THE BALLAD OF GENESIS & LADY JAYE and GRAND ILLUSION

One gets the feeling while watching The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye that musician and artist Genesis P-Orridge's entire life is a performance.  Anyone with any familiarity with his work in the groundbreaking industrial and experimental electro acts Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV might have already had an inkling that this is the case; at any rate, Marie Losier's documentary portrait of Genesis and his wife and collaborator Lady Jaye does little to dispel such assumptions.

While the film does delve into the highlights of Genesis' past, it's chiefly an examination of his and Lady Jaye's pandrogyne project, a living, breathing performance piece wherein both members of the couple underwent various surgeries in order to resemble the other.  It's a fascinating topic that might have been better served by a more direct and confrontational mode of documentation.  As it stands, The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye is a fluttering, dreamlike journey through a willfully individualistic consciousness (all narration comes from Genesis, as Lady Jaye passed away in 2007), often interesting but sometimes frustratingly short on narrative signposts.

The Ballad of Genesis & Lady Jaye begins its run at Cinema 21 on Friday, July 6th.  More info available here.

What can you say about a film that's already been qualified by so many others as the greatest anti-war feature ever made?  Jean Renoir's Le Grande Illusion (Grand Illusion) retains all its power some 75 years after its release.  Perhaps it's because nothing has changed; we still fight wars, the indomitable spirit of nationalism drives those efforts, and it almost never yields anything of value for the individual.  Built into those observations, Renoir fashioned an insightful analysis of class manners, emphasizing in particular their inability to withstand the brutality of war.

To commemorate the film's anniversary, Rialto Pictures has released a newly-restored 35mm print that trumps all previous restorations.  Both sound and image now have a crispness that was obscured in previous theatrical prints and home video versions.  As for the story, it still casts a hypnotic hold on this viewer.  First time viewers might notice the strong resemblance to John Sturges' popular 60s film, The Great Escape.  For those who haven't had the pleasure of seeing the film,  here's a rare chance to view it as it was meant to be seen, projected in 35mm onto a large theater screen. 

Grand Illusion begins its week-long run at Cinema 21 on Friday, July 6th.  More info available here.


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I WISH: LETTING KIDS BE KIDS

 

There's absolutely no doubt after watching Hirokazu Kore-eda's latest film I Wish that his reputation for being among the best two or three directors working in Japan today is well deserved.  Relating the story of two brothers, Koichi (Koki Maeda) and Ryunosuke (Ohshirô Maeda), separated by their parents divorce, this is a simply told and greatly observational drama that stands with the director's best work, including Still Walking and his 1998 masterpiece, After Life.

Living with his mother, Koichi quietly mourns the loss of his family life.  Early in the film, Kore-eda allows us to see how the divorce has impacted his social life at school, where he's made to feel ashamed when a teacher doles out homework based around the occupations of each student's father.  Koichi takes refuge in fantasy and denial and, when news of a new bullet train hits town, he (naturally?) theorizes that the exchange in energy created by the simultaneous passing of old and new trains will grant a wish to anyone who witnesses it.

In addition to the trains, Kore-eda cleverly plays with the dynamic between the old and the new in several places in the film.  Koichi repeatedly holds up his current home life against how things were in the past.  And his grandfather expresses their distaste for contemporary Japanese sweets by trying to replicate and mass produce a traditional recipe from his youth.  Nostalgia is a hallmark in many of Kore-eda's films and, like in his prior work, it's never overemphasized here as much as it flows out of the material with a gentle honesty that's perfectly matched with the material at hand.

Best of all, this is a movie that excels at letting the child actors shed the appearance of performance; it allows these kids to be kids.  No doubt, a film involving children dealing with divorce needs to have some gravity, but, thankfully, I Wish doesn't force the type of emotive trauma that's become almost  de rigueur in contemporary coming of age cinema.  This is a very good film that wisely applies a light and fanciful touch in lieu of the dark theatrics favored by others.  And what a refreshing choice that is.

I Wish begins its run at Living Room Theaters on Friday, June 29nd.  More info available here.

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PINK RIBBONS, INC.: THE PINKWASHING OF AWARENESS

There was a point nearly halfway through Pink Ribbons, Inc. where I began to actively wonder what exactly was the thesis of the documentary I was viewing.  It was clear that director Léa Pool was passionately trying to work towards revealing the "pinkwashing" that's become nearly unquestioned in the corporate sponsorship of public campaigns promoting breast cancer awareness and research.  And yet, the actual point of the film, that there's an inherent hypocrisy built into the cynical practice of corporations, especially those selling products containing carcinogens to women, marketing their products using lil' pink breast cancer awareness ribbons, doesn't end up being very well articulated until far too late in the film for its impact to be fully appreciated.

It's also difficult to shake the feeling that the film is treating women who buy into the themed products and events like the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in a condescending manner.  Time and again, it cuts from dark proclamations from the film's cadre of experts about the uselessness of the current awareness culture (pink yogurt lids, juice bottles, etc.) to supremely light and silly images of women (oh, my god, actually having fun and bonding while) participating in that culture. 

It's not as if the points being made by Pool's interviewees aren't valid.  Yes, breast cancer campaigns were once linked to activism that demanded actual results in medical advancement, rather than the vague banner of "awareness" that most efforts rest under today.  And it's true that there's something rotten in Denmark when Ford can slap a pink emblem on the side of a car, rake it in, and only contribute a miniscule amount of the profits to breast cancer research.  Sadly, there's a lack of focus in the manner that these observations are organized, contributing an overall slackness to the piece that makes it feel overly long and tangential at times.

Fortunately, it's not all gray skies, as there are many things that the film does gets right.  In particular, there's a wonderfully sharp and charismatic interview with breast cancer activist Barbara Brenner woven throughout that offers up many of the most clear-eyed moments of insight in the film.  Brenner quickly becomes the film's voice of reason.  Pool also brings her cameras to a gathering of women living with stage four cancer.  Both their thoughts on the commercialization of their illness and their mere presence in the film force the viewer to grapple with what is truly at stake.

Pink Ribbons, Inc. begins its run at Cinema 21 on Friday, June 29th.  More info available here.

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HOW TO GROW A BAND: REACHING FOR RESOLUTION

Personally, I had never heard of Chris Thile or his former band Nickel Creek before viewing Mark Meatto's How to Grow a Band, a documentary about Thile's post-breakup (of both his band and marriage) efforts to rebuild his musical persona via a radically different angle on the roots-based music he's played since childhood.  Thile picked up the mandolin at the age of five and, if the testimonials of such musical luminaries as John Paul Jones and Yo-Yo Ma are to be believed, he's a musician of uncommon talent.  Now at a crossroads in his career and personal life, the mandolinist finds himself writing a 45-minute, classical bluegrass string quintet for his new band The Punch Brothers.

Meatto's film spends a lot of time intimately peering in on Thile and his bandmates' interpersonal relationships as they tour this new music around the country.  For all that focus, there are only hints of tension followed by a few terse band deliberations about how to make the difficult music being played more palatable to audiences.  Various members of the band think that some compromises can be made to audiences; Thile disagrees and shuts down every time the topic is broached.  Even with Meatto's cameras capturing discussions that exclude Thile from the conversation, the overall effect of all this polite disagreement is a rather toothless reading of the conflict present in something like the far superior Sam Jones documentary I Am Trying to Break Your Heart.

Fortunately, the film knows what to do when it's time to witness what the band does best.  It would be a complete disservice to the audience if, when conveying the four movements of their "The Blind Leaving the Blind" quintet, the standard music doc practice of cutting away from the performances was employed too prematurely.  To Meatto's credit, he knows when to stay in the moment; there are extensive sequences throughout the film of the band playing the piece and the film is even divided into sections that relate to each movement.

How to Grow a Band sheds any reservations one might have about the individual personalities within the band and truly comes alive in these moments.  Just like the music being featured, it's a difficult concoction that only periodically reaches for resolution.

How to Grow a Band screens at the NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium (in the Portland Art Museum) on Friday, June 29th and Saturday, June 30th at 7pm and 9pm.  More info available here.

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TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME -- A FASCINATING MESS, INDEED-Y

Easily among the most confounding broadcast-to-big screen translations ever produced, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me completely capsized both in terms of critical and audience reception at the time of its 1992 release.  To be fair, a good deal of the once large, built-in, tv fan base for the film had already fallen away during the final season of the show (for more discussion on that topic, see this previous post).  Personally, I recall seeing the film on opening night at a small town, local theater with somewhere around seven other people in attendance; the film was dead upon arrival and limped out of town shortly thereafter.

The reviews were brutal.  The late Vincent Canby wrote that it was "not the worst film ever made; it just seems to be."  Peter Travers declared that "the impulse in the arts to build idols and smash them has found another victim in David Lynch."  My own reaction was a fairly muted response; I liked the parts I liked and remained curious about the other stuff, but it's a film that's difficult to be enthusiastic about on a first viewing.  Time has been kind to FWWM (Fire Walk With Me) and, unsurprisingly, given Lynch's growing reputation as our nation's chief surrealist, a cult audience has been erected around the film after its release on home video.

As an unabashed Lynchophile, I've seen it at least two dozen times now; it was one of my favorites vhs tapes to toss on when I was working graveyard shifts in the late 90s.  Some fans (British critic Mark Kermode among them) now insist that it's his greatest work, an assessment that I find more reasonable each time I view the film.

To a large extent, though the film's plot is explicitly informed by conditions drawn out by the series, the major difference between FWWM and many of the other films in Lynch's oeuvre is that there's such a magnitude of obscurity packed into its many wild and wooly passages that by the time the end credits crawl across the screen it remains essentially unknowable; it becomes an indecipherable mystery that trumps the relatively basic puzzle proposed by the series.

In terms of sheer inscrutability, only Inland Empire, the film that very well end up being Lynch's swan song, can challenge FWWM for pure WTF whiz-bang.  Fire Walk With Me is both an untidy and teetering mess from a master filmmaker and a masterwork that contains many ill-advised and resolutely awful sequences of questionable performance and construction.  A fascinating mess, indeed-y.

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me plays one-night-only at the Hollywood Theatre on Wednesday, June 27th at 9:30pm.  More info available here.

 
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GRINDHOUSE FILM FESTIVAL presents DON'T GO IN THE HOUSE

It's that time of the month again: Dan Halsted's back with another installment of his Grindhouse Film Festival at the Hollywood Theatre.  This month's selection is the 1980 Joseph Ellison chiller Don't Go in the House.  It's a rare opportunity to see the film on the big screen and probably the only chance most Portlanders will ever have to see in projected on 35mm.  Don't miss it.

Here's the Grindhouse Film Fest rundown of the event:
Don’t Go in the House (1979) Donald is a young man living with his overbearing mother. When he comes home one day to find she has died in her sleep, his sanity (which was a little shaky to begin with) flies out the window, and the voices in his head become overpowering. When he buys a flamethrower, this becomes one of the greatest horror films of all time. 35mm 70′s horror trailers before the movie!

Don't Go in the House plays one-night-only at the Hollywood Theatre on Tuesday, June 26th at 7:30pm.  More info available here.

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MUSIC FROM THE BIG HOUSE & SURVIVING PROGRESS

Hey there faithful readers, 

I'm in the midst of shooting a couple of projects right now, so, rather than writing two separate posts, here's a couple of capsule reviews of two new documentaries opening today in Portland:

Bruce McDonald directed one of my favorite b-grade road movies of the 90s (Highway 61).  For Music from the Big House, he turns his eye to the real life setting of Louisiana's Angola State Penitentiary, one of the sites where the blues was born.  It's the prison where Leadbelly and countless other inmates suffered and turned that suffering into musical expressions based in their experiences.  

Canadian blues singer Rita Chiarelli has visited Angola off and on for some time now, eventually inspiring her to hold a collaborative concert within the prison walls with several bands made up entirely of inmates.  And while the film is based around that mission, McDonald wisely places the majority of the focus on the inmates, rather than Chiarelli.  It's not that she's particularly uninteresting--quite the contrary, actually--but it would take a lot to trump the moving, personal tales of woe relayed by the inmates to McDonald and his crew.

Recommended.

A still from Music from the Big House

Music from the Big House begins its run at the Hollywood Theatre on Friday, June 22nd.  Rita Chiarelli will be in attendance and will perform at the Friday, June 22nd screening.  More info available here.

A still from Surviving Progress

Surviving Progress is a documentary adaptation of Ronald Wright's A Short History of Progress.  It's one of those apocalyptic, doom and gloom eco docs of which there seems to be no shortage of nowadays.  The film sports a sizable cast of A-list intellectuals, such as Margaret Atwood, Stephen Hawking, Jane Goodall and Wright himself, all of which make a strong case against the drive for endless progress; Wright calls out the experiment known as civilization as being what he terms a "progress trap."  

Somewhere around the 2/3rds point, though, the film bogs down as it attempts to cover too much ground for an under 90-minute feature.  The message gets a bit lost as the filmmakers spend an extensive amount of time investigating the theft of Third World resources by multinationals, something already documented quite well in many other films.  Surviving Progress would have benefited from both a bit more focus and, perhaps, some specificity when it came to offering solutions to the problems it presents.

  

Surviving Progress begins its run at Living Room Theaters on Friday, June 22nd.  More info available here.

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