A Few of my Favourite Things

The wall of talent

Director Jazz in Love

Director of Sapi

                  Director of Prologue to the Great Desaparecido  & Norte, the End of History

Director of Transit

Director of Sana Dati (If Only)

Director of

Why Don't You Play in Hell?

Director of Our Sunhi & Nobody's Daughter Haewon

Director of Moebius

Director of Safe

Director of Mystery Road

These are some of my favourite directors from Busan.
Certainly not all of them and in no particular order.
But hey! What a bevy of talent and then you look at the whole wall....WOW!
Certainly not a veteran of festivals, esp on this international scale but I was a pig in shit at Busan and if you are partial to cinema of the east I think you would be too. Exciting stuff, so much to see.

With stars in my eyes I'm trying to take a little bit away

Kim Ki Duk is all over BIFF

Moebius

Almost 90min of no dialogue but certainly not a silent film.
Par for the course, Kim Ki Duk (김기덕) ROARS in this film. And as the man says himself conversation is made up of laughing, crying and screaming and there is plenty of this in Moebius, so the characters do speak!
Initially banned in South Korea this is the follow up film after Pieta which picked up the Golden Lion at Venice (1st Korean film ever) and like Pieta it's in your face and confronting but also it has some quite funny moments. Mind you I questioned myself that I was laughing (it'll be a lifelong inquiry). Moebius really does take you on a journey into the weird, the perverse, the unspoken realm of human nature. A place where things aren't quite what they seem, recognisable but broke? Sometimes the bumpy road is the track worth taking.

Lee Eun-woo (이은우) is amazing as the mother and the lover. At BIFF this year I saw her play 4 roles, 2 in Moebius, one in Godsend and as herself in 2 x Q&As. Wow, she is good. It was retrospective that I learnt she played the two roles in this film. Not for a moment watching the film did I pick it, a clear sign of good acting, being totally immersed in the character.
In both roles she plays an unhinged siren, totally seductive, totally dangerous! Neither is similar in any way demonstrating her great range, she is 100% given to this film. it is rare for me to hunt down films through their actors but in this case I will watch anything that she is in.
Cho Jae-Hyun (조재현) as the father is the instigator of this torrid tale, succumbing to carnal lust but once his wife finds out his character becomes quite weak and soon, quite literally, impotent. Another great performance portraying the horror of witnessing the cause & effect of his actions on others. He never regains his mantle of head of the family always wracked by guilt, always trying to make amends. Very powerful, non-heroic stuff.

Lee Eun-woo, Cho Jae-Hyun & Kim Ki Duk post Moebius Q&A BIFF 2013

Perhaps Suh Yeong Ju (서영주) is the only innocent in this world. Mother extracts revenge on father through son.
Oh yeah that is, she chops his dick off! With no manhood he is subject to much ridicule and humiliation at the hands of many but his father sympathise (I wonder why?). He liases with dad's lover, he sleeps with mother and progressively that innocence is eroded away.
With dad's help he learns to live without that which defines a man, he learns to achieve orgasm through other means. So much has been written about the chop, his, his dad's and the local punks (how many dicks can you chop in the one film?) but I'm more interested in how they all learn  to get pleasure from pain.
Google can teach you anything and in this case dad learns these dark arts from endless late night surfing.
The results are pretty gruesome. Have you ever watched someone rub themselves raw with a rock?
But it gets better. Dad's lover learns how to pleasure the son via a dagger in the back. What starts out as truly brutal turns humorous as she masturbates the dagger and soon he is overcome with ecstatic pleasure and of course it is a happy ending!

So you kinda get the idea, Moebius is pretty weird shit but it is also cloaked in ample good filmmaking, great performances, great visuals, many many great moments and after the film hearing the master talk about this film was quite amazing. Director Kim spoke of the struggle to raise enough money to make this film. Now this amazed me, even he of such high standing and achievement has to scratch in the dirt to find the funds. He spoke of the digital revolution and how he by-passed a DOP because the cameras are small enough for him to operate himself. Wow! and this helped him communicate with the actors on a more intimate and creative level, it allowed him to make the film quicker (ie less money) and it allowed him to forgo having to translate his thoughts into words in order for that DOP to then capture his vision on film. Makes a lot of sense really.
At no point was there ever a question about quality when I was watching, format or craft.

Moebius.... not for everyone that's for sure but a whole lot more than a controversial film.
Kim Ki Duk.... can't wait to see what's next but will continue to view the back catalogue till it arrives.

Film Fuel, Food Found 먹다

So, of course, in between the BIFFo sessions one must eat and between Centum City & Haeundae there was plenty of choice. On the whole cheap and plentiful, you pick.
But it took a few expeditions to discover the fresh food, not that I could cook (lack of facilities) but there is something comforting about fresh produce and in the case of Busan something totally exciting and fascinating.
Just take a look.

Snowpiercer does BIFF

Wowie Cowie, we're talk'n blockbuster on steroids.
Yet to be shown in the western world but so ripe to be the crossover hit, I was privilleged enough to see the director's cut because you guys at home will see a different version. The foreign film butcher/distributor Harvey Weinstein has the rights to the film in our territories, and he has the final edit rights too and I can guarantee it will be differnet. This is not just my opinion, Director Bong Joon Ho echoes the same sentiments.

Bong Joon Ho

The scenario is truly fantastic. The world has frozen over after a botched attempt to halt global warming and the only people alive are on a special purpose built train (a sorta Noahs Ark) that takes a year to travel around the world. If the train stops, they all die. The train is a complete and sustainable ecosystem. They have been on the train for 17 years.

Reflecting society the train has the haves and the have nots. The story starts in the tail end of the train where life is most shitful. Cramped, squalid, down trodden and fully resentful, these people are ripe for rebellion and the film follows their bloody struggle up through the train to get to the engine and hence have control of the train. It's gotta a lot of suspense and action and it's a rollicking tale.
Most of the film is in English and most of the cast are not Korean.

It's a real privilege to hear from the director his intentions after just seeing the film and I was lucky enough to hear him speak on two different occasions. The second time with Quentin Tarantino.

 There was a little bit of controversy about this film being screened at BIFF this year as it has had it's commercial cinema release in South Korea already earlier this year and the fact that it is a big budget blockbuster commercial type film. But the idea was that it is set for a large international release and that BIFF is attended by a largeish international audience and certainly at the screening I attended I think about half the audience were international. I for one very much welcomed the decision to show it. The film is a gas!

Tarantino & Bong shooting the breeze

East Meets West and Other Such Long Distance Lov'n Things

Jazz in Love
Long distance, cross cultural love affairs aren't 100% new as documentary subjects but when it is a homosexual relationship and we're talking marriage between a German and a Filipino man then we are in new and interesting territory. The real trump for this observational, linear journey is Jazz, the young, handsome and charismatic Filipino man. He is very watchable and fun to be with. He is in Love!

This is a very earnest and honest documentary directed by Baby Ruth Villarama and it opened the 2013 Cinemalaya Festival earlier this year, quite an honour. Her initial idea was to document Pinoy brides marrying German men, which is an interesting phenomena but really has been done to death (Asian bride weds Western man) and the idea spawned whilst she was taking German language lessons (preparing for her time at the 3rd Documentary Workshop conducted by the Goeth Institut).

But something else kept happening, Jazz, Ernesto Tigaldao Jr, kept popping up in the background for he too was studying German as a visa prerequisite to moving to Germany and marrying his beau, Theo (something not allowed in the Phillippines). Slowly it dawned that this was the subject for the documentary, the stakes were higher and he was more compelling. Plus gay marriage rights is a very now issue.
I love this about doco making, you are pursuing one thread but there is another that constantly shows up and is infinitely more interesting. It takes a brave and insightful filmmaker to throw away the original idea in order to take up the alternative, even with a lot of film already in the can.


Baby Ruth did exactly this, which says a lot about her as filmmaker, documentarian and person.
No doubt her years of experience, in drama and documentary had a lot to do with it as did her being surrounded by good people at Voyage Studios, like Nani Naguit, who did sound/composing and her husband Chuck Gutierrez, who was producer and editor.

Baby Ruth, Ms Cho (translator), Nani & Chuck doing the Q&A thing at BIFF 2013

We pick up the story with Theo arriving from Germany and it is a story of two men very much in love. They hang out together and go to their favourite places, reminiscing about their last time together here. The guys met online and that is where they have spent the majority of time, this being Theo's 2nd visit to the Philippines. Jazz's family have organised a large family celebration in the form of a luncheon BBQ and it looks like everyone has turned out to feast and fiesta.
But this is where we start to see that things aren't all rosy in paradise. Theo seems slightly overwhelmed and somewhat withdrawn at the party, maybe one too many aunts have implored him to look after Jazz when he's in Germany, "he has no one over there"

During a lengthy, though poignant karaoke session Theo sits watching quietly as we the audience start to read doubt on his face, Jazz seems oblivious, totally comfortable amongst his family.
There is one thing that Jazz has requested of Theo, he must ask his parents for permission to wed his son. It is part of the romance that makes up Jazz and seems to be a perfectly reasonable request but for Theo it becomes a sticking point. He seems sure that Jazz's father will say no and doesn't see the point. The party goes on and we wait for the moment and the tension builds.
What people will do for love is a central theme of this documentary with the added twist of two cultures and the tyranny of distance.

Although shot in a very respectful, non interventional, fly on the wall way, one does wonder if the camera plays a role in the outcome of this film, would the end result be different in its' absence? Are the characters playing up to the camera or is three becoming a crowd? This is a further tension that plays out in the film in the later half.

Though Baby Ruth just followed these two lovers wherever they chose to go and recorded whatever they chose to do she has still put her mark on this film in the form of subtle metaphor. My favourite being the sunrise Theo has to see, because everyone has been raving to him about it. It's a special location and he makes a special trip and when he gets there what he sees is fully a reflection of where he is at as a person. It's a great moment and quite inspired filmmaking.
Another is the use of timelapse panoramas in the beginnings of the film, it's a metaphor for things really moving but toward the end of the film such shots are now in real time. These devices are subtle but they are there and they help drive the story of these two men in love.
 

Jazz & Theo, getting amongst the lillys

Jazz in Love is gentle yet poignant, subtle but profound and a great insight into cross cultural, long distance love affairs and the nuances that come into play. 
A very beautiful portrait of two trying to be one

It's not all Films at Busan

but it is all ART

Day 2 BIFFo

Touched by the hand of God
or in my case Sion Sono
Why Don't you Play in Hell?    Hell Yeah, why not?
The prodigious filmmaker who has failed to disappoint just tops it once again.
Well the two masks of drama have one who weeps (Sono's usual) and one who laughs (Sono's strength in this film) The brutality is still there, the gore is aplenty along with buckets of blood but the humour is dished up in spades. Plus all the coincidences of life for all the characters, the looped de dos, the brilliance of what was random at the start becomes profound by the end. the absolute fucking fantastical. Fans will not be disappointed but also those who are fresh and new to the master will love this feast. It's got it all! The Yakuza gang that swaps their 'western style' dress for the more traditional Kimono, Samurai sword slashing excesses, gigantic gun battle extraordinaire, film geek 'fuck bombers' death by broken glass....in the mouth, film god homages and a really catchy toothpaste ad.

and then at the end of the film in he walked for a twenty minute Q&A. The cinema went wild!

 

as did I. My Korean failed me and my Japanese is shit but sometimes just being in the presence of a holly one is enough.

Oh yeah and I literally was touched by him when he signed my ticket.

Pretty hard to top that one

but the next stop was Hannah Espia's Transit

This was its international premier after winning best film (+ a whole lot of other awards) at the Cinemalaya 2013 'New Breed' category in the Philippines. It's the story of Filipino migrant workers in Israel and specifically their children that have been born there. In 2009 there was a law passed that did not recognise these kids as Israeli and they started deporting them to their parents country of origin. Transit follows the life of one such broken family and their vain attempts to dodge the authorities. It's about identity and dislocation, striving for a better life but staying true to your roots. Visually it captures life in Israel, the coast of Jaffa, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv beautifully  but it also captures the tension and paranoia of those with something to hide. 

Hannah's background as an editor comes to the fore when she retrospectively decided to structure the film as 5 points of view of the same story. Sometimes we see the same scenario from a different view but we always get a little bit more of the story with each character. I love this sort of structure, reminiscent of of Hong Sang soo film but not quite as bold. It works very powerfully with this story and is backed up with strong performances.     

I'm used to writing about Mercedes Cabral in association with Brillante Mendoza's films but here she is as the recently arrived immigrant worker with no real permit. Very understated but great performance. A big tick to the director. But the real scene stopper is peanut, the little boy who eventually gets deported. his story is but one of five points of view of the same scenario but he is brilliant! Another stand out is Jasmine Curtis Smith as the older sister of peanut, truly a star to watch.

Jasmine Curtis Smith

Transit ticks a lot of boxes. Structure, Visuals and Performance  are all very strong and although the story is one of hopelessness you are not left at the end without hope. This is a very accomplished debut feature for the director and quite a beautiful experience to watch.

A great way to finish the day and then a very informative Q&A post film.

Hannah Espia & producer Paul Soriano