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Under discussion:

Sita Sings the Blues  (2008)

One of Karina Longworth’s favorite undistributed films of last year is available to watch for free on Reel 13. Sita Sings the Blues won the Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You award at the 2008 Gotham Awards. In Karina’s review from Tribeca 2008, she called it, “a strange and beautiful little film, a potentially wispy slice of autobiography smartly elevated through irresistible, orgiastic style.”

Watch the movie and read Brandon Harris’ interview with director Nina Paley from last November (republished) after the jump.

Originally published on 11/17/08 as SITA SINGS THE BLUES Director Nina Paley: The Media Diet by Brandon Harris

For fans of relatively offbeat animation, 2008 seems to have been a banner year. Pixar produced perhaps their most acclaimed effort yet with Wall-E, which is drawing considerable heat for a best picture nomination. Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashir thrilled and horrified audiences in Competition in Cannes with subject matter and personal introspection not usually broached by animated films. Yet the most satisfying animated film that surfaced in 2008 may well have been Nina Paley’s delightful Sita Sings The Blues, which marries the tunes of obscure 30’s blues songstress Annette Hanshaw to a retelling, by three hip, Gen-Y Indians, of the Indian myth Ramayana and a mildly autobiographical story of a Seattle-based female cartoonist loosing her husband to his job in India. The film, a nominee for this year’s Gotham Award for the Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You after an impressive festival run that began at this year’s Berlinale, screens at MoMA on Thursday and Saturday. Clearly a dedicated postmodernist, Paley discusses Sci-Fi channel’s Eureka, Lawrence Lessig’s Free Culture and the strange ambiguities of influence.

Whatever they had on the airplane. It was Virgin, and they charged $7.99 for movies, so I stuck with the free TV channels (I don’t have TV at home). The SciFi channel was showing a commercial-free marathon of Eureka which I had never even heard of before, but it was pretty good plane fare. Also some other station was playing Spiderman, but with tons of commercial breaks which made it kind of tedious to watch.

Eureka because I saw like 5 episodes, without commercials.

Not in any way I can identify consciously, but I’m sure it does somehow.

So many people have asked “what are your influences” over the years. I now conclude my answer is: EVERYTHING. Everything I see, even if it’s just out the corner of my eye, is an influence.

I’m one of those crazy free culture people who insist there are no original ideas; all creativity builds on what has come before. As an artist I pull stuff out of the hive mind, the culture that’s all around me. I’m so saturated in culture I can’t separate influences out, or keep track of each discreet one. Just as corals build complex structures from the calcium floating in the ocean around them, artists pull ideas and influences from the sea of culture, and organize them in ways that suit us.

I read a lot. I prefer reading to watching TV. I also read nonfiction.

Hmm. Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig would make a good movie, because people need to discuss this stuff and most can’t be persuaded to read a book.

It gives my mind an escape, something to do in “foreground” while my subconscious is solving problems in “background.” And it enriches me as a human being. My work is an expression of my whole being, so anything that touches me will in some way touch my art too.

I almost never sit down and consciously listen to music. But just walking around, I hear tons. Stores and restaurants pipe in music, people play it in subways and on the street, it’s on people’s cell phone ringtones, it blasts from the windows of passing cars, it’s in the background everywhere. I can’t close my ears. I may only hear snippets at a time but it sticks in my mind, somewhere, adding to all the other influences in
there.

I enjoy quiet. In silence I can play back all the junk my mind has collected, and really listen to it. I have a lifetime of music playing in my head constantly. The DJ is my id, or subconscious, or maybe God.

Since I typed all that, my host’s soundtrack has turned to the Talking Heads, “Once in a Lifetime.” I’ve never owned a Talking Heads record, and don’t have an MP3 collection, but I know that song, and countless others.

That would depend on the story, the idea behind the piece, and a lot of other factors. Right now I’m looking for a 30-second ditty on the theme of “copying isn’t theft.” Anyone have one or want to write one?

Live, from the Inside of Nina’s Head: God the DJ! That’s one long concert though.

My favorite memory of the Oscars last year was Karina Longworth’s Twitters hitting my iPhone every few minutes. The way she can describe Diablo Cody’s dress in one sentence had me turning to my wife saying, “You’ve got to hear this…” By the end of the night we had the iPhone sitting between us, propped on a pillow where we could both see each twitter as it popped up.

Sunday, February 22nd, Karina and a gaggle of other SpoutBlog writers will live-twitter the Oscars again. Check back here at 8:00 EST. If you won’t have a laptop with you to see all the action, you can at least follow Karina on Twitter.

Saturday, February 21st, Karina will also be at The Spirit Awards, twittering from the scene.  IFC’s televised coverage begins at 5:00 EST, hosted by Steve Coogan.

Want to see Karina’s Twitter stream? It’s embedded after the jump.

Under discussion:

Push: Based on a Novel By Sapphire  (2009)

Push took top prizes at Sundance 2009 (Grand Jury for Drama, Audience Award and special acting prize for Mo’Nique), but–like a lot of prize winners in the past–it may prove to be too much for regular audiences. During the Q&A after the screening I attended, a girl stood up and said, “I’m from Harlem and I know people like that, but I’ve never seen it on a screen before.” She then thanked director Lee Daniels through her tears and sat down. It was the kind of moment Sundance programmers live for.

This small, risk-taking film does show something that hasn’t been on a screen before, and it eclipses the feel-good-and-give-me-your-money bigger pictures. Push: Based on the Novel by Sapphire is a simple story about an uneducated, pregnant girl in Harlem circa 1987. It leaves you a sweaty wad of mixed emotions and defies you to figure you what you’re feeling and why you feel it.

Precious (Gabourey Sidibe) is a sixteen year old girl who lives in hell. She’s morbidly obese and hated wherever she goes, except in her fantasies. (Kind of like Pan’s Labyrinth, but the war torn country Precious escapes is the Harlem ghetto and her fantasy world comes from TV.) It’s a little absurd and supposed to be funny. She has an indomitable wit despite the fact that she carries her father’s second child and her mother (Mo’Nique) is one of the most tragic and despicable villains, maybe, in all of cinema. Precious’ entire life is just a vessel to absorb all the victimization possible from being poor and black and female. Through her hallucinogenic fantasies, her protective sarcasm, and a couple of women who refuse to let her disappear, she inches — and I mean inches — towards prevailing.

If you’re starting to think Stand and Deliver with incest, think again. Precious’ journey is like watching somebody held under water learning to breath through a straw. If Push did not completely absorb you into the world of Precious, it may appear that her victories (like reciting the alphabet from start to finish) are minute, maybe even pathetic, but their monumentality in Precious’ world is visceral. It also helps that every once in a while there’s a fall-down funny joke.

Daniels’ freestyle comedy is what prevents the audience from walking away with PTSD. Shortly after what’s probably the most difficult scene in the movie, Precious is staying with her teacher and her teacher’s lesbian partner and remarks to herself, “They talk like TV channels I don’t watch.” At the screening I attended, the theater fell into fits of laughter, the way a death row inmate might when granted a pardon. When Daniels introduced Push, he encouraged the audience to look at how Precious laughs at what’s thrown at her, and laugh with her. My immediate thought was that his last screening must have been completely morbid and he wanted to lighten this one up. But now I think he may have been prepping us for the real brilliance of the movie. In some way, Precious’ humor creates an even deeper connection for us to her suffering because it makes her suffering more authentic. Isn’t it human nature to find some weird whiff of humor in the darkest hour? Finding a way to make a joke, albeit a dark one, can be the only reason at the end of the day to think tomorrow could be any better.

I know Push has everything going against it. Incest, a cast of “real” characters (even Mariah Carey looks like she’s served time in prison) and a location people don’t want to visit unless they have to, but it has an undeniable authenticity. It definitely pushes what an audience is willing to take. Some will say the waves of tragedy hitting Precious’ life smack of melodrama. Does Push go over the top? I really haven’t decided yet, but there’s that girl in the audience who said it was a spot on depiction of people she knows. I think there are lives which are more broken and sad than anything we’ve seen in movies before. Wrestling with whether or not I’ll allow Preicous’ life be authentic to me is, I think, is exactly what Daniels wants because days after I attended the screening, I still haven’t forgotten her.

Under discussion:

Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country  (2009)

Burma is under a repressive military regime. To a Western mind, it’s hard to imagine plain clothes agents of the government arresting anybody holding a camera (who’s not another agent), or soldiers shooting protesters in the streets then airing TV messages like “RFA, AFP, BBC [free press] saboteurs, watch your step!” Almost all images from inside Burma come from a few brave Burmese “reporters” with Sony Handicams. They leave them rolling in their bags, then briefly unveil the lens to capture a piece of an event without being discovered, which is the extent of their reporting. They upload the footage over the Internet or smuggle it to Thailand. From there it goes to Oslo, Norway where it’s broadcast back into Burma. Burma VJ is Anders Ostergaard’s documentary about the anonymous cameramen known as The Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB). Without them, the world does not see what happens in Burma.

Having the emotional effect of a thriller because each action anticipates a truly brutal response by the government, to actually use the word “thriller” cheapens the power of the footage and the sacrifices made to get it out. “Joshua” is the narrator of the story (”Joshua” is his handle). He was compromised during a very small protest in 2007 and went into exile in Thailand. The footage he and his VJs caught of that small protest was played over and over on national media. Something changed. Since 3,000 Burmese were killed during massive protests in 1988, the country had been oppressed in an airtight silence. For 19 years, Joshua says “our stories were silent,” meaning they filmed silent people, restrained from any political expression. VJs themselves questioned whether anybody that wound up in front of their hidden lens was an agent who was onto them. Then the small sidewalk protest that sent Joshua to Thailand inspired thousands of monks to step out of monasteries in peaceful protest. At that point, bravery spread like a virus. For a week in September 2007, the brief clips captured and smuggled out by the BVD to Joshua in Thailand and on to Oslo changed world politics.

This is not a traditional fiml and it defies a traditional review. Director Anders Ostergaard does a compelling job re-stiching the events in chronological order. Reenactments of Joshua in his office in Thailand, gives the the film a personal point of view as the story unfolds before him, like it does us, in the footage coming in from the reporters he handles. But the story of the events from the start of the protests to their inevitable demise was a matter of simply telling what happened, rather than the sporadic bursts of information broadcast news provided at the time. The bulk of the footage is authentic, real people doing something truly brave. Real bravery, not being retold by people or reenacted with actors, is inexplicably beautiful.

As tens of thousands of people who’ve lived for 19 years stifled by fear begin to clap, shout and march down the street knowing they may not see nightfall, watching the movie feels like a privilege to see an authentic record of our capacity for courage. It’s a pure decision, to set aside fear and say “I want to be free,” even if it means death. Witnessed with wonder and then with despair as the inevitable response from the government comes, there’s a palpable feeling that watching Burma VJ is an amazing cinematic experience that somehow becomes an act of solidarity.

Under discussion:

Indecent Proposal  (1993)

Australia  (2008)

Eric Fensler created one of the first viral video sensations when he overdubbed the GI Joe PSAs. He’s a rare artist who, like Andy Kaufman, is hard to describe in a sentence or two. One thing is certain, he’d rather not be called, “The GI Joe PSA guy.”

Listeners respond with what their families watched on Thanksgiving, while Karina Longworth was transfixed by Australia and Indecent Proposal over the holiday weekend.

(See two of Eric Fensler videos after the jump.)

(Subscribe to FilmCouch–Spout’s weekly movie podcast–in the iTunes store or to our RSS feed and an episode will download each Friday)

0:00 - Intro, listener feedback

5:32 - Eric Fensler

29:41 - Karina on Indecent Proposal, Australia

42:21 - Listener voice mail: why movies are better than video games

filmcouch-99

Eric Fensler’s TRS-80 music video, featuring himself on keyboards

Eric Fensler’s GI Joe PSA, “Body Massage”

Under discussion:

Revanche  (2008)

Revanche had its North American premiere here at Telluride 2008 and was far and away one of the most exciting new films playing. It’s a revenge thriller with cinema purist sensibilities from acclaimed Austrian director, Götz Spielmann. Keeping its German title, Revanche, the word carries two meanings: Revenge, but also a kind of second chance.

In the Austrian countryside, Robert and Susanne (Andreas Lust and Ursula Strauss) have built a cozy house and are trying to start a family. He’s as a rural cop, she works at the local grocery and on Sundays she takes her elderly, widowed neighbor to church. In the red light district of Vienna, Alex (Johannes Krisch) is the errand boy for a pimp and has started an amorous–and very secret–relationship with one of his prostitutes, Tamara (Irina Potapenko). When the desperation of escaping Vienna kicks in for Alex and Tamara, it looks as if Revanche is heading into familiar genre territory: Alex plans a bank job out in the country (”What can go wrong?”), it goes wrong and Tamara is killed in the getaway by a cop, Robert. But it’s when Alex goes to hide out on his grandfather’s farm and realizes the cop who killed his girlfriend lives next door, the movie screeches like a getaway car into unexpected territory.

With an excuse that his mother told him to chop all the wood for winter, Alex arrives at his grandfather’s farm. The wood pile is enormous, creating a sisyphean task. What follows are long takes of Alex in a self-imposed labor camp, cutting log after log to regulate the overwhelming grief and violence wanting to come out of him. The quiet little countryside becomes a cauldron, lit by the death of a Russian prostitute, where all four characters will be melted down to reveal what they’re made of.

Johannes Krisch’s physicality alone is brooding and boyish, volatile and seductive, giving us the space to fear and like him. In an interesting sidenote, Spielmann mentioned in the Q&A afterward that people don’t feel at home in their skin when concentrating on what their saying. So, he and the actors rehearsed until what they said was no longer important, then their bodies began to do the acting. Spielmann also doesn’t use music, but the sound of the buzz saw and animal cries in the woods are more ominous than any music. He doesn’t give any easy answers away and we’re left wondering about the choices his characters make long after the movie ends. A typical revenge plot is fueled by the hero’s obsession, but Revanche has a different kind of energy, fueled by the collison of four obsessions. It’s a fascinating watch and by veering from the beats of a typical revenge plot with Revanche, Spielmann elevates the genre to a new level.

Under discussion:

Firaaq  (2008)

A man on his phone next to me at the concessions said, “Things have definitely taken a turn for me, today. I’m now four feet away from Salman Rushdie.” In an unusual act of altruism only found at Telluride, author Salman Rushdie has championed the small Indian movie, Firaaq. He is introducing the screenings with the first-time director and acclaimed actress Nandita Das, and he’s conducting the Q&A afterward. This, of course, is helping an unknown movie with no big stars draw a crowd.

Firaaq (translated: Separation) takes place in the immediate aftermath of the 2002 Gujarat riots, where as many as 2,000 people–mostly Muslim–were killed. The riots were a hindu backlash to the Godhra train burning where Muslims were accused of burning up a car with 58 Hindu pilgrims inside. Made with an ensemble cast and intersecting storylines, it’s a day in the life of would be neighbors right after the riots are over, the anger and fear still dense in the air.

There’s a rickshaw driver whose house was burned down, his wife who suspects her Hindu friend did it, a gravedigger wanting revenge, a Muslim priest whose remained oblivious to the conflict outside, a secular shopkeeper married to a Hindu wife and another Hindu woman married to a man who was a perpetrator in the riots. Their lives loosely intersect to reveal they could be a community but for an age old hatred made fresh by the killing, raping and burning of the last month.

A frequent pitfall of movies made this way is that the stories are only skimmed lightly and characters are forced to say exactly what they’re thinking (Crash) because they have to get out of the way for another storyline. Firaaq, at times, is didactic, but where it wins is in delivering on concept.

A little discussed fact of massive violence is that it’s not over when the fighting stops. It’s just smoldering like a volcano returning to dormancy after an eruption. There’s a haze of fear and loathing still thick in the community. It happened with Jews who survived the camps trying to return home after WWII only to find they weren’t anymore wanted then they were during the war. The enduring displacement was maybe the biggest reason for establishing Israel, which shifted the war to a smoldering tension, and occasional eruption, with Palestine. It’s the same five years after the Gujarat riots between hindu and muslim Indians.

If Salman Rushdie is any indication, I think the movie will be well received. There’s a reality that many of us will be oblivious to human suffering happening around the world unless it’s in a movie. Which is why filmmakers continually turn to movies to connect political action with human emotion and why, on some level, it continually works.

Under discussion:

The Rest is Silence (Restul e Tacere)  (2007)

The biggest budget movie ever made in Romanian history played for free at Telluride 2008 today. Nae Caranfil is the central figure of the current Romanian film renaissance (they call him “The Dean”). The Rest is Silence is a period piece loosely based on the true story of Grigore “Grig” Brezianu’s determination to create of the first epic Romanian movie and establish cinema as an art form. The War of Independence (1912) is about the Romanians war with the Turks, made about 35 years after the fact. According to Caranafil, the monarch at the time offered Grig 80,000 soldiers for his production.

It’s Bucharest in 1911. Live theater reigns supreme and movies are just shy of an opiate appealing to base instincts and keeping lower class citizens out of live theater houses. Drama schools only enroll those who can best impersonate the nation’s “heroes of history.” Grig (Marius Florea Vizante) is a 25 year old movie director whose theater actor father is ashamed of him. The big french studio, Gaumonde, has set up a shop in Romania and catches wind of Grig’s “film libretto” about Romania’s war of independence. The famed actor Belcea was Grig’s only advocate and shot at making the movie, but he’s dead and Gaumonde wants to steal the story. Grig runs to get the help of Leon Negrescu (Ovidiu Niculescu), an eccentric tycoon who believes God mandated him to bring arts and sciences to Romania (he wears a toga and conducts art classes). But first Grig has to convince Leon that film is worthy of his patronage.

It’s the first of several hysterical hurdles Grig faces to get his movie made. He wears the hats of both swindler–when he needs money–and moralist–when he needs control. Along the way, an aspiring actress, Emilia (Mirela Zeta) captures his heart, but her ruthless ambitions threaten to break him. By casting Marius Florea Vizante as Grig (think a young, Romanian Paul Giamatti) Caranfil finds the perfect fresh-faced optimist whose naive enough to know when he’s right. But as much as Silence is a story of Grigg sprinting the gauntlet to get his film made, it’s about how movies rose from humble beginnings to greatness and the sacrifices–or casualties–made along the way.

It’s somehow pitch perfect that in this story where film is the underdog, Nae Caranfil wrote and directed it in classic Hollywood style. It has the rapid-fire charm and wit of movies like His Girl Friday, the visual eye-candy of the turn of the century sets from The Godfather II and a tightly wound script where each element must lead to the next.

In fact, watching The Rest is Silence is kind of a bitter sweet pill. It’s just so enjoyable and such a respectful homage to Romania’s first major filmmaker, that it’s a little mournful the U.S. can’t tout such a film as the most expensive made in our history. And to add insult to injury, Silence’s budget was 2.6 million euros (somewhere around four million dollars). No wonder Romania is experiencing a renaissance when they’re smarter with four million dollars than Hollywood is with 100 million.