.^

Polish director Andrzej Wajda’s Danton (1983 – with Jean-Claude Carrière’s great screenplay) is re-released on Criterion in the States (2-disc set – Metrodome in the UK issued theirs in 2006) starring Gérard Depardieu and Polish actor Wojciech Pszoniak (Robespierre) as the key figures of the French Revolution. Though nobody feared a lynching at or around the G20 summit, everyone from police to politicians hung on tenterhooks. Police raided two East London squats this morning after yesterday’s protests and one protester collapsed and died last night though the facts surrounding this are still unclear. (Around 90 people ended up being arrested yesterday)
[Addition: final figures from The Guardian (Fri 3)]
But the protest (a quarter mile a way) from the Excel Centre meeting today in the Docklands was relatively minuscule (400-500) (maybe 100 today outside the Bank of England) and two security coach rides away from the meeting. An action some would say was ‘undemocratic’. It’s an interesting time for policing in London with a possible Conservative coalition government voted in at next year’s General Election and a new Commissioner of Police Sir Paul Stephenson. One new initiative of his is to have some coppers walk solo on their beats rather than groups or pairs – a move fairly unthinkable in America. And in many ways, though dangerous, it makes a lot much sense. Policeman would become more aware of their surroundings rather than be engaged in comrade conversation. They would appear less threatening to the community and more approachable. And of course, there’d be more of them to go round. But like any force of power too often such an organisation attracts those less interested in people and more obsessed with their own testosterone. We shall see.
BBC 2's Yes We Can! ... The Lost Art of Oratory

And the politicians today? Well again, one could be cynical, but for a ‘Conservative’ Prime Minister such as France’s Nicolas Sarkozy to be vehemently advocating tax haven transparency is quite startling (the biggest transgressors all transit – and more - with their ill-gotten gains through Paris at some point!). And there will always be tax loop holes. And always ‘pantomime’. But the almost ‘tacit’ complicity and acceptance of this practice by countries’ politicians looks set to stop after today’s meeting (the 7-page addendum). And that’s quite something after a century or more of greed. But the paradigm shift in economic practice? Human nature answers that question I think. Why do retailers still use ‘1 penny less’ psychology in selling products? Does anyone really believe they’re paying £4 instead of £4.99? For many people a religion does them the power of good. But not for others. At the end of the day education not indoctrination will always be the key to unlocking the problem if not cleaning up a mess.

Susan Greenfield, the eminent neuroscientist and head of the Royal Institution, has warned that young people's brains may be fundamentally altered by internet activity
The genius behind Google’s web browser

And part of the education should surely always be music with its inherent freedom of possibilities. Sarkozy’s musician wife Carla Bruni no doubt likes Marianne Faithfull who talks of her Private Passions on BBC Radio 3
A competition to invent the next musical instrument - more than 60 people applied, and 25 were chosen to show off a stunning variety of musical instruments of their own devising.
The Pet Shop Boys are back and cool again

One can certainly appreciate the difficulty of being human when the grand photo call this morning for the G20 Heads of State forgot about the Canadian Prime Minister who’d apparently gone to the lavatory. Maybe they could have done a Gerhardt Richter blur instead for him as Angela Merkel seemed to be searching for a ‘photomate’ on her left side. Can I work in a Canadian film into all this? Well, yes, actually. And one of Canada’s greatest cinematic exports Guy Maddin whose most recent bio/kunst/reverie My Winnipeg played the U.K. to mostly great acclaim. Careful (1993) has just been re-issued by New York’s Zeitgeist Films in a remastered DVD version. The townsfolk (very appositely) tread and speak carefully in this silent melodrama in order to avoid an avalanche. A very, very unique talent Mr. Maddin.

I wish I could say the same for Brit director Michael Winterbottom who’s Genova opened last week. Mr.Winterbottom is a bit of a ‘darling’ with the left-wing cineaste crowd but (at the fear of being lynched) I have to say I’ve never really warmed to his work (nor to him on a recent meeting). The Angelina Jolie vehicle A Mighty Heart (just issued by Paramount on Blu-ray) was warmly received but I felt the director was copying from a textbook (albeit a very fine one) and that Jolie would always be good whoever was directing. A Cock and Bull Story was very interesting but again, how much difference did Mr. Winterbottom’s input make. Not point scoring here or even ‘axe grinding’ but sitting through Genova (and I admit to only lasting an hour) I did begin to wonder about his reputation.

He’s been credited in his many recent films as co-editor, but again, there’s not much evidence of that skill in Genova. Some very esteemed Brit critics have stood up for Winterbottom’s film while others seemed to be somewhat scraping the bottom of the praise barrel with references to Roeg’s 1973 Don’t Look Now etc. But if there was yet another shot of a sandy Ligurian beach with sunbathers I really thought I’d scream. It’s a part of Italy I happen to know very well but the only shot I found somewhat intriguing was the makeshift wooden wigwam Colin Firth’s character stumbles upon in the demi-darkness while searching for his daughter. Try Silvio Soldini’s 2004 Agatha and the Storm (Agata e la Tempesta) for a much more subtle take on Genoa:
The Reality Around Me Has Changed, an interview about his most recent film Days and Clouds, an American DVD review.
Or Quiet Chaos is out on DVD

A real treat was the DVD of Firefly Dreams (Ichiban utsukushî natsu) directed by an estranged Welshman who’s ended up spending the last decade or so in Japan, John Williams. Initially I dreaded the ‘Genova’ experience with this, but the film was, to use that cliche, simply beautiful. Sulky school-hating teenage Naomi(Maho Ukai) has parental problems and is packed off to relatives and fellow teen Yumi(Etsuko Kimata) for the summer. There’s absolutely nothing new to this film in story or technique - just an all-pervasive humility. Perhaps that’s why one of Japan’s most recognised and respected actresses Yoshie Minami agreed to play the octogenarian Mrs. Koide who finally bonds with Naomi. The DVD release is so self-deprecating that the 30 min DVD interview extra with John Williams is shot unedited and in what resembles a police interview room in echo sound and dour decor! (There's a DVD director's commentary too)But when someone speaks ‘from the heart’ nothing else seems to matter. Easy to see why discerning New York distributor Wellspring nabbed the film for American release.

Cherry Blossoms, (US site) has had some luke-warm American reviews and opens in London tomorrow (Friday). Its German director Doris Dörrie sparked attention with her 1985 Männer(Men) and has since continued a reputation for wry human comedies (even directing a production of the Mozart opera Cosi fan Tutti about the fickleness and fidelity of love). In Cherry Blossoms, the ageing couple of Rudi (Elmar Wepper) and Trudi (Hannelore Elsner) trudge on the treadmill of life in a drab German town while their son has escaped to whizzy Tokyo. When Trudi dies, Rudi journeys to Japan and ends up befriending (in a purely platonic way) a young butoh dancer (Aya Irizuki) who dresses like a candy bar wrapper and camps in a park (Rudi’s wife bizarrely loved Butoh). Together they travel to see Mount Fuji. On the one hand there’s an irritable narrative contrivance to all this, but conversely, an overwhelming honestly as well, that for me, proved irresistible.

Aditya Assarat’s Wonderful Town - ICA, French trailer - was inspired by the tiny Thai town of Takua Pa where 8,000 people perished in the 2004 tsunami. Even in the quietest village in Thailand, the young girl Na (Anchalee Saisoontorn) has trouble ‘living quietly’ when she begins a relationship with visiting architect Ta (Supphasit Kansen). A young local kid kicking at some rubble in this film or in John Williams’ Firefly Dreams, the ‘real life’ old street-marketer who everyday spends hours unpacking his ‘Aladdins’ Cave’ linger far longer in our minds than Genova.
If you like Wonderful Town then try Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Syndromes and a Century (literally Light of the Century in Thai) – originally commissioned by Peter Sellars’ Mozart tribute New Crowned Hope. But more of him later.
Alan Gibson’s 1982 A Woman Called Golda with another amazing performance from Australian actress Judy Davis is out on Paramount DVD in the States.

a Thai film blog
Wonderful Town US site
US DVD
Same US indie distributor have out special DVD editions of Wong Kar-Wai’s:
Fallen Angels (Duo luo tian shi)
Happy Together (Cheun gwong tsa sit)
Or there’s a BFI DVD of Nighthawks/Strip Jack Naked

A lifelong friend of master director Ozu Yasujiro, Hiroshi Shimizu (1903-1966) directed many children's films such as Children in the Wind (1937) but made well over 100 films during his career and is another relatively unknown figure in the West. Criterion’s Eclipse Series 15 - Travels with Hiroshi Shimizu is out on DVD.
Hiroshi article
The recent San Francisco Asian American Film Festival (March 12-22) held a retrospective Kiyoshi Kurosawa whose latest film Tokyo Sonata recently played New York and was distributed in the UK by Eureka.

Japanese director Kon Ichikawa made almost as many films as Hiroshi and isn’t even a cineaste household name apart from a couple of films but Eureka DVD have done the world proud again by releasing two fantastic films of his,
Kokoro (B/W-1955) trailer and Alone Across the Pacific (1963) (Trailer).

The Independent obit
The Guardian obit
NYT obit
MOMA retrospective in New York

Alone Across the Pacific is based on 23 year-old Kenichi Horie's (Yujiro Ishihara)best-selling book detailing how he left his family and their traditional values for his 94 day yachting quest (1962) across the Pacific to San Francisco. Again: another film you’d think wouldn’t be riveting but is most certainly with Cinemascope cinematography and a score by contemporary classical composer Toru Takemitsu. Brent Kliewer quotes Goethe, “So I work at the whirring loom of time and make up the living garment of divinity,” in his booklet essay and notes in Zen fashion “getting away from something is not the same as seeking something”. Ichikawa began as a cartoonist and both these films embed a very quiet, wry wit.
Kokoro isn’t an easy word to translate (first screened as The Heart) and as noted in Eureka’s ever excellent booklet, the novel’s original translator thought it closer to “the heart of things”.
Bit like Wabi Sabi (hope they re-broadcast Marcel Theroux’s BBC Four doco) [gosh he’s similar to his younger doco-maker brother Louis]
Trust me, Kokoro really is amazing film, that in its directness of human emotion could have been made but yesterday.
Silent cinema specialist Flicker Alley have Under Full Sail: Silent Cinema of the High Seas

Just opened in London is the Royal Academy of Arts’ Kuniyoshi show featuring over 150 of the artist’s wood block prints (1797-1861) thanks to the Arthur R. Miller Collection. Dull this show most certainly isn’t. What’s more, Kuniyoshi was a ‘wood block’ protestor constantly running into censorship problems with his work and finding often comedic ways to circumvent. If ever there was a ‘socialist’ artist this guy was it. The government had basically a ‘shoot to kill’ policy on foreign ships while Kuniyoshi lampooned the desire for luxury goods and championed the Kabuki theatre artists who were moved to the outskirts of the city (1842) as part of the government’s suppression of popular urban culture (including body tatoos and geishas). Things haven’t changed much in the West either over the centuries as the Japanese government of Kuniyoshi’s time wanted prints that promoted fidelity and virtuousness and certainly not female contemporary fashion. Ok, at least we’ve moved on from the last point First Lady Michelle :) It’s a fantastic show for kids as well with its Manga-like imagery and enormous detail in the prints that will at least attract if not keep the attention of children. In the artist’s time a single print cost no more than a double helping of noodles. If you’re brave enough teach the kids about ‘pleasure quarters’ with Kuniyoshi’s sparrows – one of his comic ‘crazy pictures’(kyoga) using animals. The artist invites a broad church. I spent two hours at this show (excellent audio guide hanging off one ear) without flagging a second. Go, go, go – you’ve got till June 7. This time next year (2010) the show will be in New York at the Japan Society. But if you miss the London show, Arthur Miller has donated 2,000 of the prints to the British Musem for their permanent collection.

Japan in Colour: The Wonderful World of Albert Kahn
BBC 4's current series Hidden Japan
Japan: A Story of Love and Hate
Mishima’s play Madame de Sade continues in London with the great Dame Judi Dench who’s back on stage after tripping, falling and spraining her ankle at the stage door.
A Trip to Asia shot on HD (High Definition) by Slumdog Millionaire Oscar winning cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle follows Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic on their Asian tour.
Slumdog Millionaire is out on Fox DVD with alas no extras (they obviously weren’t anticipating a hit)

The Whitechapel Gallery re-opens April 5:
BBC The Culture Show (is it on the site’s achive yet)
The Independent
The Guardian video with Jonathan Glancy [have to watch a car ad first on the site]
Also, BP British Art Displays: Turner/RothkoArt critic Waldemar Januszczak’s
Baroque! and a repeat of
historian Simon Schama
provocative art series.

and a bit more to come...