2014 Sacramento French Film Festival

I had planned on seeing several films at the 2014 Sacramento French Film Festival (SFFF) but the World Cup and Kenji Mizoguchi got in the way.  I watched two World Cup matches at the New Parkway.  I saw Germany vs. Ghana on June 21 and Brazil vs. Chile on June 28.  If not for those matches, I would have had more time to spend in Sacramento.  Both matches were well attended at the New Parkway.

As for Mizoguchi, I am referring to the current retrospective at the PFA.  I was particularly keen on seeing SFFF's Inside (with Béatrice Dalle) at 11:45 PM on June 28 but it conflicted with The 47 Ronin at the PFA.  I might have been able to get from Berkeley to Sacramento in time for the 11:45 showtime but I was exhausted after having woken up before 7 AM that day to get to the New Parkway in time for the Brazil-Chile match.

By the way, I have come to enjoy Sweet Bar Bakery in Oakland when I visit the New Parkway.  I like the coffee there.  Sweet Bar is a half block from the New Parkway at 24th and Broadway.

I was only able to spend one afternoon/evening at SFFF.  On June 22, I saw three feature films at the Crest Theater.

Attila Marcel starring Guillaume Gouix, Anne Le Ny, Bernadette Lafont & Hélène Vincent; directed by Sylvain Chomet; French with subtitles; (2013)
Camille Claudel 1915 starring Juliette Binoche; directed by Bruno Dumont; French with subtitles; (2013) - Official Facebook
Age of Panic starring Laetitia Dosch & Vincent Macaigne; directed by Justine Triet; French with subtitles; (2013)

Each feature was preceded by a short film.

Office du Tourisme; directed by Benjamin Biolay; French with subtitles; (2014)
As It Used to Be; directed by Clément Gonzalez; (2013)
La Gagne starring Olivier Benard, Simon Ferrante; directed by Patrice Deboosere; French with subtitles; (2014)

Office du Tourisme preceded Attila Marcel, As It Used to Be preceded Camille Claudel 1915 and La Gagne preceded Age of Panic.

I was a little disappointed that so many of this year's selections had been or will soon get a theatrical distribution.  Among the films that I have already seen because they have been released are On My Way, Stranger by the Lake, Young & Beautiful and Chinese Puzzle.  In addition, Queen Margot played at the 2014 San Francisco International Film Festival, Suzanne screened at the 2013 French Cinema Now and The Murderer Lives at Number 21 was part of a Henri-Georges Clouzot series at the PFA in 2012.  That made 7 films in the lineup which I had already seen.  In addition, Venus in Fur (directed by Roman Polanski) opens at the Landmark Theaters in the Bay Area this summer.

It was difficult for me to piece together a schedule which included World Cup matches, Mizoguchi films, the drive time to and from Sacramento and French films which I had not seen.  The festival ran from June 20 to 22 and June 27 to 29 at the Crest Theater in Downtown Sacramento. 

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In the SFFF program guide, Attila Marcel was described it as continuing "to display his [director Sylvain Chomet's] fascination with the Two Jacques: Tati and Demy."  I saw more Demy than Tati but agree with the assessment.  Chomet's previous credits include The Triplets of Belleville and The Illusionist.

Paul Marcel (Guillaume Gouix) is a former piano prodigy.  Now, he is a 30something mute who lives with his spinster aunts Annie (Bernadette Lafont) and Anna (Hélène Vincent).  The two sisters run a dance studio where Paul accompanies the class.  Paul is traumatized by the death of his mother & father  (the eponymous Attila Marcel) when he was a baby although he cannot recall the incident.  Paul has partial memories of his father (portrayed by Gouix in flashback scenes) beating his mother and blames his father for his parents' deaths.

Paul's life would probably remain in this peculiar stasis except he encounter Madame Proust (Anne Le Ny), the eccentric downstairs neighbor who lives in a what appears to be an illegal unit between floors.  Mme. Proust serves him some "herbal tea" which puts Paul in an catatonic state but also stirs long repressed memories of his parents.

Desperate to learn what happened to his parents, Paul repeatedly returns to take tea with Mme. Proust (who reminded me quite a bit of Olympia Dukakis' Anna Madrigal from Tales of City).  As he regains memories, Paul's odd behavior raises concerns in his aunts.

The film reaches its conclusion when Mme. Proust is diagnosed with incurable cancer and Paul finally recalls the deaths of his parents.  His parents were performance artists and the beating his father laid on his mother was part of the act.  Not only that - he and his parents lived in the apartment Mme. Proust now occupies.  The pièce de résistance is when Paul recalls his parents' deaths...from being crushed by a piano falling through the ceiling...which was being played by his aunts...and is the same piano he practices on while at home.

These plot coincidences, cinematography and wardrobe colors reminded me a lot of Jacques Demy's films.  Attila Marcel was a first rate homage to Demy (and Tati) but the film was strangely anachronistic.   Dreamlike and farcical, the film left me wanting a little bit more.  Chomet's film felt derivative and hewed too close to the techniques of the Two Jacques.  Ultimately, I think it lacked the bittersweet tone that made Demy's and Tati's films so memorable.  I would have preferred a little less farce and a little more pathos in Attila Marcel.

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Camille Claudel 1915 was an extremely difficult film to watch.  The film is based on the real events of Camille Claudel's life which SFFF Executive Director Cécile Mouette Downs said were well known in France.

Camille Claudel was sculptor Auguste Rodin's assistant, muse, protégé and lover.  Claudel and Rodin continued their volatile personal and professional relationship for nearly 15 years.  Before and after the split from Rodin, Claudel was a renowned sculptor.  However, in the early 20th century, Claudel began to exhibit increasing signs of mental illness.  Soon after her father died in 1913, Claudel was "voluntarily" committed to a psychiatric hospital.

For the next 30 years until her death, Claudel lived in asylums despite doctors' recommendations that she be released into the care of her family.  Claudel's brother Paul visit her periodically over the years.  Her sister Louise visited her once while her mother did not visit at all before passing in 1929.

I knew none of this prior to watching the film.  During Downs introduction of the film, I stepped out of the auditorium to get something to drink.  When I returned, the movie was starting (why did it take 5+ minutes to heat a hot dog?).  I'm not sure if knowing all this would have changed my viewing experience.

As the title alludes, the film picks up Camille Claudel's (Juliette Binoche) life story in 1915.  Set  at Montdevergues Asylum near Avignon, Claudel is the most lucid of the patients.  While watching the film, I was amazed at the performances of the actors playing the other patients.  It turns out the film was shot at an actual mental asylum and the patients were portrayed by actual patients.  This lends a reality to the film which is harrowing.  In particular, there is one woman who can only be described as snaggletoothed whose appearance and behavior are gut wrenching.  I've never dealt with mentally unstable people (except on the streets of San Francisco) but there is something about losing one's faculties that terrifies me.  I found Camille Claudel 1915 to be harrowing.

Supplementing the cinéma vérité aspects of the film is a tremendous performance by Juliette Binoche.  Despondent and resentful about her situation, Claudel has no choice but to endure.  Unable to find privacy and embarrassed by the indignities she must suffer, Claudel is in no man's land.  Clearly not at the same condition as her fellow inmates but nonetheless restricted by most of the same rules, Claudel is truly in despair.  Binoche gets to flex her acting muscles in the role.

The film follows Claudel in the days leading up to a visit by her brother Paul (Jean-Luc Vincent).  Excited by the prospect of finding a sympathetic figure in her brother and possibly released into his care, Claudel highly anticipates the meeting.  Much of the film focuses on the days leading up to Paul's arrival.  When he does arrive, we see a man whose devotion to Catholicism borders on fanatical.  In the final, heartbreaking scene, Paul rejects his sister's plea for removal from Montdevergues.  His motivations remain vague although Camille's unconventional life seems to have offended his religious sensibilities.  That's interesting because I learned later that Rodin was not actually married during his affair with Camille while Paul had a long-term affair and child by a married woman.

Camille Claudel 1915 was an exhausting experience...much like Claudel's life in the asylum.  The film's portrayal of Claudel was ambiguous.  Although she was clearly in better shape than the others, she did suffer from bouts of paranoia and in real-life, her behavior prior to institutionalization was more erratic.  The film repeatedly whipsawed my empathy towards Claudel.

An uncomfortable film to watch should not be confused with a film lacking merit.  Camille Claudel 1915 is a very powerful film and the images will last in my memory for a long time.

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It had been my intention to only see two films on the Sunday I went to Sacramento.  I wanted to eat dinner at Petra Greek on 16th St. but did not realize it was not open on Sundays.  I turned around and got back to the Crest just in time to for the 8:15 PM start of Age of Panic.

Downs cited Age of Panic as an example of the New New Wave of French Cinema, a term I was previously unfamiliar with.  I'm still unclear on what constitutes the New New Wave but Age of Panic reminded me a little of Mumblecore.  Set on the specific date of May 6, 2012, the film integrates the French Presidential Election (held on May 6) with film's plot.  All the characters are portrayed by actors with the same name.  Laetitia Dosch is a television news reporter who has been assigned to cover the François Hollande election day rallies.  She hires a first-time babysitter (a chef by training) to look after her two young children.  She warns him not to allow the children's father Vincent (Macaigne) in the apartment.  Their divorce was acrimonious.  Actually, I'm not sure if they were ever married but their child-sharing arrangement has been contentious.

Of course, Vincent shows up at Laetitia's apartment and demands to see the kids and of course, Marc (the babysitter) allows him into the house.  This begins a long day played out in front of the election, the election results and election celebrations.  What would have happened to the plot if Hollande had lost?  I doubt anything would have changed within the film.

Unscripted, director Justine Triet give free rein to Dosch & Macaigne to spew their character's vitriol and display their character flaws.  At times it was repetitive but Vincent's character is slightly unhinged.  Dosch and especially Macaigne run with the roles.  They are too deeply resentful people who were likely deeply in the love once upon a time.

The films peters out at the end when Vincent, his law student cum attorney, Laetitia and her new boyfriend meet late at night in an awkward but highly amusing encounter.  Triet didn't seem to know how to end the scene or the film or if she did, she was giving directions to her actors.

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed Age of Panic.  It is the third film starring Vincent Macaigne which I've seen in less than a year.

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Office du Tourisme is a delightful short film directed by actor Benjamin Biolay (Bachelor Days Are Over).  Paired with Attila Marcel, Office du Tourisme was the more Demyesque of the two.  It is a 15 minute musical about a young woman recently arrived in Paris who finds love unexpectedly with another woman only to have their amorous evening interrupted by a homophobic taxi driver (Biolay).  Whereas Attila felt derivative, Biolay took Demy's template and applied it to a modern situation in an innovative way.  Office du Tourisme was my favorite film of the ones I saw at SFFF this year.

As It Used to Be was an English language film set in South Africa.  Set in a future where university instruction is completely web based, a professor must deal with the disruptive effects of actually having a student in the classroom.  Simplistic and predictable, I wasn't very impressed.

La Gagne tells the story of an elaborate scam where a successful businessman and homeless mendicant slowly reveal themselves to be different than what first impressions would indicate.  It wasn't bad although I predicted the ending several minutes in advance.

2012 Mill Valley Film Festival

I bought tickets to seven screenings at the 2012 Mill Valley Film Festival but only saw six.  I was double booked on the evening of October 4.  I skipped the screening of Starlet and went to the Berkeley Rep's production of Chinglish which I greatly enjoyed.

I've noticed a pattern recently. It seems like I been reading books (Girlvert by Oriana Small), attending events (Femina Potens ASKEW at YBCA) and watching films (Danland at DocFest) where porn or porn performers are the focus.  The titular character in Starlet, the film I skipped at MVFF, is "Jane, a newbie to the San Fernando Valley porn industry who spends most of her plentiful free time shiftlessly getting high and partying. It’s not until she meets Sadie, a taciturn, lonely old woman who just wants to be left in peace, that Jane’s life takes a deeper, unexpected turn."  I also recently rediscovered my love of the film Body Double (a future post on this blog), a Brian De Palma work set in the world of porn.  Don't know what the implies about me.

MVFF ran from October 4 to 14.  The six films I saw were:

Yoyo starring & directed by Pierre Étaix; French with subtitles; (1965)
Thursday Till Sunday starring Santi Ahumada; directed by Dominga Sotomayor; Spanish with subtitles; (2012) - Official Website
Holy Motors starring Denis Lavant; directed by Leos Carax; French with subtitles; (2012) - Official Website
The Slut starring & directed by Hagar Ben-Asher; Hebrew with subtitles; (2011)
Like Someone in Love starring Rin Takanashi & Tadashi Okuno; directed by Abbas Kiarostami; Japanese with subtitles; (2012)
Rent-a-Cat starring Mikako Ichikawa; directed by Naoko Ogigami; Japanese with subtitles; (2012)  - Official Website

I saw Yoyo, The Slut, Like Someone In Love and Rent-a-Cat at the Smith Rafael.  I saw Thursday Till Sunday at 142 Throckmorton Theater in Mill Valley & Holy Motors at Cinearts Sequoia.

I cannot recall the last time I was in San Rafael which did not involve a trip to the Smith Rafael Film Center.  While driving there, I always notice a line of people at Sol Food at Lincoln and 3rd Street.  Sol Food is a well reviewed, well regarded Puerto Rican restaurant.  I took a day off from work and made a day of it in San Rafael.  Over two meals, I had the Jamon, Queso y Huevo sandwich, the Cubano sandwich, the Maduros (fried sweet plantains), the Tostones con Mojo (fried green plantains) and a side order of pork ribs.  I would have gone back for a third meal but I had to drive back to SF to catch the 9:30 PM screening of Din Tao at Taiwan Film Days.  Perhaps my critical review of Din Tao was influenced by the knowledge that I had skipped a third meal at Sol Food for it.

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Yoyo was one of a series of comedy films made by Pierre Étaix in the 1960s.  An assistant to Jacques Tati, Étaix borrowed from him as well as Chaplin, Keaton and other silent film comedians.  Long scenes with no dialogue punctuate Yoyo.  Yoyo lacks the poignancy and sadness of Tati, et al.  The result is that Yoyo is more clever than heartfelt.  A great comedy has to have a certain amount of sadness underlying it or it lacks the emotional heft to be meaningful

Although I was expecting more from Yoyo, I may see more works by Étaix.  The Smith Rafael is screening five of his films in December.  In addition to Yoyo, the series consists of Le Grand Amour, The Suitor, As Long As You're Healthy and Land of Milk and Honey.  "Clever" is better than nothing and I have to believe that someone with a reputation of Étaix had to earn it somehow.

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Holy Motors starred Denis Levant (who was terrific in Claire Denis' Beau travail).  In Holy Motors, Levant plays Oscar, an actor who rides around in the back of white stretch limousine.  The passenger compartment is a mobile dressing room filled with costumes, props and make-up accessories.  All day and into the night, with Edith Scob as the chauffeur, the limo travels around Paris delivering Levant to various locations where he performs as a character in real-life situations.  He plays a white-haired businessman, a beggar woman, a dying old man,  a crazy homeless man, a man having simulated sex while wearing a black body suit studded with motion-capture balls, etc.  It ends with him playing a chimpanzee father returning home to his nuclear chimpanzee family.  Along the way, Eva Mendes & Kylie Minogue show up.

Holy Motors is a frustratingly surreal film.  I'm unsure what the message is.  In fact, I don't think there was one.  It was like some dadaist film experiment.  Leos Carax blurs the traditional narrative structure which film audiences have been conditioned to accept.  During the interludes between jobs, Levant & Scob share superficially trite conversations which I listened to carefully searching for clues to unlock the mystery.  Ultimately, I decided to abandon all hope and simply watched the film with a sense of acceptance wondering what character Oscar would next become.

There is a scene where Oscar dresses up like a crazy, homeless man and terrorizes people in a cemetery.  Eventually, he comes upon a fashion photo shoot (in the cemetery).  The photographer is intrigued by the strange and dishevelled man.  He sends his assistant to convince the man to be part of the shoot.  Oscar promptly bites her fingers off and slings the model (Mendes) over his shoulder.  He runs off to some subterranean crypt with her.  In a wordless scene, they share a mildly disturbing scene on a bench which ends Levant nude and fully erect I might add.  I can't blame the man as Mendes would likely have the same effect on me.

Carax and Levant teamed up to in Tokyo! (2008).  That film consisted of three unrelated short film, each directed by a different person.  Michael Gondry and Bong Joon-ho directed the other two segments.  Carax's segment was titled Merde and followed a dishevelled and crazy looking many who rises up from the sewers to wreak havocs on the citizens of Tokyo.  As IMDB confirms, it's the same character as in cemetery scene in Holy Motors.

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I was ambivalent about Yoyo & Holy Motors, but the other four films were outstanding.

The provocatively named The Slut, was the brainchild of actor, director & screenwriter of Hagar Ben-Asher who played the eponymous character.  Tamar is a single mother of two daughters in a small rural community.  She sells fresh eggs for a living, but she believes in the barter system.  She trades sex for various services such a bicycle repair and physical labor.  She and the men in the town have come to an convenient understanding.  Far from being exploited, Tamar is able to satisfy her carnal needs in a mutually beneficial manner.  In a telling but understated scene, she punctures her bike tire on purpose so that she can engage in "bartering."

That's not to say her arrangement doesn't cause problems.  Her young daughters spy on her and seem to be developing unhealthy attitudes towards men and sexuality but overall they are fairly well adjusted.  It's not until Shai (Ishai Golan) returns to town that problems start.  A veterinarian and former resident of the town, Shai is back to treat an injured horse and clean out his late mother's house.  Acquainted with each other from their youths, Shai & Tamar quickly start a passionate relationship.

The relationship fulfills one of Tamar's desires which is a monogamous relationship to add stability to her daughters' lives.  As the females move into Shai's house to form a nuclear family, Tamar begins to feel ill at ease.  She senses the frustration in several men due to her monogamy but more troubling is the difficulties she is having adapting to it herself.  Eventually, she "barters" with the bicycle repair man and Shai discovers them.

Hurt by the betrayal, Shai engages in an act so shocking that I was left stunned during the screening.  Warning:  I will describe the act in this paragraph.  Tamar's elder daughter begins showing signs of puppy love towards Shai who is uncomfortable with it.  There is a scene where the two girls and Shai are watching TV on a couch.  The elder daughter lays her head on Shai's lap and falls asleep.  Conspicuously, Shai does not rest his hand/arm on her as would seem natural.  Aware of the elder daughter's feelings, Shai retaliates against Tamar by molesting the younger daughter which Tamar witnesses from outside their bedroom window.

This story plays out at a measured pace with little dialogue.  There is considerable latitude in assigning motivations to Tamar & Shai's action (in particular his choice for victim).  Even the ending ambiguous although I wonder how the two can stay together much less in that small town.  Provocative, shocking and ambiguous, The Slut is unlike anything I can recall seeing before.

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Thursday Till Sunday was a comtemplative film about a couple's breakup from the viewpoint of their 10 year old daughter.  Set in Chile, Manuel and Ana set out on a road trip with Lucia (Santi Ahumada) and her younger brother.  Although they are civil towards each other, it is clear that there is tension between Manuel & Ana.  The younger brother is too young to understand what is going on but Lucia (and by extension the audience) can clearly pick up on the largely silent dissension between mother & father.    Both have ulterior motives.  What starts as a possible final reconciliation attempt becomes something else.  Manuel wants to visit his family's plot of land and show his son. Lucia wants to meet with the man by whom she is cuckolding Manuel.

Much of the film is set in the station wagon interior and we see the parents converse from Lucia's backseat point of view.  The confined settings leads to an intimacy with the characters.  There are no fireworks (even when Lucia realizes her mother is having an affair) but the accretive observations point a sad and damning portrait of the parents.  Not only does Lucia come realize her parents are likely getting divorced but she also realizes that they are flawed people and not the idealized parents she may have once imagined.

Paola Giannini as Ana is particularly effective.

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On the day I did had my Sol Food Double Visit, I saw a pair of Japanese films.

Like Someone in Love is Japanese language with a Japanese cast and set in Japan but was directed by noted Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami.  I'm not sure if he is in exile from his native country but his last two films have been made in Europe and now Japan.  I wonder if Kiarostami speaks Japanese and if he doesn't how did he direct the actors.

Like Thursday Till Sunday & The Slut, still waters run deep in Like Someone in Love.  The film starts in a très chic jazz bar/lounge with Akiko (Rin Takanashi) on the phone with her boyfriend.  It's clear she is lying about her whereabouts.  After she gets off the phone, an older man sits at Akiko's table and tells her that he has arranged an appointment for her.  It is established early on that Akiko is a prostitute earning money to pay her way through college, a cliché but the film has many surprises later.

The client Akiko meets is an elderly and widowed retired professor whose apartment is filled with books.  Akiko is exhausted by her day since it turns out her grandmother has been leaving voice messages on her phone all day.  The ominous part is that grandma is calling her work phone; i.e. the phone number she gives out to clients.  In a skillful piece of filmmaking, we hear Akiko retrieve the half dozen or so messages her grandmother has left.  We learn that she makes an unexpected trip to Tokyo to speak with Akiko, got number from the family of one of Akiko's childhood friend (and fellow prostitute) and finally sees a model on a flyer advertising escort services which looks suspiciously like Akiko.  Akiko decides to leave granny at the train station without contacting her.  As the taxi takes Akiko to the professor's house, we see forlorn looking old woman desperately scanning faces in a vain attempt to find her granddaughter.  Just listening to that woman's wavering voice is enough to make my eyes moist.

Once Akiko gets to Takashi's (Tadashi Okuno) place, she adroitly sidesteps the romantic dinner prepared for her, strips off her clothes and jumps into his bed.  She correctly surmises he is a gentleman and will not object.  The next morning, Takashi offers to drive Akiko back to Toyko.  We learn that his area of expertise is the same subject Akiko is studing (anthropology?).  Akiko begins share details of her life.  Her boyfriend is unaware of her profession, has a temper and is jealous.  Akiko is unsure about him but is not ready to end the relationship.

After being dropped off at the university (it's unclear if it is the same university he taught at), Takashi witnesses Akiko and her boyfriend (Ryo Kase) have an argument.  While waiting in the car for Akiko, the boyfriend approaches Takashi; curious about his identity.  He assume Takashi is Akiko's grandfather and Takashi, does not correct the mistaken assumption of his identity.  The boyfriend tells him he wants to marry Akiko but Takashi gives grandfatherly wisdom to the younger man which is humorous and decidedly self-serving given his actual relationship with the girl.

When Akiko returns to the car, she is disturbed to see her boyfriend and client having a conversation but decides to play along.  The boyfriend runs a garage and hearing Takashi's timing belt is off, insists that he bring the car in for immediate repair.  While at the garage, Takashi runs into a former student who is now a police detective.  This will eventually unravel the charade Takashi & Akiko have allowed to stand.  Eventually, the boyfriend discovers from the detective that Takashi is not Akiko's grandfather and what Akiko's profession is.  Taking refuge in Takashi's apartment, Takashi and Akiko listen to the boyfriend rage outside.

Like Someone in Love is full of hidden identities and mistaken identities.  Takashi has a nosy neighbor  who watches his comings and goings like sentry.  She assumed Akiko is Takashi's granddaughter and shares hilariously personal details.  It turns out she is/was in love with Takashi from their youth (apparently Takashi has lived there since a young professor).  When he got married, she accepted the situation although it's obvious she didn't put aside her feelings.  Little scenes like that abound in the film.

A simple story of a lonely old man paying for companionship with a pretty young woman spirals out to the two of having a little adventure together and allowing societal assumptions about them to stand uncorrected.  That people can be hurt by their actions is dealt with in humorous manner until the final climactic scene.  Like Someone in Love is a very satisfying film with a "less is more" style.  There was no "moral" to the film.  It just the story flow and like life, it was full of humor, heartbreak and moments of terror.

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After seeing three Kiarostami-esque films, I ended MVFF on a different note.  Rent-a-cat is a comedy about Sayoko, a young woman who lives by herself...if you don't count the two dozen cats in the house. Sayoko's "job" is a rent-a-cat agency.  With a pullcart, she chants her come-on pitch, "Rent-a-neko, neko-neko."  Neko means cat in Japanese.  She finds more clients than one would think.  There is the old woman who doesn't want to get a new cat because she is afraid she'll die and the cat will be abandoned, the salaryman who is separated from his family and doesn't want a permanent cat because he could be reassigned to his hometown and his family doesn't like cats and an unfulfilled rental car clerk who I can't recall why she doesn't want to get a cat.

The film takes formulaically over three vignettes with a prologue.  Each segment starts with her using a bullhorn for her sing-song "Rent-a-neko" chant.  She is taunted by some schoolboys who make fun of the catlady but eventually finds a client.  After inspecting the client's home to ensure suitability, she offers the cat for a nominal fee which each client is shocked at.  She makes up a reason why she doesn't need to make money from her cat rental business (which is depicted on screen in a fantasy sequence).  She leaves the cat with the person and the cat affects a change for the better in the lives of the clients or the client's family.  There is strange neighbor woman (played by a male actor) who infuriates her and she prays at her grandmother's shrine while reciting al the things her grandmother taught her.

The plot is not important because this a delightful comedy with some serious issues such the emotional isolation of people in a society.  These issues are explored gently and the film never loses its fanciful whimsy or congeniality.  Mikako Ichikawa delivers a winning performance showing exceptional comedic skills and she captures some of the sadness which I thought Yoyo was lacking.  I doubt anyone will equate Rent-a-cat with Chaplin or Tati but it was a well-made little film which exceeded its seemingly modest expectations or at least, my modest expectations of it.

Size Dosn't Matter, Right? And Life Begins at 35!

The Castro Theater had a 70 mm film series in June. I watched two films.

Play Time starring & directed by Jacques Tati; (1967)
Lawrence of Arabia starring Peter O'Toole, Omar Sharif, Anthony Quinn & Alec Guinness; directed by David Lean; (1962)

Both film are well known. I saw Play Time at the PFA (listed as Playtime in their program) last year. It's unclear from the on-line listing if PFA screened the 70 mm print. I don't know if they have that capability.

I've seen Lawrence of Arabia on television a few times but not in one sitting. It turns out I had seen 95% of the film from my multiple viewings.

I won't write much about the films. Play Time stood up well to a second viewing. The office and restuarant scenes are still crisp and funny. I still lose focus in the middle part where he visits his friend's apartment. I also noticed a lot of red herring Hulots in the film. A lot of actors were dressed as Hulot and mistaken as Hulot by the audience and characters in the film. I believe Hulot's traditional overcoat was a beige or khaki MacKintosh which the imposters wore. In Play Time, he switches to a houndstooth or herringbone coat.

Lawrence of Arabia also stood up well to multiple viewings. O'Toole piercing blue eyes after he has been tortured (presumably sodomized) by the Turks are unforgettable. I noticed how the English characters are rather staid except Lawrence and how the Arab characters are colorful except Faisal (Guinness). The sweeping panoramas weren't quite as impressive on 70 mm as I was expecting. I don't think there was a single actress with a speaking part in the film.

Actually, I thought the prints or the projection were flawed. I periodically noticed some vertical lines on the edge of the screen on the stage right side for both films. I was sitting right of center for both films. So although the films themselves did not disappoint, the much ballyhooed 70 mm prints left me underwhelmed. I've seen a handful of 70 mm prints in standard theaters (as opposed to IMAX) before. I don't recall ever being impressed by 70 mm per se. The widescreen format impresses me as much in 35 mm as 70 mm.

When it comes down to it, the attributes that well suited to 70 mm or widescreen formats are not the most important aspects of a film for me. That begs the question of "What are the most important aspects of a film to me?" I'm not sure I know the answer. Perhaps it's like Potter Stewart and pornography, I can't define it but know it when I see it. I know that plot and dialog factor heavily into my enjoyment of a film.

Getting back to 70 mm, perhaps my appreciation of cinematography is lacking such that I cannot enjoy the splendor of 70 mm. My feeling is that you don't need 70 mm to make a great film and a great film will be just as great in 35 mm (or even digital nowadays). There are all kinds of arguments as to how 70 mm can enhance a film or film experience but those are largely pearls before swine and embarrassingly, I have porcine qualities as far as 70 mm is concerned...perhaps with respect to other parts of my life as well.

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I exchanged some comments with Jason Wiener regarding 35 mm prints on his blog. To clarify my comments, I believe that films that were shot in 35 mm were crafted by the director, cinematographer, set designers, lighting crew, etc. with specific consideration of the medium. To see the film they made, it should be screened in 35 mm. The same can be said for any medium or watching a film on a television screen.

Because of my taste in films, I've seen a lot of 35 mm films in theaters so I may have a bias towards 35 mm films. However, I think the bias is subconscious if it exists at all. For several years, the general release films I see at multiplexes have been a combination of 35 mm and digital depending on the theater. I haven't noticed a drop off in quality of the viewing experience that can be attributed to digital vs. celluloid. I've seen a few low budget digital films that looked like crap but that was a few years ago and their low budget probably affected their choice in cameras or ability to light the set or even have a set.

I'm not a filmmaker but even I know that the Red One digital camera has made high quality digital films available at relatively reasonable prices. I have nothing against well made digital films. Still my bias shows up in small ways. When digital films pixilate, it mildly irritates me. When 35 mm prints show scratches, I fondly think grindhouse or that the scratches are proof that the film is worthy of viewing since it's been screened so many times before.

I'm also fully aware that major studios will shortly stop striking 35 mm prints for their new films. I'm fine with that. Striking a print for each venue or even screen, is inefficient and expensive. In almost every other aspect of society, I would commend and understand the cost saving (as well as environmentally friendly) move and I do so for new films. Can it still be called "films" if there is no film stock in the production and projection?

Studios and archives have invested a lot of money in storage of film negatives and prints. Will they digitize the inventory in their film vaults? I would think so if they could. Perhaps there will be some movement to declare 35 mm prints historical landmarks and thus require their preservation. I don't support that and doubt it will happen.

As technology improves, I believe it will be possible to digitize a 35 mm print such that a human cannot tell the difference when it is projected. At that point (are we there yet?), I think most of my nostalgia for 35 mm prints will evaporate. I used to be able to spot a digital film a mile away and I guffawed at festivals when an audience would ask if it was shot 35 mm. Lately, I can't tell the difference.

I read that Woody Allen's latest film (Midnight in Paris) was shot on 35 mm but used a digital intermediate meaning it was digitized during the editing process. If Woody can switch to digital in his 41st film, I can make the switch too.

Jason mentioned in his post that Super 8 was screened digitially (with D-Box!). Director J.J. Abrams put the whir of a film projector on the digital soundtrack to give it an old-timey feel. Clearly, I'm not the only person who waxes nostalgic for celluloid.

Jacques Tati - Sublime Comedian

Several weeks ago, I was watching Unfaithful (2002) on television. I enjoy that film, particularly Diane Lane's performance. There was a scene where Richard Gere was viewing photos of Lane (his wife) and her lover (Olivier Martinez) around Manhattan. One of the photos showed Lane and Martinez in front of a theater marquee. The name on the marquee was Jacques Tati.

Prior to January, I had never seen a Tati film. In fact, before December, I was not familiar with Tati. The PFA recently concluded a Tati retrospective. I was able to watch three films in the series. A fourth film from the series also screened at the Red Vic where I was able to view it.

Playtime; (1967)
Jour de fête; (1949)
Mon Oncle; (1958)
M. Hulot’s Holiday; (1953)

Playtime was followed by Night Class (1966), a 30 minute short film.

Jour de fête was preceded by The School for Postmen (1947), a 18 minute short film.

I watched M. Hulot’s Holiday at the Red Vic.

All the films were directed by Tati and starred Tati. Playtime, Mon oncle and M. Hulot’s Holiday featured extensive English dialogue (dubbed I believe). Jour de fête and the short films were French with English subtitles.

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Discovering Playtime justified a full year of PFA membership in my opinion. Playtime was an uproarious comedy with minimal dialogue and amazing sets including an über-cube farm, a chic restaurant and modernist architecture which only existed in the film. Tati also used heightened sound effects (such as the footsteps echoing on a stone floor) to comedic effect.

The plot is quite sparse. It's more a series of vignettes - the airport, the cube farm, the restaurant and the drugstore/automobile carousel. Tati's comedy is more physical. The best gag came when a glass door was shattered. The doorman continued to hold the door handle, swinging his arm as if to open the non-existent door. Tati's misadventures in the office building also amused me greatly.

The strength of the film comes from Tati's keen and unerring eye for the fashionable architectural aesthetics of the era and their incongruity with people in general and Tati's Hulot in particular.

Hulot was Tati's primary role for 20 years. Of the four films I watched, Hulot was the main character in three of them - the exception being Jour de fête. Even that film may have featured Hulot's cinematic progenitor. I recall his character was named François in Jour de fête and Mon Oncle.

I can't really add much to the tremendous amount of written work on Tati and Hulot. Tati's films are quite accessible given that they are 40 to 60 years old and French. I saw a number of children at the screenings and they laughed at the same things I did.

Writing about Tati can never approach watching Tati so I recommend everyone watch a Hulot film and see for themselves what I (and countless others) are talking about.

Capra, Ozu, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Val Lewton, Jacques Tati and Post 1950's Musicals

January and February are shaping up nicely with a lot of film screenings that interest me.

I previously mentioned the two series at the Mechanics' Institute and the 10 days of Noir City. The San Francisco Independent Film Festival (Indiefest) is running from February 4 to 17.

I could fit those screenings in with relatively ease if not from the programs at PFA. They have several series that interest in January & February. Foremost is a series of Frank Capra's early films.

Over the years, interest in Frank Capra’s work, and his critical reputation, have ebbed and flowed, usually due to changing sociopolitical currents in the United States and their effect on public perception of his work. What is now known as “Capraesque” filmmaking is generally, and reductively, regarded as a form of sentimental populism, but Capra’s work in fact encompasses a far wider range of emotion, social criticism, and genre experimentation than is usually recognized. Because of our current economic collapse, with its many disturbing echoes of the Great Depression, Capra (1897–1991) seems timely all over again, as the first film in this series, American Madness (1932, about a run on a bank), demonstrates with startling immediacy.

Much of Capra’s early work—the films the Sicilian immigrant made before the Capraesque label was applied in his heyday during the New Deal—has largely been inaccessible to most filmgoers, preventing a deeper understanding of his legacy. Many of the films he directed between 1927, when he came to Columbia Pictures, and 1934, when he made his Oscar-winning and career-changing It Happened One Night, have not been available on home video. Now Sony Pictures, which owns the twenty-five films Capra made for Columbia, has painstakingly worked with both vault material and foreign prints preserved by collectors to reassemble and restore his rich and diverse early period. This series showcases many of these little-known gems, showing Capra’s explorations of various genres before he found his familiar niche. The programs also include rare short films Capra directed in the San Francisco Bay Area; two short comedies he cowrote as a Hollywood gag man; and his first feature as director, The Strong Man (1926), starring Harry Langdon.

Among the 15 films PFA is screening, the following catch my attention.

The Way of the Strong; silent with intertitles; (1928) - So grotesque it verges on the operatic, The Way of the Strong, written by William Counselman and Peter Milne, was described by Columbia as the story of “the world’s ugliest man, who can bear anything except the sight of his own face in a mirror.” Mitchell Lewis plays “Handsome” Williams, a hulking gangster whose misshapen face is crisscrossed with scars. The beauty underlying his brutish exterior is shown by his tenderness toward Nora (Alice Day), a blind violinist who works in his cafe and falls in love with him, thinking he is truly handsome. But when she realizes for the first time how he looks, she recoils. The Way of the Strong includes one of many suicide attempts in Capra films, but this is one of only two that succeed (the other is in The Bitter Tea of General Yen), and it is a particularly startling ending for a supposedly “optimistic” director.

The Bitter Tea of General Yen starring Barbara Stanwick; (1933) - I have long wanted to see this film. Subtle eroticism and splendid exoticism: an atypical Capra classic, set in China in the midst of civil war. Barbara Stanwyck plays a prim New England missionary who falls in the thrall of a ruthless but noble Chinese bandit (Swedish actor Nils Asther in a painstaking makeup job), who kidnaps her and keeps her in his summer palace. Controversial in its day for its depiction of interracial romance, Bitter Tea remained one of Capra’s “pet” films—what he called “Art with a capital A.” And it is indeed reminiscent of the films of Josef von Sternberg, with its exalted visuals and glowing lighting by Joseph Walker creating a ninety-minute “dissolve” between dream and reality. It is the dream of a woman trying to see herself through General Yen’s idealistic vision of women as “beautiful fruit trees,” the reality being far more sexual than that. Stanwyck embodies the troubling contradiction by distancing herself from it in a cool performance.

Submarine; silent with intertitles; (1928) - Jack Cohn persuaded his partners at Columbia to go head-to-head with the major studios in 1928 by making an A picture, Submarine, an adventure story suggested by two actual disasters involving Navy submarines. The biggest moneymaker in the young company’s history, it was also a critical success, establishing Capra as a versatile and important director. “Frank R. Capra’s direction is especially clever,” wrote Mordaunt Hall in the New York Times, “for not only has he attended to the action of the story, but he has also obtained from his players infinitely better characterization than one is apt to see on the screen, especially in a melodrama.” Submarine also was Columbia’s, and Capra’s, first tentative venture into sound (although here we screen a restored silent version). Capra was convinced that sound was “an enormous step forward. I wasn’t at home in silent films; I thought it was very strange to stop and put a title on the screen and then come back to the action...I don’t think I could have gone very far in silent pictures—at least not so far as I did go with sound.”

I am a sucker for submarine films. Some of my favorites include Run Silent, Run Deep, The Hunt for Red October, Crimson Tide and The Enemy Below. I didn't even mention Das Boot because I haven't seen it all the way through. Submarine reminds me that there is a rare submarine film (directed by John Ford no less) that I have read about. The film is called Men Without Women (1930). The film is not related the Ernest Hemingway novel by the same name.

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Another highlight is the PFA screening of a two film series called Masters of Asian Cinema. Screening on February 19 and 20, the features are:

That Night Wife directed by Yasujiro Ozu; silent with intertitles; (1930) - A crime melodrama based on a Western-style magazine story and inspired by Fritz Lang and American thrillers. Ozu tests the conventions as he employs them, “drawing on thriller iconography for its own sake” and thereby distancing himself from the genre, as David Bordwell has noted. The film is set in a twelve-hour period. A commercial artist of meager means is driven to robbery in order to provide medicine for his critically ill daughter. As the film opens he is being pursued by the police. After a series of diversions, he hails a gypsy cab that delivers him to his door—but the night is young. Much of the delight of this film is in the play of visuals and the use of space, from the taxicab with its mirrors to the family’s cluttered apartment, where most of the action takes place.

A City of Sadness directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien; starring Tony Leung; Chinese & Japanese with subtitles; (1989) - Hou Hsiao-hsien’s cinema draws comparisons to Yasujiro Ozu’s with its ability to turn the ordinary—homes and hallways, a family dining together—into the extraordinary, repeating shots so that a lived-in space becomes as familiar as the characters within it. Hou’s 1989 epic A City of Sadness has been called not only his crowning film, but “one of the supreme masterworks of contemporary cinema” (Jonathan Rosenbaum). Following the Lin family from 1945 to 1949, a momentous historical period encompassing Taiwan’s independence from Japan and its secession from the mainland, the film courted controversy (and became a box-office hit) by addressing the then-taboo subject of the “February 28th Incident,” when the Nationalist government met a popular uprising with a brutal crackdown. Hou’s particular genius lies in reflecting such large-scale social and political events in minute, highly personal moments: children being born, conversations among friends and family, goodbyes and hellos exchanged on the same hilly streets as times, and governments, change.

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PFA is also screening a Val Lewton series. I Walked with a Zombie has screened three times in the past year. One at the Stanford Theater in July. Again at the PFA's Into the Vortex series (also in July). And now on January 30 as part of the Lewton series. The film isn't really that good either.

If you make the screen dark enough, the mind’s eye will read anything into it you want! We’re great ones for dark patches.” —V al Lewton

Rarely do we praise the producer. But in Val Lewton’s case the praise should be profuse for a cluster of creepy cheapies he produced in the early forties, notable for heavily shadowed psychic landscapes, arousing unease through an excess of archaic suggestion. Originally a scriptwriter, Lewton went from anonymous labors at MGM to the head of the horror unit at RKO in 1942. Once the esteemed studio that had produced classics like King Kong and Citizen Kane, by the time of Lewton’s involvement RKO had opted for “entertainment not genius.” Little did they know that their enfant terror would transform formulaic ideas and impoverished means into a well-crafted surplus of psychological enthrallment. Beginning with Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie, Lewton overwhelmed a poverty-stricken mandate—to make seventy-five-minute features for $150,000, using titles supplied by the studio—by assembling a remarkable coven of collaborators who could conjure his eerie vision: directors Jacques Tourneur, Mark Robson, and Robert Wise; writers Ardel Wray and DeWitt Bodeen; and cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca. Where most low-budget Bs felt obliged to actually illustrate the lurking horror, RKO K.O.s such as The Leopard Man, Isle of the Dead, and The Body Snatcher left instead inky insinuations that beckoned primeval folklore, reptilian instinct, and emotional monstrosities. This series sheds some much-deserved light on producer Val Lewton—he’s been in the shadows too long.

Based on Cat People and Zombie, I'm a little cautious about expecting too much but I guess Lewton's films were better than the schlock that was being served up at the time.

Youth Runs Wild (1944) - “Orgy of youth!” screams one of the headlines blazoned across the opening of Youth Runs Wild, but the film that follows is more fretful than orgiastic in its treatment of teens and their troubles. This rare Lewton venture into straight social realism, cowritten by novelist John Fante, portrays an America where “normal” family life has been dangerously destabilized by World War II. When parents are either irresponsible or absent, building bombs on the graveyard shift or drinking the nights away, kids are left to find their own paths to adulthood; a few wrong turns lead quickly to melodrama. Studio interference steered the film toward overt propaganda, and ultimately caused Lewton to disown the production. Still, apart from the usual kitsch attractions of a JD exploitation flick, Youth Runs Wild offers an intriguing view of the war at home.

The Leopard Man directed by Jacques Tourneur; (1943) - Adapted from a Cornell Woolrich novel, The Leopard Man is a strange hybrid of serial-killer thriller and Southwestern fairy tale. Something deadly prowls the desert arroyos and shadowed sidewalks of a New Mexico town. Is it the panther escaped from a courtyard nightclub, or has some other primal horror been unleashed? An episodic structure that passes from one victim to the next is tied together by Lewton’s pointedly oblique use of imagery and sound: bestial roars issuing from a passing train, a strolling dancer’s castanets persistently rattling like nerves, a drooping branch or a discarded cigarette signaling doom. As critic Manny Farber wrote, the film gives “the creepy impression that human beings and ‘things’ are interchangeable...and that both are pawns of a bizarre and terrible destiny.”

The Ghost Ship (1943) - This beautifully crafted thriller emerges from relative obscurity (it was withheld for years as the subject of a specious plagiarism suit) as one of Lewton’s most impressive productions. Mysterious deaths on board the ship Altair lead a young and trusting junior officer (Russell Wade) into the dank waters of doubt and despair; he is forced to reassess his captain (Richard Dix), with whom he had closely identified, as a neurotic despot cruelly enacting his own malignant fears. A Hitchcockian theme of transference of guilt is skillfully developed in Lewton’s haunting, atmospheric language: the image of an enormous iron hook, wildly swaying in a nighttime storm, is the stuff of nightmares. Mark Robson’s direction in this film (far less so in The Seventh Victim or Bedlam) reflects his apprenticeship with Welles in fluid tracking shots, silhouettes, low angles on foggy set-ups that are perhaps more heavy handed than the delicate, almost transcendental Lewton–Tourneur vision.

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The Kids Are Alright: Post-Fifties Musicals and the Rise of Youth Culture looks to be a fun series. Among the films that I want to see are:

Paint Your Wagon starring Clint Eastwood, Lee Marvin and Jean Seberg; (1969) - It all begins here, in the grubby Sierra foothills of Gold Rush–era California. “No Name City” is a ramshackle roost for greedy men, chanting “gold, Gold, GOLD!” But as unruly and manic as this mining town might be, it isn’t lawless, just ungoverned, a haven for free spirits like Ben Rumson (Lee Marvin, reprising the irascible coot of Cat Ballou) who melodiously declares he was “born under a wand’rin’ star.” His star, though, is hitched to Elizabeth (a nicely ripening Jean Seberg) and Pardner (lanky looker Clint Eastwood) in a bashfully bawdy sixties ménage, amidst a musical menagerie by Lerner and Loewe. The songs are as big as a prospector’s dreams: “They Call the Wind Maria,” “Gold Fever,” “The Best Things,” “A Million Miles Away Behind the Door,” the last a paean to home ownership. A boisterous bonanza of a musical, Paint Your Wagon was updated from a more prudish fifties original, adding its liberated frontier threesome in a long summer of love.

The Music Man starring Robert Preston and Shirley Jones; (1962) - River City, Iowa: an American idyll in 1912. But there’s “trouble in River City,” and it rhymes with hormones. Said secretions are from both the city’s youth and itinerant salesman Professor Harold Hill (the sublimely suited Robert Preston), who’s got his eye on Marian (Shirley Jones), the town’s liberal librarian. A huckster selling musical instruments, Hill has got to drum up the disasters of youthful desire, then perfectly pitch the remedy, a marching band of countless trombones and brassy uniforms. The Music Man is brimming with memorable music, including the pre-rap rollick “Rock Island,” the alarming “Trouble,” that tongue-twisting tune “Gary, Indiana,” the lithe love song “Till There Was You,” and, of course, the blustering band number, “Seventy-Six Trombones.” Meredith Willson’s bit of Americana laps up the folksy wisdom and popular tunes of the period, high-stepping from start to finish, but there is trouble simmering below the surface. Is it a loss of innocence? Or a shift in the marketplace? The Professor can only offer a temporary band-aid.

Bye Bye Birdie starring Janet Leigh, Ann-Margret & Dick Van Dyke; (1963) - In March 1958, Elvis Presley was drafted. Two years later, writers Charles Strouse and Lee Adams drafted fifteen songs charting the delirium that descends upon Sweet Apple, Ohio, when Conrad Birdie (Jesse Pearson) arrives for his parting kiss before entering the army. Conrad, as you might guess, is a jelly-rolled rocker, an “honestly sincere” parody of the King himself. The bobbysoxer chosen to share that last kiss is Kim, a fifteen-year-old blossom played by Ann-Margret in full bloom. Bye Bye Birdie wants it both ways: focusing on lil’ Kim pursued by teen bopper Bobby Rydell, the musical also gives adulthood equal time with the riveting Rosie (Janet Leigh) and her beau Albert (Dick Van Dyke). The youngsters get that paean to lip-lock “One Last Kiss” and a hymn to hormones, “A Lot of Livin’ to Do,” while the parents get the death of attitude in “Put On a Happy Face” and a declaration of alienation in “Kids.” This boisterous “bye bye” was also a big hello for Ann-Margret.

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The final program tht interests me is a Jacques Tati retrospective. I'm not familiar with Tati. I may have heard his name but when I read the synopses, I can't recall seeing any of his films. His works are praised by many including Hell on Frisco Bay.

“Comedy is the summit of logic.”—Jacques Tati

He is best remembered as Monsieur Hulot: with his jutting pipe and storklike walk, addressing the world at an acute angle, Jacques Tati’s signature character is almost as iconic as Chaplin’s Little Tramp. Born Jacques Tatischeff, Tati (1907–1982) got his start in the 1930s music hall with humorous sketches miming various sports, and his talent for physical comedy, embodied in the immortal Hulot, is one of his great contributions to film history. Even greater, though, is his exacting work behind the camera. Tati has been described as the cinema’s foremost antimodern modernist; his precisely arranged images and inventive soundtracks underline the alienation and oddity of everyday twentieth-century life. Satire aside, the films—presented here in new prints—are full of the pleasures of observation, of watching and listening. As Jonathan Rosenbaum said of Playtime, Tati “turns the very acts of seeing and hearing into a form of dancing.”

Several of the films in the series are also screening at the YBCA in January as well.