Defending Cinephilia 2023 (3) - Janice Tong spends time On Wandering Paths

Jean Eustache

2023 has been a year of highs and lows, as with its companion 2022, marked another year of change – a decidedly sinister wink at our unsettling world. I felt quieter this year, more focused with work and on finishing my second novel; all this enterprise was nonetheless accompanied by a pilgrimage into the soul, through reverie, remembrance and dream.

 

Cinema, or rather, the moving image has provided nourishment and comfort; choosing carefully amongst the many on offer, and discarding more than what was chosen; I’ve come to realise that the few films I watched this year (170 to be exact) have come to be a summation of goodness and all that is illuminated amongst dark days.

 

On the Wandering Paths - Jean Dujardin as Tesson

 

Film Festivals – A Haunting

 

The year of film festivals always opened with the French Film Festival in March, and the harvest this year was one of its best. Saint Omer, a lyrical and haunting courtroom chamber piece by Alice Diop, and Denis Imbert’s On the Wandering Paths, based on Sylvain Tesson’s slim but poetic volume of the same name, were two films whose images and meaning stayed with me throughout the year. For all their differences, the walk that Tesson undertook (some 1,300 kms) echoed Rousseau’s interior ambling in his 1782 book Reveries Of The Solitary Walker, in that both are song-like and reverential. 

 

Anthony Perkins, Orson Welles, The Trial

A highlight in this year’s festival rounds was Cinema Reborn’s program, whilst I only saw four films, the full program offered a treasure trove of works from all around the world. Of the four I saw, it was Murnau’s Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans that took the crowd’s breath away, the theatre was silent and in awe. But for me, it was watching Orson Welles’ The Trial that I found myself holding my breath – glorious on the big screen, it’s digital restoration leant a sharpness to the images, but it’s the cinematography, the sets, the breezy jazz soundtrack from Martial Solal Trio and Anthony Perkins’ performance as Joseph K. that withstood the test of time. Also, Jean Eustache’s little seen The Mother and the Whore literally stole my heart, the three and a half hours sped by; and you leave feeling as though you’re tearing yourself away from your friends on new year’s eve.

 

Last Night of Amore (2023) at this year’s Italian Film Festival was amongst the best new crime thriller films I’ve seen in a very long while. Pierfrancesco Favino was mesmerising to watch as retiring lieutenant Franco Amore, as was its elliptically ringed storyline.

 

The inimitable Mr Dough and the Egg Princess

Lastly, I had a chance to see Mr Dough and the Egg Princess (2010), a 12 mins short by Hayao Miyazaki at the Ghibli Museum Theatre in Japan this month, in December, to round out my year; a highlight amongst all the animés that have feathered my imagination since I was a child; with Dog of Flanders (1975) being my favourite television show when I was still living in Hong Kong. Later, my love of animé led me to collect the manga series Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1982 to 1994) amongst others as I sang the theme song to My Neighbour Totoro (1988) in Japanese and my heart was kept light and child-like with Spirited Away (2001) and Howl’s Moving Castle(2004). All these films seem to be so present in my mind still, but it was in fact decades ago when I last saw some of them. A project for 2024 perhaps, would be to revisit each one.

 

New Films | Old Films

 

Films traverse across time, they’ve always had that ability, to transcend the present; to capture our present moment and carry us elsewhere. When I was researching to write the Cinema Reborn notes on La maman et la putain, I came across what was Eustache’s last film; a short film called Les photos d'Alix, filmed with his son, Boris, and photographer Alix Cléo Roubaud, also known to me as the wife of one of the greatest living French writers, Jacques Roubaud. Over the years, I was able to read all of his novels that have been translated into English, my favourite being Some Thing Black (1990), a book written in poetic fragments, both to document and his way to deal with, the loss of Alix (I also loved his masterwork The Loop (1993)). In 2019, I had made a pilgrimage of sorts to visit his flat – I stood below what I believed to be his window. But the windows were shut and I did not catch a glimpse of the great man on the many occasions I wandered around his neighbourhood on the Left Bank. So this short film, a rare find in itself, is one that I will always treasure.

 

Alix and Boris in Jean Eustache's Photos of Alix

And whilst I had stopped writing film reviews for what was originally the J+N ‘home’ film festival created during the Covid lockdown in 2020; the choices of films to watch at home are limitless; and this year, I’ve been blessed with many, here are but a small selection: 

 

An Elephant Sitting Still (2010), China, dir. Bo Hu

All That Breathes (2020), doco, India | UK | US, dir. Shaunak Sen

Fists in the Pocket (1965), Italy, dir. Marco Bellocchio

Marx Can Wait (2021), doco, Italy, dir. Marco Bellocchio

Before the Revolution (1964), Italy, dir. Bernardo Bertolucci

This Summer Feeling (2015), France | Germany, dir. Mikhaël Hers

The Vice of Hope (2018), Italy, dir. Edoardo De Angelis

 

Best friends, The Makanai

 

Small Screen’s a Charm

 

I would not be content if British crime dramas were not amongst my standard repertoire; and many have been watched over the past 12 months. However, the two series that stood out for me this year are both Korean and available on Netflix: Somebody (2022) and My Name (2021); both series figure a singular and striking female heroine; in Somebody, she comes in the form of an aspergeresque coder cum app designer who plays a game of cat and mouse with a serial killer – but this is just surface tension, delve deeper and this is an onion that has no centre, with Schumann’s Vogel als Prophet (played here by none other than Maria Joao Pires) from Waldszenento accompany their wanderings – it is a must-watch. My Name, is a story of a stoic criminal protégé who attempts to infiltrate the police; and like Infernal Affairs (2002), the story is filled with twists that double in on themselves leaving you guessing every step of the way.

 

 

Han So-hee as the tough heroine in My Name

Also worth mentioning are: 

 

Blanca (2021) Italian – set in Genoa, a blind profiler gets into detective work; uncovering the hidden trauma of her sister’s death along the way.

Marnow Murders (2021) German – haunting, brilliant, raw, sad; I fell in love with all the characters from the get-go. The Germans have a way of getting into the heart of the hurt from the very beginning.

The Allegation (2021) German – from the real-life German Worms Trials, again with brilliantly-drawn characters, including my favourite Peter Kurth (here’s a little treat for you if you’re a fan).

The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House (2023), Japanese – beautiful and heartfelt; it was difficult to finish this series.

Irma Vep (2022), French – what’s not to love? It’s Assayas, Vincent Macaigne, Lars Eidinger and Alicia Vikander, a remake of a remake of a remake.

Alicia Vikander against the Paris night skyline in Irma Vep

As to the Brit crime dramas I mentioned before, here are a few that are hard to pass up:

 

Dalgliesh (2021) 2 seasons, available on Prime, based on the Adam Dalgliesh novels by P. D. James. Almost as good as Endeavour. Bertie Carvel is excellent!

The Chelsea Detective (2022), 2 seasons, available on Prime. My husband and I joke that all good detectives have some things in common: first they have to have a beer or a whisky at the end of the day, accompanied by their favourite music (opera for Morse, jazz for Wallander, rock ‘n roll classics for DCI Banks, new age for Hathaway –the protégé of Lewis) and second their failed love affairs. DI Max Arnold has all of these hallmarks and more.

Karen Pirie (2022), 1 season, available on Prime. Beautifully drawn character, loved her immediately; relatable, funny, human; a really gripping crime show.

Bertie Carvel is superb as Adam Dalgliesh

 

 

2024, only 2 days away…I look forward to what good tidings you bring! 

Streaming on Binge, at MIFF online and the Current Cinema - Movies and the Movies - IRMA VEP (Olivier Assayas, France, 2022), PETROL (Alena Lodkina, Australia, 2022), OFFICIAL COMPETITION ( Gastón Duprat, Mariano Cohn, Spain 2021)

The Orb, Twin Peaks (series 3)

A scene setting comparison.

When David Lynch made his latest Twin Peaks series it was episode eight that set us back on our heels. Shot near entirely in black and white (I think) here’s the summary of the Part, as they were called. In a standoff, Ray shoots Cooper's doppelgänger. Woodsmen tear at his body, revealing an orb with BOB's face. Ray flees and informs Jeffries that the doppelgänger may have survived. The doppelgänger awakens. In 1945 New Mexico, the first atomic bom is detonated. Woodsmen occupy a convenience store and the Experiment spews smoke containing an orb bearing BOB's face. In the building above the purple sea, the Fireman observes these events and levitates, emanating a golden mist and an orb containing Laura Palmer's face. His companion, Señorita Dido, sends the orb to Earth. In 1956 New Mexico, a woodsman descends to the ground, enters a radio station and repeatedly broadcasts a mysterious message, rendering listeners unconscious. A bug/frog-like creature hatches from an egg, enters an unconscious girl's room and climbs down her throat.

 

It was so far off-piste that you didn’t quite know what you’d seen. The summary hardly helps.

Regina (Devon Ross) Irma Vep 2022

In Episode 6 of Olivier Assayas’ Irma Vep  a similar revelation takes place. The eight part series is basically a tale of making a remake of Louis Feuillade's 1915-1916 serial, an enormous hit in its day and a continuing source of inspiration and study for film-makers and scholars alike. Director Rene Vidal (Vincent Macaigne) is making a series, though in his view he is echoing Feuillade and making a single long film, which will go out in parts on TV. But he is hyperactive and slowly being overcome by low self-esteem. 

By part 6 he has gone off his rocker, abandoned the sets and locations and cant be found. We the audience see him heading off to see his psychiatrist (with a calico bag from Bologna’s Il Cinema Ritrovato over his shoulder). Discussions take place about a replacement director and settle on the American Herman (Byron Bowers).  He’s in LA and needs a day or so to get to Paris. Step up Regina (Devon Ross), aspiring film-maker, film school graduate and the young, wise, if cold, personal assistant to Mira (Alicia Vikander)  an American star actress who has been brought to Paris to play Irma Vep and brings with her a busload of complexes and a chequered romantic history .

 

With a prospect of directing for a day Regina then launches into an explanation of spiritual cinema, or maybe just the spiritual and Assayas explodes the screen with Regina’s short treatise on the work, influence, imagery and purpose of the cinema of Kenneth Anger. I’m betting most of the audience have absolutely no idea who Anger is/was or any experience of his movies. They may even think all those hallucinatory image excerpts have been created as a spoof by Assayas himself. But Regina gets the job. She’ll direct a day (presumably uncredited but who knows these days) of the new version of Feuiilade’s Les Vampires currently being shot, in English, in Paris. The best of many offhand cinephiliac observations dotted throughout comes from Mira when she's discussing Feuillade's original. "It's not like Feuillade is Dreyer or Lang." Some would disagree about the film-maker whom, in David Thomson's words, is "the first director for whom no historical allowances have to be made."

Irma Vep played by Alicia Vikander (top, 2022), 
Maggie Cheung  (middle, 1996), Musidora  (bottom, 1916)

Assayas burrows into Feuillade's film-making incorporating Feuillade's original and references to his previous 1996 feature with Maggie Cheung, out of which came a marriage to his star, an event which also seems to be reflected on with some regret. Macaigne also plays Feuillade in the sequences drawn from Musidora's autobiography and which recreate filming back in the day, a time when actors had to accept far more physical risk most notably shown in the sequence where an entire train passes over her as she lies on the track, another where she is actually shot and another where she goes to see the Paris Chief of Police who has closed down production after hearing that it might contain something far too risqué

 

René Vidal may or may not be close to the way Assayas directs his films but whatever that truth  you get the feeling that over the four hundred minutes of the series there is a lot of Assayas autobiography packed into it. Squabbles with stars, producers, insurers and backers form sub-plots in each episode. Gottfried (Lars Eidinger)  who is playing Moreno even manages, quite without remorse, to near kill himself performing  a private auto-erotic act with a noose.

 

Hannah Lynch, Petrol

Something similar happens with Alena Lodkina’s Petrol.  There is no noose equivalent but its about film-making and the magic of it. And specifically the problems faced by a young film-maker grappling with her life as well as her movie. The film has had screenings at Locarno and MIFF in recent times and will likely be on SBS and its channels and streaming service in the near future. Lodkina doesn’t bring over forty years of film criticism and  film-making to the table as Assayas does. This is her second feature, made on a shoestring with a cast of unknowns. As Assayas brings out the beauties of Paris, Lodkina finds  a small scale equivalent in the back lanes and terraces of a tiny part of Melbourne. But she does share with Assayas a sense of fun, mystery, intrigue and cinematic reference. Her god is the enigmatic Andrei Tarkovsky, not the most humorous of beings but one who revelled in spectacle and magic. She does not explain what the title means. “The evasively titled Petrol” one critic called it. 

 

Penelope Cruz, Official Competition

Meanwhile lingering around the art houses is a Spanish film called Official Competition, another reflection on modern film-making. It shares one trope with Irma Vep. Production funds are coming from a big corporation. In the French movie it’s all about selling perfume. In the Spanish it’s all about the self-aggrandisement of the billionaire pharma manufacturer who wants a place in the limelight. Penelope Cruz plays a director who, to provoke her two leading players, puts their awards through a metal grinder and runs rehearsals with humiliation of her actors as a key purpose. I guess  there’s a place for it….