Jujube/2019-iffr-log

Notable

Gulyabani (part of After Images)

34'

The short is visually divided into four chapters with a voiceover of a woman recounting her life on her hospice bed to her son. (The son could be a vision rather than an actual person, as I read from the narrative.) The overall feeling is gothic, a heavy matter expressed through calm speech.

1. Beautiful and dark images of water / her childhood, the abuse she suffered from, her ability to communicate with the dead
2. Astounding landscape made of blue rocks and orange vegetations (probably colored in post, but seamless) / her abuse as a teen, during the time in a rock mine
3. Washed out footage (mostly blue and white) / (I forgot what she said particularly, at that point.)
4. Back to dark images, but this time more abstract... Aesthetics: analog, scratches from film, fast edits that turn into animation. / her encounter with her son

Some footage from THE ANONYMOUS-ARCHIVE OF AMATEUR AUDIOVISUAL.[1] Worth looking into.

Tutto l'oro Che C'è

100'

• Quite a few things stands out. First, there is very little dialogue yet a clear narrative. Four characters with their own ways of being in the environment. I prefer to not use "nature" as a description for the footage because it seems to me this film has a clear focus on human's place/interaction in their surroundings.
• The film is interspersed with a few different kinds of macro shots. First, of insects/birds, which has a classic National Geographics look. Second, of human objects. A used condom underneath the rocks, tin can for boiling crack and needles, rows of beer bottles at a party. Third, of the insects interacting with human artifacts. The most memorable ones are a caterpillar crawling over an ipad and a snail climbing to the lip of a hunting rifle. These shots brings the activities in the environment to life and poses juxtapositions (both literally and visually).
• There are five main characters. A hunter, a gold prospector, a teenager boy, a nudist, a police man. (Why all men, though?) Except for the nudist, all the other characters seem to be driven by what they do, and their actions carry the weight of the scenes and make the characters concrete. Following is a closer account:

1. Hunter scenes: he listens. He cares for his dog. He shoots, picks up the pheasant and puts it in his sack. He takes a nap.
2. Gold prospector scenes (my favorite): he rows the boat. He shovels the rocky soil from the river to the land. He lays out his tools. He sifts the soil with the shovel. He transfers the soil with a bucket. He nails a washboard to the river bank. He washes the the soil and gets rid of large debris.
3. Boy scenes (the wonder/ the ease a younger person possesses towards nature): a dragonfly lands on his shoulder. He whittles a stick. He colors a black-and-white illustration book with the colors he sees. His eyes peering at the birds.
4. Police man scenes: he investigates something in the forest. He takes photographs of what he finds suspicious. He looks through his photos.

• Beautiful images. From the fogs in the morning to the concrete slabs of the dam. There's one particular sequence where the fluff falls from the tree and lands in the river all the while with badly-performed karaoke in the background, which brings me to an important aspect of the movie:

• THE SOUND. Human sounds contrasting a seemingly peaceful landscape (constant sounds of plane over the images of vegetations). Recorded and processed crystal clear to reflect the texture/context of the scene. Well-blended during transition.

Artist talk: Diana Vidrascu

As a cinematographer she maintains a distance and silence with her subjects, which she carries into her directing. She lets them be. In Le silence des sirènes she casts her main character, but uses real-world situations that the actor is involved in without a script. In her words, "only the protagonist knows the story and thus tries to steer the conversation to that direction." In the scene where the protagonist talks to her real grandmother, she "only started to film when I felt the conversation was going towards the story." She jokes about being "unethical" using this approach of creating fiction with a documentary style. An audience comments that she seems to be creating "fake news" (oh the vocabulary) and asks why (from a point of interest, not judgement, but still...) She didn't give a clean-cut answer, mentioning her "personal investigations in this in between place" and "stories" larger than life. But to me, the resulting works all seem genuine and, to a degree, quietly evoking something deeper. It's her way of connecting with the audience, or of dramatizing, a method that resonates with me.

She shoots with 16mm. Once she carries her nimble analog camera (which one?) to film the landscape in Iceland. It's a camera close to her, although it does pose danger (inconvenience) on her hikes. She also thinks the expensiveness of shooting on film is "a myth".

Her shooting process is interesting as well. In one slide she shows how she picks high-contrast negatives from the reel to create a mask for other images on an optical printer.

Others

Your Face

77'

• Surprisingly moving with genuine images of old skin and twinkles in the eyes.
• It hits me when the first face breaks the stillness (a woman in her late 60's or early 70's). She seems to be on the verge of tears while she laughs. The director's voice and the questions he asks are gentle and non-judgement, which sets the tone for the film.
• The overall flow is punctuated by seemingly mundane stories from working class people. All the women move me. One pushes down her feelings as she recalls her first love and the hardship during her youth. One keeps saying "don't laugh at me" while letting out a nervous laugh. One cries because she feels guilty about being an unfilial daughter.
• There is a lot of unease from some of the cast, none of whom are professional actors.
• I am not convinced by the last scene. It tests patience. I understand it as the place where the faces stared into during the shoot. Perhaps the director wants us to be the faces.

Orbit

7' (prelude for Black Mother)

• Spinning animation with fitting music scores. The reveal of the artifact that makes the animation adds a message to the film.

Nuestro Tiempo

173'

• The main character comes across as controlling. I understand it is the film's intention, but I don't feel sympathetic.
• The film is long (almost 3 hours), but with unexpected imageries from the ranch there is enough space to not be annoyed.
• The bull/mule fight is visceral. The steam from the body of the mule is beautiful.
• The still shot of the door — Juan goes in, pause, two ranch helpers go in, pause, Juan comes out again — with the child's narration as transition is puzzling. 1) Why so long? 2) Why is a child the narrator? (Perhaps to illustrate innocence and good-will; it feels jarring.)
• I didn't finish watching because the visuals disappeared around 2h20min. The whole theater sank into blackness. One by one, people's faces were lit up by their phone screens. Everyone tried to escape. There was murmurs as the audio went on... Perhaps it was intentional. If so it is a baffling, unjustified choice.

The Day I Lost My Shadow

95'

• Promising metaphor and opening scenes (esp. boy in sweater and over the sink).
• Sadly, the metaphor ("shadow") turns out more symbolic than effectual. There is a lot of shots on the shadows moving across the forest, but after a while it gets old... These shots do not give new information/arise new feelings.
• The story has just enough gaps to be confusing. One main character seems to appear and die out of nowhere. The intimacy between the protagonist and him, which developed suddenly, could have carried more weight, or at least more become more convincing.
• War causes neurosis, yes, but simply displaying it alienates the audience.
• Hand-held shots = dizziness (perhaps a bit overused)

Black Mother

77'

• There is no synchronized audio in this film. Everything is a voiceover on top of montage: some are related to the subject of speech, some are people, some, landscape. The movie (or rather, the director in his own words) asks the audience to associate freely. The result would be stunning had it been a shorter piece. Standing at 77 minutes, this technique becomes demanding and loses its momentum.

• There is a supposed structure guided by pregnancy and birth (a female voice announces: "first/second/third trimester" and "birth"), which divides the film into chapters. However, I am not sure I can perceive any progression suggested by this structure.

• (I dozed off for ten minutes.)

• The portraits, shots of water and praying become repetitive after a while. Repeating for emphasis is exhausting and stops being poetic.

• There is a scene of a boy holding a film camera. My thoughts when seeing it: perhaps the movie is made with a combination of the director's and amateur footage? But in the credits it shows that the director did everything. So why this shot?

• The key take-aways from the film: a place filled with natural beauty and abundance, and at the same time, prostitution, machoism, and hardship. Religion dominates and one voice in particular talks about the colonial influence (christ along with the slavery trade). Spirituality is deeply tied to religion, but in some cases splits off from it.

• It's described as an artistic documentary. However, the individual images are more interesting than the collective montage. Putting them together distracts me. The film might be better off as a multiscreen installation or something equivalent that allows the audience to process the complexity on their own time.

TROPICS (part of After Images)

13'

Pro Hub

Drinks

• Had a brief but nice chat with a programmer from the Belfast FF (Rose) I spoke about the importance of empathy in my work and how I found cinema a good form to explore. "Yes, cinema is extremely empathetic," she said. She recommended Heart of the dogs.

Panel: Make the most of the film festival

• IFFR: good for starting filmmakers. Cosier than Berlin/Venice/Cannes.

• The best way to interact with people: do homework (who's who) after getting selected for screening.

• Smaller festivals can provide better chances to actually foster relationships. Large FF's are about sales.

• Don't talk to a sales agent when the project is still in development.