"It's good not to accept the current reality as eternal and definitive," wrote surrealist filmmaker Luis Buñuel. What better quotation to get one through these days of so-called London normality. Tube disruption last week has been its worst in ages (and this week isn't shaping up any better) but Mayor Boris brought a smile to our faces - not through his policies - but through his image looming large on the posters for extra-marital dating agency Ashley Madison. All publicity is good publicity as 'they' say. And instead of the 'Boris bike' to ease our passage up those congested London streets we might consider the 'Boris bonk'. Or as the Mayor said recently about next year's sporting event, we're ready now!
Onwards and upwards...but a lucky few with any energy left after the city's strenuous pycho-somatic workout have/will be immersing their bods in one of the city's autumn film festivals or its art fairs and gallery openings. Why do all these films exist? Why do all these crazy people keep wanting to make movies when it's hard enough to keep body and soul alive these days? Is it simply maybe a capitalist system keeping both right and left just so happy? At the independent film fest Raindance (still ensconced in the intimate Apollo Cinema boudoir) box office receipts are up 40.3% on last year -as is much other cultural/entertainment activities in the city. One young filmmaker from Berlin asked me if London "knew about Raindance?" - a question slightly missing but illuminating the point that 'normal' people are indeed looking for a way out if not a way forward from their 'humdrum' existence. Josh Golding (author of the forthcoming Maverick Sreenwriting: A Manual for the Adventurous Screenwriter) gave a talk on how a filmmaker can enable audiences to "see the world as they've never seen it before": to think outside the box.
Each Raindance year, one 'shorts' filmmaker is awarded the chance to make the trailer for the following year's fest (this year it was Alex Brook Lynn who made last year's I am A Fat Cat). Next year will be Nicolangelo Gelormini (Reset) -a former assistant of Italian Paolo Sorrentino whose first film in America This Must Be the Place screens at this year's 55th BFI London Film Festival (Sean Penn in Oscar winning mode as a 'Goth' rock star on the road in search of his father's Nazi friend; America's nowhere 'architecture' in stunning cinematography). At the Raindance Awards party Gelormini made a plea to ignite the flames of Italian cinema - not just remembering its greatness and not to relegate that country's contribution to simply a thing of the past. And if after watching Martin Scorsese's 4 hour adventure in cinema My Voyage to Italy (out on DVD) he hasn't convinced you to watch every single movie he mentions in its entirety then nothing will. Rossellini's film of the title "was reviled when it was first released and only later championed by the French New Wave directors". And De Sica's Umberto D had the Italian culture minister Andreotti publish "an open letter in which he declared his opposition to neo-realism for washing dirty linen in public, [wanting] de Sica and his fellow filmmakers to be more optimistic." Plus ça change...
Ken Loach continues at the BFI
In epic doco mode lately, Scorsese's 3.5 hour George Harrison: Living in the Material World is also just released on DVD. Does it need to be so long? Well it's certainly not boring and the first 90min is taken up, inevitably, with Harrison's time with The Beatles. What one ultimately walks away with above all from this documentary, though, is just how hard it is to survive the fame others project upon you. All the Pranayamas in the world couldn't save George Harrison from himself. But Paul and Ringo live on, and there are some very fascinating and funny if maybe not quite soul-revealing footage. Arguably, George Harrison's fans (and of course those of The Beatles) felt they were seeing the world through a different lens through listening to their idols. Another doco worth seeking out is Lawrence of Belgravia (London Film Festival, LFF hereafter) charting the trials and tribulations of this 'underdog' musician. (reviews embargoed until Oct 22)
That 'different lens' is this year's 'motto' for the Raindance Fest too. And as in previous year's many of the greatest delights of this festival lay in documentaries that may have trouble seeing the light of a projection screen for some time. This year's Award winner How to start a Revolution documented Gene Sharp and his 'velvet' non-violent revolutionary guide book From Dictatorship to Democracy. Some of his methods of undermining the symbols and pillars of power can be seen in action in The Green Wave (cinemas now)- Iran's bloggers' promulgation of the rigged presidential elections on June 12th, 2009. Where My heart Beats (Raindance) proved that a very personal rather than objective documentary can still pack an effective political punch. The same goes for The Boy Mir and Hell and Back Again (both on general release) - the latter documenting an American marine wounded in Afghanistan and returned to his hometown. There's no attempt by the filmmakers to allow their gun/kill-loving subject likability in any way - just a man doing his job. And whereas filmmakers previously had to choose between beauty of the image and getting the documentary facts, the latest DSLR's and video empower one with both. Richard Jobson's highly stylised The Somnambulists plays at the LFF (reviews embargoed until Oct 14)
Against the facts, the drama of immigrant Iraqis in London on the eve of the Allied invasion Mesocafe can fall somewhat flat. But first feature Raindance course graduate Ja'far 'Abd al-Hamid has a real command of actors and can write lines that stick out a mile for their incisiveness into the human political dilemma. Why did he shoot on Super 16 rather than digi, though?
Inevitably, many of the most memorable features and documentaries of both Raindance and the LFF are all to do with outsiders and society's escapees. The doco Darwin (LFF) is a fascinating, funny and poignant glimpse of the 35 lives in this tiny, off-grid Californian town. SXSW Fest hit Dragonslayer (LFF) is more an acquired indie taste getting up close and personal to sometime skateboarder Josh and his new girlfriend. As vérité as it may be, its the sort of doco that could just as easily be a fiction rather than us watching it fight for its documentary corner. Phoebe Hart, born half male/half female, picks up a camera and tells her fascinating story in Orchids-My Intersex Adventure (Raindance). Another Ozzie, rock journalist Lilian Roxon, who hung out with 70s legends was profiled in Mother of Rock: Lilian Roxon (Raindance). And the Japanese Matsuo Ohno who sound engineered all those weird Astro Boy 60s effects is found sprightly as ever producing the annual play at a disabled people's home - The Echo of Astro Boy's Footsteps (Raindance): "If he stopped experimenting he'd have no reason to live," notes a former colleague. But equally, "his tendency to move on means he doesn't develop."
Peter Sasowsky's Heaven + Earth + Joe Davis (Raindance) on this extraordinary artist/scientist was inspiring, riveting and ultimately a depressing comment on how our society prefers R&D ideas that can be brought to fruition ASAP rather than broadening the minds of our planet. Joe Davis did finally end up with a post at Harvard- unpaid! (Video interview)
As an alternative to the art fair domination of Frieze, Ed Winkleman has brought his Moving Image video festival from New York to London's Oxo Barge House (just near the Tate) this weekend. On Saturday, October 15, 4:30 - 6:30 pm, in collaboration with Film Co Lab, Moving Image will present Bring Your Own Beamer(or BYOB). Each artist will choose the work to be exhibited and bring his or her own projection apparatus. It's a managable fest to get around too with famous and not so names. Probably unfair to single out any particular artists. But you won't be disappointed.
to be continued...
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