The narrative competition gets most of the attention at SFIAAFF, but some of the real standouts at the festival include documentaries, international features, short films, and spotlight presentations.
Hollywood Chinese
dir: Arthur Dong
Famed documentarian Arthur Dong manages to render a safe and predictable subject in a number of unpredictable ways. One, it begins not with the early history of Chinese Americans in Hollywood, but with the formative role of Hollywood in the imagination of Chinese Americans -- their childhood memories, their first films, etc. Second, it is a labor history of Hollywood, with a focus on the gritty, day-to-day decisions made by Chinese American supporting actors and below-the-line talent (production designers, cinematographers, special effects people). Third, it's a rigorous work of historical inquiry, relying on studio documents from archives to "prove" that Anna May Wong was intentionally passed over for The Good Earth, and providing mesmerizing rare footage of everything from the very first Chinese American film, The Curse of Quon Gwon, to video footage of Roger Ebert's famous defense of Better Luck Tomorrow at Sundance, which is even more explosive than its legend purports.
But most importantly, the film honestly depicts with equal attention and affection the contradictory viewpoints within the Chinese American Hollywood community on films such as The Last Emperor, Flower Drum Song, The World of Suzie Wong, and others. What makes the film so much better than last year's similar Slanted Screen is its refusal to make any definitive or essentialist conclusions about the plight of these workers; an unforgettable sequence at the end has Wayne Wang, Amy Tan, and Ang Lee providing very divergent diagnoses of Chinese American "progress" in Hollywood. If I have any problem with the film, it's that it never bothers to explain why it's limited only to the Chinese, when many issues at stake are the same for Korean and Japanese Americans as well. Certainly time restraints are an issue, but there are moments when a James Shigeta or Miyoshi Umeki is introduced, only to be ignored seemingly for the arbitrary reason that they're not Chinese. However, my complaint only points to the fact that Hollywood Chinese, with its fantastic interviews and solid sense of history, is too substantial and important to be limited to a mere 90 minutes. --Brian Hu
A Dream in Doubt
dir: Tami Yeager
Directed by Tami Yaeger and produced by Preetmohan Singh, A Dream in Doubt is a solid documentary that follows Rana Sodhi and his family during the aftermath of September 11th, when hate crimes and discrimination against the Sikh community were at a high due to racial ignorance and intolerance. Just four days after the terrorist attacks, Sodhi's brother, Balbir Singh Sodhi, was murdered at his gas station in Mesa, Arizona because he was wearing a turban. Yaeger delves into Sodhi's family story -- how the four Sodhi brothers immigrated to the US after facing persecution in India, and how America, to them, represented heaven and freedom. The documentary not only follows the murder trial, but delves into others in their Sikh community who have had to deal with being spit on, being shot at, and threatened, to the alarming frequency that some of them didn't bother reporting it anymore. The community debates how to reconcile the desire to stand up and fight versus the need to not let foolish pride put people in danger. While the documentary might not present anything new, per se, it puts a good-hearted and charismatic face to the headlines and reminds us that unfortunately these messages aren't as self-explanatory or outdated as we might like to think.
What's interesting about the documentary is that the Sodhi family holds to their ideals and takes pride in America during a time when many citizens' loyalties are shaky. In fact, while it might not have matched the filmmaker's intention, when a quote by George W. Bush about freedom comes onto the screen towards the end of the film, the audience laughs with a combination of irony, cynicism, and possible shame. Rana Sodhi, on the other hand, despite all the tragedy they've endured, speaks up for America. He arranges to visit their son's classroom in order to talk to the kids about why their religion tells them to wear turbans ("Why don't you just wear a beanie?" a little girl asks.), he continually assuages the worries of their family members in India who want them to move back, and he is proud of the community of friends he has built here. The documentary won the Special Documentary Jury Award at the SFIAAFF, and the filmmakers have plans to show it on PBS before bringing it to colleges and high schools around the country. --Ada Tseng
Dark Matter
dir: Chen Shi-zheng
Luring in high-caliber talent such as Liu Ye, Meryl Streep, and Aidan Quinn, director Chen Shi-zheng tells a story that is loosely based on the real life events of Gang Lu, a physics PhD student at the University of Iowa in the early 1990s. Lu (and the character of Liu Xing in the film) represents one of thousands of Chinese academics that were awarded special visas to come study in America. Liu Ye (notable for his roles in The Curse of the Golden Flower and Purple Butterfly) plays the title role, an extraordinarily gifted cosmology student who manages to impress his mentor and academic hero Professor Jacob Reiser (played by Aidan Quinn). An ambitious student, driven by an overwhelming but pure love of his work and research, Liu becomes fascinated by Dark Matter, which he believes will magnificently unravel truths to the universe. Unfortunately, Reiser, likely threatened because Liu's findings could put his own research in jeopardy, is stubbornly unsupportive, and the brilliant student with extraordinary, ground-breaking vision watches as he is surpassed by classmates that are more willing to follow the system.
The bulk of the film centers around Liu's awkward fit into his new environment. Carrying a child-like wonder and enthusiasm, he endearingly misunderstands situations and mixes up words. While the fish-out-of-water antics are truthfully portrayed, these observations are not as compelling as they need to be in order to give the audience insight into Liu's eventual unraveling. Chen, a renowned New York-based Chinese opera director, periodically experiments with theatrical visuals to express Liu's frustration, and while some may find it stunning and powerful, others might just be stunned... at why he is screaming and ripping his shirt off amongst blue neon sparks. When given the opportunity, Liu Ye handles his delicate emotional moments adeptly. What holds this film back is its disjointedness and unnatural progression. When the sweet, optimistic student becomes the badass Hong Kong action star with the bright white puffy jacket, the "academic frustration/ashamed depression" deduction doesn't quite explain it. --Ada Tseng
Mei
dir: Arvin Chen
While most of the short films filed under the "Love's Labor & Other Complications" compilation were endearing slices of life, one couldn't help but feel somewhat unsatisfied each time the credits rolled shortly after the story just begun. The idea of slices was taken a little too literally, as the audience was invited to take a quick gander and leave just as quickly they were allowed in.
That is, except Arvin Chen's graduate thesis Mei, which stood out as well-developed and sophisticated. Its 13-minute span does little to detract from the story's depth and quality. Revolving around (not centering on) the classic boy-unrequitedly-loves-girl nucleus, each character examines their passions as well as their commitments. Chen smartly relies on the subtlety of passing glances to convey the poignant nuances of longing -- for love, familiarity, comfort, adventure, and self-discovery. Comfortable with open-ended questions, he does not try to answer, let alone ask them in the first place. Instead, he allows them to be personified by his characters, hidden between layers of character development and interaction, appearing only to the subjectivities of each viewer. With that, the viewer fills in the lingering spaces between the characters with his or her imagination, elongating the otherwise brief introduction to Jian, Mei, and her father Lu. Perhaps unwittingly, the evening streets of Taipei become the fourth, albeit unspoken character. The way Chen captures the night markets and alleyways played like a love sonnet to the Taipei streetscape. Often celebrated, but hardly treated with romanticism/delicacy, the alleys seem to palpitate each time Jian sees Mei, and hangs heavily as Mei grapples with her father's escapist habits. --Christine Chiao
Do Over
dir: Cheng Yu-chieh
I can't review Do Over because the film burned up about 2/3 of the way through. For a legitimate analysis of the film, read APA's review and interview from the 2006 Taipei International Film Festival. That said, the break in the film produced a sweet effect uncannily consistent with the film's themes of time, death, and filmmaking. For my reactions, click here. --Brian Hu
Syndromes and a Century
dir: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Made for the New Crowned Hope series celebrating the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth, Syndromes and a Century is the most musical of Apichatpong Weerasethakul's oeuvre to date. That's not because the music in it is done well (although it is), but because the film poses to the viewer (and listener) a number of delightful rhymes: variations on an image, variations on a gesture, variations on a line of dialogue, variations on characters. Set in two narrative movements, the film follows the same story of hospital life twice: once in a verdant jungle village, once in an urban skyrise. The result is an abstract but weirdly human rhapsody of Buddha statues, wild orchids, and oddball characters like a kid who hits a tennis ball in a hospital hallway, or a set of joggers multiplied by two in a curious visual feast reminiscent of Jacques Tati. Syndromes and a Century is an idiosyncratic cinematic pleasure, purely Apichatpong Weerasethakul in its playful creativity, and blissfully ours for its merry meditation on love, reincarnation, music, and modernity. --Brian Hu
Exiled
dir: Johnnie To
With Wong Kar-wai and Stephen Chow stingily making fewer and fewer films, Johnnie To has been holding up the fort, reminding Hong Kong cinema fans why they keep coming back. While To has been Hong Kong's most prolific master for the past ten years (The Mission, Running out of Time, My Left Eye Sees Ghosts), he's really elevated his game in the past three, producing stunner after stunner, from the elaborate set-pieces of Breaking News, to the criminally underrated craziness of Throwdown, to Election and Election 2, Hong Kong's best gangland saga since the Better Tomorrow trilogy -- yes, better than the Infernal Affairs and Young and the Dangerous series. (I'm going to ignore To's 2004 romantic comedy Yesterday Once More, a fun caper, but sub-par compared to his previous Sammi Cheng collaborations.) Given that To has escalated to such stratospheric heights both stylistically and thematically, his latest crime film, Exiled, has high expectations to live up to. In many ways, they're satisfied: the exquisite framings of men in action, the slick sense of light humor, the stately performances by Francis Ng, Anthony Wong, and To regulars Lam Suet and Hui Sui-Hung. But in too many ways, Exiled feels like Throwdown (the signature top lighting during otherwise dark action scenes) + The Mission (the camaraderie between men who would rather not be fighting) + Election (the fascination with the triad code of honor). And in the end, the characters' "exile" is simply a rehashing of the classic jianghu tale of brotherhood and revenge, albeit with Johnnie To's impeccable Midas touch. That said, gold is gold, and Exiled is about as perfect a crime film as anybody in the world is making these days. --Brian Hu
Love for Share
dir: Nia Dinata
Love for Share, the latest film from Indonesian director Nia Dinata, weaves together three related but unique stories that deal with the issue of polygamy, which is becoming more open and prevalent in Indonesian society today. Dinata introduces three women from different backgrounds in different types of polygamous relationships, and explores how they reconcile this tradition with their self-respect and choice of lifestyles.
The first section tells the story of a respected doctor, Salma, who finds out that her Muslim politician husband has taken a new wife. At first hurt and betrayed, through the years -- to the dismay of her young son who does not approve of his father's polygamy -- she gradually becomes at peace with her role as the first wife. Having her own business to attend to, she contentedly makes the choice to follow her religion and be a good Muslim wife. No matter how many young girls her husband brings back, she knows that he loyally places her on top of the hierarchy. The second segment centers around a young girl, Siti, who takes a job as a nanny in a poor Javanese household, not realizing that she is in training to become the third wife. Unable to escape her initial fate, she develops a special friendship with the other wives and plots to subvert the system and follow her own desires. And lastly, the third story is about Ming, a young carefree wannabe-actress who falls for a married man. This polygamous relationship, unlike the others, is sealed in secret, because, as part of Jakarta's Chinese community, their religion does not allow multiple marriages. And, his wife must never find out.
Although dealing with a taboo topic, each story injected with such passion, dignity, sweetness, and truth, that the characters are brought to life; their emotional struggles are circumstantial, but feel familiar. The film captures everything from the euphoria of a love requited, to the fear of facing unchartered territories, to the freedom of finally recognizing what is important to you get letting go of the rest. Love for Share recently picked up the Best Film Award at the Hawaii International Film Festival. --Ada Tseng
See also APA's past coverage of:
The films of Hong Sang-soo
Summer Palace (dir: Liu Ye) / King and the Clown (dir: Lee Jun-ik)
Blackout (dir: Ato Bautista) / Woman on the Beach (Hong Sang-soo)
SFIAFF Capsule Reviews: Narrative Competition