Hell on Frisco Bay (2005-2008 archive)

After tributing Herzog and Spike Lee,
an improvement is not very likely.
No one's heard of Suzuki.
Argento's too spooky.
But they picked a good one with Mike Leigh.

Adam Hartzell sent me a review of a new documentary, one that he saw at a film festival and placed at #3 on his 2007 top ten list. It's opening next Friday at the Rafael Film Center and the Roxie, a booking whose timing has turned out to be unexpectedly topical, as Adam will explain. Take it away, Adam:

My special moment at last year’s Mill Valley Film Festival was providing the rare Y chromosome in line along San Rafael's Fourth Street waiting to enter the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center and being approached by a curious older woman asking for which movie everyone was queued up. I smiled at this woman much my elder and said with a joyous lilt in my voice, "A movie about the history of the vibrator!" This is San Francisco, so she didn’t slap me. She said, "Oh?" with raised eyebrows and laughed slightly while walking away probably muttering in her head a modification of what I typed above (e.g., "Only in the Bay Area"). I’m sure she’s heard more shocking things during her time in Marin County than what I had just said.

The film we were queued up to see was one of my favorite films from last year, Passion & Power: the Technology of Orgasm by Bay Area filmmakers Wendy Slick and Emiko Omori. Based on the book The Technology of Orgasm: "Hysteria", the Vibrator and Women’s Sexual Satisfaction by scholar of domestic technologies Rachel P. Maines, PhD, Passion & Power is "A brief history of the relationship of one simple invention – the vibrator – to one complex human experience, the misunderstood female orgasm." And this lovely film will be returning to the the Bay Area starting February 22nd at the Rafael and the Roxie. I urge even the most sexually squeamish to give this wonderful documentary a trial for the "tasteful" way the issue is approached. Symbolic visuals of jellyfish and flowers and arias in place of the sights and sounds of real genitalia underscore the conversations with scholars and businesswoman interviewed throughout the film. (Although it still presents a contradiction since the film praises the work of Betty Dodson whose infamous display of the various "styles" of women's genitals at a consciousness event is highlighted in the film. If you’re praising Dodson's choice, wouldn't you want to follow her lead and let it all spread out in your documentary as well?)

The pleasures found in this film are definitely in the scholarly details, how Maines' needlework scholarship "kept being distracted by these goofy ads" in old copies of Good Housekeeping and Modern Priscilla (tagline – "The Magazine That Helps".) The beginning of the tale will take you back 2,500 years or so as it chronicles the social history of women's bodies and their place in the evolving myths throughout the ages. From this history lesson we revisit Victorian ideals that demanded the "social camouflage" of orgasms by labeling them 'hysterical paroxysms'. This medicalization allowed doctors to prescribe medical massage treatments. But these doctors eventually sought out a treatment with greater efficiency, seeking something de-skilled of the arduous work involved in helping their patients paroxysm hysterically, leading the way towards advanced vibrator technologies. Vibrators then find their place in the early 19th century revolutions of rural electrification, the transport of goods, and the very advertising that distracted Maines from her initial research. It wasn't until another revolutionary technology, moving pictures, that vibrators were packed up in metaphorical shoeboxes in the back of the proverbial closet. As they began to appear in stag films doctors and sanitariums (what we'd call a health spa now) didn't want to be associated with this re-branding of the vibrator's image.

With such a topic, humor is a necessary safety valve, and this is wonderfully provided by the expert timing of the performance artist Reno (some might just call her a comic, but we forget that comics are also performance artists) and the editing of visual underscoring by Slick and Omori. (Omori is also the Director of Photography of the film and appears ever so slightly in the mirror in the background of some of the interviews, where you can just make out her signature presence, her gorgeously striking, long, white hair.) This humor is needed even more as the film follows the unnecessary tragedy of the arrest of a vibrator saleswoman in Texas. To avoid weeping, one truly needs to laugh in the absurdity of the false justice applied in Texas and other states where dildo ownership is curtailed while gun ownership is promoted. Thankfully, since the completion of this film, that absurdity has been addressed. As a wonderful Valentine's Day present to true justice, the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently struck down the Texas law as a violation of the right to privacy guaranteed by the 14th amendment, doing so on the 14th of February of this year. With Louisiana, Kansas, Colorado and Georgia having similar laws declared unconstitutional, Alabama remains the only state exhibiting a perverted nonsense of justice.

So whether your Valentine's Day came to fruition in the form of a satisfying or unsatisfying evening, I couldn’t recommend this film any more highly than to tell you how happy this film made me. I had a smile throughout and after the screening, none of which had to do with physical stimulation but everything to do with intellectual stimulation. This is a celebration of our bodies controlled by ourselves while the powers that desire to be seek to supersede that control from us. In the end, Passion & Power is the true feel-good movie of the year.

Thanks, Adam! Also of note on the Rafael's current calendar are an evening with Ray Harryhausen, a shared booking of new prints of the 400 Blows and a Summer With Monika the week of March 7-13, and a David Lean mini-retro March 21-27. And the Roxie is a venue for numerous film festivals, including the upcoming Noise Pop Film Festival and Irish Film Festival, and of course the currently-running IndieFest, which has added encore screenings for this Thursday, of Stuart Gordon's Stuck and a local shorts program including Jay Rosenblatt's absolute must-see take on the banality of evil, Human Remains. Both venues are on the long list of venues where one can watch the Oscars on a big screen with a room full of strangers next Sunday. Last year I tried the Roxie's Up the Academy and it was a hoot. Presumably Passion & Power will move to the Little Roxie during the Oscars. I'm excited to check it out!

I prefer to organize my viewing choices principally around following the careers of directors who intrigue me. (I know-- how boring! I'd surely be a much more interesting cinephile if I spent as much energy following boom operators' filmographies instead.) To this end, I love a local film festival with a sense of loyalty to the directors whose films it features. Facing facts, not every film on the festival circuit makes its way to a Frisco Bay screen. (Is anyone ever going to bring La Blessure around? I guess not...) So I'm thrilled when, after seeing a terrific film at a film festival, I get a chance a year or two or four later to see the director's next film at another edition of that festival.

I haven't crunched all the numbers on this, but my sense is that the SF International Asian-American Film Festival is currently the best in town at consistently showcasing new work by directors whose films have been programmed there before. As evidenced in the festival's newly-announced line-up, this loyalty applies to various sections of the festival; this year's Narrative Competition section, for example, brings local filmmaker Richard Wong back with Option 3. Two years ago, he had the biggest hit of the festival with his debut Colma: the Musical, which will be reprised this year at a special sing-a-long screening at the Kabuki Theatre. Gina Kim, whose Invisible Light screened the festival in 2004, returns with her latest Never Forever. In the Documentary Showcase section, I'm excited to see that Cambodia's greatest documenter Rithy Panh is back with Paper Cannot Wrap Up Embers, his fourth film in five SFIAAFFs.

But the festival section where this trend is most notably evident to this observer is in the International Showcase section. This is usually the section where I focus most of my attention, and this year nearly half of the 15 films programmed come from directors whose films have been personal highlights of previous SFIAAFFs. Let me quickly look at these one-by-one:

881, which looks to put the "Sing" back into Singapore.
Director: Royston Tan, whose unflinching, gripping 15 played the festival in 2004.

Desert Dream, a family drama featuring North Koreans in Mongolia.
Director: Zhang Lu, whose heartbreaking 2006 festival film Grain in Ear suggests an affinity for putting Korean characters in spare, hostile environments outside their homeland.

Flight of the Red Balloon, a tribute to Albert Lamorisse's classic short the Red Balloon (which, to prepare you if you've never seen it, will play the PFA March 8th)
Director: Hou Hsaio-Hsien, the master Taiwanese filmmaker whose excursion to Tokyo Café Lumiere was a highlight of the 2006 SFIAAFF. This Paris-set film featuring Juliette Binoche marks Hou's first time working outside of Asia.

A Gentle Breeze in the Village, with its rural, teenage milieu, is from its program description bringing to mind certain films of the great Japanese auteur Mikio Naruse.
Director: Nobuhiro Yamashita, the man behind one of my very favorite SFIAAFF films, the 2006 selection Linda Linda Linda.

I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK, a strange-sounding romance between a kleptomaniac and a self-identified cyborg.
Director: Park Chan-wook, one of South Korea's hottest auteurs going right now. Truthfully, his 2005 SFIAAFF selection Oldboy was my own least favorite of Park's so-called "Vengeance trilogy", but now that he's finished with that project I'm very interested in what kind of elaborate camerawork and color schemes he'll use to showcase his critiques and characterizations next.

Three Days to Forever, described in the program mini-guide as a "controversial coming-of-age story."
Director: Riri Riza, whose work I last sampled with the 2003 SFIAAFF selection Eliana, Eliana, still one of the best Indonesian films I've encountered.

The Unseeable, a ghost story said to be a tribute to classic Hollywood takes on the supernatural.
Director: Wisit Sasanatieng, whose second film Citizen Dog played the SFIAAFF about a year prior to last year's long-awaited theatrical release of his debut Tears of the Black Tiger. The Unseeable is not expected to be as candy-colored as these previous films, but I've been hotly anticipating a chance to check out Wisit's new direction for over a year now.

There's a lot more to anticipate, but I would be remiss in ending this post without mentioning two more established auteurs whose films are to be featured at the 2008 SFIAAFF. Wayne Wang, whose Chan is Missing is probably the most-frequently-cited early success of the Asian-American filmmaking movement, will see his two new films a Thousand Years of Good Prayers and the Princess of Nebraska play the festival, and will also be on-hand for an on-stage conversation March 15th. Two of his previous films, the Joy Luck Club and Life Is Cheap...But Toilet Paper is Expensive will complete the Wang spotlight.

Much more bittersweet is the tribute to Edward Yang, whose untimely death last year at age 59 has inspired a touring retrospective of his films. SFIAAFF has selected three of them to play: the Terrorizer, a Brighter Summer Day, and his final masterpiece Yi Yi: a One and a Two. Yi Yi is the only one of his films I've seen before, but its beautiful universality convinces me that this tribute is likely to be the highlight of the festival for anyone who samples it. When voting for it in a fairly recent poll of the greatest foreign-language films of all time, I predicted that Yi Yi would go down in history as one of the great last films of all time, and I'm planning to reconfirm that claim with a big-screen viewing at the Pacific Film Archive on March 20th.

Speaking of the PFA (and now we're briefly going to move away from SFIAAFF talk, just because I can't resist scoops), though the new March-April calendar is not online or available in print yet, I couldn't help but notice something while attending a screening of Godard's Weekend last night. Before the film the venue showed slides advertising the upcoming programs to expect over the next couple of months: an artist-in-residence for Pedro Costa will begin March 1 (hot on the heels of the Terence Davies residency you probably already know about), retrospectives for both Orson Welles and Frank Tashlin (just as I was starting to sense a slight turn away from classic-era Hollywood in the PFA programs, they disprove my hunch), a series of films relating to the events of 1968 in Europe (most likely a touring version of this series), and of course the 51st SF International Film Festival, which runs at the PFA and several other venues April 24-May 8th.

No SFIFF films playing the PFA have been announced yet, but the festival has just announced the opening night film at the Castro: Catherine Breillat's the Last Mistress. SFIFF's annual silent-film/rock-star pairing has been revealed to be Paul Wegener's The Golem scored by Black Francis a.k.a. Frank Black a.k.a. frontman for the Pixies. This event will be held on April 25th, also at the Castro. Finally, the festival's KinoTek spotlight will bring performance artists Chi-wang Yang, Miwa Matreyek and Anna Oxygen to Kanbar Hall May 1st.

Anyway, back to the SF International Asian American Film Festival. Anything else in particular in their program that I shouldn't overlook?

I finally finished up my coverage of the Sundance Film Festival at GreenCine Daily, and now I find myself in the midst of Frisco's festival season. We're in the middle of Indiefest, which I usually enjoy sampling a few titles from (as a big Dengue Fever fan I'm probably most excited by the documentary on that band's recent tour of Cambodia, Sleepwalking Through the Mekong). San Jose's Cinequest announced its program last week, and this is the year I'm finally going to attend this festival, after several years of simply eyeing their programming from afar. There's just no way I can let myself miss chances to see silent films by Ozu and Eisenstein I've only sampled on VHS before now; I'll definitely be making my first trip to the restored California Theatre for the delightful I Was Born, But... February 29th, and hopefully the monumental October (sometimes known as Ten Days That Shook the World) on March 7th as well. And there's other enticing options from the Cinequest lineup of recent films, such as Naomi Kawase's the Mourning Forest, which won a prize at the last Cannes film festival, and Esteban Sapir's the Aerial, which opened the 2007 Rotterdam Film Festival. I've already seen and can recommend a few of the films on the program; I caught the British-made noir-animation short Yours Truly at Sundance, and local filmmaker Alejandro Adams' Around the Bay on a screener. More on the latter later.

The SF Asian American Film Festival announced its lineup just yesterday, and as usual it's going to be hard for me to prioritize the anticipated titles at this, always one of my favorite festivals of the year. Again, more later, but for now, take a look at the lineup here, or check a new feature I just added to my sidebar, just below the "Frisco cinema" links. I'll highlight current and upcoming local film festivals in this slot, and try my best to keep it absolutely up-to-date, even at moments when I don't feel I have time to jot down impressions, hunt down urls, and publish new posts. Let me know what you think of this idea- I only wish I'd thought of it before!

But now, let me put the lid on 2007. Finally. Yes, we're already well enough into 2008 that this all might seem irrelevant by now, but since I didn't have my act together to contribute to the Senses of Cinema World Poll I where I usually house my year-end wrap-up of new releases, I figure I might as well put it here on my home turf. My top ten new-to-me and new-to-Frisco films of 2007 are as follows, in alphabetical order with superficial commentary but more substantial links:

Brand Upon the Brain! (Guy Maddin, Canada) more than satisfied my craving for neo-silent extravaganza.
The Darjeeling Limited (Wes Anderson, USA) is an affectionate critique of the privileged Westerner's outlook on spiritual journeys in Asia.
Everything Will Be OK (Don Hertzfeldt, USA) represents a new level of achievement from one of my very favorite short-form filmmakers.
Forever (Heddy Honigmann, the Netherlands) is one of the most moving documentaries I've found.
Grindhouse (Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, Edgar Wright, Rob Zombie, and Eli Roth, USA) transcended its retro-thrill-ride essence by yo-yo-ing audience expectations in a fascinating manner. All directors involved were in peak form for this one.
Opera Jawa (Garin Nugroho, Indonesia) is the film that, for me, most perfectly encapsulated the mission of the the New Crowned Hope film project, even though I loved
Syndromes and a Century (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand) and its expression of a favorite director's personal vision even more. Swap this title with the Wes Anderson film and this list becomes approximately preferential in order.
There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, USA), speaking of personal vision, sent me home with enough of this year's most visionary moments to completely overwhelm the nagging that its director wasn't always exactly certain what he wanted to do with this film.
Woman on the Beach (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea) found Hong in autocritical mode as usual, but this time the characters felt less like props for each other than they sometimes can in his films.
VHS - Kahloucha (Nejib Belkadhi, Tunisia) was the year's most entertaining and enlightening peek into the worldwide phenomenon of DIY filmmaking, through the keyhole of a Sousse action auteur and his followers.

Runners-up, because I can't just limit my favorites to ten, would include Martha Colburn's Destiny Manifesto, David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises, Lev Yilmaz's How We Managed to Not Really Date Each Other, So Yong Kim's In Between Days, David Lynch's Inland Empire, Joel & Ethan Coens' No Country For Old Men, Jafar Pahani's Offside, Jessica Yu's Protagonist, Brad Bird's Ratatouille and Carlos Reygadas's Silent Light. Many of these, on another day, could easily have found their way on the "official" top ten list. But right this minute anyway, they feel like somewhat more minor works.

And here's where I apologize profusely to loyal and esteemed Hell on Frisco Bay contributor Adam Hartzell, who sent me his own top ten list for 2007 weeks ago, but has weathered my endless procrastinations but is still willing to offer his thoughts on the year to you readers. Please forgive the unforgivable delay, my friend. Here's Adam:

I purposely made the decision to watch fewer films this year, reducing my screenings of new films (that is, films new to me) by one-third. I reduced the number of films I saw for many reasons, but a big motivator was being aware one can only consume so much media or else risk getting matters all muddled up. Plus, as much as I make efforts to incorporate my film watching with my friendships, it can take away from that time as well.

This is the first year where most of the films I watched were not from South Korea, the cinema I primarily write about as a contributor to Koreanfilm.org. Instead, most of the films I caught were from the country I call home, the United States. This is likely due to the fact that I wasn’t able to attend the Pusan International Film Festival since I was helping out with the Korean American Film Festival in San Francisco. (This also likely explains why no South Korean films make my list this year, although the Lee Bang-rae retrospective of his films from the 1960s that I caught at the Pucheon International Fantastic Film Festival was a highlight of the year.) Also, my DVD consumption increased as a percentage of what I watched. It appears that complacency set in, that is, in not consciously pursuing a certain number of films to watch, I fell into the easiest films to access and easiest spaces to watch films, respectively the United States and my flat.

With that summary of my idiosyncratic year at the movies, here is my Top Ten from what I was able to catch in 2007. (Films eligible for my list are those released in 2007 or at the edge of the 2006/2007 border along with films yet released that I caught at film festivals.)

10) Endo (Jade Castro, 2007, Philippines)

I reserve my #10 as a reach, a stretch. A film I know might not be brilliant but I took such a liking to, I allow it to seep ever so slightly into my list of the best of the year. In this case, placing Jade Castro's Endo on this list is a stretch because I saw it without subtitles at the CineMalaya Independent Film Festival at the Cultural Center of the Philippines in Manila while stationed at my company’s office there this past summer. I can't feel confident about this choice since I watched it un-translated. I know there are much better Pinoy films (see Noel Vera's list for way better guidance than I can provide), but I greatly enjoyed the mood of young adult ennui the film presented. What I couldn't understand I was able to bring to my co-workers who did their best to explain something they hadn’t seen but definitely an experience they all knew quite well. The title Endo is not referring to the BMX trick-riding term, but a term for contract workers at (mostly) mall stores and fast food establishments, working until the 'end of contract'. This information helped me better understand the long lines of manila folders (my co-workers don’t call them that in Manila) containing their resumes outside the malls on my walk home from work in the morning. The story follows two lovers who meet in their respective contract work and how they negotiate their futures considering the limited economic opportunities available to them.

9) Hot Fuzz (Edgar Wright, 2007, UK)

Man this film was fun. I got the DVD from a White Elephant gift exchange at work. I had my gift stolen from me at the end and instead of continue the exchange stealing, I took the final remaining gift and I'm glad I did, otherwise I might not have caught this film until much later. The pace, dialogue, and ridiculousness of this 'model' village gone bad was a pleasant ride the whole way through. (Side note, one of my ex-pat co-workers is a firm believer in the 'greater good' of letting the underage drink at pubs claiming it helps reduce(?) teen pregnancy. Who knew a film like Hot Fuzz would generate such serious policy discussions?)

8) Ratatouille (Brad Bird, 2007, USA)

I was privileged to have the opportunity to see this treat in the lovely Pixar screening room where stars shoot above and cricket chirps surround before the fun begins. It says a lot that I still put this film on my list when I am truly sick and tired of the male-ego-enhancing trope of the unkempt/incompetent/uninspiring guy finding redemption when the together/talented/motivated gal takes an unjustified shine to him. (Thankfully, Juno was a nice corrective to the Superbads, Eagle Vs. Sharks, & Knocked Ups this year.) In spite of Ratatouille plotting through my political peeve, the film warmed my kitchen’s hearth like it did that of so many others.

7) Lust, Caution (Ang Lee, 2007, Taiwan)

I understand that the Women Film Critic Circle listed this one amongst their 2007 Hall of Shame and I’m curious to read an article/essay that expands on that argument.
Personally, my feminist frame doesn’t find the film to be an Eve-is-Evil narrative. And the character falling for her rapist does not condone the rapist or the act of falling in love with a rapist but presents someone making constrained choices within a misogynist system, within a world lacking in full female agency, not a film approving of said misogyny. But I’m open to contrary interpretations. As I left the Lumiere in San Francisco, I felt discomfort. I felt at dis-ease. I was cautioned about my passions (political and otherwise) just as the film intended.

6) Romántico (Mark Becker, 2005, USA)

I saw this film early in the year, so my memory is fuzzy, but I recall the film treating its traveling troubadour subject with great respect. Rather than caricature the border-crossing of Mexican immigrants, it allowed us a glimpse into that which many of us refuse to see everyday on our streets and behind our neighbor’s, or our own, doors. And the fact that it follows a man in the very city in which I was watching the film, San Francisco (at the Opera Plaza), made it even more impacting.

5) Pao's Story (Quang Hai Ngo, 2006, Vietnam)

The Cinequest Film Festival in San Jose has not been good to me. One previous screening I attended abruptly ended when the print caught fire. And Cinequest again had a lot of print problems with Pao's Story, resulting in the programmers needing, mid-screening, to switch to an alternate format (DVD or Beta, I can’t remember). But in spite of all that, it’s to Pao's Story's testament that my friend and I were still impressed with this feminist tale of sisterhood solidarity still able to reach across the divide of a wife and the too often Other-ed other woman.

4) Live-In-Maid (Jorge Gaggero, 2004, Argentina)

This little tale of class-crossings was touching without being condescending and educational about modern day Argentina without being didactic. This excellent film slipped into the Opera Plaza in San Francisco with limited fanfare, but justified the fare of this fan.

3) Passion and the Power: The Technology of Orgasm (Wendy Blair Slick and Emiko Omori, 2007, USA)

This film made me so happy in its gutsy willingness to treat with such splendid serious, intellectual curiosity a domestic technology the importance of which is often ignored when not being slanderously scorned – the loyal vibrator. Just the right dashes of dildo humor make this the feel good movie of the year! I caught it at the San Rafael during Mill Valley Film Festival and SF Bay Areans can catch it starting February 22 when it revisits the same theatre.

2) Persepolis (Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi, 2007, France)

The second film on this list I caught in Manila, the CineManila International Film Festival this time. It lived up to the hype, justifying the not so easy trip outside my sleeping schedule to catch the screening at the Gateway Mall.

1. Killer Of Sheep (Charles Burnett, 1977, USA)

Yes, I’ve seen this before, but it tops my list this year because it FINALLY got the release (and at the Castro nonetheless) it deserved when it was initially completed. See what a MacArthur Genius Grant can help accomplish?

I arrived back from Sundance nearly a week ago but am still putting together a proper wrap-up post. In the meantime, you can read my GreenCine Daily takes on James Benning's casting a glance, Ernesto Contreras's Blue Eyelids, the Animation Spotlight program, Michael Haneke's new Funny Games remake, and Isabel Vega and Amanda Micheli's 40-minute documentary La Corona. The latter is one of the Oscar nominees in the Best Documentary Short category, and I also contributed a piece for Nathaniel Rogers' the Film Experience revealing my current thoughts on that race, having seen three out of four of the nominees before they were announced last week. San Francisco State's Documentary Film Institute will be screening all four films, as well as the Documentary Feature Oscar nominees, February 19-21 at the Kabuki Theatre.

Whereas last year I focused almost entirely on documentaries, this year I had a somewhat more well-rounded Sundance, taking in at least one film program from each of the festival's ten sections. My top five favorite features overall were Ballast, Eat, for This Is My Body, my first major exposures to the work of Derek Jarman, Edward II and Derek, and finally, Baghead (which I urge you not to read about, just see when Sony Pictures Classics brings it out!) A top ten could be rounded out by Nerakhoon, Blue Eyelids, casting a glance, the inspiring the Women of Brukman, and, though it feels in some ways more suited to a gallery space than to a a cinema, Yang Fudong's Seven Intellectuals in Bamboo Forest, Part 4

Back in soggy Frisco, I've taken in a few programs at the Noir City 6 film festival, which is being covered extensively at the Evening Class website. The festival runs through Sunday, when it closes with the superb Night and the City, which I saw when it played as a late-addition to Noir City 3. Here's what I wrote on an online discussion forum at the time, and still stand by (though wincing slightly at the overuse of the word 'perfect'):

A perfect example of doomed noir complete with femme fatale, only set in London. Richard Widmark gives a magnetically frantic performance that I don't suppose I'll ever forget; he's like an overgrown child actor in this, which is perfect for his in-over-his-head character.