PSIFF10: THE MILK OF SORROW (LA TETA ASUSTADA, 2009)—Two Evening Class questions and a Q&A With Claudia Llosa

Peruvian director Claudia Llosa's sophomore feature La teta asustada (The Milk of Sorrow, 2009) stars Magaly Solier—with whom she worked on Madeinusa (2005)—and addresses the fears of abused women during Peru's recent history. It won both the Golden Bear award and FIPRESCI prize at the 2009 Berlinale, as well as the award for best movie in the 24 Festival Internacional de Cine de Guadalajara in Mexico. It is Peru's official submission to this year's Academy Awards®. In that capacity, it made an appearance in the Awards Buzz program at the 2010 Palm Springs International Film Festival, with Llosa in attendance to address questions from her audience at the film's first PSIFF screening.

As synopsized at Wikipedia, between 1980 and 1992 Peru experienced a period of violence, particularly in the Andean region, because of the uprising of the Maoist group Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) and the actions of the paramilitary and state armed forces. By 1990 the conflict finally reached Lima, the capital city of Peru. Claudia Llosa claims in her film that the trauma experienced by women who were raped by members of Sendero Luminoso was passed on to their children through the milk from their breasts (although no allusions are made about rapes by other forces in the conflict). Thus, this period of violence continues to affect not only those who experienced it, but also the next generation. The film is inspired by the book Entre Prójimos: El conflicto armado interno y la política de la reconciliación en el Perú by Kimberly Theidon, Associate Professor at the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University. Theidon's study is a psychological as well as sociological approach to the 12 years of conflict, and is critical of the mass rapes used by the army as a strategy of war. In her book, Theidon documents a number of testimonies from women who were raped by as many as 30 men at a time, atrocities that oftentimes resulted in pregnancies. Theidon states that "when the survivors of the sexual violence speak of their experiences, they give the responsibility to the listener to respond to what they've heard." Llosa's film, too, is an attempt to respond to such testimonies.

Jet-lagged from having flown in from Barcelona with her two-month infant Alec, Llosa nonetheless charmingly responded to my questions.

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Michael Guillén: The Milk of Sorrow is marvelously imagistic. In your process of writing and drafting the script, how strong were the images when you were writing the script and—when you went to translate your script to film—how closely did the images in your film adhere to the images in your script?

Claudia Llosa: Good question. I cannot separate. I know what I want to shoot. Some scenes might be totally literary. Some of the shots are just as I want to shoot them. I'm intuitive in that way. I don't try to have a process. I shoot as I feel. I don't know how to explain it. The initial process is to follow the script. To understand the emotional arc of the story. That's what is most interesting for me in the script. When I understand that movement, I start focusing on every image. I can almost draw all of the frames. I show them to my DP [Natasha Braier] because I need her to understand why I want her to shoot scenes in certain ways.

Everything is wrapped in the same idea. I work a lot with the concept of a labyrinth. All these corridors Fausta is trapped in. A labyrinth is not only a place of entrapment but also a place where you always return, a cycle that repeats itself and continues. I felt like my country is repeating its history in an infinite labyrinth.

Guillén: There were so many images in the film that captured my sensual attention. One of the most imaginative was the scene where Aída (Susi Sánchez) and Fausta are in the garden. Aída has been duplicitously encouraging Fausta to sing her Quechua melodies so that she can plagiarize them for her own musical compositions and—in that sequence—you shot her so that she was in the foreground with Fausta partially hidden behind her and slightly below her, so that her mouth appears below Aída's chin, in front of her throat, as if Fausta's voice has become Aída's voice.

Llosa: My intention with that image was to create a monster; to reveal that Aida was a monster.

On the Film's Title

La teta asustada was the name of the illness referenced in the narrative and so it was chosen as the name of the film; but, the crew was leery of it because it was a harsh term. Though the title worked in Peru, in Spain it didn't come across as well because they didn't catch the Quechua meaning and a literal English translation—"The Frightened Breast"—didn't cover its inherent poetry. They couldn't find a match to translate the title into English until the film's sales agent came up with The Milk of Sorrow, which Llosa liked. It worked for her and made it easier to sell the film. "It's smoother, sweeter, nicer," Llosa affirmed.

On the Production of the Script

Llosa had just finished her first feature film Madeinusa and was trying to think of what she wanted to film next. She came across a book called Entre Prójimos written by American medical anthropologist Kimberly Theidon. Theidon had compiled testimonies of women who were mistreated or violated during the war. In some of these testimonies the women spoke of an illness "la teta asustada". Llosa was inspired by these testimonies to research la teta asustada further, which proved difficult because nobody wanted to talk to her about it. But for her it seemed urgent. It was a long process. It took almost a year and a half to shape the script to a point where she could show it to anyone, let alone producers. Somehow, however, the difficulties proved to be a good thing because it caused her to follow her instincts, to not be derogatory, and to not be too attached to reality. She wanted to understand the emotions of what it would mean to have this illness. The delay, in a sense, gave her creative freedom.

On Working Once Again With Magaly Solier

Llosa felt that she and Magaly started a process with Madeinusa that was somehow not completed by that film. Madeinusa was a first experience in filmmaking for both of them; but, Llosa felt she could go further with Solier. She wrote the script for The Milk of Sorrow, wrote the songs, and knew intuitively that Solier had the soul necessary to contain the character of Fausta. At first, Solier didn't believe she could manage Fausta because she is herself quite a tough woman. Llosa explained that she could go anywhere with Solier because of her fearless strength. Solier couldn't relate to the fear that controlled Fausta and was reluctant to feel that fear in embodying the character. It was a long process and Llosa had to talk a lot with Solier to negotiate the characterization.

Partly, this involved reawakening in Solier memories she had purposely shut down and didn't want to open. Solier told Llosa that she wanted to return to her home town in Huanto, Ayacucho, which had been one of the red zones during the reign of the terrorists. While there, on her own, Solier read Llosa's script nearly 80 times, which served to open up her memories. She recalled a memory her mother told her once to explain the scar on her back, which she's had since she was little. Her mother told her that when Magaly was just a baby, her mother was running with Magaly in her arms, trying to escape the terrorists, when she stumbled over a corpse and fell in the dark of night. Recalling this memory was the turning point in helping Solier manage the character of Fausta.

On Using the Quechua Language

The Quechua language was important for Llosa to use in The Milk of Sorrow because for nearly 15 years during the '70s-'90s—one of the darkest periods in recent Peruvian history—much violence occurred in the Andean mountain range. The Quechua-speaking natives were the most victimized by this violence. They came to Lima to escape the war and tried to hide their language, their identity, because they didn't want to be related to the war and terrorism. They hid in silence. The language of Quechua is related to poverty, non-development, and something with which Peruvians don't want to be associated. Llosa wanted to change that. She wanted Peruvians to be proud of their Quechua language.

That was why Llosa had Fausta always speaking in Quechua, silently to herself at first, and finally outloud when Aída finally convinces her to sing. Then when Fausta hears the applause given Aída for the piano composition based on her melody, it energizes her and helps her to turn towards self-acceptance, even as she copes with Aída's cultural theft.

When Llosa won the Golden Bear at the 2009 Berlinale, Magaly Solier came with her to accept the prize and spoke proudly in Quechua, thanking everybody. It was the first time in Peru that Quechua was related to success. Little by little, people started admitting to her they could speak Quechua. They started becoming proud again in the beauty of their language.

On Shooting On Location in Manchay

Manchay is one of the many pueblos jóvenes (shanty towns) that sprang up on the outskirts of Lima when the Shining Path drove Quechua-speaking natives from their mountain homes. Llosa wanted to film there because the name "Manchay" is related to fear. Also, she was intrigued with their amazingly long stairways (depicted also in Heddy Honigman's Oblivion). When Llosa spoke with Lima's mayor after winning her Golden Bear, they discussed Manchay's stairways, which for her were loaded with symbolism, and he told her that he had constructed the stairs during his government. He said that people kept asking him after the stairs were built how the Quechua had managed to climb up to their houses before? Until then, no one had bothered to notice or care.

On the Film's "Bizarre" Wedding Rituals

The reality of the wedding scenes grew by accretion and amplification. Though Quechua weddings aren't really like that, they are somewhat like that. Working on a low budget, Llosa approached wedding parties to ask if they could use the hired effects and asked if they would be willing to bring them to the shoot. Almost unanimously, the wedding parties were so willing to be part of the film that they basically repeated their wedding ceremonies intact. Llosa only changed colors to match the color themes of the film. In the instance of the group wedding—what they call "a popular wedding"—Llosa and her crew attended a genuine popular wedding a month before the shoot and from that event solicited the brides and grooms who were willing to show up to replicate the sequence on film. They showed up wearing the same clothing. Brides, especially, were happy to do so because—as they often told Llosa—"I don't have an opportunity to wear my bridal gown more than once."

Writing for Slant, Andrew Schenker astutely observes: "Since Fausta's aunt works as a wedding planner and since her cousin is preparing for her own wedding, Llosa employs several iterations of that ceremony to educe the ethos of village life, illustrating the unique rituals (the bride peeling a potato as an act of fortune telling) and joys (a nuptial dance) that adhere to the citizenry as well as the darker remnants of sexualized aggression (a particularly insistent young man makes a play for Fausta during a pre-wedding ritual) that remind us that the attitudes that allowed for the guerilla violence of the '80s rest latent in the country's population." Variety's Boyd von Hoeij offers: "Llosa insists on marriage and natural death as normal parts of the cycle of life—and as a contrast to the chaos that preceded the period in which the pic is set."

Critical Overview

Though I place The Milk of Sorrow among my favorite five from the Palm Springs International—admittedly acknowledging that I am a great fan of Latin American magical realism—the film has met a polarized critical reception despite its major win at the 2009 Berlinale. Reviewing the film for Variety at that time, Boyd von Hoeij concedes that the film is an "ultra-arthouse item" which "will need passionate support wherever it goes." But he assesses (quite fairly): "At first, the pic seems a slow-moving, particularly well-framed ethnographic study of life in the big city in Peru; it only gradually becomes clear that Llosa's second feature perfectly aligns form and content. The film never shows the crimes committed against women before the 1990 regime change, though the violence, rape and torture they suffered inform every frame. By keeping them offscreen, Llosa underlines the fact they are unspeakable crimes, not even talked about today—though their aftermath is still felt even after the women directly concerned have passed away."

At Screen, Lee Marshall—who likewise reviewed the film at the 2009 Berlinale—is strikingly more ambivalent. "Arthouse audiences will find themselves dipping in and out of engagement but the story is too contrived in the long run to resonate much beyond its own four walls," he complains. "Despite a controlled performance by Solier, we are held back from committing to Fausta by the contrived allegorical arc of the script." He does allow: "For those who can keep a straight face a great deal of beauty remains, however, not only in the poised photography but also in the soundtrack of lilting, melancholic guitar melodies and songs."

When The Milk of Sorrow showed up at New Directors / New Films 2009, Slant's Andrew Schenker's review comported with Variety's: "As potentially sensational as the film's subject matter may be, Llosa treats the material with an appropriate restraint, employing medium and long shots to hold the action at a coolly observational distance—a strategy perfectly in keeping with her lead character's reserve—and leaving all lurid details pointedly off screen." He adds: "Setting aside her mostly static camera (which serves to lock down her characters in their immovable situations), Llosa commemorates her character's progress with one final tracking shot taken from the back of a moving truck as it zips through a mountain highway, the deliriousness of forward motion suggesting at last a breakthrough in Fausta's generationally inherited impasse."

At the Village Voice, Ed Gonzales responded to the film's appearance in New York's Lincoln Center Latinbeat Festival: "Though perched on the brink of allegorical overload, the film is less sensational than most descriptions of its subject matter imply. This is a tribute to Llosa's style, which illuminates the indignities of emotional inheritance and internalized racism through its artfully gritty fixation on the rituals and superstitions of village life. From self-imposed subjugation to liberation, the aptly named Fausta's trajectory throughout the film becomes an affront to the neocolonialist forces of imperialism that persist within—and are supported from outside of—Latin America."

Cross-published on Twitch.

THE MAGNIFICENT TATI—The SF360 Interview With Michael House

It seems that every 10-15 years Jacques Tati is reintroduced to the American moviegoing public. The last wave was in the late '90s when the recently-restored color print of Jour de Fête (1949)—Tati's first directorial feature—traveled the art house circuit. Now with the participation of the French ministry, spanking new prints have been struck of Tati's films and a new wave is hitting American shores. Riding the crest of this most recent wave is The Magnificent Tati, an outstanding documentary biography by Michael House, which will see its U.S. premiere in San Francisco at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts on Sunday, January 24, 2010, 2:00PM, with House in the house.

Along with Dennis Harvey's helpful overview of Tati's career, SF360 has optioned my interview with Michael House, which is now up at their site. As synopsized at SF360, Michael House was born in San Diego and worked as a musical composer in Los Angeles, writing music for television commercials. He migrated to San Francisco with his wife Julie roughly a month after Loma Prieta. They wanted to live in Europe but couldn't negotiate work visas so they decided that living in San Francisco would be the closest they could get to Europe within the United States. They lived in San Francisco for 12 years before moving to Paris, where they have lived for the past 10 years. House still considers himself a San Franciscan, however, and returned to San Francisco to complete the final stages of The Magnificent Tati in collaboration with Kim Aubry's ZAP Zoetrope. Aubry used to be the Head of Post Production at Zoetrope Studios and a long-time collaborator with Francis Ford Coppola. House phoned me from Paris to converse on the upcoming premiere and—to complement my piece on SF360—here are a few additional questions I put to him.

* * *

Michael Guillén: When you were talking to Macha Makeïeff of Les Films de Mon Oncle, she expressed the archive's commitment to incorporating contemporary responses to Tati's work. While conducting my research for our interview, I was astounded by the number of artists who claim to have been influenced by Jacques Tati, including those who served your documentary The Magnificent Tati, among many others. One noticeable absence, however—and I was wondering about his exclusion from your documentary in terms of helping you find financial backing—was Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean), who has capitalized on vague associations with Jacques Tati and who, I understand, was invited to introduce Mr. Hulot's Holiday at the UK French Film Festival?

Michael House: I talked to him, yeah. But may I be honest with you? I don't feel he's much like Tati at all. Isn't that terrible? Unlike Tati, he pulls all the comedy into himself. His character Mr. Bean is still a magnet for the viewer. Even though his character Mr. Bean doesn't talk, and there's been a film made Mr. Bean's Holiday (which mimics M. Hulot's Holiday), it's a bit of a stretch—in my humble opinion—to liken him to Tati. He might say he's like Tati, and maybe he is in some way, but I don't see it and I didn't really want to put him in my documentary. I guess that sounds horrible. Also—and this might sound like I'm milking the fact that I don't have any superstars in the film—but, I didn't really want to use anybody super famous, especially a performer. At the height of his career, Tati could have put anyone in his films—he could have put Sophia Loren in his films—but, he intentionally didn't put anyone famous in his films.

I had even approached Johnny Depp's sister, his agent, about possibly appearing in the documentary and everyone was like, "Oh! If you get him, the film will be great! You've got to get him in the film!" But Tati would have probably thought Depp was a jackass. Not that I think Johnny Depp is a jackass—I admire him greatly—but I'm just trying to say that what I would call "real" artists have careers that are not based on celebrity. Rowan Atkinson wasn't that into the project, to be honest with you. He might have been willing, but not really. So I didn't use him.

Guillén: Another sequence I much admired in your film was the foley sequence filmed at the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, Chapman University where the instructor was teaching his class how Tati worked with sound to create comic effects. I'm aware that some of the students at Dodge College helped with your film. Could you speak to their involvement in your project?

House: I wouldn't say that they helped. They helped in that sequence. They helped do some of the filming, helped with the lighting, and I shot a few sequences with them; but, Dodge College became involved after Melvin Bragg backed out. I approached Dodge to see if they wanted to help finance the film. They said, sure, we'll put in some money if you involve our students and I said, "Okay. All right." They gave a little bit of money for the production—which was great at the time—and then they sent six students from L.A. to Paris for a week and I took them to the Tati archive. They got to see and touch and learn all about Tati from Macha, followed up by a tour of France to all the locations where Tati filmed. After that, Dodge dropped the ball in the production, like people do. They got what they wanted and—I'm not badmouthing Dodge—but, they were going to handle post-production of the film at their million dollar facility in L.A. That had been the idea: that the kids would get to see a little bit at the beginning when I was researching the film and then help out with the final editing and sound mix to see how the film went from inception to projection. But Dodge dropped the ball and I had to find other ways to finish the film.

Guillén: I've heard that when the time came to dismantle Tativille—which is an immensely sad story that comes across quite poignantly in your film: this loss of vision, let alone his personal resources—Tati threw the script for Playtime into the rubble. Is that true?

House: It's really hard to see him doing it but in my film there's the footage of the big buildings being pulled down with ropes and if you look down in the shadow there's a guy in a brown leather coat who you see flinging something, and that's Tati flinging the script. Marie-France Sielger, Tati's assistant, confirmed for me that it was indeed the script he was throwing into the rubble.

Guillén: Can you comment on the relationship between René Clément and Jacques Tati? I'm aware that Tati wrote and acted in René Clément's first short film Soigne ton gauche (1936) about a country boy turned boxing maestro. Then later Tati stepped in as director for Clément when he withdrew from Jour de Fête.

House: I think he did, yeah. There's a fair amount of contradiction in accounts of those early pre-WWII short films. I wouldn't swear by any of it. But it seemed that Tati and Clément worked together a lot. Clément was trying to advance himself so, of course, when something bigger came along, he took those chances. At that time Tati was a nobody and his productions were gambles.

For example, Jour de Fête—Tati's first feature—was supposed to have been directed by Clément but he got an offer to direct Au-delà des grilles [Beyond the Gates, 1949; in English distribution, The Walls of Malapaga]. He abandoned the Jour de Fête project to make this now classic French film. I don't know if he and Tati were close after that. Clément's career took off after Au-delà des grilles. They knew each other, they worked together, but they were both struggling and took the opportunities as they came. Back then, I think Clément and Tati both thought, "I'm going to take the best offer I can get."

There is so much backstory to that whole Jour de Fête project. I couldn't possibly have gone into it in my documentary; but, it's fascinating, all about the film industry within France during the Occupation. Jour de Fête, in many ways, was an attempt by the French film establishment to get into the running and into the big leagues; but, unfortunately, it didn't work out. They had the wrong film method for colorizing. A lot of people have talked about this incredible period in books, including Dave Bellos in his book, when France was struggling to reestablish itself, in more ways than just cinema.

Guillén: Roger Ebert has indicated that Clément's Forbidden Games (1952) was likewise a project encouraged by Tati, who had seen a short film of Clément's based on the same story and which Tati recommended Clément expand into a feature.

House: I don't know. I think they remained friends; but, his name faded after Jour de Fête in all my research. Tati had to put up with a lot of shit anyway with Jour de Fête. Fred Orain, the producer of Les enfants du paradis (1945), also produced Jour de Fête. He was trying to make the first French color movie. Jour de Fête was supposed to be a vehicle for that. Orain got Tati involved because he knew him from his earlier shorts. Orain was a huge and important technician in French cinema. He was feeling high from the success of Les enfants du paradis and conquering the world with that film. But then when they couldn't release Jour de Fête in color, I think there were a lot of people—Clément included—who said, "Oh fuck. Jesus Christ. All this waste. It's just black and white. It's like an old Chaplin film. Fuck it." They couldn't get Jour de Fête distributed in France. Tati took it very personally.

Almost a year after they wrapped the film, Tati took it upon himself to lie to a group of critics. He told them there was going to be a screening of a new film out in some remote venue and he lured a lot of critics there and screened Jour de Fête. They loved it! It got a Paris distribution from that bullshit session and then from there it got picked up nationally, then internationally.

Guillén: That's a wonderful story. Thanks for relaying that to me.

House: He did that a lot. He did other really crazy stuff like: he would make all the extras in his films come to the first week of the opening and he would say, "Okay. I want everyone to line up—all 50 of you—I want you to line up in front of the theater, go in, leave by the back door, and come back around to get back in line. I want people to think there's a perpetual line of people wanting to see this film." He paid them to do that. They couldn't actually go to see the film. He did that so that people driving by would think, "Oh, Tati's film is popular." I think he did that with Playtime.

Guillén: Can you speak at all to Tati's failed project with Federico Fellini: Don Quixote?

House: I've heard about that. I read a letter that Tati's secretary had written to someone, saying that Tati and Fellini were friends and that he was very interested in helping Tati with his Don Quixote project. I think it's true. I think Fellini wanted to make Don Quixote with Tati in the lead role. Tati would have been perfect visually, though they probably would have killed each other on the set; but, from what I've deduced, that rumor is fact. That was out there. They were talking about it. But by the time Tati had filmed Mon Oncle, he had lost interest in little European 16mm projects and, poor Fellini, he could only get the money to shoot his films in 16mm. It was a shame he couldn't get the money to film Don Quixote properly. Fellini, as far as I can tell, is one of the few directors that Tati ever paid attention to. He didn't go to the movies much.

Cross-published on Twitch.

NOIR CITY 8: CLEO MOORE—Magazine Rack

Of related interest: Noir City Index.

FRAMEWORK 50 (FALL 2009)—A Response to Three Cinephilias

One of the most influential conversations I had in 2009 was with Cinematheque Ontario programmer James Quandt who helped me articulate a rumbling discontent deep in my filmwriting practice, specifically with regard to what has been pegged as "the new cinephilia"; a subject Quandt had recently written about in an essay entitled "Everyone I know Is Stayin' Home: The New Cinephilia" for the Fall 2009 issue of Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media. In gist, he relayed the growing preoccupation among programmers and curators with the "in cinema experience" and the compensatory "value added" to public screenings (intended to replicate the commentaries and essays accompanying DVD releases, which a current generation of cinephiles have come to expect).

Having staged that generational distinction, I asked him where he stood with regard to the "new cinephilia" and he admitted he was conflicted and that his Framework essay was purposely poised as a polemic. He said: "I think we're all lying to ourselves that—when we analyze a film on DVD—that we act as if we've seen it and we haven't. I'm convinced of that. I give all kinds of examples in this article. Critics and film professors fool themselves when they say they can make believe watching a DVD is the same as watching a film and that the differences can be translated sufficiently. I don't think they can. It goes from subtle, embarrassing things such as the color coding of a certain film where—when I came to see the film again on screen—what I thought was white on DVD, was actually pale rose. I've had this discussion with people at work where one person said, 'That's inconsequential'; but, I'm sorry, it isn't to me. You wouldn't have an art historian do a visual analysis of a Renaissance painting from a reproduction. They would be laughed out of their profession. There are so many things they could get wrong because of the differences in reproduction. It's the same thing with cinema, as far as I'm concerned."

That comment hit a nerve with me because of the increasing tendency to offer screeners to press covering film festivals rather than arranging screenings. Though I can understand the practicality and cost-effectiveness of such a policy, I have become increasingly concerned that what I'm seeing on screener and writing about is not what audiences actually see projected. I've mollified myself by rationalizing that watching a film on screener allows me the luxury of finessing the narrative; however, at the same time, I worry that my writing has become conflated with festival promotion. Again, practically, these days that's sometimes the only way a festival publicist and a journalist can coordinate an advance preview piece on an upcoming festival. But I can feel the difference between my first year of writing on film when press screenings were still in practice and these last few years when policy has shifted to screener libraries.

Of course, no one forces a journalist to watch screeners and some even prefer doing so in the privacy of their own homes; but—as Quandt expressed (and I agree)—the "in cinema experience" is far superior and, somehow, more genuine. By way of example, when the San Francisco Film Society asked me to cover their Sundance Kabuki Screen series—which I had some interest in doing—they then advised that this would have to be done by way of screeners. Again, I understood the practicalities of that policy; but, for the first time, my enthusiasm was completely doused. It was no longer about having access to the films; it was about being denied the full experience of the films. Something felt ingenuine to me about promoting a film I had not actually seen and experienced fully in the cinema with an audience (or as Quandt puts it: "I am inclined to think we are lying or telling half-truths when we describe a film we have seen only in this way."). For that matter, I also have issues with the so-called "audience" at press screenings. Consequently, I became more attracted to cinematheques like the Pacific Film Archive and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts where I could write about a film I had watched with a "true" audience in house. Quandt's comment confirmed my decision to shift away from promotional pieces of writing to experiential pieces of writing.

Granted, that isn't always possible due to time constraints or one of a hundred other rationalizations. I still watch some films on screener; but—if I write about them—I've decided it's important to disclose the medium. That's the only way I can reconcile the tension. I also believe written experiences of films can be layered. I appreciate how Acquarello distinguishes between festival drafts—her first experience of a film—and her more burnished responses based on a second viewing. Each journalist has to find the practice that feels authentic for them.

While waiting for my ordered copy of the Frameworks issue on the new cinephilia, Girish Shambu generously forwarded me three of the essays from the volume, one being Quandt's. Much of what we discussed in our conversation is reflected in the essay and it felt good to see his polemic committed to script. There were a few additional ideas in Quandt's essay that I wanted to address.

First, is an early definition of cinephilia "in terms of personal history." That speaks to me, not only in the generational distinctions that characterize cinephilia, but in the vision that informs writing about film. Myself, I journalized about film long before I became a film journalist. I clearly recall when that practice began. I was in my late teens in Twin Falls, Idaho, reading the diaries of Anaïs Nin, which seemed to me a window into an avidly desired life of experience. She had gone to see Teinosuke Kinugasa's Jigokuman (Gate of Hell, 1953)—which was all the rage in Paris at the time—and she rushed home to her diary to describe her experience of the film; not a critique, her experience. That's when I realized that seeing a film had the potential of being life experience—not just entertainment; not just diversion; not just information—but, life experience. As a writer, going to the movies was never the same again. Writing became intimately tied to my experience of film. It has been an alternating current ever since—watching film, writing about film, reading what others have written about film. That alternating current charges my cinephilia.

Pursuing his concern that film cannot be legitimately analyzed from an easily-accessed DVD or video—"nevertheless legible (that is, consumable)"—on a computer screen, Quandt asserts eloquently: "Is the 'new cinephilia', this Netflix, YouTube grande bouffe of images in which Costa, Straub, and Baillie can be seen in Nunavut or Cappadocia and immediately discussed online with philes from afar, a miracle of 'open museum' cultural democracy or a spurious celebration of the omnivorous and inauthentic?"

I enjoyed his further elucidation of the "in cinema experience": "The phrase 'in cinema experience' has recently entered the discourse of film curation—to differentiate traditional filmgoing from gallery and installation presentation of 'moving image' works, videotheques, etc.—a marker of the rapid move of cinema's realm from the social and ceremonial to the insular and domestic, the analogue to the digital, the hard-won to the easily accessible." Quandt observes that some archivists argue that the very phrase "in cinema experience" provides "the last hope … of restoring an 'aura' around film, and thereby fostering a traditional kind of cinephilia."

That phrase "aura around film" is particularly intriguing. Quandt situates it as a "venerable Benjaminian notion", along with "authenticity", which—once approached—leads to "the realm of the ineffable" where "weight, solidity, grain, clarity, the there-ness of images are all difficult qualities to describe."

Finally, Quandt writes: "Suggesting that technology and aesthetics increasingly exist in inverse proportion, the advance of one diminishing the urgency of the other, Tsai [Ming-liang] recently said: 'I am not happy about the whole DVD medium, in fact. The quality of film experience is crashing. People are now satisfied just watching a film to find out what the story is. The experience is almost being reduced to a kind of information gathering. What is going on? Who is it? My films are really for the big screen only.' "

* * *

In Adrian Martin's essay "Cinephilia As War Machine", he defines cinephiles as "a band of outsiders, a band apart—or they are nothing." He stresses: "Cinephilia is a motivating, and mobilizing, passion. Cinephilia is always about thought, always about theory, always about criticism. If it's not about those things, it's just a load of nonsense about devising best-film lists and seeing six thousand movies."

With "Best of the Decade" lists swamping the Internet, I have to take Girish's argument that the most valuable and productive purpose of end-of-the-year and end-of-the-decade list making is "to spark conversation and debate" with a necessary grain of salt, even as I trust his affirmation that "such a list isn't merely a casual inventory of movies, a trivial exercise: it's a public and visible move in the political/cultural wars around exactly what cinema is worth taking seriously and why. For anyone seriously interested in cinema, this is an important subject." I guess it depends on which list you choose, which in turn might necessitate a List of Lists? At The Auteurs Daily, David Hudson has been tackling that one quite competently. He's up to his eighth entry on the subject. Admittedly, I admire his competency more than the lists. Fortunately, I avoided a Best of the Decade list because I have only been officially writing about film for five years. I've refused several requests to participate in others' lists, but must be honest and say that I miss my list of the 10 best drawings by Girish Shambu because—in this last year—he's had other things on his mind than doodling. Sigh. Now I'm feeling inclined to draft a list of the 10 things I regret most about lists. Enough.

Returning to Martin's essay, I was particularly intrigued by his notion that cinephilia should contain a certain soulfulness or—more accurately—is soulfulness. Though the seat of the soul has been in debate for millennia, I'm willing to accept that soulfulness "in the sense that it animates, in a lively way, a whole tradition or shared network of assumptions and feelings about cinema" can be a working equation for cinephilia. Echoing some of Girish's sentiments about the value of lists, Martin references Serge Daney who, he says, "knew that the war machine of cinephilia was sometimes about, precisely, taste: not good taste, not cultivation or sophistication, not a canon of films—but a war over what is to be seen, what must be seen, and even more, what we can get to say in public about what we have seen. And that war is never over."

Which leads me to wonder about the politics of taste, since wars always seem to revolve around politics. The Evening Class was encouraged by an argument in the Movies Conference on The WELL with a woman who complained about my queer readings of film. She didn't want to read what I had to say. Of course, she never had to read what I had to say; but, that wasn't the point. The point was she was trying to stifle my perspective. It was a point as sharp as a tack and convinced me of how important it was to—as Adrian puts it—say in public what I have seen; i.e., my subjective specularity, which is about as political as it gets. So I've gone public with The Evening Class and—over time—have become grateful to her inspirational irritation.

As time goes along, I find my taste compelled towards films from the Global South, independent filmmakers who are self-distributing, or—in essence—any film that isn't being pumped out and promoted through the studio system. Why write about a film that five thousand other bloggers are writing about? As Mark Peranson has opined in the current issue of Cinema Scope: "A film that most people have heard of is by its very nature less interesting than a film that only a few programmers or critics have seen." I've decided that if I have to watch screeners, they'd best be of obscure films that I might otherwise never have the opportunity to see.

* * *

Finally, Girish Shambu's essay "What Is Being Fought For by Today's Cinephilia(s)" borders on the controversial for being so affirmative of the "new cinephilia". He admits that from its beginnings, his cinephilia "always existed in a context, a landscape, that included two key technologies: Internet and DVD/video, both of which play a central role in my cinephilic practice." Without question his site has been on the cutting edge of the new cinephilia for years. Blogathons started there and much much discourse over the years. His is an appropriate counter-argument to Quandt's.

The succinct and beautiful definition of cinephilia that Girish prefers comes from Antoine de Baecque and Thierry Frémaux: cinephilia is "life organized around films." Anaïs helped me intuit the life within films and—since my retirement—my life has certainly been organized around film, more than I ever imagined possible. Like myself, Girish's cinephilia is charged by the alternating current of watching film and the written record of film. He writes: "So, what is today's Internet cinephilia fighting for? I would propose: it is fighting to build bridges between zones previously kept apart—thus, for example, a given social network of cinephile blogs that values both commercial and avant-garde cinema; Hollywood and world cinema; older and newer films; and so on."

Girish continues: "What should today's Internet cinephilia be fighting for? I would propose: aiming not only to concurrently embrace and engage every kind of cinema, but finding a place for, valuing, and encouraging multiple modes of discourse. By this I mean three distinct groups—professional critics, academics, and 'amateur' cinephiles—that are part of the same blog network, forming a 'learning community,' each group bringing something unique and essential to the conversation."

Nowhere is that more apparent than on his own site.

PSIFF10: BELGIAN CINEMA—Meisjes / The Over the Hill Band (2009)

Sid:"We'll be known as The Over the Hill Band. …Believe me, that's a real young-sounding name."

Claire: "When I look in the mirror, I wonder who the old bat is that I can see. Because underneath this old skin, I'm still 17. That's how I feel."

Meisjes (Dutch for "girlfriends"; "The Over the Hill Band" in English distribution) arrives for its U.S. premiere at the 2010 Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF) as a celebrated World Cinema Now Gala Screening, with director Geoffrey Enthoven expected to attend, along with actors Jan van Looveren, Marilou Mermans, and Lea Couzin. Along with My Queen Karo, Altiplano and The Misfortunates (Belgium's official submission to the Oscars® foreign language category), Meisjes rounds up a record-breaking quartet of Flemish productions featured this year at PSIFF.

Meisjes first played at the Montreal World Film Festival, had its international premiere at Germany's Internationales Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg (IFFMH), and won the Grand Prix Hydro-Québec at the 28th International Film Festival of Abitibi-Témiscamingue.

Recently-widowed septuagenarian Claire (in an anchoring performance by Marilou Mermans) seeks to redress issues with her two sons, which have lingered unresolved while her husband was alive. Though her son Michel (Lucas van den Eynde) is a successful businessman, her other son Alexander—who prefers to be called Sid (Jan van Looveren)—is a failed and frustrated musician who blames part of his failure on the lack of parental support, which he accuses all went to Michel. Admitting to herself that Sid was the child she loved most "in her gut", but that she had indeed paid more attention to Michel out of guilt-driven compensation to hide the fact, Claire elects to use the last of her economic resources and her remaining years to support Sid's musical quest; to finally grant him his long overdue share of affection. Recalling her teenage years singing in a band with her girlfriends Magda (Lea Couzin) and Lutgard (Lut Tomsin) as "The Sisters of Love", Claire strategizes that as backup singers they can help Sid form a band. She convinces Magda and Lutgard to come out of retirement and Sid reluctantly agrees to join his mother and her crazy friends because he needs the money. But he does set one condition … they will play his kind of music.

Hailed as a "sassy social comedy" in the tradition of last year's Moscow, Belgium and playing like a combination of Calendar Girls and Young at Heart, Variety reviewer Boyd van Hoeij nonetheless saddles the film with accusations of predictability and crowd pleasing, which raises the inevitable question: who are movies for? Especially at a film festival? Are they for the critics or the audiences? Or more accurately—since they are surely for both, as both have vested interests in the festival-event—whose reaction is most appropriate? Can that breach even be gauged? I'm reminded of that lyric in Stephen Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along where a producer protestingly sings: "What's wrong with letting them tap their toes a bit?!"

Critically, perhaps, there is always something wrong with predictability; but, audiences ain't critics and sometimes their anticipation of the mainstream offsets the erosive demands of the auteurial, especially at a film festival. As Maurie Alioff pegs it at Northernstars, Meisjes is mainstream fare, but also "the kind of movie festivalgoers embrace for its feel good vibe." Writing for the Montreal Gazette, John Griffin describes Meisjes as "funny, ribald, touching and inspirational comedy" and advises: "Take your pointers where you may, but this genuinely appealing tale does suggest that life is short. Live every day to the max." After receiving a standing ovation at the 28th International Film Festival of Abitibi-Témiscamingue, the jury lauded the film for its "clear style and ability to subtly narrate a serene view on death."

And so, yes, as much as I esteem my Variety colleague Boyd van Hoeij, I rabble with the crowd on this one and recommend this predictable crowdpleaser. One has to wonder how much guilty pleasure is enfolded within the predictable? From its opening sequence when Claire's husband chides her for humming to herself, I knew immediately that his demise was imminent and that his death was somehow going to be a good thing, relieving Claire of the repressive pressure of his attitude towards life so that she can finally rediscover hers. Wasn't it her husband after all who found no worth in her son Sid's musical ambitions? By recognizing their mutual love for music, Claire and Sid "grow predictably closer", but not without permutations both subtle and poignant.

Indeed, Meisjes contains more poignancy than von Hoeij gives it credit. The film effectively questions the traditional patterns of wives giving up their lives and dreams for their husbands. It stares unflinchingly at the encroaching sunset of old age and death. Watching Claire come to the realization of how she has unfairly treated her son Sid—and then observing how she gradually "loses her marbles" and experiences "butterflies in her head"—are heartfelt jewels within the narrative setting. The film's final ruffle-edged photographic image of The Sisters of Love in their youthful heyday serves as a wistful reminder of the fugacity of all human beings and how—to honor Blake—one must kiss the joy as it flies.

So, sure, just as von Hoeij complains, before you can say "predictable plot twist" the Sisters of Love are reinvented as the Over the Hill Band with a playlist that ranges from Eurohouse anthem "Pump Up the Jam" to a pimped-out version of Wallace Collection's "Daydream". It's a sure-fire set-up; but, I have to say I couldn't help but laugh watching these elderly women get back in touch with their inner vixen. The film's closing sequence is a thought-provoking blend between senile and cinematic fantasies, in line with Rob Marshall's trenchant staging of musical numbers as compensatory interiorized enactments.

Jan van Looveren negotiates a difficult arc from an initially wholly unattractive and unlikeable Sid to the kid you can't help but like. Lut Tomsin also deserves a shout-out as the crotchety youth choir-director who learns to get a buzz off the bass. In one especially hilarious sequence she drolly mouths the lyrics to sexually suggestive hiphop while filling her shopping basket with rap CDs. She has a touch of Lily Tomlin (who should surely play the role if there's a U.S. remake). And the mirthful, fun-spirited Lea Couzin earns a point for defending Jacques Brel as God. Look for a brief cameo appearance by Greg Timmermans as the funeral priest. Timmermans was last seen at PSIFF in the popular offering Ben X.

In summary, Meisjes is nothing new, but its predictability is precisely what constitutes its fun. My only concern is that the senior demographic at Palm Springs might become a bit unruly after watching this film. Juniors beware!

[Disclaimer: Reviewed from screener.]

Cross-published on Twitch.

MEXICAN CINEMA—Backyard (El Traspatio, 2009)

"The voice of the woman is a reflection of her condition on Earth. Air echoes in a chest that is smaller, vibrates vocal cords that are smaller and that produce a higher, thinner sound. It requires twice the energy, twice the intensity of a man's voice to be heard. This is why I learned to shout for those who couldn't ... and to cry so many times for and with so many women, girls and boys whose voices and whose lives have been crushed by the impunity of our state and our nation."—Esther Chavez.

As detailed in the press book for Carlos Carerra's most recent feature Backyard (El Traspatio), the film's narrative is based on actual events that took place in 1996 in Ciudad Juárez: a Mexican border city sustained by American-owned factories, or maquiladoras, that sprang up on the Mexican side of the border after the NAFTA agreement went into effect. "1996 was the year when people on both sides of the border began to grow accustomed to the fact that every month or every week in Juárez, a young woman would turn up dead. The screenplay was written in the year 2001 as the murders continued: three or four bodies appeared like clockwork every month, while the author [Sabina Berman] was writing her screenplay in the local Holiday Inn. Backyard was filmed on location in 2008, when each week murdered women continued to appear—in keeping with what is now a local Juárez custom."

As Diana Sanchez specified in her program capsule for the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival (where Backyard saw its international premiere in the Contemporary World Cinema sidebar): "This ongoing tragedy remains a painful stain on Mexican history and has been the subject of numerous films, articles and books", including the 2006 Jennifer Lopez vehicle Bordertown and Lourdes Portillo's 2001 documentary Señorita extraviada (Missing Young Woman), in which Portillo sought to give voice to the many victims and to understand how these awful crimes could take place. In her onstage interview with Variety critic John Anderson at the 52nd San Francisco International Film Festival, Portillo detailed the death threats she received after making Señorita extraviada and the debilitating effect it had on her.

Similar threats were levied at the cast and crew of Backyard, as outlined in Guy Adam's report to The Independent: "Last year, the makers of … El Traspatio (The Backyard) reported that an actress from Ciudad Juárez, where they were shooting, had found a slaughtered lamb on her doorstep, with a death threat pinned to it. She was replaced, for her own safety. Several other crew members on the film, about local drug murders, reported receiving sinister anonymous phone calls." Carrera's crew shot their film surrounded by two bands of armed men. One of these rings was formed by agents from the government Division of Investigation Specializing in Organized Crime (SIEDO), the other by soldiers with rifles. Two police commanders assigned to security duty were slain and a third had to flee in fear of her life. Although the governments of Juárez and Mexico ultimately decided to provide protection to Carrera and his film crew, they first tried to dissuade Carrera from the project, hoping he would instead shoot a romantic comedy in Cancun; but, Carrera and Berman remained committed to the subject of femicide in Juárez. As reported by Tracy Wilkinson to the Los Angeles Times, "Local government officials do not come off well in the film, having often preferred to downplay the murders of easily replaced female factory workers in order to prop up business interests."

Perhaps best known for El crimen del Padre Amaro (2002), which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Carlos Carrera is expected to attend Backyard's screening at the 2010 Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF), where it has been included in PSIFF's Modern Masters sidebar. Backyard is likewise Mexico's entry this year in the Academy Awards® foreign-language film category.

As Diana Sanchez has written: "Presented as a fiction, Carrera's film is all the more moving given that the events he recounts are based on true stories and touch upon the various theories that have been put forward as to the cause of the murders. Hypotheses range from a serial killer, to drug cartels, to the more abstract pains of globalization, and it is easy to see how any of these factors could be at work in this Mexican town, which is a backyard to El Paso, Texas. Through his film, Carrera is able to denounce culprits who have never been brought to justice. However, the most devastating truth he illuminates is that these murders continue to happen because they have become commonplace. Today, some men kill women in Ciudad Juárez simply because they can."

The topic of femicide is unquestionably important and Backyard aims its statistics of sex-related murders from other Mexican cities and other South American countries with stern verve, pointedly wrapping up with sobering statistics from New York City where 3,200 murders of women remain unsolved. A worldwide issue, femicide is clearly not exclusive to Juárez; yet—though conceding the necessity of keeping the issue in public focus to counter its statistical frequency—I have mixed feelings about Backyard. Though it has high production values, with a strong turn by Ana de la Reguera in the lead role of Police Captain Blanca Bravo, I have substantive concerns with Berman's script which—though it informs through dramatization—offers questionable solutions, primarily through a revenge scenario towards film's end that has been both applauded and deplored by audiences. Though Berman has defended her scriptural choice as morally unambiguous, it remains excessively dramatic and—oddly enough—counterproductive. As Marilyn Ferdinand opines at Ferdy on Films, the dramatic violence of the subject scene provides the audience cathartic relief from their frustration but possibly sends them home "without really taking the message of the film to heart." In this instance, cathartic release falls far short of viable solutions. It's too easy to kill the killer and be done with it. Not to say that Berman should pretend she has solutions, but at the same time she shouldn't really defuse their absence through compounded violence. Acknowledging that the wall of indifference and denial in Mexican society is a horrible problem, there's a defeatist edge to Berman's vision: "We can't solve it," she said to the L.A. Times, "let's change the subject." I'm not criticizing her defeatism. I think it's a healthy and honest response. I'm not so sure, however, about her dramatized solutions which offer false remedy.

Ferdinand does a solid job of synopsizing Berman's narrative and endorsing the "important message of this grave film", even as she stages a cogent complaint that despite Carrera's disclaimer that Backyard is not intended as "entertainment" certain "touches—particularly the attractive lady detective in the Law & Order mold—are right out of the Hollywood play book." Ferdinand's concern that reviews that read and critique Backyard as a thriller "underplay or ignore its message—a rather chilling commentary on how even the most hideous violence against women has so completely infiltrated the entertainment industry." Again, no solutions appear ready to present themselves. For now, a sober eye on the information is in order.

Cross-published on Twitch.