Tokyo-Ga

Tokyo-Ga (Wim Wenders documentary tribute to Japanese filmmaker, Yosujiro Ozu) is an exercise in paradox. It captures something infinitesimally complex, while remaining utterly simple. It not only is related to Ozu, but rather, it embodies Ozu to such an extent that one might say it IS Ozu, embodied in the celluloid itself. The images of Japan, particularly of the "fake food," show something of the culture clash in which Ozu was continually interested. As the fake food is made more and more to look like real food, the real food itself begins to resemble more and more the fake food (or so one might suppose from the subtle hints given in Tokyo-Ga). Thus, the modern, mass-produced consumer society becomes increasingly inauthentic, while the traditional, minimally-produced past remains as a memory of a truly authentic life. And yet, it's not so clear as that, is it? We also see the craft and the artist's attention to detail in these foods, we see an authentic appreciation for their own work and the work of others in their field. And we see women throughout the cityscape of Tokyo; confident and self-assured women, emancipated from the shackles of a bygone era. In this sense, the past becomes a memory plagued by codes of conduct and expectation which are ultimately inauthentic in their insistence on binary-gender roles. Tokyo-Ga, in all of its delicate subtlety shows, as does the best work of Ozu, the clash between modernity and tradition. It reveals to us our own inward sense of distrust for both tradition and modernity and begs us to demand a third way, a symbiotic embrace of means beyond the confines of both what has been and what is yet to be.

Godfrey Reggio

"I had the chance to see a film that actually provided me with a spiritual experience like I'd never received before...I was so moved myself by that personal experience I had, that it was not about entertainment, it was someone using an artform of the twentieth century to touch the souls of other people."

--Godfrey Reggio

Shoah

Sitting through this nine hour film was a heavy task. Shoah, a film by Claude Lanzmann, has wrecked me. It wasn't the duration of the piece which did the most damage, it was the incredibly insightful yet terrifying content. Shoah consists almost entirely of interviews with people who were involved in various ways in the Holocaust (both survivors and perpetrators), and visits to places that are discussed in the film. The interviews themselves are revelatory as they show the deep anguish and endless resilience of these individuals who survived the Nazi death camps. Shoah reveals itself like an onion, layer by layer, beginning slowly while progressively going deeper and deeper into the sordid realities of the concentration camps. Claude Lanzmann reveals the inner-workings of the death camps through many interviews with ex-Nazi officials, provoking them to explain in horrifying detail the minutiae of their operations. To see and hear the whole thing laid out so meticulously with such particularity was to feel my soul shudder. This is one of the most important documentaries ever made. Shoah offers a compendium of stories which must be told in order that we as human beings never forget that such tragedy is part of our collective history. Lanzmann's film shook me to the core, yet still, I'd rather accept this knowledge of tragedy and history than remain comfortable yet ignorant (or complacent).

--Art Kasmer

Nobody Knows

Nobody Knows is a quiet, powerful film, directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda. I was moved almost to tears upon entering the beautiful, tortured world of this film. Something stirred deep within my consciousness and a sensation of overwhelming sympathy gripped me so tightly that I could hardly think of moving. The story centers around a group of brothers and sisters in Japan (the oldest sibling being in the 6th grade) who are abandoned by their mother. They have some cash, but not much else in terms of basic necessities. The enduring thing they have, beyond the cash, is each other. Thus, they've got both love and solidarity amongst their small sibling band. And despite the horror of their circumstances, these children somehow manage to maintain a precious kind of joy amidst their ever-growing sorrow and fear.

I noticed that as the children's situation grew worse, and as their time without a mother grew increasingly longer, the shots and the time in between cuts also grew in length. Kore-eda's use of these filmic elements amounts to a powerful aesthetic. It's a rare case in which the aesthetic temperament completes the mode and tone of the film in an abundant symbiosis of its various parts. Hirokazu Kore-eda cares about the search...the search for meaning, truth, and all those subtle moments where human consciousness is revealed through the cinematic eye. Nobody knows is indeed a quiet film, yet it is this very quality that gives it the force of a powerful explosion in awareness. This film came to me then, like a small voice, uttering simple yet deeply meaningful words of honesty. Yet this quiet voice is not the voice of complicity--No, it is a voice whose lessons demand to be heard. It is a voice provoking contemplation and reflection on the human condition and the search for truth in cinema and life. To be engaged in such a work of art was an abundant pleasure and one which I'll continue to cherish. Thank you, Hirokazu Kore-Eda, for caring.

--Art Kasmer

Mouchette

Minimal. Brutal. Perfect. Mouchette is the tale of a tortured young girl in a world overcome by corruption. There is no break for the viewer, no respite. We are not let off so easily. There is Mouchette herself. Her goodness goes unseen and completely rejected by all but a few characters within the film. And we suspect that even those few don't really understand her, or don't really care as much as they'd like us to believe. Director Robert Bresson, portrays a world full of maddness, not only through the narrative construct, but through his characteristically sharp editing and unobtrusive camera. He deals it out raw, unheeded by the trappings of hollywood melodrama or theater's emotional manipulation. Bresson has chosen abnegation over the pleasures of visual and auditory (emotional) immersion, but the result is all-encompassing. We're drawn in so completely into Bresson's vision. Its simplicity hammers home a reality that is nothing short of life itself; full of mystery and complexity. Beware and take heed, for Mouchette will change you.

--Art Kasmer

Francois Truffaut

"Is cinema more important than life?" --Francois Truffaut

"Taste is the result of a thousand distastes." --Francoise Truffaut

Wedlock House: an intercourse

Wedlock House: an intercourse, is an incredible film made by avant-garde filmmaker Stan Brakhage in 1959. I just saw this film for the first time and I'm practically speechless. The subtle visual aroma drifting from the screen had me enraptured. The film is completely silent. It chronicles the daily struggles and cyclical encounters inherent in the nature of relationships between couples in the post-modern world. The couple in question are none other than Stan and Jane Brakhage. Through the filmmaking process, Brakhage thrusts their life onto the screen...gives it to us in full. But his exposition of life's pains and forebearances comes to us through a poetic juxtaposition of images culled from the pragmatic poetry of being. His work screams at us with a visceral aesthetic so true to life, that it calls upon the viewer to question the relationship of cinema to life and vice versa. This film seems to call us out on our own shortcomings as it begs us to engage with not only the film itself, but with our own lives in new and potent ways. We're forced into admitting our own complicity with failure, while at the same time being compelled to build something new...something lasting.

--Art Kasmer