Hitchcock, kids, umbrellas and trains, oh my!

Consider, if you will, a modest alternative to the usual flavorless multiplex fare, where morphing robots are so bereft of imaginative programming that all they can think of turning into are sports cars and ten wheelers, and effeminate pirates are so enamored of boxoffice profits they can't even recognize when they've been drained dry of creative juices and just lay down and die. Shake things up a bit, plug into something a liddle different, and sample fare at these two modest film festivals: the Fright Fest at Ayala Cinema's Glorietta 4, and Cine Europa at its traditional venue for the past ten years, the Shangri-La Plaza.

The Fright Fest features (what else) fright flicks from Wes Craven (not a big fan) to John Carpenter (who isn't, in my opinion, represented here by his best work), and four from this funny fat Englishman named Alfred Hitchcock. Who's he, you may ask? Only one of the greatest filmmakers who ever lived, and, as all his own promotional material use to put it, a "Master of Suspense."

Probably best to take his pictures chronologically (more or less). Shadow of a Doubt (1943) is about a young girl (Teresa Wright, beautifully innocent, here), living in a quiet little community who starts suspecting that her "Uncle Charlie" (Joseph Cotten, at his most graciously menacing), fresh from the big city and a glamorous, mysterious figure, is actually a serial killer. Hitchcock considers this his favorite among all his films; I don't quite agree--I think the very best Hitchcock also needs above and beyond finely tuned thrills a strong element of sensual romance, even guilt over the consequences of said romance (something one can't quite find between the girl and Uncle Charlie (and anyone who suggests otherwise is a cad)). I do think it's a perfect melding of playwright Wilder (Our Town) and filmmaker Hitchcock, one feeding off of the other in an unholy, vampiric dance.

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) is a romp, from exotic Morocco to England's Albert Hall; what makes it more than that is Hitchcock's incomparable skill in sketching unsettling details into the margins of his narratives. The way, for example, Dr. Ben McKenna (James Stewart, in an underrated performance) seems a tad too eager to drug his celebrity wife Jo (Doris Day, also underrated here) before telling her that their son had been kidnapped by international terrorists. The rest of the film is, as mentioned, a romp, but you're never ever sure from then on if the doctor's motives for anything is pure. Excellent--did I mention it's underrated?--Hitchcock thriller.

Rear Window (1954) is Hitchcock on top of his game. You can take the film on two levels: first, as a mystery where a man with a broken leg begins to suspect (Hitchcock's best works often start with someone in a familiar situation suddenly acquiring the notion that things aren't as they should be) that his neighbor across the way has just killed his wife; second, as a meditation on the consequences when a man is granted access into the lives of all the people around him--possibly the very first multi-screen, multi-channel entertainment system ever invented, in incomparably sharp detail and stunning color, churning out the '50s equivalent of reality TV. Hitchcock poses and pulls the stings of his little marionettes for Jeffries (again, Stewart, again amazing), and you share the fascination, the rush of power Jeffries feels. Should he--and we, by extension--feel disturbed? Should we, in fact, feel ashamed? Hitchcock may have been called the master of suspense to sell tickets, of course; no one points out how much Hitchcock is also a master of guilt and lasting remorse.

The Birds (1963) was Hitchcock's much-anticipated follow-up to his boxoffice hit Psycho (1960); in my opinion, the former exceeds all such anticipations. That's not a popular verdict; seen today, people consider The Birds a tad too ambitious, its bluescreen effects (despite contribution by animation legend U.B. Iwerks) too clunky and obvious ("think," some say, "of what Hitchcock would have done with digital effects!"). Seen on the big screen, however, The Birds is an entirely different creature; it's essentially an aural film, with Oskar Salas' collection of bird cries orchestrated by Bernard Herman's unique electronic keyboard into a cacophonic, apocalyptic attack on man's presumptuous position on the evolutionary ladder. Standing on top rung, Hitchcock seems to ask, are we as we often assume master of all beneath us, or are we just that much more exposed to takeover attempts from creatures below?

Hitchcock's films often ended with rational explanations and comforting reunions, presumably to make up for the unpleasantness he inflicts on his audiences. The Birds offers no such comfort: the animals attack, one by one we offer up theories that one by one are knocked down; the animals continue to attack without apparent end. As Hitchcock's most sweeping statement about the ultimate condition of our species and its relatively precarious grip on the planet Earth, The Birds stands alone; beyond any picture's ability to use giant apes or flamethrowing lizards or ants or spiders or sharks or worms or dinosaurs or whatever to rattle our environmental sense of smug entitlement, the film stands alone.

At the Shangri-la Cinema--Jan Sverak's Kolja (Kolya, 1996) was his most internationally successful work (it won one of those gold doorstops for Best Foreign-Language Film), and possibly most likeable, his variation on Eliot's Silas Marner where a man (Sverak's father Zdenek) acquires temporary custodianship of a young boy, learns to care for him, and along the way learns compassion and some measure of humanity. Sverak doesn't entirely transcend the sentiment, but his trademark low-key humor and effortlessly bittersweet melancholy (seen in fine form in previous works like Jizda (The Ride, 1994)) helps pull him through.

Fanny och Alexander (Fanny and Alexander, 1982), Ingmar Bergman's penultimate film, isn't so much a singular and intense work of art as it is an encyclopedia of singular and intense works of art--if anything, it seems to be a summation of Bergman's career at that time, not a bad thing to be at all. One wants to hold it like a treasury of great stories and images, and opens the book (or reviews the film in one's mind) directly at favorite passages--the spectacular Christmas Eve dinner early in the picture; Alexander's severe flogging; the terrifying moment in the Jew's workshop where God informs Alexander that He is stepping out and revealing himself. Not, perhaps, my favorite Bergman but easily his most accessible, a big, warm, fuzzy introduction (with a good dose of severe Lutheranism to balance it all out) to the filmmaker's works.

Jiri Menzel's Ostre sledované vlaky (Closely Watched Trains, 1966) is an amazing debut feature; ostensibly about the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, its hidden theme (and real subject) is the Soviet Union's stranglehold on the country since the Second World War. It comes off initially as a lighthearted romantic comedy about Milos (Vaclav Neckar) and his determination to lose his cherry, if you will. There are plenty of comically erotic opportunities, not to mention young nubile Czechs to lose it with, but the picture is no mere teenage giggle fest; Menzel carefully relates Milos' sexual repression with the Nazi repression of the country as a whole (and, by extension, the Communist repression of the country at the time), and never lets us forget the grim background against which the hilarity is playing out--the corpses glimpsed at in one train, Milos' attempted suicide, the film's own grim ending. One has to marvel at the way Menzel managed to say what he wanted to say and yet still toe the line, censorshipwise; thanks, ironically, to Soviet oppression, Menzel managed to create a subtly, cheerfully subversive film.

If Menzel's film is bittersweet, Jacques Demy's Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (Umbrellas of Cherbourg, 1964) is bittersweet set to music. Michel Legrand's swooning romantic score and Demy's shocking color palette are an exhilirating match; add the incomparable Catherine Denueve and only a man with a heart of stone (and groin of boiled pasta) can resist the potent mix. Walk in with a will, walk out with bright reds, brilliant yellows and profound purples throbbing away against the back of your eyelids, with Legrand's indelible score warbling in your ears, and with the film's melancholy conclusion slowly, exquisitely breaking your heart.

A voice of sanity; more Jeonju pics (last ones, I imagine)

A voice of sanity

And I agree, absolutely--Kiarostami gets harassed, and some sleazy lawyer with incurable TB gets a pass? Whaddahellzgoin on?

Final set of photos from my jury duty at the 8th Jeonju International Film Festival (I think; I'm pretty sure), sent by girl scout extraordinaire Areum Jeong (who should be in New York by now, God willing):

From left to right: film programmer Jung Soo-wan (I liked to call her "Sue Ann," which could be the Tar Heel in me coming out); Mr. Min Byung-lok, festival director; yours truly; Korean actor Jeong Chan; uh--not sure, but I think that's filmmaker Kim Tae-yong; and Netpac jurist and film critic Yu Ji-na (I called her "Gina," no one seemed to notice the difference).

Here's Jeong Chan making a statement in Korean while I--well, I don't remember what I was doing then; trying to follow his speech in English I suppose. Earlier, Jeong had been looking at me while I tried to copy my name in Korean. "Very good," he said. Didn't tell him that compared to Mandarin, Korean seems pretty easy. On the way out, I pocketed that nameplate sitting in front of me, the one with my name in Korean characters.

The press conference that followed was pretty civil, except for one reporter that cited an article critical of the festival; Mr. Min cheerfully replied that attendance in the festival was up, even in rainy days, and that he has it on good word that the one who wrote the article didn't even attend the festival--so he doesn't know what the man's talking about.

Then, being the only foreigner in the conference, the reporters turned on me--asked me what I thought of the festival, what could be improved on, etc., etc. I replied that my impression of the festival was that everyone worked 110% percent, past midnight even--I would catch them still at it when I had come home from either a late screening or a drinking spree, in the wee hours of the morning, and it was a running gag that I kept telling Areum to go to sleep (she had been getting about two hours' rest every night for the past two weeks); she was still pretty and all, I opined, but she looked dead tired.

As for what could be improved--I called on the city of Jeonju to give even more support to the festival. It's a no-brainer, really--the festival gives the city an international profile, brings in visitors both local and foreign, brings films from the world to Jeonju, helps showcase Jeonju films (like the opening film Off Road, which was shot in Jeonju) to the world.

Suck-up sure--what, I was going to bite the hand that hosted me? But I did mean every word.

And here's filmmaker Ying Liang, receiving the Woo-suk Award of $10,000 for The Other Half. Behind him from left to right are the three Indie Vision jurists: filmmaker Jiri Menzel, yours truly, filmmaker Lee Yoon-ki. I don't know who the fourth guy is, or who Ying's getting his award from.

Being the one most fluent in English, I got picked to announce the winner at both the press conference and closing ceremonies. Basically repeated the short official speech I wrote (with everyone's input) on the winning film, after which the ceremony ended and we all sat down to watch Johnnie To's Exiled. Jiri didn't watch it; the Czech ambassador had a car waiting to drive him from Jeonju to Seoul, where he spent the night, so we shook hands then and there (and Olga gave me a quick buss). Ah, memories, memories.

Jeonju Film Festival Photos The Third!

Final set of Jeonju pictures:



The Indie Vision jury--Korean filmmaker Lee Yoon-ki, me, and Czech filmmaker Jiri Menzel. The lone girl in the group is Festival Vice-Director Ancha Flubacher-Rhim. This was outside some cultural center for our Juror's Dinner.



The Juror's Dinner. I'm seated between Festival programmer Yoo un-sung and Jiri, in a traditional Korean meal of epic proportions (to get this shot I had to either cut off the picture's sides or shrink the people in it to the size of cockroaches, and I didn't want cockroaches). Poor Jiri couldn't eat anything, so for most of the dinner he lounged in his chair and struck a pose not inappropriate to the cover of GQ Magazine.



Standing in front of the ice sculpture at the festival's closing ceremony reception (they served whole platters of fresh salmon sashimi, and huge bowls of bright red strawberries (Jeonju, apparently, is famous for its strawberries)), crammed between filmmaker Yoshiharu Ueoka (The Look of Love) and Takushi Tsubokawa (Aria). On extreme right is Kazakhstan's most famous film critic, Gulnara Abikeyeva, who was kind enough to present me a copy of her book, The Heart of the World: Films From Central Asia.

I pulled Takushi aside and tried out my theory re: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz being the inspiration for Aria and in reply--he could just be trying to be polite--he put a finger to his lips and whispered: "don't tell anyone!"



I had to pull Korean actor Jung Chan (Jeong Chan) away from the mob of schoolgirls and pretty autograph hounds surrounding him to take this picture, thinking: this might lend the blog a much-needed influx of Korean fangirl readers. Note the "V for Victory" hand signal, customary in Korean photos.



Outside the crematorium--sorry, that was Jiri's joke, but I couldn't resist--the complex where the festival was to have its closing ceremonies, I prevailed upon poor Areum Jeong (her official title was, if I remember right "jury coordinator;" I called her "nanny and nursemaid to sixteen cranky foreigners," heroically obliging gal that she was) to stop herding us for a moment and snap this photo of us three: Jiri, his lovely wife Olga Menzelová-Kelymanová, and I, moments before we stepped on that damned red carpet/shooting gallery.



And of course, Jiri was kind enough to lend me his wife for a moment to take this pic. Yes, Olga, if you're reading this blog, I'm a shameless sexist pig, so sue me.



All good things must come to an end, the more wonderful the more inevitable I suspect, and the Jeonju Festival was no exception. The festival did have this lovely tradition--all the volunteers (they gave us plenty of souvenirs, but the one I really wanted were those cool yellow rain jackets) lined up outside the crema--sorry--arts and culture complex and sang us a specially composed song that wished us farewell and hoped we would come again. I couldn't resist; I had to grab poor Areum again (or was it Jeong Chan?) and ask him/her to take this picture of me with the volunteers.

Couldn't sing the song (though I did manage to wave the "V for Victory" sign), but for a moment there I enjoyed the illusion that I was one of them, singing the guests goodbye until next year's festival. Till then--an-yeong ni gaseo, or in Tagalog, paalam.

Jeonju Days 2 & 3: Jiri Menzel, and Tony Rayns' naughty bits

Hanok Village

One co-juror turned out to be Czech filmmaker Jiri Menzel--Closely Watched Trains (lovely, rueful, funny, tragic comedy), Larks on a String--accompanied by his beautiful wife, Olga. Mr. Menzel was quiet at first, but managed to get him talking by mentioning Karel Capek."My favorite writer," he said; "not just the play, but his novels, short stories, journal pieces."

"My brother helped produce Capek's play in Manila." I explained about my Evil Identical Twin.

"Really? It has not improved with time, I'm afraid. That play does not speak too much to our times anymore."

"But you do like Capek?"

"Oh, I like his plays, but his novels--there is this book, The War with Salamanders that fits the present day so much better. Humans discover that salamanders are intelligent and can be taught to work. They use them as a source of cheap labor. The salamanders revolt, and eventually take over the world--ironically with help from the humans, who can't resist sellingthem the necessary arms."

"That sounds like China right now."

"In the book, the Chinese are involved in the foolishness."

Later, I asked him: "so where do you keep your Oscar statuette?" He smiled and said: "I know of someone--very nice guy, very talented--who keeps his statue on an altar in his house. Mine is in a cabinet. In the cabinet is some old shoes, a pair of skis, some odds and ends. I keep things I never use in that cabinet."

On movies: "I dislike war movies. I used to like them, but now no more. Even anti-war movies like The Deer Hunter are very violent, but they seem to be glorifying war, not condemning it. Somehow the violence is still made very attractive."

"You know what Truffaut said: that the greatest anti-war films are Chaplin's Shoulder Arms and the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup. Because they refuse to take war seriously."

"That's right, I agree! Also, my favorite films are old films. The silents, they never age. The silent comedies, especially."

Mr. Min, the festival director, was kind enough to bring us out to lunch at the city's Old Village, a historical distric full of traditional Korean homes, some of which have become restaurants. We sat in a small hut next to the main house, and the waitress brought dish after dish after dish; Mr. Menzel didn't have much of an appetite, but Olga was interested in everything (no idea how she kept her knockout figure). "This is white kimchi," Mr. Min explained; "and this is crab in chilies and sesame seed." "It's raw," I noted. "Excellent! And much easier to eat than cooked; you just put the crab shell in your mouth and suck out the meat." "What is the yellow?" Olga asked; "Crab fat," I said. "The best part. In the Philippines we fry it up with garlic and pour it over steamed rice. Heart attack fare."



Maybe the highlight of the meal for me was a small dish full of what looked like fish bones, with some meat still on them. This dish I could smell being brought in the room; when I picked it up, it had a distinct rotten fish smell, and the translucent meat indicated it was still raw. "What is it?" I asked; Mr. Min informed me that it was fermented fish bones.



I nibbled on the flesh. Like sashimi, only much saltier, much fishier and maybe left several weeks too long out in the open. "Delicious," I told Mr. Min. Meant it, too.

That afternoon instead of resting for the opening ceremonies, I was talking to the staff. "Call me So," one of them said. "Ah, so!" I said; "how do you say 'hello?"

"An-nyeong haseyo."

"And 'thank you?'"

"Gamsa hapnida."

Then I taught So some Tagalog.

"If you say 'maganda ka' the girl will smile. It means 'you're beautiful.'"

"Oh, good, good!" He was furiously scribbling the words down.

"If you say 'napakaganda ka,' the girl will give you a kiss. It means 'you're very beautiful.'"

"Oh, thank you, thank you!"

"If you say "mayaman ako, kakasalin kita,' the girl will go to bed with you."

"Oh?" So's jaw dropped. "But what does it mean that the word is so powerful?"

"'I'm rich, I'll marry you.'"

"Oh, the romantic style! Very good!" When Chloe, another staffer, approached us, So said: "Maganda ka!"

"That won't work; she's not Filipino."

"What is he saying?" Chloe asked. So explained.

"Oh!" Chloe exclaimed, smiling in embarrassment. "There, see?" I said. "Still works. Just don't use the other words on a Filipina or you'll end up spending the rest of your life in Manila raising ten Korean-Filipino brats."

"Of course, of course!"

Opening ceremonies, I put on the only long sleeve shirt I had--black--and a pair of black pants, and black leather shoes sizes too small from years of neglect. Looked in the mirror and told myself with some grim satisfaction, "you look like a flamenco dancer several hundred pounds overweight." Mr. Menzel came out in a jacket--which beat my flamenco outfit right there, while Olga was gorgeous (and I had to tell her so) in some classy elegant outfit.

Bussed to the arts center or wherever it was; was herded down a long red carpet, Oscar Awards style. While we marched, Mr. Menzel took one look at the arts building and said "it looks like a crematorium." I had to bite my hand to keep from dropping to the carpet from laughter. Our escort stoped us. "Please stand here while the photographers take your picture. Flashes hissed and blazed; I said "now I know what a firing squad feels like."

It wasn't over; at one point during the show (which featured American Idol type ballads, rap dancers, and some kind of avant garde piece using traditional Korean instruments that wasn't at all bad), we were escorted to the stage to say a few words.

When it was my turn, I stepped up to the mike. "An-nyeong haseyo," I said. The crowd roared. "It took the JIFF staff the whole afternoon to teach me that phrase. Anyway, gamsa hapnida for inviting me here. I was asked to judge independent films, and I hope to see many interesting and exciting such films.

"We have a word in Filipino, mabuhay, which means 'long live.' Mabuhay to independent filmmaking and mabuhay the Jeonju International Film Festival."

You should have heard the crowd. For a moment I thought I could run for office in this country.

The opening film, Han Seung-ryong's Off Road, might best be described as Tarantinoesque in structure and sensibility (fractured storytelling; an example of the road genre, complete with appropriate references to other road films; some clever twists). What raises it beyond Tarantino is the director's strong sense of sympathy for his characters, and the sadness that hovers over the whole film.

After the screening and at the reception, a very tall, imposing man strode towards me. "What are you doing here?" I asked. "I always go to Jeonju," Tony Rayns said. "Only this may be the last time."

At which point Rayns and I are kidnapped by a bunch of Korean film industry bigwigs and whisked back into the Old Village, where they settle in what can only be some kind of high-class drinking joint, serving expensive shoju and bar chow.

One of the dishes looked like raw mussels. The man beside me said "I don't think you should eat that."

Tony said "oh let him; he's Filipino."

I tried it. It was incredibly bitter. The sweet sauce it came with helped it go down. "It's strong. What is it?"

"Mussels, aged until they've rotted. Told you he'd be fine," Tony said.

"In our country," I replied "we have many kinds of movies but no monster movies."

"That's nonsense! You have plenty--"

"Plenty in human form. We don't have many creature monsters--giant ant, giant crab, plague of cats or dogs or rats. Partly it's budget, but partly also it's because we'd never be frightened. Giant crab or ant, or rat? Instead of being frightened, we'd be hungry. That monster would be bar chow before dinnertime."

Tony thought it over. "You know, you may have a point."

I looked at the extravagant spread. "I hope this isn't Dutch treat," I said.

"No, they'll take care of you. See that man? That's Mr. Soon. He wants to be the next president of South Korea."

"Is the movie industry that powerful that presidential candidates have to fete them?"

"Of course."

I asked about United States pressures to increase the quota for Hollywood films. "Yes, it happened, but unfortunately for Hollywood the liberalization didn't matter. Koreans still prefer Korean over Holywood films. The market share for local films is 70%.

"Curious I walked into you. Philippine cinema has been on my mind lately. Been transferring some old Filipino films from VHS to DVD. Thinking of Lino Brocka, and Ishmael Bernal a lot." He added with a twinkle in his eye "saw Bernal naked, you know."

"Now you have to tell me that story."

"Oh, it wasn't much. We went to a bath house in Japan. The manager presented him with a young man. Ishmael said 'but he looks like a fucking horse' and refused to have anything to do with him. What he probably wanted was a Filipino, which wasn't available there, of course."

"I know I'll hate myself for asking this, but...was he well endowed?"

"He was average. I remember when we had dinner with Christine Hakim, who was seated beside him, and poor Christine, who had not the slightest clue who she was dealing with, asked: "Are you married?" Without blinking an eye Bernal replied "yes, but my husband couldn't come."

You don't want to know what he had to say about Park Chan Wook, most of which I happen to agree with, but would never have that much guts to say out loud.

The next day, saw Im Kwon Taek's Beyond the Years, his 100th film. Tony was there ("a huge flop, a catastrophe!"). The film told the story of a father, son, daughter troupe that traveled bars and inns, singing for their living. The son (a drummer) falls in love with his beautiful singing sister (adopted, or so they say); the father has designs for keeping his daughter with him always. By turns moving, compelling, immeasurably sad, it asks what price an artist must pay for the purity of her art, and where does love and family and happiness fit into all of this (trailing behind the artist, usually, as he or she leads a nomadic life)?

I've always thought Im an old-fashioned filmmaker with strong interests in traditional Korean culture. He does experiment with structure (we see the brother, a middle aged man, talking to an old acquaintance, and his story fitting slowly in piece by piece), but its a measured experimentation. One shot was particularly expressive--a scene of brother and sister sitting in the grass, the sister singing. The camera slowly revolves around them, keeping the couple on the lower right corner of the screen; it's as if they were on some giant diorama, the landscape turning, while they acted as pivot to the great wheel--as if the world may change and move around them, but their love for each other is a fixed constant.

I asked Tony what he thought afterwards. "It's a remake of an earlier film, but I thought it was very fine."

"Why did it flop, then?"

"Because Korean audiences don't want the past, they want the future. Because the film doesn't speak to their concerns now."

That night I met Gulnara Abikayeva, a critic from Kazakhstan (!). I know, but apparently they do have a film industry there, fifty filmmakers using government funding to make ten films a year, mostly on historical subjects ("we'd like more modern works, too, she said." Then she asked "are you the film critic? Noel Vera?"

"Yep. Why?"

"Critic After Dark?"

"Yes?"

"I have a copy of your book."

"You do?"

"I never expected to have the book, then meet the writer."

"I never expected to meet anyone who had my book."

So I'm being read in Kazakhstan--who knew?