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Michelle

webmaster@mekerr.com thesis.mekerr.com/popguide.html


Oct 17, 04 - 5:59 PM 		New York Film Festival 2004 (10/1-10/17)

The New York Film Festival has been going on for the past few weeks (10/1-10/17/04). You can pretty much guess what it's been about: less than accessible, arty movies by newbies and old masters followed by Q&A's with the filmmakers, actors, producers, etc. The movies are selected by a committee so different factors go into the choosing of the films not the least being personal tastes. So what I expect are interesting films chosen by people who love movies for a living not necessarily the end all and be all movies of the year.

This year the selection committee consisted of Richard Peña, Chairman of the New York Film Festival Selection Committee and Program Director of the Film Society of Lincoln Center, Kent Jones, Editor-at-Large of Film Comment, Philip Lopate, writer and critic, John Powers, NPR Fresh Air film critic and Lisa Schwartzbaum, film critic for Entertainment Weekly.

Yesterday, I saw Cafe Lumiere co-written by Chu T'ien-wen and Hou Hsiao-Hsien and directed by Hou Hsiao-Hsien. I think it's my favorite film of the festival out of the ones I've seen.

For the record, I've also seen: Undertow (I liked it; it was Night of the Hunter meets Gummo), Triple Agent (I would recommend The Lady and the Duke over this one - same director, same story), In the Battlefields (if you think you'll find it interesting, you will), Tarnation (impressive first feature), Woman is the Future of Man (too bleak and abstract for me), Vera Drake (good) and Bad Education (another good one). Tonight is the last night and I'm seeing Sideways.

I've heard good things about Sideways so maybe I should wait until I see it before writing this. But I really wanted to say something about Cafe Lumiere. It is an homage to the Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu. I really loved Hou's Flowers of Shanghai and want to see it again soon to refresh my memory. That was a period film and in Chinese.

Cafe Lumiere (Kohi Jikou) is modern-day and set in Japan with Japanese characters. I loved it. It's about everyday events and contemporary life. You see a lot of people's backs as they sit at the table drinking coffee or eating. Dialogue is spoken with the characters' backs to the camera or even offscreen. You watch the main character hanging her laundry on the clothesline, putting away her groceries, eating a snack. It's mundane stuff but beautifully shot and very relatable. There isn't a lot of plot or dialogue. But it's totally engaging.

I know it's not a film for everyone. But it left an impression on me.
Michelle

thesis.mekerr.com/popguide.html


Oct 18th, 2004 - 8:57 PM 		Re: New York Film Festival 2004 (10/1-10/17)

So I really enjoyed Sideways - more than About Schmidt and as much as Election. It actually reminded me a lot of Cafe Lumiere. And I even thought the short was entertaining (Never Even/Nie Solo Sein directed by Jan Schomburg). But the only short I've ever found truly impressive is Five Feet High and Rising (Peter Sollett's student film - it was good enough to get him and the stars representation). It is the precursor to Raising Victor Vargas. You can catch it on the Sundance Channel - Five Feet High and Rising that is. Amazing.
Michelle

thesis.mekerr.com/popguide.html


Nov 7th, 2004 - 1:02 PM 		Re: New York Film Festival 2004 (10/1-10/17)

Now that more people have seen Sideways, it's nice to have them to discuss the movie further. None of them have seen that short Never Even though. So I thought I'd talk about it a bit here. First off, note that the title is a palindrome. It takes that idea that people have thrown around about how wouldn't it be better if we aged backwards so that as we grew older, we became younger and cuter? The dependency is the same to an extent. The elderly and the very young require someone to make sure their basic needs are met. In the short, the whole world moves backwards.

It reminded me of The Drop video Spike Jonze made with Pharcyde. If you never saw it, the entire video plays backwards. The Pharcyde even worked with a linguist to memorize their lyrics backwards using a syllabic system so that when the video played, their mouths would be in sync with the forward playing rhymes.

SPOILER WARNING. I am assuming many of you will never see Never Even so I'm going to talk about it in detail. If you don't want to know, stop reading now. Don't say I didn't warn you!

So in Never Even, there is one sole male who moves as we do, forwards in motion and time. He is terribly thirsty and goes in search of a drink. He meets a girl who regurgitates juice into a glass and gives it to him to drink. It's a sweet love story that manages to escape the pitfall of being too clever by being just clever enough.


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