Eleven for Eleven

I tried to make a top ten list of all the theatrical releases I saw this year and I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t find ten films that deserved to be on the list. Regrettably, 2011 is going down in my books as a flawed vintage, notable for admirably over-extended ambition (Melancholia, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia) and overhyped nostalgia (Hugo, The Artist). Instead, here’s a list of eleven personal cultural experiences, cinematic or otherwise, that moved me in 2011.

Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life

“Tell us a story from before we remember.”

Of all the over-reaching auteurs in 2011, Terry definitely reached the furthest. With the hotly debated creation sequence Malick crafted what might in time rank among the boldest and most radical digressions in the history of narrative cinema. The Tree of Life dares to be the ultimate ontological film. It’s about the foundation of the universe and the foundation of an individual. No other theatrical release this year filled the big screen with such a vast, detailed exploration of the nature of being itself.

M83: Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming

“We didn’t need a story. We didn’t need a real world.

We just had to keep walking.

And we became the stories. We became the places.

We were the lights, the deserts, the faraway worlds.

We were you before you even existed.”

Somewhere tonight the saxophone solo in Midnight City is saving someone’s life.

The Death of the 35mm Film Camera

They stopped manufacturing 35mm cameras this year. When I read the news I cried. Then I went and shot a 22 minute HD short on a Canon 7D for a budget of less than 2k. The tears dried quickly.

The Battle for the Kasr Nile Bridge, Cairo

Seeing this clip on YouTube was the moment I felt certain that something in the world was changing.

Hilary Clinton addresses the UN on LGTB Rights.

Thank you for taking a stand Hilary.

Ken Lum Retrospective at the Vancouver Art Gallery

An irresistibly debonair fellow took me to the VAG to see Ken Lum’s installations for our first date. We kissed in the mirror maze and it felt like a moment of pure cinema. Everything was ours.

The Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival

For our second date we travelled around Vancouver on foot, searching for the year’s first cherry blossoms. It was springtime and maybe we were falling in love.

Judas Kiss (Caravaggio in Dublin)

Judas was hot in 2011. The year that brought us Lady Gaga’s worst single yet also brought me to one the most astonishing paintings I’ve ever seen. I sat rapt before Caravaggio’s The Taking of Christ at The National Gallery of Ireland for what felt like an hour. Seeing a photo of this painting does not do it justice. The play of light across the photorealistic figures and faces is magnificent.The recent history of the painting is fascinating as well. From Wikipedia: “By the late 18th century, the painting was thought to have disappeared, and its whereabouts remained unknown for about 200 years. In 1990, Caravaggio’s lost masterpiece was recognized in the residence of the Society of Jesus in Dublin, Ireland. The exciting rediscovery was published in 1993.”

The Samuel Beckett Bridge (Calatrava in Dublin)

My trip to Dublin also brought me in contact with another masterpiece in an entirely different artistic discipline. I’ve marveled at Santiago Calatrava’s bone-white morphogenic structures in photographs for years. A stroll along the Liffey brought me face to face with the real deal for the first time. The sublime elegance and grace of his architecture is otherworldly.

Weekend

Andrew Haigh’s Weekend is an intimate two-hander about a brief drug-fuelled romance between bearded British lads in their mid-twenties. Tom Cullen’s sensitive lead performance as a stoner lifeguard ill at ease with his sexuality broke my heart. To my mind this is the best “LGTB film” in recent memory. It’s up there in the pantheon of British romance pics next to David Lean’s Brief Encounter.

Parallel Lives: A Jamie Travis Retrospective (Vancouver Queer Film Festival)

Few Canadian short filmmakers in the past decade have left a more distinct mark than Jamie, who is now poised to kick off 2012 with the premiere of his first feature For A Good Time Call at Sundance next month. I had the pleasure of getting to know Jamie in film school and contributing to the art department of his hit short The Saddest Boy in the World, but I think his best work is Patterns 3, the voodoorific musical climax of his anti-romance story cycle The Patterns Trilogy.  It was great to see his collected shorts presented at VQFF in August. Jamie’s work always inspires me.

And so we bring 2011 to a close. It’s the end of several phases of my life, including this blog. I’ll be rebooting this site as part of my revamped personal artist site in early 2012. Lots of exciting creative work looms on the horizon. Let’s embrace it, everyone.

Everything remains to be done. 

Lillian Alling: Northern B.C.’s Original Poster Girl

The most exciting and satisfying thing about 2011 has been working on my new short LILLIAN CODE. We recently completed postproduction and we’re getting ready to unveil our new baby on the festival circuit in 2012.

Lillian Code is an anachronistic journey into the wilderness of northern British Columbia, inspired by the history and legend of Lillian Alling, the mysterious Russian woman who walked alone from New York to Siberia in 1928.

Lillian Alling has emerged as a popular folklore figure in British Columbia in recent years. She’s been the subject of novels, non fiction, and even an opera. For me the connection goes much further back: I first heard her story told around the campfire at summer camp when I was eight years old. I was inspired to write a short based on that memory when I saw one of the few historical photos that exists from Lillian’s journey: she bears a striking resemblance to my friend and collaborator Orsy Szabó. The casting opportunity was too good to pass up.

I’ll be posting a lot about Lillian Code in the coming months. For now, I encourage everyone to “like” the project on Facebook and follow along as we reveal more of Lillian’s mysterious journey.

Orsy Szabó as plays the title character in LILLIAN CODE.

10 Auteurs Fêtiches

If I had to list my favourite filmmakers every month the list would be different every month, but I love this crop of ten filmmakers from all around the globe more than most. I love them so much I’ve spent the evening making mosaics of pretty images from their films for you to enjoy. Back in film school the course I hated the most (and which consequently stayed with me and affected me more deeply than the ones that I enjoyed) was film theory. I remember making a presentation on an essay by Roland Barthes in which he posited that stills from films are actually more cinematic than moving images. I should really dig it up and reread it, but off the top of my head his premise still stinks of bullshit to me. Anyway, the cinematic quality of the stills I’ve collected here is certainly undeniable.

1. TERRENCE MALICK (USA)

2. ANDREI TARKOVSKY (Russia)

3. FEDERICO FELLINI (Italy)

4. HAYAO MIYAZAKI (Japan)

5. ALFONSO CUARON (Mexico)

6. PETER WEIR (Australia)

7. AGNÈS VARDA (France)

8. NURI BILGE CEYLAN (Turkey)

9. APICHATPONG WEERASETHAKUL (Thailand)

10. INGMAR BERGMAN (Sweden)

Soon, My Friend

So with 11/11/11 quickly receding into history, it seems that the End Times are truly upon us: the great flood of year-end lists is nigh, and for me it’s shaping up as a crappy year for new music. One song, and the album it calls home, has nourished my soul through the disappointing drought and given me hope for a new future. Midnight City, the lead single off M83‘s double-masterpiece Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming has been a almost daily listen since its August release. It gives me wings and the album elevates my mood to astounding heights. I’ve always cherry-picked the most evocative tracks (Moonchild,  Couleurs, Unrecorded, to name a few) off previous M83 albums, but never really been transported by the complete package until now. Kudos to Anthony Gonzalez for literally finding his voice and learning how to belt them out. My love for his music is becoming a sea.

Squid Wreck @ Puppets Up!

Call it a set piece, a puppet, an installation, a sculpture, whatever you like, but our beloved Squid Wreck will be in the public eye once again from now until September 28th in North Vancouver at the Cafe for Contemporary Art‘s PUPPET’S UP EXHIBITION! The hybrid cafe/gallery space is just a three minute walk from Lonsdale Quay and boasts an impressive year-round curation of local and global art.

Squid Wreck (also known by the affectionate monicker “Septopus” by its makers) was created for my short film The Anachronism by a team of artists spearheaded by my close collaborators Dusty Hagerud, Miyuki Mori, and my father Gordon Long.

The mammoth undertaking, which involved the crew working around the clock in the final weeks of preparation, was completed on July 7th, 2008, literally seconds before the camera started rolling on it.

Since fulfilling its first life as a set piece for the film (winning a Leo Award for Production Design for its trouble) Squid Wreck has found new homes in several gallery spaces throughout Vancouver. The Septopus held court with other “audacious and improbable large-scale kinetic, robotic, and mechanized sculptures” at the eatART Laboratory during the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games,and squatted in the Dowtown Eastside Chapel Arts Gallery in April of the same year.

More on the Puppets Up show from CAFCA’s website:

“CAFCA140 is known for its unusual exhibitions, but this time is almost unheard of: a show of puppets, instruments of puppetry and actual puppet shows. The exhibition is the brain-child and product of hard-work by organizer, Dusty Hagerud. Dusty has gathered some of Vancouver’s excellent puppeteers and their favourite puppets for the show. It’s been a long time coming, and its really worth a look at these remarkable exhibition.

Dusty points out that puppets is an overlooked if not derided art form, not only today but also throughout history. Christian institutions in medieval England labelled puppetry the work of the devil. Puppetry fell from royalty into the realm of travelling entertainers and gypsies. Ironically, the church utilized puppetry and its evocative and narrative characteristics to influence the general public. Nowadays, puppets rank up there with ceramics, textiles, blanket weaving and other so-called crafts. It’s exactly the controversy that attracts Dusty to this bonafide form of artistic expression. We agree with Dusty. The line between arts and crafts is not only a fine one but also a foolish one. We see the attitude expressed in puppetry as decidedly anti-academic and Do-It-Yourself. That’s just a healthy outlook. Nevertheless, performance arts is the closest form of fine arts that include the multi-dimensional aspects of puppetry, should you need to know.

The crude construction methods and materials — bent cane, grass, real hair and even dried fruit — of some of the puppets are remarkably telling. It easy to think oftramp-art created by Depression-era travellers when viewing the works. Interesting, some of these crudely formed puppets come from Japan, suggesting a vagabond culture in that country. Or perhaps just an interest and respect for ready-mades.”

If you haven’t already, I invite you to check out the Squid Wreck in its most cinematic incarnation:

 

A Peek Under The Gray Lady’s Skirt

This looks like a juicy examination of the tensions and fears in old media that have sent the New York Times scurrying behind a new tiered paywall system. The Times site is a daily visit for me, usually in search of communion with A-list film critics Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott, so I’ll be quite content to stick to a diet of 20 articles per month. While my two favourite contributors don’t seem to be key players in the doc, the trailer would have us believe that the original Carpetbagger blogger David Carr will be doing his best Grace Coddington. The guy’s an indelible character. A brand name journalist.

Objets fétiches

Stalker (1979) by Andrei Tarkovsky (1932 – 1986)

Jules et Jim (1962) by Francois Truffaut (1932-1984)

8 1/2 (1963) by Federico Fellini (1920-1993)

Louis Garrel in Les Amants Reguliers (2005) by Philippe Garrel (1948 –    )

Gus Van Sant (1952 –       )

Walking (NFB, 1968) by Ryan Larkin (1943-2007)

The Art of the Oregon Trail

Kelly Reichardt’s forthcoming Meek’s Cutoff is a story of the Oregon Trail, the nineteenth century pioneer route whose fame has been eclipsed by the popular computer game that many children of the 80s, including me, remember fondly. The excellent trailer and poster for Reichardt’s film have steadily amplified my anticipation of the release date.

Reichardt and company are not the only artists trekking the trail for inspiration in the last few years; several songs from Midlake‘s 2007 album The Trials of Van Occupanther draw on both the historical trail and the video game to create a concept-album ode to the pioneer generations gone by.

Long live mess, Long live passion, Long live company

Revisiting I Am Love (Luca Guadagnino, 2009) on DVD last night got me all fired about about the brilliance of Tilda Swinton. Here she is in 2002 at the Edinburgh International Film Festival giving an eloquent, rebellious tribute to her early collaborator Derek Jarman. She reaches beyond fond memories, delivering a passionate manifesto for outsider cinema. Her words epitomize creative integrity.

DVD Discoveries

Here’s a post for the friends who often ask me to write a list of things they should watch on DVD. These are some of the films that struck me to the core in the last year or so, regardless of their release date.

Polytéchnique (Denis Villeneuve, Canada, 2009)

It’s hard to like a movie about the Montreal Massacre, and even more difficult to discuss the details, so all I will say is this: Polytéchnique is one of the few truly great Canadian films, and the most powerful cinematic experience I’ve had in ages. I found the sheer beauty of the mise-en-scene problematic, provocative, and ultimately transcendent.

Scanners (David Cronenberg, Canada, 1980)

Speaking of great Canadian films, I think it’s fair to suggest that Scanners hasn’t aged well. The performances are compromised by execrable ADR (dialogue replacement), so much so that it might be difficult for contemporary audiences to parse the rich rewards at hand.  But I’m always in awe of a storyteller who cooks up a high-concept science fiction conceit that can be achieved without much of a budget. Most of the “action” scenes are just closeups of people’s quivering heads paired with intense sound effects… Add a bit of blood and things really start to pop.

In a Year with 13 Moons (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Germany, 1978)

I never realized that Hedwig and the Angry Inch was a remake… When Erwin (Volker Spengler) confesses his love for his male boss, his feelings are met with a flippant dismissal: “Too bad you’re not a girl.” The thwarted lover interprets the comment literally; Erwin returns to Berlin after a lengthy vacation transformed into Elvira, the heroine of this tragic tale. Will the object of her affection accept her gender transition? Fassbinder made the film in the wake of a lover’s suicide and all of his agony is up there on the screen. Few films dare to plunge so deeply into the painful emotions at the heart of gender confusion. PETA WARNING: There is one scene with extremely graphic, slow motion documentary footage of cattle in a slaughterhouse. I had to pause it and take a break, but it was worth seeing through to the bitter end.

Agora (Alejandro Amenábar, 2009)

Rachel Weisz plays Hypatia, brilliant female scholar and astronomer of Antiquity. She studies the night sky, safe within the confines of Alexandria’s great library, until her iconoclastic passion for science is threatened by the rise of religious (Christian) fundamentalism. Alejandro deserves many more kudos than he received for tackling cerebral and religious subject matter on such a grand scale. Imagine: a “swords and sandals” epic more concerned with the classroom than the battlefield. Agora is an uncommon and underrated gem.

Everlasting Moments (Jan Troell, Sweden, 2008)

It’s a true story: in early 20^th century Sweden a working-class girl won a “Contessa” camera in a lottery. When the man who bought the ticket for her suggested the camera belonged to him, she insisted that he marry her for it. All through the decades of their troubled marriage the camera was always there, the symbol of their indissoluble bond. In Everlasting Moments director Jan Troell, who acts as his own cinematographer and camera operator, chronicles family life across the decades with muted light and painterly compositions that stir my deepest emotional connections to the photographic medium. It’s a hymn for image-makers everywhere, a poem of dedicated vision and unconditional love.

Also worth your time: The Red Riding Trilogy, Ozu’s Late Spring, McCaber and Mrs. Miller.