It sounds like a good idea for a movie: intercutting two separate stories centered on the same location. In one story, three male youths who’ve escaped from an orphanage hide from the authorities in an abandoned schoolhouse; in the other, three young women who once attended the school make a sentimental journey there. Like many South Korean films, Kim Sion’s 1998 feature is attractively filmed in vibrant colorsa direct or indirect legacy of the Technicolor equipment purchased long ago from this country, the kind that’s no longer used hereand for the most part the two stories unfold in markedly different photographic styles. Unfortunately, neither story is very interesting or compelling apart from its visual treatment, and when one character from each story meets the other at the schoolhouse in a brief epilogue, the effect is mainly gratuitous. (JR) Read more
An enjoyable and well-crafted 1995 dance film from Spain by Carlos Saura that left me feeling unsatisfied, perhaps because the decision to film the dancers, singers, and musicians (gathered from all over the world) in an abstract space cuts this material off from its social and historical roots. In this respect, Saura’s movie follows an aesthetic that’s precisely the reverse of that found in the Gypsy musical Latcho Drom, a cult masterpiece. However, if you care about flamenco, you probably shouldn’t miss this. The great Vittorio Storaro contributed the lush cinematography. In Spanish with subtitles. 100 min. (JR) Read more
William E. Jones’s audacious and often compelling experimental essay film (1997) recounts his personal investigation into the life of a young gay porn star, Alan Lambert, who committed suicide at age 25 in Montreal. What’s most audacious is that Jones refuses to include porn footagealthough many of Lambert’s films are described and discussedthereby defying genre expectations and aiming at something more introspective. Sometimes Jones avoids certain tired conventions only to seize upon others (e.g., focusing at length on ocean waves to accompany ruminations on mortality), but the seriousness of this haunting meditation is never in question. (This is one of the last American experimental films to receive NEA funding, but contrary to rumor, the funding had nothing to do with the absence of porn footage.) 75 min. (JR) Read more
In 1977 Istvan Darday and Gyorgyi Szalai (the couple who went on to make the remarkable and comparably lengthy Documentator in 1989) codirected this 270-minute experimental feature with nonprofessional actors and no script. (JR) Read more
A feature-length compilation of clipsif memory serves, more fun than scholarlyput together by Saul J. Turrell and Graeme Ferguson in 1966 and revised in 1972 for a theatrical rerelease. Among the featured actresses are Marilyn Monroe, Theda Bara, Jean Harlow, Mae West, Claudette Colbert, Rita Hayworth, and Dorothy Lamour. (JR) Read more
Danish-born Paul Alexander Juutilainen wrote and directed this informative, passionate, and moving 1996 video documentary about Frankfurt-school philosopher and social theorist Herbert Marcuse during his final teaching stint at the University of California at San Diego during the late 60s and 70s. The treatment of Marcuse’s thought and writing is sketchy to say the least, but the accounts of radical campus activities during this era and Marcuse’s role within them are instructive and highly evocative. Among those interviewed are Angela Davis, Fredric Jameson, William McGill, Reinhard Lettau, Page DuBois, and Herbert Schiller. (JR) Read more
Not a total loss but not really a finished film either, Claire Denis’ seventh feature (1996) is much too coy and nonspecific for its own good. Grégoire Colin and Alice Houri, who played siblings in Denis’ 1994 TV feature U.S. Go Home, are reunited as the title characters, a troubled brother and sister living in Marseilles. Boni is a horny 19-year-old pizza worker lost in masturbation fantasies; his 15-year-old sister Nenette, seven months pregnant, flees her boarding school to stay with him. Both detest their father, and Denis strongly hints but never confirms that the unborn child is his. More defensibly, the film refuses to discriminate between the 19-year-old’s fantasies and his daily life. Basically the film is a collection of funky surface distractions, and as such it’s quite watchable; just don’t go looking for too much more. Read more
Also known as For Fun, a title I prefer, this is a delightful comedy from mainland China (1992) about grumbly old men, directed and cowritten by a very young woman, Ning Ying, who studied film in both Beijing and Italy, was assistant director on The Last Emperor, and subsequently became head of the Beijing Film Studio. An old man is obliged to retire from his job as house manager for a local Peking Opera troupe, and after he finds a few opera buffs around the same age in a park, he organizes an official club that meets in an abandoned hall. Working mainly with nonprofessionals, Ning shows a genuine flair for documentary-style shooting and humorous observation; this is only her second feature, but she’s clearly someone to watch. Adapted with Ning Dal from a novella by Chen Jiangong; with Huang Zongluo and Huang Wenjie. (JR) Read more
