Nine Lives

It is not often that I find myself praising a new release by a first time filmmaker. Nine Lives is the exception that gives me hope and reminds me that I am not a cinematic shark tearing apart every new vision I come across.

Nine Lives had all the potential to be a sentimental time bomb. On paper it reads like a bad Lifetime Movie. Rodrigo Garcia, son of famed poet Gabriel Garcia Marquiez, sets forth to tell the stories of nine separate women with slightly interconnected lives. The cast includes Holly Hunter, Dakota Fanning, Robin Wright Penn, Glenn Close amongst others. This alone should have propelled me to stay home, the fact that the screening was taking place during the final night of the Milwaukee International Film Festival was an equally good reason to catch up on some house cleaning, but I went anyways. For one simple reason I went to the picture show. I had read that the film was made up of nine shots, one long shot for each woman’s story. Being a sucker for such exercises in style I went.

Later I will comment on the film festival side of the screening. For now, I would like to praise Nine Lives for 9 simple things it did right.

1) It stuck to its guns. Garcia decided to shoot the whole film in nine shots and he does not cop out. One could argue that this may have limited him or that he was being lazy, but the Steadicam is no easy tool to use.

2) The camera work shies away from free-floating Steadicam bravado. Rather than exploit the mobile camera with visual tricks or uninformative gestures such as circling around a subject Garcia lets the camera follow the actions of the actors or redirect itself through off camera sounds. In no way is the work showy or invasive, but instead it feels natural and buoyant.

3) In 6 out of the 9 lives, Garcia calls cut at exactly the right time. The fact that he does not score a perfect 9 out of 9 is beside the point. Even a major league baseball player does not get a hit every time he steps up to the plate. For the most part Garica is productive with his choices on when to end a scene/shot. Perhaps he could have done so sooner in one or two scenes, but even so, the little bit of overkill that remains does not destroy the scene or the entire picture. Other new directors should watch Nine Lives just to see the right to get out of a scene, that leaves you feeling both satisfies and wanting to know more.

4) Others may love her, but I think she is a freakish looking child, so I am happy to say that Garica does not fill the frame with Dakota Fanning’s missing tooth smile. He keeps the camera at a distance. Those big eyes set in that big head are just too much for me. They belong on a velvet painting or in a creepy doll. Acting wise, Fanning is decent if not overly sweet. It’s hard to chastize a child actor, but someone should tell her parents or her agent (if they are not one in the same) to put the kid away for a few years before we all rot our teeth out on that precise little sugar cube.

5) The guys. I know this is a film about women, but with out stupid men would women be half as crazy as they are? Joe Mantenga, Aidan Quinn, Ian McShane, and Stephen Dillane. The last two coming as complete surprises; both with great sense comedic timing and class.

6) Speaking of laughs, the film is full of laughs. Garica is smart enough to know that you cannot have life without a little laughter and he sneaks laughter into some of the most inappropriate places. At funerals, during affairs, and in hospitals, humor creeps into the picture in that unsettling way it creeps into life. People laugh when they lack any other response, when their emotions overload, past the point of tears.

7) Two young women – Lisa Gay Hamilton and Amanda Seyfried. These two strong young actresses outdid many of their older contemporaries and they did so through their performance and not just their looks. They are not Hollywood beautiful, they are Hollywood normal looking. It is nice to see young, talented faces not just pretty, young faces.

8) The music is not reliant upon modern music. What a novelty. Pay someone to compose music for your film and ask them to play something classical sounding and not something in tune with the today’s coffeehouse muzak.

9) The women. With the exception of Glenn Close and Dakota Fanning all the women in this film are amazing and many of them are names that are either unknown or growing to old to shine. Hollywood has always had a hard time giving good parts to aging actresses. It is nice to see that you do not need Botox and a boob job to light up the silver screen.

I have lots of praise for Nine Lives and for Rodrigo Garcia, but for the last life I feel something should be said. Unlike the previous eight stories seen in the film, the last story is not really connected to the rest of the stories. Further more, it is a two person piece shared between the two worst actors in the film. Dakota Fanning and Glenn Close vie with one another for an Academy Award as they pour the worst parts of their acting talent into two overly ripe roles. From the on-set of the scene, something feels amiss and it does not take long before a perceptive view will catch on to the forthcoming twist. I will not ruin the mystery here. I will say that there was little or no need for this last story that so bluntly mentions the film’s title and its connection to the legendary nine lives of cats. Everything is too on the nose and the twist is enough to make you feel as if you have been punched in the nose in the hopes of making squirt a few tears.

That one scene aside, this is a rather strong film that received a rather strong round of applause from a very packed theatre. In a week this film will play a normal run at the same theatre and I doubt as many people would have shown up in the course of that run. The high turn out is strictly due to the fact that this was closing night at the film festival. It takes a big event to get people out to the theatre. The problem with big events is that people make them too big. The events stop becoming about the films and instead they become a long series thanks. Before the film could play, the audience had to endure twenty minutes of self-congratulations and promotions for the sponsors of the film festival. Then there would be the promotional video that has played before every film festival film. Even the speakers seem sick of that. Sure, all the speakers say they wish they did not have to go through the litany of thanks, but that with out these people and these companies the film festival would never happen, and so forth. Whatever happened to people giving just to give? Or to support the arts? Whatever happened to anonymous donations? Everything is now an even trade for ad space and name drops. People only seem to support these sort of events so they can put feathers in their caps. The problem now is that all those feathers are starting to obstruct the films. And, this is only year 3 of the Milwaukee International Film Festival.

ATOZ

ATOZ
(Robert Breer, 7 mins., color, 2000)

Whether pronounced ATOZ or A to Z this short, colorful animated piece uses rapidly morphing shapes to represent the various letters of the alphabet. Seemingly made with magic markers, the film presents an array of ideas, but never finds a solid structure. Particular letters receive more attention while others flash by too quickly with the maker not taking the time to explore any ideas or objects often associated with that particular letter. For the most part, the pace is lively and the subject matter is kept humorous, even perverse. Still, this feels like an animated segment from Sesame Street done for a slightly older audience, post-puberty. If this is irony than I quit.

Zorn’s Lemma (1970)

Going into this screening I expected chaos. I imagined something akin to that scene in Gremlins where the creatures have taken over the movie theater. Of course, nothing of the sort happened. An hour long experimental film won’t insight a riot. It will just put freshmen to sleep.

Hollis Frampton’s short piece, Lemon, was actually one of the more appreciated works screened this semester. My students found it quirky and amusing, but at only a few minutes in length they also enjoyed it’s brevity. Somewhere, in some journal or notebook, I have a quote along the lines of : “Brevity is the soul of wit.” I’m probably mangling the quote beyond recognition and I wish I knew who said it, but basically the world loves a short, simple joke.

I do not think Frampton intends for his films to be jokes, but they are rather whimsical. Perhaps they should be compared more to intellectual games as most of Zorns Lemma plays like a game revolving around the alphabet. Starting with spoken text from an early American grammar textbook, a black screen presents the viewer with nothing to focus their eyes upon. Switching from no image and sound to no sound and lots of images the bulk of the film is comprised of second long handheld shots of signs. Structured around the 24 letter Roman alphabet ( the ‘i’ and ‘j’ a re combined just as the ‘u’ and ‘v’ are as well) the film plays off of films frame rate of 24 frames per second. Cycling through the alphabet the shots of text plucked from signs loop round and round. In time, each letter is replaced by another image, free from text, but capturing a small action working towards completion. Some of these actions include the changing of a tire, the peeling of a tangerine, or the painting of the wall. As time progresses one realizes that the film will be over once all the letters have been replaced with images and once the action in all the images is complete. It took me some time to figure out that not only did the shots switch from one letter to the next, but that with each letter set the shots worked through an alphabetic pattern, thus the word ‘meat’ would be followed by ‘meet’ and so on. Realizing this I began to guess what words would appear in the next go around and groan when Frampton thought of a word I had not foreseen.

Uncertain where the film would end I began to grow rather frustrated with the game after it had persisted for over a half-an-hour. Rather than keep guessing what words might appear I found myself looking for mistakes in the editing. Knowing that certain images would always proceed other images I found my brain playing tricks on me as I swore that particular shots were now out of order. Like an elaborate game of Concentration I found my memory to be a poor tool for determining the film’s larger structure. Certain that I was wrong and that Frampton had more time to map out the film than I had to remember the map he laid forth, I went back to guessing what the last few words would be. Trying to just enjoy the peculiar words he had managed to find on the street or the variety of fonts on display I let the next ten minutes click by and then nearly missed the last word in the cycle, as it switched from text to an image of a beautiful red bird. The game was over and I almost missed it.

The film ends with a series of long, wide shots of a man, woman and dog crossing a snowy field. The white of the snow acts as an opposite to the darkness that opened the film. However, this portion of the film has both image and sound. The sound is provided by multiple narrators reading from a 11th century treatise by Robert Grosseteste. The text speaks of light and being Hollis Frampton, a rather playful filmmaker, it becomes obvious that the film will not end until the white of the snow covered field has consumed the frame, leaving us with nothing but light.

Overall, Zorns Lemma is not that hard of a film to stay awake through, so long as you have a playful mind. Sadly, this isn’t probably the case with most people. Though that’s rather strange as most Hollywood films are all about playing games. I guess this is just a slightly higher level of play, akin to the Friday edition of the New York Time Crossword puzzle. I will still fault my students for not engaging the game. But then again, the Teaching Assistant sitting next to me didn’t make it far into the film. So it goes. Sometimes you don’t show up ready to play. I guess I’m just the sort of sick minded person that loves a structuralist film that plays whimsical games. But I don’t think I’d want to play this game more than once every few years.

Wheel of Time

Sadly, this new Werner Herzog documentary does not possess the singularity of Grizzly Man, God’s Angry Man, or even his fiction narratives that seemingly captures the blind ambitions of one self-consumed individual. Rather than having its story chained to one or two individuals, Wheel of Time focuses on hundreds or thousands of individuals who travel great lengths to take part in a highly spiritual Buddhist ceremony.

At the center of this grand event is the laborious construction of a giant sand painting, know as a sand painting. Intricately designed and painstakingly crafted by well-trained artisans, this colorful map to the inner being is destroyed just after it has been finished and viewed by the many pilgrims who have trekked many miles for enlightenment. With a swipe of the Dalai Lama’s palm across the countless grains of colored sand, the impermanence of all things is visually expressed, but sadly, it is done in such a matter of fact way, that any sense of loss slips away from the image.

Taking the story away from the construction of the sand painting Herzog attempts to construct a larger picture of Buddhist practices. From lively philosophical debates to masochistic journeys across barren lands to Western Buddhists in Austria, the view Herzog delivers is that of a wide reaching National Geographic documentary and not the usual focused study that Herzog has been known to produce. The fact that much of the film is promoted as Herzog being able to get access to sacred lands and unseen rituals does not really help the film. One has a hard time believing that these images have not been captured before. Especially with many cameras in the frame.

Still, Herzog is Herzog. Whether he is debating with the Dalai Lama himself or he is taking the time to let his camera point out odd idiosyncrasies such as the security guards at a Buddhist meeting in Austria or the occasional Westerner influence upon Buddhist monks in India these are things one expects only Herzog to handle in such a delicate and contemplative manner.

Perhaps, if Herzog would have focused wholly on the construction of the sand painting, the effort and time that goes into it and then its ultimate destruction this film would have the same impact as Grizzly Man. Alternatively, perhaps, he could have marched for years with the one Buddhist who traveled cross-country by kneeling and pressing his forehead against the Earth after each step.. As it now stands, the Wheel of Time is interesting and engaging. It is an open look into a different culture, but outside of a few Herzogian moments of brilliance, it feels more like a travelogue done by a great director than a great piece of documentary filmmaking.

Flesh For Frankenstein

Udo Kier plays Baron Frankenstein. In his attempts to create the perfect creature, a mirror of Serbian physical superiority, the overly, dramatic doctor wrongly chooses the head of a celibate monk to top off his monster. With little to no sexual desire the doctor’s monster hasn’t the slightest interest in fathering a new master race. Elsewhere in the castle, Frankenstein’s nymphomaniac wife (Monique van Vooren) seduces a local farmer hand (Joe Dallesandro), who happens to be the beheaded monk’s best friend. When he’s not getting it on with Baroness Frankenstein the strapping young farm lad is sneaking around the castle trying to find out what happened to his best friend.

Departing from Mary Shelly’s classic gothic novel, director Paul Morrissey fills his colorful re-telling of the Frankenstein tale with plenty of ambiance and tons of scenery chewing. Sadly, we weren’t able to project a 3-D version of the film, as that is how it was originally shown. While you can still spot a few of the more obvious dimensional gags, the real joy with this film has always been Udo Kier’s performance. Kier comes right through the screen with each thickly accented line. Only, Frankenstein’s wild-eyed assistant, Otto (Arno Juerging), can come close to upstaging Kier. But with lines like, “To know life, you must fuck death in the gall bladder,” no one can out do Kier.

Flesh For Frankenstein balances somewhere between, horror film, soap opera, farcical comedy, and theatrical pomposity. It does a serious job of making a quality production while taking the time to never take itself that seriously. Rather polished, the film exceeds its low-budget. Having the airs of pretentiousness, the film also revels in campy, grotesque fun. Lacking the musical numbers of The Rocky Horror Picture show, that made that film a favorite with theatrical film freaks, Flesh For Frankenstein still possesses an off-kilter cult-vibe. Mixing together sex and gory effects helps make this Warhol produced horror-comedy a hit with those film fans who would prefer to let the actors do the acting and feel no need to sing and dance along.

Thankfully, everyone in the audience quickly saw the film for what it was and the applause of laughter showed that Flesh For Frankenstein was a smart choice to start the night off. The next question would be how well the crowd would hand Blood For Dracula.

Line

Line
(Yvonne Rainer, 10 mins., b/w, 1968)

Yvonne Rainer is economical with her titles and Line is just what it proclaims to be. A thin grey line stretching diagonally from left to right slices the film frame in half. Later a girl enters the picture. With a pen she adds to the line. In a similar fashion her body adds to the film frame, giving it an illusion of depth. For an extended period of time she lingers on the screening. Lying on the her stomach, facing away from the camera she occasionally turns and smiles the filmmaker.

Of the five Rainer pieces I watched back to back this last one stretched my patience to the verge of snapping. Whether it was the culmination of all the work or this particular work is hard to say. Though the girl in the picture is pretty to the eye she overstayed her welcome and one quickly grows bored of her inactive presence.

Trio Film

Trio Film
(Yvonne Rainer, 13 mins., b/w, 1968)

Inside a sparsely furnished space a naked couple and a large white ball dance. After the joy of Yvonne Rainer’s actuality Rhode Island Red this disappoints. The couple reduces theirs movements to a rather mechanical level. They share space on a couch, in a room and with the ball. Passing the large white object back and forth the two create a relationship between one another. Neither looks happy or pleased to be with one another. Their actions feel like work.

At the very end of the picture, in a break from the rest of the movie, the man is seen bouncing on the couch, the ball in his hands, his genitals shaking at the top of the screen. The girl sits beside him. Her eyes on level with the ball. She can’t help but laugh. The gesture is comical, especially at the end of a rather serious film.

Art such as this suffers from its outsider stance. With one foot clearly outside the norm, but with the other foot planted squarely in reality the negotiation between the two worlds makes for difficult readings. Are these humans sharing a space or just objects, perhaps symbols?

Rhode Island Red

Rhode Island Red
(Yvonne Rainer, 10 mins., b/w, 1968)

Of all the Yvonne Rainer films I’ve seen this may be my favorite, but the reasons for this are rather perverse. The films is long, colorless, and contains only two static shots of roosters. In both shots the roosters film the frame. Packed in so tightly that they can barely move, their heads protrude from their bodies, shifting from side to side.

Stare long enough and the image goes abstract. The roosters disappear and all you find our shapes and forms. Occasionally, due to an unheard sound, the shapes stop moving independently and turn in a uniform direction. Like a moment in free jazz when comes together these instances are magical, but short. Just as quickly as they conjoin the shapes separate moving in their own personal direction.

Of course, there is no sound. This is not jazz for the ears, it is jazz for the eyes. It’s not even jazz. It’s roosters, red roosters – shot in black and white.

It was early in the morning when I watched this, about the time one would expect a rooster to announce a new day. As I watched Rhode Island Red I pondered the reaction this film would receive had we shown this and not Hand Movie to a lecture hall full of first year students. How would those seekers of perpetual excitement and entertainment respond? Would their eyelids applause with blinks that eventually lead to slumber? Would they doze off, as they so often do? Would they know when to wake up without a cock-a-doodle-do?

The thought made me laugh. A long, boring (to use their terminology) film about nature’s alarm clock. How wonderfully perverse!

Volleyball

A performance piece filmed. On a wooden floor a volleyball rolls to a stop. A pair of legs march towards the ball stopping just behind the resting sphere. Repeat for ten minutes.

Switching between similar low angle camera shots that cut off everything above the knees, the film does contain multiple shots. That does not stop the movie from feeling like a performance on a stage. The limited viewing area is a mechanism of the movie camera, but the idea behind the film is something better left to a performance space. With the ball’s movement dictating the choreography of the legs an element of chance enters the picture, but parameters of the film frame confine the movement and reduce the film to an exaggerated exercise.

That there is more life in the movement of the volleyball than the prescribed movement of the performer’s legs is of some interested, but the interest is mild and fleeting at best.

Hand Movie

HAND MOVIE
(Yvonne Rainer, 5 mins., b/w, 1966)

Watching this for the second time (see first viewing here) I started to detach the hand from its owner. The bottom of the film frame helps accomplishes this dismemberment. Though, it is easy to imagine an arm extending downward, outside of the film’s frame. Midway through this second look a disconnect occurred. The hand was devoid of an arm. It were as if it were something out of a Bunuel film or The Addams Family. Yet, Yvonne Rainer’s hand is more graceful. It is a dancer’s hand and each finger itself a performer.

No one moves there fingers in this manner, deliberate and delicate and yet were we to take the time to marvel at movements we can generate with barely a thought we would astound ourselves. Still, Rainer’s movements are not astonishing. They are not magical acts; slight of hand. For that, one should watch Bresson’s Pickpocket.