Update on "freedom" in China: Hu Jie's SPARK and Rita Andreetti's THE OBSERVER

The eponymously titled documentary SPARK details the simultaneous emergence and repression of the Chinese underground publication that appeared in 1960 for the purpose of exposing the horrors of China's Great Leap Forward, a "leap" which resulted in a kind of state-sanctioned famine that is estimated to have killed between 30 and 55 million people. Made back in 2013 by an equally underground Chinese filmmaker, Hu Jie, the movie (seemingly in a longer, two-hour version than the original 100-minute cut listed on the IMDB), Spark, along with a newer documentary about Mr. Hu (shown below), THE OBSERVER by Italian filmmaker Rita Andreetti, is about to be released together in a package entitled SPARK with THE OBSERVER via DVD and VOD from Icarus Home Video.

Interestingly enough and despite Spark being a most necessary and important documentation of those horrible/ despicable times, it is The Observer, detailing the unusual passion for film, truth and art Mr. Hue possesses, that proves the better of the two films -- at least in terms of film-making skill and audience appeal.

Spark takes us on a visit to the execution ground (shown below, I believe) where some protesters of this famine met their fate,

and we hear from a surprising amount of people who remained alive at the time of the making of this documentary, as well as seeing archival photos of them (as below) in their younger days of protest and writing for Spark, the publication. The testimony we hear is varied and, as expected, truly awful. How they managed to survive seems as much a matter of happenstance as anything over which they themselves had control.

Yet the constant jumping around from person to person, place to place, and especially the jumble of ideas, politics, philosophy, reminiscences, poetry (along with current and past events) makes this movie less accessible to Americans and maybe anyone except the Chinese themselves who probably have a better sense of their own history so that what is said and shown here will resonate more strongly. For TrustMovies, the documentary seemed all over the place, even somewhat repetitive, with an occasional memorable statement hitting home. As one old gentleman says now about the Chinese Communist Party's utter misunderstanding of true Marxism and about its lunatic fealty to Chairman Mao: "A real Marxist doesn't worship anyone or anything absolutely!"

And while the names, atrocities and deaths pile up, occasionally one or another story seems to hit home and stand apart. "The party killed its best son," we're told of one man's end. Close to the finale, we hear an all-too-appropriate phrase regarding this huge and populous country and its past and present rulers, regarding Tibet, Hong Kong and so much more: "China, alas!"

If Mr. Hu is less engaging as a filmmaker, despite the absolute necessity of this tale being told, he proves a wonderful subject for the documentary that Ms Andreetti (shown below) provides us. Hu is as photogenic-yet-natural as seems possible: handsome, alert, quick with a smile, humble, thoughtful and consistently present. And while Andreetti may follow Hu's own film-making style in terms of crowding in as much as possible and jumping around from person to place, her style is also more graceful, compelling and easy to watch.

The Observer begins with footage of hand-held cameras documenting the sudden closing of the 2019 Beijing Independent Film Festival, with the entire archive of the festival seized and its founder and artistic director being taken into custody. It was the showing of Hu's Spark that had this festival canceled. It turns out, we learn, that Hu's films are just about as "underground" and hidden from any mainstream viewing as was the Spark publication in its day. How this man has managed to find any place on the film-making map is something of a miracle. And he seems to have learned to live and work within this situation better than you could possibly imagine.

Andreetti talks at length to Hu himself (he clearly trusts her), to friends (one of whom is shown below) and to his wife, who gives us enough personal information that we understand why and how this very driven fellow conducts his life and relationships. It can't have been easy to have lived with and put up with him, but for someone who understands and appreciates his dedication and goal, this was clearly worthwhile, if difficult.

We get a bit of Chinese film history: for decades there were no documentary films in China, just propaganda films. Even now, anything truthful must remain underground. Via scenes from six of Hu's short documentaries, we learn of various people and events, most importantly, the story of Lin Zhao, a woman who protested in life and later even in prison, so that authorities covered her face with a mask so she could not speak. Murdered at age 33, her tale has now been told, and even if it is mostly unseen by the Chinese, still, it exists.

Finally we witness Hu's return to painting (he first began his creative life as a fine artist), and we see a show of his work depicting famine (what else?!) at a local gallery -- which the authorities manage to allow only a three-day run, instead of the longer one that was originally planned. Still, Hu persists. How fine it is that Ms Andreetti has managed to capture him, along with his life and work and purpose, so very well.

The dual set (on a single disc) of Spark with The Observer hits home video via DVD and VOD this coming Tuesday, June 30 -- from dGenerate Films, a leading distributor of independent Chinese film and movies, distributed in the USA via Icarus Home Video. As of June 30, both films will also be available digitally via the relatively new streaming servic, OVID.

Note: for more information of Hu Jie, 

read the interesting article in The New York Times 

that appeared this past Sunday, 6/28/20.

TONY CONRAD: COMPLETELY IN THE PRESENT Tyler Hubbard's doc about one of our lesser-known (and happy about it) cultural icons

What to make of Tony Conrad? If you were to judge by TONY CONRAD: COMPLETELY IN THE PRESENT, the new documentary from Tyler Hubby -- opening this coming Friday, March 31, at New York City's Anthology Film Archives -- Mr. Conrad was a nearly undiscovered and unheralded genius and multi-talented artist and musician. And yet the proof Hubby offers is as likely to have you rolling your eyes in annoyance or disbelief as climbing aboard his bandwagon. And yet, by the end of this rambling but occasionally charming and/or surprising doc, you will have to admit that Mr. Conrad was pretty much one-of-a-kind.

Hubby's movie (the filmmaker is shown at left) begins with a Conrad quote: History is like music. It's completely in the present.  Which, of course, history is not. But this does make for an OK subtitle for the documentary, while also reflecting Mr. Conrad, who was, perhaps more than anything else, a big tease. At various times across his career, he was a musician, an artist, a filmmaker, but mostly and always a provocateur. What Hubby allows us to see and hear of Conrad's work will have all but the hardiest of experimental art and music lovers running for the hills.

Still, what an oddly compelling career this guy had! Together, Tyler and Tony give us some early history of Conrad, such as his time with The Primitives, a music group that included the likes of Tony (shown above, left), Lou Reed (center, left), Angus Maclise (center, right) and John Cale (right). And yet the limelight was evidently something that Conrad not only didn't wish to inhabit but actively disparaged. As someone notes about him in the course of the film, "Tony was the smartest guy in the room, but he had other things to do."

Indeed. Along the way, he and a few "minimalist" musicians make a recording of their own experimental music that never, until nearly the end of Conrad's life, saw the light of day, thanks to one of the group -- La Monte Young, who is clearly shown to be the villain of the movie -- refusing to share the only recorded copy with the other participants. Well, who much cares? As Conrad (shown above) notes, "They wanted to be composers. I wanted to end composing." Listening to some of this music, you can fully understand that desire.

Later, Conrad has a serious fling with both experimental filmmaking and another experimental filmmaker, Beverly Grant, which results in a marriage and even a child. But not a lot of memorable work. Watching Conrad in his youth and particularly in middle age and senior years, the impression here is of an immensely likable guy with minimal talent at just about everything he touches.

His gift, it would seem, lay in being against things (New York City's Lincoln Center, above, was one of these). As someone notes along the way: "He reacted, he pushed back." He did -- and most often in a funny, joking manner. Once he gets into the "teaching" trade, his gift is even more apparent. (And why not? Since all of U.S. education, art, politics and the rest has simply led us to the coronation of Donald Trump, why the fuck not be against?)

From teaching, Conrad moves into documentaries and man-on-the-street interviews, and then to a women-in-prison movie in which all the roles were played by men in drag. Conrad ran out of funds midway through this film, and it was never completed. Decades later, he wants to go back to it, using the same actors in their golden years. "That blows my mind," exclaims filmmaker Hubby, though some in the audience may feel less amazed.

Then the director does something odd and interesting -- going back to the 1970s and a group called Faust, and then to a certain record called Outside the Dream Syndicate, an example, I guess, of early minimalism in music (it's almost trance-like), followed by a fling with Pythagoras and some writing Conrad did in which, by god, he does seem awfully smart (from the little snatch we're allowed to read, anyway).

We see Tony diddling with an art project you might call The Incontinent Underwear (above) -- which seems relatively original and something that the New Tate in London might appreciate. And finally, we leave Conrad, in media res, doing some kind of film or sound project on a busy New York street (see photo at bottom) halting/directing traffic, of all things. 

Conrad died one year ago this coming April and probably soon after this film was completed. If Hubby mentioned this in the film or during its end credits, I missed it, but discovered the fact when I went to Wikipedia. 

So then, the film acts as a kind of oddball memorial to an even more oddball fellow who never made it into, nor ever even strove for, that much-ballyhooed limelight.

From Sixty Cycle Hum LLC and running 94 minutes, Tony Conrad: Completely in the Present opens this coming Friday, March 31, for a week's run at Anthology Film Archives in New York City. Click here to see other upcoming screenings.

DE PALMA lovers, rejoice! Get your fill of the guy in Baumbach and Paltrow's new doc

TrustMovies loves the work of Brian De Palma. And he's never found the man's films to be misogynist, either. They're too clever and artful for that. I have found Hitchcock to be misogynist, however, and De Palma thinks of himself as Hitch's true disciple. So go figure. Anyone who enjoys this particular movie-maker's oeuvre is a sitting duck for DE PALMA, the new documentary about the filmmaker (from Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow) that combines a kind of history of the man and his movies with enough footage from the various films to make you want (if you're a fan, of course) to go back and view them all over again. (If you're too young to know this director's work, the documentary ought to least whet your appetite for a further look.)

Baumbach (at right) and Paltrow (left) flank the famous filmmaker (shown above and on poster, top), and their movie evidently came out of one very long lunch (or maybe several), during which the director spills the beans about one after another of his films, starting from his very first short (a still from his early Greetings is shown below) and continuing right through his latest, visually stunning (but only middling otherwise) French movie remake, Passion. Along the way we get bits and pieces of De Palma's life, loves and desires -- which may not definitively explain the psychology behind his movies but which do provide some zesty food-for-thought -- and enough well-chosen moments from his many movies (40 of 'em, all told) to absolutely delight us fans.

There's plenty of gossip, too -- tales that can now, evidently, be told. Did you know, for instance, that actor Cliff Robertson was pretty much forced upon the director for his movie Obsession, and what De Palma tells about the work habits of Mister Cliff quite nicely explains the movie's half-assedness and why it so thoroughly belonged to its lovely newcomer co-star, Geneviève Bujold.

Scarface (above), though one of the filmmaker's more successful box-office draws, has never been among the movies I love. (It seem less like "a De Palma film" than do most of his others.) Hearing the director talk about the film makes me better understand why I feel this way. Ditto, his most successful box-office outing, the initial Mission Impossible movie, below.  (How he feels about movie "car chases" is one of the things you'll learn from the doc.)

De Palma, more than anyone, I think, was responsible for the resurgence of the career of movie composer Bernard Herrmann, and we learn some fascinating tidbits about this fellow, along with that of another composer used often by the master: Pino Donaggio.

Keepers like Dressed to Kill (above), Blow Out and Body Double (god, this guy loves watching!) are all on the agenda, too, as are some movies you may have forgotten. Was Snake Eyes the last good film that Nicolas Cage starred in?  And it is certainly time for a re-think of Femme Fatale. (below). What fun that one was, and its cunning use of the Cannes Film Fest was about as savvy as movies get.

How much better Fatal Attraction might have been had De Palma directed it, as was initially expected. But then we might not have gotten his best (along with Carlito'sWay) mainstream movie, The Untouchables (below). This doc will have you believing in karma, maybe.

The director has something vital and interesting to say about every last one of his films (his comments on Mission to Mars are smart and poignant). My biggest problem with De Palma -- the doc, not the director -- is that, even at almost two hours, it ought to have been a lot longer. Surely what we see here is but a fraction of the footage Jake and Noah shot. Maybe, even now, the film's distributor A24 (or some special movie "angel") is bankrolling the eight-hour version, which we will someday be able to view in segments on IFC or Turner Classic Movies. We live in hope.

Meanwhile, De Palma, after opening in New York and Los Angeles, hits cities around the country. Here in South Florida, you can see it at the Miami Beach Cinematheque. To view all currently scheduled playdates, cities and  theaters, click here.  (The still above is from Redacted, in which the director did for our Iraq War what his Casualties of War had done for Vietnam.)

Hong Sang-soo's Korean Rohmer-esque RIGHT NOW, WRONG THEN opens in theaters

I've not seen nearly all of the 21 films of Hong Sang-soo but of those I have (including The Day He Arrives, Like You Know It All, Oki's Movie, Night and Day, Woman Is the Future of Man, Woman on the Beach and his latest RIGHT NOW, WRONG THEN among them), certain themes and characteristics emerge. Hong often tells stories with a Korean art film director as a leading character. (Why not? He certainly knows those ropes.) If not a director, he'll give us an artist, or sometimes both. Furthermore, this director (along with most other characters in the film) drinks a lot and womanizes whenever possible. Travel is often present --from one city to another or one country to another -- as is the sense of the past nurturing and/or hobbling the present, as well as a keen interest in responsibility and the acceptance or rejection of same.

All of this has conspired over time to make me think of Eric Rohmer when I confront the films of Mr. Hong (shown at left). And I do mean this as a compliment. Both men's film are art-house to a fault, dialog heavy and often deal in similar themes. (Hong's movies are generally lengthier than Rohmer's, so be patient.)  His latest two-hour frolic splits itself almost exactly in two, with the first hour showing us his alter ego engaging in the usual come-on to attractive women (though he does try to resist, boy, is it difficult!), drinking, flirting, babbling and generally embarrassing himself rather badly. All this is, as usual, great fun to see this pretentious little twat unmasked and undone. But it is with the second half that Hong burnishes his movie to a gleaming shine.

In both parts our "hero" busies himself with a much younger art student, visiting her workshop and seeing her creations, meeting her friends, and then, the following day, giving his talk at a local screening of one of his films. Yet the first and second sections could hardly be more different and we need to view the former in order to properly appreciate the latter.

That first section is so much like many of the other of Hong's movies that it almost seems as if the filmmaker has finally grown fed up with this typical behavior and wants to show us might occur if his characters, particularly the art-film director, were more honest. What a difference this makes.

Sure we can still imbibe and grow drunk, but even here, the results differ when we're less self-involved and more other-centered. The change of behavior even stretches into the scene at the movie theater and the relationship with the film festival curator and his assistant.

To fully appreciate Hong and Rohmer, you must be also appreciate the ability of dialog to create character, and care about and understand character enough to let it control a film. Event is minimal, and yet, because of the depth of character, event, even a small one, in a sense becomes all.

Mr Hong finds humor, sadness and surprise -- even perchance growth -- in his characters, and this makes his forays into travel, drink, sex and art so enticing and so much fun. At least I find them so. I hope you will, too.

Meanwhile, Right Now, Wrong Then -- from Grasshopper Film and running opens tomorrow, Friday, June 24, in New York at the new Metrograph and at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and in Los Angeles on June 25, at the Acropolis Cinema. In the weeks following, it will hit another six cities. Click here then scroll way down and click on Where to Watch to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters.

EISENSTEIN IN GUANAJUATO: It's the new Peter Greenaway and very sexual. 'Nuff said.

OK. So it's gorgeous (that pretty much goes without saying regarding most movies by Peter Greenaway). With EISENSTEIN IN GUANAJUATO, black-and-white cinematography moves into color; the screen splits, then splits again. Sometimes we see black-and-white and color simultaneously. And as happens with Greenaway now and again (remember The Pillow Book?), there are a number of shots featuring uncut cock (belonging here to famed film director Sergei Eisenstein -- or at least the actor who's playing him, Elmer Bäck).

I would say that Mr. Greenaway, shown at right, is up to his old tricks, but these are rather new tricks, and simply for that color, exquisite sets and locations, not to mention all of the full-frontal beauty, the movie is worth seeing. As an exploration into the life and desires of filmmaker Eisenstein, I do not know enough about the filmmaker to be certain. But maybe Sergei himself would fall in love with this movie. I certainly did.

I want to see it again, too -- with English subtitles included, because, even though the film is spoken mostly in English, the accents of its two stars (one Finnish, the other Mexican) are so strong that I suspect I missed enough of the dialog to need a second viewing. Visually, too, it's such a knockout that it warrants another look.

Historically, the movie tampers with the time that Eisenstein, having departed the United States for Mexico in 1931, where he hoped to make a film (he did indeed shoot more than two miles of film stock), but instead -- as shown here, at least -- gets more involved with his guide, Palomino Cañedo (played by the quietly commanding Mexican actor, Luis Alberti), who opens Eisenstein's heart, mind and ass to new worlds of pleasure and ideas.

In addition to its gorgeous location photography and interior sets, much of the movie takes place in and around a very large bed (above) that proves pivotal to a number of scenes. In the role of Eisenstein, Mr. Bäck seems a rather inspired choice. The actor, below, who looks a good like like his real-life counterpart, combines a kind of loopy, clownish behavior with a physicality and sexuality that prove oddly charismatic.

In the role of his guide, Señor Alberti (shown below, right), a man of small, thin stature who possesses very large penile/genital package, seems born to disrobe -- which he does several times in the course of the film.

Greenaway uses this character of "guide" in ways both obvious and symbolic, never more so than in the film's prize sex scene in which this man of clearly Indian ancestry tutors our filmmaker in the joys of sex, as well as the philosophy of the conquered and conqueror, planting a flag in a place where, up till now, I don't think we've seen it dwell.

For all its visual pleasures -- including a couple of dramatic and gorgeous sudden changes of perspective -- Eisenstein in Guamajuato is also full of history (the entourage of Upton Sinclair makes an appearance here), ideas and provocations.

The filmmaker seems to have taken what is known of Eisenstein's time in Mexico and embroidered this with extravagant visuals that perfectly underscore what is going on physically and emotionally: exploration, loneliness, discovery, transgression.

If we get much more into the mind and body of the filmmaker rather than the guide, that's fine, as Palomino's character exists mostly to bring forth the repressed -- sexually and politically -- side of Eisenstein. What the filmmaker needs, as his wife tells him in one of the several phone conversations, "Is a secretary, a nurse, and a bum wiper."

Intercut periodically are scenes from the filmmaker's greatest hits, as well as some sexual animation that stands in for what arthouse/mainstream audiences are not quite ready to view just yet.

All in all, this is one hell of a surprising, eye-opening, mind-expanding ride. And I can't help but wonder what its viewers will think the next time they see one of Eisenstein's classics?

From Strand Releasing and running 105 minutes, the movie opens this Friday in New York (at the Angelika Film Center and the Lincoln Plaza Cinema) and in Los Angeles (at Laemmle's Royal and Playhouse 7). In the weeks to come, it will hit theaters nationwide on a limited basis. Click here, and then click on "Screenings"  to see all currently scheduled playdates.