Of the five documentaries I previewed on DVD screener for this year's San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival (SFIAAFF), my favorite is one doc-purists might disavow. Indeed, when Variety reviewed Uruphong Raksasad's Agrarian Utopia last year they tagged it a narrative feature, while SFIAAFF is showing it under their Documentary Showcase banner. Whatever. Lyrical, advocative and exquisitely shot, this portrait of rice farmers in Northern Thailand shouldn't be missed.
Scenes of rice planting and harvesting are blended with activities like beehive foraging, mushroom cultivation and snake hunting—extracurricular necessities for these farmers who are essentially hired laborers drowning in debt. Raksasad, who is originally from this area, acts as his own cinematographer and what he captures is unforgettable—men hand-threshing rice stalks by the light of a kerosene lamp, time-lapsed electrical storms zooming over verdant paddies, the horseplay of children, the daunting task of training a water buffalo. His "characters" appear unconscious of the camera's presence, making us privy to intimate conversations that frequently revolve around fiscal struggles (and which frequently take place during the acts of cooking and eating). The film is bookended with political rallies that place the farmers' plight in the context of recent upheavals in Thai society. If I have one quibble with Raksasad's film, it's that women's voices are largely absent.
Two other worthwhile SFIAAFF docs fit a more traditional mold, and both concern a Japanese American male with life-changing ties to the U.S. military. Eight years in the army qualified Richard Aoki to become Field Marshall (and an early arms supplier) for the Black Panther Party. Who would have guessed that the iconic marching, drilling and chanting of the Panthers was orchestrated by a self-described "baddest Oriental to come out of West Oakland."
Directors Mike Cheng and Ben Wang filmed Aoki for the last five years of his life and spin a captivating narrative with archival materials, interviews and speeches. Born in San Leandro in 1938, Aoki spent part of his childhood in Topaz Relocation Camp, after which his family moved to Oakland. Following his army stint, he enrolled in Merritt College where he met Panther founders Huey Newton and Bobby Seale (the latter appears extensively in this film, along with Panthers communications secretary Kathleen Cleaver). In addition to the Panthers, Aoki was involved in the Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA) and more notoriously, the Third World Liberation Front, which instigated the largest student strike in U.C. Berkeley history. He would end up spending most of his life in academia, while remaining a staunch and greatly admired activist. Curiously, the film makes little mention of Aoki's life outside his activism.
In 2006, Lt. Ehren Watada became the first commissioned officer in the U.S. military to refuse deployment to Iraq. In her incredibly moving new film Lt. Watada, Oscar®-winning director Freida Lee Mock (Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision) looks at this brave, thoughtful young man and the journey his refusal to be "part of something deeply illegal and immoral" took him on. After graduating magna cum laude with a business degree in 2003, this non-pacifist Eagle Scout, mindful of 9/11, joined the army with a desire to protect his country. In 2006, however, after having researched our reasons for invading Iraq, he decided that deployment there would be a violation of his military oath. Watada offered to resign and twice offered to fight in Afghanistan. The army refused. They offered him a cushy, non-combative job in Iraq, which Watada refused. Mock's film expertly lays out what happened next, detailing three years of court martial limbo during which time Watada continued to speak out and dig his hole deeper. Lt. Watada is part of a SFIAAFF spotlight on Frieda Lee Mock, and after the festival's only screening of the film on March 14, the director will take part in an on-stage interview.
Another SFIAAFF documentary by an Oscar®-winning filmmaker is the North American Premiere of A Moment in Time by Ruby Yang (The Blood of Yingzhao District). Her film looks at the phenomenon of American Chinatown movie theaters—particularly here in San Francisco—and the role those theaters and the films they screened played in the Chinese community. From melodramas that made Chinatown matrons weep, to the kung-fu pics which established new models of Asian masculinity (and whose themes of loyalty and revenge carried over into Chinatown gang life), these films served as a link to the homeland and were a reflection of community not found in Hollywood films.
San Francisco's Chinatown has had as many as five theaters operating simultaneously and A Moment in Time profiles several, including the Grandview (which had its own film studio) and the Great Star (which if memory serves, is where I saw my first Jackie Chan flick, Operation Condor 2: The Armour of the Gods.) At times this doc overreaches by attempting to provide an entire history of Chinese cinema and consequently loses focus. There are also some strange digressions, like the young woman who praises her current boyfriend for the soy and oyster sauces in his cupboard, while bemoaning the ex who had ketchup and baked beans in his. But overall, it's a satisfying look at a bygone era. By 2000 there wasn't a single remaining Chinatown theater anywhere in the U.S. A Moment in Time will screen with Eric Lin's short, Music Palace, which looks at New York City's final Chinatown movie theater.
Sports documentaries are about as far outside my interest zone as you can get, but I checked out Brigitte Weich's Hana, dul, sed… for that rare glimpse of life in North Korea. The film's first half traces the ascendancy of its women's soccer team—culminating in a 2003 Asia Cup win—with profiles of four players and lots and lots of requisite training and game footage. (They get revved-up for a U.S. match by visiting the country's Anti-American Museum). After losing a 2004 Olympics qualifying match to Japan, all four women are forced into retirement. That's when the film gets interesting, as we watch them deal with life as ex-sports stars. While hardly a portrayal of "average" North Koreans (they get to keep their nice state-given Pyongyang apartments and get extra food rations as "Players of the People"), we get to know them and experience the world from their POV: the wide boulevards devoid of auto traffic, the palatial subway stations, a beauty parlor visit, an outing to the National Zoo with its caged dogs and kitty cats, couples rowboating on the Taedong River and a bounty of Socialist Realist poster art (most of it helpfully translated). This film is definitely worth a look.
There are many other documentaries in the festival, which you'll find spread across the Documentary Showcase, CAAM 30th Anniversary Showcase and Documentary Competition sections. One I'm planning to catch during the fest is Tehran Without Permission, a collage of life in Iran's capital city, shot entirely on a Nokia camera phone before last summer's civil unrest.
Cross-published on film-415 and Twitch.
In a stroke of fortune for Bay Area movie lovers, the San Francisco Silent Film Festival (SFSFF) supplements its summertime fest with yet another extraordinary one-day line-up of classic silent cinema. SFSFF's Fifth Annual 2009 Winter Event takes place this Saturday, December 12 at the Castro Theater. For the uninitiated, SFSFF is the Western Hemisphere's premiere showcase for silent film exhibition, featuring the best available 35mm prints, live musical accompaniments, program notes, special guests and savvy film intros. The four films comprising this Saturday's line-up—all of which I'll be seeing for the first time—sound like a diverse and rewarding lot.
Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness (1927), 11:30AM—Six years before they unleashed King Kong upon the world, directors Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack made this melodramatic docu-drama about a Siamese farming family and their struggle against the creatures of the jungle. Shot under rough conditions near the Thai border with Laos, Chang followed other successful silent ethnographic films such as Nanook of the North (1922) and the directors' own Grass (1925), which documented the migration of Bakhtiari herdsmen in present day Turkey and Iran. It's said that three crew members were bitten by pythons during the Chang shoot, and Schoedsack himself battled malaria and sunstroke in the 115 degree heat.
In contrast to the corniness of the film's staged drama (complete with cute inter-titles and a rascally pet monkey), there's the sobering sight of numerous wild animals being slaughtered on camera. The animal kingdom gets its revenge, however, in the film's climactic, village-flattening elephant stampede. At the first Academy Awards in 1927, Chang was one of three films nominated for the first-and-last Unique and Artistic Production Award (the others were King Vidor's The Crowd and winner F.W. Murnau's Sunrise). Introducing the film on Saturday will be Mark Vaz, author of Living Dangerously: The Adventures of Merian C. Cooper. Returning SFSFF virtuoso Donald Sosin will accompany Chang with an original piano score.
J'accuse (1928), 2:00PM—This 1919 anti-war film from Abel Gance is the movie most SFSFF-heads I know are itching to see. It's only been available in severely truncated editions, which is why this U.S. premiere of a new 162-minute version—painstakingly assembled and restored by the Netherlands Filmmuseum and France's Lobster Films—is such a big deal. Gance, who is sometimes referred to as Europe's D.W. Griffith, is best known for his 1927 epic Napoléon, which is the only Gance I've ever seen, back at a glorious 1981 (?) screening at Oakland's Paramount Theater, with Carmine Coppola conducting a symphony orchestra and the film's famous three-screen triptych battle scenes (an early stab at something akin to Cinemascope) fully restored.
J'accuse tells the story of a romantic triangle against the backdrop of WWI. Gance returned to active military duty in 1918 (as part of France's Section Cinématographique) to film parts of J'accuse, including the Battle of Saint-Mihiel. During a lull in fighting, he shot the celebrated "March of the Dead" sequence employing 2,000 soldiers—80 percent of whom would later die in battle. This eerie 20-minute sequence, along with Gance's expressionistic camerawork and rapid-cut editing, are reasons why J'accuse is remembered today. Although it was a commercial success in France, Pathé Films couldn't get U.S. distribution until Gance himself arranged a gala New York screening for D.W. Griffith in 1921. Griffith released the film through his recently formed United Artists, but it failed to find an American audience. Film preservationist Robert Byrne will introduce J'accuse, and Robert Israel will perform his original orchestral score adapted to play on the Castro's Mighty Wurlitzer.
Sherlock Jr. (1924), 7:00PM—After a two-hour dinner break, during which time there'll be a special SFSFF party in the Castro mezzanine, the Winter Event continues with this 1924 Buster Keaton classic. Considered "one of the great movies of all time about the movies" and "a brilliant meditation on the nature of cinema," Sherlock Jr. follows Our Hospitality—which SFSFF just screened in February—within Keaton's filmography. Here he plays a movie projectionist who longs to be a celebrated detective. After being framed by a romantic rival for stealing his sweetheart's father's watch, he falls asleep in his projection booth and enters a cinematic dream world where his super-sleuthing skills are put to good use.
Expect plenty of Keaton genius—both in his hilarious sight gags and his primitive, but seamless special effects. This is also the film in which Keaton famously fractured his neck performing a stunt (the water tower scene). Because Sherlock Jr. runs only 45 minutes, it's being paired with his 1921 short The Goat, which some consider his best. This time he's pursued by cops who mistake him for an escaped killer. Look for the iconic scene of Keaton riding a train's cowcatcher. Keaton's granddaughter Melissa Cox will be a special guest at this program, where she'll be interviewed by SFSFF board member Frank Buxton (who once acted with Keaton in summer stock). Dennis James will accompany the films on the Mighty Wurlitzer, with the help of Mark Goldstein's special sound effects.
West of Zanzibar (1928), 9:15PM—The SFSFF days ends, as it has several times in the recent past, with a creepy collaboration between director Tod Browning (Dracula, Freaks) and actor Lon Chaney. We've been shown Chaney as a larcenous ventriloquist in drag (The Unholy Three, SFSFF 2006) and an armless knife-thrower lusting to touch Joan Crawford (The Unknown, SFSFF 2008). Here he's Phrosos, a cuckolded, crippled magician who becomes an African ivory trader in order to extract truly twisted, simmering-for-18-years revenge. Boiling in the film's salacious pot are drug addiction, prostitution, voodoo, cannibalism and really un-PC dancing "natives." Unsurprisingly, the folks at Midnites For Maniacs are co-sponsoring the screening, and Dennis James will be back to thrill us on the Mighty Wurlitzer. Program notes for this one have been researched and written by Hell On Frisco Bay's Brian Darr.
Of related interest: Brian Darr has given us a glimpse of some of his research on West of Zanzibar in his HOFB November 18 entry (scroll down midway). Dennis Harvey writes the event up at SF360. Coverage from our friends at SIFFBLOG is also in full swing, kicking off with Anne M. Hockens' essay "A League of Extraordinary Gentlemen", followed by David Jeffers on the Keaton double-bill, and West of Zanzibar. And, of course, there's SFSFF's own blog.
Cross-published on film-415 and Twitch.
How fortunate can a website be to have two of the Bay Area's best film writers offer previews of what I consider to be this weekend's winner of—as Michael Hawley aptly terms it—November's "filmfest smackdown." Film festivalism has never been more athletic or competitive!! Lay your bets, cinephiles!
The 3rd i San Francisco International South Asian Film Festival returns for its seventh edition November 5 to 8, with two nights apiece at the Roxie and Castro Theaters. Sure to be a highlight is Saturday's Castro revival of legendary producer/star Guru Dutt's 1960 Bollywood classic Full Moon (Chaudhvin Ka Chand). Set amongst the Muslim aristocracy of early 20th century Lucknow, this lushly photographed film follows a love triangle beset with comic misunderstanding, mistaken identity and ultimate tragedy. Any disappointment I had over the film's digital, rather the 35mm presentation, has been tempered with the announcement that Dutt's son Aran will be on hand to introduce the screening.
That night, 3rd i's Saturday at the Castro concludes with recent Bollywood hit My Heart Goes Hooray! (Kil Bole Hadippa!). Although this girls-just-wanna-play-cricket pic doesn't star Shahrukh Khan, I'm not exactly dreading 148 minutes of watching Shahid Kapoor (Rani Mukherjee in Drag King mode might be a different story).
And anyone with a taste for the wildly different won't want to miss Friday's late-night Roxie screening of Quick Gun Murugun. This ambitious masala mish-mash pits a gaily-garbed vegetarian caballero against a criminal carnivore—while spoofing vintage Bollywood, Spaghetti Westerns and a hundred other things. Expect a lot of cartoonish violence, special FX and in-jokes infinitum (plus a color-palate influenced by Wisit Sasanatieng's Tears of the Black Tiger).
There are several non-Bollywood narrative features in the line-up. Of the two I previewed I'm most enthusiastic about Bombay Summer. This moody, hang-loose Indian indie chronicles the evolving friendship between three Mumbai 20-somethings—Geeta, a graphic design company exec who still lives at home, Jaider, her coddled poet boyfriend, and Madan, a drug deliveryman and photographer who comes between them. In the dark, uneven British anti-family comedy Mad, Sad & Bad, three damaged adult siblings stumble through the weeks leading up to the death of their widowed, alcoholic mother. A 17-year-old Kashmiri boy's struggle to escape his fate is at the center of Bay Area director Tariq Tapa's neo-realist feature debut Zero Bridge. The film was just recently nominated for a Gotham Award for Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You. The directors for all three of these films are expected to attend.
3rd i can be counted on to present some terrific documentaries, and this year is no exception. While I haven't previewed it, closing night film Yes Madam, Sir appears to be one not to miss. The film is about Kiran Bedi, India's first elite policewoman, and Variety's Richard Kuipers calls it "an enthralling chronicle of her brilliant, tempestuous career" in a full-on rave review. Both Kiran Bedi and the film's director, Megan Doneman, are scheduled to attend.
Of the three docs I've seen, I most strongly recommend Opening Night film Supermen of Malegaon, a charming story of cinema-obsessed textile mill workers making their own inspired version of Superman. Anyone who was blown away by Manufactured Landscapes' unearthly images of Bangladesh's "ship-breaking" industry will want to check out Iron Eaters, a sobering, multi-angled look at a back-breaking business that feeds an estimated three million Bangladeshis. The contradictory disconnect between "Kama Sutra India" and "no public kissing India" is the fascinating subject of Kaushik Mukherjee's brave documentary Love in India. Other docs in the fest include Warrior Boyz (South Asian gangs in Vancouver), Searching for Sandeep (Australian lesbian finds romance on-line) and Children of the Pyre (kids living off Varanasi's cremation industry).
Cross-published on Twitch.
Hipsters (Russia, dir. Valery Todorovsky)—I never expected that my favorite film of the fest would be a splashy, wide-screen Russian musical set in 1955 Moscow, but there you go. Hipsters recounts the phenomenon of stilyagi, the name given to Russian youth who rebelled against gray Soviet monoculture by emulating jazz music and fashion from the west. The film follows the transformation of Mels, a stodgy young communist whom love converts into a pompadoured, sax-playing free spirit. Full of romance, comedy, bright costumes and cleverly choreographed production numbers—each done in a different musical style with engaging lyrics—Hipsters is clearly an exaggerated, romanticized version of post-Stalinist Russia. But it's a version that doesn't totally whitewash reality. The scorned stilyagi are subject to mob attacks, and one character speaks of an aunt who was arrested because her Stalin portrait hung opposite the bathroom. I'll rarely watch a DVD screener twice, but couldn't resist with Hipsters. This should be a blast to see on the big screen with an audience.
Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire (US, dir. Lee Daniels)—Hallelujah, the hype turns out to be justified for this alternately horrifying and humorous hardknock fairytale that won audience awards at both Sundance and Toronto. Newcomer Gabourey Sidibe is unforgettable as Clarice "Precious" Jones, an illiterate, ridiculed, morbidly obese teen with a hyperactive fantasy life and the most horrible mother in the history of cinema (an unforgettable turn by comedienne Mo'Nique). About to be thrown out of school for being pregnant—for the second time, by her own father—salvation comes in the form of a caring lesbian alternative school teacher (Paula Patton). Daniels directs with compassion and freewheeling imagination, from a first-time screenplay by Geoffrey Fletcher. Opens in Bay Area Theaters on November 13.
An Education (UK, dir. Lone Scherfig)—In 1961 London, a bright schoolgirl falls under the sway of a smooth talking playboy, receiving a deliciously poignant education in life whilst jeopardizing her academic future. Scherfig's evocation of pre-Swinging Sixties UK highlife—its nightclubs, racetracks, and weekend jaunts to Paris—is terrific fun, while the performances all resonate, especially Carey Mulligan and a Brit-accented Peter Sarsgaard as the inter-generational couple. Based on a Nick Hornby script, this is by far my favorite film of Scherfig's (Italian For Beginners) and her personal appearance at the festival is reason enough to catch it there before the October 16 theatrical release.
The Maid (Chile, dir. Sebastian Silva)—In this heartbreaking and hilarious social satire, Raquel is a housekeeper who's taken care of the same upper class family for 23 years. After a thwarted sense of self causes her to start acting out resentments, the confused family responds by hiring on additional help. The first two maids flee after being terrorized by Raquel. Finally, a woman with a taste for jogging and irreverence joins the household staff—and she's got Raquel's number good. Filmed almost entirely indoors with a handheld camera that reflects our heroine's entrapment, The Maid explores thorny master/servant issues without demonizing the former or martyring the latter. This Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner for World Cinema will open in Bay Area theaters on November 13.
Soundtrack For a Revolution (US, dir. Bill Guttentag, Dan Sturman)—This exceptional documentary traces the history of the American Civil Rights Movement via the protest songs which inspired its leaders and participants. As one interviewee states, "They could take away everything else, except our songs—which meant we kept our souls." From "We Shall Overcome" to "Wade in the Water," the film recounts how these songs came to be written and then incorporated into the movement. The directors seamlessly blend moving first-person accounts (Julian Bond, Coretta Scott King, songwriter Guy Carawan), contemporary performances of the songs (The Roots, Ritchie Havens, Wyclef Jean) and a lot of archival material I know I haven't seen elsewhere. Apart from its focus on the music, this is perhaps the most concise and affecting film I've seen on the African American struggle for civil rights, period. Co-director Guttenberg is expected to attend the festival, and a special Concert for a Revolution featuring The Blind Boys of Alabama (who perform in the film) will take place after the Oct. 16 screening.
Dark and Stormy Night (US, dir. Larry Blamire)—I approached this one with trepidation, not having liked Blamire's vintage sci-fi parodies (The Lost Skelton of Cadavra, Trail of the Screaming Forehead). Here he takes on the Haunted House genre, and comes up with a spoof that's ambitious, reverent and often enough, completely nuts. All the tropes show up—the reading of a will, secret panels, an escaped maniac from the local asylum, ancestral portraits with roving eyeballs, expository monologues—everything but the sour-faced female caretaker. Blamire expertly lifts all this from such films as The Cat and the Canary, The Dark Old House and the spooky comedies of The Bowery Boys, Abbott and Costello and the Three Stooges. Not all of the two dozen stock characters work equally well, but I happily found my least favorites getting bumped off early in the proceedings. Among the ones who fortunately live through the night are a pair of bickering guy/gal reporters straight out of His Girl Friday, and a turbaned, Andrea Martin-channeling medium.
Shameless (Czech Republic, dir. Jan Hrebejk)—In this droll, melancholic little film about the foibles of adult relationships, TV weatherman Oskar gets the heave-ho when his wife discovers he's screwing their Hungarian au pair. After losing his job, he begins a new career driving drunks home from bars, which is how he meets his new love, an older celebrated Czech songstress. Meanwhile, his ex-wife meets a blue collar single dad who loves her big nose, and the two have sex for the first time in her ex-husband's childhood bedroom. Slight, piquant, and oddly satisfying, Shameless has a low key charm that could use some of the edginess that underscored Hrebejk's earlier works like Up and Down and Beauty in Trouble.
Hellsinki (Finland, dir. Aleksi Mäkelä)—Booze was illegal in 1960s Finland, giving rise to a bootlegger underground in the depressed Helsinki neighborhood of Rööperi. This solid, but unremarkable genre yarn follows the fates of three small time gangsters through a decade and a half's worth of up-and-downward mobility. When alcohol starts being sold legally in 1969, more nefarious career options arise for the trio. Krisu (Peter Franzen) takes his thuggery to Sweden and returns home a junkie, while momma's boy Kari intentionally screws up a bank robbery to regain the sanctuary of prison life. Meanwhile, troubled hothead Tom gets married and makes a fortune in the burgeoning mail-order porn biz. The film has been tagged a Finnish Goodfellas, which is in many ways an apt comparison. Actor Peter Franzen is expected to attend the festival.
Superstar (Iran, dir. Tamineh Milani)—An insufferably arrogant and bellyaching movie star has his life changed when an impudent, self-righteous—oops, I mean spunky—precocious young girl shows up and claims to be his long lost daughter from a forgotten affair. This is so not my thing. I'd had all I could stand 20 minutes before reaching the end, which I understand contains some sort of twist. Milani is said to be one of Iran's top directors and this sentimental melodrama made gobs of rials for the country's cinemas. Recommended for those with a curiosity about mainstream Iranian crowd pleasers.
Cross-published on film-415 and Twitch.
Of the five documentaries I previewed on DVD screener for this year's San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival (SFIAAFF), my favorite is one doc-purists might disavow. Indeed, when Variety reviewed Uruphong Raksasad's Agrarian Utopia last year they tagged it a narrative feature, while SFIAAFF is showing it under their Documentary Showcase banner. Whatever. Lyrical, advocative and exquisitely shot, this portrait of rice farmers in Northern Thailand shouldn't be missed.
Scenes of rice planting and harvesting are blended with activities like beehive foraging, mushroom cultivation and snake hunting—extracurricular necessities for these farmers who are essentially hired laborers drowning in debt. Raksasad, who is originally from this area, acts as his own cinematographer and what he captures is unforgettable—men hand-threshing rice stalks by the light of a kerosene lamp, time-lapsed electrical storms zooming over verdant paddies, the horseplay of children, the daunting task of training a water buffalo. His "characters" appear unconscious of the camera's presence, making us privy to intimate conversations that frequently revolve around fiscal struggles (and which frequently take place during the acts of cooking and eating). The film is bookended with political rallies that place the farmers' plight in the context of recent upheavals in Thai society. If I have one quibble with Raksasad's film, it's that women's voices are largely absent.
Directors Mike Cheng and Ben Wang filmed Aoki for the last five years of his life and spin a captivating narrative with archival materials, interviews and speeches. Born in San Leandro in 1938, Aoki spent part of his childhood in Topaz Relocation Camp, after which his family moved to Oakland. Following his army stint, he enrolled in Merritt College where he met Panther founders Huey Newton and Bobby Seale (the latter appears extensively in this film, along with Panthers communications secretary Kathleen Cleaver). In addition to the Panthers, Aoki was involved in the Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA) and more notoriously, the Third World Liberation Front, which instigated the largest student strike in U.C. Berkeley history. He would end up spending most of his life in academia, while remaining a staunch and greatly admired activist. Curiously, the film makes little mention of Aoki's life outside his activism.
In 2006, Lt. Ehren Watada became the first commissioned officer in the U.S. military to refuse deployment to Iraq. In her incredibly moving new film Lt. Watada, Oscar®-winning director Freida Lee Mock (Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision) looks at this brave, thoughtful young man and the journey his refusal to be "part of something deeply illegal and immoral" took him on. After graduating magna cum laude with a business degree in 2003, this non-pacifist Eagle Scout, mindful of 9/11, joined the army with a desire to protect his country. In 2006, however, after having researched our reasons for invading Iraq, he decided that deployment there would be a violation of his military oath. Watada offered to resign and twice offered to fight in Afghanistan. The army refused. They offered him a cushy, non-combative job in Iraq, which Watada refused. Mock's film expertly lays out what happened next, detailing three years of court martial limbo during which time Watada continued to speak out and dig his hole deeper. Lt. Watada is part of a SFIAAFF spotlight on Frieda Lee Mock, and after the festival's only screening of the film on March 14, the director will take part in an on-stage interview.
Another SFIAAFF documentary by an Oscar®-winning filmmaker is the North American Premiere of A Moment in Time by Ruby Yang (The Blood of Yingzhao District). Her film looks at the phenomenon of American Chinatown movie theaters—particularly here in San Francisco—and the role those theaters and the films they screened played in the Chinese community. From melodramas that made Chinatown matrons weep, to the kung-fu pics which established new models of Asian masculinity (and whose themes of loyalty and revenge carried over into Chinatown gang life), these films served as a link to the homeland and were a reflection of community not found in Hollywood films.
San Francisco's Chinatown has had as many as five theaters operating simultaneously and A Moment in Time profiles several, including the Grandview (which had its own film studio) and the Great Star (which if memory serves, is where I saw my first Jackie Chan flick, Operation Condor 2: The Armour of the Gods.) At times this doc overreaches by attempting to provide an entire history of Chinese cinema and consequently loses focus. There are also some strange digressions, like the young woman who praises her current boyfriend for the soy and oyster sauces in his cupboard, while bemoaning the ex who had ketchup and baked beans in his. But overall, it's a satisfying look at a bygone era. By 2000 there wasn't a single remaining Chinatown theater anywhere in the U.S. A Moment in Time will screen with Eric Lin's short, Music Palace, which looks at New York City's final Chinatown movie theater.
Sports documentaries are about as far outside my interest zone as you can get, but I checked out Brigitte Weich's Hana, dul, sed… for that rare glimpse of life in North Korea. The film's first half traces the ascendancy of its women's soccer team—culminating in a 2003 Asia Cup win—with profiles of four players and lots and lots of requisite training and game footage. (They get revved-up for a U.S. match by visiting the country's Anti-American Museum). After losing a 2004 Olympics qualifying match to Japan, all four women are forced into retirement. That's when the film gets interesting, as we watch them deal with life as ex-sports stars. While hardly a portrayal of "average" North Koreans (they get to keep their nice state-given Pyongyang apartments and get extra food rations as "Players of the People"), we get to know them and experience the world from their POV: the wide boulevards devoid of auto traffic, the palatial subway stations, a beauty parlor visit, an outing to the National Zoo with its caged dogs and kitty cats, couples rowboating on the Taedong River and a bounty of Socialist Realist poster art (most of it helpfully translated). This film is definitely worth a look.
