MIFF Notes #6: Burning, The Green Fog, Milla, Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex, Fashion, Disco
I thought I had it bad at the Comedy Theater on my second day. It was only a few days later I realized the true hellishness of its design. I had 20 minutes to get from Antonio Lopez 1970 at the Kino (which I'll get to in a moment) to the Comedy for Burning. I made it in 6 minutes. The non-members queue stretched around the block, past the giant crab restaurant. They were just about to head in when I managed to rush in first, quickly flashing the members card that hangs around my neck. I headed to the top and almost tripped, so eager was I to secure a good seat. The first two rows were taken so I was directed to the left of the third row. The angle wasn't great but I'd been expecting much worse. It was only when I went to put my bag on the floor that I realized I had a problem.
My MIFF bag is quite large, having to hold my lunchbox, keep cup, portable power hub, wallet, keys, scarf, pens and various notebooks of differing sizes. Usually, it fits fairly neatly in the row or under the seat. Not at the Comedy. I had to wedge it between my legs, forcing me into an awkward man spreading position. For those who don't know me, I sit with my legs crossed, often locking them in position by putting one foot behind the other. When this inevitably grows uncomfortable, I have to switch which leg is on top and it all works fine. So, the position my seat had forced me into was decidedly unnatural and awkward. I had zero leg room and felt cramped and claustrophobic.
A woman, who looked exactly like Andie MacDowell, sat next to me on the aisle and asked me to look after her bag while she went to get a drink. She asked if I wanted anything and I don't know why exactly but I gave this woman $20 to buy me a lemonade. It was only after she left that I understood how truly weird MIFF is. There I was in a crammed, painful cinema trusting a total (celebrity lookalike) stranger with my money just so I could see a film. We were shoved in like sardines yet MIFF continues to grow in popularity. I know why people avoid the Comedy Theater now as I'm convinced it led to the back, shoulder and knee pain I'm currently in. But still I keep going. As the woman returned with my change and we discussed the difference between Iranian and Persian cinema, I felt like the Cheshire Cat. But remember his famous line? "We're all mad here." I wouldn't have it any other way. Except without the Comedy Theater.
Thankfully, the film I saw there, South Korean mystery Burning (A), was worth the discomfort. Directed by Lee Chang-dong after an absence of 8 years, it's an intriguing, gripping film with no easy answers. Loosely expanded from a Haruki Murakami story, the film follows Jong-soo, a bored young man, who finds himself drawn into the lives of his childhood friend, Hae-mi, and her companion, the rich, enigmatic Ben. From there, just get more and more complicated, yet it's never less than exciting. If I could've been on the edge of my seat, I would've been.
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| Burning (2018) |
But the reason Burning works as well as it does is hard to talk about without spoiling the many twists and turns. It draws us further in by providing multiple different avenues and rewards careful attention. Even surface aspects of the plot become complicated by the end, yet it's never confusing. For instance, the question of whether or not you see a cat is a crucial aspect of the plot, with multiple different interpretations. The entire question almost acts as a stealth homage to Schrödinger's cat. It's an enigmatic film yet one that is immensely satisfying, presenting us with a neat narrative but complicating it by providing enough clues for a more complex understandings.
It also acts as much more than a mystery, painting a picture of youth alienation and loneliness. Every element of the film just works from the score to the cinematography and the performances. Steven Yeun in particular is brilliant, taking the easygoing charm of his The Walking Dead character and twisting into something menacing and unsettling. With the complexity, the strength of its themes and the skill of its actors, Burning stays with you long after the shocking final scene. It's a film to get lost in and to debate, and has been one of the festival's biggest hits. I can't wait to see it again.
As I walked from the Comedy to ACMI, I tried to soothe my aching back and legs and clear my mind for something completely different. I went from the sublime to the ridiculous, from Burning to Guy Maddin's The Green Fog (A-). His film is like a mosaic, taking clips from close to 100 San Francisco set films and TV series' to create a kind of gonzo reinvention of Hitchcock's Vertigo. This kind of bowerbird montage style reminded me of Soda_Jerk's excellent TERROR NULLIUS, one of the best films of 2018. Where that film used mashed-up clips to create a scathing and very funny critique of straight white Australian masculinity, The Green Fog has less lofty political aims. It is instead focussed on being an enoyable and often very silly film.
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| The Green Fog (2017) |
The film cuts out most of the dialogue from its adapted scenes, resulting in hilariously jerky movements. There's a deeper theme being explored about the way we interpret; how we are able to understand what is meant even without dialogue, or in a bigger sense, understanding the narrative by the way it riffs and plats with the source material but that isn't really the point.
The Green Fog is, instead, a celebration of San Francisco and of cinema. This is a film that slows down all those shots of people (actually dummies) thrown off buildings to point out how ridiculous it is. When one hits the ground, it lands with a screamingly funny, anticlimactic thud. The great thing about watching this at MIFF was listening to the cinema erupt with laughter at every silly moment. It's a film for cinema nerds and it's hard not to love, especially during a five minute montage of Chuck Norris looking intense and sad. Credit must also be given to composer Jacob Garchik and the Kronos Quartet for providing a Herrmmanm/Glass-esque score, the intensity of which cleverly contrasts the visuals.
The film also showed with Maddin's Canadian music video, Accidence (B+), an ingenious, intricate tribute to Rear Window. I could watch it ten times and still not see everything. A kaleidoscopic vision with more going on than most feature films.
I was actually reminded me of Guy Maddin earlier in the day. The opening shot of French-Portugese drama Milla (B), is like a less colorful, mist infused moment of his strange fantasy Twilight Of The Ice Nymphs. There the similarities end as we soon realize we were just viewing the inside of a car from the outside. That kind of dreamy surrealness happens a few times throughout the movie, providing some interest in what is a very long, slow film. It depicts the coming of age of the titular character in three distinct stages, each of which are interesting but fail to really coalesce into something more interesting.
The first is a portrait of disengaged but deeply in youth, like Bonnie & Clyde, Sid & Nancy and Badlands, albeit without the criminal activity that is typically associated. This section is defined by scenes of characters sorting things, moving books into piles, as though if their things were organised then they might be too. Then tragedy strikes and we're into a second phase, defined by shots of menial cleaning tasks so slow that, at one point, the sound of a toothbrush falling over made me jump. Suddenly, Milla is a Chantal Akerman-esque look at the boring tasks and lives of domestic women. The third (and most memorable) section is a sweet, charming look at motherhood with an adorable kid and a naughty (very real) cat.
All these stages are all intriguing, but their combined effect is a film that feels endless and not in a good way. It just keeps going, something worsened by the fact that it features several moments which, as cinemagoers, we've been trained to recognize as typical last shots. From a strange music scene to a deep probing look, you keep wanting it to end. That the actual last shot is so flat is odd but fitting in a way. Milla is a film about the coming of age of a young woman who finds satisfaction in the joys of motherhood, and it's interesting, but the deliberate pacing left me feeling cold.
Speaking of distant, let's talk about American documentary, Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex, Fashion, Disco (C). Lopez was an illustrator at the height of the New York fashion scene in the 60s and 70s. His vivid, seductive art ushered in a new way of thinking about fashion, while he was responsible for discovering such famous models as Grace Jones, Jessica Lange and Jerry Hall. He was also a very interesting person, a bisexual sex-obsessed charmer who walked like a cat and dressed like Willy Wonka before it was cool, so it's frustrating to see such a surface portrait.
Coming after films like EX LIBRIS and Island Of The Hungry Ghosts, the more conventional, wide-ranging, talking heads style used by this film feels decidedly uncinematic. This is not a problem with the interviewees, such as Lange, Bill Cunningham and some Warhol superstars, who provide interesting anecdotes, but a structural problem with the film itself. It paints an almost God-like portrait of Lopez, but only raises tantalizing details of his flaws. His possessiveness and anger are raised in one scene, but remain unexamined. However, it's the flippant treatment of his death that most annoys. As the documentary has progressed we've grown to love him, so it's understandably upsetting when we learn that he died of AIDS. The film shows two scenes which address this, one featuring Cunningham crying and another featuring one of the interviewees saying how much they miss him. And then the film is back to grooviness, refusing us the opportunity to sit with our sadness, instead choosing to party. It's immensely annoying.
The title, in the end, is fitting because it doesn't make a lot of sense. Antonio Lopez 1970? This film covers at least three decades so why call it that? Because it looks cool. A superficial treatment of an illustrating genius.
In my next dispatch, I'll be raving about Brazilian queer film Hard Paint at length, as well as discussing a South African film about masculinity, Ukranian satire Donbass, meditative documentary Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda, Christian Petzold's latest Transit, and horror anthology Field Guide To Evil. I'll also share my thoughts on the older films, Paris Is Burning and Spirits Of The Air, Gremlins Of The Clouds. Maybe then I'll finally be caught up!
I was actually reminded me of Guy Maddin earlier in the day. The opening shot of French-Portugese drama Milla (B), is like a less colorful, mist infused moment of his strange fantasy Twilight Of The Ice Nymphs. There the similarities end as we soon realize we were just viewing the inside of a car from the outside. That kind of dreamy surrealness happens a few times throughout the movie, providing some interest in what is a very long, slow film. It depicts the coming of age of the titular character in three distinct stages, each of which are interesting but fail to really coalesce into something more interesting.
 |
| Milla (2017) |
The first is a portrait of disengaged but deeply in youth, like Bonnie & Clyde, Sid & Nancy and Badlands, albeit without the criminal activity that is typically associated. This section is defined by scenes of characters sorting things, moving books into piles, as though if their things were organised then they might be too. Then tragedy strikes and we're into a second phase, defined by shots of menial cleaning tasks so slow that, at one point, the sound of a toothbrush falling over made me jump. Suddenly, Milla is a Chantal Akerman-esque look at the boring tasks and lives of domestic women. The third (and most memorable) section is a sweet, charming look at motherhood with an adorable kid and a naughty (very real) cat.
All these stages are all intriguing, but their combined effect is a film that feels endless and not in a good way. It just keeps going, something worsened by the fact that it features several moments which, as cinemagoers, we've been trained to recognize as typical last shots. From a strange music scene to a deep probing look, you keep wanting it to end. That the actual last shot is so flat is odd but fitting in a way. Milla is a film about the coming of age of a young woman who finds satisfaction in the joys of motherhood, and it's interesting, but the deliberate pacing left me feeling cold.
Speaking of distant, let's talk about American documentary, Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex, Fashion, Disco (C). Lopez was an illustrator at the height of the New York fashion scene in the 60s and 70s. His vivid, seductive art ushered in a new way of thinking about fashion, while he was responsible for discovering such famous models as Grace Jones, Jessica Lange and Jerry Hall. He was also a very interesting person, a bisexual sex-obsessed charmer who walked like a cat and dressed like Willy Wonka before it was cool, so it's frustrating to see such a surface portrait.
 |
| Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex, Fashion, Disco (2017) |
Coming after films like EX LIBRIS and Island Of The Hungry Ghosts, the more conventional, wide-ranging, talking heads style used by this film feels decidedly uncinematic. This is not a problem with the interviewees, such as Lange, Bill Cunningham and some Warhol superstars, who provide interesting anecdotes, but a structural problem with the film itself. It paints an almost God-like portrait of Lopez, but only raises tantalizing details of his flaws. His possessiveness and anger are raised in one scene, but remain unexamined. However, it's the flippant treatment of his death that most annoys. As the documentary has progressed we've grown to love him, so it's understandably upsetting when we learn that he died of AIDS. The film shows two scenes which address this, one featuring Cunningham crying and another featuring one of the interviewees saying how much they miss him. And then the film is back to grooviness, refusing us the opportunity to sit with our sadness, instead choosing to party. It's immensely annoying.
The title, in the end, is fitting because it doesn't make a lot of sense. Antonio Lopez 1970? This film covers at least three decades so why call it that? Because it looks cool. A superficial treatment of an illustrating genius.
In my next dispatch, I'll be raving about Brazilian queer film Hard Paint at length, as well as discussing a South African film about masculinity, Ukranian satire Donbass, meditative documentary Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda, Christian Petzold's latest Transit, and horror anthology Field Guide To Evil. I'll also share my thoughts on the older films, Paris Is Burning and Spirits Of The Air, Gremlins Of The Clouds. Maybe then I'll finally be caught up!
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