Jimmy Buffett the funloving waterman singer songwriter party mon surfer died to start September 2023. Those of us who love him and his music felt a loss/a vacuum that suddenly opened up, filling with our grief . . . . as we celebrated his music — Jimmy wouldn’t want us to dwell on sadness. Be here now! Enjoy every day to the fullest! Be HAPPY! . . . and when adversity strikes. . . Breathe in . . . Breathe out . . . Move on . . . . If you click on the below video, Dear Faithful Parrotheads & Friends, a 2-minute video version of the poem ‘When I Get Emotional (for Jimmy Buffett)’ will roll. If probb, can then click on link below thumbnail to alternately view the Key West Labor Day parading for Jimmy, and my poetic reaction to that — and Jimmy not being here above ground with us anymore, but his music is! Mailboat’s in!! Mailboat’s in …
Claude Mayers will participate at an Open Mic reading starting at 8 PM at The Gallery Art Bar, 310 14th St. Oakland, Ca 94612. Dope Era Poetry is the name of the poetry reading series. He will start with a line from Rumi linked to his Empathy Haiku 2019, and proceed from there . . .
Good Morning Everybody, Big day for us Americans! Robert Mueller testifies starting any time after 8 AM. Eastern Standard Time. Tune in to your favorite network and watch it or record it all. This is important history!! First the Judiciary Committee. Then I believe in the afternoon the Intelligence Committee. He will have the brilliant dedicated co-overseer of the investigation Aaron Zabley beside him in the AM and sworn in by the Intelligence Committee for that committee’s hearing. Remind all your friends and enemies that this is happening TODAY!! starting in about half an hour. Gavel bangs for questioning at 8:30 AM. Mueller’s opening statement before that; and different text opening statement for the Intelligence Committee, as yet unreleased. Total time testifying before both committees could total five (5) hours.
Poems relevant for you now. Keep your ears open this historic July 2019 day!!
‘Green Book’ you may know has been widely acclaimed by 2019, garnering Golden Globe awards for Best Movie (Comedy or Musical) and Best Screenplay. It starts out at the Copacabana in Manhattan in 1962, then goes to the Bronx. There are two terrific stars in this movie: the bouncer (Viggo Mortensen) and the stylish prodigy black jazz musician (Mahershala Ali – playing the role of Don Shirley (a real person)), who is about to launch a tour of the American south back in those dangerous times for a Negro. The ‘Green Book’ referred to in the movie’s title, is the ‘Negro Motorist Green Book’ – a guide to find welcoming places to stay for people of color. Mister Ali won the Golden Globe for Best Male Supporting Actor, but I think both the lead actors in this film deserved the highest awards for their performances. This movie tells a timely, truly rewarding story, brilliantly portrayed, and appreciated for the all-time classic quality of its rendering by one of our finest cinema organizations. You must go see this movie, if you see just one movie this year, Claude tells you now, to start this updated set of reviews completed in January of 2019.
‘Happy As Lazzaro’ was a mythical Italian movie with unexpected turns and whirls of the plot and timeline. Based on a Lazarus type of protagonist initially in a sharecropper setting. Things get crazy with Lazzaro and his extreme naivete. Plus there is the Marchesa and her brat of a son, whose land is being sharecropped, who take advantage of all their unsophisticated workers.
‘Leto’ was a wonderful movie capturing Soviet 1980’s music that was surprisingly beautiful and sometimes kickass. The musicians in the movie are portrayed amidst what was happening in the western rock milieu from Bowie to Lou Reed to Blondie, whom they adored while trying to create their own music. Victor Tsoi was a hero to many,
he being the handsome 2nd lead in Leto. A movie of music to immerse yourself in, featuring street singing into the soundtrack by local Soviets of all ages on buses and trolleys, with artwork overdrawn on the cinema figures. Censorship is addressed when the developing band presented their lyrics to a communist approval process, so they could play at a government maintained venue to young enthusiastic fans.
‘Henri Dauman – Looking Up’ is about a holocaust survivor photographer who meets success first in the magazine world, and then goes on to shoot intimate revealing iconic photos of many of the famous personalities of the past 60 years, from Marilyn Monroe to Jackie Kennedy to Elvis Presley. His well-collected and elaborately filed
contact sheets prove to be fantastic documentation of the period, that the art world seizes on to lead Dauman to his belated entry to his legendary fame. The film needs editing, as it keeps what should be outtakes of Dauman speaking, to slightly annoy us, rather than pick the best take in each framing of Henri saying whatever he reveals. Includes this fact you probably don’t know: because Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis’ manager, was actually in the USA illegally (but he
was white, white privilege, actually a Dutch citizen), Elvis NEVER performed abroad, Henri tells us.
Dauman was separated from his family as a child but was re-united with his mother in France at age 12. Unfortunately, as in ‘Dead Pigs’ (the Chinese movie) there was a problem with an ingested entity, in this case bicarbonate of soda that his mother took one night that she purchased at the chemist. Which led to her rapid death in a few days when Henri was only 13, leaving him an orphan for good, this time. His father had been shipped to Auschwitz where he was exterminated. Thereafter, Henri crossed the Atlantic to America, and resided in New York City, photographing especially buildings while Looking Up as his uniquely exploited perspective. Thus, the film’s subtitled name.
Allow me now to document some of the best shorts in the festival, which today you may be able to see on TV and internet channels like ShortsTV and Link-TV, plus Vimeo and Youtube. From the ‘Never Going Back Again’ shorts program: ‘Raymonde Or The Vertical Escape’ was one of the best films in the festival. Terrific colorful imaginative unique animation. French. About a dowdy older hen who has waited and sacrificed her life but now she longs for love. Two rather sexual faeries circle around her while the film progresses through several scenes. Highly recommended to see a few times before you die! But an adult film, not for kids really. Delightful overall.
‘I Am Bisha: The Rebel Puppeteers Of Sudan’ follows Omar Ganja as he brings his larger than lifesize puppet of Sudan’s longtime dictator ‘Bisha’ from town to town as a way of informing the people about the country’s goings on. Everyone doesn’t have a television or access to radio news in poverty and war-stricken Sudan, in Africa. A very interesting perspective about culture, information, and the horrid politics of another oppressive dictator taking advantage of ‘his’ people, for decades now, unfortunately.
‘The Driver Is Red’ is a unique short that is animated in a ‘Dragnet’ [old 1950s TV show] style. Packed with facts about Hitler and his Nazis presented very concisely, in shady colors. 1960s Buenos Aires, Argentina, Israeli secret agent hunts down Adolf Eichmann, Hitler’s prime engineer of extermination. Very informative plus intriguing for the eye, but dark, not pretty.
‘Magic Alps’ follows an Afghan refugee to Italy, where authorities are perturbed by the dilemma of granting asylum for him, but not his beloved goat, whom/which he has taken with him during a prolonged journey to one day see/reach the ‘Magic Alps.’ A different kind of immigration tale.
‘Would You Look At Her’ is a short film from Macedonia, where the boys are very misogynistic, and the tomboy heroine won’t take any guff. This results in the latter being sexually (verbally) degraded on the school bus, and one of the boys grabbing her phone and flinging it out the window. She jumps off the bus to almost retrieve it, but a tractor gets to it first, running it over with its huge tires, and crushing it into uselessness before our appalled eyes. Her grandfather is very ill, and there is the diving for the cross, which if secured when the misogynistic (also) priest throws it in the river, will also result in winning the prize of a new phone, in addition to its religious ramifications. But a female has never tried to enter this annual contest. See what happens when our heroine pushes back to enter the fray. A very timely film in today’s retro-repressive environment for women’s liberation. Best line in the film: sickly grandfather is seemingly forever watching TV in the family house – his daughter jokes: “If the cross won’t cure him, the flatscreen will.”
‘Skip Day’ is a USA/UK film about black high school kids in Pahokee, Florida skipping school one day, an annual tradition, and renting cars, driving 60 miles north to a beautiful beach, where they spend most of the day dialoguing and playing in and by the ocean. An interesting view of the black southern USA high school age experience and culture.
The ‘Let’s Go Crazy’ shorts program featured a great Romanian short: ‘Offstage’ about a dignified thespian exiting an evening event by himself, two fans coming up to him, a young couple, requesting his autograph, then selfies with each of them, he finally waving them off, walking along a sidewalk, you see a woman coming up behind him with a wooden plank, swinging it…and then he is in a kitchen, duct-taped to a rolling office chair, mouth also covered. There are two people there with him, he is very perplexed, we have no idea why he would be where he is, and who these people are, and what they want with him. It seems to be a terrorist scenario, but it is much more crazy than that! Dark but hilarious!! A MUST-SEE!!!
‘Milk And Cookies’ is a delightful 8 minute USA short about a little single-mothered 5 year old girl who just obsessively LOVES her milk and cookies! But she is reminded while riding in her car seat by her mother: “Weekends OK. Weekdays no way.” The plot to subvert this mantra is the story here.
I hate cruise ships and cruises, which is what ‘All Inclusive’ captures flowingly and beautifully, without comment, in this eye-catching 10 minute Swiss-made film with music by Heidi Happy.
‘With Thelma’ is a French/Belgian short about two gay guys who have been summoned to watch the toddler niece of one of them, because her parents cannot return from overseas yet due to a natural disaster that has occurred. At times hilarious, the little girl is a great ham and loves the camera, and the lads focus theirs sometimes to excess, but mostly entertainingly in this era of iphones, when everyone can be a cinematographer.
‘To Plant A Flag’ starts with what looks like two astronauts in full white gear traversing a barren landscape in their bobbing space-buggy. Their mission is to plant a flag on a mountain, but things go awry when they end up confronting a hostile farmer who they underestimate, being two goofy turkeys actually themselves. Interesting humorous convolutions of the plot. A Norwegian/Icelandic production.
‘How To Swim’ is an Israeli film about a young pregnant woman befriending an older magnanimous woman in a mall, but our heroine is not what she seems…Very good! Don’t want to tell you too much of the story to spoil it for you…..
From the ‘New York Women In Film And Television: Women Calling The Shots’ annual program we first of all have ‘Death Metal Grandma’ about 94 year old holocaust survivor Inge Ginsberg wanting to fulfill her dream of being
the front-singer for a heavy metal band. Inge actually has written songs for Doris Day and Dean Martin; is a poet; and gets her opportunity to compete on a national talent show. Check the web for her videos. Charming film.
‘Hair Wolf’ is one of the best films in this year’s festival. Taking place in a Brooklyn hair salon for black women, the film surreally satirically incorporates hot-button historical and cultural points of black consciousness, with dynamic
colorful cinematography and humorous melodrama. LOVE IT!!! Find this one somewhere. It’s good for you in this time of increasingly disappointing racism and hate in Trump’s America. A much-too-short 12 minutes of soul candy!
‘Thin Ice’ is a tense humorous short taking place inside a Nederlands ice-rink. The attendant has a beautiful ditzy young lady in front of him insecurely babbling on, while he is surveilling this man sitting on a bench across the rink with a backpack, and his scarf pulled up over the lower half of his face. Terrorist paranoia and a plot that surprisingly quickly thickens to its climax….
‘The Little Goddess’ is similar to ‘I Am Bisha [Sudan]’ being about third-world street theater, filmed in full brilliant color. From India, the pre-teen young Goddess in the show is approached by a casting director to audition for a part that could be her big chance to escape from her oppressive poverty-stricken town. But her parents do not approve. Opportunity calls versus the family restrictions of ethnic tradition in the setting of possible female emancipation.
‘As Shadows’ is a southern USA short taking place in a late-night diner. The young female protagonist sitting in her booth interacts with a young man whom we are unsure about. Will he take advantage of her, or will he free her from whatever her trapped life has in store for her?
‘Lessons From A School Shooting: Notes From Dunblane’ parallels the 2012 Sandy Hook, Connecticut school massacre with the Dunblane school massacre in Scotland 15 years previously. The two priests involved as major characters in the tragedies get to interact in this movie and express the emotions, heartbreak and slow-but-painful yet insufficient healing that is occurring, but needs to occur much more optimally, or may never happen, in the souls of the town and especially those of the parents and families of those killed.
Ah, now I get to share with you comments about what is always the best bet for the best show in the Hamptons International Film Festival: the children’s shorts program, this year entitled: ‘ZOOM! Shorts For All Ages’ – – if you appreciate animation…. ‘Bilby’ was my favorite. It takes place in the outback (e.g., Australia) and from start to finish is a magic delight. Confrontations with snakes and lizards and other predators takes place, as Bilby attempts to survive, additionally having to reluctantly accept helping a defenseless baby bird. Beautiful imaginative terrific cartooning. Actually, a CLASSIC!! that will never grow old. 8 perfect minutes of cinematic ecstasy!
‘Elizabeth Sees’ is an animated Canadian short from the brilliant Val Magarian. Elizabeth is Val’s wise but blind aunt, whose life she documents with various types of imaging and artistically enhanced documentation. Music is lovely too. Highly recommended!!
‘Ian’ is about a physically challenged young boy who perseveres in the face of adversity. Lovely animation. Actually is about a real childhood friend of Argentinian director Abel Goldfarb, whom we get too see in real footage at the end of the film, smiling and optimistic.
https://filmguide.hamptonsfilmfest.org/films/ian/
‘One Small Step’ was the audience award winning short about a young girl who dreams of becoming an astronaut, in spite of being female. Her father is fully supportive. Endearing story. Animation, I give it an eh, as it is done in that hackneyed cliche Japanese style. Uplifting. In this time of the woman aspiring to be treated with justice, dignity and equality.
‘Starlight’ was about the weary old man who lights the stars at night. Depth of the images in a dark sky dimension is the main feature of the cartooning. 5 minutes/no dialogue.
‘Two Medusas’ is about a high school Halloween costume contest, where our protagonist discovers that another girl is also going to be Medusa, just like she had decided to be, expecting to win. The confidence and doubt of contest competition plays out.
The Narrative Short Film Competition Program was not quite as good overall as the other shorts programs I attended, but it did have ‘Fence “Ghardi”‘ which won the Best Narrative Short Film Award. Set somewhere in Kosovo, a young boy is intrigued by a Roma boy and a dog that hang out outside the metal fence that surrounds his house that he has to climb through. His existence inside his home is shown to be quite frustrating, so we
often see him negotiate the athletic manuevers to scale that fence.
‘Caroline’ is about three children whose single mother leaves them in a very hot car. 6-year-old Caroline, the eldest, has to become the leader of the trio, as concerned bystanders notice the endangered children, and are about to take appropriate action while the mother is missing. Takes place in Texas.
‘Feathers’ is shot in 5 chapters, about a boy growing up and anger. A peacock is featured in the most important scene. Quote from the film: “Don’t let anger confuse you.”
FYI: winner of audience award for Best Narrative Film was ‘The Hate You Give” which is already released into the theaters of America. A movie about a young black couple in modern racist USA. Just as a technicality as an HIFF filmgoer for 20 years: this was a so-called ‘Spotlight Film’ which I usually do not attend because 1) these films are usually commercially released soon after (or even during or before) the festival, while the international and short and other films may be more difficult to ever see again;
2) Spotlight films cost $28 to attend, which is kind of a crazy price to pay to see a movie – other films and programs are $15 at HIFF.
See reviews of films previously posted on Oct 4 and 5 for other great shorts you might want to see: especially ‘Provence,’ ‘Fauve’ and ‘Cross My Heart’ – all superb works you may enjoy on different levels depending on your preferences, ‘Provence’ being the most beautiful.
And one more, ‘The Biggest Little Farm’ winner Audience Award for Documentary Film. City chef moves north of Los Angeles to live a different life on a new patch of land.
‘The Proposal’ deals with the architecture and art of Mexico’s most renowned
architect, the late Luis Barragan, being sold in the biggest sale ever of architecture
archives in the Earth’s history. Unfortunately the sale was made to the Vitra
corporation in Switzerland, more than 20 years ago. Instead of finally allowing
any public anywhere to view the innovative works of Barragan, Vitra has kept
them unshowed, hidden away since Barragan’s death in 1988. There have
been disputes and efforts to get the works back to Mexico, but so far without
success. Barragan’s much smaller personal archive in Mexico was allowed to
be viewed for this film, and we see his genius and artistry in the drawn structures
and artwork. But his wife Frederica also has limited display of even this collection
within Barragan’s native country.
Before Frederica married Luis she insisted on getting the rights to his archives
following Luis’ death as an engagement present, rather than an engagement ring.
According to filmmaker Jill Magid, Frederica still is the main force to possibly
get the sold archives returned to Mexico. During negotiations with the family,
Barragan’s cremated remains were removed from a container that had been
stored in a wall behind a plaque commemorating Barragan. Then part of these
remains were spooned into a plastic bag, sent to Switzerland, and compressed
into a sort of ‘diamond’ that became the main ‘jewel’ of a ring that Magid offered
to Frederica, IF she could get the Vitra-held archive back to Mexico. THAT was
‘The Proposal’: the Barragan-remains-ring for return of the Vitra archives.
Magid did manage to organize a show from the personal archives, that took
place in Switzerland, which we can view in part in this film. For that we should
be thankful, as we see the scope and magnificence of his lines and creativity.
Alas, the ring and the origin of its production caused a grand press controversy
adverse to Ms. Magid that tarnished her efforts to bring Barragan home.
Sad story really that an artist’s/architect’s work can be locked away from a public that
wants and deserves to see it, but is excluded from doing so by a recalcitrant corporation.
Day 4 of the 2018 Hamptons International Film Festival.
I saw five shows today, including a romantic Polish movie
called ‘Cold War.’ It takes place mostly from 1949-1956, as
the communists try to gather up cultural talent and develop
folk oriented music and dance. Discoveries are made, a star
is born (Joanna Kulig), the teacher picks his favorite pupil,
and things proceed unevenly over the following years. The troupe
of performers travel all about eastern Europe and Paris.
And actually the music performed in this film is the best
I saw in the festival – especially the choir singing, and the
Paris early 50’s jazz. [But I missed the Maria Callas film.]
Shot in black and white, Excellent!!
‘Dead Pigs’ proved to be a fine Chinese movie showing
us the cheesy side of Chinese mega-entrepreneurship,
contrasted with the well-portrayed daily struggles of the
common Chinese people. The Golden Happiness
corporation is central to this movie in its attempt
to build a giant Spanish style living neighborhood of high
rise apartments and pseudo-Spanish type businesses
and cultural establishments. The romance story in this movie
is similar to the one in the South Korean ‘Burning’ with a younger
poorer male and a more experienced female beauty.
Pigs are suddenly dying and desperate pig farmers don’t know
what to do with the carcasses. So they tend to dump them
in the river at night. Which Shanghai becomes aware of, as the
count reaches 16,000 dead pigs in the river, with great concern
for contamination of the drinking water, and places of meat/pork sale.
There is love, and transportation incidents, hospital visits, the last
house in the way of the Golden Happiness corporation not yet selling
out to them. Go see this one. A well done film from China.
‘Walden’ was a movie like you’ve never seen before. It follows
the vision of a forest and a chopped tree falling, to the transport of the
finished wood produced travelling across an ocean to its final
destination. What makes it unique is that the 100 minute film
has only 13 scenes shot slowly in a 360 degree pan, welcoming
your eyes to savor all the detail that is slowly passing before your eyes.
Good for your patience and meditation. If you want action, and are
hyperactive yourself for whatever reason(s), this might not be the
movie you want to see or sit through. But if you like beauty and nature,
this will cool you down and enlighten you especially concerning the
trucking, railroading and boat transport of wood, starting in Austria.
October 6 2018 at the Hamptons International Film Festival
started off for me with the Hungarian movie ‘One Day’ about
a family of five, memorializing their usual day of waking up,
eating breakfast, getting dressed, going to school, forgetting
and losing gym bags and phones, putting on someone else’s
shoes while hurriedly being dressed after kindergarten, moving
on to the next thing that must happen within a grinding busy schedule.
The movie begins with mother Anna having a conversation with a
woman named Gabi who has seduced her husband, and apparently
will not relinquish her probable future trysts with him. Poor Anna
has to put this melodramatic portion of her life in the back of her mind
as she struggles through her day, satisfying everyone but herself.
The details and the look of gray ?Budapest are very well documented,
as all parents will probably relate to much of the little day-to-day things that
happen/happened in their own lives to much of what happens with the
kids and the parents as depicted in this film.
Zsofia Szilagyi is the award winning director of ‘One Day’ – which actually
covers 36 hours in the lives of the Szamosi family. The film won the
Fipresci prize in the Critics Week section of the 2018 Cannes Film Festival.
This is not the brightest most optimistic movie in the festival, but many viewers
will relate to it, and it happens in a foreign country: Hungary; yet the story,
the stress, is universal in today’s rush-rush-rush world that most of us
will identify with, though it is occurring on another continent.
‘Burning’ is probably the most awaited film in the festival, sold out at 8 PM both
Saturday and Sunday nights. I made it inside via the ‘Rush Line’ – an extra line
for people who could not buy tickets because the film is supposedly sold out.
Sunday’s Rush Line will probably also get you into tonight’s show. ‘Burning’ is
based on a short story from the very celebrated Japanese writer Haruki Murakami,
entitled ‘Barn Burning.’ It starts out in a mundane way, as most Murakami stories
do, and then veers off into an unusual, unique, bizarre direction that intrigues the
reader/viewer as the plot thickens and takes unexpected turns, with many subtle
clues laid to tantalize the lucky moviegoer. The typical dialogue of Murakami
is filled with cryptic insights and statements, expressed from an enticingly existential
point of view.
Jongsu is the main character, who wants to be a writer. He comes to Seoul
and meets the beautiful uninhibited Haemi, who comes from his hometown.
They interact, and the romance seems to be blooming, but then in comes Ben,
and from there…WHEW!!! One day, Ben drives up in his expensive Porche with Haemi,
to Jongsu’s father farm near the North Korean border, where Jongsu is staying
alone, while his father is in jail for assault brought on by his anger issues,
and Ben reveals – after smoking a marijuana joint he has brought along – that
he likes to burn down barns, maybe every two months. He bespeaks that
there is no right or wrong, just the random workings of nature. Haemi says
that she wants to disappear without a trace. She tells Jongsu that she’ll
never forget falling into the well near her house when she was little, crying
and looking up at the sky, before he, Jongsu saved her! But Jongsu can’t remember
this, though maybe he was too young, he wonders? Perhaps he was seven, he figures.
So, was there a well? that Haemi says she fell into? Was there a cat called Boil
that Jongsu never sees in Haemi’s one room apartment, when he comes to feed it
every day while she’s gone to Africa? He calls and calls and never even hears a
meow – despite fruitlessly searching for him, or any signs of him besides the
kitty litter box under the bed with a couple of deposits therein that we see once…
Jongsu says “To me, the world is a mystery.’ As is this mysterious intriguing
film, the ending of which, and the resolution, I am still trying to appreciate exactly.
I’m sure I will have to see it again. Especially with my son, whose favorite writer
is Haruki Murakami. Lee Chang-dong is the director. The movie is South Korea’s
official entry for the Best Foreign Film Oscar. MURAKAMI!!!
Day 2 of the Hamptons International Film Festival. One reason
to go to festivals like this is to see a movie like ‘Grit’ about a
constant mudflow sparked by the Lapindo Company’s drilling
two miles into the Earth in Indonesia back in 2006 exploring for
natural gas. The imperfectly designed drill bit punctured a bubble of hot
toxic mud that spewed up onto the Earth above and continues flowing
to this day. Yet this has hardly been reported. Have you heard about it?
16 villages, thousands of houses, at least one factory have been covered
under the ever-flowing mud. And there are amazing eruptions of it many
times daily that are captured on film fantastically in this terrific movie.
There is a political edge as the current leader of Indonesia also was the
owner of the Lapindo Company, who spreads the propaganda that the
mudflow started due to an earthquake – centered 180 miles away. Lost
in all this are the individuals and the families whose homes were buried
by the mud who have not yet been compensated properly by either Lapindo
or the government. Their fight is well portrayed in this ongoing tragedy. It is
said in the film that the continuing flooding of the mud should not be
expected to stop or significantly slow down until 2030. Levees around
the epicenter where the drilling occurred are now 60 feet high and still
will occasionally spring a leak, leading to more mudflow flooding more
of the topography, with the area being affected equal to approximately
two Central Parks (in NYC). A movie to see and spread the word about
mankind’s irresponsible greed totally destroying a large portion of East
Java, with the depositing mud collecting higher and higher with time’s
passing, And unfortunate displaced victims being treated unfairly while
they struggle to survive.
‘The Guilty’ is a Danish film about a police dispatcher, who is not always empathetic
about people’s emergency calls. He yells at them, minimizes their plight, inquires if they have
been drinking or taking drugs, sometimes refraining from calling for an ambulance
or offering intervention. However, Asger Holm (Jakob Cedergren) does try to cut
through the BS when certain serious calls come in, especially the one concerning Iben and
Michael and the two kids, the six year old girl telling Asger she is home alone with her
baby brother, their parents left them there. Not quite your neutral polite American
police dispatcher, but this is a movie with a very interesting leading character, which
won audience awards at Sundance, Rotterdam, Montclair and other film festivals.
For me it was not great though, as the mind-splaying violence portrayed in the
Iben case will be something I probably never will forget, that will haunt and
disgust me, until I die.
‘Woman At War’ is an Icelandic movie with Halldora Geirharosdottir cast as the brave
heroine. You might call her an Earth Warrior or an eco-terrorist, depending upon
your view of the planet and the forces that interweave in profiting and destroying it.
Her character Halla is a choir conductor, who is secretly fighting to sabotage
Earth-polluting projects, including a Chinese subsidized aluminum smelter. She uses
bow and arrow, portable circular saws, has a workshop in her basement with tools
and other implements to assist her in her quest to help save the Icelandic environment
(at least) for future generations. Halla is involved in modern technology chases across
the barren Iceland landscape that she manoeuvres through with guile and desperation.
She is a beautiful magnificent actress with a sterling persona, appearing to me as
the tall dark-haired Viking of today. The music in the movie is very whimsical, with
musicians and singers popping up in fields and streets as the plot thickens and thins.
‘City Of Joel’ is a terrific depiction of what has been going on about Monroe, New York
since the 1970’s. Hasidic Jews have migrated there from mostly Brooklyn, where
they have had their main enclave, especially in Crown Heights. Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum is the
hero of Hasidics, founding the Kiryas Joel community in 1977 as a suburb of Monroe.
Jews stripped of everything, without hope after Hitler’s War, struggling in Europe, came
to America because of the charismatic Rabbi Teitelbaum’s shining beacon of help and welcome.
However, what has happened is that Hasidics en masse have moved into Monroe, in Kiryas Joel’s
1.1 square mile area, and populated it densely with high rise, multiple-dwelling buildings, threatening
the way of life of Monroe residents who want to live there in unpolluted peace and quiet. More than
25,000 Hasidics now live in Kiryas Joel (total population of Monroe about 45-50 thousand),
and their leaders want to expand the exclusively Jewish village with an annexation of more land,
507 acres, which would double the size of Kiryas Joel.
According to the movie, the influence of the now overriding Jewish population has defunded local
schools, which Kiryas Joel citizens do not want their children to attend, while the Hasidics have
their own religious orthodox schools insularly teaching their form of culture and religion to preserve it
amidst the ever-rising tide of modern America’s adversely influential culture. That would be one way
of expressing what is happening in Kiryas Joel. Another perspective might be that the rigid Hasidic
dogma that is expected to be adhered to in the village, is brainwashing the children there, with their
one way of thinking and approaching life, eschewing modern communications like cellphones and
computers, and modern culture in general.
Though, now, if you want to use a computer, the grandson of Rabbi Joel tells the Hasidic followers
in a vast audience at the beginning of the film, that it must be ‘kosher’ – that it must have
a ‘Geder’ filter. One young woman of perhaps 18 speaks onscreen of how she wanted
to think for herself, be free, but was religiously and intellectually constrained by the oppressing mores
of the Hasidics. She was told what books to read, what she could do and not do as a woman.
So she found herself a boyfriend, told her mother, and next thing you know her mother
kicked her out of the Kiryas Joel apartment, and changed the locks, and she had to fend
for herself. In the film she states she is now living much more happily in Brooklyn.
There is an ‘Alliance’ that has formed to combat the prevailing dogma of Kiryas Joel from
the inside. We hear a member of this minority faction speak in altered voice under fear
of zealots’ retribution, informing us that the established leadership and Hasidics in general
in the village are ‘intolerant.’ We see this exemplified in Jesse Sweet’s excellent film that
I highly recommend seeing, if this subject interests you. The cinematography is great, and
the debate about what will happen in this town continues to go on. As an example of religious
extremism burgeoning in today’s America, also going on with evangelicals and other cults
and organizations of ‘faith.’
Another Hamptons International Film Festival, 2018 edition, has
begun today Oct 4 2018. For me, a surprisingly good shorts program,
‘Please Don’t Tell’ was my first show. ‘Provence’ was the first of 5 movies,
Beginning with lovely elegiac music the camera pans down from
summertime sun through the trees in ?Provence to the river below
where several children are playfully walking. The colors and contrasts
are beautiful, as the story progresses of a girl Camille and her older brother,
who becomes enticed by two attractive Dutch girls. The film was created
by Belgian Kato De Boeck, and subtly makes an unexpected secret
statement to climax the film. One remarkable scene of a lizard staccatoedly
climbing up yellow/green stone steps in hot still air added a spacey interlude
as the plot proceeded. GREAT Movie!!!
‘Fauve’ is a Canadian short that was an award winner at this year’s Cannes
Film Festival. It’s about two boys playing a game of one-upsmanship, keeping
score, just roaming around a changing landscape, going where they shouldn’t
go. Powerful climax to a masterfully acted tale!!
‘Cross My Heart’ is a tightly woven Jamaican film about two 15 year-old female cousins,
one returning to the island, one still not recovering or telling anyone else about
her Brett Kavanaugh moment, perpetrated by her father’s brother. Timely for us
Americans right now! . . . But, Please Don’t Tell . . .
‘The Field’ is an Indian short, pertaining to a field of corn that is not quite ripe for
the anticipated scheduled harvesting. There is love and intrigue, a small poor
family, tension in the overgrowth of the field, plus alternate romance. Beautiful
colors and cinematography in this film too.
The fifth film was titled ‘My Dead Dad’s Porno Tapes’ and was the weakest of these
other stellar shorts. Too private in my estimation, too many cousins and relatives
who do we care to know about? More like a home movie. But well told. But
it does not deliver on the title: we do not see any of the so-called porno tapes,
just some talk around them. Maybe they should have named this film ‘Dale’
for the Dad’s mother who ran the family like it was a “ship.” Most dramatic
tidbit is Dad never learning about his ?crazy grandfather stabbing Dale through-
and-through her forearm with a knife when she was only 8 years old, this and other
such acts possibly affecting the family dynamics thereafter under the reign of Dale.
The other show I viewed was the enthralling ‘The Serengeti Rules’ about ecosystems
and the scientists who observe and study them. This so crucial in our world today,
as unadulterated-by-man locales and the species populating them are changing and
disappearing. Six scientists who I doubt any of us really have heard of or about,
have their tales sung here, with fantastic nature shots of otters and orcas and
wildebeests and zebras and lions and sea urchins and kelp and radical waves,
with explanations of their interactions, and what predators do to stabilize these
ecosystems. The film tracks what happens when whales were slaughtered in
the Pacific Northwest, and what that did to populations of seals and otters
who fed upon the whales. Fascinating movie, presenting the importance of
nature’s balance to us, as we greedily destroy the planet taking and taking,
without understanding how importance the balance of land, sea and birds is
all one on our tenuous Earth.
