Summer movies

So many targets, so little time.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (Gore Verbinski) is not exactly my idea of of "constant shuffling, of tangential narrative ruptures: the world of the film, like the world we audience members live in, is chaotic"--or, leastwise, it is that, but not in a good way. Despite Ryland Walker Knight's spirited and beautifully written defense of the movie, I remained unconvinced; yes it complicates the world of the first picture beyond its ostensible ambitions (making millions off of a chintzy amusement park ride), yes it sketches a complicated relationship between the sea and its denizens, but if I can't have my proper fix of Depp subverting yet another crass effort at Hollywood moneymaking I'm not having the fun I put my mony down to buy.

At World's End is ambitious world building without the storytelling smarts (why is Kiera Knightly mistaken for Calypso? What's the point of getting Chow Yun Fat, then relegating him to background filler and an early exit? Why spend so much time on 'fey' Bloom and 'intense' Knightly, when Depp has more feyness and intensity in his little pinkie than either of them? Why waste so much money on CGI effects for an elaborate naval battle scene without even an attempt at halfway intelligible (much less intelligent) military tactics (Peter Weir's Master and Commander (2003), anyone?)?), and without enough of a central performance to keep one's attention focused or at least amused. If Verbinski is trying to build his version of, oh I don't know, Blade Runner--an elaborate fantasy world with its own set of rules--no, I don't think he's succeeded at all.

Michael Bay's Transformers, the Movie is about as inevitable an apotheosis of a career as anything I can think of. Cars that turn into robots--perfect for Bay's wham! bam! thank you ma'am! style of filmmaking, I suppose.

Only even with this low, low level of expectations, Bay still--still--misses the mark. Transformers traipsing around in the garden without the parents noticing? Great, but why does it play as crude and lumbering as a Scooby Doo cartoon (think of the all-male gang hiding in a young woman's bedroom while the father looks suspicously around in Tsui Hark's Do Ma Den (Peking Opera Blues, 1986) to see this kind of hijinks done right)? Why, if the fate of the world rests on this doohickey being kept out of the Decepitcons' hands, do the Autobots entrust it to the care of some puny biped mammal running down a street? And why, if you take so much care to create robots with dents and scratched paint, doesn't the camera stay still long enough to give us some sense of that lived-in texture? They should have forgotten Bay and handed the project over to someone with real talent, like Hark or Ronny Yu; then we'd have some real fun.

Judd Apatow's Knocked Up (2006, but it only reached my multiplex this year)--I don't get it. Admittedly I'm not the target audience (middle-aged Asian man) but I like to think I've got as much empathy as anyone around (I love Jane Austen; I love George Romero; I love Dr. Who; I love Spongebob Squarepants), and I still don't get it. Guy goes to bed with hot babe, gets her pregnant. Maybe a few funny moments here and there, but the touchy-feely bits just leave me scratching my head; if I wanted male angst, Alexander Payne speaks to me more. Doesn't help that Apatow's view and realization of Seth Rogen's man-titted pothead and his gaggle of geeks is more nuanced and sympathetic than Katherine Heigl's hot babe (she's sometimes vulnerable but never funny, and she's made up more of reaction shots than a definite point of view (at least with Payne you understood Virginia Madsen's Maya more)). Plus Apatow's got the flattest visual sense this side of Hanna-Barbera.

And lest people think of me in as being in a particularly unforgiveable mood today, Sarah Polley's Away From Her (2006) is lovely, simply lovely. Adapted from a story by Alice Munro, Polley's film plays like a reel of memory imperfectly spooled through a projector; scenes jump back and forth, and at certain points she manages to associate the overexposed light one finds filming in snow landscapes with the bright fog surrounding vague memories (or at least, one's cinematic idea of a vague memory). She can make one bark out in laughter from a woman's sly forgetfulness (is Christie's Fiona really suffering from Alzheimer's, or taking revenge on her husband?), or cry from a man's sudden desperation (Gordon Pinsent's Grant quietly begging Fiona not to leave him).

Possibly the best I've seen this year so far (again, released last year, but only able to reach a nearby arthouse screen recently--I swear, the distribution of some films...). Talk about hot babes, Julie Christie at sixty-plus makes me forget there were any women in Knocked Up (not that Apatow made it easy to remember), or that Francis Coppola's daughter's sophomore effort was so well received a few years back (it starred Bill Murray, I remember that much).

Jeonju's Indie Visions, a doc on Gypsy music, and what Johnny Depp's REALLY like

(note: post re-edited after checking with Ms. Dellal about details (and apologies for spelling 'Gypsy' with lower-case letters; it's a proper noun, like all nationalities))

Jasmine Dellal's When the Road Bends: Tales of a Gypsy Caravan tells the story of five Gypsy bands from Macedonia (in Greece), Romania, India and Spain that go on a 6 week tour promoting Roma music in all its variety.

Gypsies are Northern Indians who emigrated to Western Europe, mixing their culture with the culture of their adopted country to make something unique, often influential--flamenco for example, that most Spanish of dances, is a Roma invention. Even so, they often struggle to survive, eking out a living in the margins of said adopted society. As festival program writer Chu jin-su puts it, "not once have the Gypsies harmed anyone, participated in wars, or conquered another nation. Despite this fact, they have been held in contempt as witches or friends of Satan, forcing them to struggle to retain their culture."

Dellal works with tremendous material--the Gypsies are a lively bunch, full of life and attitude and bravado, and they're not shy in expressing the same in their music. As Dellal put it, Esma, the musical "Queen of the Gypsies," was a far-from-slim middle-aged mother (though an early photo showed a bewitching, dark-eyed beauty), yet whenever she wanted to she easily took over the stage and audience, through sheer star presence and charisma (she has a powerhouse voice, too).

The documentary is a real delight (and I don't think I'm alone feeling this way--the picture won Jeonju's Audience Award), with Dellal intercutting performances with back stories of each band, their tales of poverty and racial discrimination adding context to the sadness you feel in their music. The film's something to look at too--Esme glows under spotlight, like a porcelain doll; Antonio el Pipa strikes a pose and you're held frozen by the drama of his arched back; Nicolae Neacsu of Taraf de Haidouks drags a deliberately broken string over his violin, and you're struck by the ingenuity of this homely instrument. 78-year-old Neacsu's is perhaps my favorite personal story--he supports his family with what he makes as a musician, lives an extremely humble and threadbare life, but when he comes home for the last time, hundreds of musicians show up to honor him.

I asked Dellal how on earth she got Albert Maysles (!?) to shoot the documentary, and she replied "We'd met at a film festival. I mentioned my proposed film on Gypsy music, he mentioned he'd like to shoot it. When I got around to doing this, I called him and said 'Albert, I don't know if you mean what you said about helping me shoot my next film, and I don't have a lot of money to offer, or even the money for a business class ticket' 'No way, just get me the cheapest seat you can find in the internet and let's do it!' he said.

"He's a master at putting people at ease so that his camera can come up close. Like if he were here while I was talking to you, it would almost be as if we were three old friends, and you can say anything to him. He was wonderful."

I asked how she got in contact with Johnny Depp (he had a short interview in the film, explaining that he came to be a big fan of gypsy music after having lived with them during the shooting of Sally Potter's The Man Who Cried (2000)). "I sent dozens of emails and packages to everyone I knew who said they could contact him. A package with sample footage got through.

"I have a story about him. We had a Romani (Gypsy) guy named George working as a soundman for the film and when I went to interview Depp, George asked me to deliver a letter. The short letter asked for an autograph for George's sons, explaining that his children were big fans of the star but were ashamed of being Roma, and would say they were anything but Roma. Depp said 'let me do something more,' and wrote this letter telling George's children how they should be proud of being Roma, that he was proud to have known the Roma and spent time with them, and that they should never deny their heritage."

The Indie Vision films over which I played the part of juror came from France, Norway, China; used everything from 35 mm to mm to DigiBeta to DV; were in experimental black-and-white, realist technicolor, or desaturated video; ran the gamut from lighthearted comedy to personal tragedy--ran the gamut in form and content and emotional tone, in other words. It was our unenviable task to screen the films, try make sense of them, and compare not apples and oranges but baseballs and hand grenades to try come up with a "best picture" choice.

Michael Schorr's Schröders wunderbare Welt (Schroeder's Wonderful World, 2006) is glossily made--most of the films did well within the confines of their small (sometimes microscopic) budgets--and resembles a German version of Bill Forsyth's Local Hero (fantastic scheme involving development of a town (here into an international tourist attraction) has all the locals with all their eccentricities humming with excitement). Perhaps the most intriguing element is the web of the social and political complexities found in a town bordering three countries--Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic. Affable and amusing entertainment.

Yoshiharu Ueoka's Rukku Ubu Rabu (Look of Love, 2006) has a voyeur peeping on his neighbors making love; a pimp sending his Thai prostitutes to service various customers; a loner obsessing over a satellite flying overhead. Strange stuff, though fans of Lynch's Eraserhead and Blue Velvet might find this more familiar territory. It's annoying/amusing to see the voyeur peer into what practically can be considered a widescreen (Cinemascope, even) window, and be treated to a carefully posed profile view of the couple opposite making love; on the other hand, it makes sense that the voyeur would fantasize such a window and such neighbors screwing opposite--it's the eternal adolescent's idea of an interesting premise.

Joachim Trier's Reprise (2006), about two young men struggling to write their novels--one is an instant success, the other, no--dabbles in a little experimentation (a voiceover narrator explains through a quick montage what happens next in their lives, a la Tom Tykwer's Lola rennt (Run, Lola, Run, 1998)); a strong debt is also owed to Truffaut's Jules et Jim (Triers is a self-admitted fan)). A story about two pretty European youths and their angst about art and love and life; a fairly experimental storytelling style, with an eclectic mix of punk and hip-hop songs. Your mileage, as they say, may vary.

Takushi Tsubokawa's Aria (2006) is about a recently widowed piano tuner named Ota (Masayuki Shionoya) who befriends a puppeteer with a beautiful, creepily lifelike doll named Aria. When Kuzo dies, Ota strikes out on a long road trip to look for the piano Kuzo's long-dead wife used to play during his performances; he's joined by Kuzo's clownish apprentice, and a mysterious woman who claims to have been Kuzo's daughter.

It's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, done in Tsubokawa's unique deadpan style--the apprentice is the Cowardly Lion, the mysterious daughter (who has to be Aria come to life) is either the Tin Man or the Scarecrow, and Ota is the film's glum male Dorothy. Tsubokawa repeatedly shoots the little van they ride in climbing up an endless-looking road rising heavenward (the concrete equivalent of a Yellow Brick Road); the giveaway clue, however, is a version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" played sweetly, hauntingly on a saw.

Where Tsubokawa's film differs from that great musical is on his insistence on dwelling on loss--a man losing his wife, a daughter her father. By emphasizing this theme (or, rather, by not emphasizing it), he renders the slight, barely remarked suggestion of hovering but not neccesarily malevolent death all the more poignant. Not without its delights, and not without its fair share of mysteries.