Here, Then finally gets a UK release this month thanks to world cinema distributor Second Run. An almost impenetrable study of the disenfranchisement of youth, Here, Then is a film in the tradition of Mao's compatriots Jia Zhanghe and other purveyors of slow cinema - which rewards patience and an analytical appreciation of cinema.
In a remote Chinese village lies a lost generation of youngsters, each patiently waiting for their fate to roll around the corner and send them in the right direction, yet they are eternally disillusioned.
Mao uses long takes thanks to the cinematography of Liu Ai Guo weaving these seemingly unrelated narrative strands into one sparse realm of alienation. Detached from both the action and the characters on screen, Mao Mao continues a recent trend in Chinese cinema of creating films which deftly enter the oblique ponderous space of our subconscious, allowing us to consider each action as we attempt to delve into the roots of this character's anxieties.
This is most apparent when the director chooses to portray a rape scene in all of its gory glory. From the outset the young female is resistant to the attack, yet slowly she gives in and the man has his way with her - yet why is this scene shown other than it being an example of the ugliness of these young people and the coldness of their actions.
Perhaps Mao is attempting to make a statement on the disillusionment of this lost generation and the current state of ennui within the large youth population of China. All we learn is how empty these character's lives are and how little they have going for them.
That may sound dispiriting, yet Mao shoots with a real confidence and slight touch that is both chilling and professional.
Here, Then is out now on DVD from Second Run DVD
Showing posts with label Slow cinema. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Slow cinema. Show all posts
Thursday, 4 July 2013
Sunday, 22 January 2012
Liverpool
I remember when I went to the London Film Festival in 2009, and there was a lot of talk about a small film from Argentina called Liverpool. I remember being a little struck by the title seeing as it is the hometown of my mother and wanting to see it, yet being unable to.
I always remember the title and now thanks to Second Run DVD, (who specialise in auteur cinema from third world countries and directors who fail to get home entertainment release) Lisandro Alonso's fourth feature film is gaining a DVD release in the UK having failed to garner a distributor in this country.
In the same vein of his previous work, it follows a lonely soul on a journey of discovery. In this case, a sailor, Farrel, leaves his ship and begins a lengthy journey to wintry Tierra del Fuego’s interior, to an isolated village and family that he hasn’t seen in years. We gradually piece together his relationship with the people and community he finds there on a journey that looks familiar to him. From the opening sequences on Farrel’s ship, to the spectacular harshness of his destination, Alonso is meticulous in mapping the sights and sounds of the landscape and Farrel’s personal journey into the past.
Alonso's influences of film are far reaching from that of fellow Argentinian and South American luminaries to that of the mythology of American cinema and the cowboy in the Westerns.
Alonso can be noted as nothing but courageous in his narrative storytelling, in a film where you are asked to invest a lot of time with one character Alonso does this amazingly brash about turn in the story as our focus must switch to someone else. As the previous character exits, it reminded me of Alan Ladd as Shane in the synonymous film who walks off into the sunset, seemingly never to return - the mythology and convention of the western can be seen in the small town, the wanderer as a lonesome figure and the journey as a rite of passage and possible redemption (as with John Wayne in The Searchers).
Whilst it is a trying experience at times due to the facet of slow cinema in which this piece of cinema can sit next to the work Bela Tarr; it is nonetheless a rewarding watch should you stick with it.
The DVD is presented in a brand new director-approved anamorphic digital transfer and also includes Untitled (Letter for Serra) / Sin tÃtulo (Carta para Serra) – a new short film by
Lisandro Alonso, available for the first time anywhere on DVD.
The work of Lisandro Alonso is part of Slow Cinema Weekend as part of the AV Festival in Newcastle, Liverpool is screening on Sunday 11th March
Liverpool is released on DVD from Second Run for £12.99 and is 82 minutes long with Spanish subtitles
I always remember the title and now thanks to Second Run DVD, (who specialise in auteur cinema from third world countries and directors who fail to get home entertainment release) Lisandro Alonso's fourth feature film is gaining a DVD release in the UK having failed to garner a distributor in this country.
In the same vein of his previous work, it follows a lonely soul on a journey of discovery. In this case, a sailor, Farrel, leaves his ship and begins a lengthy journey to wintry Tierra del Fuego’s interior, to an isolated village and family that he hasn’t seen in years. We gradually piece together his relationship with the people and community he finds there on a journey that looks familiar to him. From the opening sequences on Farrel’s ship, to the spectacular harshness of his destination, Alonso is meticulous in mapping the sights and sounds of the landscape and Farrel’s personal journey into the past.
Alonso's influences of film are far reaching from that of fellow Argentinian and South American luminaries to that of the mythology of American cinema and the cowboy in the Westerns.
Alonso can be noted as nothing but courageous in his narrative storytelling, in a film where you are asked to invest a lot of time with one character Alonso does this amazingly brash about turn in the story as our focus must switch to someone else. As the previous character exits, it reminded me of Alan Ladd as Shane in the synonymous film who walks off into the sunset, seemingly never to return - the mythology and convention of the western can be seen in the small town, the wanderer as a lonesome figure and the journey as a rite of passage and possible redemption (as with John Wayne in The Searchers).
Whilst it is a trying experience at times due to the facet of slow cinema in which this piece of cinema can sit next to the work Bela Tarr; it is nonetheless a rewarding watch should you stick with it.
The DVD is presented in a brand new director-approved anamorphic digital transfer and also includes Untitled (Letter for Serra) / Sin tÃtulo (Carta para Serra) – a new short film by
Lisandro Alonso, available for the first time anywhere on DVD.
The work of Lisandro Alonso is part of Slow Cinema Weekend as part of the AV Festival in Newcastle, Liverpool is screening on Sunday 11th March
Liverpool is released on DVD from Second Run for £12.99 and is 82 minutes long with Spanish subtitles
Monday, 23 May 2011
Le Quattro Volte
The long awaited sophomore feature from Italian, Michelangelo Frammartino, is released on Friday 27th May; and his second feature after 2004's Il dono (The Gift). First screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010, the film is unclassifiable, not tied to any genre specifically but undoubtedly the best cinematic use of goats in film history.
The film's title can be translated as the 'four seasons' or the 'four turns' but is based upon the ideas of animism and reincarnation. As Frammartino states in the production notes, "Man is made of mineral, because he has a skeleton; he's a plant, because he has blood flowing through his veins like sap; he's an animal, because he has mobility; and he's also a rational being. So in order to fully understand himself, a man has to understand himself four times."
The film follows a goatherd - and to quote a Sound of Music - he is a lonely one at that, he works tirelessly and only for the goats, he drinks water with dust mixed in with it, to tend to a tickling cough but it is given to him by the church - the tradition being that it translates as dust being a little particle of God, and dust is the first thing you can see in the light - as you head for heaven. We are witnessing the final days of an elderly man.
But it is the goats who are the stars of the show in this instance, and once the old man passes on, we are greeted with the birth of a kid goat - the film follows the kid on its first steps, before it rests by a fir tree. It then renders its gaze on the tree through the seasons, before it is felled and re-erected in a village for a festival, then chopped into logs and entombed in another scarazzo.
This mise-en-scene is familiar to doyens and followers of the 'slow cinema' so prevelant in European cinema under the watchful auteur eye of Bela Tarr mostly and endorsed by such directors as Abbas Kiarostami.
Whilst the documentary eye of Frammartino is all encompassing, the necessity of these long takes where nothing happens is actually a narrative requirement and part of its development.
Not to say it is all slow and monotonous, Frammartino works a wonderful sight gag into the mix that has to be seen to be believed.
Shooting on a landscape close to the director's home, the film has his indelible thumbprint upon proceedings although it does need to tip its hat to the work of James Benning who gave us 13 Lakes, a director who can take inanimate or non-human objects as the basis for narrative focus and tell a convincing story in the process.
Frammartino does something more than that; he gives us a film that is poetic, spiritual, theological and strangely uplifting at the same time, that is without noting how beautiful the film looks with its sweeping vistas and landscapes, photographed by Andrea Locatelli. A film that is both surreal and real, rational and theoretical, it is a hidden gem and bares to be seen by an audience wider than the typical arthouse crowd.
The film's title can be translated as the 'four seasons' or the 'four turns' but is based upon the ideas of animism and reincarnation. As Frammartino states in the production notes, "Man is made of mineral, because he has a skeleton; he's a plant, because he has blood flowing through his veins like sap; he's an animal, because he has mobility; and he's also a rational being. So in order to fully understand himself, a man has to understand himself four times."
The film follows a goatherd - and to quote a Sound of Music - he is a lonely one at that, he works tirelessly and only for the goats, he drinks water with dust mixed in with it, to tend to a tickling cough but it is given to him by the church - the tradition being that it translates as dust being a little particle of God, and dust is the first thing you can see in the light - as you head for heaven. We are witnessing the final days of an elderly man.
But it is the goats who are the stars of the show in this instance, and once the old man passes on, we are greeted with the birth of a kid goat - the film follows the kid on its first steps, before it rests by a fir tree. It then renders its gaze on the tree through the seasons, before it is felled and re-erected in a village for a festival, then chopped into logs and entombed in another scarazzo.
This mise-en-scene is familiar to doyens and followers of the 'slow cinema' so prevelant in European cinema under the watchful auteur eye of Bela Tarr mostly and endorsed by such directors as Abbas Kiarostami.
Whilst the documentary eye of Frammartino is all encompassing, the necessity of these long takes where nothing happens is actually a narrative requirement and part of its development.
Not to say it is all slow and monotonous, Frammartino works a wonderful sight gag into the mix that has to be seen to be believed.
Shooting on a landscape close to the director's home, the film has his indelible thumbprint upon proceedings although it does need to tip its hat to the work of James Benning who gave us 13 Lakes, a director who can take inanimate or non-human objects as the basis for narrative focus and tell a convincing story in the process.
Frammartino does something more than that; he gives us a film that is poetic, spiritual, theological and strangely uplifting at the same time, that is without noting how beautiful the film looks with its sweeping vistas and landscapes, photographed by Andrea Locatelli. A film that is both surreal and real, rational and theoretical, it is a hidden gem and bares to be seen by an audience wider than the typical arthouse crowd.
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