More movies

That day, on the beach (1983) Edward Yang

A thousand peace clouds encircle the sky (2003) Julian Hernandez

The road to love (2011) Remi Lange

Dust in the wind & The boy from Fengkui Revisited

Breathless by Godard

More movies, and guatemala city

In Jimo, read HHH's interviews

On the plane back to Guatemala city
watched: Crosscurrent (Chang Jiang Tu)

In airbnb
also watched

A summer at Grandpa's  HHH
Maurice (1987) James Ivory
My last round (2011)- no english/chiness subtitle
Taekwondo (2016) only watched first 30 minutes then randomly picked a few
Esteros (2016) Papu Curotto

Now reading
Pasolini Requiem (biography)

In Guate,
Having problem with jetlag - strange
Neck pain
sore throat
etc

More movies

in china now for my dad's 80 year birthday

watched a few films on the airplane:
1. silence by martin scorcesse 2016
2. Harmonium by Koji Fukada 2016
3. song of the phoenix by Wu Tianming 2013

More movies

BAL by Semih Kapolanoglu 2010

Suzaku by Naomi Kawase 1997

Voyage of the red balloon by Hou Hsiao Hsian 2007

Rewatched:
Blue is warmest color & tropical malady

More movies...and leaving brazil today

Oedipus Rex by Pier paulo pasolini (1967)
masterpiece

The gospel according to St. Matthew by Pier Paulo Pasolini (1964)

Millenium Mamabo by Hou Hsiao Hsian 2001

Three times by Hou Hsiao Hsian 2005
masterpiece

Street of shame by Kenji Mizuguchi 1956 - his last movie

Things to come by Mia Hansen-love 2016

Bad blood by Leos Carax 1986
masterpiece

Kohei Oguri

The Sting of death (1990)

Muddy river (1981) First work!!!
Masterpiece...

More movies ahead

Come undone (2000) revisit Sebastien Lifshitz
Going South by Sebastien Lifshitz 

Two movies similar style, with broken cuts, scenes, broken sequences...

Dust in the wind (revisit) (Hou Hsiao Hsian)

The way he looks (2014) by Daniel Ribeiro

More

Andrei Rublev (Andrei Tarkovski) 1969

Masterpiece
8 chapters for person growth/experience
1. the jester: leaving
2. theophanes the greek: Being recognized
3. the passion according to andrei: religion and painting
4. the feast: sex and love
5. the last judgement: painting and conscience
6. the raid: committing sin
7.the silence: regret and punishment
8. the bell: inspired and resurrecting

The story of the last chrysanthemums by Kenji Mizoguchi 1939

Accattone (Beggar in Italian) Pier Paulo Pasolini 1961
Masterpiece!

Strapped (2010)

Weekend (2011)

Comrades: almost a love story 1996 Peter Chan
very so-so

More movies

Sons and lovers (Jack Cardiff)
Master American style photography
Interesting dilogue

The crucified lovers (A Story from Chikamatsu) Kenji Mizoguchi

Blissfully yours (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
The piece before Tropical Malady

Friday night black/white asian films

Sisters of the Gion 1936 Kenji Mizoguchi

Masterpiece! and 1936!!!!!!
He lived 58 years and directed 90 films!
And he is a TAURUS!

I saw his movie "Ugetsu" many years ago - somehow not so impressed, probably I didn't like the style of fable story.

Spring in a small town 1948 Fei Mu
Chinese masterpiece!

The great loneliness, the special loneliness

La epidemia de la soledad gay / The Epidemic of
Gay Loneliness

http://projects.huffingtonpost.es/…/la-epidemia-de-la-sole…/

http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articl…/…/gay-loneliness/

and this --

Gay Loneliness Is Real—but “Bitchy, Toxic” Culture Isn’t the Full Story - http://www.slate.com/…/gay_loneliness_is_real_but_toxic_gay…

QUOTES:

Whether we recognize it or not, our bodies bring the closet with us into adulthood.

This is how I spent my adolescence, too: being careful, slipping up, stressing out, overcompensating. Once, at a water park, one of my middle-school friends caught me staring at him as we waited for a slide. “Dude, did you just check me out?” he said. I managed to deflect—something like “Sorry, you’re not my type”—then I spent weeks afterward worried about what he was thinking about me. But he never brought it up. All the bullying took place in my head.

Sao paulo sao paulo

Stormy in Sao Paulo tonight
US bombing Syria
what a night..

Good man good woman 1993 Hou Hsiao Hsian
THe use of silhouette of the villain figure (dark) + protagonist under the light (bright) dominating the frame, at the end move to edge of the frame, blocking the woman, while the child /baby walks to the middle of the frame. for a while.
A landscape wide shot (two trees), long at least 10 seconds, with non symmetrical, image, left side blank, one smaller tree in the middle but not exactly in the middle, a bigger tree on the right side, only 2/3 in the frame.
watching him film, is a feeling, a feeling of mass, a group of people, walking back and forth, running around, chasing this that belongs or doesn't belong to them
coldly express how Haodong executed, cremation bureau asks for money, they borrow money all over the place, the she asked her sister, did she see him, she said, yes, three bullets in the chest, head injury, etc - quite cold feeling
A comparison of 1950s and 1990s - both meetings, the dean of middle school is talking about how the classes conflicting problem, farmers, landlords, how to sell their house to make a newspaper so people know more, while in 1990s, the gang member meeting is all talking about to make networks, getting more money, killing other group of gang

as Hou use long wide shot, he has his own method for blocking in his long shot, , make it un-symmetrical, make it realistic but unusual, to make extra points

In the heat of sun 1994 Jiang Wen
The use of music
slow tracking shot of the young men sing "ka qiu sha"
Reality and fantasy

More movies in brasilia

Three dancing slaves ( the third piece about the younger brother is very appealing, and the interesting dialogue of them after landing with umbrella (reminding me the dialogure of tropical melody, when adong wants to lay his head on abing), and motocycle scene, as well as the voiceover explaining briefly what happened,etc, oh and use of music, and not overly use of music0

Y tu mama tambien(Alfonso Cuaron) 

Wild reeds (Andre Techine) (such a good multi character story)
(not crazy about some camera work)
Last scene of the girl running is incredible (original, unforgetable, realitic)
scene of motorcycle, the use of music and not overly use of the music - unforgetabble.
Slightly overuse of fable of Oak tree vs reeds on the fascist boy, but not as bad as Mengiu's graduate,
a bit too many dialogue
great blocking)

Rhapsody in August (Kurosawa) what a disappointing movie. (images of ants climbing on a rose?)

What I like of some of these movies is there is no clear 3-act and 5 act, just fragments of life, no climax, no organsm, plain/truthful/touching.

More movies

Goodbye south goodbye (1996, Hou Hsiao Hsian)

Four moons (2014)

Heartbeats (2010 Xavier Dolan)

Movies and last few days of Lima trip

Watched
I, Daniel Blake (2016) Ken Roach

Cemetery of Splendor (2015) (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)

The second mother (2015) (Anna Muylaert) (Brazil)

Ciao (2008) 

The puppetmaster (1993) (Hou Hsiao Hsian)

Leslo (Jean Claude Lauzon) 1992

Undertow (Contra Corriente) (Javier Fuentes Leon) 2009

Last few days in Lima -we visited Boranco neighborhood last day and walked to the beach. The beach looks similar to Miraflores while boranco neighborhood does appear to have more people in the parks. I was having either allergy attack or cold, was not feeling well.

Movies

Tropical Malady (2004) by Apichatpong Weerasethakul

The name of the movie in Thai is Sud Pralad，meaning the devil in your heart, or the entangled in your mind?

Mamma Roma (1960) by Pier Paolo Pasolini

More movies about love

Heli (2013) by Amat
Disappointed.
Best director in Cannes.

Happy together (1997)
Classic.
The color.

Dust in the wind (1986)
Classic.
Need to research how he shot the film, lens, lights, etc.

More movies

Come undone (2000)
Revisiting the movie - this version is shorter, sex scene cut off
it has its style, restrained, not related, scenes don't serve obvious purpose

A city of sadness (1989)
Masterpiece.
A different between masterpiece and good movie (even great movie like Mommy 2015) is, masterpiece can be viewed year by year, but there is no great desire to view good movie again and again

The multiple-purpose use of chinese character, the mountain shot, the landscape shot (sometimes serving an internal or emotional break, sometimes serves as inner peace of the location/people), the constant shooting through doors/thresholds,  windows/doors/multiple rooms, how long does one shot take, and how thrifty he is using the close-up shots, need to study year by year to gradually understand the movie more and more...

There are many short pieces of scenes - but meaningful and important to make a masterpiece

I.E, brother injured, going back parents house with sister:
1. WS of dark mountain, brother sister going back the way they came;
2. WS of palm trees, tilt down to sister and brother walking towards parents house in the yard, camera pan, then camera moves slightly same direction of walking,
3. MS of brother/sister walking inside of the house, Mom helped brother sit down, Dad also coming in and slapped son, then said, hurry, hide here xxxx"

Three shots are simple, no close ups, but full of meaning:
1. Dark mountain, symbol of established power, how fragile single individuals are
2. Palm trees, signalling peace, but was interefered with all the chaose, home - signalling warmth
3. Dad slapping surprised everybody, a typical chinese father, then trying to get son hidden somewhere, the slapping give the audience some sort of surprise and tension, and it is realistic.

another round of movies

Prayer for bobby
Based on a true story.
More or less like a educational film.
Plain, frontal, actor, you go speak your lines

Mommy (Xavier Dolan, 2015)
Great movie.
Third character (neighbor) is the key. Without her, it is plain movie

Savage grace 
Based on a true story.
Not my type of tea.

Two women (1960, De sica)

movies about mom, son, gay

watched I killed my mother, Tom at the farm, Old well (1986 from legendary director Wu Tianming)

I killed my mother - witty, funny but not too inspiring. Copied too much Wang Kar wei

Tom at the farm - story doesn't work then nothing works

Old well - finished half, produced in 1986 - the political implications...

Movies moonlight, salvation army and others

Moonlight (2016)

loyal/sentimental men as lead role - thumb up (such as in the mood for love) (moonlight lead role guy is an unique case, as the boy grew up in an extreme circumstance)
Not many sequences in each sector (three sectors), but really focus on important scenes

GFR:Good story, Good acting (esp. second and third sector lead role)
Characters are complicated, whatever drug money, etc
Subversive - all men cant take care of their dick, all black men can't take care of their dick
first time feel it has too much score, but second time didn't feel like overdone

An interesting article

https://qz.com/920627/the-side-by-side-comparisons-that-show-how-hong-kong-director-wong-kar-wai-influenced-oscar-winner-moonlight/

Salvation army (2013)- example of poorly shot movies, and it looks li
Working with legendary(?) DP using natural lights
Shots are frontal, entry of characters is super plain (not interesting)
Characters have no personality
Sex is like suffering, hiding, forbidden, secret
good use of salon room - sleeping area in the middle looking like a tomb

Also studied
Life of Adele (blue is the warmest color) - the first 5 minutes

Movies

The boys from Fengkuei by Hou Hsiao Hsian

1080P video restored, great view
Masterpiece
life stream style, no three acts, or you can say there are many acts
Great but simple shots of real life, multi shots of one scene in different locations, as characters are in constant move
Great endings, like antonioni
Music cut in at a good time, not too fast
No drama! Great! Or you can say, there is drama everywhere.

Solaris 4K restored
Colored part, great
White/black part, strange looking

There is another movie I watched but forgot ...

Movies and first week in Lima

Revisiting Lima - an epic 48 hour trip. Leaving qingdao - SFO directly, 6 hours layover, SFO-LAX, 6 hour layover, meeting George, LAX-MEX, 6 hour layover, MEX-LIMA.

Now I got over the jetlag but the jetlag was strange - I didn't have that common deep sleep - the one that you woke up and had no idea where you are... All sleep is very shallow, too shallow to feel that I SLEPT. It might due to Mom's sickness stress + my impulsive cough from my cold and maybe smog + jetlag. I started taking half a pill of sleeping medicine for two nights.

Watched two movies this week.

Aleksandr Sokurov's Mother and Son (1997): 

His portrait of Mom and son is more or less like a couple/lover, which is fine with me. And the most impressive film language are:
1. Character(s) not necessarily in the middle/or 0.618 of the frame - constantly at the edge of the frame even if they look awkward, slightly reminding me Ida
2. twist the character to look like the landscape - i.e. in the wide shot of protagonist and the landscape that is filled with a few cypress/pine trees, the shape of cypress was bending towards one direction due to long time wind, the protagonist is bending to this direction as well (not sure from lens or from post production)
3. make full use of framing, half/half, i.e. after mother is dead, son's hand with mother's hand

Dorota Kedzierzawska's Wrony (Crow) (1994)
Reminded me Rosellini's German Year Zero (1948), Bresson's Mochette (1967) and Carlos Saura's Cria cuervos (1976)...
After I talked to George, it also reminded us Truffaut's The 400 Blows (1959) , Dardenne brother's Rosetta (1999), and Ken Loach's Kes (1969).
These are all classics.
One of impressive film language use is sihouette - the girl's two skinny legs in sihouette are so thin and fragile.
The great two actresses - maybe I shouldn't call them actress, maybe they are themselves.

Movies

On the plane from TAO to SFO, I watched three movies.

1. Gone with the bullets (JIANG Wen). Ambitious movie, but with voiceover of Beijing dialect, and not-so-clear what this movie is trying to tell, I was a bit disappointed.

2. Caught in the web (CHEN Kaige) - interesting story. Perfect example for a movie who tried too hard to tell too much, it feels like a running account.

3. It's only the end of the world (Xavier Dolan) - it is always good to have a slightly gay themed story won big award at Cannes. But... sometimes, i feel the inner push to keep the story going - can it be so consistent that really, it works this way? It could be other way. It is a good topic. A bit like "secrets and lies"

Unforgettable Chinese new year

On Chinese new year's day, my mom fell accidentally by herself and had a bone fracture.

Everybody is in a panic. Mom's blood pressure went to 225. Called a doctor and he came, said need to get ambulance to hospital. On the way to hospital, my mom started to pray. I felt sick from sitting sideways. Fortunately it is not too far.

The X-ray and CT scan were painful to do and unbearable to watch as every move of my mom caused sharp pain.

Soon, she is having problem to pee on strecher. It is dangerous not being able to pee for long hours.

Soon, she is accepted by the hospital and got a VIP room. A catheter was used, and very soon, collected 800 ml urine.

I was on duty on watch of her with the sitter - in the evening of new year's day, watching firework from hospital window - what a new year...

Brother is involved and there were multiple meeting from doctors from jimo and qingdao. Mom had surgery successfully on Feb. 4th and returned home on Feb 10th.

Hope Mom will recover soon!

Mom always has strong desire to live/survive and live well. I believe she will recover soon.

But be very careful from now on.

Movie and Chinese new year

On the way back to China for chinese new year, I have watched a few movies on the planes.
United airlines' screen is not great, neither is the movie selection, i managed to watch half of Robert Redford's ordinary people
The flight from Frankfurt to Qingdao on Lufthansa has higher resolution screen, I watched The eternal sunsine of spotless mind, Erase the memory... sigh
Dallas buyer's club: interesting topic but very so-so
Hitchcock: Well it is always good to know that Hitchcock has to pay his own money to make psycho...One of the few talented filmmakers in history
Cafe Society: never a woody allen fan. It is decent acting, dialog, per si. But I will remember the ending of the movie at this very moment of my life. 

Now I am in China watching movie from blibli
watched Graduate  by Cristian Mungiu
Well before I realized it is his movie, I thought it was a first work of a director - because sometimes they put very stiff lines in the dialogue - i.e. protagonist and police chair about other side's view is better...
It won best director in Cannes 2016
I was impressed: using hand held camera and still very careful/thoughtful in framing, I also like the face to face framing a lot
The stones broke the window etc - reminds me Michael Haneke - who is nowadays the best director of the world, although imho, still way behind of antonioni fellini bergman
I like that it is a critic of CONTEMPORARY romanian society
There are many un-resolved issues in the movie - i guess this is the style now - again reminds me the white ribbon from Haneke - but there are so many and I am not sure if it is necessary

I also finished reading Huxley's Brave new world revisited
The novel is predicting what could happen in the future of the world
a very worrying opinion, now when looking back after more than half a century passed, things are not as bad as he predicted; In another words, in his prediction, the cause of his worries has happened, but the consequence is not that serious yet - maybe human beings already evoluted?
his chapters aka worries are:

I Over-Population
II Quantity, Quality, Morality
III Over-Organization
IV Propaganda in a Democratic Society V Propaganda Under a Dictatorship
VI The Arts of Selling
VII Brainwashing
VIII Chemical Persuasion
IX Subconscious Persuasion
X Hypnopaedia
XI Education for Freedom
XII What Can Be Done? 

movies

Secluded, near woods (1976) Jiri Menzel - cute little story.

George said it reminded him 1970s (as golden times) the trend of going to nature etc.

East european movies do have something in common, outdoor music, laughing about things, not taking so seriously, etc etc.

Ekstase (ecstacy) 1933 Gustav Machaty
Finally got to see this movie. Truly classical.
Wonder antonioni's Eclipse (L'eclisse) was inspired by this movie.
I never saw an earlier art films like Ekstase (1933) and Erotikon (1929) (aka seduction aka conflicto dos sexos).
Such a tender expression of things. And no rush.

Erotikon (Seduction) 1929

What a delightful surprise to watch a black white silent movie Erotikon (seduction) 1929 by Czech director Gustav Machaty.

Many modern cinema elements in the movie:

The framing,
editing,
camera movement,
montage

Need to study more about this movie, but it is quite impressive in
framing the woman at the edge, to make the man dominate the frame
cut of more closer shot of one person VS less close shot
Dissolving from one person's eye to another person's eye that the first person is looking at - it gives very direct sensation, much more efficient than cutting to it.
when woman's father looks at his wife's pic, the picture is dissolved into his head, very impressive

Gustave's another movie Ecstacy (ekstase) is very controversial - hope I can find where to watch it.

狼奔豕突

This chinese word "狼奔豕突 (Lang Ben Shi Tu)" is describing the scenes rascals running all over the places, either molesting people or running away.

I use this word to describe people's (mostly pedestrians') status in Guatemala.

There are no good sidewalks in a lot of roads, sometimes there are walking bridges but faraway. So when people have to cross the streets where there are no traffic lights and walking bridges, they run - when a lot of people doing this at the same time towards different directions: it is 狼奔豕突.

George and I 狼奔豕突 all the time in Guatemala, just as everybody else. YOU HAVE TO.

Movies and Guatemala view 1

This week, we watched a few new good movies:

Fassbinder's The bitter tears of Petra von Kant, reminding me Bergman,  theater play, and is it reflection of his own life experience (of course yes i would say). Rich film language. Incredible blocking/lighting

Hitchcock's Rope

You have to say, Hitchcock Sabe Americanos!

Orlson Welles's The immortal story - rather short, but you can see his trademark style 

Karel Kachyna's The Ear  - a very enjoyable movie - not in a very deep way, but well done dark humor, reminded me Milos Forman, who is also from Czech

----------

A few days ago we visited Terminal area in Centro (south of centro Guatemala city). Many vendors, whole sale people with trucks, rough looking homeless people, sex workers, drunkards laying on the streets, strong pee smells, all over the place. 

Guatemala is like everywhere else - straight men got all the privilege and pleasures - open and permitted prostitution, every-so-often football games, and of course, liquor. Women are not allowed to have legal abortion, so they will cook and have kids. There are many single mother families, just as in Mexico, if not more. It appears this bad cycle is quite common in Guatemala AND Mexico: deserted woman - single mom bringing up the kidS (many) - Mom became religious and more controlling the kids - kids grow up to be another conservative man.

Gays in guatemala are incredibly different from any other countries I visited. On grindr, the most common words are "discreto, no obvios". There are incredible amounts of profiles that have no face pictures (reminding me Asia), with intentional-incorrect information in the profile (I suppose that so nobody will find out who they are), incredible amount of flake-ness, unfinished dialogue, weirdly disappearing people. Very seldom to see gay men are looking for a boyfriend, a relationship, love. 

Incredible amount of extreme religious force were observed in Guatemala and El Savaldor, mostly the evangelical and mormon preachers all over the place, especially in regular poor people's house. In San Salvador, there is this covenant church from this family's garage having preaching going on and on all nights, with very loud speaker, going to after 11pm in the weekends, and it scared all the wild dogs away too, which is the only plus side...

The 10 day driving trip in Guatemala is unforgettable: Lake atitlan (Pana), the natural reserve hiking trail (coffee bean trees and rope bridges), the avocado tree in the hotel garden, Xela, the first gay bar in history, the driving south from Xela along the river, the fancy highway from Gautemala city to the south beach VS many bumps on other highways (mostly built by local village men to slow the cars so they will have some business, in our case mostly watermelon sellers), village men fixing the road holes by filling in dirts asking for donations, the pineapple vendor, and rain forest views in Izabal, and the weird airbnb in a restaurant - george and I went inside the restaurant at night - it is open but nobody there, no lights, no other people, with two short piers going into the lake/bay. Ahhh the firecrackers!!! all over the place, the castle (good for hide and seek game i guess), I couldn't barely walk in the bay area as so many stones in the waterbed, TIKAL, is really something... Grande grande grande...Puerto barrios, such a running down city, remembering crossing street of loud evangelical church, are the sex workers, they waved to us and everybody cheered when I waved back..the trip to Livingston, the black tourist guide, the beach, and very bumping boat ride!

Can't forget how badly people drive in Guatemala, they are worse than Chinese! Finally...