VIFF: Day 8

Merry-Go-Round (2010)
Yan Yan Mak and Clement Cheng
Hong Kong

Gallants might be the Clement Cheng film that everyone is talking about, but the Vancouver native also has a second 2010 film, Merry-Go-Round. Co-directed with up-and-coming female director Yan Yan Mak, Merry-Go-Round passes on parody and laughs in favor of humanism and drama. The film cleverly combines four individuals, two generations and two continents into a story about immigration and emigration. The film opens in San Francisco where Eva (played by 70s kung fu star Nora Miao) is a traditional Chinese doctor and Nam is a young lost soul looking for herself. The two of them both make the trip to Hong Kong to deal with unfinished business. Nam lands a job in a a coffin depository that is overseen by Hill (played by the Gallant crowd-please Teddy Robin Kwan). Eva returns to her father's herbal medicine shop to persuade her nephew, Fung, not to sell the family property. Eventually the storyline draws the four of them together in somewhat unexpected ways but with somewhat expected results. Mak and Cheng earn huge marks for the casting of Kwan and Miao, the latter an icon that has seen little screen time in the last 30 years. Cheng, tipping his hand as the kung fu fan that Gallants proves him to be, has one very satisfying scene where Eva gives her nephew the kind of smackdown that she was doing in films like Fist of Fury. Merry-Go-Round champions an independent feel that is rare in Hong Kong film, but unfortunately much of the drama suffers from the incessant pop-infused soundtrack. Rising stars in the field, Clement Cheng and Yan Yan Mak are two to watch.


The Fourth Portrait (2010)
Chung Mong-hong
Taiwan

Chung Mong-hong is yet another discovery, at least for me, from Taiwan. Although The Fourth Portrait is only his second feature, it's enough of a standout to chase down his first feature, Parking. The Fourth Portrait is inventively paced and beautifully shot. Xiang is ten years old and his father has just died. It rests upon his shoulders to go home and find his father's nicest suit and his best photograph. Unable to find a photo, Xiang produces the first portrait that sets up the film's modest narrative drive. Although it is clear that we will see three more portraits drawn by Xiang, they turn out to be unusual signposts in his journey. While the narrative moves forward, Chung switches the gears ever-so-slightly so that The Fourth Portrait feels fresh. Xiang is left to fend for himself until he is caught stealing food by a stern but caring janitor who takes Xiang under his wing. Suddenly the path for where the film is going is clear. Not quite. The film shifts: Xiang's mother is found and is taking him to her home where she has a new husband and newly born child. Once again, the film seems to settle into a groove, but wrong again. Xiang is the befriended by an older hang-about who only seems to be good at petty crime. Chung does this a few more times slowly working its way through Xiang's four portraits. Make no doubt about it, The Fourth Portrait is a coming of age story, but one told with inventive spirit and sophistication.


The Ugly Duckling (2010)
Garri Bardin
Russia/France

Garri Bardin's stop-motion animation of the much loved parable is at the very least a joy to watch. The creative character designs and slightly socialist connotation brings something totally new to the tale. The diabolical ducklings and the alien-headed goslings never failed to get a chuckle out of me. The operatic over-the-top score, however, is as pummeling as the relentless oppression of our poor ugly little duckling. There's an overwhelming cynicism to this adaptation that felt unnecessary.

Gallants (2010)
Derek Kwok and Clement Cheng
Hong Kong

So glad I got to see extremely fun film on the big screen in a packed house. Gallants is a loving homage to the kung fu films from the 60s and 70s ala Shaw Brothers and Bruce Lee. Clement Cheng this time aligns himself with Derek Kwok, someone he has worked with before as a screenwriter and who is breaking out onto the Hong Kong scene. In a sleepy part of Hong Kong, a helpless young man by the name of Leung has been sent to settle a property dispute. On his route he is bullied by a little kid, who Leung in turn bullies only to get bullied by the kid's father. A passerby takes pity on Leung and stops the very uneven fight. The selfless hero turns out to be the be the aging but legendary Tiger. Tiger and his fellow martial arts brother Dragon have been quietly holding vigil over their master, Law, who has been in a coma for 30 years. Old rivalries ignite as well as the fighting passion within Leung as master Law miraculously awakes to his biggest challenge yet! The brilliance of Gallants is not only in the overt style that Kwok and Cheng chooses to parody with great wit, but also in its cast. The trio of old-timers—Bruce Leung, Chen Kuan-tai and Teddy Robin Kwan—deliver more charisma than seems fair for one movie. Clement Cheng himself must be a creative force to be reckoned with, working on projects as diverse as Gallants and Merry-Go-Round. Gallants is not going to move mountains, but it sure is a raucous romp and a must see for any fan of the genre.

Rubber (2010)
Quentin Dupieux
France/USA

Rubber is occasionally very clever, occasionally very funny, occasionally overly self-conscious and occasionally too redundant. A movie within a movie (but more importantly, an audience watching an audience), Rubber tells the tale of a rogue tire—abandoned in the desert and gaining a taste for blood (or more accurately gaining a taste for blowing things up with its tire-mind.) The introduction to the film comes from a police officer who pops out of the trunk of a car to explain that things in movies happen for no reason. Why is E.T. brown? No reason. Why do the two people in Love Story fall madly in love? No reason. Why does a complete stranger assassinate the president in JFK. No reason. And so it goes. Most things happen in Rubber for—you guessed it—no reason, and for almost half the film it is interesting. Rubber is very strange and it doesn't really work overall, but compared to the other midnight film (L.A. Zombie which I will get to in my next update), Rubber looks like a masterpiece.

Fortune tellers and fairy tales. VIFF: Day 3

Seven Days in Heaven (2010)
Wang Yu-lin, Essay Liu
Taiwan

A perfectly calculated dramody, Seven Days in Heaven is an excellent representation of a mainstream film from Taiwan that will probably never find its way across the Taiwan Straight or the South China Sea, let alone the Pacific Ocean. Debut directors, Wang Yu-lin and Essay Liu, effortlessly combine refreshing humor and bittersweet sorrow that feels honest to the characters they represent. After Lin Guo-yan passes away, his family and friends congregate for a funeral with all the Buddhist bells and whistles. Steeped in rigorous tradition, the funeral must be carried out with specified ritual and seven days of mourning. The majority of this burden falls on Lin's daughter, Mei, and son, Da-zhi. The two follow all the filial obligations while also dealing with their very mixed emotions. Presiding over the ceremony is Yi, an eccentric Taoist priest and hobbyist poet, and his multifaceted girlfriend who works as a professional mourner, karaoke singer and all around charmer. The script is whip-smart and is able to build the characters into unique yet familiar individuals. Light and entertaining, Seven Days balances complex emotions with ironic wit into a very sweet affair of the heart.


Pinoy Sunday (2010)
Ho Wi Ding
Taiwan

Pinoy Sunday is a buddy film about two immigrant Filipino workers in Taiwan. With the promise of higher wages, Manuel and Dado travel far from their home as contract workers in a bicycle manufacturing plant. Manuel is the free spirit and smooth talker who worries more about chasing girls than being deported for curfew violations. Dado is a family man who left a wife and daughter back in the Philippines and is now guilt ridden about the girlfriend he has in his new home. Down on their luck and feeling low, Manuel and Dado spot an expensive abandoned sofa that symbolizes a brighter future for the two of them. The only problem is how the money-strapped duo will get the sofa back across town before their curfew. Like a hybrid 48 Hours, Pinoy Sunday tracks their mission impossible from city center to police station to river crossing. Unfortunately Manuel and Dado are sketched as caricatures and never allow the film to levitate beyond its own contrivances. As they bicker their way across town, they are scripted into corners of calculated humor. It's hard to take either of their characters seriously, even when they are being serious, and that likewise carries over to the entire film.


Peace (2010)
Soda Kazuhiro
Japan/USA

A simply yet poetic "observation film," Peace was commission by the DMZ Documentary Film Festival, a festival that highlights the complicated issues at the North and South Korea Demilitarized Zone. Kazuhiro's film focuses on the humanitarian work of Kashiwagi Toshio and his wife Hiroko. The couple run a non-profit to help the elderly and disabled who do not have the ability to drive. The people they visit, help and just spend time with are those cast aside with little or no support system left. There kind-hearted endeavors carry over to the gang of motley cats that take refuge in their backyard. Also unwanted by the majority of society, the cats become an allegory for the disabled and the infirmed. Kazuhiro's gentle portrait finds a simple power in humanity and kindness - an onscreen rarity.

The Sleeping Beauty (2010)
Catherine Breillat
France

Coming at this film with only a Walt Disney knowledge of the fairy tell "Sleeping Beauty" is not going to help anyone. Catherine Breillat tackles her second fairy tale in so many years with surreal and abstract panache. And while the origins of Bluebeard's sinisterness is obvious, The Sleeping Beauty's is buried within Charles Perrault's original from 1697 as well as other adaptations that followed. But even full knowledge of these texts may not help navigate Breillat's obscure intentions with this lavishly detailed but highly digressive adaptation. Much like the original, a young princess is cursed at birth to fall into a deep sleep that will last 100 years. But here is where the film splits with the text as Breillat freely improvises a surreal world that feels merely inspired by the fairy tale. Anastasia, as the princess is named here, spends much of the film wandering a dreamworld that she enters after impaling (not pricking) her hand. The Sleeping Beauty is full of the most striking images that resonate and leave an impression: vultures perched in a tree with a slate-grey sky; they young girl riding a deer in a pink outfit through a snowy landscape; the ogre covered in boils who challenges the young girl. Unfortunately the narrative details become as confounding and tedious as the ambiguous logic behind this loosely woven story. Fairy tales, and their perverse subtexts, seem perfect for Breillat's keen eye for social and sexual politics, but this one is far too drawn out and elusive, even for this fan.


Fortune Teller (2009)
Xu Tong
China

Armed with an HD camera, Xu Tong has made one of the bravest documentaries I have ever seen. Brave, not so much because of the risk or the strength it took to make Fortune Teller, but brave because the importance of the subject matter is placed ahead of the importance of the audience. Xu Tong takes a long look (2 1/2 hours) at Li Baicheng, a traditional Chinese fortune teller, and his wife Pearl Shi. Both are physically disabled and int their 60s, and Pearl is also mentally disabled. The couple, and most the people they come in contact with, represent the fringes of the fringes of Chinese society. Its a completely engrossing examination that is as rewarding as it is painful. I was completely galvanized. (This is an international premiere for Fortune Teller and I plan on spending some time on a full review.)