Local non-profit Cinema Project is nearing the final week of a Kickstarter fundraising campaign that will help keep them operational all the way through next season. As PDX's shining star of experimental and art film exhibition, the organization is absolutely worthy of your support.
My own first encounter with Cinema Project dates back to 2008 when they were able to secure the scarcely seen short films by Apichatpong Weerasethakul for a screening at the Whitsell Auditorium. Other notable past presentations have included Jonas Mekas' mind-blowingly epic cinematic diary Walden, the most recent work by experimental puppet theater and film director Janie Geiser and far too many other rare gems to recount here.
An excerpt from Walden (1969) by Jonas Mekas:
An excerpt from Worldly Desires (2005) by Apichatpong Weerasethakul:
Even a quick perusal of this season's schedule reveals that Cinema Project's programming is unlike anything else on offer in Portland. We're extremely fortunate to have these folks kicking around our town, especially when one considers how few organizations like this are available on the national scene.
Here's a link to their Kickstarter page, complete with a budgetary breakdown of what operations the funds will cover. And as of this writing, they've got about 8 days left to raise just under $2K. As with most Kickstarter campaigns, there are "prizes" associated with the various levels of support. Lend them a hand, if you can. And don't forget to check out one of their upcoming screenings...the next one's on October 11th at 6p.m.
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French film-collaborators Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani's supremely self-assured feature-length debut hits dvd and blu-ray this week. Channeling the nervous energy and visual-style of the classic giallo, Amer lovingly remixes the elements of that Italian-horror sub-genre in a manner that brings to mind Quentin Tarantino's career-long use of grindhouse schlock to inspire and inform his work. Cattet and Forzani, like Tarantino, have clearly absorbed their inspiration, even going so far as to construct an aural accompaniment to the film made up of music works from classic giallos. The end result of their sampling from that very specific toolbox is a film that aesthetically pays tribute while intellectually interrogating the conceptual trappings of that original source.
Whereas, for instance, the films of Dario Argento openly accept and hyper-utilize the nearly standardized leering found within cinema (especially horror cinema) as it displays and thus mediates and broadcasts uniform (and, one should note, almost exclusively sexualized) notions of the female body, Cattet and Forzani adopt the gaze (a quick primer on feminist film theory and the male gaze here) as a means of challenging the presumptions inherent within both the form and the audience itself.
Constructed of vignette-like segments that chronicle the life of a woman named Ana, Amer follows her transformation from a curious child into the particular type of oversexed woman that typically populates trashy, b-grade European cinema. The filmmakers exploit this (over)familiarity with lurid depictions of gender to steer us towards assuming that this will be just another giallo in the tradition of Argento, Bava, Fulci and their peers. Yet the biggest surprise about Amer is its dogged resistance to being a by-the-numbers horror film. If there are aspects of horror contained within this work, it is the horror of being both the unwilling victim and active manipulator of the gaze, constantly held fast within an atmosphere of potential violence predicated upon one's habitation of a gendered body and the expectations that are thrust upon it.
The result is a fairly confounding concoction of psychosexual titillation mixed with a rote ramping up of tension that tricks the viewer into expecting a violent release at the end of each sequence. Instead, the filmmakers deny the audience the expected relief, extending the anxiety beyond each of the micro-narratives embedded within the larger piece. To a certain extent, Cattet and Forzani have it both ways with Amer, exploiting the viewer's weakness for this particular flavor of naughty cinema while actively scolding them for being drawn in by its depictions of raw female sexuality.
And it's the straddling of that line that will lead many viewers to call out the film as being merely sexist pap. More discerning viewers, especially those who have already digested a good deal of 60s and 70s Italian horror, will likely find themselves peering a bit deeper into what Amer has to offer. Beyond its magnificent combination of visual and montage techniques, the film reaches beyond mere stylistic flair to grapple with some fairly heady and provocative content. I, for one, cannot wait to see what these directors come up with next.
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Hey, it's been a while. This lil' experiment in blogging got put on the back burner for a number of reasons. My wife and I are having a baby in less than a month. I've been working on a really exciting non-fiction film project. And there's the day job, of course. I'm sure that anyone reading this can identify with how quickly time disappears if you let it.
My love of movies certainly hasn't diminished; just the amount of time I have to go out to see them. To that end, when I do find the time to blog, the content that is discussed here is likely to include home video and television, as well as the occasional first-run theatrical stuff that had previously been the exclusive subject of this site. I figured I'd open it up a bit and maybe that would make it easier to post more often.
So, um...welcome back:
This whole notion of "opening up" the style of the blog will likely include shorter, topical postings, as well as a few longer ones here and there. If I encounter an online article about the decline of 3D cinema, for instance, I might post it, jot down a few thoughts of my own and invite others to comment on the topic. As soon as this entry goes live, I'll go ahead and enable comments for all posts on the blog (a feature I'd previously kept disabled), so feel free to comment on this or any future (or past) posts.
As for the first regular review in many months, I'll be uploading a look at Amer, which is making its dvd and blu-ray debut this week. It should be up within the hour, so keep an eye out for it.
And, finally, it'd feel weird to not at least mention a couple of pop culture crumbs that I've run into and enjoyed lately, so--briefly--here we go:
The NW Film Center recently hosted a four-night run of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's "lost" 1973 sci-fi epic, World on a Wire. I happily rejected the opportunity to see (the seemingly ubiquitous) Drive in favor of the catching the limited run feature...and, MAN, was it worth it! I'll probably post in more depth about World on a Wire in the future, either soon or when it hits blu-ray and dvd next year.
I also caught a mid-August showing of Andrei Tarkovsky's 1979 Stalker (also at the NWFC). It's long been my favorite film by the Russian master but I'd never had the chance to see it theatrically. All those beautiful textures blown up larger than life...you can be sure that I was in heaven.
Last night, I streamed the first episode of Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's latest documentary project for public television, Prohibition. While I completely get that many people aren't down with the very much defined style that Burns has employed in his decades long career, I was drawn in by Burns usual attention to detail and his ability to unearth lost kernels of our shared national history. The take away from episode one? That, as is still the case in modern American life, much of what the temperance movement of the 20s and 30s was about can be linked to entrenched ideologies about how others should conduct themselves in society. If this doesn't sound familiar, you're probably not keeping up with the news of the day.
A quick reminder: we're still on Facebook and, every once in a while, an exclusive post will end up on that page, so hit us up there and be sure to "like" the page while you're at it.
And that's pretty much it for now. Like I said, keep an eye out for that review of Amer. It should be up within the hour. And, since those of us living in the Pacific Northwest are currently welcoming the return of old friend "the rain," I'll leave you with this:
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Anyone who might have popped by the blog in the last month and a half could easily have assumed that we've closed up shop permanently. I wanted to let everybody know that this is not the case. I've been busy working on a film project with friends that's kept me fairly distracted from writing. Between it and my day job, it's been the blog and other writing projects that have fallen to the wayside.
The good news is that we should be up and at it again sometime in early June. So, don't give up on us quite yet. We still have plenty of film nerd magic to share with the world.
And, just so this post isn't entirely about our temporary hiatus, here's a nod to a couple of films/items I've enjoyed during the break (and would have loved to write about at greater length):
#1: I saw Rainer Werner Fassbinder'sThe Merchant of Four Seasons for the first time. One of those film experiences that becomes more and more rare as you dive further into the deep end of cinema...it felt like falling in love with movies all over again.
#2: I caught Werner Herzog'sCave of Forgotten Dreams in 3D during its run at Cinema 21. I'm still not convinced that this current generation of 3D exhibition is anything more than a phase/fad/marketing scam. But I will admit that Herzog's use of 3D was entirely appropriate and enhancing to the overall experience of his film. And, y'know, if folks like Herzog, Wim Wenders and Takashi Miike are jumping onto the 3D train, then maybe I am slightly more interested in what the possibilities are for this otherwise gimmicky (and admission-fee inflating) technology.
#3: One of my favorite directors, Terrence Malick, won the Palme D'or at the Cannes Film Festival for his newest (and much anticipated) feature, The Tree of Life. While another of my favorites, Lars Von Trier, made a complete ass of himself while promoting his newest full-length, Melancholia, getting himself banned from the festival with his juvenile, misguided and just-not-very-successful attempts at improv comedy.
#4: All the excitement of this year's edition of Cannes got me thinking about watching past winners of the Palme D'or, catching up with those films that I've never made time for and revisiting others which I haven't seen in years. Thus far, I've taken another look at David Lynch's 1990 effort Wild at Heart, an old favorite that, despite taking the top prize at Cannes, was a complete disaster both critically and financially in the U.S. And in a first-time viewing, Luis Buñuel's 1961 film Viridiana flashed across my screen last night.
Who knows, maybe I'll grapple with other winners of Cannes most prestigious prize when the blog heats up again in June. Only time will tell...
In the meantime, don't forget that you can find us on Facebook here. While you're at it, you can also check out the Facebook page for the short film that's been keeping me from updating regularly. It can be found here.
And, lest you think me a tease for posting the cover of Out to Lunch! without explicitly commenting on it, here's a link to the title track from Dolphy's masterpiece:
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Portland is in for a treat this weekend as The Hollywood Theatre begins a 3-day run of a newly-restored, 35mm print of Leave Her to Heaven. For those not in the know, the 1945 feature is one of the more treasured weapons in a film noir buff's arsenal, often referenced as an example of a rococo-like decadence that crept into the genre as it matured.
For starters, Leon Shamroy's (The King and I, Cleopatra) Oscar-winning cinematography is captured in a full-blown, 3-strip Technicolor sheen that trades vibrant hues for the high-contrast, black and white polarity that had all but become the standard in noir cinema. Additionally, Leave Her to Heaven doesn't strictly adhere to noir tropes, blending sizable doses of melodrama and courtroom spectacle into its overall mix, emerging as a distinctive mélange that fits well outside the cinematic norms of its day.
And the film is packed to the gills with more than enough memorable sequences to hang your enthusiasm upon, including one of the most harrowing examples of dramatized filicide ever committed to celluloid. Ostensibly a vehicle for 1940s starlet Gene Tierney (Laura, Night and the City), Leave Her to Heaven also features a performance by Cornel Wilde that might come off as corny to some when placed against more modern sensibilities but, nonetheless, achieves a perfect balance between the chill that eventually blows into Tierney's characterization and the blustering heights that Vincent Price (The Fly, The Pit and the Pendulum) reaches for in the film.
And since we mentioned Mr. Price, it's worth noting just how much he does with what is essentially a supporting role in this movie. The Vincent Price who appears in Leave Her to Heaven is an altogether different beast than the one that most contemporary audiences have come to expect. This is Price before he became typecast as the voice of horror in a thousand and one b-grade productions, resulting in countless cultural references over the past half century that have unfairly painted him a one-trick pony.
Because of the dissimilarity to the most well-known aspects of his on-screen persona, Price's performance here, playing a spurned lover turned prosecuting attorney, is probably the most pleasurable to engage with on a first-time viewing. To watch his final interrogation of Wilde's character is to witness the less than lawyer-ly techniques of television's "Perry Mason" (if you'll pardon the Spinal Tap reference) turned up to eleven.
Leave Her to Heaven screens at the Hollywood Theatre on Friday, April 8th at 7:15pm and Saturday, April 9th and Sunday April 10th at 2:30pm and 7:15pm.
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Even though I already posted about this topic last week on the blog's official Facebook page, it's worth mentioning that tomorrow night Portland is playing host to the U.S. premiere of De Destierros (Uprooted). Directed by NW Film Center student Alvaro Torres, the 30+ minute long film won the documentary award at the 2010 Costa Rican Film Festival, airing on state television since having received that honor.
Thursday's screening will happen in the boardroom of the Multnomah Building at 7:30p.m. Admission is free. The Multnomah Building is located at 501 SE Hawthorne Blvd.
A cocksure false prophet leads a band of unfortunates through a dry and desolate wasteland. A child reads aloud from the Old Testament. And the one person with the potential to serve as a messianic figure is hogtied and treated to the constant suspicions of his captors. Welcome to the western as reconceived by Kelly Reichardt, whose previous efforts earned her a seat at the head of A.O. Scott's"neo-neo realists" of American cinema table.
In her latest film, Meek's Cutoff, the director brings her now familiar strategies to bear upon the Oregon trail and the historic failure that was Stephen Meek (Bruce Greenwood), a trail guide whose bad advice leaves those travelers foolish enough to follow him stranded without water as they move across the desert landscape of eastern Oregon. Whereas the objectively pitched camerawork in Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy and Old Joy often lent those films a sense that we were intimately accessing the singular consciousness of each film's protagonist, here we're placed at a distance from each member of the group, helplessly watching as the terrible yet oddly muted events transpire.
If there's any one character to hang our sympathies upon, it's Emily (Michelle Williams) who, despite being equally as miserable as her fellow travelers, at least defines herself through a selfless act of humanity, performed at the lowest point in their journey. Beyond that moment, we're denied insight into these characters, asked instead as an audience to observe and consider our own responses to such circumstances while dwelling upon what behaviors have changed over time and which of those have remained doggedly present in the culture of today.
Whether it's the insanity of groupthink, the tendency to devalue natural resources until they reach the point of scarcity or the assumptions caught up in patriarchal dominance, the problems facing these characters are not unlike the ones we face during our day to day lives. Which makes total sense, since period pieces are more often than not positioned to speak to contemporary issues, rather than poised purely as a means of reflecting upon the past. Reichardt has proven herself over the course of just a few films to be a director deeply interested in the undercurrents of her stories, favoring the cultivation of subtext rather than a routine focus on plot points. Old Joy, for instance, is just as much about the rise of partisanship during the post-9-11 Bush era as it is, on a surface level, about a friendship strained by differing ideologies.
As the characters in Meek's Cutoff move aimlessly through the Oregon wilderness, it's difficult not to view the landscape as a metaphorical space in which a perennial struggle is being reenacted. And, yes, sometimes a wagon train is just a wagon train. But, in the case of Meek's Cutoff, I'll hazard a guess that there's something deeper lurking right below the surface of this tale.
Meek's Cutoff opens in mid-April in select cities. Given it's home-grown heritage, expect it to play locally at that time in PDX.
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