First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About Film

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/05/09/thinking-aloud-about-film-hou-hsiao-hsieng-5-the-boys-from-fengkuei-aka-all-the-youthful-days-1983/

Hou has described this as the favourite amongst his films. Richard and José discuss why this might be so: the compositions; the long takes that allow for action vertically, horizontally, and on different planes of the image. The juxtaposition between the rowdy teenage delinquency we see with the classical musical. The easy ellipsis into memory. The evident influence of Italian neo-realism, particularly Visconti's Rocco and His Brothers, which is explicitly referenced and Fellini's I Vitelloni, which has a similar set-up. We discuss the falling into place of a particular style that would come to be associated with the director and why we think the film ends up being so beautiful and moving.

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/05/07/thinking-aloud-about-film-hou-hsiao-hsien-4-the-sandwich-man-1983/

A discussion of The Sandwich Man, an omnibus film with episodes from Hou Hsiao-hsien, Wan Jeng, Tseng Shuan-hsiang, that is said to have helped launch New Taiwanese Cinema. We talk about the three different episodes, how so many New Waves incorporated omnibus or portmanteau films as a form of self advertisement, the relationship to The Bicycle Thief, the way it allegorises and comments on conflicts and changes in Taiwanese cinema and society....and much more.

In this podcast, Richard and I discuss how much we both like this film, an early one of Hou's that we argue continues to be largely dismissed in account of his work. Here we admire what we see as his growth as a filmmaker: the increasing use of expressive long-takes, the filming from the inside of trains, the imaginative compositions, the handling of many people in the frame whilst still keeping dramatic focus, the deft control over various narrative threads. We notice that this is the third time in three fllms that we get scatalogical jokes but how now they're not used as superficial toppers but instead evoke character and feeling as well as laughs. There are songs and there is romance but we discuss how there is also much more than that: a highly skilled and enjoyable work. The blogpost for the podcast with more links and information is at: https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/05/01/thinking-aloud-about-film-hou-hsia-hsien-3-the-green-green-grass-of-home-1982/

One of the great surprises and pleasures of the Wales One World Film Festival was the opportunity to see Filmfarsi, a great documentary film on the significance of popular Iranian cinema from 1953-1979. In this podcast I talk to the film's director, Ehsan Khoshbakht , to find out more about the process that led to the film, the Iranian film industry in this period, the relationship of the cinema to the Iranian New Wave, how much of this cinema was lost in the aftermath of the revolution and why this was so, and the process of recovering the films which are also a history of Iran and Iranians in this period.

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/04/28/thinking-aloud-about-film-hou-hsiao-hsien-2-cheerful-wind-aka-play-while-you-play/

Thinking Aloud About Film continues it's exploration of the cinema of Hou Hsia-hsien with a discussion of Cheerful Wind aka Play While you Play, a charming musical romantic comedy, an exploration of filmmaking itself, and a re-teeming of the cast that made the previous Cute Girl such a success.

Trailer for a new series of podcasts by Richard Layne and José Arroyo that will be an umbrella for all themed podcasts we've been doing so far, Youssef Chahine, selections from Ritrovato in Bologna, and currently, a series of talks on the early cinema of Hou Hsiao-hsien.

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/04/25/thinking-aloud-about-film-the-cinema-of-hou-hsiao-hsien-1-cute-girl-1980/

Richard and I turn our attention to the early cinema of Hou Hsiao-hsien. Four of his films are now on MUBI and at least the first one is delightful: a romantic comedy not to different from those characteristic of American Cinema in the 1930s, but with broader humour and more pop songs. A delightful first work, very commercial .... and very different from what was to follow.

We continue our little exploration of Middle-Eastern Films that connect to the work of Chahine. This discussion is on Maroun Bagdadi's Beirut, oh Beirut, currently playing on Netflix. We discuss the beauty of the film. Richard connects it to late sixties Godard in style. I found it more moving and sad than what I remember of that period of Godard's work. We discuss the film in relation to Chahine's The Sparrow and to Al-Karnak. The film has a particular nostalgic feel, the depiction of buildings, landscapes, places and spaces for feeling that are soon to be destroyed, perhaps forever, and the way of live and set of dilemmas that this film documents just before they explode and are obliterated, so this poetic drama can also be read as a historical document, now imbued with sadness for what humans do to places once much loved.

Adam Carver is a Midlands-based producer, performer and cultural activist. He was recently Festival Director for SHOUT and is producer for Ginny Lemon's Palaver. I saw the great Fantabulosa show they did at the Birmingham Museum and Gallery just before lockdown, a thrilling queer positive performance piece for children and family audiences. I wanted to talk to him to find out how lockdown had affected him personally as a performer and also on: queer arts in the Midlands, the infrastructure for live performance in Birmingham and his own transgressive transformation into Fatt Butcher, a sublime and edgy transformation into drag that brings in Disco, Comedy, and Bingo whilst also being a political intervention against shame.

Richard returns! We discuss the famous Al-Karnak (Karnak Café) directed byAli Badr Kahn in 1975. A political film, a critique of the previous regime, based on a novella by Naguib Mahfouz, and a 'model of de-Nasserfication'. The film is pulpy, melodramatic, sensationalist, a box-office smash. A very interesting work to discuss in relation to Chahine's The Sparrow (1972), which deals with similar subject matter but in a a very different way. Ali Badr Kahn and Mahfouz had previously collaborated with Chahine as well so the film is an interesting to focus to a whole series of issues that intersect with Chahine's work.