The Longest Post On Filmwurld

[oscar jubis]

The other 2017 release I have seen that is likely to make my top 10 at the end of 2017 is, perhaps predictably given his excellent and proven dramaturgy, Asghar Farhadi's THE SALESMAN. Currently thinking intensely about Donnie Darko after a recent viewing of the (longer, more coherent) director's cut and about how Richard Kelly may end up being one of those artists who creates something awesome and never manages to produce a worthy follow-up; a kind of one-trick pony (but what a trick), or a one-hit wonder. I don't recall ever discussing that movie here although my memory is a very defective entity.

[oscar jubis]

Two films added to the (personal) canon:
1) A TIME TO LIVE, A TIME TO DIE (1985) (1985)
Hou Hsiao Hsien's auto-biographical third film begins when he (or his protagonic stand-in) is in elementary school and ends when he graduates from high school and takes his college exams. The film depicts his coming-of-age in rural Taiwan as well as the deaths of his father, mother and grandmother during those years. Hou himself provides a melancholic, hushed voice-over at the beginning and sporadically thereafter that leaves no doubt about who the actor is impersonating. Long takes, no close-ups, no stylization other than a recurring wistful non-diegetic melody. This movie has not been released on DVD in the USA as far as I know.
2) HEART OF A DOG (2016)
Laurie Anderson's essay film is enjoyable as a music album and enjoyable as pure cinema but the film marries the image and sound tracks to provide an exaltation of the senses and a provocative cascade of ideas that sometimes coalesce and sometimes disperse but always find a way to stimulate thought and stir emotions.

[Chris Knipp]

I haven't seen any Hou in a while. This film ought to be brought out by Criterion Collection. But they seem to have given more attention to Edward Yang lately. See one of their columns. I'm not as enchanted with Laurie Anderson's chatty style as some are but this film had interesting info on her neighborhood around W. 11th St., where I walk every morning when I'm staying in the West Village.

[oscar jubis]

Thanks Chris. So Hou is an actor in Yang's Taipei Story, released the same year as A Time to Live. I haven't seen Taipei Story yet but I relish the thought of watching it. Did you want Hou's The Assassin?

I have a little mini film club with 2 professors from U of Miami's Philosophy Dep. and two professors who come here often but live/teach in North Carolina and Brazil (we Skype or phone to get them involved when not here). The ensuing discussions are very substantial. Last week we experienced the art of Victor Erice's El Sur. One professor who participates wrote a book on Erice so I got a lot out of the experience.She called it a "truncated film", meaning a film that was not finished as intended, often because production was stopped before the intended script was realized. A lot of people don't know that Gance's Napoleon is a truncated film. Others? Mulholland Drive, Renoir's A Day in the Country, Welles'The Magnificent Ambersons. These films may be masterpieces but they differ significantly from how they were intended to be. This coming week we are screening Cemetery of Splendor.

[Chris Knipp]

I was forgetting I saw Hou's Assassin at the NYFF two years ago and reviewed it. I didn't really like it, it's not really the Hou people originally got excited about but something overwrought, like late Wong Kar-wai. I called it "exquisitely leaden." I enjoyed the new Japanese martial arts film I just reviewed more, and it has a humanistic, cultural slant that's at the same time very accessible. Yoshinari Nishikari, Tatara Samurai (2016).

I wasn't in NYC when Criterion screened the restoration of Taipei Story only for A Brighter Summer Day this time last year, and so I have not seen that one. I think it was shown also as a sidebar of the NYFF last fall. Maybe we could watch it in the new "Filmstruck" Criterion online system but we'd have to sign up to pay $10 a month.Taipei Story's release apparently was spearheaded by Martin Scorsese.

That's nice that you have a "mini film club" of profs. Do your discussions have a wider audience? Apparently El Sur was rereleased last fall in England and a Guardian writer called it "The unfinished Spanish drama that's perfect the way it is". You could watch it VOD in England expensively via the BFI.

You could call a lot of films truncated since they so often get cut in the rush to production and distribution.

Latin America was not in the Competition films list at Cannes this year but there were a number of Spanish and Portuguese language films in the two other major categories. Do you have any comments on them? Actually I don't know which ones are Latin American.

Un Certain Regard

La Novia Del Desierto (The Desert Bride) by Cecilia Atan &Valeria Pivato
Las Hijas de Abril (April's Daughters), Michel Franco

Directors Fortnight

Ciambra, Jonas Carpignano
A Fabrica de nada, Pedro Pinho
La defensa del dragón, Natalia Santa

Shorts

Água mole, Laura Goncalves, Alexandra Ramires (xà)
Falpões, Baldios, Marta Mateus
Nada, Gabriel Martins

[oscar jubis]

I am surprised that the only version of The Assassin I can find on disc is the shortened one.
For the term to be useful, the label "truncated" should be applied more selectively or strictly rather than include all films "cut in the rush to distribution".
Both "Un Certain regard" films are from Latin America.I'm not familiar with the filmmakers.
Scorsese is a prince. His new Word Cinema Project looks super interesting. I'm still catching up with the Polish Cinema set he released or made possible a couple of years ago.
Last film I watched was KiDuk's Pieta (a winner at Venice if memory serves). South Korean cinema is fun but not a single film comes close to the Taiwanese films from Hou and Yang that I love so much and continue to discover via repeat viewings. Taipei Story here I come!

[Chris Knipp]

For the term to be useful, the label "truncated" should be applied more selectively or strictly rather than include all films "cut in the rush to distribution".

Applied strictly to mean what, exactly, Oscar?