Professional Dreamers

Werner Herzog's new documentary about Antarctica, Encounters at the End of the World, is my favorite of his films yet.* Commissioned by the National Science Foundation, the film is Herzog's attempt to make a movie about Antarctica that isn't "just another penguin movie". On countless levels, he succeeds.

First and foremost, he succeeds by turning the spotlight not on the stunning and terrifying Antarctic landscape, but on the peculiar folk who choose to make that landscape their home. The real fascinators here are the bus drivers, greenhouse keepers, maintenance people, whose biographies could put many a Nobel laureate to shame. Herzog's editorializing ("her story goes on forever") adds a delightful touch to these remarkable narratives.

When Werner does get to the nature, it is tear-jerkingly beautiful, accompanied by swelling music that will give you the sensation of having your heart extracted with an ice cream scoop. That is, for the most part - in fact, some of the most intriguing footage is of the town and NSF research station McMurdo, which Herzog unflinchingly films in all of its ugliness. The prosaic and mundane have a place in Antarctica, too.**

In Herzog's Antarctica, penguins can be gay or deranged; diving scientists are rooftop rockstars; seals make noises like an army of robots; and humans are well advanced on the long path to extinction. Musing on what the future dominant beings on this planet will be like, Herzog remarks that they may wonder what human beings were even doing in Antarctica; for the moment, we should at least be glad that this human being went.



*I haven't seen them all - but I'm working on that.
**Until I saw this movie, I thought those neon CGI fish in "The Life Aquatic" were a joke.

TweedleDum and TweedleEvil

Check out these bad boys:

Swan song, here we come.
(The short one is Silvio Berlusconi, BTW)

Things Younger Than McCain

Please note the newest "Blog I Like": Things Younger than McCain.
My personal favorites are SPAM and both of Barack Obama's parents.

Love Songs

On Sunday I had the good fortune to go see Les Chansons d'Amour, the latest film from Christophe Honore. Part tragedy, part comedy, part love story, and all musical, this film is, at its most basic, an exploration of loss and confusion.

Though not a fan in general of the musical genre, I found this playful but melancholy romp through Paris benefited greatly from Alex Beaupain's low-key, melodious compositions, sung with those special French throaty vocals. Perhaps it is because songs allow a poetic lyricism that, when spoken without a tune, sounds merely kitschy if not downright absurd. This way, Chiara Mastroianni can describe returning to a park she once frequented with her dead sister and end with "et puis rien [and then nothing]", and the effect prompts your heart to break, not your eyes to roll.

This film is successful not only because of its ability to use music well, but for the reasons any narrative film is successful: a compelling and universal story, characters we can care about, actors who can make us care about them, pretty cinematography, a fresh style, and an inherent likeability. (A film critic whose name I don't recall put it best: "Christophe Honore's films aren't just films you like; you develop weird little crushes on them.") Basically, it's a good story relayed by good storytelling.

Really, though, I think the reason I like this movie so much is ultimately narcissistic: it speaks very eloquently to my generation. Recalling movies of another time that were aimed at confused and disenfranchised youth - the New Wave - "Les Chansons d'Amour" recognizes the confusion of fulfilled desires. In this film, the open sexuality the 68ers strove for has come to pass; everything is possible, allowed, even accepted by the parents, but nothing is easier. Loss is still loss, grief grief, and sorrow a big confusing mess that can't be shared nearly as easily as sex. In the end, all we might be able to do is stumble along until the person we wake up next to is someone we might want to see again when the night returns. And then hope that that person might "love us less, but love us for a long time" - because whatever else life and love are about, they are certainly about learning to compromise.

The Billy Letters

Courtesy of Radar Magazine (via Boing Boing), a story about a manchild soliciting advice from serial killers -- and getting it.

The Devil You Know is Better than the Devil You Don't

I can't think of a better way to describe Zoe Scofield's choreography than she does herself: "feral ballet". Her work, as I saw it in my first-ever zoejuniper show last night at On the Boards, is compelling, rigorous, intense, and never ever boring.

This show, like all other zoejuniper projects, is a collaboration between Scofield and Juniper Shuey, whose theater-influenced visuals nicely complement Scofield's choreography. Terrific music comes from composer Morgan Henderson. Altogether, this show is clean, vibrant, and disconcerting. The principles' jerky movements and extraordinarily toned bodies feel like ballet stuck into a pencil sharpener. Scofield's, and her dancers', extraordinary talents range from mind-boggling solos to skilful creation of highly affective stage pictures. If you're in town, go!

The devil you know is better than the devil you don't...
April 24-26, 2008, 8pm
On the Boards
100 West Roy Street Seattle, WA 98119
206.217.9888

Apichatpong "Joe" Weerasethakul

The last two weeks featured two remarkably different programs of short films by Apichatpong (friends, and people interested in keeping their tongues untied, call him "Joe") Weerasethakul at Northwest Film Forum, my second home. After the first program, of muted colors, meandering narratives and a deliberate mix of the happenstance and the mythical, I thought I knew more or less what to expect. Joe's work in the second program, however, full of vivid hues and irrepressible Thai pop music, not to mention a dose of gorgeous animation, pleasantly surprised me. Don't get me wrong - I liked the first round - but the second has planted itself in my brain like a dream I might have had myself.

What all the films have in common is a playfulness with storytelling. Joe has a tendency to flip back and forth between verite-style street (or jungle!) scenes and highly constructed parables. Throw in a dash of music video, and you're in for a fun evening of thinking about theories of communication. Strikingly, the most accessible short was the one without subtitles (0116643225059), in which several still images and static shots are mixed to match the audio track of a conversation. I guess synesthesia has no borders...