Review: Despite The Gods (Penny Vozniak, 2013): Imagine Film Festival

Despite The Gods: Penny Vozniak’s directorial debut follows the behind-the-scenes chaos of Lynch’s creature feature/fantasy Bollywood horror Hisss (2010), her failed B-movie venture about a shape-shifting and man-eating snake goddess. Over-budget and over-schedule, we follow Lynch as she has to relocate to Kerala, deal with hysterical Bollywood fans, film under extreme rain conditions, and weather all manner of culture clashes, all this while juggling single motherhood to her twelve year old daughter Sydney. What emerges is as much a portrait of the difficulties of manning an epic Hollywood-Bollywood production, as it is an insight into being a female director in a notoriously male-dominated industry. Released at a similar time to her spectacular cellar-horror Chained, Vozniak shines a light on this controversial and misunderstood director, and everyone’s falling in love with her.

Despite the Gods sits firmly in the film-about-a-film documentary genre (of which others include Lost In La Mancha (2002) and Burden of Dreams (1982)). Vozniak charts the ups and downs of Hisss, as her roving camera follows a chaotic crew in the maelstrom of Chennai, Mumbai and Kerala. This six million dollar co-production between Hollywood and Bollywood was never going to be easy – and the film becomes, in a manner that never feels clichéd, a journey of self-realisation for Lynch. The oh-so very many on-set disasters become a backdrop for Lynch’s mouthy and honest observations about film-making, love, sex and motherhood.

The daughter of David Lynch, Jennifer made her directorial debut with Boxing Helena, a box-office flop and fodder for multiple lawsuits, accusations of making misogynistic “torture porn” and a gong for Worst Director at the Golden Raspberry Awards. We see the demons of Boxing Helena and her father’s failed third flop with Dune stalking this teetering-on-the-edge production, although Lynch hints at many others. She talks candidly about the long hiatus after Boxing Helena, in which she dealt with addiction problems and depression and finding herself a single parent. Lynch touchingly mentions the aftermath of Dune’s failure, noting that he didn’t speak for a year. But Despite The Gods still shows us a director getting into her stride. Her joy at hearing of the critical success of Surveillance (2008) will be familiar to anyone who’s finally had a pat on the back for all their hard work.

Its clear that the snake-woman of Indian myth is something of a role model for Lynch’s pseudo-feminist tale: “I really liked the idea of a strong woman who just wasn’t going to take any crap”. And even after all manner of run-ins with striking staff and production managers who think they know better, Lynch doesn’t take any crap either. But the film is about two other women too – leading Bollywood star Mallika Sherawat (who stars as the prosthetic snake woman alongside Irfann Khan), and Sydney, who misses out on the start of school because the shoot overruns and there’s no-one else to look after her. With Mallika, we are afforded a brief if fascinating insight into the tribulations of being a famous Bollywood star in the industry. Dressed for the most part in very little, Mallika has faced threats and accusation for her liberal if challenging on-screen performances. We see her dishing it back to a demanding and often rude production team; in a particularly amusing scene, Mallika – barely visible behind a skin-tight prosthetic snake skin which she is asked to writhe around in while sticking out her bum, observes “how desperate this country is, how repressed these boys are”. Mallika, Jennifer and her young daughter Sydney are the trio who hold the film together, and we see the adventure through three sets of equally confused eyes.

Despite the Gods is a joy from start to finish. Vozniak brings out the madness of filmmaking, but also its colour and excitement, and like Lynch at the end, we come to realise that failure itself doesn’t really matter, if you find great things along the way.

Review: Me And You (Bertolucci, 2013): Rotterdam Film Festival

Bernardo Bertolucci’s first film since The Dreamers is a charmingly soundtracked two-hander about the growing relationship between two semi-related social outcasts. Nicely acted, and with many of Bertolucci’s trademark flourishes of bohemian hedonism and young blossoming sexuality set to a cultish soundtrack, it nonetheless fails to bring with it much more than a little déjà-vu.

Read the rest of my review over at Grolsch Film Works.

Rotterdam Film Festival/ Kijk Kubus housing project/ PROVO

Here’s my Rotterdam film festival round-up for 125 Magazine and a picture (not mine) of the Cinerama cinema, a gorgeous old thousand-seater cinema, and a hub of activity for most of the festival.

While I was there, I stayed in a youth hostel in the Kijk Kubus housing complex, and notwithstanding how fairly unpleasant sharing a dorm with people you don’t know can be, I loved waking up to the sight of these strange yellow cubes. Reading up on the history of the housing complex unearthed a whole load of Dutch countercultural activity I didn’t know about, and I made some notes on it below.

The Kijk Kubus complex was created by Piet Blom, an Amsterdam-born architect, who grew up in the bohemian district of the Jordaan. Influenced by a lot of 1960′s and ’70′s thinking (he was a member of the anarchist PROVO movement in the 1960′s), he built the Kijk Kubus complex on the concept of creating a village within a town. Alternately named the cubehouse, the polehouse, and the treehouse, the design is based on the idea of an abstract tree, while the overall complex (the Blaak Heights, which was built in what used to be the predominantly working-class area of Blaak) represents a forest or a village. The cubes are tilted 45 degrees and rest on a hexagonal-shaped pylon. In the 1970′s, he built a complex of these houses (known in Dutch as ‘Kubuswoningen’) in Helmand, and built these ones in Rotterdam in the ’80′s.

The Kijk Kubus, I read, was built around the concept of the flexibility and creativity of living arrangements, where the private (the upstairs cubes) interact with the public (the open entrance, the combination of small-scale shops, a children’s playground and even The Academy of Architecture is situated within the complex). Blom’s architectonic motto was: “Living under an urban roof”.

The PROVO movement that Piet Blom was at one point a member of was a Dutch countercultural movement of the 1960′s that aimed to incite violence using non-violent action, and was founded by two anarchists, Robert Jasper Grootvelt and Roel van Duijn. Grootvelt, a former window cleaner, artist and anti-smoking campaigner, used to stage anti-smoking “happenings” around Amsterdam, which were centred around the idea that the masses were being brainwashed into becoming a cult of addicted consumers; he described them as the “despicable plastic people.” He also protested against smoking tobacco and what he saw as the “Nico-Mafia” who ruled over the “cigarette-cult”. His protests involved scribbling CANCER over posters advertising tobacco across town, for which he was sentenced and put in jail.

Provo also started a magazine in 1965 which included, among other things, the “Provo manifesto” written by van Duijn , as well as reprinted recipes for bombs from a nineteenth-century anarchist pamphlet. In Provo #12, the magazine described itself as:

“a monthly sheet for anarchists, provos, beatniks, pleiners, scissors-grinders, jailbirds, simple simon stylites, magicians, pacifists, potato-chip chaps, charlatans, philosophers, germ-carriers, grand masters of the queen’s horse, happeners, vegetarians, syndicalists, santy clauses, kindergarten teachers, agitators, pyromaniacs, assistant assistants, scratchers and syphilitics, secret police, and other riff-raff. Provo has something against capitalism, communism, fascism, bureaucracy, militarism, professionalism, dogmatism, and authoritarianism. Provo has to choose between desperate, resistance and submissive extinction. Provo calls for resistance wherever possible. Provo realises that it will lose in the end, but it cannot pass up the chance to make at least one more heartfelt attempt to provoke society. Provo regards anarchy as the inspirational source of resistance. Provo wants to revive anarchy and teach it to the young. Provo is an image.”

For more information on the Dutch PROVO movement, there’s an interesting piece by High Times here.

‘Wadjda’ review: Rotterdam Film Festival

Here’s my review of Haifaa Al Mansour’s Wadjda, a funny, beautifully shot coming-of-age tale full of feminist implication. Why? Because it’s the first film ever to be made entirely in Saudi Arabia, by its first female film director. A film about a young woman struggling to define herself against a society she deems alien to her way of thinking. First she has to get on that bike…

‘Something In the Air’ review: Rotterdam Film Festival

Here’s my review of Olivier Assayas’ new film Something In the Air (or Après Mai), a beautiful, something autobiographical, coming-of-age tale which follows a group of young revolutionaries three years after the May ’68 riots in Paris. This was my highlight of Rotterdam Film Festival (along with Haifaa al-Mansour’s feminist Saudi tale Wadjda, Carlos Reygadas’ startlingly strange and brutal Post Tebebras Lux, and of course, Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master.

More reviews and a festival round-up comin’ up.

‘Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction’ (IDFA Part 3)

“I want to dance with Harry Dean/ Drive through Texas in a black limousine”. In a rare, wonderfully gossipy moment in Partly Fiction, Blondie confesses that she had a fling with Harry Dean Stanton, and that her obsession with him led her to write a song, the glorious ‘80s trash hit “I Want That Man”. The foxiest woman in rock was desperate to impress Harry Dean. In many ways, this comes as no surprise, as the veteran actor frequently and wryly chuckles about being ‘a lady’s man’.

Sophie Huber’s beautiful, meditative Swiss documentary takes a non-chronological look at the work and philosophy of one of Hollywood’s greatest living actors (and enigmas) Harry Dean Stanton. Don’t expect to hear much else in the way of concrete biographical facts, as the star in question is pointedly vague about his background. When asked questions about what he believes or who he is, he responds humbly: “Nothing”. But as his personal assistant points out, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Having starred in over 250 films, Harry Dean is one of the hardest working men in Hollywood.
Read the rest of my review here at Grolsch Film Works.

The Empire Project: The Unintended Consequences of Dutch Colonialism (IDFA: Part 2)

‘The Empire Project’ is an experimental documentary (or what the directors have called an “exploded feature”, comprised of films, writing, video journalism, and photography) that looks at the human consequences of Dutch corporate colonialism. I interviewed the Dutch-American filmmaking team for Grolsch Film Works and we had a great discussion about, among other things, the Zwarte Piet (or ‘Black Pete’) Dutch Christmas tradition (which I was very keen to ask them about, as this has become something of an obsession for me).

Zwarte Piet is Santa’s little helper, a small black African boy in blackface who helps Sinterklaas give gifts to children. Traditionally, on December 5th, people black up and hand out sweets, while Sinterklaas, the white man, rides around on a big horse. Aside from my shocked first impressions on seeing a white man blacked up to look like a colonial slave, I’m interested more generally in seeing where this tradition can be situated, given Holland’s fragile colonial legacy, and a policy of enforced silence on protests against this (such as such as the arrest of activist Quinsy Gario, who staged a seemingly peaceful protest wearing T-shirts saying ‘Zwarte Piet is racist’). I’ll definitely be at the celebrations on December 5th, so expect reports! But I think Kell O’Neill (one of the directors of ‘Empire’) is right when he points out in interview:

“Even if it didn’t start from a colonial tradition, if it started from the Moors in Spain, you get into the 1960′s and 1970′s here, and Zwarte Piet is speaking with a Suriname accent. The tradition reflects the times and I think that at this point, as Holland changes, it’s reflecting a really interesting period in the Netherlands, when all these questions of inside and outside are rising to the surface”.

You can read the rest of the interview here. And here’s my review of the project itself, which was showing at the Brakke Grond in Amsterdam during the IDFA festival. For more reading on the Zwarte Piet tradition, there’s an interesting piece on it by Jessica Olien on Slate. I’d be interested in your thoughts and opinions so hit me up.

Amsterdam International Documentary Festival (IDFA): Part 1

So IDFA has been and gone … Films, Q + A’s, overpriced beer in Rembrantplein – it was a blast. As usual, the sheer scope, inventiveness and experimental nature of the documentaries on show was overwhelming and impressive. I’m happy to be proven wrong, but the more documentaries I see, the more doc festivals I attend, the clearer it becomes: the genre’s resurgence points to the fact that it’s basically more exciting than anything else happening in film at the minute.

My highlights were: a documentary called ‘Sexy Baby’ which looked at the lives of three very different American women against the super-sexualised backdrop of popular culture and social media; Nishta Jain’s harrowing and beautiful ‘Gulabi Gang’ (which looked at the pink-saried Northern Indian women’s group the Gulabi Gang and their fights for women’s justice); Peter Mettler’s ‘The End of Time’ (an experimental look at the nature of time, with a fabulous ambient soundtrack by Peter Bracker), Sophie Huber’s impressionistic portrait of Harry Dean Stanton ‘Partly Fiction’ and the experimental documentary ‘The Empire Project’ (which examined the ‘unintended consequences’ of Dutch colonialism), and which I’ll be doing a separate blog post about.

I really enjoyed the music documentary ‘The Sound of Belgium’ (about the origins of Belgian New Beat). I was disappointed by the Nazi family story ‘Diaries of An Elephant’, though I admired its intentions. I was shaken up by the Snoop dog narrated music documentary ‘Uprising: Hiphop and the LA riots’. I hated the Shining documentary ‘Room 237′ (for a number of reasons, starting with its frustrating form and annoying background music, and its pedantic style of analysis). I *loved*, felt homesick and generally melted in front of Julian Temple’s opus ‘London: Modern Babylon’, and I was intrigued by the Dutch documentary ‘Alone in the World’, which followed the lives of three adults whose parents had been 60′s radicals in Holland.

So, onto the reviews. Here are a couple of music related ones. First up is my review of the hilarious and unusual music documentary The Sound of Belgium. I can’t wait for this to come out in England!

Next up is my review of Emmett Malloy’s folkumentary ‘Big Easy Express’ which follows a vintage train containing three nu-folk bands including Mumford & Sons across the desert. This was not really my bag, but not unpleasant, and very pretty to look at.

And below are some pictures of my beloved Tuschinski art deco cinema, where many of the IDFA films were shown. What a treat to lounge around under art deco lamps…

Interview: Rodriguez and Malik Bendjelloul of “Searching For Sugar Man”

My interview with Rodriguez and director of “Searching For Sugar Man” Malik Bendjelloul at Sheffield Doc/Fest for Cinevue:

Sixto Rodriguez – the Mexican, Detroit-born folk singer who never made it in ‘70’s America – is the humble star of Malik Bendjelloul’s “Searching for Sugar Man”. The film, which opened Sheffield Doc/Fest, tells the incredible story of how a bootleg copy of his 1970 album Cold Fact arrived in apartheid South Africa and became a massive hit, selling thousands upon thousands of records and inspiring the voice of a generation of South Africans. The only problem? Rodriguez was believed dead, until a passionate South African record shop owner called “Sugar” goes in search of him. From there, a more than unlikely story plays out, in a film which is bound to be a music documentary staple for years to come. Cinevue met Rodriguez and Swedish director Malik Bendjelloul in the midst of Sheffield Doc/Fest to talk about fame, films and animation on Iphone apps.

The rapport between director and star is charming and entertaining to watch, but Rodriguez – clearly someone not entirely comfortable with the trappings of fame – was sceptical at first. “I met him [Malik] in 2008; the film climaxes in 1998. And I was sceptical about it, about the idea. It wasn’t until last month that he actually finished it for Sundance. It won five standing ovations and two awards. But I didn’t have anything to do with picking who was going to be in the film or what the dialogue was going to be. I don’t think he had a story or a title as well”.

Malik Bendejelloul knew he’d struck gold with this incredible story. “I spent a couple of years trying to find stories. When I came across this, I was like… wow!” he laughs. “I think that the structure, I had from the beginning, because I thought it was such a powerful narrative. That you start off from a South African perspective, that they actually think he’s dead. Many were opposed to that – they thought that everyone was going to know that he’s alive. But this is the story! It doesn’t matter if you know he’s alive. They [“Sugar” the record shop owner and several journalists] were working as detectives. Even if they weren’t professionals, the result was big. What they found changed their lives and his”.

The film took almost 5 years, with Malik working full-time for the last four years. He explains how The Swedish Film Institute were the big funders, how they were very hesitant but then came up with a lot of money. I asked him about the animation, what I felt was the only weak point in an otherwise perfect film. “The first idea was to make a lot of animation”, Malik explained. “Everything that wasn’t film should be animation. But we had no material. And I couldn’t afford [the animations] because I couldn’t get professionals to do it. I used my Iphone with a super 8 app, to make a lot of the things that were supposed to be animations because this is cheaper! It was really very primitive conditions”. In that light, his feat is impressive.

Rodriguez seems amazingly at ease with giving interviews, and with performing on stage. One of many highlights of Sheffield Doc/Fest was being led into the Queen’s Social club only to see Rodriguez perform several of his songs; an absolute pro, he seemed calm and relaxed, and engaged comfortably with the crowd. How does he feel performing old songs? “ They’re my stuff! It’s a live thing – music’s a living art. It’s always new in a sense”.

I ask him whether he would have dealt with fame differently had he got famous in the ‘70s rather than later on in life. “Sure, but I don’t know if I could have handled it then. And this time, he who conquers, conquers himself. I had a lot to conquer. I didn’t think it would ever get this big”.

Malik was nervous about his portrayal of Rodriguez, even if he felt that the film would stand alone as an incredible story:“You adapt real life into something. You are telling something that is perceived as truth”. And how does Rodriguez feel about all this fanfare: sell-out shows, film festivals and rounds of interviews, and a soundtrack soon to released by Sony? “I’m very lucky. You know the Gladstone duck? He falls down and finds a diamond. I have that kind of luck – but I don’t gamble. Only with my life”.

Review: Planet of Snail

My review of South Korean documentary ‘Planet of Snail’ for Grolsch Film Works can be read **** here It’s a **** from me.