Remember back in 2011, during episodes 26 and 30, when we promised to round off our Taiwanese New Wave Cinema series with a Tsai Ming-Liang episode?  Well, only a year after those two episodes were released and we finally remembered too!  In this episode, guest host Marc Saint-Cyr rejoins us as we look at Tsai’s 2003 love letter to cinema, Goodbye Dragon Inn.  Also included is talk of the 2013 versions of the Nippon Connection and Shinsedai Cinema Festival (that’s right, it’s festival season again!) and more!

Email: vcinema@variedcelluloid.net

Direct link: Episode 42

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Take our friends over at Shinsedai Cinema Festival, for example.  It’s been many months that my scanners have laid…um..lasers on curator Chris Magee’s countless cryptic hints about what was happening at their festival this year.  At one time, he even implored us to wait a week for an announcement about one of the films.  Um, Mr. Magee, a week for a newsbot is about one thousand human years.  Anyway, Shinsedai has just posted its festival trailer, my signal to reveal to you several of its films and highlights, the latter of which you can read just after the bump.  Anyway, here goes with their 2012 trailer:

First off, we reported reported the basics of Shinsedai’s 2012 a few months ago, but as a recap, the festival takes place in Toronto from July 12th to 15th at The Revue Cinema at Howard Park and Roncesvalles in Roncesvalles Village.

This year’s Shinsedai appears to be an interesting mix of films that have been making the festival rounds and some cool exclusives.  In case you don’t know by now, the festival’s main goal is to highlight the latest and greatest of the indie film scene in Japan as well as provide retrospective context to modern cinema in that country.  The festival opens with Ringing In Their Ears, a drama revolving around musicians, that got many positive reviews (including from us) when it played at last year’s New York Asian Film Festival and Japan Cuts.  Sticking with the music/sound theme, Takashi Makino’s experimental sound/visual piece Enter the Cosmos will be playing.  We spoke to Mr. Makino during our podcast coverage of last year’s Zipangu Fest and can testify that this program will be incredible to see, with or without the help of controlled substances.  If Makino’s work somehow is not trippy enough, you’ll also want to dig into the Beyond Anime: The Outer Limits program which showcases what can probably be labeled “alt-anime” (altime?).

More than just a “whoa, dude” showcase for out-there art film, Shinsedai does have plenty for the down-to-earth filmgoer who likes a little leather with their popcorn.  Battle Girls & Bondage: A Pink Film Double Bill is an event that pairs two of pink film boutique label Pink Eiga’s features, The Slave and Sexy Battle Girls with some on-stage bondage courtesy of Toronto’s own North Bound Leather.  Those who can’t be tied down by a double bill, could try out the singular screenings of neo-noir End of Night or the fantastical Tentsuki, both crime films with different twists.

Finally, for those who like a little more truth added into the mix, Shinsedai has a really strong documentary, Hiroshima Nagasaki Download, an road doc that attempts to record the life stories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors now living in the United States.  We talked to filmmaker Shinpei Takeda during the previously linked Zipangu Fest podcast and were very touched by the stories in the film and the sorts of discussions they will undoubtedly produce.

We say this every year about Shinsedai, but there’s a little for everyone.  For more information about the festival, check out their web page where future updates will be posted and tickets eventually sold.

For example, I’d been focusing on clothes during the latter few screenings.  This was partly prompted by a conversation I had with a co-worker whom I encouraged to see the film, since he’d be a philosopher if it paid better and Hong’s films seem to be of the philosophical bent.  But we didn’t get that deep into the philosophy of the film, although he recommended I look into how Nietzsche and Hume and Kant might be applicable regarding Seong-jun’s little bit about questioning what we narrate as cause and effect.  Instead, my co-worker was curious about the location shooting, how the bars and restaurants, and the repeat use of them and absence of other folks in the few establishments used, appeared to represent a tight film budget, which is true.  My co-worker motivated me to see other signs of budget constraints, such as the blink-and-you-miss-them credits, and particularly the fact that all the characters are basically wearing the same clothes throughout the film.  (As a result of playing two characters, Kim Bok-yung appears to be the only one who gets to don two outfits.)  Now, the film takes place in winter time, and people often wear the same heavy coats in the winter time.  As a result, they will look like they are wearing the same clothes.  Also, Yeo-jeon might be wearing an outfit, the similar white blouse, black skirt, black stockings, as her work ‘uniform’ at the bar.  And Seong-jun’s excuse could be because he’s  traveling, so he may have brought no other clothes.  But there’s really no excuse for Young-ho, who wears the same sweater and dress shirt underneath every day.  And that actress Seong-jun keeps running into on three different days, she can wear the same jacket and leggings, but the same shirt too?  Perhaps Hong was thinking he could get away with this as a black and white film, or this just further underscores his theme of repetition, but this is something you notice when you see the film seven days in a row.  (Also noticed from successive viewings, along with Boram’s habit of flipping her hair each time she enters the bar Novel, Young-ho also turns around to face the group just before entering and then makes sure everyone finally heads to the table before him.)  This also hints at the shooting schedule, that perhaps the actress character did all her scenes in one day.  If I ever get the chance to meet Hong again, I hope to remember to ask him.

But now my screenings of The Day He Arrives are done.  I return to the regularly scheduled program of pedaling home from work to read with a cup of coffee rather than riding my bike to a film screening with (most often) the same beverage.  (Today I had a micro-root-beer since we are having these rare warm days in San Francisco.)  If they bring another Hong film, I’ll try to commit to a week of screenings again, but it is a bit weird that such a sedentary activity could be so exhausting.  San Francisco is a city rich in cinema, but we can’t take our theatres for granted, because there’s still the possibility that they might not be around for us to be enveloped by the light reflected back from a movie screen.  And although he’s been a prolific film director lately, (at least one film a year), I still have to cherish Hong Sangsoo’s films when I get a chance to devote a week to them.  Unlike his main characters, I’m not quick to leave Hong’s films after a viewing has been consummated.

"I watched it THIS many times" (Photo by Hilary Hart, Courtesy of The San Francisco Film Society)

The film begins with the heavily-pregnant Mitsuko (Riisa Naka) living in an anonymous apartment, making regular visits to her doctor, and placing occasional phone calls to her parents, who think that she is in California. In a photograph, we see the African-American father of Mitsuko’s unborn child, posing with his buddies in a manner that suggest he is a ‘player’. Mitsuko can only describe her former partner as, ‘kinda big and really black’, with contact non-existent since their break-up. Having accepted that she will be a single mother, but running low on money for food and health care, Mitsuko has been left to rely on her philosophy of, ‘When the wind is not blowing your way, take a nap. When the wind is blowing your way, go with it.’ It is this tried-and-tested mantra that prompts Mitsuko to take a taxi ride to an old Tokyo neighbourhood that is populated by a small number of cash-strapped tenants, running businesses that are barely scraping by. Yet this is not a random destination, as it soon becomes apparent that Mitsuko has a personal connection to this area, a ramshackle tenement slum that somehow survived the Allied bombings during World War II and now stands in-between modern high-rise developments. Although she should be taking it easy in the ninth month or her pregnancy, Mitsuko tries to rejuvenate the neighbourhood by bringing business to elderly landlady Kiyoshi (Miyoko Inagawa) and the local café, while also reconnecting with her still-smitten childhood sweetheart, Yoichi (Aoi Nakamura).

As with the clam-packing community of Sawako Decides, the tenement neighbourhood of Mitsuko Delivers is established through attention to relationships and an emphasis on the camaraderie that is necessary during a downturn. Flashbacks show the ‘slum’ in its ‘heyday’ with Kiyoshi encouraging her out-of-work tenants to pick fights or sumo wrestle as a means of sociable distraction, while she is lenient on those who are struggling to pay the rent. Present-day scenes find the area in an even more dilapidated state, with residents deeply depressed, although Ishii mines the urban mood for deadpan humour rather than despair. At the café, Yoichi and his Uncle Jiro (Ryo Ishibashi) are barely motivated to serve the occasional customers who come in for the liver and chives special, merely standing around as if they are waiting to be put out of their misery. Ishii is less sure-footed with pacing than with observation, as Mitsuko Delivers lurches into its final act after a leisurely set-up. The slapstick comedy of the last half hour feels rather forced, with lots of shouting and squabbling threatening to undo the nicely-sketched characterisation that has preceded the extended finale. However, the fact that these farcical contrivances take the characters on a road trip to Fukushima shows that the director has the best of intentions. Mitsuko Delivers is a film about (re)birth that finds hope against the backdrop of a ruptured landscape and, in the lead role, the up-and-coming Naka is simply wonderful, contributing another memorably headstrong heroine to Ishii’s oeuvre.

Mitsuko Delivers opens at the ICA London on May 11, 2012 with screenings in other regional UK theaters to follow.

Nowhere is this shift more apparent than in The Day He Arrives.  When Seong-jun returns to Kyung-jin’s apartment after a two year absence, he quickly becomes a sobbing wreck claiming he can’t live without her.  (There’s a moment in the film where the subtitles just don’t do justice to the way Seong-jun echoes ‘You, You, You!!!’ with such desperation towards Kyung-jin.)  After he says ‘I Love You, Kyung-jin’, we cut to scene of just their feet as Seong-jun leaves the apartment.  No sex, just feet, although Kyung-jin’s are naked.  It is here where Seong-jun is at his most eloquent, when he is trying to savor the moment of beauty they shared by severing off the relationship completely.  Of course, part of the humor is how insincere this desire to break-up is because Kyung-jin seeks to confirm that Seong-jun’s number hasn’t changed and Seong-jun is happy to verify this information for her.

Later, Seong-jun repeats a similar pattern with Yeo-jeon.   (This is a Hong film, after all, and that means repeat, rinse, repeat.)  When he conveys his feelings to Yeo-jeon, this time he isn’t crying but he appears delighted.  Yet soon he will negotiate with Yeo-jeon to sever this relationship as well at its most beautiful, this time refusing to give her his number.  This need to hold on to happiness by ending the relationship so that the profane of the mundane of future days together doesn’t ruin the sacred moment of consummation of one’s ‘love’ is not unique to Hong.  I recently watched Last Blossom (Choo Chang-min, 2011) on DVD and one of the two plots within the film makes a similar argument that a beautiful relationship should end before the pain of loss arises.   But Hong handles this break-it-off-before-it-breaks in a unique way, a constant repetition of repeat, cleanse, repeat.  And a quick routine at that, not even letting the relationship lather up before the cleansing rinse.

Anyone who has pursued a relationship to realize that they should end it swiftly, (but most likely, not nearly as fast as Seong-jun does here), can perhaps relate a little with what is on display in Hong’s films.  But most of us performed our variation because we realized the relationship wasn’t right eventually, then we might doubt ourselves, return for a re-think, and then realize, we were really right the first time.  But Hong’s circular display is at its core about characters who really think love is ruined by holding on to that someone.  It will never be more beautiful beyond that initial moment of blissful consummation.

Yet, many of us eventually learn, (that is, those of us who are lucky enough to learn, because some of us don’t have the wealth of opportunities at relationships as Hong’s men do), that there is a different but equally beautiful aspect of maintaining the relationship over the long term with someone we love.  Sure, you might not have the butterflies you had during that first section of courtship, but as you build a ‘home’, (in the case of the average San Franciscan, an apartment), you develop a history as you cultivate a future, and there is a different kind of joy in the reassurance of your loved one’s presence in your every day life.  This is what makes the daily activities not boring, but pleasurable.  This mundanity is not profane, but sacred.  The moments of excitement Hong’s men keep repeating might be what you sacrifice when you commit to someone you love, but it’s that very commitment that keeps you going in a different routine, one that you will eventually find more fulfilling than the elusive desire Hong’s men pursue.

In watching The Day He Arrives, now for the seventh time but the sixth time in a row, I still believe what I wrote in my chapter on The Power of Kangwon Province  for The Cinema of Japan and Korea.  (So how appropriate that the two actors from that film, Baek Jong-hak and Chun Jae-hyun, make an appearance at the end of The Day He Arrives.)  Hong’s less than exemplary characters may not resemble us, but they can pose challenges to us to do better the next time around someone we might love.  His characters might not learn this, but that doesn’t say we can’t.

What’s exciting is that these aren’t umpteenth generation VHS copies chopped into multiple parts without subtitles; they are well-preserved and rendered (several are HD) full length films with subtitles optional with YouTube’s closed captioning and interactive transcript features. One drawback I’ve found is that KOFA did not allow viewing of these films on devices of any sort, including handhelds (iPods, iPhones) or set-top boxes, so you will be confined to your computer desk or will have to hook your computer to your TV.  However, all of that is worth the chance to see the exciting range of obscure and extremely rare titles that they’ve put up: Kim Ki-young’s Woman of Fire (1971), Im Kwon-taek’s Sopyeonje (1993), Kang Dae-jin’s A Coachman (1961) and many, many more.  Simply put, to paraphrase my friend John, this is Korean film history in a single package.

Head on over to KOFA’s YouTube channel and get started watching!

I don’t feel there are very many directors for whom I could commit to this week long daily devotion.  Perhaps Aki Kaurismäki, but maybe not.  It definitely helps that Hong’s films, like Kaurismäki’s, stay below the 90 minute threshold for the most part.  When the cast of The Day He Arrives gets to the scene that was used so cleverly in reverse for the trailer, the drunken flagging of the cab in the early morning snow, I know we are close to the end.  But this being a Hong film, we are far from establishing closure for his characters.

With its shorter running time, The Day He Arrives is the perfect film to take a risk on, unlike the over 2 1/2 hour commitment that was Béla Tarr’s The Turin Horse, which recently had its own run at the San Francisco Film Society Cinema before the launching of the 55th San Francisco International Film Festival in late April.  Even with a running time that limited the number of screenings,  it looks like The Turin Horse did better than The Day He Arrives in attendence.  So far, up til the 5 pm screening of the fifth day of its run, there were only 120 folks that bothered to step away from their computers or their TVs to watch Hong’s film on film in a theatre.  I am partly responsible for 11 of those attendees, 5 for myself, and 6 for those I’ve strongly or subtly encouraged to attend.

I’d be sad about this fact if it weren’t for the fact that I, like many cinephiles, particularly fans of the less appreciated films/directors, have resolved that this is just our present state of the world.  I will enjoy time in the cinema as much as I can, even if it’s just me and one other patron, which was the case for this evening’s showing.

If anything, the loneliness of the San Francisco Film Society Cinema during The Day He Arrives resonates with Seong-jun’s lament about how few people have seen his films, even though he keeps running into people who apparently have, such as his friends, colleagues struggling in the industry, a couple of film students, and that sole non-film-industry-related fan who locks her eyes on him, and then her camera.  Similarly, even out of so few who have seen the film, I have had many conversations with my wife, my friends, a co-worker, and SF Film Society staff about the film, and, of course, here online.  As long as this can last, I won’t take the opportunities to see films like Hong’s for granted.

I didn’t grow up yelling at people, nor have I taken that into my adult years.  I yell at political figures and tools that refuse to work, but not at the people around me, especially those I care about.  I remember convincing my parents when I was in high school that it was ok to curse at the computer.  My rationalization went something like, ‘People make mistakes, and I should understand that; but computers are supposed to fucking work!’  My parents consented with the caveat of excluding two words from my swearing repertoire.  (If you’re curious, those two words were ‘Jesus’ and ‘sucks’, the later giving you a sense of the sensibilities of my parents’ generation, since I didn’t even know why that was considered a swear word.)  But this parental appeasement did result in some initially awkward moments when I began working at a software company later in life.

Although I can still be found yelling at computers, I never learned to yell at people in a demeaning, demanding way.  And I’ve strayed from folks who do.  My close friends and I have developed different ways to confront when such is required.  It’s not that we avoid our issues, we just don’t attach each other.  And it’s this different experience that has intrigued me about parts of Hong’s films – the awkward moments that erupt on occasion.

For example, when the actor Jung-won confronts our main protagonist Seong-jun about failing to follow through with a role he understood was promised to him, it comes out as a watchful tiger of rage that was waiting for a prompt to attack.  Or when Boram lashes out at Yeo-jeon for being derelict with her bar duties for yet a third time, it’s as if her lateness has been the fingernail scraping on the chalkboard of Boram’s nice demeanor.  Still, Boram is also displacing some of the anger she just received, and experienced in response, to Young-ho’s drunken judgement aroused by his own proverbial straw with the Boram he occasionally carries on his back.

Yet these outbursts don’t cause the discomfort in me that past confrontations have in Hong’s films.  Perhaps I’m just getting older and am able to bear it more.  Perhaps it’s because the first confrontation in The Day He Arrives is ridiculous – Seong-jun’s bizarre fit of that ever present curse word in Korean films, shi-bal, at the younger film students for ‘copying’ his gait and smoking habits.  Or perhaps its because of the way Jung-won’s outburst is followed after the gon-bae and restaurant signage break by such tender kindness towards Young-ho.  (So much confrontation is encouraged to dissipate by an obligatory gon-bae cheers in Hong’s films.)  And later, Jung-won even engages in a sweet exchange commending how Seong-jun has grown up, half-joking, half-serious.  It’s as if Jung-won had to get this initial grudge out into the drunken open air so he could move on in his relationship with Seong-jun.  Similarly, Young-ho’s outburst at Boram is quickly squelched in a drunken recoil of Young-ho’s body.

I’d have to go back and watch Hong’s previous films, but there seems to be a sense of forgiveness in The Day He Arrives I haven’t noted in Hong’s films before.

That’s right, instead of text musings on the film, we bring to you listeners a bonus episode of spontaneous conversation about The Day He Arrives including first time impressions, pointed (not pointy) observations, all to the accompaniment of San Francisco’s finest avant-garde kazoo players.

Email: vcinema@variedcelluloid.net

Direct link: Bonus Episode 10 – The Week Hong Sangsoo Arrives: The Second Day He Arrives.

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