Taiwan

VIFF 2024 Shorts Segment Review: Forum 3

Jon The Blogcentric1 Comment

Once again, I achieved a VIFF goal when I attended Short Forum 3. This forum of eight shorts is more international and has a wide variety of styles and subject matter.

–Jane’s In The Freezer (USA – dir: Caleb Joye): It’s a quiet day at the pier at the lake in Detroit. A woman who’s just gazing tried to develop conversation. Her name is Jane. The conversation doesn’t last long. She goes to the mall. At one store, she pretends she’s a worker and helps to assist with a customer’s purchases. While at the liquor store, she sees a man she claims is her son and tries to ide herself from him. After he’s gone, she sets up a dating profile on a website and goes to a nearby bar where she hopes to meet someone new. All the young men ignore her or reject her passes.

The main theme of this short film is about loneliness. It’s a common topic nowadays as it seems that it’s at an all-time high thanks to modern technology. In this story, we have a middle-aged woman trying to connect with someone. Anyone. No matter where she goes, she’s either ignored or shunned. She looks for constant opportunities to make some new friends or a new love time and time again and looks like she won’t stop. She also appears like she’s either trying to either hide or recover from a past where she estranged herself from her son. The film succeeds in getting the viewer to feel sorry for her and also wonder what her past was.

–My Dog Is Dead (Japan – dirs: Tasuku Matsunaga and Takehiro Senda): Riko is a young woman in the big city of Tokyo who lives with her boyfriend Yoshiki. Just recently, she received a phone call from her mother that her dog Koppe died. She has to return back to her town. Yoshiki agrees to take her there but views the trip as tedious. She’s quiet but he treats it like a road trip and they frequently squabble over the choice of radio station. At the private memorial service with Riko, her mother and Yoshiki, Riko is in tears but Yoshiki gives her an odd look.

The film is as much about the boyfriend in the relationship as it is about the trip home. Things appear normal in the relationship but that appears to change after Koppe’s death. Riko wants to mourn Koppe one last time but it appears Yoshiki thinks it’s odd. Even that change of radio stations sends a message that maybe he’s not the right boyfriend for her and has an immature side about him. It’s a story that says as much from the images as it does from the dialogue.

–Shoes And Hooves (Hungary – dir: Viktoria Traub): An animated story, pedicurist Paula has been in search for love but has always felt inferior because her upper body is human and her lower body is horse-like. She lives in a world full of full-humans, full-animals and those like her who are half-and-half. One day, she meets an alligator man named Arnold. On the first date, there’s a sense of chemistry between the two, mostly from Arnold, but Paula senses the relationship is doomed.

This is a unique story about self-image and self-acceptance. Paula needs to deal with her insecurities and her desires. With it being an animated film, it tells its story in an array of creative story telling mixed with unique imagery and metamorphosis that only animation can do. It’s as good of a creative story with a message as it is dazzling to watch for the visuals.

–Nemo 1 (Canada – dir: Alberic Aurteneche): The only documentary of the eight films here. The film is shot around the Chittagong Ship Breaking Yards in Chittagong, Bangladesh along the Bay Of Bengal where ‘dead ships’ are scrapped for recycling metal. The film gives a good look as the Nemo 1 ship is the latest ship being scrapped from the various areas being broken to how high above the waters or ground they have to work. Then words from a Bangladeshi writer are shown as images of other older scrapped ships are shown. The film ends with ugly details of this yard.

There is no dialogue or spoken word here as far as the images of the ships. Only the spoken word parts are spoken. This documentary is about the images we see and the accompanying music. We see something so big and something we don’t know if we should find disturbing or not. The inclusion of the spoken word is a philosophical message of what happens if we do wrong. Unfortunately, wrong is happening as the work is deadly and the year cuts safety corners. This documentary has a lot to say and says it in its style.

–Tayal Forest Club (Taiwan – dir: Laha Mebow): In a small Taiwanese town, a teenaged tribal boy named Yukan buys a bottle of wine at the store. He goes with his best friend Watan on a nature trek to the forest and to offer the wine to his ancestors. It’s a good escape from Yukan’s drunken father. They leave the town but not after passing the town drunk. As they go in the forest, they have fun until they learn their wine offering is missing. Within hours, the two find themselves lost in the night. What will happen? Soon a spirit man comes who looks like the town drunkard. Soon they are safe.

This is a good story of two young Taiwanese tribal teens. It’s also a reminder to us of how it’s not just in Canada and the Americas where Indigenous people or tribal peoples face discrimination. It’s a worldwide problem. There you see two teen friends who are misfits just like the other tribal peoples in their town. As they go out in their trek in the wilderness, they learned they forgot their wine offering and end up lost, but they get a connection to the nature that other Taiwanese wouldn’t know. Their tribal connection helps lead them home.

-Chuff Chuff Chuff (dir: Chao Koi Wang): A man from Hong Kong appears to be on a train asleep as the train passes through forest land. He wakes up and sees his home being like it’s inside a train car. He thinks it’s just a dream but the Cantonese-speaking woman reminds him it’s not. What he sees on the TV screen of the view from a train car is really happening.

This is a surprisingly fast film (six minutes). At first you will wonder what this film is about. I’m sure you can’t get the full message after watching a six-minute film. You will need to think about it more after watching. It appears the film is about a case of the common barrier of dreaming and reality and of how it’s not as far apart in this world. The addition of the turtle in the living room floor adds to the concept of the two wanting what’s out of reach.

-Nietzschean Suicide (Iran – dir: Payam Kurdistani): It’s in the 1930’s. The pharmacist, who is expecting his wife to give birth soon, is one who works strictly by the book and won’t play games. When he learns the town midwife is coming to him for a death wish requesting cyanide, he refutes her pleas, declining her fake prescription. Soon his son is born and he’s being sued by a client for agreeing to something ‘Nietzschean.’ He’s now ready to grant the midwife her wish in a unique way.

This is a unique drama as it does capture the cold feelings of the time. The silence adds to the intensity of the situation of the midwife’s death wish and the pharmacist caught between waiting for his son to be born and what he feels is the right thing to do. It keeps the viewer interested in what will happen next and will he give in?

-Darker (USA – dir: Matazi Weathers): Los Angeles is in a dystopian time. A pandemic has taken over and caused people to return to their homes. There’s word of a prison riot that is spiraling out of control. The riot grows to fire and unrest on the streets. At the same time, black insurgents and trans hackers along with their allies promote an uprising.

This film doesn’t exactly have a beginning, middle or end. It looks more like it captures a moment of when all hell breaks loose. Not just any hell. A hell fueled by the anger of racism and other types of discrimination. Images of the riots of 2020 and news stories talking of 1992 give the sense this film is sending a message. If we don’t solve the problem of racism and other forms of discrimination, all hell will break loose again and it will be worse than ever.

And there you go! That’s my look at the eight films as part of VIFF’s Short Forum 3. There was only one Canadian film. There were four Asian films, two American and one European. Most were dramas. There was one documentary and one animated film. All eight films are unique in their own ways and all are very creative.

2023 Oscars Short Films Review: Documentaries

Jon The Blogcentric1 Comment

Once again with the Academy Award nominations being awarded for the biggest feature-length films of the year, the AMPAS Academy also rewards the short films in three categories. I’m lucky to live in Vancouver where I can see the short films on the big screen.

The first set of films I will be focusing on is Documentaries. In each of my blogs about the short films, you will also get my predictions for which films Should Win and Will Win:

The ABC’s Of Book Banning (dirs. Sheila Nevins, Nazenet Habtezghi and Trish Adlesic) – This documentary focuses on recent regulations implemented in American school systems in the past ten years to ban certain children’s books. Most notably in Florida. There are three classifications: Restricted – disallowed to children unless permission from parent; Challenged – at risk of being banned from school libraries; and Banned – completely banned from school libraries. The books banned are mostly to do about the themes of racism and racial empowerment, sexism and female empowerment, and LGBT pride. The authors are unhappy and the children can’t fathom why they’re banned and are disappointed with the reading material they are allowed to read.

This is a smart documentary that highlights the problem from all angles. It doesn’t just show the classification system but also the books that have fallen prey to this system. We hear verses from the book and we sense why they’re banned, but still wonder what’s the problem? We hear from some of the authors of these banned books and what they have to say. We hear what the children have to say and how they can’t understand why they’re banned and what they’re left with are books with weak material. You’re left feeling for those children and the lack of knowledge they’ll be receiving. You’re also left wondering about how the USA — a nation that advertises itself as “the land of the free” — can allow for book banning to happen. I thought book banning and book burning were considered “Un-American!” Not anymore? That’s why I pick this as my Should Win and Will Win picks.

The Barber Of Little Rock (dirs. John Hoffman and Christine Turner) – In this documentary, we are introduced to Arlo Washington. He started as a barber in Little Rock, Arkansas to help raise and provide for his younger siblings after his mother died shortly after his graduation. Over time, he progressed to opening his own barber shop, then his own haircutting school, and then opening a loan company that gives loans to African Americans and other impoverished people the banks normally reject. The film not only showcases what Washington has accomplished but also interviews some of his loan customers from his bank and gets them to describe systemic racism.

The best thing about this documentary is its insightfulness. It touches on a topic we commonly hear about, but know very little of the stories of people who live it. We learn of the man who beat the odds, but he’s not hoarding all his wealth to himself. He’s a man who knows the problem and is willing to create things to empower people like never before and even fight a centuries-long problem like never before in the community. The film also reminds us that what he’s fighting is a nation-wide problem. The opinions from his interviewed clients about the topic of economic discrimination and systemic racism will open your eyes to the very people who have been hurt by this. Although Washington is doing a great job fighting it in Little Rock, he can’t fight it alone and there’s lots to be done nationwide. This documentary is very much an eye-opener.

Island In Between (dirs. S. Leo Chiang and Jean Tsien) – The film is about S. Leo Chiang, a Taiwanese-born American filmmaker, who returns to his nation of birth, but to an area he only knows from his family’s past military duties. The part of Taiwan he returns to is the Island of Kinmen. Kinmen is a set of Taiwanese islands that are closer to Mainland China than the main island of Taiwan. Actually the area of Kinmen he lives in has just a three-mile separation from the island city of Xiamen through the Tuyu Islet. As he sees this seemingly-short gap of water between the two islands and the rusty military guns that sit by the coast, he reflects how he was taught Taiwanese pride in his childhood and of anti-China propaganda he was taught. He talks of his confusion of his citizenship as he mentions of using his Taiwan passport to return to the US, but use his American passport to visit China. He talks of radio messages sending messages of freedom to the citizens of Xiamen and continue to be sent. He talks of the fear of war with Mainland China that could erupt and how tensions appeared to be easing in the last twenty years. One of the breakthroughs was a ferry system that could allow Taiwanese people to visit Mainland China that went well until the COVID pandemic hit.

This film serves as a reminder of the Cold War we forgot still exists. The Iron Curtain that was broken down in Eastern Europe in the early 1990’s overshadowed that hard-line Communism still exists in a few nations like the People’s Republic of China. Those unfamiliar with history will need to know China underwent a Cultural Revolution shortly after World War II which separated the Communist mainland from the capitalist Taiwan. The two nations have been bitter political enemies since the start. There was warfare between the two in the 1950’s. Despite the war ending many decades ago, the fear of another war still continues despite the guns rusting away on the coasts of the island. Chiang shows how all this has had a hard time for him establishing his identity. The national politics, the use of passports and the recent slow breakdown of political barriers leaving him wondering how should he identify himself? Chinese? Taiwanese? American? This is another documentary that’s insightful about a topic we so easily overlook.

The Last Repair Shop (dirs. Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers) – This film focuses on a shop in Los Angeles that repairs musical instruments. It’s not just any repair shop. This repair shop repairs musical instruments for the 80,000 school students in the Los Angeles Unified School District area free of charge. It’s the last shop of its kind left in LA. Featured are the repair people: Dana, who repairs stringed instruments; Paty, who repairs and cleans brass instruments; Duane, who takes care of woodwinds; and Steve, who repairs and tunes pianos. In the film we learn Dana is a gay man who had to be closeted in his early years, even as he did music in his prime. Paty, a single mother, first appeared to have a limited future as a music teacher until a chance to show her skills opened doors for her and a better income for her family. Duane used to be a banjo player who performed for the President of the United States. Steve learned music in his home nation of Armenia until a war in 1990 where his father was killed caused his family to flee to the US. The film also shows some of the students whom benefit from the repairs performed. Most are from underprivileged areas. The film ends with a final symphony with all.

This is one of the least heavy documentaries of the five nominated. This is a film that will remind you not to take things for granted. We learn of the students whom are benefiting from this. Students that value the music lessons and see ambition in their instruments and their lessons. Students that wouldn’t have much of a chance elsewhere, or would come at a cost. We learn of the people in charge of the shop. We learn of their backgrounds and how music either was always part of their life or changed their lives for the better. We learn of how some like Paty have this as an opportunity to beat the odds and have something better for herself and her family. As we watch the final symphony, we see how for all involved that music is not just music. It’s a crucial part of their lives and represents a future of promise for the young. This is not simply a documentary that’s light-hearted. It’s as much insightful as it is a delight to watch and enjoy.

Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó (dir. Sean Wang) – Two grandmothers. Both in-laws. One grandmother goes by the name Nǎi Nai. The other goes by the name Wài Pó. One is in her 80’s, but still feels young. The other is 94, but feels like she’s 100. They both live in the same house and sleep in the same bed. The two talk of their history and of how they first met. The two talk of how both of them, each different in their own way, manage aging and still do their best efforts to maintain a vital life. The two also talk about the fears of aging. Especially as one looks through an old personal phone list and notes how it has the numbers of those that are deceased.

This is a documentary that’s sweet, funny and sad at times. We see two grandmothers of the filmmaker who go by different names and live together. Their friendship is surprising since in-laws are known to be at odds with each other. They show how they continue to pursue vitality in their ages and will do it in their own way, whether by one doing cultural sword arts or one drinking shamelessly. They also show that they won’t shy away from some of the dark realities of aging. They know that despite the vitality they pursue and odds they aim to beat, there are some sad reminders of some realities around the corner. It’s a mix of bitter and sweet that is impressive to watch. Including the ending where one calls Sean a brat!

And there you have it. That’s my review of the five documentaries nominated in the category Best Documentary Short Film for this year’s Oscars. I know I described many of them as “insightful,” but all of them are eye-openers that will get you to see more about topics you may already be familiar with, topics you never know about or even topics you may have overlooked before.

Movie Review: The Assassin (刺客聶隱娘)

Jon The BlogcentricLeave a comment

Qi Shu is The Assassin.
Qi Shu is The Assassin.

The Assassin is one movie from the VIFF I missed out on. It’s a shame because there’s a lot of buzz that it may be nominated for an Oscar in the Best Foreign language Film category. I had the good fortune to see it being repeated just two weeks later.

Nie Yinniang is a female assassin from the Tang Dynasty of the 8th Century A.D. Yinniang has always been good at carrying out her duties as an assassin and is very loyal to the orders given by Jiaxin, a nun who has raised her since the age of ten.

However she faces a new task as Jiaxin orders her to kill corrupt government officials. However each time she is sent, she displays mercy. Even if she assaults them, she does not kill them. This especially infuriates Jiaxin and she gives her a final assignment to test her loyalty. She is sent to the Northern Chinese province of Weibo where she is ordered to kill Tian Ji’an: her cousin she has once been betrothed to. Even before she is sent on that mission, she had heard news that Tian’s wife was pregnant. The ending does come as one would expect but it comes off as fitting for the film.

There was a time when the film was labeled reminiscent of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I’ll admit before I myself came to the movie, I also had the same hopes. It is in a lot of ways where one is taken back to the China of the past, the film has a mythic feel of its own and the film has a female fighter. However the film isn’t as much of an epic, it isn’t full of a big score nor does it have the big fights featured in Crouching Tiger. Some people also expecting the same action may be disappointed and find the film moves at too slow of a pace.

Now enough of what The Assassin isn’t. What it is is a very picturesque film that is a reminder of many mythological tales of the ancient past set in ancient China. Here it is a story where an assassin trained to kill is tested between what she is commanded to do and what she knows is right in her heart. Yes, she’s capable of carrying out her actions in surely an action-packed manner but her true rival is actually her conscience. Some people may become a bit impatient in waiting for the next fight scene but the fights are not the top focus. It’s the story and the perceived slowness is actually meant to remind us of the intensity of the situation.

This is a very good work from veteran Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien. He is already an accomplished director in his own right with A City of Sadness winning the Golden Lion at the 1989 Venice Film Festival and five previous films being entered at Cannes Film Festivals of the past. This film won him the Best Director award at this year’s Cannes Festival. It’s evident to see why as he makes careful decisions here both in directing and co-writing with three other writers on how to not just have the audience watch the story but also feel the feeling of the main protagonist. He did a very good job here.

Also adding to the quality of the story is Shu Qi. she is an accomplished actress back in Hong Kong and her experience is shown in her ability to make the character of Yinniang work for the story. Chang Chen also does a good job as the nun who seeks vengeance. The costuming and sets, both natural and constructed, fit the film beautifully and perfectly and give it the right setting for the story. Lim Giong didn’t have too much of a score in the film but it fit the film well.

I also chose to see The Assassin because it was a film with very good chances of earning and Oscar nomination in the Best Foreign Language Film category. It had already earned nominations in that category for the Golden Satellite and Critics Choice awards. Less than two weeks ago, the Oscar shortlist of nine for that category was revealed and it did not make the cut. However don’t rule it out in terms of the categories of Production Design, Cinematography, Costuming and Make-Up.

The Assassin isn’t an epic as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is nor is it as action-packed as many would hope. Nevertheless it is a very good story and it is put together well. I’m impressed.