MIFF Day 9
Paper Solider
As I said to another festival-goer after the screening, I really like the film, but I'm not entirely sure why. The story of the men and women behind the USSR's Cosmonaut program, it's mainly the story of a doctor slowly cracking under the pressure and the effect it has on his two wives. Wives unaware of the other's existence until near the end of the film. But even that isn't really the film in anything more than the loosest sense. It's a series of vignettes, told through elaborately staged single tracking shots (the Russians love their long takes), that capture the personalities of the people, small stories of victory and failure, the story doesn't so much advance as move in the background. But the cinematography is gorgeous, and the acting is excellent. Comparisons to Tarkovsky are misplaced however, long takes may have been a mark of his style, but he created moments in time with very formal control of the elements of the shot. Each moment signified something. Paper Solider doesn't have that sense of significance to its compositions, it's more an extended moment to capture the chaos of so many people communicating at cross purposes all at once. I'm not sure what it all amounts to, but I enjoyed every minute of it.
John Gollings: Eye for Architecture
An interesting 50 minute doco about photographer John Gollings. He's a fascinating personality, lively, engaged and always willing to speak about his work. His photography is amazing, and this is a good insight into his working methods and the projects he's been a part of. Particularly excellent is seeing him try to photograph a stadium in Shanghai, which as it turns out, isn't actually finished construction. The shots he creates are beautiful, and the creativity with which he disguises the fact it's a construction site in instructional.
A Loving Friend
The screening had to be abandoned due to technical difficulties, but the film will definitely warrant a proper viewing whenever it becomes available. Donald Friend was a well regarded artist who also happened to be a paedophile preying on the boys of Bali. But even today his supporters will claim he wasn't a "bad man", or at the least avoid discussing the dark side of his personality. The film charts the development of the idea of a "cultured paedophile", someone who is accepted rather than condemned because of their artistic output. It's a damning piece of work, just on the strength of the little we got to see, and is definitely going to be a talking point if anyone ever gets the guts up to show it anywhere. After all the controversy over paedophile priests, it is perhaps a good time to start to examine the intellectual and artistic world and the double-standards that appear to be maintained. After all, Roland Barthes was a major contributor to literary theory, but that doesn't mean he shouldn't have gone to prison for the things he did.
As I said to another festival-goer after the screening, I really like the film, but I'm not entirely sure why. The story of the men and women behind the USSR's Cosmonaut program, it's mainly the story of a doctor slowly cracking under the pressure and the effect it has on his two wives. Wives unaware of the other's existence until near the end of the film. But even that isn't really the film in anything more than the loosest sense. It's a series of vignettes, told through elaborately staged single tracking shots (the Russians love their long takes), that capture the personalities of the people, small stories of victory and failure, the story doesn't so much advance as move in the background. But the cinematography is gorgeous, and the acting is excellent. Comparisons to Tarkovsky are misplaced however, long takes may have been a mark of his style, but he created moments in time with very formal control of the elements of the shot. Each moment signified something. Paper Solider doesn't have that sense of significance to its compositions, it's more an extended moment to capture the chaos of so many people communicating at cross purposes all at once. I'm not sure what it all amounts to, but I enjoyed every minute of it.
John Gollings: Eye for Architecture
An interesting 50 minute doco about photographer John Gollings. He's a fascinating personality, lively, engaged and always willing to speak about his work. His photography is amazing, and this is a good insight into his working methods and the projects he's been a part of. Particularly excellent is seeing him try to photograph a stadium in Shanghai, which as it turns out, isn't actually finished construction. The shots he creates are beautiful, and the creativity with which he disguises the fact it's a construction site in instructional.
A Loving Friend
The screening had to be abandoned due to technical difficulties, but the film will definitely warrant a proper viewing whenever it becomes available. Donald Friend was a well regarded artist who also happened to be a paedophile preying on the boys of Bali. But even today his supporters will claim he wasn't a "bad man", or at the least avoid discussing the dark side of his personality. The film charts the development of the idea of a "cultured paedophile", someone who is accepted rather than condemned because of their artistic output. It's a damning piece of work, just on the strength of the little we got to see, and is definitely going to be a talking point if anyone ever gets the guts up to show it anywhere. After all the controversy over paedophile priests, it is perhaps a good time to start to examine the intellectual and artistic world and the double-standards that appear to be maintained. After all, Roland Barthes was a major contributor to literary theory, but that doesn't mean he shouldn't have gone to prison for the things he did.
posted by Andrew Lee at 11:12 PM
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