Oscar's Cinema Journal 2005

Sweet Movie would offend a lot of people. It was actually banned in English-speaking Canada, England and South Africa. It was best received in Italy where Pasolini was in charge of the dubbing process. Makavejev was named "persona-non-grata" in Yugoslavia because of it. (The film is as critical about communism as it is about anything else). But Sweet Movie, despite a high gross-out factor, is a pointed political satire I found easier to watch that Salo or Caligula, because it lacks the cruelty and mean-spiritedness of those films. Most of Makavejev's films are available on vhs from Facets Video. Those familiar with them seem to prefer W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism. I'll seek it out.

Friday April 22nd

Vodka Lemon at Cosford Cinema
Only the first film from Hiner Saleem to receive distribution in the US. That is, if a 2-screen opening can be called a commercial release in a large country. The distributor is New Yorker Films, which is either under financial strain or had no faith the film would develop a following. A miscalculation in my opinion. Vodka Lemon is set on a small village at the foot of the Armenian mountains during winter. Hamo, a widower of about 60, casually emerges as the protagonist. Like everybody else, he feels nostalgic about the era of Soviet subsidies because nothing has replaced it. Two of his sons live abroad but they send only letters and pictures, so Hamo is forced to sell his possessions. He visits his wife's grave daily and notices Nina, a widow living with her daughter. Through Hamo and Nina, we become acquainted with the rest of the residents, including a gruff-looking bus driver who fancies himself a balladeer. It won't surprise you that Hamo and Nina are drawn to each other, but the care taken by Saleem to depict the minutiae of their gradual relating, and the performances of the leads provide lasting pleasure. Saleem sustains a perfect tone throughout, comic yet melancholic, with surreal moments here and there. Vodka Lemon invites comparison with the films of Finland's Aki Kaurismaki and Georgia's Otar Iosseliani. Hope to get a chance some day to watch the earlier films directed by Mr. Saleem, an Iraqi Kurd who had to leave his beloved village in order to become a filmmaker. (His autobiography has been published in England under the title "My Father's Rifle").

Sat. April 23rd

Two films with historical themes from the Miami Latin Film Festival at the AMC theatre in Coconut Grove.

1809-1810 While the Day Arrives (Ecuador, 2005)
The day in this costume epic's title is Ecuador's Independence Day. The film, directed by Camilo Luzuriaga (Between Marx and a Naked Woman), concerns the events leading up to the massacre of 300 revolutionary Quitenos at the hands of Spanish troops in 1810. Luzuriaga's aim is to depict historical events with great authenticity by shooting at the locations where the events took place, costuming and ambientation based on historical records, and use of Indian dialects and Latin whenever appropriate. A love triangle between a mestiza (mixed blood), a rebel criollo (native, of Spanish parentage) and a Spanish colonel, plays second fiddle to events of socio-political import. A laudable effort, if somewhat uneven in execution.

Maria Querida aka Dearest Maria (Spain, 2004)
Kudos to the festival's programmers for including highbrow films when it's clear audiences flock to thrillers and romantic comedies.
Lola, a 30-something director shooting a film in Cuba, learns from her mother that poet/philosopher Maria Zambrano has died. Maria Querida flashes back 2 years to 1989, when Lola met Zambrano while working for a TV network. The legendary Zambrano was one of the most distinguished members of the generation of artists, thinkers and academics that were killed, imprisoned or exiled by dictator Franco. The recently divorced Lola is presented with the opportunity to direct a documentary on Zambrano (played in the film by Javier Bardem's mother Pilar). A special bond develops between the two as the poet's wisdom and consciousness is passed on to the younger woman, via recollections of her struggles against fascism and her difficult and exciting 45 years of globe-trotting exile, prior to returning to Spain. The documentary is being produced by Lola's ex-husband, perhaps in an attempt to win her back. News that Lola and her bi-sexual boyfriend are expecting a baby could cause him to withdraw his financial support.
Maria Querida was written by the great Rafael Azcona, who scripted the classic films of Berlanga and Saura. Most recently, Azcona received awards for his screenplays of Belle Epoque and Butterfly. The film was directed by J.L. Garcia Sanchez (Golden Bear for Las Truchas). Maria Botto, who was wonderful as the peg-legged Cinta in Aranda's Jealousy, is perfect here as Lola. Maria Querida dexterously mixes fiction and documentary. A highly edifying experience for the viewer, who learns quite a bit about the creative process in documentary filmmaking, becomes acquainted with the insightful Zambrano and the tumultuous history of her generation, and engaged by a fictional narrative about how a director's personal life impacts on her work.

Sunday April 24th

The Way to Murnau: Approaches to a Lonely Master (Germany, 2003)
Documentary short (35 Min.) about Friedrich Wilhem Murnau (1888-1931), perhaps the greatest director of the silent era. This exceedingly tall, quiet, melancholic German studied art history, served as a soldier and pilot in WWI, and directed plays in his teens. At about age 20, he changed his last name from Plumpe to Murnau most likely as a "break with a family that rejected his artistic ambitions and his homosexuality", and became a filmmaker. Most of his films prior to Nosferatu (1922) have been lost. He went on to direct some of the most enduring classics of the silent era, both in Germany and Hollywood: The Last Laugh, Sunrise, Tabu, Faust, Tartuff, City Girl. Most salient characteristics:
1) Compositions and lighting based on paintings (Vermeer, Rembrant, German Romantics, Modern, chiaroscuro art in general). The Way to Murnau matches scenes with the specific paintings that inspired them, leaving no doubt as to Murnau's influences.
2) Psychological approach to guiding performance. (The opposite of Bresson. Murnau stated: "I tell actors what to think not what to do")
3) He sought to liberate the camera from the tripod. Increasingly his films reveal more novel ways of moving the camera.
4) A couple's happiness threatened by an outsider was a recurring theme.

Tartuff (Germany, 1925) on dvd
Murnau's adaptation of Moliere's 17th century fable of religious hypocrisy, starring the great German actor Emil Jannings. Murnau uses a film-within-a-film device to make the content more relevant to his contemporaries. In one scene, a character directly address us (the viewers of Murnau's film). I remember some hailing Michael Haneke as an innovator for doing just that in Funny Games, more than 70 years later. Then again, Tartuff was not available for viewing until its restoration in late 2002.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (USA, 1920) on TCM
Robert Louis Stevenson's classic thriller has been adapted for the screen so many times it's no surprise there were two versions released in 1920. The best one was filmed at Paramount's Long Island studios, directed by John Robertson, and features an amazing, tour-de-force performance by John Barrymore. Not a faithful adaptation as it borrows a character from Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and appropriates a few lines penned by Wilde.

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In one scene, a character directly address us (the viewers of Murnau's film). I remember some hailing Michael Haneke as an innovator for doing just that in Funny Games, more than 70 years later.

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Fielding does it in Tom Jones, and you can see that evoked amusingly in Tony Richardson's brilliant 1963 evolcation of the novel on film--I hope you've seen it? And Laurence Sterne did it a lot in Tristram Shandy; I think it was an 18th-century thing, but it's also something found in self-conscious, self-referential late 20th-century lit. like some of Nabokov's fiction. I am glad to learn that in movies it goes back at least to Murnau. I don't know that much about Murnau, but when I was at Berkeley I used to go to showings put on by "The F.W. Murnau Film Society," which were organized by Tom Luddy, who would give little introductions showing an amazing knowledge of film. He later became dirctor of the Pacific Film Archive.

Nice post, Chris. No, I haven't seen Tom Jones, probably because I haven't been impressed with Richardson's direction in other movies. Your recommendation has been noted. More Murnau coming up, as time permits.

Monday April 25th

Rue Cases Negres aka Sugar Cane Alley (Martinique, France/1983) on dvd

Tortilla came to ask Ma' Tine to help deliver her ma's baby but the baby was stillborn, like her last. Ma' Tine said: "Another kid saved from the white man's cane fields"

Euzhan Palcy (A Dry White Season)'s film is one of the best African diaspora films. It's based on a novel by Joseph Zobel set in 1931 Martinique. Jose, a bright 11 year old, lives in a tumbledown collection of huts with Ma' Tine (Darling Legitmus), the old woman who's raised him since his mother died. It's Jose's last summer of freespirited fun, since he has one year of schooling left before he adopts the punishing routine of the sugar cane worker. Ma' Tine vows not to let that happen, and Jose may be bright and lucky enough to be given a chance to further his education on the island's capital city. Sugar Cane Alley won Ms. Palcy a Cesar for Best First Work and a Silver Lion at Venice. This rags-to-riches story overcomes cliches by its uncanny evocation of time and place, and the specificity of its observations of the daily lives of the impoverished field hands. Certain images are unforgettable, such as a lingering close-up of Jose's ritualistic washing of Ma' Tine's dusty feet, and a wide-shot of a procession of torches descending a hill.

I don't know what your prejudice against Richardson is based upon; which were the movies of his you didn't like? But anyway you ought not to miss Tom Jones. Tom Jones was heralded at the time even by scholars of 18th century English literature as a superb adaptation of Henry Fielding's great novel, the most important one (novel, that is, not movie) of the century. It's also one of Albert Finney's great roles. A delight. It doesn't hurt to know a bit about the book and the period and its literature before you see the movie, but it should work on its own. Apart from his early Angry Young Man work, Look Back in Anger and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, Richardson is notable for a considerable number of so-so but nonetheless very interesting literary adaptations. I should think it would be fun now to see Peter Firth cavorting with Ann-Margret in Joseph Andrews, which is another Fielding novel. I should have seen Laughter in the Dark because it's a Nabokov novel and I'm a big fan of VN, but it's true these didn't get good reviews and I didn't see them. The Entertainer was famous as a chance for Olivier to chew up the rug, and I have seen that. A Taste of Honey was a charming stage play that was made into a decent movie. Ned Kelly with Mick Jagger was a must see and may look dated today but still ought to be worth a look, perhaps to compare it with the more authentic-looking new one with Heath Ledger and Orlando Bloom, which seems to have been promptly forgotten in this country but not in Australia. The Loved One again is a so-so adaptation but of a priceless novel by Evelyn Waugh satirizing southern California. I should think that one as eager as you to have a comprehensive knowledge of cinema would need to see more Richardson to be up on what the Brits did in the second half of the 20th century...

*I forgot to mention that Sugar Cane Alley was dedicated to the great Jean Rouch, whose African films, shown at a retrospective I attended in February, are my major cinema discovery of the year.
*Chris, notice I stated "I haven't been impressed with Richardson's direction". Probably most of his films have redeeming features although I wouldn't want to watch Ned Kelly, A Taste of Honey, Nijinsky, or Hotel New Hampshire again. In my opinion, what makes Loneliness, Look Back in Anger and The Border superior is the protagonist's performance (Courtenay, Burton, Nicholson) and perhaps the source material. I don't know that I'd give Richardson credit for the performances of these wonderful actors, who were at career peaks at the time. I agree that I ought to watch Tom Jones, because of Fielding and Finney not because of Richardson.

Tuesday April 26th

Dear Frankie (Scotland, 2005) at SoBe Regal
The less you know about the plot of Shona Auerbach's movie the better. The premise alone won't spoil it: A single mom creates a fictional dad for her 9 year-old deaf son and hires a stranger to play the role for a day. Tailor-made for a weepie full of melodrama with a pat ending, I thought. Then the thing unfolds with restraint and grace, and you can't take your eyes off Emily Mortimer (as Mum), and what appeared to be a contrived premise suddenly makes logical sense, and there's a long silent moment that says more than words could convey, and a couple of tees are left uncrossed, and you realize you'd seen a better film than you expected. It's only my opinion. It's fair to say the range of critical response is as wide as possible (16 to 100 at metacritic) and you may not like it. Out on dvd on July 5th.

Ken Park on Pal dvd
Undistributed movie "based on stories and characters by Larry Clark", co-directed by Clark and cinematographer Lachman, with a script by Harmony Korine. Production values, performances and script are fine so let's get into the content and mise-en-scene to help you decide if you want to seek it out. It's a roundelay of transgressive vignettes of sex and violence in the lives of suburban teens and their dysfunctional parents. The number of characters, the short running time, and apparently, the auteur's intentions, guarantee that no character, especially grown-ups, will be depicted with any depth whatsoever. Clark has the red-headed titular character skateboard to a public park and blow his brains out within the first two minutes. A brutish, sadistic, alcoholic belittles his son, slaps him around, then comes into his room in the middle of the night and tries to fellate him. A bright kid masturbates to ejaculation for the camera while trying to asphixiate himself, then grabs a kitchen knife, goes to his grandparents' bedroom and stabs them to death. His voice-over explains he had an erection while doing this and that he killed grandpa because he cheated at Scrabble and Grandma because she's a "passive-aggressive bitch." A fanatically religious widower catches her daughter fellating a boy she's tied to her bed. Dad beats the shit out of the defenseless boy. Later, Dad stages a re-enactment of his wedding ceremony with her crying daughter in the wife role. There's a lengthy montage of girl-and-two-boys threesome. Two scenes involve a boy having sex with his girlfriend's mom. You can see her nipples enlarging as the boy learns proper oral sex technique (the sex and a beating or two are actually happening on-screen).
Clark would say all of this actually happens in American suburbia and I won't disagree. It's obvious Clark is not interested in grown-ups, only in the bad things they do to their children. But the almost complete absence of anything except sex, violence and drugs, and the repetitive close-ups of breasts, butts and genitals, leads me to believe he's not interested in kids either. Clark is only interested in kids' transgressive, taboo-breaking behaviors and their firm, almost-grown bodies. Ken Park is one of the worst movies I've seen this year.

Ken Park

I don't think it's fair what you say, but it's understandable, since no father of teenage children in his right mind would like this movie. I would advise you to take it in the context of Clark's work as a whole -- all his other movies, plus his considerable body of photographic work including those compiled into books such as Teenage Lust and his famous first one about speed freaks, Tulsa. You never mention them and you never mention Kids, Bully, or Another Day in Paradise either. They're all consistent and true to Clark's personal concerns and origins, and Kids in particular has been influential and brought him to a much larger audience. Some from that larger audience have yielded to the temptation to call Clark's films just exploitation and you're falling into the same fallacy, even if you're saying he's producing the exploitation for his own private consumption.

I can understand your mind being clouded by shock or disapproval, but your description's inaccurate even where you're being most positive:

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Production values, performances and script are fine so let's get into the content and mise-en-scene to help you decide if you want to seek it out. It's a roundelay of transgressive vignettes of sex and violence in the lives of suburban teens and their dysfunctional parents. The number of characters, the short running time, and apparently, the auteur's intentions, guarantee that no character, especially grown-ups, will be depicted with any depth whatsoever.

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Are they really "fine"? I don't think so. Clark's photographs notoriously were never technically well made, and neither is this movie. Your artificially detaching "production values, performances and script" from the rest is a mistake.

Otherwise your problem here is you're condemning the movie on the basis of its contents rather than its style and you say nothing about its authenticity as the work of an individual who, I'll keep pointing out, is both original and highly consistent in everything he's done in various media. You try to sound balanced, but you're really presenting the contents like one who puts a plate of food on the table and says, "This is poisoned, but you're all quite free to eat it if you like."

I think you're misreading the work, misinterpreting its origins. In my review (posted on my website), speaking as one who has followed Larry Clark's work from the early Seventies, I wrote:

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Clark is neither making exploitation nor being a moralist. He has obsessions, not agendas. He's simply doing what he does. But there is something moral about the fearlessness of his dedication to what he has seen and what he has dreamed. Roger Ebert has written: "I find Larry Clark one of the bravest of filmmakers, cutting close to the edge." If people think he cuts too close, that's because they aren't used to anyone this unique. A frequently heard criticism of the movie is that it reads as a series of unrelated segments saved and issued together arbitrarily. Not true: this is Clark's best film yet.

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Hopefully you'd have framed your remarks differently and made them more convincing if you'd seen Ken Park with me in a theater with an audience and we'd discussed it right afterward . Maybe you'd still conclude that it's all crap anyway, but you'd at least see the need to be more convincing, and perhaps even acknowledge that it isn't so much the "worst" film of the year as the one that you most disliked.

Just a few weeks ago I was walking through the major retrospective of Larry Clark's work at the International Center of Photography in New York curated by Brian Wallis (it runs from March 11 till JUne 5 -- the same day that the Brooklyn Museum Basquiat show ends), so I have a pretty clear mental picture of Clark's total oeuvre and the retrospective confirms what I'm saying: that he's one of the most original and consistent artist/filmmakers of our time.

P.s. In speaking of the religious fanatic widower you twice refer to him as "her."

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*I think you must have been having a bad day because you admit you're pre-judging Tom Jones and disregarding everything I said in my recommendation by saying you'll see it only for Finney's performance and not the direction. Could you be a little more open minded on this, please? It's really unfair to refuse to give Richardson any credit for making movies with great actors in them. Great actors don't exactly flock around lousy directors. Some directors are uneven, and the studio system can pull them down and get them involved in the wrong projects. I can assure you that Tom Jones is a great movie and not just because Finney's in it; he's just a part of it, though admittedly the titular character. Personally I'd like to see Ned Kelly and A Taste of Honey again, but not Hotel New Hampshire and NijinskyGive it a chance, don't pre-judge it on "principle."

*I imagine we do substantially agree on Los Muertos and I just reviewed it on the SFIFF thread here after seeing it on my own Tuesday, prompted by your comments and by Fan of Kubrick's infectious enthusiasm after seeing its first SFIFF showing. I loved it and found it the best of the three I've seen in the festival so far, though they've all (this, plus Desplechin's Kings and Queen and the Danish King's Game) been well worth watching.

P.s. Apropos of your calling Ken Park the "worst" you've seen this year: from your "Personal Disclosure" credo:

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*Subjectivity
I don't usually talk about "best" [worst] movies, only favorite ones.[/b]

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*Your attempt to explain away my judgement of Richardson as a film director by stating "you must be having a bad day" is undeserved. You should know by now I don't have a tendency towards rash, impulsive judgements. I never said he was a "lousy" director. I clarify for the second and last time that I stated: "I haven't been impressed with Richardson's direction in other movies" (meaning, other than Tom Jones, which I haven't seen but "I agree I ought to watch" it). My point is that, after watching about eight of his films, I don't see evidence of anything special that Richardson brings to the table as a visual artist. I don't see any evidence that I should seek out a film because he directed it.

*Indeed, I don't usually refer to films as "best" or, much less, "worst". I reserve them for instances when I feel so strongly about a movie that no other term would do. I repeat: "Ken Park is one of the worst movies I've seen this year". You (should) know I don't fake the passion. You've often characterized my comments as being "neutral", but I am very disappointed with Ken Park. Disappointed because I liked Clark's previous films, especially Kids and Bully, harrowing, cautionary tales about teens who behave badly, who make mistakes. There's a dimensionality to the characterizations. On the contrary, Ken Park is about the bad things that kids (and their parents) do, and the kids are repeatedly objectified via close-ups. For purposes of illustration, contrast the deflowering scene in Kids (at a party), which conveys all the information we need to know, with the sex scene in Ken Park involving Peaches and two boys. We repeatedly get close ups of breasts, butts and genitals and, what's worse, it's scored to the type of music one would find in a porn flick aimed at baby boomers, not the music teens would play. As shock cinema goes, and the masturbation-and-asphixiation scene is nothing but, Ken Park is not redeemed by an ulterior purpose such as the political satire in Sweet Movie and La Grande Bouffe. I'm glad Ken Park won't be seen in theatres here. I wouldn't want to deny access to it to Americans who enjoy this type of material so I'm not against a US video release.

Wed. April 27

Downfall at Sunset Place Theatres.
http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/show...0372#post10372

Tony Richardson
Sorry about my unduly flip comment about your "having a bad day." Probably I was the one having a bad day. I don't want to give you one! I always particularly enjoy discussing films with you. Do watch Tom Jones. It may make you wonder why you saw eight other Tony Richardson films and missed that, the most important one. You still say, "I don't see any evidence that I should seek out a film because he directed it." That certainly seems to be true based solely on your own experience. But isn't my advice new "evidence"? I hope so. What we may have here is an example of a director -- if your observations and mine are correct -- who has made a dozen or two competent films, and one great and delightful one.

Ken Park
I'm glad you described Clark's Ken Park in the context of his other movies this time, two of them out of the three others, anyway. That makes your position clearer, and more convincing. It's good that you also clarify your use of "worst," which is perhaps adivisable whenever you use it, since it's rather against your general principles to do so. I could debate your comparisons of Kids and Ken Park and the issues of dimensionality of characterizations, objectification via closeup vs. cautionary tales, redeeming ulterior purposes, etc., but you probably don't really want to go into more detail in discussing a movie you have found so objectionable. I don't want to drag you back over something you hated watching. There must be some people more appropriate for me to discuss it with, who find something to like in it, as I did and see it more favorably in the framework of Clark's entire career, as I do.

Apropos of all this, how "passion" vs. "neutrality" affect our discussions of film is a complicated matter. Certainly views expressed out of a lack of interest are themselves hardly of much interest; on the other hand in framing them, in expressing them, one needs a cool head, or nothing very convincing is likely to come out of the effort. Was I questioning your "passion"? No, I think I was hinting that you sometimes affect a façade of neutrality, when in fact your view is quite passionate; that you think it preferable not to reveal your opinion of a movie, when in fact that's just what we all want to hear. If I just want information, I can go to a website like IMDb. What delighted or amazed you, and what horrified or annoyed you -- those are what I want to know. And then we have material for discussion, provided that our emotion is "recollected in tranquility."

Armond White would be a current critic you may enjoy reading, Chris. I don't avoid controversy and I try to strike a balance between information and opinion. But my views tend towards the center, as I find very few truly bad movies and even fewer masterpieces. Giving my honest opinion is more important than being provocative. And information culled from a variety of sources is valuable. It's what I attempt to do: to combine opinion and information and present it clearly and concisely.

Thursday April 28th

The Philadelphia Story on 2-disc Special Edition dvd
http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/show...0409#post10409

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Armond White would be a current critic you may enjoy reading, Chris. . . Giving my honest opinion is more important than being provocative.

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Well maybe so; but why's it necessary to say so? Are you suggesting I do otherwise? The implication that I'd like to identify myself with a nut like White is itself provocative. His views can be stimulating, but they're unreliable.

I don't think you should worry so much about being provocative, since you yourself have said you want there to be more debate on this site. Be more direct, and don't hide your feelings behind a mask of friendly advice ("you may like. . .") -- which has the unfortunate side effect of seeming a bit condescending. I'm not suggesting you "might like" something. I'm asking you: Please be more forthright.

The fact that I'm supporting a challenging and provocative film may mean I'm willing to be provocative but it doesn't mean I want to be. Your supporting censorship of films (the repression of Ken Park) also is provocative -- and discouraging to young and risk-taking filmmakers.

Bolder statements can, as White as an extreme case does show, be stimulating to discussion, and "honest opinions" need to be stated with enthusiasm. Your first writup of Los Muertos is rather dry. One would hardly have known that it was one of your favorites of the past several years or that we should do everything we can not to miss it.

Indeed, Los Muertos is my favorite Latin American film since 2003. In the festival thread review, I used the term "powerfully effective" and my closing statement was Alonso is "the most original of the Argentinean filmmakers who've emerged in recent years". Given what's been posted about Martel, Trapero and Lerman, I thought I was being generous in heaping praise on Alonso. But if you didn't get the idea his film was a must-see then I have to take responsibility for a failure to communicate.

Friday April 29th

La Noire de... aka Black Girl (Senegal, 1965) at Florida International University

The first great film directed by an African (Ousmane Sembene) and the first film from Africa distributed in the United States. Sembene's first foray into the arts was his 1956 novel "Le Docker Noire", based on his decade working on the docks in Marseilles. He continued to write but this avid filmgoer decided that cinema was a more effective vehicle to reach a mass audience. In 1961, he traveled to Moscow to study filmmaking and worked at Gorky Studios. Upon his return to Senegal, he wrote and directed La Noire de..., based on a newspaper article about the tragic death of a young woman working as a domestic in the French Riviera.
The film opens with her arrival in France with a white family shortly after Senegal's independence from France. Then the film flashes back to her being selected by her white mistress from a labor pool to take care of children, we meet her family, observe a friendship with a young man blossom into romance, watch her interacting with the family that hired her, and her enthusiastic reaction to the offer to move to France with her employers. Back in France, Sembene depicts how the working conditions worsen, and her status and that of her employers changes in the new environment. In France, she is simply "la noire", a "nobody" to some, an "exotic object" to others.
Sembene gets a lot of powerful symbolism out of an African mask Diouna gives to her employers as a gift but insists on retrieving when she decides to quit. For her mistress, the mask comes to represent the life of privilege she could afford in the colonies. For Diouna, it's the African culture she was once willing to share which now the French insist on appropriating whenever convenient.
Following the screening, there was some very stimulating discussion involving academics, students and film buffs in attendance.

Saturday April 30th

The Charcoal People Os Carvoeiros (Brasil, 1999) on dvd
This documentary directed by Nigel Noble (Voices of Sarafina) depicts the process of turning rain forest trees into charcoal used in Brasil's steel industry by 60,000 migrant workers. There's no voice-over narration, only interviews with a wide range of workers regarding what they do and their living conditions. The Charcoal People is critical of the environmental damage caused by this industry and the exploitation of the workers, which range in age from 8 to 76 years old. They are often forced to lead nomadic lives by having to travel great distances to wherever they're needed. The film presents exclusively the workers' point of view without confronting industry reps the way a Michael Moore would. The dvd features a good transfer but squeezes a 1.66:1 film into a TV ratio (1.33:1) resulting in obvious loss of visual information.

Mr. Arkadin aka Confidential Report (1955) on PAL dvd
A Spanish/French co-production of a film written, edited, directed and starring Orson Welles. The film's plot mixes elements from Citizen Kane and Reed's The Third Man. It's a globetrotting mystery thriller filmed in exotic locations in Europe and Mexico featuring Welles's characteristic deep focus photography, baroque art direction, unusual camera angles, enigmatic characters, and elliptical narrative. Jonathan Rosenbaum has painstakingly documented the various versions of the film in his essay "The Seven Mr. Arkadins" (available in the book "Movies as Politics"). I've seen two versions and even the longer one has one scene that's obviously missing footage. Any version of Mr. Arkadin you may find is an absolute must-watch but I'm sad to say the dvd of the film available in the US is a definite must-avoid, not because its shorter cut but because of the terrible transfer and the putrid sound (one can barely make out what's being said). The PAL disc available in the UK under the title Confidential Report is a vast improvement. Eventually, the film will have a proper home video release here.