A facsimile of American Idol, Super Girls is a music competition which drew in an alarming 400 million viewers at its peak before being banned by the government. This matter-of-fact documentary follows the lives of aspiring contestants hoping to replicate the success of former winner Li Yuching, who for many young viewers exemplified the modern, westernised China that the government had tried to restrain. One girl, underage but in possession of a fake ID, sells pens to her competitors to make some cash on the side, while another has quit her job with confidence, asserting that she would pay a large sum of money if it granted her fame. But while their life may be interesting for the outside world, these girls’ dreams and desires are wonderfully uncomplicated – to become a Super Girl.
About five minutes into Super, Girls!, one realises how striking it is to experience a Chinese vox pop, with statements coming from the heart rather than the state. Relics of the ancient appear in the girls’ habits and beliefs – the word ‘destiny’ is frequently mentioned – but their image is very modern. Director Jian Yi conducts interviews with a range of relevant people rather than riffing on the starry-eyed teenager repeatedly, and it’s interesting to hear the perspective of the parents who seem to doubt their own children’s prospects. Though brilliant commentary abounds, the film requires a little more structuring as some conversations cut short, but for what it is, Super, Girls! is a fascinating slice of life.
In documentaries like Capturing the Friedmans, The Devil and Daniel Johnston and Must Read After My Death, home footage and audio recordings are used to emotive, and frequently disturbing effect as they add another dimension to the personal histories of their subjects. In Gregory Büttner’s 23 Zooms, no one person is the subject – in fact, the artist has no connection to any of the people featured. Büttner compiles a selection of twenty-three found photographs and, with no provenance for any of them, composes a piece of music to complement their presentation. Each photograph is scanned over, certain details zoomed into, before fading to black.
While his ambition may not have been to create a tribute to these strangers, Büttner manages to tap into the pseudoscience of nostalgia to give the viewer little shivers that may represent a superficial connection to each photo. A proponent of musique concrète by trade, Büttner has a clear understanding of the synaesthetic possibilities of film, and the lack of movement in each image suggests that audiovisual memory is freed of temporality. Each musical composition feels diligently constructed, and clear references are made to the iconography in the images – a photograph of an old man with canaries is scored by a slightly tropical composition, while a scratched record accompanies Christmas picture. Büttner’s work is very consciously experimental, and ultimately the film showcases the artist’s music over his filmmaking abilities (one wonders why each picture has to seem so sinister), but it is definitely worth a watch.
A young schoolboy with prominent ears walks through the Paris streets. After he catches sight of a crudely drawn anti-Semitic propaganda poster, he unwittingly wills it to life, taking it on as a cynical sidekick named ‘The Mug’. Such whimsy is the language used by comic-book artist Joann Sfar as he portrays the story of Lucien Ginsburg, better known to the world as Serge Gainsbourg. The women in Gainsbourg’s life interact with this grotesque caricature as if it were still a part of him – until, that is, he settles down with English actress-singer Jane Birkin. Divorced from his alter ego, Gainsbourg’s work grows more fiercely political and his relationship crumbles, but a brief flirtation in a club appears to put him back in the right direction.
Though it certainly captures some of the essence of Gainsbourg’s haphazard life, Gainsbourg (Vie Héroïque) is a confusing extravaganza that rushes straight past emotion in order to keep the audience’s visual interest alight. Sfar might have been showing only the moments that Gainsbourg would have wanted to remember, but the film quickly grows frustrating as key moments in his life are compressed into ten-second shots. One doesn’t doubt that Gainsbourg must have had fond memories of his seduction of Brigitte Bardot, but for this affair to be given more screentime than his parents’ deaths combined seems almost disrespectful. An array of superb performances, helmed by Gainsbourg doppelgänger Éric Elmosnino, keep the viewer’s attention, but the film itself lacks the impact to leave an impression.
Thomas Köner is a German media artist who works in both video and music, combining the two to create unique ambient experiences. His area of fascination seems to be the North Pole, and all of his installations focus intently on the natural beauty of this area. This project, Nuuk, comprises a series of desaturated images of the Greenlandic capital, ice sheets dominating the screen, and the framing often suggests that these stills could have been culled from CCTV footage. One image, taking in a snow-covered street lined with drab apartment blocks, slowly mutates into a nocturnal scene, coloured lights emerging from windows. The music gently sweeps the viewer through the experience, using a variegated wall of electronically produced tones.
If it had to be categorised, Nuuk would best align itself with the voyeuristic works of James Benning and Sharon Lockhart, its wordless presentation encouraging the viewer to let go of all previous understanding of cinema and enjoy the experience. One is led to feel as if the music is somehow being produced by the ice itself, as there is a deep, raw quality to the soundtrack that defies musical classification, and the texture of the video harmonises with this. Though successful, it is tempting to consider what effect the film would have if there was movement in each ‘still’, for example if a person were to be seen walking through the city scene. Not for the impatient, Nuuk is a twenty-minute film in name only, and deserves one’s full attention.
Echoing a lot of the experimentation he had done with music, John Cage’s only feature film project One11 And 103 pares film down to its most basic concepts. The subject here is light itself, the very Urschleim of photography, and its behaviour in the film often runs in counterpoint with an orchestral work that Cage wrote specially for the project. Employing what sound theorist Michel Chion calls ‘synchresis’, the film binds both sonic and visual experiences together through mood and intensity. Though Cage and fellow composer Andrew Culver specifically designed the lighting arrangement so that it would be randomised to some degree, there are several audio-visual harmonies throughout the film. The grain of the film adds an extra urgency to these photographic abstractions.
It would be cliché to call the work ‘brave’ for its simplicity, especially in light of the achievements made earlier by artists like Norman McLaren and Tony Conrad, but there is something excitingly new about One11 And 103, even seeing it 18 years later. Being denied the ability to gauge even space or time in a film is an alienating experience, and this is precisely what Cage and Culver appear to reference in their collaboration. Naturally, it can get quite frustrating to watch, even if one knows what to expect from Cage. The audience is always kept on the surface of the film, but the more open-minded viewer may sink deeper, finding elementary patterns in either the visuals or the composition – this could easily be minimalism’s Fantasia.
Recently released from prison for public performances, musicians Negar and Ashkan prepare to beg, steal or borrow to play a gig in London they have been offered. The pair’s biggest obstacle is the stringent law about leaving the country, and when the couple realises they don’t have the documents they need, they turn to record producer Hamed, who simultaneously imbues them with confidence as well as dragging them into more trouble. Through integration with the rest of the Iranian underground music scene, running the gamut from indie to rap and making many stops between, Negar and Ashkan find extra band members with whom they decide to perform a benefit gig so that they can get passports and head to London. With the risk of being caught by the police literally hanging over their heads, the band is under intense pressure, and it seems like only a miracle can see them to their goal.
Director Bahman Ghobadi has previously found an audience in the West with features about Kurdish people constantly alienated from their environment, and the same themes run through No One Knows About Persian Cats, although the subject matter is vastly different. The protagonists, in real life a duo called Take It Easy Hospital, are endearing but are in no way the main attraction of the film. Ghobadi takes the opportunity to promote another face of Iran, one which refuses to deny outside influence and discovers new modes of creative expression. An effortlessly cool, politically charged piece of work.
Paving the way for a series of further mockumentaries using the same cast, Christopher Guest’s Waiting For Guffman follows the story of an amateur theatre company in Blaine, Missouri. Leading the group is flamboyant director Corky St. Clair (portrayed by Guest himself), who decides to throw on a special production chronicling the history of Blaine. The film features interviews with the theatre group’s players, including intrinsically Jewish dentist Dr. Alan Pearl, dispassionate Dairy Queen worker Libby Mae Brown, and enthusiastic travel agent couple Ron and Sheila. The production hits many fundamental issues, mostly concerning the actors’ limited talents, but St. Clair assuages his cast that they will gain a positive reception care of elusive Broadway producer Mort Guffman.
The set-up of the film clearly mirrors Guest’s own relationship with his cast, as each actor is given ample opportunity to flaunt their comedic abilities. But despite inspired turns from Eugene Levy, Fred Willard and Catherine O’Hara, it is Guest’s performance which steals the show. Corky St. Clair is a wonderfully demented individual, the epitome of delusional theatre egos, and is an obvious inspiration for the character of Mr. G in Summer Heights High. Occasionally, the improvised nature of the film gets a little grating, and the arc of the story is predictable, particularly as Guest has selected an easy target. Nonetheless, Waiting for Guffman deserves a watch, and would make a great introduction to the world of Christopher Guest for those put off by the cultishness of This Is Spinal Tap.
Daigo, a skilled cellist, is left jobless after the orchestra which he has just begun performing with disbands. After selling off his brand new cello, Daigo seeks employment elsewhere, arranging an interview with what he believes to be a travel agency (the word ‘departures’ features in the company’s advert). Before long, it becomes clear that this new job opportunity will require him to ceremonially prepare the dead, or the ‘departed’, before they are placed in the coffin. Given the exceptional pay for the job, Daigo accepts, but after a humiliating first day, he decides not to explain the job to his wife Mika, instead allowing her to believe he is a wedding planner. As the tasks become more emotionally demanding, so the tensions in his marriage worsen. Soon, it is boiled down to a choice between his work and his family, a decision which puts him in a quandary as he begins to feel a connection with his clients.
Though its approach to death is typically Oriental, the film has a particularly European feel. Daigo, along with most non-Eastern viewers, essentially begins the film as an outside observer to these curious funeral ceremonies, and his only access to this part of his culture is handling corpses, an emotionally damaging experience which he understandably takes a while to acclimatise to. This is not to say that the film is entirely morbid – there are many moments of gentle humour, and one comes away from the film enlightened and revitalised rather than depressed.
Tackling the sticky subject of copyright in the age of the internet, Good Copy Bad Copy was originally screened on Danish TV, but later received an official free BitTorrent release to increase awareness of the subject. The documentary starts with the topic of hip-hop sampling, and various industry know-it-alls give us the case study of Bridgeport v. Dimension Films, a lawsuit decrying N.W.A.’s use of two seconds from a Funkadelic track. The case shook the industry and also called for a complete re-evaluation of copyright law. Mention is also made of Danger Mouse’s non-profit side-project The Grey Album, which remixed The Beatles’ White Album and added vocals from Jay-Z’s Black Album. Before long, we begin discussion of copyright in film, sparking interviews with the founders of illegal peer-to-peer site The Pirate Bay, as well as producers from the famously unmanageable Nigerian film industry.
Given the often amusing nature of these court cases (one attorney tickles himself with the notion of a judge dealing with song titles like “Get Off Your Ass And Jam”), the film is sometimes hard to take seriously, but it makes many interesting points. Creative Commons board member Lawrence Lessig, a frequently-referenced copyright expert, points out that copyright law discourages easy access to older, more obscure material, and in this manner suppresses creativity. At just under an hour, it’s easy to digest and, apart from the interviews with music producer Girl Talk (which are a little too self-congratulatory to be of interest), not a moment is wasted.
Breakfast is an important meal. It sets you up for the day and gives you the required nutrients, no more, no less - it's a square meal. And this, in a way, is what this film review blog is meant to do. No matter what sort of film it is, every review gets exactly 250 words - just enough to get your RDA of plot, background info and critique.
I try my best to watch and review films from all over the place, in the same way I might have French toast one morning, and Coco Pops the next. Anyway, I'll leave you to get stuck in. Feel free to give me feedback, ask me where to find films, tell me off for unfair comments... I'm all ears. Bon appétit!
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