the movie were really good! And what a well constructed story! From the inventive premise to the details, the actors skills, economy of expressions – and the director’s attention to consistencies in intriques when one hint has been launched it would be recalled and reinforced later in the story; we remember oh, yes, that happened back at the beginning, yes, that’s why… Many subtle weaving in and out of a story that play on several levels. The story was not only built on the fantasy of scientific erasure of memory, but echoed real life, don’t we all erase as we go along? The film is poetic as it builds on the narrative and maintains a leg on a philosophical level.
The Dunst character had playful sex with her co-worker the technician, who was in love with her and just finished having sex with her at the patient’s (Jim) home during his session of erasure in state of sleep. Something went wrong, the doctor had to come personally in the middle of the night to straighten out the mess. The technician had to witness her two timing him! While the doc tried to make emergency fixes at the patients house, I found it odd why the technician decided to just go outside– when he sensed an intimacy developing between the doc and Dunst (he should have been jealous if he cared about Dunst, but strangely, he was shown more like, being delicate; the script was so smart here, ... it left the trace of a little tail…)
The seduction scene between Dunst and the Doc was very well scripted –while Jim was sleeping and getting his memory erased. So natural, but suddenly we realised something : that for the Dunst character, it’s a second take, the doctor was sheepish because he knew something that Dunst didnt – we could erase the memory of a person, but our character, who we fall for remains the same. The Dunst character fell in love with the doctor because she adored intelligent people as she herself aspired to becoming intelligent. As the wife arrived outside just in time to see them kissing framed in the window in full view from the street… the doctor tried to explain and to stop his wife from driving away, the Dunst character frantically apologised to the angry wife that… sorry…she's just a stupid girl, it's just a one time mistake. Then the wife glared at her and said, no, I give him back to you!! Even as an angry wife – she had to resign to reality – Dunst couldn’t help herself…Dunst already had her memory erased but the situation was still the same.
Revelation, even if our memory had been erased, our character remained. Given favorable circumstances, we would still fall for the same person as our character determined our fate. The theme of the movie thunders here and smartly straight to the heart through the side characters who were graced with critical turning point moments.
Kirsten Dunst was very natural and lovely as a contemporary woman in love with her boss. Her elegant slim body, not anorexic, but svelt ... and dreamy soft expressions had been cast perfectly – we all love to have such a girl friend, pretty, kind, uncomplicated, easy going, contemporary : she liked to relax, get stoned and also aspired to be intelligent- positive light character. The Dunst character contrasted with the Kate Winslet character; a wilder sensual, also not anorexic woman with no self censorships, maybe she doesn’t exactly “fucks her way” with everyone but she had no problem with going after what her heart told her- did what she liked and erased her memory on impulse. Saying goodbye abruptly. Whereas the Dunst character had her memory erased to make it easier for her to continue working within proximity of the source of her love and pain.
The rest of the story are variations of how the two : Jim and Kate character meet again, the acceptance or non acceptance… as time, memories unfold.
Jim Carrey played his role well, unreproachable, but there is something in his presentation that made him not quite a memorable low key nervous type – even when he stayed quiet, eyes down, arms folded inwards, his presence is loud. Not that of a soft spoken insecure person. How could he have played this type of withdrawn introvert dramatic role? I have no answer.
Lets say if I had never seen any Jim Carrey movies, I wouldn’t have been wowed by his screen presence in this movie. He’s a very good actor and very professional. There must be a role that lets him play other roles aside from slap sticks – if he had wanted to - and at the same time deploy his range of dramatic talents.
As for Kate Winslet, she was superbly cast, human, not made up too beautifully like a star. A man would fall in love with her character – because she was not a feigning-to-be-weak woman, but she was really someone a little broken, someone who needed a man– more sentimental than practical needs: just opposite sex tender loving care, not super-man Man – when she’s gone overboard, depleted by her own unruly energy. Winslet was alive and kicking, yummy in her role.
Movies & Film Writing Sample - New York+Paris, NY
January 03, 2007 07:34 PM EST
(Updated: January 03, 2007 11:03 PM EST)
views: 603
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comments: 1
:: 9 June 2006 :: sg Chow
Summer Palace (***)
A movie
notorious for its explicit sex scenes frontal nudity for both male and
female leads and the setting of Tiananmen square incident – the theme is
set in a stifling ambiance of the late-80’s, a lot of the narration is
internal soliloquy – these are gd and poetic.
The
film was long, and the theme subtle to treat but is a current theme
which has been much treated in contemporary literature (as seen on
online writing groups and famous bloggers with sex lives contents on
Chinese web sites, and the current lifting of taboo on sex lives in
general in culture, no longer limited to low brow pop culture – see
books such as Sex lives of Catherine M, etc. Chinese movies treating sex, erotic pink movies, porn stars etc.).
As a film made in 2006, it recalls the movie by Jiang Wen “Yang Guang Chan Lan di re zi)
Those Bright Sunny Days – where sexual frustration in the context of
Red Guards days were played out with depth and poetic cinematographic
language, explored in the larger social context, fully developed
backdrop of the story. Here,
in “summer palace”, set in 89, sexual acts used as an expression of
intimacy, youthful passion-love and sex-as-the-only-gift-possible, that
of-the-self, as communication, as expression of gentleness, revealing
soft sides to the other.
The
theme is ambitious and successful in the broad strokes, however, in the
treatment of the theme – background of Tiananmen Square, people
squirreling here and there, too sketchy, has no explicit detailed direct
relation to the story (but in the press, especially the foreign press,
this label, this loud signage of June4th would be a clear and easy
handle proffered for publicity purpose). The five or six explicit sex scenes were shot in dim lighting, repetitive, not glamorous, no
pleasure seen, even the angle, the acts in themselves are wooden – I
have never seen sex scenes shown explicitly with so little charm – and
both the actress and actors are good looking and talented in other
scenes – these sex scenes were really verging on boredom for the
viewers. Since each sex scene has a reason to be, why should they be shot all the same with long durations?
For
example, we could see anxiety in the first sex scene, Yu Hong wanted to
show her boyfriend that even though she is going away, she wants to
give him something, intimacy. A
little awkward, ambiance awkward, sex in open air along a train track,
both characters fumbling which is normal and in context, correct to the
situation. But the following sex scenes, second scene, in sexual hunger, they quickly undressed each other, etc. ok. Third
sex scene, more of the same, Fourth, Fifth Sixth, with different
partners, but the scenes were always shot in dim light, not much
pleasure seen, no change of camera angles, or anything, we see no
variation of fine emotional expressions (which if the theme is sex used
as a way of communicating intimacy by these young people who have little
other outlets. Here, the arena should be fully taken advantage of, in
each of the scenes we should see the complexity of the feelings of both
the woman and the man, and through body language.)
In
sex scenes, the action is the medium, we don’t use long dialogues here –
(with the exception of Catherine Breillat's films where sometimes the
characters give a long monologue) – sex scenes are: action action
action. The
film missed the opportunity to be eloquent in this story seeded with a
fine and subtle theme, after having courageously setting it up and all
ready to go.
During the press conference, there was a question concerning on the use of explicit sex how and why etc. The answer was that Chinese films are also “international standard”. We want to show “international standards” in our films. Do 6 sex scenes make a film International? Wouldn’t
it be better to show bona fide emotions, hang ups and expressions of
real people authentic to the specific culture instead of matching an
imaginary “International standard” ?
A finely controlled performance by the star – she managed to be both the bar hostess and good daughter without hiding either side of her at the same time. Very well paced and the father, the boyfriend, the police, all very experienced and acted well.
The thuggery scheme to attack a driver to rob and steal a luxury car seems almost too simple – but believable - this is a land of pioneers, people are out to grab what they could in anyway they could think of – including sacrificing one member of the thugster team – simplicity, and ruthlessness in petty crime.
The
film is eloquent in the classic story telling way, a slow, sympathetic
exploration of issues of people coming to terms and realities of modern
day China. All the innocence of protected love, purity due to be contaminated in the city. Everybody
– all the village youths coming to big cities, all they could hope is
to make their way without having to stay in menial drudgery - through
thug-stership or bar-hostessing. A story of the reality of the newly opened, economic booming China -
The
film is rich and the setting natural – same expertise and clean
language of the admirable previous film “Orphan of AnYang”, without
undue sensational add on touches. Very moving. In the end, it is slightly longwinded – but it is also acceptable because it is part of the pace of the movie. In its slowness and explicitedness in the ending, death, return home, village, hospital, birth… life cycle message. Much innocence lost and nothing precious gained and life goes on. We
are not given a “conclusion” type of message, but rather drawn out,
resigned to what life is, stream of event, time passing, life goes on
type of movement.
I
admire this film very much because it treats its themes with integrity,
based on a foundation constructed with Chinese sentimental reasons
family/mother/daughter/father – even the police was kind enough to not
ruin the boyfriends façade, a life in crime infront of the father and
daughter – all told in succint clear cut film language, with a very good
cast.
This film in contrast to “Summer Palace” has great merit in its integrity and fine details. It
invites you to participate at its own pace and does not resort to
sensationalism - there were opportunities galore since the story’s
setting is in Karaoke, with bar girls who also works as prostitute etc. It does not speedily set as goal in catering to an “international” taste as a means to tell/sell the story.
A very pungent humoured, well executed to millimeter precision Hungarian film – well orchestrated, witty, well acted, superbly casted in everyway.
The story of a three generation family with the focus on the grandfather/father/son, lineage of male figures. In each generation, the Man, has to deal with his destiny in the best way he knows how. Very sharp witted and special communist/socialist film from the Eastern Block. Absolutely marvellous. The story has scenes of exaggeration, simultaneous double message in all the scenes –revelations of the mishaps and injustice of the one in power with concrete evidence, and at the same time presented as a farce, a comical pastiche of unending moments of absurdity of life, we could not help laughing at the predicament of the heros – very rich with macabre humour, and soft happy scenes too, comic book flippancy, and irony mocking high culture spiels.
The film is a rich embodiment of entertainment with serious messages at every turn. A film worthy of collection in personal archive of film.
Digital animation about animals stealing food from a suburban house. Fun.
Volevo solo vivere(***)(holocaust victims who lived to tell the experience)
The testimony of victims of concentration camps. The details revealed told by people in their 80's crying, remembering the suffering that they had to endure for no reason other than racism. And people acting on orders of their boss, the bourreau does not feel personally responsible for their acts, when its over, they just drop their guns and go home to their wives and children as if its just a job which ended.
The victim said, she just thought, what if I just pick up this gun and shoot him right now for all the sufferings that he caused me… but she said, it only lasted a short moment, because the difference between her and these bourreaus is that they are able to execute without any reflexion whereas she could not. That is the difference between a human being and a bourreau.
This film lets the victim speak to us, that strange things are able to happen due to people following orders without critical judgements – as they feel that they are not responsible for the idea – they are just the machine of executioners. However, as an independent person with individual brains; if you were an underling just following orders, doing a dirty job, would you be exempt, clear in your conscience, from responsibility of atrocities done to others ?
Babel (****)Very moving picture.
The opening is natural, dry, desert, how a sheep herder got a rifle – modernity in this arid dry place – jealousy between the older brother and the smarter younger brother – just a hint, naturally played and story details well constructed. Brotherly love and competition, innocent child’s play with a new toy this rifle that shoots 3 miles range – to test it, they aim for moving targets, like hyenas, and a bus – without considering the dangerous consequences as children do – it turns into an international terrorist fears, governments are geared into actions, causing humongous after effects for the villages –
And the Americans tourists couple (Brad Pitt and Cate Blancett) with couples problems, the two have different priorities: the man always needing to explore away-from home challenges, dragging his wife to his explorations as an attempt to reconciliation who is a bourgeois woman, who fears backward country’s (she brings her own knife and fork and forbids use of ice cubes to cool a warm coca cola) two people traveling in time with different life style issues – she was in the bus and got shot from the rifle testing game by the shepherds son; she risks bleeding to death, this fearful ordeal brings the two people closer together –
meanwhile, their house keeper nanny a Mexican woman who lived in USA for 14 years wants to attend her sons wedding in Mexico (from San Diego, just a few hours drive away), because of the accident of her employers, she had to find a solution – in the end, she took the risk of bringing the two white children to the Mexican party crossing the border, and long stretches of desert land with cactus – the children learns about Mexican children’s games, twisting a live chickens head off and seeing it run, at first foreboding to such games then truly enjoying the party too, chasing the chickens etc. – visual richness and sharp comparison of cultures, between the rich (protected soft games) and the poor (direct live action with real blood, killing of animals ), who’s got the power, the customs officers grilling the Nanny at the end, a severe no non-sense hardness, punishment of no re-entry to her existing job – she lost her dreams the things she worked for since 14 years for one evening of attendance to her sons wedding – very realistic and totally believable strongly constructed story.
The Japanese part is set in Tokyo – linked to the Moroccan part via the rifle - a well to do business man who gave his rifle to his Moroccan guide during his hunting trip – he has existential problems, his wife committed suicide with a gun, this trauma is passed onto his mute/deaf teenage girl - the social problems of this rich handicapped pretty young girl, through her attempts to be accepted by young men, we see the games Tokyo youths play, drugs, whiskey, sex plays – loneliness, repeated innocent rejections which cumulatively becomes very hurtful – the family lives in a penthouse Tokyo chic high rise tower environment, cold luxury apartment with starkly designed sleekness, the masculine powerful man’s home without any sign of feminine touches, he has no wife –– compared to the Marocan shepherds home, arid, tough, dry, mud sheds with holes and wife and teenage daughter who consents to peeping tom brothers… family values, love and attention –
Mexican vibrancy, drinking, music, party dancing, renewal of older peoples romance, mother and son, hopes for a better future in America – American efficiency, kindness, lost, problem in couples relations due to differing needs in existents – Home life is a standard cushioned well to do surroundings with family helper – the whole movie is a rich tapestry well mastered and convincing in everyway. Four existences, four home lives, and styles of living, concerns in their daily existences – these issues drive the stories forward revealing a contemporary world in its larger political clout distribution and in the smaller personal qualities of life, from the material to the spiritual. Something for everyone with humanity at it’s heart.
a short film by Francois Ozon (***)
Stylised and v gd Dramatic philosophic discourse of love by a young man facing his girl friend who is always late for meetings. How the guy sees it and how the girl sees it and their rupture and how sorry the guy feels – all due to an exaggerated sense of pride. Marvelous elocution, handsomely shot, the text /script is by a famous writer. Very finely crafted.
Marie Antoinette (**+half)
I really enjoyed “Lost in Translation” for its imprecise ambiance, and the nuance of being lost, therefore I prepared with great expectations for Marie Antoinette.
I accept Americans having visions that are not-native French, not focused on French history, choosing to tell a personal view about a famous Queen and all – however, the movie is truly disappointing. I enjoy lush operas, beautiful cakes, shoes, fancy dinners, glossy court decors, artifice in playfulness, mondanity exchanges, so on so forth, but this film shows all of these as a series of quick flashes like so many flat flashing postcards – it is not sumptuous, not delicious as decadent people in their playful frivolity do when they enjoy these things, nor the dialogues any different from American teenagers! But these are King and Queen – how could they speak in such an unlikely tongue, without any royalty feelings with believable conduct matching to their privilege positions? (For example, two teenagers, say one from a middleclass merchants home and another from a middle class professors home, and another from a working class new immigrant – wouldn’t they speak differently from their respective positions? As teenagers carry over the speech patterns from their family, they are a miniature of their family - how come the King and Queen talks like they are at a backyard barbecue? They might not necessarily talk authentic royalty talk, but there should be some sort of pride in their bearing etc. vis-a-vis their servants, and to each other, so on so forth)
We could say Sophia Coppola has poetic license to do whatever she wants to – but having made so much effort to acquire all the settings, and the audience really didn’t get that much out of the finesse promised from the title – maybe this is fast food royalty. We show you the labels and that’s enough.
This film is a giant size wasted opportunity. To show the elements that Sophia wants to show, she doesn’t really need the authentic setting – why insist on shooting on real grounds, having the “setting” doesn’t a king and queen made, I think. Why do this story? When the reality swerves so much away from the original track, it is as if Sophia wants to borrow the fame of the defunct Antoinette to boost up the credibility of an adolescent queen story. If the central character is not named Marie Antoinette – but say, a fairy queen from some fable land - would it have changed the validity of the movie?
The part at the Trianon, where Marie-Antoinette has to strip herself totally – including ridding herself of her pet dog… in history there was a confirmation of such an event, but would it have been shown like this – to us the audience? After all she is the dauphine… we as audience couldn’t have seen her naked like this fully in display from a distance – I have trouble getting any sense of feeling of being privileged like the royalties that they were, I am not even talking about authenticity to the French original, but just as a fictive constructed feeling of royalty… it doesn’t have to be authentic, but if we were to believe in “court” manners, stuffiness, hostility, etc. There should be more tension and oppression in a natural flow, nuances in the story line. But we were simply told directly that “this is ridiculous” (uttered by Kristen Dunst), and the King similarly without any sense of kingliness – he might have been an adolescent interested only in locks – but he is a king, a pampered privilege king who should conduct himself with something kingly and not simply like a spoilt taciturn American Youth.
The film is shallow, little story tension, even the puffy pastry, the visual candies were not exploited fully – as this was THE film that the French allowed for filming at Versailles we wait for great privileged views of special Royalty details (authentic or fictive but we knew Sophia Coppola was not going to make a historically correct film so we waited for the fictive fun filled royalty) – but Sophia seems to be not that interested. Its like the joke of an American visiting the Louvre in 15mn because he has a taxi waiting for him outside… he’s not interested but he wants to say yes, he has factually visited the Louvre.
In
an article on the History of Marie Antoinette, it is said that so far
many films has been shot with the Marie Antoinette story: French,
Austrian, American – the various actresses in the films were rated “most
mysterious”, “most sad”, “most sexy” – and Sophia’s Marie Antoinette
was qualified as the “most recent” – a qualifier that’s purely
chronologic and non-expressive – as her Marie Antoinette showed very
little interior life, we don’t know what she thinks, how she feels. On
the surface, she projects a credible Austrian youthful beauty and has a
very charming carriage, however it does not go much further than this.
Asia
Argento played Madame DuBarry, she projected a hot and trashy, vulgar
DuBarry – but could any women who held the king’s heart all the way from
the brothel to the court could be truly, overtly ONLY vulgar in
presentation? If
its true, then her vulgarity should be something magnificently
original, but Coppola didn’t give Argento enough time to make it
convincing. This caricature of
what DuBarry should be like is not convincing, how about seeing some of
her mature professional erotic charms - on top of her trashiness ? DuBarry should have some sultry sexiness, but not reduced to being just a vulgar wild cat …All
the characters are playing at the surface – with a few exceptions, such
as Marie Antoinettes mother – a stately Queen mother; I didnt realize
the actress was Marianne Faithfull until I read the presentation after
having seen the film; though I noticed the acting was very good – but
her role could be efficiently displayed through her letters as advisor
and mother, we knew about her interior concerns.
The
story itself have been over-simplified, reduced to a skeleton from
which speedy whirls of court life is flopped on top, add on zippy, punk
music. Compare
this film with other “King and Queen” setting movies, this one
definitely has no lack of budget, but overall has a lack of finesse –
imagination finesse - and seems like a huge wasted opportunity.
Sketches of Frank Gehry (***)
V gd, aside from creativity process in architecture which I am familiar with nothing new here, whats interesting is that it reveals Gehry had been seeing a psychoanalyst for over 20 yrs to help cope w uncertainties of his life, failure in marriage and profession, etc. humanly presented – yes, its alright if you need to talk to a specialists, people are stressed out in the contemporary world.
Gehry talked about how he stopped doing work “just for make a living” and began his own style – even though he had a hard time to make ends meet, he was so relieved once the decision was made – message: if you are true to yourself you come through the tunnel in the end)
The Mountain of the Scribes (***)
During Spanish colonial domination power struggle between the administrator and a Francisan Bishop who wanted to build a university in the Andes –story of the history of a famous university, the scene of the central character a yg talented scribe, a monk, peeping over the monastery wall at yg girls going to the wash is just right in the right tone, the internal power struggle within the Franciscan Bishop is subtly revealed, just right, dialogue is v gd. A historical epic film, story well told and details of lives in a closed milieu.
Southland tales (**+ bonus half)for the visual richness in spite of, or, because of an unusual messiness
The settings looks very expensive and stylized, but the story is very messy – set in some strange future time with pop comic type of evil characters and women who uses voice transformers for extorsion, porn stars world view and business sense, phony deaths… mess of threads going in different directions; the film is like a train crash dragging all kinds of non-sense marvel comic type of secondary events, drawn out very long, felt like wasted 3 hrs watching it. However, after viewing the chaotic constructions in the end, we remember it being very strange, with a lot of details of all sorts. I wouldn’t exactly call it a good film, but something stayed, we don’t forget certain scenes of the film. Like a race horse that's gone out of control, I wonder just why was this movie made?
Bai Ling plays a dark Asian mysterious erotic side kick to the evil one, very well acted, good body language, dancing and vamping, and dialogue (none of the stilted unnatural phonetically instructed speech tones that I have seen in recent films such as in Memoire of a Geisha). I have watched Bai Ling in various movies from straight roles to vamps, she is v talented and always expressive and alive - in speech, body language and her interviews are always intelligent with a level of human common sense. An attractive mix of intelligence and natural physical gifts, this is an Asian actress who merits more roles in different settings to fully deploy her talents.
"Beijing 85-87: Courtyard house, Fiction, Painting, Fiction"
"Beijing 85-87: Courtyard house, Fiction, Painting, Fiction"
an exhibition catalogue
Exhibition:
Fiction (cinematic projection 90mn),
Oil paintings, 10 panels of 100f, 140cm x 160cm
Photography (all photos are original color prints)
Courtyard houses
Real Life Stamp : each catalogue has an original art object as souvenir
Travelling exhibition in 3 venues:
1//Beijing Academy of Fine Arts Gallery, Beijing PRC
2//National Theatre of Chaillot, Festival d'automne 1986, Paris, France
3//Centre for Promotion of Chinese Culture, Hong Kong
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