First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About Film

In this podcast Alex Santos-Edgar and I discuss La Haine (Matthieu Kassovitz, 1995): it's style, its influence, how Paris figures, where masculinity and race figure in it...and more:

A conversation with Dr. Andrew Moor on Derek Jarman, arising from the Derek Jarman Protest exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery, on Jarman's significance in British Culture, his legacy as a multimedia artist and his contributions to art, protest cultures and queer cultures.

https://notesonfilm1.com/2022/03/29/thing-aloud-about-film-with-pamela-hutchinson-on-hippfest/

Hippfest is how fans and admirers endearingly refer to the Hippodrome Silent Film Festival that takes place annually at Scotland’s oldest cinema – The Hippodrome, built in 1912, in Bo’ness. Under Alison Strauss’ guidance, the festival has become a force internationally, bringing to the UK newly discovered or newly restored silent classics, and presented in a varied and imaginative programme under the best conditions: with programme notes by leading scholars (Dina Iordanova, Charles Musser, David Cairns) with accompaniment by leading musicians (Neil Brand), sometimes with scores especially composed for the film (by the likes of John Sweeney and Dr. Chris Letcher), with introductions by specialists (Victor Fan), with an inclusive programme (this year including a strand on amateur filmmaking with a discussion lead by Melanie Selfe and Keith M. Johnston); guest speakers (Bryony Dixon, Lawrence Napper, Donald Smith); performers (Chris Letcher, Paul McGann, Meg Morley) and special events (Mark Kermode in Conversation with Neil Brand and Mike Hammond).

José has always wanted to go. This year was Richard’s second year at the event. We wanted to find out more; and who better to tell us than Ms. Silent London herself, Pamela Hutchinson, critic, curator, programmer, and also author of, amongst other gems, the BFI classic on Pandora’s Box.

You can follow up on The Hippodrome Silent Film Festival by checking out their website here: https://www.hippodromecinema.co.uk/silent-film-festival/

https://notesonfilm1.com/2022/02/26/thinking-aloud-about-film-four-pere-portabella-shorts-on-mubi/

We discuss four Pere Portabella Shorts on MUBI:

Don’t Count Your Fingers (1968); Play Back (1970); Acció Santos (1973); Premios Nacionales (1969) focussing on their play with form, the conceptual cleverness, the surrealist aspects; the sensuousness of the imagery; the potency of their critiques. Portabella seems to be in touch with all the leading painters, poets and musicians of the day; and their collaborations evoke a spirit of community that seems particularly powerful considering they were made under a fascist dictatorship.

https://notesonfilm1.com/2022/02/20/thinking-aloud-about-film-umbracle-pere-portabella-spain-1972/

We continue our exploration of Pere Portabella films, this one his third feature, an experimental off-shoot of Cuadecuc Vampir. Umbracle means shade created by twigs or pieces of wood, and we discuss the significance of the title in relation to what the film shows, is it focussing on what’s being hidden or revealed by the light? The film has a mystery that raises questions, a sensuality; there’s a seduction, both somatic and intellectual, to what the images are like and what they show. The film trots out three different film critics to discuss the impossibility of representing, and to advocate for an underground, more political, more experimental cinema; juxtaposing this with excerpts of a Frente infinito (Pedro Lazaga, 1959), a film about a priest in wartime, an ideal of Francoist cinema, the cross hand-in-hand with the rifle. A film of fragments, about modernity, on politics, a critique, yet one conscious of the seductiveness of sounds and images. We discuss all this and more in this all too brief podcast.

https://notesonfilm1.com/2022/02/14/thinking-aloud-about-film-men-behind-the-sun-mou-tun-fei-china-1988/

A film that insists on history to dramatise the evils perpetuated on the Chinese population by Unit 732 of the Imperial Japanese Army, which dehumanised the Chinese as Murats during WWII in order to conduct biological experiments on them to weaponise biological warfare. History here is an alibi for exploitation of the worst kind. The film positively revels in the various kinds of torture to men, women and children. We compare it to Holocaust films and find it wanting by almost every ethical criterion. We denounce the clear cruelty to animals evident in the film; and we mourn the descent of such a talented filmmaker to this level of exploitation,

https://notesonfilm1.com/2022/02/07/thinking-aloud-about-film-a-deadly-secret-mou-tun-fei-hong-kong-1980/

We discuss our fourth Mou Tun-fei film, A Deadly Secret (1980). It was made the same year as the more sensational and political Lost Souls, and suffers in the comparison, being an entertaining but generic and unsurprising Martial Arts Romance. It also suffers in the comparison to his earlier humanist, nuanced and visually remarkable Taiwanese films, I Didn't Dare Tell You (1969) and The End of the Track (1970). We discuss all this and more in the podcast.

https://notesonfilm1.com/2022/02/05/thinking-aloud-about-film-lost-souls-mou-tun-fei-hong-kong-1980/

Mou Tun-Fei goes from the New Wave-y neo-realistic aesthetic of I Didn't Dare Tell You and the End of the Track and into exploitation territory. Lost Souls is pulpy, dynamic, exciting and exploitative. Women have their clothes taken off, the camera lingers on their bodies, on their degradation, on the sale of these women to whorehouses. The audience, which we assume to be men, is meant to get off on all of this. Mou Tun-fei is an equal opportunity exploiter and there is also torture and rape of men. The film is clearly highly influenced by Pier Paolo Pasolini's 1975 film, 120 Days of Sodom and we discuss their differences and similarities. We also discuss how Lost Souls is unquestionably an exploitation film but not all exploitation films are as effective and as political as Lost Souls; and our discussion lingers on the opening sequence of the boat people and the arrival of one of the escapees onto Hong Kong's Diamond Hill, and the crushing disappointment that accompanies the realisation that streets are not paved with gold there and that it is in fact one big, fragile ghetto. A fascinating film.

https://notesonfilm1.com/2022/01/28/the-end-of-the-track-mou-tun-fei-taiwan-1970/

A film that feels like an undiscovered classic of World Cinema, beautiful to look at, heartfelt and very moving. Two young boys enjoy a friendship so close they're accused of being queer. They themselves don't know what that means, and just like being with each other better than with someone else, even though they fight quite a bit and are from different social classes. When one of them dies in a sporting accident, the other feels guilt over what's happened, and tries to take responsibility for it, to no avail. A haunting, mysterious film, beautiful to look at and deeply moving. We discuss the hows and whys of all of this in the accompanying podcast.

https://notesonfilm1.com/2022/01/24/i-didnt-dare-tell-you-tun-fei-mou-taiwan-1969/

The Harvard Film Archive and the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute are currently making available two films by Tun-Fei Mou. This is a discussion of I Didn't Dare Tell You, a modernist melodrama about a young boy seeking a way of paying for an education that his father can't quite provide. We detect influences of Italian Neo-Realism and the French New Wave, admire its compositions, its look, it's narrative drive and an extraordinary central performance by the child. I Didn't Dare Tell You is a film to discover and talk about.