AUDITOIRE

TOP FILMS OF [A] DECADE: None From Philippine Cinema

noreply@blogger.com (ADRIAN) — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 05:10:00 +0000

...it's weird, ya know...

TOP 5
from top: Syndromes and a Century, Platform, Still Life, Beau Travail, and In the Mood for Love

We have "over sixty film curators, historians, archivists and programmers from festivals, cinematheques and similar organizations around the world participated... to pick the films they thought were the most important of the past decade." By the 'decade' Cinematheque Ontario means from 1999 to 2009. HarryTutle notes:

"Just a reminder, a decade doesn't start at zero until 9... There was no year zero at Jesus' birth. The calendar went from year -1 to year 1. The last millenium started on year 1001 and ended in 2000, just like the previous one started on year 1 and ended on year 1000. The XXth century started on year 1901 and ended on year 2000, thus the name "Twentieth" while all years start by 19." (here)

What I am talking about is the news released by Cinematheque Ontario last Monday, November 23, 2009, entitled TIFF Cinematheque's Best Of The Decade Poll Presents The Classics Of Today. November 25 when Girish published his reaction on the poll and from there news waves saturated the film blogosphere about its variety, appropriateness and neglect and marginalization of other cinematic traditions like popular cinema and documentary form mostly raised by Girish on his blog. This poll is organized by Cinematheque's Senior Programmer James Quandt during TIFF a few weeks ago.

| THE LIST | [from their site]

1 | Syndromes and a Century (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand) - 53 votes

2 | Platform (Jia Zhang-ke, Hong Kong, China/China/Japan/France) - 49 votes

3 | Still Life (Jia Zhang-ke, China) - 48 votes

4 | Beau travail (Claire Denis, France) - 46 votes

5 | In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, Hong Kong, China) - 43 votes

6 | Tropical Malady (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, France/Thailand/Germany/Italy) - 38 votes

7 | The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Cristi Puiu, Romania) - 35 votes
Werckmeister Harmonies (Béla Tarr, Hungary) - 35 votes

8 | Éloge de l'amour (Jean-Luc Godard, Switzerland/ France) - 34 votes

9 | 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu, Romania) - 33 votes

10 | Silent Light (Carlos Reygadas, Mexico/France/Netherlands) - 32 votes

11 | Russian Ark (Alexander Sokurov, Russia/Germany) - 31 votes

12 | The New World (Terrence Malick, USA) - 30 votes

13 | Blissfully Yours (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, France/Thailand) - 29 votes

14 | Le Fils (Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne, Belgium/France) - 27 votes

15 | Colossal Youth (Pedro Costa, Portugal/France/Switzerland) - 25 votes

16 | Les Glaneurs et la glaneuse (Agnès Varda, France) - 24 votes
In Vanda's Room (Pedro Costa, Portugal/Germany/Italy/Switzerland) - 24 votes
Songs from the Second Floor (Roy Andersson, Sweden/Denmark/Norway) - 24 votes

17 | Caché (Michael Haneke, France/Austria/Germany/Italy) - 23 votes
A History of Violence (David Cronenberg, USA) - 23 votes
Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, France/USA) - 23 votes
Three Times (Hou Hsiao-hsien, Taiwan) - 23 votes

18 | Rois et reine (Arnaud Desplechin, France) - 21 votes

19 | Elephant (Gus Van Sant, USA) - 20 votes

20 | Talk to Her (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain) - 19 votes

21 | The Wind Will Carry Us (Abbas Kiarostami, Iran/France)- 18 votes
YI YI (A One and a Two) (Edward Yang, Taiwan/Japan) - 18 votes

22 | Pan's Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro, Spain) - 17 votes

23 | L'Enfant (Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne, Belgium/France) - 16 votes
The Heart of the World (Guy Maddin, Canada) - 16 votes
I Don't Want to Sleep Alone (Tsai Ming-liang, Taiwan/France/Austria) - 16 votes
Star Spangled to Death (Ken Jacobs, USA) - 16 votes

24 | The World (Jia Zhang-ke, China/Japan/France) - 14 votes

25 | Café Lumière (Hou Hsiao-hsien, Japan) - 13 votes
The Headless Woman (Lucrecia Martel, Argentina/Spain/France/Italy) - 13 votes
L'Intrus (Claire Denis, France) - 13 votes
Millennium Mambo (Hou Hsiao-hsien, Taiwan/France) - 13 votes
My Winnipeg (Guy Maddin, Canada) - 13 votes
Saraband (Ingmar Bergman, Sweden) - 13 votes
Spirited Away (Hiyao Miyazaki, Japan) - 13 votes
I'm Not There (Todd Haynes, USA) - 13 votes

26 | Gerry (Gus Van Sant, USA) - 12 votes

27 | Distant (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey) - 11 votes
Dogville (Lars von Trier, Denmark/Sweden/UK/France/Germany) - 11 votes
The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson, USA) - 11 votes

28 | Alexandra (Alexander Sokurov, Russia/France) - 9 votes
demonlover (Olivier Assayas, France) - 9 votes

29 | Atanarjuat, The Fast Runner (Zacharias Kunuk, Canada) - 8 votes
Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Tsai Ming-liang, Taiwan) - 8 votes

30 | Longing (Valeska Grisebach, Germany) - 7 votes
Secret Sunshine (Lee Chang-dong, South Korea) - 7 votes
Vai e Vem (João César Monteiro, Portugal) - 7 votes
Far From Heaven (Todd Haynes, USA/France) - 7 votes

| THE TALK | [being polemic and all!]

The "LIST" CONCEPT

The classic argument: "Lists are a pig's thing. Personal tastes degenerates into rude generalizations." We know that there are 60 film buffs that participated on this poll, and most of them are critically lauded with achievements on film criticism and theory. And we don't know these guys exactly (the list of participants is available upon request), but we are certainly sure that their personal selection is marked with a certain critical balance (is there balance at all?). We are confident of their choices because we know they have expertise of their respective fields. So why 'a pig's thing'? Voting for the top films somewhat marginalize others, especially those which belongs to the 'uncirculated section', otherwise known as the Avant-Garde/Experimental films. Girish took a note on this:

"The list privileges narrative, feature-length films. Avant-garde/experimental cinema is almost wholly absent (save Ken Jacobs, and Apichatpong, whose work straddles narrative and avant-garde modes). Thus, for instance: no James Benning, Peter Tscherkassky, Nathaniel Dorsky, Michael Robinson, or (again) Jennifer Reeves. Also: no short films except Guy Maddin's The Heart of the World." (here)

It certainly cuts the rest from recognition. Even mainstream films are not represented at all. Girish again note:

"By explicitly advancing the cause of art cinema, a poll such as this automatically marginalizes the aesthetic merits of commercial cinema. So, from Hollwyood to Bollywood, popular cinema barely registers here." (here)

I don't seem to understand why they have polled it too soon. Isn't November of 2009 not December 2010?

NONE FROM PHILIPPINE CINEMA

In a general observation, Philippine Independent Cinema peaked during the start of the millennium, and the concentration of creative effort peaked a few years ago when Mendoza 's feature Serbis (2008) sent shocks on the international circuit. Soon to followed are Raya Martin's experimental films and Lav Diaz's magnum opus works. And the rest are history.

I am surprised by the neglect of Lav Diaz's works which, I think, have not reached Toronto at all. Historians must be aware of Lav's features because of their eminent scale (averaged from 5 to 7 hours long). Most of his films have eclipsed most of Tarr and Costa's work. Evolution of a Filipino Family (2004) is, i think, the best Filipino film of the decade. But this neglect is highly understandable: lack of circulation. Most Filipino independent filmmakers nowadays favored experimentation over canonical narration, a postmodernist stance practiced my Martin, Mendoza, Khavn dela Cruz and Diaz himself. We recently have Pepe Diokno's Engkwentro (2009) as an example of the overall tendency of Philippine cinema towards experimentalist approach. Also equally understandable is the lack of critical study to these features. But certainly, we cannot actually say that study equals greatness. However, it must be so that Citizen Kane (1941) have started the inquiry of film as art hence the start of film studies [if not without Andre Bazin this could not be possible].

I hope the Cinematheque Ontario post the individual list from " sixty film curators, historians, archivists and programmers".

I hope...

1) ...Brokeback Mountain was included.
2) Edward Yang's Yi Yi was shortlisted on the top 10 list.
3) David Lynch's Inland Empire.
4) Paul Anderson's features
5) Ozon and Dumont's features.
6) More documentaries and animated features...
7) Hou's Red Balloon.
8) Folman's Waltz with Bashir

Ciao!
***

I strongly don't want to read...

noreply@blogger.com (ADRIAN) — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 18:44:00 +0000

...news anymore...

"10 more bodies..." My friend went on and on reading a news from ABS-CBNNEWS.COM and i wanted to get out of the room to fled from the emptiness, for it was horrendous! Horrendous in every sense of the word! What is happening to our moral fiber? Have we lost it? This is insanity, yeah, insanity with a big blow on our history.
......

Mean Streets (1973)

noreply@blogger.com (ADRIAN) — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 15:42:00 +0000

...because i love it!

"Thematics considers subject matter and themes as components of the constructive process. The researcher may study motifs, iconography, and themes as materials, as constructive principles, or as effects of constructive principles...

...thematics informs many people's thinking about cinema... Thematics lies perhaps closest to the method-dominated criticsm, but within the tradition of poetics there have been wide-ranging theoretical and methodological debates of a kind not seen in interpretative approaches...

...is that of Large-scale form. The poetics of literature explores principles of progression and development governing the well-made play, the sonnet, or the adventure of the novel...

...Stylistics, the third led of the poetics tripod, deals with the materials and patterning of the medium as components of the constructive process."

---David Bordwell
from Poetics of Cinema (2008, Routledge).

Ciao!
***

"The writer...

noreply@blogger.com (ADRIAN) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 15:28:00 +0000

...who believes in life dies at his own hands. It must be experimental, in a way, to look life as it is, as it normally blends in, or as it becomes distinguished from the stream in which it flows. The whole of it is a premium whole, a totality to drive a universe in full, swinging motion, the pristine concept of death, the stop of it all. Look at Hemingway, Woolf and the memories of Proust, the melancholia of this world shall never end, like a stream, it will envelop nations and set in motion the whole of writers who love life but hate his own."
---- me, writing it on a piece of paper at Starbucks.

When I wrote this I was thinking about my two main characters, Leonard and Marcus, the space in which they occupy and the issues that Mark, a friend of mine, have raised about situating them in the spirit of time in which they belong. Perhaps, I am a classicist. I am a hard-boiled admirer of the syntax of Woolf, Proust and Joyce and the spirit of time in which my characters move is the culture of the past, the 1920s and their ideologies are partly Marxist and existentialist. What happens today? How, a writer, whose vision of today's spirit of time is lost? Am I lost? Lost in dreams, fantasies? Am I in doubt? And I wanted it all:

"Ineluctable modality of the visible: at least that if no more, thought through my eyes. Signatures of all things I am here to read, seaspawn and seawrack, the nearing time, that rusty boots. Snotgreen, bluesilver, rust: coloured signs. Limits of the diaphane. But he adds: in bodies. Then he was aware of them bodies before of them coloured. How? By knocking his scone against them, sure. Go easy. Bald he was and a millionaire, maestro de color de sanno. Limit of the diaphane in. Why in? Diaphane, adiaphane. If you can put your five finger through it it is a gate, if not a door. Shut your eyes and see."

---- Telemachus, first part, ULYSSES (1921, James Joyce)

And I moaned a little while because inside i know i must write in the spirit of time, but where is it, the spirit, time?

Ciao!
***

Johnny Delgado (1945 - 2009)

noreply@blogger.com (ADRIAN) — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 16:02:00 +0000

...passed away...

But life goes on...

Ciao Johnny!

For Keith Hernandez Cipriano

noreply@blogger.com (ADRIAN) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:50:00 +0000

...someone close to my heart...

As a graduating student:
with a degree in BA English Studies
Major in English Language

Keith, as we ordinarily call him, is one of my closest friends. This is my way of celebrating his existence. Today is his 20th birthday. I can always remember Keith by his distinctive music playlist which compose of mostly classics from classical Hollywood films, disco music from the 70s. Being his roommate for one summer, a song remains faithful to my memory.

Dancing Queen
one of his favorite songs

This is for him!

with me

with another close friend, Gela.

with me, glorifying everything!

a spontaneous joker!

doing the tongue thing with RJ!

pushing boundaries together!

together. forevaaa!

Keep it as it is.

We love you Keith! More power to you and your endeavors ahead.

Keith, welcome to the world once again!

***

"But...

noreply@blogger.com (ADRIAN) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:46:00 +0000

...Thompson is hardly an anarchist. Her analysis is systematic, following her critical assumption that films are systematically unified, with devices on a variety of levels (narrative, stylistic, and ideological) subordinated to an organizing "dominant". It is her sense of these interrelations that make Thompson impatient with easy satisfaction of interpretation."
--- Tom Gunning on Kristin Thompson's Breaking the Glass Armor: Neoformalist Film Analysis. (Film Quarterly, Vol. 43, No. 3 (Spring, 1990) pp. 52-54) (here)

Ciao!
***

Still reading it, hope to make my own one for December, probably on Tokyo Story (1953), Children of Paradise (1945), La Grande Illusion (1937), Seven Samurai (1953), and
Breathless (1960), Serbis (2008), and tsadaaan... 2012 (Emmerich, 2009).

Flexibility of Neoformalist approach is highly intriguing. I love it! But it needs to be tested like many other theory.

Ciao2x!

***

University of the Philippines - Film Institute (UPFI) has a new website, at last! I have been waiting for this like about one year ago. Applause! Applause! Applause! [here!]

Perhaps the most unexpected cinematic adventure i had this week, apart from some good old porn classics and Rolland Emmerich's bombastic 2012 (2009) which most of my friends like, was Manila (Martin and Alix, 2009) [here, here, and here], the almost five-hour contemplative epic Now Showing (Martin, 2008) [here, Ogg's here, Alexis' here, Harry's here, Cahiers' here, and here], and the In Memoriam: Alexis Tioseco specials: John Giavato's Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind (2007), and A Candle (For Alexis and Nika) (2009), and Bontoc Eulogy (Fuentes, 1995). I am not surprised mainly because of their aesthetics but the superlative reason of watching all films at UPFI Cine Adarna and the Videoteque almost alone. It is somehow not a rewarding experience at all.

Saturday last week I was pumped up on watching Emmerich's 2012 with friends, and the Trinoma cinema was full, the audiences were shrieking, kicking and gasping altogether, such a wonderful experience on a very ordinary film! However, upon watching Now Showing in UPFI's Videoteque, I watched it alone in a cold, dark room, and I am sad that I am alone, why am I alone watching a big film, an important film by Raya Martin, why? Though I prefer to watch DVDs in my dorm room alone, I can never ever forget watching such a film in a small video room in solitude! Have all people gone on strike! Where did all the people go! Where oh where! Cinema, for me, died on that day, November 18 of 2009, on that room! I killed myself right after that by eating a piece of meat (of course, you must know that I don't eat meat at all for about six months now!). ;-(

Ciao! T.T

Remembering PSYSC...

noreply@blogger.com (ADRIAN) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:54:00 +0000

...is something to sing about...

L-R: moi in gray, Rovir, Irish, Hansel, Anacel, Mona, Precy
---- extraordinary science clubbers! (@NAIA Terminal 3)

and the rest of PSYSC facilitators wearing costumes!
Me on the upper rightmost part with a hoodie!
(@Sampaguita Gardens, New Washington, Aklan)

Beside films, I do science clubbing for fun and, most importantly, for service.

***

Cinema Diaz

noreply@blogger.com (ADRIAN) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 07:42:00 +0000

...is [Melanc_ol_a]...

This is the UP Film Institute.

Diaz' Melancholia last year on a theater a few blocks from where I live in the campus. [Melanc_ol_a]

Ciao!
***

Gouttes d'eau sur pierres brûlantes (2000)

noreply@blogger.com (ADRIAN) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:31:00 +0000

... or Water Drops on Burning Rocks...

Warning: For mature readers only, or for those who have reached cinematic quintessence.

Francois Ozon. As some would thought...

[London Film Festival 21 October 2005 by Alexander Smotrov]

BUT! Ozon is fun: melancholia.

.
. .
. . .

The corners of my head...

...are squared (unsquared).

You have red hair...

...I know...

... and green eyes...

...is it symmetry?...

...as all doors have?...

. vis . a . vis.

...Life --->

<--- is figures traced by light...

... and the parallelisms...

...dichotomies...

The comparative and meticulous weight of things past...

... come...

come along...

... the blood of the Sabbath...

...to look at oneself whole...

...lying down...

... and cigarettes in my head... to be as it is...

... or not...

I smoke, blow. So as the wind, as it goes.

...Oh melancholia...

Let me call him... uhmmm...

...queer...

... dead...

...death...

Fin de Ozon, my friends. Fin de Ozon.

Experimental again!

Ciao!
****

Socialisme, Godard and Victor Scklovsky

noreply@blogger.com (ADRIAN) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:20:00 +0000

...perhaps art for art's sake, but more than that...

[Godard intertitles from]

Socialisme (Jean-Luc Godard, 2009) - art for art's sake - (via P)

I am lively reading my future life in the film world, the reason why i re-created this blog: Kristin Thompson's Breaking The Glass Armor. It launched me way up to the top of my dream. I finally have in my hands, over a cup of coffee, a copy of the book that will hold the foundation of my approach to films, the Neoformalist approach.

And here is what strikes me the most, from Russian Formalist, Victor Scklovsky, re-quoting from Kristin Thompson:

"If we start to examine the general laws of perception, we see that as the perception becomes habitual, it becomes automatic. . . Such habituation explains the principles by which, in ordinary speech, we leave phrases unfinished and words half expressed. . . The object, perceived in the manner of prose perception, fades and does not leave even the first impression; ultimately even the essence of what it was is forgotten. . . Habituation devours work, clothes, furniture, one's wife, and the fear of war. . . And Art exists that one may recover the sensation of life; exists to make one feel things, to make the stone stony. The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived, and not as they are known. The techniques of art is to make objects 'unfamiliar,' to make forms difficult, to increase the difficulty and length of perception because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged."

--- (From Victor Scklovsky's "Art as Technique" from Russian Formalist Criticism: Four Essays.)

De Sade it is.

SOS....

952 8 () VET

Le Philosophe. |---|

Ciao!
****

In Response to the (Digital) Revolution Article at Sinewaya

noreply@blogger.com (ADRIAN) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 22:12:00 +0000

...for it delayed my sleep yesterday night...

Lars von Trier and Dogme 95: they use hand-held digiCams

I recently found a blog, Sinewaya, just around 1 AM yesterday night after visiting Edgar Paule's Viewer Discretion blog, which i happen to also found last night after a visit at Chard's Lilok Pelikula. Such blogs exist, they are undervalued, not often visited, but contains intriguing and provocative statements about the local cinema and cinema at large.

I couldn't sleep last night after reading Kenneth Roland A. Guda's article about the (Digital) Revolution, entitled You Say You Want a (Digital) Revolution? This web article was written last March of 2008, more than a year ago under the pretense that the digital revolution is a political awakening in the local independent industry.

This pretense i agree but the more salient argument that one can make with this so-called local Digital Revolution is perhaps of a note that it is another stylistic movement, a similarity to the Coming-of-Sound period in cinema last 1929, what many critics and silent filmmakers called as the 'death of cinema'. Silent cinema, that is.

My long and dense comment goes a long way below(with sub-comments in [red italics]):

I am amazed by your vision of cinema. Intense and political! Your arguments run from rock n’ roll to capitalism to filmmaking to advertising to filmmaking, a rare treat indeed. I am trying to piece together the points you have raised, and I am sensing that you focused on the emerging local digital filmmaking movement. This was written last year, and i think I can sense a criticism on Video blogging when you mention about the ‘democratization’ and that everyone can be a filmmaker which i think should be gnawed upon even more.

But I tell you, yes, everyone is a filmmaker. I can even reduce it by saying “Every [contemporary] man is a film camera. (Kino Eye)” This was the very idea of a famous Russian director from the Soviet Montage film movement in 1920s, Dziga Vertov, whose philosophy of man is highly linked with cinema. He said: “In the face of the machine we are ashamed of man’s inability to control himself, but what are we to do if we find the unerring ways of electricity more exciting than the disorderly haste of active people…I am an eye. I am a mechanical eye. I, a machine, I am showing you a world, the likes of which only I can see”. Vertov wasn’t really into capitalism when he said this. On the contrary, he saw cinema as a tool and our eye itself.
[The first and second paragraph of my comment was in response to his argument about the democratization of the film medium. He states that:
"The very idea of democratization (everybody can be a filmmaker with a DigiCam) as marketed by the mutinationals (Sony, et al) would lead us into believing that everything — every image, every moment — can be worth capturing in megapixels, even the most private moments (think those video scandals)."
It doesn't seem very clear what he is trying to point to --- to capitalism per se or to advertising of such products --- and to what point he is making.]
We must also note that like many art (literature, painting, architecture, etc.) cinema is historically contingent and ever evolving medium. In 1929, the coming of sound, many filmmakers and theorist declared that cinema is dead. Sound is somewhat alien to many silent filmmakers that time, they considered it as an intruder to their quiet little haven. However, we [can observe that during] the 1930s and 40s, the transition period, cinema is not dead but at the zenith of perfection. (if that happens, we won’t be blogging about it at all hehe!). 1930-40s is a period in cinema when the greatest films were made, Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941), La Grande Illusion (Renoir, 1937), The Rules of the Game (Renoir, 1939), It’s a Wonderful Life (Capra, 1946), Children of Paradise (Carne, 1945). These films have made a great impact on the rest of the history of film. The style of each one, The Rules of the Game and Citizen Kane’s deep space cinematography, La Grande Illusion’s mobility of the camera, Children of Paradise’s mise-en-scene decor and historical significance (Carne filmed it during the Nazi Occupation in France, such a violent time to film a masterpiece!), have influenced dozens of [contemporary] filmmakers and have established film studies itself.

In line with the central topic, that of digital filmmaking, we can approach it not as a political agenda of sorts, but as a way of comparing it with the COMING OF SOUND in 1929. It is THE NEXT FILM MEDIUM, and we see its existence on many films both foreign and local and it is evident that it will flourish in the years to come. When Abbas Kiarostami started using the digital camera after filming The Wind will Carry Us (1999), he declared that its much a better camera than the celluloid one, and many critics were 'shocked' by this declaration. This shift of medium is also observable in many directors like David Lynch in his Inland Empire (2006) and Brillante Mendoza in his Masahista (2005). Kiarostami used the digital camera because, he said, it is the new realism in cinema attributed to its closeness to us, audiences, that, in line with your democratization argument, we can document daily life with it. Lynch used it for psychological effects, a purely stylistic cause. Mendoza used it to add atmospheric/mood effects.
[I would add on this that one famous group of filmmakers who extensively use the video medium is none other than Lars Von Trier and the gang of Dogme 95 avant-garde filmmakers.]
We can say that the use of the digital medium is itself a manifestation of a new realism in cinema (with Kiarostami), and more importantly, a stylistic choice of the filmmaker. I cannot see how this medium can be used by young filmmakers to propel themselves to fame. If I am a ‘young filmmaker’ i would still use the old ones, the celluloid camera, because of its grainy effect which can add ‘pa-pogi’ epek sa mga judges ng film festivals.
[The paragraph above is my response to his crude argument about the 'rock-n-roll young filmmakers'. he wrote:
"What saddens us, therefore, that many young, aspiring filmmakers still buy this (rockstardom) bullshit. Many young filmmakers continue to aspire for fame and toiling in the digital realm, hoping to eventually break into the “big time” – pay a high price for their naivete, ultimately pawning their wide-eyed idealism at the altar of compromise. The best artistic minds are everday lost to advertising agencies, television sitcoms, and other commercial endeavors."
It is clear that he connects the advent of digital filmmaking with the rise of young 'rock-n-roll' filmmakers obsessed with fame and distinction. But what makes a famous young filmmaker these days? Are Mikhail Red, only 16 years old, and Pepe Diokno, 21 years old, popular as rock-n-roll filmmaker stars somehow?]

In line with your attack on advertising, if this advertising concerns the publicity of either a mainstream film or an independent film, I say leave it that way. This is how the film industry works ever since cinema was born in 1895. Without advertising, no people would enter on nickelodeons (old movie theaters during the 1910s) to watch screwball comedies and silent melodramas. One has to be informed to gather audiences, and what is cinema without our faithful audiences. What is a film industry without a proper information dissemination scheme, for as we all know, advertising is a form of information dissemination. if we are concern with the quality and accuracy of the information, then it is a question of value, another topic we are not concerned with.

Finally, you mention of ‘world class standards’ to attain in order for our local filmmakers to attain fame and distinction. And I say this, such ’standards’ exist, we call them not ‘world class standards’ but ‘film studies’ per se. If, say, we put Tokyo Story (JAPAN, Ozu, 1953) as a primary example, Western film scholars discovered the film in the 1970s and it is hinted as the one that opened the window to Yasujiro Ozu’s filmmography to be studied in depth. Every film, wherever it originates, has a focal point: the camera and the techniques. And these techniques are learned from film schools, or if lucky, from self-experimentation. What unites every film is the camera, and film theorists and historians are experts on every aspect of the camera, how it can transform a series of ordinary moving pictures into a remarkable story, how it can distort reality, how it produces ideas and meanings. Film theorists read every film that way, and not only ‘that’ way but many ways. One can engage an ideological study on a satirical film, to explore its themes and motifs. One can engage a formal study focusing on the technicalities of the film (mise-en-scene, cinematography, editing, sound). Such ‘world class standards’ are not standards at all but ‘analytical point of references’. Say, how one film differs from another film, how their camera works look the same but function in different ways.
[The last paragraph concerns my comment on his rather hyperbolic note on film festivals:
"The prevailing philosophy in many of our local film festivals has always been to promote and recognize films of “world class quality,” whatever “world class” actually means. Following this philosophy, filmmakers only have to follow foreign trends and compete in “international standards” for fame and fortune to come their way."]

----------------------0----------------------

Tropa de Elite (Jose Padilha, 2007)

But let us look at Sinewaya in another way. Sinewaya: Contemporary Media Criticism, according to their site, (in Tagalog)

"ay isang kolektibo ng mga mahihilig manood ng pelikula at naniniwala sa makapangyarihang potensiyal ng sining na odyo-biswal. Ang Sinewaya rin ay isang online film journal na naglalathala ng mga kritikal na sanaysay hinggil sa masiglang ugnayan ng pelikula at lipunan." (A group of cinema enthusiast who believe in the potential of audio-visual art. It is an online film journal that publishes essays on engaging relationship between film and society.)

I admit, we need local online film journals like this. With Criticine plague by the death of its founder-editor, Alexis Tioseco, another synthesis of local media and cinema is what we need.

Sinewaya stopped publishing articles March of 2008 and sporadically emerged around November this year. I have tracked back some of their previous articles and have linked them to a multiply website here. The group of students published the articles on their blog and their multiply simultaneously. It seems that they worked in a collective and hidden fashion. They identify themselves as Philippine Collegian writers and staffs. Furthermore, from their About page:

"many of us were activist writers and propagandists who liked to watch movies at the UP Film Center and SM North, but could not exactly reconcile this rather costly interest (P30 in 1994; P71-P81 today) with the spartan lifestyle activists were assumed to live."

One must note that the degree of political activism in UP Diliman is still at high level of engagement and popularity. It runs with the cliche: "Pag-UPian ka, aktibista ka." (If you are from UP, the you are an activist.) It is almost not surprising that we find such activist writers cooking film medium with politics and social agenda. Sinewaya has a thing for alternative filmmaking. They have raised several commentaries on the nature of it (in their article: Kritisismo at Exsperimentasyon sa Pelikula), its potential as a counter cultural medium (in their article: Visual Meditation: Documentary filmmaking as countercultural practice), and they even interviewed a Brazillian documentary filmmaker, Jose Padilha, the director of the 2008 Golden Bear winning film, Tropa de Elite (2007) (in their article: Documentary Filmmaking as Commitment: Interview with Brazilian filmmaker Jose Padilha).

Recently, Sinewaya published a criticism on Armando Lao's Biyaheng Lupa (or Soliloquy, 2009) which they observe that

"Kung meron mang bago sa Biyaheng Lupa, iyon siguro ay ang paggamit ng voice over sa kalakhan ng pelikula. Imbes na marinig natin ang sinasabi ng bibig, pinaririnig sa atin ni Lao ang takbo ng utak ng kanyang mga tauhan." (If there is something new in Biyaheng Lupa it is the use of voice over at the expanse of the film. Instead of hearing the monologue from their mouths, Lao enables us to hear from their minds.)

It has been actually used on films throughout its history, from a scene in It's a Wonderful Life (1946), George Bailey's thoughts were voiced over. Another extensive use of voice over was from the film by Wim Wenders, Wings of Desire (1989), to function the same as with It's a Wonderful Life. This technique is called stream-of-consciousness that cinema adapted from modernist literature.

I call the writers of Sinewaya to continue publishing articles. We are in great need of cinema writers in the Philippines, now that a surge of films from the independent circuit is pushing its way to the popular media.

I have to stop here... but i wished not, there are still things to talk about. But I am a human being and I need sleep.

Ciao! ;-)

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A Source worth looking into:

Film vs. Digital (@ KenRockwell.com)

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***

Book Shopping along Laurel Avenue

noreply@blogger.com (ADRIAN) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 07:03:00 +0000

...is a Saturday afternoon...

Initially, we have Truffaut to speak about Jules et Jim (1966)

On the other hand, I am having preoccupations of my itinerary this afternoon. As soon as I finished watching the controversial Un Chant d'Amour (1950) in the order of understanding Jean Genet as a homophile, and the vehement contraption he developed on that, i wanted to have coffee at Starbucks and write on my dear old 200-page diary about the influence of Genet to Warhol and Warhol to LaBruce. The complication of such itinerary is melancholia. I have been locked on a strange mood yesterday, maybe because of my incapacity to create my long due stylistic analysis on Tokyo Story (1953). I cannot make my first sentence, and my outline sucks. Also, I am greatly frustrated by my resistance to reread Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov because of my lack of spirit, the lusterless boredom of nothingness.

Un Chant d'Amour (or A Song of Love)

So i went out in search for the time lost. I walked and had an idea, by 220pm, i wanted to shop for books, lots of them. I ended up at Laurel Avenue at the campus where two bookshops can be located: one, on top of Zago/Mister Doughnut Stall, where i also purchase most of my DVDs, and the other one, at the corner of Laurel Avenue and A. Roces Avenue in front of the Post office. I am in search of something from philosophy, maybe because i miss it as indicated by my previous post just this morning. I settled in at the second shop for lower book prices and i made a reservation on some books to be picked up after i have finished writing this post.

And i have made choices:

Hopefully, some truth will come, somehow, somewhere, on my existential journey, in the light of life and death and feelings of despair.

Cheer up, myself.

Ciao!
***

Spinoza, Wittgenstein and Nietzsche

noreply@blogger.com (ADRIAN) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:26:00 +0000

...i miss them...

Before I ever engaged on film studies, I was totally immersed in philosophy. I am and always have been in love with it. A field of inquiry that connects everything that we see and do not. A peak, a zenith of every human understanding, the closest to truth and furthest from mental and metaphysical blunder, the meaning of one's life, P-H-I-L-O-S-O-P-H-Y. Marvin, you know my work on this. Even though i have shifted from field to field, from theoretical physics to literature to philosophy to film studies, what remains in my sun-colored Barcelona diary from December 2006 - September 2008 are my multi-colored thoughts, scattered in all directions, here and there, up then down, reflecting on the whole expanse of the history of philosophy, and the metaphysical truth of my existence.

I miss them so much. They are such philosophers who all wanted in life is to encompass the totality of reality, and the unreality which continuously blurs it.

--------------------
Fun Facts:

This is how Spinoza proves the existence of God taken from Part I: Concerning God of his magnum opus, Ethics.

"The potentiality of non-existence is a negation of power, and contrariwise the potentiality of existence is a power, as is obvious. If, then, that which necessarily exists is nothing but finite beings, such finite beings are more powerful than a being absolutely infinite, which is obviously absurd ; therefore, either nothing exists, or else a being absolutely infinite necessarily exists also. Now we exist either in ourselves, or in something else which necessarily exists (see Axiom. i. and Prop. vii.). Therefore a being absolutely infinite-in other words, God (Def. vi.)—necessarily exists."

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Ciao!
***

Five Images for Rossellini...

noreply@blogger.com (ADRIAN) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:40:00 +0000

...for the love of it...

From the Flowers of St. Francis (1950), a different Rossellini, the ascetic, neorealistic Rossellini, a post-Roma citta aperta feature, a film of religious hegemony, Catholic and full of life.

Ciao! Must sleep and wake up early!

***

120 Days of Sodom (1975)

noreply@blogger.com (ADRIAN) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:45:00 +0000

... is a new frontier for cinema studies...

Warning: For Adult Readers only, or for those who have reached the edge of cinematic quintessence.

[pic from]

A shot from Salo, or 120 Days of Sodom (1975)

As Roman Abramovich, Russian billionaire, ate his $47,221 (2, 251, 969.49php) lunch at Nello's up at Madison Avenue, Upper East Side, New York with six to ten people, I was standing at the port of Caticlan with the beaming sun (or Le Soleil in French) waiting for our automobile service to park. We were fifteen science clubbers half-awake on our arrival from the island of Boracay. I came to think that my itinerary is lost, and that i shouldn't be there at that time, and that I should be watching more films to meet some deadlines.

Three days later, I braced myself to watch three films in succession: Ozu's Tokyo Story(1953), Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958), and Pasolini's Salo, or 120 Days of Sodom (1975). Of course, the first two are regulars on my list, however, the third one is my nth attempt to watch it.

There exist films that obliterate old traditions of filmic themes. Usually, these films have a remarkable and, surprisingly, high aesthetics that they cannot be denied as an art form. This mechanistic limitation is highly controversial, and it has spurred dozens of debate about the reception of such films, and also the stylistics they involve. Such is Pier Paolo Pasolini's sad and violent Salo, or 120 Days of Sodom. Salo is controversial and it has always been. Salo has established grounds beyond the reach of my thumb, if there exists a 'thumb' that sets measurable standards on the 'viewabilty' of a film. But I am not a person to use such a thumb to elicit the importance and the unimportance of films, more so, to categorize films whether they are inherently filmic or not. Such complication is not applicable to the total elucidation of Salo.

Also, to view Salo in comparison with La Regle de Jeu (Renoir, 1939) or to Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941) is insufficient. No proper relationship except, i think, a mise-en-scene comparison, can be established between 'canonical works' and Salo. Though, one can argue that Salo is itself a canon, but this may track a different set of arguments, maybe directed to the question of 'what makes a film a canon?'. If Salo is to be discussed, it requires three fundamental groundings: Ethics, at the zenith, Aesthetics, as a grounding, and Reception Theory, the link between them. Ethics, itself, is problematic as a field because of its split or multi-split perspective: Teleological and Ontological Ethics. Aesthetics, or the inquiry to art and beauty, have had developments for the past years, specifically film aesthetics with the publication of David Bordwell and Noel Caroll's book, Post Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies. Reception theory is going there.

To approach Salo, one can construct a formal analysis with an assumption that Pier Paolo Pasolini is a poet of cinema. Pasolini was a poet and always has been. Another alternative study is an auteur study of the film, to analyze Salo in relation to the body of Pasolini's work. An elucidation of the ethical grounds crossed with narratology and thematic analysis can also be established. A reception study, focusing on the cognitive effect of each piercing image is also recommendable.

These suggestions are only limited to my proposed groundings namely ethics, aesthetics, and reception theory. Other groundings can be proposed to describe, evaluate and analyze Salo. This is to say that after 30 years of neglect, with the coming of a wider distribution of Salo in DVD, film studies can benefit equally as Salo could possibly have if a series of studies can be established. That's all for now. Ciao!

Salo. Like hell.

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I am excited to watch Amarcord by Fellini, and Maurice Pialat's Loulou. . . More Bresson this November I hope.
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Plotlessness...

noreply@blogger.com (ADRIAN) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:10:00 +0000

...or simply as it is...

Camera on a sushi-conveyor...

I got this video from Harry's Unspoken Cinema, and it is beautiful! I remember how F.W. Murnau crafted the first ever artistically important technique on camera movement in his 1924 film The Last Laugh. Dennis Wheatley and Stefan McClean have created something else, not Murnau's movement but beyond it. Absolutely fantastic!

Le Soleil de Boracay

noreply@blogger.com (ADRIAN) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:50:00 +0000

...on a lonely planet...

I have been on a journey, a whole week, seven full days of silence, of souls and minds going around and about, a journey from a distance, bellowing, into the deep calm waters, one cannot truly explain the ecstasy of le soleil de Boracay...

Just settling in Manila right now, preparing for my second semester this year. Will get back in a couple of days. I miss you all!

Bande A Part (1964): A Godard Syndrome

noreply@blogger.com (ADRIAN) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 17:54:00 +0000

...is a Godard-for-all...

Nouvelle Vague, is it?

I miss film. I have two more days to end my semester. After finishing two main requirements for my Chemical Engineering Elective, ChE 198, I had another one of those 'Godard' moments. I could not recall the exact feeling, but I could characterize it as a robust cinephiliac desire of wanting more film experiences.

It is evident that most of my recent film viewings are a recollection of my old desire from mainstream classics when, from a quick observation of a close, he said: "Wala ka na bang bagong classics?" (Do you have any new classics?) By 'classics', I mean from Classical Hollywood Cinema.

With Godard syndrome running in my head, I recorded about three instances of re-watching Bande a Part (1964) for past the few weeks, a high incidence of cinephilia. Equally relevant is Frank Capra's A Wondeful Life (1946) which merited two viewings this month. Also, a rare occurence is my attempt to rewatch David Lynch's Inland Empire (2004) three times but at the strike of the first two hours, i retaliated by watching The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) for three times also! Lynch is, what can I say, prodigious is his surreal mantra? A question of form, indeed!

Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (1954) consumed 12 hours of my life last month, and for the love of God and his children, I have to keep it inside my closet to give way for other works for if not, i would spend the next month rewatching it until my eyes turned black.

Gladly, after the first half of my hell week, I am still alive. Two more days, and I am off to Wonderland.

Ciao guys!
***

TOP 10 Priority List for CINEMANILA 2009

noreply@blogger.com (ADRIAN) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:09:00 +0000

... back from the dead...

[here] [here]
[here] [here]
[here] [here]
[here] [here]
[here] [here]

Tokyo Story (1954) is indeed the best film of all time.

This week is hell week in UP. I thought I was dead and gone Monday night after my exam in Engineering Science. But Alas! I am still here salivating on Cinemanila for the nth time. I have so many films on hold, so many Nouvelle Vague and Murnau to watch, and a lot of Kurosawas and Renoir to deconstruct. Yet, in all this semi-quasi film history digging, and of climaxing at Ozu's Tokyo Story (1954) a few days ago (I cried relentlessly twenty minutes before the ending), I am willing to risk anything just to watch these films:

TOP 10 Priority list for Cinemanila:

(1) Inglourious Basterds (Tarantino)

October 16 (FRIDAY) | 8 - 10:33 PM | MARKET! MARKET! CINEMA 7.

(2) Mammoth (Moodyson)

PHILIPPINE PREMIERE:
OCTOBER 17 (SATURDAY) | 7:00 – 9:05 PM | MARKET! MARKET! CINEMA 5
OCTOBER 18 (SUNDAY) | 1:30 – 3:35 PM | MARKET! MARKET! CINEMA 4

(3) Hunger (Steve McQueen)

OCTOBER 23 (FRIDAY) | 3:00 – 4:30 PM | MARKET! MARKET! CINEMA 5
OCTOBER 23 (FRIDAY) | 7:30 – 9:10 PM | MARKET! MARKET! CINEMA 7

(4) Ricky (Francois Ozon)

OCTOBER 19 (MONDAY) | 9:30 – 11:00 PM | MARKET! MARKET! CINEMA 5
OCTOBER 20 (TUESDAY) | 1:00 – 2:30 PM | MARKET! MARKET! CINEMA 7

(5) Tulpan (Dvortsevoy)

OCTOBER 20 (TUESDAY) | 7:20 – 9:00 PM | MARKET! MARKET! CINEMA 5
OCTOBER 21 (WEDNESDAY) | 3:30 – 5:15 PM | MARKET! MARKET! CINEMA 5

(6) Pandora's Box (Ustaoglu)

OCTOBER 22 (THURSDAY) | 6:30 – 8:30 PM | MARKET! MARKET! CINEMA 7
OCTOBER 24 (SATURDAY) | 4:15 – 6:00 PM | MARKET! MARKET! CINEMA 4

(7) Samson and Delilah (Thorton)

OCTOBER 17 (SATURDAY) | 9:30 PM – 11:10 PM | MARKET! MARKET! CINEMA 4
OCTOBER 18 (SUNDAY) | 3:45 – 5:25 PM | MARKET! MARKET! CINEMA 5

(8) Independencia (Martin)

OCTOBER 21 (WEDNESDAY) | 5:45 – 6:30 PM | MARKET! MARKET! CINEMA 5

(9) Biyaheng Lupa (Lao)

from (here)

October 19 (Monday) | 08:00PM | Cinema 6
October 23 (Friday) | 04:30PM | Cinema 6

(10) Engkwentro (Diokno)

OCTOBER 21 (WEDNESDAY) | 7:00 – 8:00 PM | MARKET! MARKET! CINEMA 6
OCTOBER 23 (FRIDAY) | 2:45 – 4:00 PM | MARKET! MARKET! CINEMA 6

See ya!

---------

ROSENBAUM On French Cinephilia
Mizoguchi rocks hard

I quote from Rosenbaum's Paris Journal, Spring 1972 (Paris moviegoing, MODERN TIMES)" [Film Comment, Spring 1972; slightly tweaked, September 2009] (18 Sept 2009) that Harry posted a few days ago:

"...At a recent Cinémathèque screening of THE LOVE OF SUMAKO, THE ACTRESS (Mizoguchi, 1947), nearly all of the seats were filled. Although the print was in Japanese, without subtitles, and no plot synopsis or accompanying information of any kind was handed out, all but about ten of the spectators remained for the film’s duration, without complaint..."

This is France in the '70s.

Paris, as Rosenbaum mentioned, is the center of cinephilia in the world!

-----
Ciao!
----
BYE for now!

I will be in Aklan from October 22 - 30, 2009 for CSIW, Children's Science Interactive Workshop. The next formal update for this blog will be on the first week of November, but i will still try to update it via scheduling posts (hopefully). Brr... it's cold out here.

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FACETS!

noreply@blogger.com (ADRIAN) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 12:32:00 +0000

... or I love Facets!

Apart from Criterion Collection, another best source of essential films in DVD format is, of course, Facets Multimedia. If you are looking for rare independent films, save your souls because Facets have a mesmerizing line-up of films from the other world of cinema. If you are looking for films from Pluto, well, Facets can satisfy your cinephiliac desire.

What I found is a string of Filipino films including rare classics by Geraldo de Leon. I am so satisfied to find de Leon's The Blood Drinkers (Kulay Dugo ang Gabi, 1966), a vampire flick with heavy visual quotations from Nosferatu (Murnau, 1922), from their list.

Driven to satisfy the lust of... The Blood Drinkers.

JUST A THING...

...Have you heard of our dear old Roman Polanski being arrested at Germany? How is he doing?

...I am planing on a grand study on Edward Yang. I will be completing his oeuvre by next year if possible. Do you know any sources of his works?

...I am about to begin my YEAR 2009 countdown of the best films i have watched this year. I will be picking up the Yummy 20 by December together with 10 notable films. I will discuss each in a formal essay form, well again, for fun.

Ciao then!

AM I A GOOD FILM CRITIC?

noreply@blogger.com (ADRIAN) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 19:13:00 +0000

...or, more importantly, am I a film critic?

Tell me, myself, am I a film critic?
from Orpheus (Cocteau, 1950)

I cannot process the word film critic quite clearly in my mind.

As Arbogast continues his annual 31 Screams for October (for this is Arbogast's best), and as Senses of Cinema tear their previous design for their new Issue 52, I resorted to revisiting Harry's Critical Falacy Series,well, for fun. It is Friday night, October the 2nd, there is a superstorm coming and i have nothing to do but wait (with flashlights, food supplies, and a ton of coffee). I re-watched some good old classics from the 1930 - 1950s France, some Italians, a bit of 1970s Scorsese's, and a ton full of Bertolucci and Kurosawa, well again, for fun.

The classes in Metro Manila were suspended last Sunday afternoon until Saturday by CHED (Commision on Higher Education) and DepEd (Department of Education). Plague by boredom and desolation, I stayed awake to write this post. Half of the dormitory was empty, most of my friends hoarded a ton full of DVDs from my shelf for the preservation of their own souls. One of them borrowed all Coppolas and the other one dared to re-watched the extended version a.k.a. Director's cut of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2006 - 2007) in one full blow, good luck for the 11 1/2 hours of his life.

As for me, I found a blog post from Harry's archives entitled: Consensual Criteria of a good critic. Harry, noting from La Critique de cinéma by René Prédal, 2004, identifies a film critic as the one who"...talk[s] about films and ponder over the nature of cinema. " Harry notes the following criteria expounding this thesis, and i quote from him:

"The critic is meant to ignore the public reception and speculate on the film's meaning in art history (its value in duration and immanence).
4 main criteria :
Love of Cinema : passion + curiosity (for discoveries and novelties). Watching a lot of movies.
Culture : expert of cinema history (1000 or 2000 essential films to know to be able to relativize the creativity/skill of new movies against past production) + deep general culture (arts and real world, which is the source of cinema inspiration)
Cinema technique knowledge
Writing Quality : style, communicative enthousiasm, readable, clarity, pedagogy.
And also :
5) Sensibility : emotion. To develop affectivity even for disliked movies.
6) Stance without prejudice : Judgement rooted in critical theory trends without rigid ideology.
7) Objectivity : no influence by the majority of opinions, nor by personal mood/instinct.
8) Sense of hierarchy (values) : Being able to make pertinent comparisons. Freedom and independance of thinking, against the editorial line, other critics and social fads)"

A SELF-EVALUATION

Tell me, myself, am I only a cinephile?
from Orpheus (Cocteau, 1950)

I have been watching a lot of films for about a year and a half now, and I consider myself as a starting film critic, more like a cinephile.

In Criteria number 1, it notes that a good film critic must love cinema. Do I love cinema? If not with cinema, what am I doing here watching every Renoir that i find and salivating on every Kurosawa and Hitchcock? Or what makes a 500php ($10) weekly budget for DVDs if not for the love of cinema? Or my monthly trip to the audio-visual section of the main library to watch unwatchable, rare films by Tarkovsky and Eisenstein. How i endured 120 Days of Sodom and Caligula if not for the love of cinema and the full expression of it. How i sacrifice the banalities of life just to arrive two hours in advance for the screening of Michael Haneke's The Piano Teacher (2002) during the French Film Festival last June. How i love cinema and how I owe to it!

In Criteria number 2, it says that a good film critic must be expert in cinema history. I am actually at this phase right now. I am attempting to collect all pertinent films from the different cinematic traditions from the primitive era to the recent New Waves, if there no substitute word for it, of different national cinemas. I am specifically interested on French cinema (Poetic Realism to French New Wave and on), Japanese Cinema (Mizoguchi to late Kurosawa), Primitive Era, German Expressionism and Soviet Montage. What had influenced greatly to my own self-expression and, more importantly, to my beliefs, is the Contemporary Contemplative Cinema whose version of the world is much life my version, long takes and deep-staged mise-en-scene. I am at the research phase for the whole year. I hope to see more of my own cinema next year as I refocused my interest to it.

In Criteria number 3, it argues that a good film critic must be expert or at least must know the knowledge of cinema technique, or as Bordwell wants it, the stylisitics of cinema. Because i love Bordwell a lot, i keep tons of notes on this area of film studies. I have read and reread his book on film aesthetics, Film Art, which have increased greatly my knowledge on even the simple difference from a establishing/reestablishing shot to a shot/reverse shot. I am dedicating my time to the elucidation of the ever mysterious technique of contemplative cinema artists in deploying narrative cues and mise-en-scene. I would love to do a big research on mise-en-scene and cinematography for these films because i feel that the cosmic effect of many contemplative films are greatly affected by the crude manipulation of these elements. moving on...

In Criteria number 4, it mentions that a good film critic must have a good writing quality. There lies a question on grammar. Ever since I started writing, before i gave birth to this blog, i have never been grammar conscious. I consider grammar my least priority putting diction and sentence structure on top of my list. I never read Elements of Style by White and Strunk because it is another self-help book for writers. Personally, I hate self-help books, no offense to Mark if you're reading this right now. Grammar is less important than composition, i think. It is restrictive, traditional and commonplace. I know you would say that is fundamental English and that i must be followed in all kinds of writing, but, forgive me if i came or have been influenced by modernist writers like Joyce and Woolf for their ungrammatical, highly truncated syntax. Both of them have influence my syntax: Joyce, influencing my inter-sentence construction parallel to his style in Ulysses (1921) being sometimes disjointed, and Woolf, influencing my intra-sentence construction, the long winding, comma-infested (i used to love semi-colons before) writing. I love both their styles. Ulysses, if you have read it, is a big example of an ungrammatically-explosive piece of writing.

And a note to all, i don't usually edit or review my blog posts. The coarser a post's syntax is, the more genuine its message. My writing may appear more formal if given that I am not writing in a blog and that I am writing a formal analysis of a film. There are different levels of writing, and one should know that we write at different formalities. I sort of treat my film blog as a breakaway from all conventions of writing.

SO, AM I A FILM CRITIC?

Your movie sucks! - Ebert.

Film criticism is, in a way, integrated to my system right now but not primarily central to my discourse. I consider myself more of a cinephile/film researcher and less a film critic because, first of all, i do not offer pure criticisms on my blog. Evaluations are hard to construct because, personally, I am more of a scientific person than an impressionistic one. I treasure the technicalities of films, how they are constructed, how the director manipulates a certain angle to achieve a certain effect. I consider each film as a systematic arrangement of pictures and sound temporally arrange to execute a non-narrative/narrative expression. Second, I wanted to follow the footsteps of Bordwell in his Historical Poetics stance. Bordwell has influenced me from day one because of his scientific approach to films, which i am totally in line with. So i guess, my answer is no, I am not a film critic.

RANDOM RANT:
On Kurosawa's Seven Samurai

Chris Fujiwara calls it a 'male cinema'. (here)

I am very curious about this. After watching Seven Samurai (1954) for the second time with a close friend of mine, he noted that almost every plot element of the film is somehow reminiscent of 13th Warrior (1999, John McTiernan) starring Antonio Banderas. Well, maybe what my friend was reffering to was what Seven Samurai is original about. It is one of the first films who started the plot concept of gathering heroes to form a team to battle evil forces. We can connect tons of films and comic stories with this plot concept, i know you can think of one right now (I am thinking of X-Men or Heroes). Well, we have George Lucas with his Star Wars concept heavily referenced to Seven Samurai. No wonder why the 13th Warrior is highly connected with Seven Samurai because, as my friend observed, it involves a gathering of heroes to form a team for the sole purpose of battling evil Vikings per se.

Anyway, enough of this.

More discussions on pertinent films this coming October.

Ciao!

****

THE GREAT FLOOD OF MANILA

noreply@blogger.com (ADRIAN) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 13:50:00 +0000

Emptiness...

...is seeing humanity underwater...

[image source 1]
[pics 2,3]
[pic 4]

"People wade in the chest deep floodwater Sunday, Sept. 27, 2009 in suburban Cainta, east of Manila, Philippines. Rescuers plucked bodies from muddy floodwaters and scrambled to save drenched survivors on rooftops Sunday after a tropical storm tore through the northern Philippines and left 75 people dead or missing in the region's worst flooding in more than four decades. (AP Photo/Mike Alquinto)" (from here)

I haven't settled in yet on my routine: film blogging. My experience last Saturday was unsettling enough, not just for me, but for my other friends who were somewhat stuck between fear and paranoia, unable to shake off their experiences of wading in the flood, and witnessing the city of Manila in complete turmoil. Saturday was in fact the biggest day of the year for me and for most of us who have witness the horror and pain. But look at us, we are still here, I am still here writing a post to tell it all.

WEDNESDAY, September 23, 2009
An grim prediction

It was Wednesday, upon exiting room 307 of the Engineering building, when i exhorted over a group of my Chemical Engineering classmates that my life would change in about 72 hours (that is, 3 days from that day, Saturday, September 26, 2009) for I was anticipating the biggest event that i would be organizing in my entire life --- the PSYSC Science Olympiad National Finals (here) and (here). The Top 20 schools from both Elementary (Grades 5 to 6 or 7) and High School (3rd year to 4th year) Levels from all over the country screened from the recently concluded PSYSC National Eliminations last September 5, 2009, would be competing in the National Finals at the SM Mall of Asia by that time.

FRIDAY NIGHT, September 25, 2009
PRE-PSO FINALS PREPARATIONS

The half of the PSO team, a small group of four eager college students volunteers from UP Diliman namely Kim, San, Mona and me, and with the help of other eager students, and members of the PSYSC ECAT team, were preparing everything. By 7 o'clock in the evening, that 'everything' composed of AVPs to be edited and crafted, certificates of recognition to be printed, practical exams to be arranged in boxes and containers separated per category, questions to be reviewed and discussed, and so on. Each of the task were equally distributed among us, and I was given all computer related work a. k. a. Engineering work. So i worked with the AVPs and all. By 10 PM we were asked to move out of preparation venue and camped out at the Mall of Asia for yet another preparation. I was tasked to leave all Eng'g work and find a taxi. I asked Mona to help me out and we walked in the middle of rain along A. Roces Avenue inside the campus and I felt something bad.

I expressed to Mona my inhibited feeling about the unending rain that began a few hours ago:

"I feel bad about this long and unending rain. I prefer a one time, big time downpour than a slow, retarded heavy downpour. What do you think?" She agreed.

I found a taxi a few minutes later. Kim and San went ahead of us three which included Anacel being our auditor/acquisition/supplies manager, Mona and me. We carried pertinent stuffs such as printers, LCD projector screens, bond papers etc stuffing everything that fitted inside the taxi. We brushed through C5 high way unaware of the building traffic jam. We detoured to EDSA Avenue and went straight to the Mall of Asia arriving at about 1100PM. Maam Rhea, SM Mall of Asia Marketing/Events organizer of the Nido Discovery Center helped us set up the chairs for the venue. We worked 'till 100AM and moved to the nearest McDonald's 24-hrs outlet and stayed there before dawn strikes.

I was busy fidgeting Vegas to finish the AVP for the opening program when my battery died. I suggested that we moved to the nearest Starbucks franchise for the benefit of an electrical socket. We went there but it was closed. Dreaded by a dead laptop and the few ticking hours before the opening program, i prayed hard that i would finish the AVP. And I prayed, and prayed, and prayed that everything would be okay...

SEPTEMBER 26 - PSO Proper
The Reckoning of the Sky

I finished the AVP by 7AM, an hour before the Opening program. The rain poured aggressively outside of the venue proper as the program progressed. I assisted Hansel in operating the technical stuffs. The rest of program pushed through, unaware of the coming tragedy, a reckoning of the sky.

-----o - o - o -----
Josette's struggle with the Storm
[adapted from the true story of Josette Ann Baconguis]

Her class ended at around 1130AM, she ate lunch at the UP shopping center wishful to arrive at the event's proper by around 1PM just in time to help out in all things necessary. She waited for a jeepney that would take her to the nearest MRT station.

She was wearing her formal wear. She scrupulously arrange her hair as the rain drenched her umbrella. The jeepney driver, suggested that he cannot take any passengers outside of the campus because the water was rising. Unaware, she insisted and explained that she had to go to the MRT. Beside her was a graduate student with a bruised leg whose destination was Cubao.

The jeepney skidded off unable to contain the accumulating passengers whose eyes were struck with offish oddity. In their minds were shear pictures of Philcoa, the gateway of all commuters to different parts of Manila, under three feet of water.

Water level rose at chest levels.

Josette had this picture in her mind that time, but her spirits were awaken by the necessity of her presence in the event at the PSO Finals in the Mall of Asia. She was very determined to get there no matter what. The woman with a bruised leg, Michel, joined her insistence to find a cab that would take them to their destinations.

Finally, a taxi cab stopped in front of them and promised to take them to the nearest jump off point. It was 200PM, two hours after her lunch. The taxi halted at Central where the flood level was below their knees, enough for them to sally through the clammy waters. Michel hesitated at first sight, her wound, fresh from the surgical knife from her past medical operation, would open up and the risk of contracting the deadly Tetanus virus was high.

As the flood waters went up, they waited for aid, and luckily a private vehicle stopped and fetched them to the nearest mall where the water level had not yet risen.

2:30 PM. They waved for all kinds of vehicle passing through Commonwealth Avenue, and nothing, not even buses or dump trucks were kind enough to let them hitched a ride to the nearest MRT station. Many stranded passengers joined them and waited for a miracle. A jeepney headed to the MRT station offered the empty seats to the passengers on the street. Josette and Michel were lucky to sat on the last seats.

Philcoa

Philcoa - flooded.

By the time they arrived at Philcoa, everything was in chaos. The traffic scheme was jammed, the usual route of the Quezon City Circle's counter clockwise traffic was blocked by criss-crossing buses, trucks, and vehicles. Josette's eyes were clouded with fear. She never saw Philcoa in such a dismal scenery: garbage floating here and there, college students soaked in their school uniforms, horns of cars and medium-weight vehicles clamored in their highest decibels. She covered here ears as she and Michel went out of the jeepney to do the impossible----to walk towards the MRT station two kilometers away in knee-deep waters.

Kim, a fellow friend of mine, described Philcoa as it was last Saturday in his September 27th post on his blog. He wrote with candidness:

"...Philcoa was a scene I thought only seen in movies. It was a picture of a corner of a country subjected to a natural calamity within an economic crisis. Holding on to my wallet instead of trusting the nerve endings of the skin on my butt to assure me of its presence every now and then, I entered the ever-reliable and jam-packed Mercury Drug. The “Closed” sign of the more expensive alternative MiniStop mocked its 24-hour bullshit.

With McDo and Jollibee closed, I moved to look for bread, my heart beating fast out of fear of going hungry. I found one last loaf on the shelf and in true cinematic fashion increased my walking pace towards it. My hand reached for the bread as another lady gestured to take the same. Working my charm, and seeing that she was already holding three loaves of bread anyway, I shrugged my shoulders and tried my very best to look hungry. It worked and I almost died trying to stifle my laughter.

Safe with food, I was hell-bent on and actually excited about walking my way into campus, confident in the Decolgen I bought despite the fever I felt was coming. Hence my disappointment in the relief of finding a Philcoa jeep ready to go when I tried the terminal again." (from here)

The horror was in Michel's face. after surviving a post-bone-tumor-removal operation a month ago, she faced another life-threatening situation upon crossing the shallow waters pilled with floating debris mixed with bacteria-infested canal waters. How could she do it? She looked at her companion , Josette, as she inhaled the humid air, for Josette was strong-willed and courageous, a capacity she needed in times like this. The sole of her shoe touched the brackish flood waters, the wind chilled her. Her blouse was drenched in rain for Josette was the only one carrying an umbrella for both of them.

She did what seemed appropriate at that moment. Slowly, she placed her shoes on the bottom pavement and waved her legs through the ravaging storm waters, and, grabbing Josette's left arm they walked on the drier pavement. They sauntered in disbelief of seeing hundreds of commuters walking towards the MRT station, by that time, the only available transportation to cross Manila.

A man riding motorcycle bypassed the immovable traffic.

Three o'clock in the afternoon, the sky was dark, and the humidity of the air had lessen. They arrived at the GMA-Kamuning station completely damped. They climbed inside the train and waited for a few minutes and finally, Josette arrived at the Taft Avenue station and Michel at the Araneta-Cubao station.

Michel would witness Araneta-Cubao in deep waters. Below is a picture of an Avenue beside the Araneta Colliseum completely immersed in waters.

Note that the water level reached the rooftop of the car.

Josette arrived at the MRT station at about 500PM. Taft Avenue was, for her, the most chaotic she had ever seen. Apart from the accumulating passengers, the flood levels at the base of the station was above chest levels. A group of brave citizens, hand-in-hand, swam across the EDSA Avenue when, suddenly, a big trucked sallied from Taft Avenue sent a wave of floodwater engulfing them whole. Josette, in her conscience, saw the force of nature out of control and the possibility of death. The brave citizens persisted as they gasped from the incoming wave. With arms clasped closer, they moved in a steady pace, summing up their courage, as they inhaled life.

A bus traversing on the flooded streets of Manila sent a wave
as it passes through the Avenue.

In Josette's mournful eyes, she had witnessed the most horrible. After a few minutes of non-stop arrival of passengers, the overpass connecting the MRT station and the low-lying streets of the Taft-EDSA intersection was filled with people. By a singular thrust from the northside, the people on top of the overpass oscilated to and fro, unstabling their positions sending a deadly stampede ten feet from the rising flood waters.

People from the station watched in horror.

The stampede grew at critical heights; and, one by one, people violently fell from the ten-foot overpass plunging into the floodwaters. A shrieking woman, outbalanced from the edge of the overpass, was thrown at backward position landing on the 6ft floodwater screaming for help.

Josette, unable to contain the scene, went back to the MRT Train and headed towards the Quezon Avenue Station. She walked from there towards Philcoa. It was almost dusk, 7PM, and Josette scurried for food at Philcoa. All establishments were closed except MEALS TO GO. They offered her enough food to regain her energy.

Her eyes were almost closed in exhaustion.

And she went by foot to her dormitory from Philcoa, where, upon entering the room, her roommates were there, and she cried peacefully in their arms.

-----------------

7PM, SEPTEMBER 26, 2009
PSO FINALS CLOSING, MALL OF ASIA

It was Josette's account of the flood that moved me into writing.

As the PSO closing program ended, the SM Management declared that all roads were impassable. I was clearly spaced out because of hunger and tiredness, and did not heard clearly the news about the flood and how chaotic Manila was. I was unaware of Josette's experience. I suddenly remembered feeling light and dreamy, but i managed to open a web-page FLV movie from ABS-CBN NEWS website explaining the odd phenomenon. I readjusted the video and plug it in the LCD monitor, volume-up the sounds to let the rest of the participants, coaches, parents, advisers, principals, the PSYSC team know the situation outside Mall of Asia.

The Management requested us to stay indoors. They opened the Food court and supplied us with watter and sandwich during the night. They also provided the Nido Fortified Discovery Center and the Planetarium as areas for accomodations.

We stayed there overnight. By 12 o'clock in the evening, the National President of SM went there to inspect us, she gave us Krispy Kreme doughnuts and additional water supplies. I cannot sleep that time trying to find a way to text my parents that I was okay, to send a message to a close friend that I wouldn't be there to bring him a dinner, to tell them that I was not alone but with fifty something people from PSYSC. I wanted to pray hard, the hardest, upon seeing the videos uploaded in youtube and the horror drawn in the faces of my colleagues.

How lucky I was to be there locked from rain and cold.

How very lucky we were!

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2009

Everything Calms down

And yet, for there was morning in all days, it simply began after another announcement from Mall of Asia that some roads were passable. I woke up in the middle of the room, napping on three chairs arranged together with my cellular phone ringing. I gathered myself and went to the bathroom.

I slapped my face and washed it in methodical phase, brushed my teeth and went out.

The signal from all networks were revitalized, I sent text messages to important people, and helped out in the cleaning of the venue. By 9AM we had breakfast at Jollibee near Mall of Asia. And from there, we journeyed back to where we came from.

As we passed through the streets and avenues of Manila, it seemed as if nothing happened. Dry pavement illuminated by the sun, a streak of clouds over the horizon. Manila was waking up, i thought. How calm it was! For there was Philcoa, waterless, and EDSA-Taft intersection busy as a bee, and all roads that led us to our destination, were calm, easy, and light.

A total opposite, a mere extension of an illusion that I created in my head.

I was never aware that Marikina City and Rizal were heavily hit, or that my friend, Paul Jordan, grieved for his flooded appartment, and in all this, I slept. I slept without knowing that some people could not sleep at all because of the fear that succumbed them, or the rain, and their cold bodies.

How the Lord must be merciful to all of us; I cried inside out while sleeping.

It happens.

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Bande à part (1964)

noreply@blogger.com (ADRIAN) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 19:55:00 +0000

...Godard foreva!...

Odile

I was slightly encouraged by this scene to pursue my T-shirt design for Godard.

Ciao!
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Engkwentro, District 9, Bertolucci and One Year of Cinephilia

noreply@blogger.com (ADRIAN) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:46:00 +0000

...going back to business...

[Engwentro googled image]
[bertolucci image]

Pepe Diokno and the light. (here)

That is, going back to what i love most, watching films on Tuesday nights and spending my careful research on 'some contemplative films' on Friday nights. I have heard recently that Engkwentro (2009) directed by Pepe Diokno won the Orrizonti prize under New Horizons category in the recently concluded 66th Venice Film Fest. Pepe Diokno is twenty one years old. As you might recall, last year's Orrizonti Award was given to our very respected and loved, Lav Diaz with his feature Melancholia (2008). Oggs presented a careful observation of Engkwentro's style. He wrote:

"Perhaps the most glaring difference is style. While Libiran sometimes indulges in long takes (there's a particularly lovely scene where Libiran's camera follows a utilities man who is mobbed by Tondo residents who are complaining about their electricity bills), Diokno attempts to tell his story in one long take. He failed at that attempt but achieves something close. Engkwentro is composed of a couple of takes, seemingly seamlessly edited together by Miko Araneta. Diokno's camera is constantly in motion: candidly shaking as it treads the labyrinthine passageways of his makeshift slums; following the characters as they hatch their plans, negotiate, orate and fight; and document the goings-on with the efficiency of an inconspicuous voyeur." (here)

Long takes, that is. It is not clear, however, if mise-en-scene staging (i.e. staging in deep space as in Welles' Citizen Kane (1941) or Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev (1969)) was Oggs's point here. If the long take was made as a cinematographic effect, obviously, because Oggs later observe that the camera was moving, it might have a different function. Let us say, the use of Jean Renoir's long take, mobile camera on La Grande Illusion (1937) functions differently as long take, steady camera of Welles in Magnifecent Ambersons. In an interview with the Inquirer Pepe Diokno clarifies this aesthetic choice saying:

"...that the 61-minute film was done with one long take. “Actually, there were 51 cuts, but we had to digitally erase the cuts and make it look seamless. We wanted to make it appear continuous, as if it was one long tracking shot.”" (here)

I think this 'volatile' use of long take, handheld camerawork can be connected with the cinematography of Wong Kar-wai and obviously related to the style that proliferated in 1960s art film cinema, the cinéma vérité. I have made a careful observation after watching Alan Clarke's 1988 film, Elephant, that:

"The object of contemplation will be lost, however, if the directors will pursue this (handheld camera) cinematic style. It can be thought that hand-held cameras may depict the theme of violence... with much accuracy because it can deploy much of the needed hastiness and immediacy of the gunner shooting a victim. It can also add a lot of psychological positioning as post-compositional effects. This style is common in art house cinemas especially in the independent waves in the 80s. Kubrick did use a handheld camera when he filmed certain scenes in The Shinning (1980)."(here)

If cinéma vérité style is central to Engkwentro's camera, correct me if I am wrong, nothing is more 'cinéma vérité' than my Saturday night movie madness on Neill Blomkamp's District 9 (2009) which is still showing at SuperMart theaters this week.

District 9

from slashfilm.

District 9 is a mesh of documentary-style and special effects, and to see young audiences sitting next to me enjoying the terrifying treat amazes me. The film is a bit 'horrory' for an age of 14 or 15. I, myself, am shocked by the visuals of District 9. It has a highly developed aesthetics that deserve academic study, whatever the inconsistencies present in its form, for example, the surveillance footage style, if remember it completely, have some shot/reverse shots effects. Who could find a surveillance camera with such high cinematography???

Bertolucci and Celebrating One Year of Cinephilia

The Bertolucci position - Cinephilia has never been this good!

Finally, the highlight of my week, aside from Godard, is a string of films by Bernando Bertolucci which I have recently acquired namely his masterpiece, The Conformist (1970), his most controversial film that drived Pauline Kael crazy, Last Tango in Paris (1973), his Oscar winning The Last Emperor (which I purchased last month), and his recent feature The Dreamers (2003).

One can say that I am living in an auteur's world. A couple of days ago, my friend observes: "Oh! Wow! you have almost all Scorseses [he was refering to Scorsese's oeuvre which I have carefully been collecting.]." I replied: "Believe me, I don't have. You are talking of 21 features, 8 documentaries, 7 shorts. And they are not all in DVD, not that i can recall. And I don't have enough money."

This issue of collecting oeuvre of filmmakers, as in my attempt to collect all Kurosawas, Brillante Mendozas, Lav Diaz-es, Godards, Hitchcocks, Murnaus, Almodovars and Renoirs, is highly frustrating. You can't collect them all in DVDs, particullarly on a high-definition, notable, unstrangled DVD copies. I have this recent urge to unmasked all of history of film (at least the most notable) and to lay it on my table and select my top 20 best films of all time. To date, my cinephiliac wanderings have been continuing for about a year now. It started way, way back when i posted my article: "A Consuming Film Research: First Steps." published in this blog last September 10, 2008. A year and six days passed and over two hundred films and more than fifty film books, I can say that I have been successful in my undertaking to transforming myself into a film blogger, and the best thing, a film cinephile.

Do you remember this picture from my September 10, 2008 post?

from here

These are my first film books that I have read in my whole life. Before I cut this post, I have long admired this quotation from Godard:

"I need a day to tell the history of a second, a year to tell the history of a minute, a lifetime to tell the history of a day."
- Godard from Moments Choisis des Histoire(s) du Cinéma

Ciao and welcome to another year of cinephilia with Adrian.

Histoire(s) du Cinema (1998, Jean-luc Godard)

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