Steven and Soderbergh

 Steven Soderbergh has consistently been one of America's most interesting filmmakers. He makes films in two directions - the man who made the experimental SCHIZOPOLIS also made big box office hit OCEAN'S 11. If he has any precedent it might be (in a more limited way) Arthur Penn who made MICKEY ONE and LITTLE BIG MAN. 

Soderbergh has shown himself to be a binary type of filmmaker and this has been more evident recently with the pair of films he released this year. PRESENCE is his unusual take on the haunted house genre, while BLACK BAG is his version one might say of MR AND MRS SMITH. 

At first glance I would be the first to admit that these seem to be minor works by a major filmmaker. However they may mature over time largely because both films have a stylistic philosophy to them that one cannot dismiss. I do not know if the films were shot back to back but it's a possibility. 

Each film takes place in a fairly limited location (just one house in PRESENCE) and mostly interiors in BLACK BAG. Each film is noticeably shot in wide angle, and with subdued low lighting. That is to say things happen in shadows more than light. Both narratives are about intimate relationships and perhaps betrayals and sacrifices. In PRESENCE the antagonistic brother dies saving his sister from rape - a sacrifice he did not intend. At the end of the film his mother played by Lucy Liu sees him in a mirror as the family prepares to leave the tragic house. In BLACK BAG the two protagonists who are both spies ("spooks" if we want to keep them in the realm of ghosts in PRESENCE) and married to each other make a thing about killing for each other. At one point the husband suspects his wife of being a traitor and is prepared to eliminate her. That commitment to fatality and loyalty runs through both films.

 Whichever way you look at it, both films suggest a troubled mood, an unsure consciousness of the present, perhaps a lack of direction in life. Soderbergh dealt with these anxieties in his very first feature SEX LIES AND VIDEOTAPES with James Spader as a man who builds his character and identity through videotapes and confessions. 

For Soderbergh from the beginning to the present, the cinema is a kind of confessional, not a sounding board. It's an unusual trait in the American cinema which is usually more puritan than Catholic and often one or the other. That is to say the aesthetic thrust is less about shaming (a puritan trait) than expurgation of the soul. 

If there is a key to Soderbergh's cinema it probably lies in the zig zag path of these two tendencies. It reminds me of his earlier film CHE a kind of epic of the soul, reaching for the purpose in life. While PRESENCE and BLACK BAG may not be major works, they pose intriguing questions about life: the dangers of family life, the treachery of marriage.

 

CHEZ MAX

 

CHEZ MAX

In memoriam Max Tessier  (1944 - 2025)

I first met Max Tessier in the late 1970s in Hong Kong when I was running the Hong Kong International Film Festival. I don’t know why but I still remember the images of that meeting – Max looking trim and stylish with a cravat and tan jacket, standing at a bar (I realise now that he was often in tan clothing!) We had drinks – probably at the Furama Hotel which was opposite my office at the time.  He was an active film critic and my aim was to get him to write about our relatively young film festival and especially the Hong Kong film retrospectives that were a unique part of our programme.  Although I knew him to be more of a Japanese film expert, I tried to sell him on the idea of writing about Hong Kong filmmakers such as Liu Jialiang, or more likely Li Hanxiang. But the only Hong Kong filmmaker that he knew and was positive about was King Hu (and Michel Ciment had written already about him in Positif following his Cannes award). 

 

                                                        Max Tessier, Manila, 2010

I only really appreciated the extent of his knowledge and engagement with Japanese cinema when I later picked up a copy of “Le Cinéma Japonais au Présent 1959 – 1979” (Cinéma d’auhourd’hui). This “magazine” (it’s really more like a book) shows the extent of Max’s pioneering work. In extended essays he covers the work of Masumura, Oshima, Imamura, Teshigahara, Suzuki – all familiar names to us now but not at that time, and runs down some of the principal themes that have become standards to us now: the Tora-san series, Zatoichi films, and monster movies. But Max’s intention was also to introduce the newer filmmakers – not just the new wave of Oshima, but those generally unfamiliar to the West such as Susumu Hani, Terayama Shuji, Kazuo Hara, Ogawa Shinsuke. His bio-filmographies of contemporary Japanese filmmakers that were included at the end of the magazine is astonishing in breadth – many of the filmmakers who later became the subjects of retrospectives, tributes, geekdom, or “the far side of paradise” (to use Sarris’ term) are presented here – Kinji Fukusaku, Susumu Hani, Kurahara Koreyoshi, Okamoto Kihachi, Wakamatsu Koji among many others. This surely must have been the first catalogue raisonné of the “new” Japanese cinema, a kind of continuation of Donald Richie’s equally pioneering work from the previous era. It certainly served as a reference for me, even though I was only able to see the films in later years. Truly I learned much about this other side of Japanese cinema through Max.

Although our discussion at first was a little distanced (I was more into Cahiers du Cinéma than his inclination towards Positif at the time) he warmed up when we talked about mutual friends Mrs Kawakita (the doyenne of Japanese film ambassadors) and her husband Nagamase, and our conversation drifted to Oshima (it was the era of Empire of the Senses).

We met on and off over the years. I regret not seeing him much in the 1980s especially when he was engaged in Philippines cinema through Lino Brocka’s films. He used to tease my curiosity by sending photos of him on set with Pierre Rissient and Lino.

In subsequent decades however we were in more regular communication and we would meet in Hong Kong, Barcelona, Paris, Rotterdam, Manila, Udine and probably a few other places on the globe. When I was ready to step down as Philippines programme consultant for the Far East Film Festival in Udine, I recommended Max as my replacement. In this role Max was able to work from a perspective of the past (the golden age of Brocka, de Leon, Bernal, Chionglo and others whom he all knew) and a nod to the future with younger upcoming filmmakers. Living in Manila for at least half the year gave Max an in-country knowledge and experience which proved invaluable to FEFF.

There are many memories of Max and of his work in cinema whether in Japan or the Philippines. But I think it’s also important to see him in the context of a certain type of cinéphile who has had a profound effect on how we see and think about cinema. This “group” are inveterate travelers and explorers of the post-war era, constantly looking for what is new and different in the language that they speak, the language of cinema. They had some connection to film festivals and writing about films but their primacy comes from the fact that they were there, on the ground, usually before anyone else. They were there in countries at the beginning of burgeoning national movements in cinema. They encouraged filmmakers in their ambitions and art, understanding them before many others, and indeed brought international fame to some of them (in Max’s case choosing Imamura for Cannes where he won Palme d’Or, gave the Japanese filmmaker an international profile).

They truly internationalized the cinema as we know it today through their curiosity and relations that they developed. And they came from a developed aesthetic of cinema, a cinéphilic enthusiasm which was not grounded in a particular country or time (Max could talk about Hollywood movies stars of the past as well as Filipino filmmakers of the present) but in the fervent pursuit of mise en scene, the auteurist revelation and all the other compulsions that drives the cinéphile. Not everyone agreed with them, nor did they often agree with each other but in the end they all helped enlarge the map of cinema and create a legacy and tradition of film scouting and talent spotting that continues to this day.

Today when exploration is more likely done on a computer than on the ground, they are something of a vanishing species.  Three of them constitute something of a core continuum and they have all passed on: Serge Daney, Pierre Rissient and Max Tessier. It’s not a grouping that they would all agree with but, to paraphrase Groucho Marx and Woody Allen, “I would never want to join a club that would have me as a member.”

Max, you are now a member of the club and will be missed.

 

-Roger Garcia

 

JAFF (Jogja Netpac Asia Film Festival) #1

 JAFF is now in its 19th edition and began as a co-brand with Netpac, the Network for Asia Pacific film that was formed by the late Aruna Vasudev, editor of Cinemaya magazine and founder of its off shoot film festival Cinemaya that was held annually in New Delhi where Vasudev lived. Soon after its founding, Vasudev sold the brand to a flamboyant auctioneer subsequently leading to a roller coaster ride of festival organisation and its eventual demise.

The spirit of Cinemaya continues to underline JAFF’s relevance in a world where film festivals continue to proliferate, reaching now a scale that is almost industrial. JAFF maintains a discerning curatorial approach (most of the time), and the approach of a legitimate film festival which is not only to celebrate achievements but also to discover new talents and new articulations often within a tradition of cinema as art form and cultural phenomenon.

This was emphatically confirmed by JAFF’s opening film, SAMSARA by the festival’s founder and Indonesia’s most credible and internationally reputable filmmaker, Garin Nugroho whose modesty belies a fierce talent and determination to go his own way. 

SAMSARA is a compounded mix of historical reality and mythology specifically centered around the culture and traditions of Bali. Shot is stunning black and white, infused with the rhythm of dance movement, and boasting one of the best musical soundtracks for film in years, SAMSARA continues a sub-genre of silent black and white films that Nugroho has fashioned in the past 10 years including OPERA JAWA and NEW CROWNED HOPE. Working with orchestras, cultural venues, performing arts institutions, Nugroho has helped promote the myths and cultures of Indonesia around the world.

Set in the late 19th century, SAMSARA pairs history and myth through its two main characters - a white woman from a wealthy family who marries a poor Balinese man whose family makes bamboo artifacts. To give their young son a chance in life (against prejudice, financial distress, cultural attitudes of the era), the father agrees to let him join the Monkey King (the mythological part of the piece). But the struggle does not end there and the film follows the efforts that the mother takes to regain her son and his re-entry into the human world.

The film is wordless and without any spoken dialogue. It tells its story - sometimes it has to be admitted, quite opaque if not obscure - through a dynamic of movement worthy of Eisenstein, an articulation of gesture, a “physical dialogue” that expresses mood and emotion in ways unthinkable in words. But the off-screen elements are as important as the images. The music soundtrack has a narrative and movement that is an equal not a subordinate to the image. The soundtrack infuses traditional gamelan form with updated contemporary elements like voice and percussion. Instead of the gently lilting, contemplative gamelan music of convention, the soundtrack takes a more “muscular” approach to move the action forward. The soundtrack is exceptional - a live version also exists but obviously with more limited performance than the film itself.

In line with the Samsara story we are presented with a dialectic of form and content - the son has a monkey spirit but re-forms into a human. In effect it takes on the nature of a mask that one struggles to put on as well as take off. This is the importance of SAMSARA. Its use of image-sound language is perfectly matched to the idea of cinema as a combination of the arts - dance, music, facial expression - and as a work that cannot, and should not, exist in any other form.