I'm at an editing gig right now where I'm waiting around a lot so I have a lot of time to post...
A friend once said that a film teaches you how to watch it. I think it's true but it definitely requires patience with a film. But with our media saturated world, I think patience is one thing people are running out of when it comes to visual media.
I just finished watching a beautiful film called THE DEATH OF MR. LAZARESCU upon the recommendation of a friend that really does require the audience to learn how to watch it.
It's 150 minutes long and shot verite style as an sick elderly man in Romania tries to get treatment for his ailments and becomes shuffled around the vast bureaucracy and arrogance of the medical industry over a single night. It is all long observational takes that focuses on the small, accidental moments. I admit feeling extremely frustrated with the first 15 minutes, but then something strange happens where you just fall into the film. As they get turned away from hospital after hospital and his diagnosis gets steadily worse and worse, the long takes builds the frustration and suspense in a good way: you want someone to take care of this man but he is forced to wait and wait and wait and we are waiting with him and it becomes unbearable. The watching of the film isn't unbearable, rather it is the way he is being treated and, aesthetically, the oblique observational style really captures and delivers that urgency and need and the obstacles that stand in between him and the help he needs.
I really recommend watching it but again, it requires your patience and investment but it will be rewarded.
Speaking of unquirky foreign films, a couple of years ago, I was at Film Forum watching a new print of AS TEARS GO BY, and the audience was constantly snickering at the tender moments. I find the film enormously engaging and tragic but I think American audiences have a hard time with embracing sincerity as they guffawed at what some of the characters said. What does it say about American audiences if we find sincerity unsophisticated?
So, can an English language WKW films do well in the US? Will MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS achieve the same level of sincerity and emotional tragedy that his other films strive for? I'm not sure because there is definitely a difference "reading" his films on subtitles rather than hearing it from the characters (for those of us who do not understand Cantonese). From the looks of the trailer I'm not sure it translates well and I'm not sure if audiences (me included) will embrace his syrupy voice overs. What do you think all you WKW fans?
QUIRK is upon us, especially with the release of DARJEELING LIMITED (which I haven't seen yet).
For all of you who consume American culture.
There is an interesting article in the Atlantic Monthly about "quirk" as the defining aesthetic in American Gen-X indie culture. http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200709/quirk
While I think the article is reductive and over-reaching, it's an
interesting read as it gives voice to a lot of my frustrations with
American culture (though I'll gladly admit that I love ARRESTED
DEVELOPMENT).
Eric Lin is a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Film Program. MUSIC PALACE, his Student Academy Award nominated short documentary, has screened at numerous film festivals worldwide, including the prestigious New Directors/New Films Festival in New York, the Telluride Film Festival, the Clermont Ferrand Short Film Festival and is now airing on the Independent Film Channel. His latest narrative short film, WHAT REMAINS, was awarded the Caucus Foundation Student Production Grant as well as the Warner Bros. Pictures Film Production Award, and is busy traveling among the film festival circuit. In 2003, he won the Asian American International Screenplay Competition for his script, KILGORE. His work has received support from the C.V. Starr Institute, the Oppenheimer New Filmmakers Grant, and New York State Council for the Arts. In addition to directing high-end industrials and broadcast promos, he freelances as a cinematographer and editor. He recently won the Vague Production Award for his feature film project, WHY WE PULL THE TRIGGER.
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