Love & Peace in Bucheon

So I moseyed on down to Bucheon the other day just an hour and a bit by subway, south of Seoul.
BIFAN was on and i wanted to see this International Fantastic Film Festival for myself. Especially since they were presenting a Sion Sono retrospective, I am (not) Sion Sono.

I was only there for two days so I decided to see his two new films Tag and Love and Peace but all his classics were showing on the big screen and the man himself was in town to do Q&A's and a master class or two.

 When I saw Love and Peace, he was there to answer questions after the film. They translated each question and answer into Korean and Japanese and then a small group of us English speakers had our own personal translator on the fly. Not only a really fascinating film, very unlike a Sono film but just great to hear him break down the production process and hear his thinking behind some of the decisions.

and afterwards he patiently signed autographs for the throng of fans and then even allowed photo ops for the patient ones. Yes I was among them and waited till the end and we had a very stilted but warm chat. Part Japanese, part Korean and part English. I have enjoyed his films for a long time and it was so wonderful to meet such a gentle soul who is so imaginative and creative and prolific.

 You can read my review of Love and Peace for Filmed in Ether here

touched by the hand of God!

As for Tag, well maybe that's another day? But I will be seeing The Virgin Psychics at BIFF 2015 in October, actually in a few days. I hope one day to get back to BIFAN and immerse fully into their program because this massive highlight was only one of many. A really cool festival

Made in Australia

Matthew Victor Pastor is a little fucker!
Well he is as the staring role in this his debut feature, Made in Australia.
As Director he is earnest and original as actor; raw, repulsive and compelling.
This visual opus magnum is overloaded with hubris, style and spunk! but that's not a bad thing.

The title sequence  is a case in point cut in among the rugged, rocky Victorian coast which once bought tragedy to many hopeful arrivals to Australia in the form of shipwreck and death Pastor reveals himself as naked, scarred and emotionally bare bar his trusty tape recorder in an epic schlong shot and then again as a bit too close up shot!

The Epic Schlong shot that says so much!!!

But moving beyond the obvious is actually a compelling narrative, kinda coming of age, of a randy Asian Australian trying to find his place in the world, yeah and it's a pretty fucked up world too.
Set in two countries, going from the land of Oz to Hong Kong and then back again.
Is he home? Where is home? What is home? What is love?
His quest for belonging drives this personal story and it drives him to despair. The scars on his body run deeper than his flesh but we see how he gets them in a series of self abusive acts and experiences where having a good fuck seems to replenish him so he can do some more.

"Please make me come so I don't have to feel pain"

 

He is on a quest and by definition it must be dangerous and there must be discovery. And there are plenty of metaphoric dragons, witches, libertines and damsels but he is no shining white knight.

Matthew and Janice just working it all out

As director he burs the lines of documentary and fiction with a lot of the characters being themselves. There is Pastor, Mum, Dad but the standout is Janice, his Hong Kong girlfriend who shows him love but also delivers heartbreak and treachery in equal doses. Her performance is raw and real, sometimes uncomfortably so. She is the reason behind this film and she is the reason why this film works so well. These four people are referred to as 'Players' not actors, not real people. Is that Pastor trying to fuck our brain or is it more raw unbridled honesty?

The rest of the cast play roles that are based on real life events, recreations but we never really find out the extent of the artistic license, if any? All actors and players deliver the story with an uncanny sense of melodrama, slightly reminiscent of Lynches Sandy and Geoffry in Blue Velvet. It's awkward at first but as the story rolls it becomes an essential ingredient with them all walking that fine line of bad acting and emotive performance, some better than others but it's a style throughout the film and the style is triumphant when the curtain drops.

Janice being with the pain of love

Striving to tell an emotive story whilst maintain an original style to the filmmaking is pulled across the line with some just fabulous musical scoring from Andrew Tran and Matt Vongsykeo. Sound and music really make some of the scenes so powerful it's a testament to these musicians but also Pastor's editing and placement of these pieces and also the matching with the shots. Some great moments of drifting away with the sorrow to be abruptly pulled back into the violence.

 Check the trailer out but.....

......if you happen to be in Melbourne this coming weekend it is screening on Channel 31 (God Bless its Soul) Tune in at midnight on the 26th of September 2015. It's part of the MUFF Features which have been screening in this slot for a while now.

This is why we love community television.
Check it all out.








or if you are in AU you can buy it here

BIFFology 101

          Why BIFF 2015?
                                                        Well why not I say!
          Not enough you say?
                                                       OK then, well try this on for size.
First up, 3 X the usual suspects.

Hong Sang Soo presents his latest Right Now Wrong Then.
Professor, pretty girl, time warps, a palace & drinking. Same old, same old? Apparently not!
By all accounts it's a cracker, winning awards at Lorcarno (Golden Leopard & Best Actor)

this is not a trailer, just a still

Kim Ki Duk has a new one called Stop. Inspired by Fukoshima and set in Tokyo.
Looking forward to an improvement on last years One on One.

• Tsubasa Nakae  & Natsuko Hori 

Sion Sono has The Virgin Psychics, this will be the third new Sono film I have seen this year!!!!
Looks like a blend of Love & Peace & Tag??? But that's just a wild guess from the trailer.
Lookk forward to more tough school girls and his high kicking, up skirt signature shots.

ohhhh Sono!!!!

One summer blockbuster
Last year there were a few of these shown, this year it is Assassination by Choi Dong-Hoon, the man who bought us The Thieves. One of the big summer hits (over 10 millionat the box office) but they haven't shown it with subtitles yet.
Set in the Japanese occupation, it's all about an assassination squad in the Korean resistance.

Movie Poster

One from China (at least)
The Assassin by Hou Hsiao-Hsien, I now everyone saw it at MIFF but I was stuck here in Seoul.
Ethereal, period murder? One to watch according to the grapevine.

movie poster

A couple of classics
Seven Samurai, from Akira Kurosawa, the film that became The Magnificent Seven

the gang

The Housemaid by Kim Ki Young (original) 1960. Loved the remake so looking forward to the original in lucious Black & White.

tension?

And lastly for now.
Brillante Mendoza brings his latest, Taklub. Always interested in his work, a legend of the Philippines. This is another of his films with Nora Aunor, another legend.

movie poster

I'll be heading down for the first six days (I know but logistics & commitments) and am planning to see all these and fill in the gaps with a smattering of new Korean cinema.
Such a great festival and always lots of fun in between the movies. See you there?

DMZ International Documentary Festival

official poster for 2015

Up near the demilitarised zone between North and South Korea, during September, there is a great little documentary festival that goes on.

It's about an hour out of Seoul to get to the first location of Baekseok and then a further 30-40min bus ride to get to Paju, the second location.
The split locations make for some logistical difficulties but they do provide a shuttle bus that leaves on the hour every hour and is comfortable and free.

2015 marks 70 years of the division of Korea and that topic was a special focus for the festival.
Time and logistics prevented me from seeing the lions share of the program, which is a shame because it attracts some very good documentarys.

This is its seventh year and this is what I saw.

The full program can be seen here

Aim High in Creation by Anna Broinowski

the Sydney cast in training for their film alla Kim Jong il style

Off to North Korea to learn the art of propaganda filmmaking from the master himself, though posthumously through his written manifesto.
Why? To stop fracking in her Sydney backyard of course.
It's a great premise for a film and it is a pretty wild ride with Anna getting great access to the North Korean film industry and some of its greatest exponants. Actors, Directors and Composers and they all contribute to her effort of making an anti fracking film that will stop the industry in it's tracks. The film is split between her fact finding efforts in Pyeongyang and her directorial efforts back in Sydney. The time in North Korea is by far the most interesting and entertaining part of this doco.
7 won out of 10

Holy Working Holiday by Lee Hee-won

the pain of harvesting onions in Gaton QLD

A Korean in Australia and her and her friends attempts to get an extension on their working visa by accumulating the hours working on farms in NSW and QLD. Sounds romantic....NOT! This is an autobipgraphical film, though the filmmaker hides behind the camera most of the time, of dreams smashed, hopes dashed and inspiration lost. It's just tough shitty work but it is a great insight into the Korean perspective of Australia compared to their reality back at home and what they want in life.
A little slow and messy at times but kinda interesting.
not too many won out of 10

B-Movie: Lust & Sound in West Berlin 1979-1989 
Directors: Klaus Maeck, Jörg A. Hoppe, Heiko Lange Story by Mark Reeder

another wild night in West Berlin, ah the life.

 This was a very entertaining insight into life in West Berlin at a pretty exciting musical point in history. It's more or less the memoirs of Mark Reeder and he has some pretty good memories. He transplanted himself from Manchester and got to hang out with some pretty cool musicians, managed a few bands and lived a pretty full life in a decadent time. Nick Cave was his room mate, he organised Joy Division's one and only tour of the city, knocked around with Blixa Bargeld of Einstürzende Neubauten and The Bad Seeds fame and generally got to indulge in his favourite pastime of getting around in military attire more or less unnoticed. Bowie & Iggy Pop were there, Christiane F was there, Kraftwork were there and the list goes on and on. This was a city of seething creatives who took no prisoners in their pursuits of Art for arts sake. The doco is heavily stylised and laden with cool music and sights. 
8 Deutsche Marks out of 10.

Bicycle City by Kong Mi-Yeun

cycling in Seoul

 A pretty in depth study into the city of Seoul from the perspective of how it's not a cycling city.
 I wont score it cause I didn't see it all but it was very interesting and went into topics of the high rise living in the city and the design of the motorways. People interviewed were bike frame manufacturers, bike couriers, recreational cyclists etc. Overall it was presenting a very interesting thesis but was taking a long time to make its points. However unlike the other three docos this was the only one that wasn't a personal retelling of a story, it let its people tell the story rather than the filmmaker narrating the events. A nice point of difference but not perfect at all.

The festival also has a DMZ Documentary Fund and I spent an afternoon watching the hopefuls pitching their projects. These come from not only Korea but also from greater Asia. Each filmmaker received post pitch feedback from the selection panel  and some pretty interesting projects were presented. The lucky ones will make up part of the program next year. It's a great initiative and also ensures plenty of fresh and vibrant films for the festival.

Documentary is an emerging sector of the South Korean Film Industry and festivals like this one are ensuring that it will continue to grow and strengthen. I only wish I had the time to fully immerse into this years program and get more of the gold. Maybe next year?

Hanging Ten at Yang Yang

A while ago I posted a great video of winter surfing in South Korea presented by YESiSURF.com & Another Day.
Very inspirational!

The other day I went on a road trip to the east coast to seek out those very waves. Not quite winter but the beginning of Autumn.
First stop was Sokcho and it was great to sea the ocean again but the waves weren't really surfing friendly. A nice swell but it was all beach break. No bars seemed to be evident. Having said that it was really nice to get wet and roll around in the swell.

It was heading south toward Gangneung that the real gold was discovered.
Just little fishing villages and seaside towns are where it is really at.

Hajodae was a beautiful sleepy town that had a promising point break and a big stretch of beach heading up to the north. A bit choppy on the day but good size. There were a few places that had boards, mainly for hire dotted around the point. But this was out of season so most were closed.

Further south is Yang Yang and a couple of little towns around here seemed to be the place.

Gisamun on the 38th parallel was were the mushroom navigation light in the video lives. Mainly a fishing village but there were surf shops dotting up to! They had some really nice boards for sale and hire and lots of paraphernalia. Chatted to a local or too and they had some interesting yarns to weave.
But of all things on this day the swell was too big. 3 meter and it was crashing over the breakwall. The evening before  there had been a number of people out getting some waves but I arrived just on dusk. Too late.

checking some of the hardware

That magic mushroom

quite a large swell that day!

 A bit further south is another sleepy town that also has some good breaks but I was just passing through this one.

 

All of these places are overpopulated in the height of summer but at this time you had the run of the joint. Gotta get back and this time have a surf but in the mean time I will just keep watching that video and dreaming. Not that I want to do the snow thing but in season it looks like a great place for a wave and really promising for a country that is just at the beginning of its surfing history.

Postscript: if you want the ultimate in uncrowded waves there is a group that organises surfing tours of the North Korean East Coast!!!!!   check it out here  just scroll down for some English 

Filmmaking Legend or just Lav Diaz?

The power of networking and the generosity of filmmaking.
When I reviewed Lav Diaz's documentary Storm Children Vol#1 for Filmed in Ether not only was I startled by this amazing, passive observation of typhoon Yolanda's (Haiyan) carnage and the unflinching gaze upon the children in among it but questions kept coming up about the techniques used and the approach he used to dissect this disaster. What was the thinking behind this film, cause I found myself speculating endlessly. I've already seen a few of his narrative films like Norte, the End of History, From What is Before and a short I caught at BIFF, so I kinda know a little of his style but this was the first doco I'd seen.

A while ago I'd had the pleasure of interviewing Sigrid Andrea P Bernardo for a review on her fabulous film Anita's Last Cha Cha and I caught it on the big screen, along with her, at the Seoul Women's International Film Festival. It was from these meetings that I learnt that she had a close relationship with Lav Diaz and a lot of admiration for him too. She even cast him in her latest feature, Lorna (more of that latter). So it was with some apprehension that I asked her to pass on my details and a request to ask him some questions. She obliged and a bit later so did he.

Wow, what a great thing to do cause his answers to my questions were fascinating and it just fleshed out the film in a quite perfect way. I just love the generosity of filmmakers in a situation like this. Thank you Lav and Thank You Sigrid.
Here's the review here

The Serenity of Kaeamsa Temple 개암사

Somewhere just out of JeonJu, South Korea
One of life's treats is when places of delight are shared amongst friends.
I had such an experience not long ago when a native JeonJuen took me to her favourite temple just near her hometown in the countryside outside of JeonJu.
This temple has been in existence for over 1000yrs, it is small but indeed very special.
The setting is serene, tucked under the twin peaks of a mountain surrounded by the forest.

Grand Entrance

Lush Forest

Twin Peaks

The inner sanctum

beautiful carved dragons adorn the ceiling

 

This statue is over 800 years old

some artistic license

the back end of the gates