YNOT at the Movies

At the end of "Peacock," the voiceover from the younger brother says:

"我恍惚记得，爸爸走那天，很快就是农历立春了。
I vaguely remember that when dad passed away, spring was about to begin."

It has been regarded as a cue for Gu Changwei's second film "And the Spring Comes (立春)" (China 2007, 105 min.), the second installment of Gu's trilogy about ordinary people. Poetic and profoundly touching, like Gu's first film, this beautiful film tells a compelling story about a teacher's pursuit of her dreams and love, although it is not a sequel of "Peacock."

Set in a small town near Baotou, Wang Cailing is a vocal teacher who has an magnificent voice and a big dream—to be an opera (Italian Opera, not Beijing Opera) singer at the National Opera House. She is not dreaming alone: she meets a young man who wants to be a China's Vincent van Gogh, a gay ballet dancer who pasts his prime, and many other artist misfits. All of them struggle not only to realize their dreams, but more pressingly, to get accepted and understood by the society, which means to survive.

The film is a tribute to those artists who are trapped in the hush reality but keep their hopes alive. Despite the repeated setbacks, they continue to long for a new life, a new love, and a new world, no matter what it takes. Their experiences are often heartbroken, but never fail to inspire.

Jiang Wenli (蒋雯丽), director Gu's wife in real life, strikingly played the misfortunate, unattractive, and trying protagonist Wang Cailing. Jiang put on 15 lbs and disappeared completely in her character both emotionally and physically. Her outstanding performance earned her the Best Actress award at the Rome Film Festival in 2007, when the film was premiered.

Many member of the production team of "And the Spring Comes" are from Gu's first film "Peacock." For example, Li Qiang (李樯) wrote the eloquent script and Dou Peng (窦鹏) composed the fantastic music.

In the film, Jiang's character Wang Chailing wonders philosophically:

每年春天一来，实际上也不意味着什么
Although every spring comes as usual
但我总觉得要有什么大事发生似的
I always feel something big will happen
我心里总是蠢蠢欲动
And my heart is constantly ready for something
可等春天整个过去了
But after the spring is all over
根本什么也没发生
Nothing has happened
我就很失望
I get very disappointed
好像错过了什么似的
As if I have missed something

The audiences must be wondering as well: Will love and hope that millions of Wang Chailing have been dreaming about come true next spring? Is something going to happen to them or are they going to miss out again?

However, one thing will be certain: they will not stop dreaming.

Although the documentary "Dalai Lama Renaissance" (USA 2007, 81 min.) does not answer all of these questions, it does give an up close profile to this extraordinary and complex individual.

In 1999, 40 westerners with different religion background, disciplines, and of course, point of views, travel to India to meet the Dalai Lama at his residence. Their goal is to discuss many problems in the world we are facing today and gain perspectives through the direct dialogue with the Dalai Lama. Before they begin a discussion with the Dalai Lama during a limited time each day, these westerns debate and discuss among themselves trying to come up some kind of consensus about how to present their views to the Dalai Lama and how to proceed the dialogue. This film captures their spiritual journey, as well the Dalai Lama's teaching.

In places like Germany, the Dalai Lama's undeniable charisma and likeable personality make himself more popular than the pope as a religious leader, and a respectable spiritual inspiration to many. Many footage of his teaching in this film effectively shows the Dalai Lama's passion for humanity as well as his wit and insight toward spirituality. He tells his audience to open heart and embrace the spirituality inside ourselves with or without any religious faith; and to achieve the inner peace within ourselves.

It is indeed inspiring and thought provoking.

It is also very interesting to observe how the 40 western participants react and interpret the Dalai Lama's teaching, and how naive some of them are by expecting that the Dalai Lama will give them solutions to the problems in the world. Many of the participants express themselves and their rewarding experience eloquently. Some of the participants obviously have the intention of using this meeting to get a vindication on their own political agenda from the Dalai Lama. Some others simply expose themselves for how ignorant and close minded they are even after the teaching from the Dalai Lama.

Understandably, the filmmaker expresses his own point of view about the history and politics in Tibet, without necessarily reflecting the actual Tibetan history. To portrait the Dalai Lama as a victim of the Chinese government is anything but the truth.

That's the tricky point when it comes to understand the Dalai Lama's role.

The Dalai Lama is an almighty figure when he comes to be a religious and a humanitarian leader. He would have been embraced by the Chinese government if he dedicates himself to that role, which inspires millions of people around the world. However, he is also a politician, especially when he presents himself to the Chinese government and the Chinese people. By playing both roles, the Dalai Lama is able to mobilize the western media in his support to deal with the Chinese government, because to the westerners, he appears to be a religious and a spiritual leader. As a consequence, he becomes ambiguous and perplex when it comes to sensitive issues such as how to deal with the Chinese government.

This dilemma shows dramatically in the film when an anti-Chinese government participant ask the Dalai Lama specifically if the Dalai Lama would approve an economical sanction against China over the issue of Tibet. The Dalai Lama first expresses his concern that such action will harm the welfare of the Chinese people, including Tibetan people. He emphasizes that people should not take any action to harm the Chinese people. Therefore, the logical answer one might think is that he does not approve such an action, right? Yet, he refuses to give an straight answer to that simple question. He winkes with a smile. What he preaches does not apply here any more. Strange? Not for a politician. Isn't the idea of "separation of church and state" absolutely brilliant?

"Dalai Lama Renaissance" is an interesting documentary paying tribute to a fascinating individual. It opens on May 23 at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco.

In "The Machine Girl," a teenager girl Ami loses her little brother to school bullies. During her quest of revenge, she loses one arm. However, she replaces it with a machine gun that is more powerful than a lawn mower. She vigorously continues her battles with her enemies, of course, with a lot blood shed.

Although this is that kind of movies that the audiences are not supposed to reasoning the details, the storyline in this film is surprisingly engaging. Despite the fact that these characters seem more real in computer games than in real life, the film doesn't create one-dimensional cartoon characters,

All the characters in this film seem to forget to take their high blood pressure medicines—when their body parts get cut, which happen quite often, their blood spray out stronger than a firefighter's water hose. And, it keeps going. If we put these guys on a lawn, the lawn will be always green. I mean, red.

The film is so over the top that it's very funny. How can I not to laugh when I see a giant "Arm Tempura" (a deep fried arm coated with flour batter)?

I normally don't fancy blood genre, but this film is "bloody" fun, indeed.

"The Machine Girl," will be screened at the San Francisco's 5th "Another Hole in the Head Film Festival".

According to the press conference, "with more than 30 films from six counties, Another Hole in the Head Film Festival offers two weeks of bloodsucking parasitic monsters, angry ghosts, genetic manipulation, maniacs, killer hair, assassins, stalkers, psychos, zombies, aliens, and more macabre mayhem than you can shake a stick at, aim a pistol at, or blast a flamethrower towards."

The 5th San Francisco "Another Hole in the Head Film Festival" will run June 5-18, 2008 at Roxie Theater.

From acclaimed Spanish director Carlos Saura, unlike any other documentary, this film does not have any talking heads, nor voice over narratives, nor story lines. It simply puts a few most fantastic Fado pieces together, accompany with splendid choreography and carefully arranged color and background. The film lets fado speak for itself.

And it works, wonderfully.

I began to learn about fado when I visited Lisboa last year. This film not only brings back to the memory about the voices at the local cafes, it also brings back the fond memory about the beautiful city, Lisboa.

Always with their eyes closed, fado singers passionately covey sentimental tales with their unforgettable voices. The fado music is deeply moving and extremely sad, most of the time. Just by listening to them, like many others in the theater, I instantly have tears in my eyes. Fado is charged with extremely rich and powerful emotions that affect its listeners, as well as its performers.

This film might not be as conventional as most documentaries you have seen, just like fado is not as most other music you have heard either. However, the film will profoundly touch you, because fado will.

"Fados" was shown at the 51st San Francisco International Film Festival (SFiFF).

Based on a true event, it tells a compelling story about a bright young graduate student Liu Xing, played by Liu Ye. Liu Xing comes to the US from China to study physics in a university. He believes that America is the land where his talent can be recognized, his dream can be realized, and his scientific ideas can be explored. However, not only he has to struggle to adapt to the reality due to culture clashes, he also has to make sense of the academic world when he conducts his research on "dark matter."

Perhaps due to the fact that director Chen Shi-zheng (陈士爭) is an opera director, the music selections in this film really stand out to me. They are deeply moving and very effective on building up the emotion and add more layers to the story. They also bring nostalgia of the 90s for newly arrived Chinese students in the US.

Besides Meryl Streep always being terrific, the performance from those supporting actors who play Chinese students are very impressive. They vividly portrait those young student's experience living in a culture shock environment.

However, it seems to me that the writer of the film is not very familiar with the scientific subject, in this case, the physics. The dialogue on those subject is very odd. And it will never happen in any department in a university to have a professor arguing with a secretary about a student's academic study.

Also, I don't get the metaphor of the four out of the five elements (wood 木, fire 火, earth 土, metal 金, and water 水) used in the film, with fire (火) is missing.

This film is particularly interesting to me on another personal level. I was actually just 1 hour and half away (driving) when the actual event happened in 1991 (do NOT click on that link BEFORE seeing the movie, because it will contain spoiler). Years later, that event has not been forgotten.

"Dark Matter" was the closing night film at the 25th San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival

Because many films have a "hold review" request, the following is a brief recap about some of the films I have seen so far at the festival. More to come later.

• Alexandra (Александра)

  Watching "Alexandra (Александра)" (Russia 2007, 90 min.) is an absolutely gratifying experience. With beautiful visual, fantastic music score, and flawless performance by Galina Vishnevskaya (Гали́на Вишне́вская) as Alexandra, the film tells a story about war and humanity.

  The audience will appreciate this film not only for its unique philosophical way of looking at the war and peace, but for its impressive performance and filmmaking.

  

• 1000 Journals

  "1000 Journals" (USA 2007, 88 min.) is a fascinating documentary about a social and cultural experiment. "Someguy" from San Francisco (where else?) unleashes 1000 blank journals to the world. People start to write on them, pass around, make art, pick up fights, change other's entries, and do pretty much everything else. Some of the journals are returned, most of them are not. The projects make graffiti leave restroom walls or classroom desks and travel around the world.

  Are we all artists when we have a secret place to express ourselves?

  

• Fados

  If you don't know what fado is, after the musical documentary "Fados" (Portugal/Spain 2007, 93 min.), you will fall in love with fado.

  From acclaimed Spanish director Carlos Saura, unlike any other documentary, this film does not have any talking heads, nor voice over narratives, nor story lines. It simply puts a few most fantastic fado pieces together, accompanied with splendid choreography and carefully arranged color and background. The film lets fado speak (or sing) for itself.

  And it works, wonderfully.

  

• In the City of Sylvia (En la ciudad de Sylvia)

  The filmmaker from "In the City of Sylvia (En la ciudad de Sylvia)" (Spain 2007, 84 min.) describes this film as:

  "A boy in a city is looking at one girl.
  Later, he looks at another one, and another one..."

  Well, indeed. That's all this movie is about, with many long shots of this boy (young man actually) following or looking at a girl, one after another one.

  I vividly remember those long shots in many films by Tsai Ming-liang (蔡明亮). Those standing still long shots in Tsai's film mean something to me and to character developments. However, I need more time to digest those long takes in this "In the City of Sylvia." I don't think I am getting it so far.

  

• You, the Living (Du Levande)

  The funniest film I have seen so far at the festival is "You, the Living (Du Levande)" (Sweden/Germany/France/Denmark/Norway 2007, 90 min.). It's a comedy about the "greatness and miserableness of human beings."

  The characters in the film are strange, yet real; funny, yet pathetic; miserable, yet full of hope. It mixes drams with reality, musical with drama, and stage theater with cinema, to create a film that is extremely fresh and original.

  This is a lovely film that not to be missed, but probably only can be seen at a film festival such as SFiFF.

  

• Standard Operating Procedure

  Just thought we have already heard and known so much about Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse, Academy-winning director Errol Morris's new documentary "Standard Operating Procedure" (USA 2008, 117 min.) takes another look at the story behind those horrific photographs.

  It's remarkable and fascinating to hear soldiers who were present or even took those pictures telling their stories first hand. Why did they take those pictures? Why is taking the pictures a crime while torching is not? What's really going on behind these photographs?

  This is a superb documentary even its subject matter is something people try to forget, or already forget.

  

• Up the Yangtze (Canada 2007, 93 min.)

  Chinese-Canadian filmmaker Yung Chang's documentary "Up the Yangtze" (Canada 2007, 93 min.) takes us to an unforgettable journey up the stream of Yangtze River (长江) on a luxury cruise boat. Using the construction of Three Gorges Dam (长江三峡大坝) as the backdrop and focusing on two young protagonists who work on a cruise boat, the film tells the human side of the story of the changing China. It takes a closer look at the social and economical impact from the rapid development in China.