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“I Would Like to Keep Deepening the Discussion”
“I see this film as the first step of a process that has
just started. I don’t think I could make Tanaka-san understand
everything about me (as Korean-Japanese), and the fact that I am Korean-Japanese
does not end with this movie. She is almost like family to me, and
because we understand each other so well, our friendship has been
one in which things that we don’t understand about each other
are left alone. But there are still some parts of Tanaka-san’s
opinion about the Korean-Japanese issue that I haven’t grasped
yet, so I would like to keep deepening my discussion with her.”
(Tei-chan of Tei-chan’s Roots after the screening) |
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Filmmaking, the Women’s Movement and Friendship
Soha has been an activist in the women’s film group Barito with
director Byun Young-joo. An avid reader, soha was in charge of the
group’s theoretical endeavors. At the time, she promised herself
that she would make a film in ten years. And so for ten years, she
was a film critic and theorist. Now, just as she vowed, she has made
a movie that is a collection of women’s expressions. At her Q&A
session, the words of someone who has grown through filmmaking, the
women’s movement, and friendship echoed quietly through the theater.
(soha, director, Koryu: Southern Women, South Korea) |
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Filmmakers Taste Yamagata
The “Find Out Yamagata” sightseeing tour began with a visit
to a sake brewery. It was still morning but fifteen filmmakers were
knocked out by treasured sake which cannot be found in stores. Even
the usually quiet Ozgur E. Arik was smiling. The next stop was a tofu
factory, and Kye Un-kyoung said, “Yamagata is wonderful! I love
soba and sushi.” Next to her was Kana Tomoko, who, with a bottle
of soy sauce in her hand, turned into a “soy sauce girl,”
serving soy sauce to all present. Mehrdad Oskouei sat Japanese style,
strangely natural. Finally came soba and imo-ni (stewed sato-imo potatoes)
beneath the blue sky. Was the conversation about filmmaking? No. It
was all about food. The great filmmakers were regular human beings
after all. Given their smiles, all we can say is that great food is
universal. |
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“Dedicated to Robert Kramer”
After the YIDFF Network Special Screening of Good Friends, Good
People, director Masa came up for a Q&A session. The piece
depicts aspects of YIDFF ’97 head juror Robert Kramer rarely
seen in Kramer’s work, and some questions were related to Kramer.
Kramer’s widow Erika Kramer was also present at the screening,
and a harmonious atmosphere pervaded the theater.
(The Good Friends, Good People screening) |
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Haryu Ichiro in Yamagata
Although the screening of Nippon Suicide Pact ended late in the evening,
the theater was standing-room only and the air filled with enthusiasm.
After the Q & A session with director Oura Nobuyuki, Haryu Ichiro
was introduced and went up to the stage. “During the interview,
I was worried whether or not it would really become a movie, but in
the end it’s a wonderful piece and filled with Mr. Oura’s
variety of images. But this movie is not me. The images are strictly
the director’s.” Haryu’s words to the audience after
the screening were as inspiring as his words throughout the film.
(After Nippon Suicide Pact at Muse) |
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Other Possible Themes for Yamagata Doc’s Kingdom:
Already there has been a lot of talk about theoretical writings on
the mixed usage of fiction and documentary. There are a few films
in the International Competition and in the New Asian Currents series
that use this, the limits between the two [fiction and documentary],
which is, of course, very interesting, because you hear a lot of people
asking, “Is that true, is that true? Or was it staged just for
the film?” And you can ask yourself, is that a relevant question
or not? This is one of the many questions we’ll be asking. (Kees
Bakker, Yamagata Doc’s Kingdom)
•Yamagata Doc’s Kingdom runs from 10:00 to 21:00, Monday
October 8 at the Yamagata Citizens’ Hall Small Hall. |
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| A Happy Reunion |
| A Patch of Blue Sky
(Japanese Panorama) |
| Kobayashi Shigeru, director |
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I saw Doomealee, the Very First Step at New Asian Currents.
This is a sequel to director Hong Hyungsook’s film, Doomealee,
A New School Is Opening, which screened at YIDFF in 1995.
I had become acquainted with director Hong and her all-female
film crew back then, so I was looking forward to seeing them again.
The previous film chronicled villagers who protested the Korean
government policy of merging and closing small elementary schools.
This film elaborated on the issue and depicted the lives of villagers
who valued nature. I could empathize with the villagers’
hearts who protested the closure and, in a sense, this film became
a foundation to the previous one. The four seasons were captured
very well, and I could see Hong’s evolution as a director.
One of the aims of this festival is to nurture Asian filmmakers,
and I am glad that Hong has set a good example. The director could
not make it to Yamagata; instead, Mr. Kang Seok-pil, her husband
and the producer of this film, came. Holding high a photo of the
director with her baby, Mr. Kang told me that they had gotten
married and that they had a baby two months ago. One delight of
this festival will be finding out what kind of work Hong Hyungsook
will make along with the growth of her child.
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Where Does a Kite Cut Loose Fly?
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| The Falling Kite (New Asian Currents) |
| An Interview with Hsiao Mei-ling |
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The Chinese title of Hsiao Mei-ling’s film The Falling Kite
literally means “a kite whose string has been cut,” and
apparently represents Hsiao’s feelings of uprootedness.
DB: What inspired you to make this film?
HM: I was very much influenced by the environment. Northern
France is a declining industrial region with many coal mines. It
also has a large immigrant population, which includes myself, and
many second generation immigrants. I once heard that there were
140,000 Chinese in the region at the time of the First World War.
Until now I’d always made modern art, but the lonely atmosphere
of northern France made me feel nostalgic, so I began filming it.
Robert Kramer’s one-year visiting professorship at my school
was also important. He said, “If you’re in France and
you have growing feelings for home, then why don’t you make
a film out of it?” Two years before making the film, I went
through a period of wondering whether I should go home or stay on
as I was, so I thought I’d try finding myself.
DB: You aren’t related to Mr. Chang, the second-generation
Chinese immigrant who appears in the film, are you?
HM: That’s right. The situations of Mr. Chang and my
grandmother, the film’s two characters, are entirely my imagination.
Everything I filmed was from me. Mr. Chang’s father worked
in the coal mines, as did my grandfather. And my grandmother and
grandfather went down into the mines together, just like Mr. Chang
worked with his father. The second half of the film uses intersecting
images that could be France or could be Taiwan—I wanted to
shoot their common experiences.
DB: The images of rain, the mountain greenery, rice paddies
and trains were very beautiful. Are they images that recall memories
for you?
HM: The rain functioned as two things for me. Keelung, Taiwan
is known as “the port of rain,” and I grew up there. So
when I’m making a film, I often start working when it starts
to rain. The coal mines are a metaphor for the coal miners’
memories, memories that have been forgotten. As for the trains,
I filmed both a train leaving northern France and the train in my
grandmother’s home region. This signifies that in a way, they
cross paths somewhere. These three images are main points in the
film. There’s also a god looking down from above, if god exists,
and I think that my grandmother has been a part of the landscape
in that field of vision for the 80 years she’s lived so far.
So there are elements of history in the film, but I wanted to film
them not as “history” but as landscape. The film’s
tempo is really slow, so I was worried that some members of the
audience wouldn’t be able to bear it. But when I film my grandmother
walking so slowly, it’s to express that she lives inside the
landscape, so it was necessary to have that kind of rhythm.
DB: Apparently all of your keepsakes were lost in a fire.
What do you think about the relationship between material objects
and memory?
HM: It’s possible that the memories we keep in our
consciousness could be more material than things with form. Some
things that we can’t see are even more concrete than things
we can see: these are our emotions towards our hearts and towards
things.
•The Falling Kite screens Monday, October 8 at 20:00
at Muse 2.
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When It’s Raw
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| MAYA (New Asian Currents) |
| An Interview with Sekine Hiroyuki |
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DB: You’re known for filming ruins in the Tokyo metropolitan
area. Why did you choose a ruin that lies on Mount Maya in Kobe
this time?
SH: I started filming ruins in 1987, and for five or six
years it went pretty well, but then I stopped being able to make
films. Then came a point where I absolutely had to make a film or
else, and I found out about the Maya Tourist Hotel from a magazine
article. The movement formed by the environment of the building
and the surrounding mountains was extraordinary. It was a great
pleasure to film that atmosphere.
DB: In Maya, the sounds inspire imagination. What
were you thinking about the sound?
SH: When I was shooting, there was so much I saw with my
eyes and met with my ears. I think it’s important to stress
that a film’s expressiveness depends on how well you can translate
what you felt at the location to the screen through editing. If
you have recorded the sound at the site, then that can be definitely
used. I’ve finally realized this. That’s why I decided
to capture the sound properly from the very beginning, and brought
the recording equipment with me to the location. That’s how
Maya came about.
DB: The camera movement was very relaxing. How did you achieve
such movement?
SH: Tarkovsky’s films are the best example here. He
wasn’t using a hand-held camera, but the movements are so delicate.
Tarkovsky’s camera glided on a rail, but I wanted to create
the same effect with a hand-held camera. The other example is the
body. I’ve always wanted to show that image is a form of physical
expression, and since I saw Maya Deren’s A Study in Choreography for
Camera, I thought that it would be amazing if I could turn a
camera into an extension of a body. If anyone could film like he
or she was dancing, the result would be a movie like no one has
ever made before.
DB: The images of the things you film feel so very raw.
It’s as if something which we cannot usually see is taking
shape.
SH: That is because I had the time and the environment to
do it. All the rest comes down to whether or not you meet that most
beautiful moment. This time, we were lucky that we waited to film
until it was raining. Then there’s the power of the place.
When you want to express something, it’s really important to
be aware of the fact that you, your body, and everything else are
standing on a single point on the earth, all at once. Ruins are
good places for inviting this sensation. The 8 mm camera is a really
ambivalent tool: one frame is barely as large as a fingernail. The
fact that so much rawness can come from that small frame is due
to the chemical reaction of the film and from the developing, which
has to do with time. You can’t also forget that without the
space between the projector’s lens and the screen, a film is
not a film. Thinking about the history of film technology, projection
has to be a key to revealing the secret of creating the rawness
of film.
•Maya will screen on Monday, October 8 at 20:00 at
Muse 2.
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