The Rich Strikes Again

Anora (2024) - Baker Sean Baker's films are all about people living in the margins of society - the neglected, the poor, the invisibles, the underprivileged. What's admirable in what he does is that his films show them as human beings with dreams and aspirations however big and small they are. His subjects are always borderline (un)interesting. There might be a glimpse of beauty in banality. But is it enough to be a subject for a film that costs millions of dollars and all the talents and effort and time? I mean, a lot of shitty, frivolous movies are made all the time. Maybe I'm bitter with everything that's going on in the world. But I have zero interests in seeing an exotic dancer from Coney Island falling in love with a bratty rich Russian kid in a Cinderella type scenario, same as I have zero interest in seeing rich and famous people as subjects in movies.

Mikey Madison plays Ani, the exotic dancer who hit it off with Ivan (Mark Edelstein), a sweet but absurdly rich kid who is her patron one night. Ani wants to keep everything professional, charging him by the night. But once he asks her to be a girlfriend for a week, the money and the mansion and the drugs and champaign are too good to pass up. Better/worse, they fly to Vegas to party and get married on an impulse. When they come back to New York, Ivan's handler, Toro (Karren Karagulian), a middle-aged Albanian, an employee of his oligarchic Russian parents, gets into a full damage control mode. Ivan's parents are flying in, Toro will need to annul the marriage with some court connections Ivan's parents have.

There's no story here for a movie that's over two hours long. Everything is cliché. So, what do we watch in the next hour and a half? Ani freaks out at Toro and his goon Igor and Garnick, Ivan flees from the Brighton Beach mansion. It's all about them going through the Coney Island neighborhood looking for Ivan.

There are some fine visceral scenes that things get very physical and spontaneous. And I love the local details Baker inserts here and there and his direction with many non-actors too. Anora almost reminds me of Good Time and Uncut Gems of Safdie brothers in terms of immediacy and their peasantry. But within the context of the war in Ukraine and demonstrations in Georgia, al Assad fleeing Syria and atrocities in Gaza and Trump's second term (and NYers know about Trump's relations with the Russians in Brighton Beach), Baker doesn't seem to read the room with Anora.

Soon as Ani realizes that there's not going to be a fairytale ending, the grim reality besets - we are duped again by the rich. It doesn't matter if we have dreams and aspirations. We are just playthings for the rich. And that is not a good thing to be reminded of at this climate.

Top 10 Discoveries 2024

My viewing log this year was not as vigorous and diverse as last couple of years as I traipse down to check what I have been watching. But there were some very interesting, notable films that stood out for me. So here they are, in an alphabetical order:

Adieu Philippine (1962) - Rozier Light and lively, astutely observing the culture and lives of the working class of the time (the post-war economic boom of the 60s), Jacques Rozier, the unsung hero of the French New Wave, is a major discovery for me this year. I will be watching more of his films and log them in the near future.

Bilder der Welt und Inschrift des Krieges/Images of the World and the Inscription of War (1989) - Farocki Harun Farocki, as a film essayist, shared many of the same traits as Godard and Alexander Kluge, but he was more direct and succinct than the other two. His ability in provoking the audience to think for themselves while guiding slightly with big ideas had no equal. With wars in Ukraine and Gaza in the internet age, the misinformation wars are raging like never before and I can't help noticing how prescient Farocki's film is.

Death by Hanging (1968) - Oshima Death by Hanging is a complex film, questioning the legitimacy of capital punishment, especially by Japanese government considering all the atrocities committed during the war and occupation of much of the South East Asia, Osmhima, a long time advocate of rights of ethnic Koreans living in Japan, is unafraid of exposing the hypocrisy of the state.

L'eau froide (1994) - Assayas Always in tight close up with a handheld camera, Assayas creates a raw, intimate portrayal of young rebels without a cause. Their pledges of love and promises seem as fleeting as the water stream Christine bathes in. L'eau froide, epitomizes the adolescent genre French cinema is known for. Ledoyen has the same rawness and volatility of Sandrine Bonnaire in A nous amours and is stunning in her youthful beauty.

Girlfriends (1978) - Weill Girlfriends is a very natural depiction of being a woman in the beginning of her career. It's not preachy in any ways and not judgmental about the characters it portrays. It's their decisions to make those life choices and will have to live with them. There is no wrong or right choice. There is only her choice. Independence is the key word in Girlfriends. Then there is sisterhood.

Grandeur et décadence d'un petit commerce de cinéma/Rise and Fall of a Small Film Company (1986) - Godard Again, as the title suggests, Godard bites the hand that feeds him. His plunge into Histoire(s) du Cinema only 4 years away, Grandeur et décadence shows him and his new cinematographer Caroline Champentier (who is in the film also as the wife of the director) experiment with video - slow zoom in, multi-layered dissolves, playing the defects of tape-based technology on images. It's a fun film.

Fin août, début septembre/Late August, Early September (1998) - Assayas The second Assayas on the list. But I had to. It's so well written and lovely. Life's curve balls, meeting and befriending people along the way, artistic ambitions and disappointments- they are all there on the screen.

Mermaid Legend (1984) - Ikeda It plays out like a softcore melodrama in the beginning. But the last 15 minutes of a trident rampage scene with Mari Shirato covered in arterial spray of about 100 men she kills is a sight to see. A true cult classic!

Sway (2006) - Nishikawa Mia Nishikawa presents a snapshot of a Japanese society in mid-2000: one escapes the old school patriarchy to a meaningless life in superficiality. The other, full of envy and resentment, still trying to appease the old generation and living in a self-imposed prison. Odagiri and Kagawa are both terrific in their roles.

Unter dir die Stadt/The City Below (2011) - Hochhäusler Non-descript glass and steel skyscrapers of Frankfurt are as much characters as the cold and calculating people who inhabit in Christoph Hochhäusler's take on Global Financial Crisis of 2007-2008. The word love is never uttered by anyone. The affair is not even overly sexual. It's the greed that takes over in a highly capitalized environment where everyone unknowingly plays power games over each other. It's the greed that breeds like a disease. It's as if Roland and Svenja are there but not there doing what they are doing. The disease has taken them over and they are just going through the motions. The ominous ending, as mass of people running down the street, being witnessed by the morally bankrupt, cheating couple from the hotel balcony, is chilling. The end of the capitalism has begun. One would hope.

You, the Living

Fin août, début septembre/Late August, Early September (1998) - Assayas Again, more I watch Olivier Assayas's films, they remind me what a great writer he is - how perceptive and insightful he is in every character and situation. That he is one of the great working writer/directors I admire most. Late August, Early September is no exception. Its down to earth characters and their approach to life that they lead, warts and all, are all too believable. I remember someone on the internet asking what filmmaker's films you want to live in- a decidedly a corny question, and thinking about it for a minute at the time but couldn't come up with an answer. After watching August/September, if I have a choice, I can safely say that I'd want to live in Assayas movies.

Late August, Early September concerns Gabriel (played fluidly by the great Mathieu Amalric), a literary editor/translator/documentary filmmaker, being tasked to interview a recluse writer Adrien (François Cluzet), since they think Gabriel is the one Adrien can trust and open up to. Adrien is a good writer - not a big famous one, but a good one. Always broke. And he does open up to Gabriel, after Gabriel accompanies him to the countryside to his childhood hometown. It's a friendship built on respect and admiration.

While juggling his professional career, Gabriel is also going through a breakup with live-in partner Jenny (Jeanne Balibar). They are trying to sell their apartment and split the money. It's hard when they still have feelings for each other and all your friends and family are mutual, wherever they go. Then there's Anne (Virginie Ledoyen), Gabriel's new young, hot-headed fling who is very into a physical, sexual relationship. Anne is trouble and she herself knows it too.

Then there is Vera (Mia Hansen-Løve, the real life partner of Assayas and an esteemed director herself), a high-schooler and Adrien's secret girlfriend: there's a poignant thread of this unrecognized love, only to be revealed after Adrien's untimely death, which affects great many people, especially Gabriel.

Early August, Late September sketches out very naturally (with Assaya's signature handheld, grainly Super 16mm), a creative person's life and its ups and downs and the meaningful relationships he forms. As usual, jobs don't define these characters. Their interactions feel genuine and truthful. Their joy and sorrow deeply felt. It's amazing how everyone looks so young in this, but at the same time so mature, compared to other characters these actors imbibe in their later years. Wistful yet hopeful, the film is a beautiful elegy to the vagaries of life. Loved it.

Self-Portrait

C'est pas moi/It's Not Me (2024) - Carax The question, "Who is Leos Carax?" was put on the French filmmaker of such films as Holy Motors and Annette by a museum, in preparation of an exhibit that didn't happen - explains Carax in the beginning of this 41 minute self-portraiture, ironically titled, C'est Pas Moi/It's Not Me. Like many artists, Carax has had his share of ups and downs in his 40-year career: Once touted as Godard's heir-apparent and an enfant terrible of French cinema, his grand, blurring vision of young love and cinema got him into a lot of trouble. His passionate affair with Juliette Binoche, and stormy relationship with the late Lithuanian actress Katerina Golubeva (whom he had a daughter with, Nastya Golubeva Carax, who is in the film), are often reflected in his films.

In C'est pas moi, Carax pays not too subtle homage to the late mentor, Jean-Luc Godard, in more ways than one. JLG's signature wordplay displays on the center of the screen in C'est pas moi, same size, same font - linking cinema, history and ghosts. His gravelly voice narration also reminds me of the late old master. He even includes a voice message Godard left him on his phone.

Here comes the full circle: Carax's earlier films were heavily influenced by the French New Wave. He started his career as a JLG's pupil (even appearing in JLG film King Lear), garnered acclaim for imitating JLG's style, but without the weight of the political, cultural subjects of his mentor. Instead, he aimed for youthful love, longing and whimsy that attracted many admirers like me. After the long hiatus (his magnum opus Les amants du Pont-Neuf/Lovers on the Bridge (1991)and its subsequent box office and critical failure almost destroyed his career and couldn't finance another film for decades), his resurrection with Holy Motors (2012) and Annette (2021), two very self-reflexive, fantastical films, Carax is back, embracing Godard again more openly, for the benefit of composing a dense, visually sumptuous self-portrait.

All Carax's past films are present – his vibrant color palette pristinely preserved in glorious celluloid (he was once idiosyncratically grouped with other 80s French filmmakers as ‘Cinema du Look’ in conjunction with his then cinematographer, the late Jean-Yves Escoffier).

It’s almost euphoric to see adorable faces of young Binoche, Julie Delpy and Golubeva, also baby Denis Lavant, a longtime collaborator of Carax, playing the filmmaker’s alter ego, Alex (Carax’s real name is Alex Oscar Dupont). His penchant for controversy (or bad French humor) is there too - in the form of Hitler and Polanski.

Carax is not a visual essayist commenting and reflecting on the state of the chaotic world we live in - maybe only a little bit but not in Godard's sense. The film is all about him. And it's beautiful and glorious. It builds up to a stormy solo piano session of the theme from The Young Girls of Rochefort, played by his daughter, Nastya - perfectly capturing the essence of Carax's career, his sentimentality, his art and beauty haunted by the ghosts of the past (including but not limited to departed: Golubeva, Guillaume Depardieu, Escoffier, Godard). C’est pas moi is the best cinematic self-portrait of an artist you can wish for. One of the year’s very best

This is No Communist Speaking, This is an Angry Black Man Speaking

Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat (2024) - Grimonprez Once upon a time, there was a hope and solidarity enough to counter the First World (The US and Europe): when the UN assembly was more democratic, in part, because of a bloc of newly independent African and Asian countries had votes and power to oppose the First World hegemony- This is when Castro, Nehru, Khrushchev, Malcolm X, Shukarno, Nasser, Tito hung out together in New York. The year was 1960 and The Belgian Congo was seeking independence. Belgian filmmaker Johan Grimonprez creates a comprehensive intersectional picture of post-colonial, Cold War world with American Civil Rights Movement, Black Nationalism and jazz in 2-hour-30-minute runtime. It's quite a lot for a historical documentary. But believe you me, it's worth it.

Jazz, that unique American music genre, was in its hay days in the 1960 with bebop (with Dizzy Gillespie widely credited as origin of this style) dominating the scene with the greats like - Max Roach, Miles Davis, Thelonius Monk, John Coltrane, Duke Ellington, Gillespie, Art Blakey, Melba Liston and singers such as Nina Simone, Abbey Lincoln... There are just too many to name all here. So how does Grimonprez pick and choose for this film? His decision is a wise one - include them all. First and foremost, with title cards closely resembling Blue Note album covers, jazz takes center stage with many musicians stating their political views in their interviews and music. Patrice Lumumba of the Congo and Kwame Nkrumah of newly independent Ghana and their desire to create the United States of Africa resonated deeply with Malcolm X, Black Nationalists and many musicians in the States.

It was an exciting time but also a dangerous time, especially for Lumumba, who had many admirers including Khrushchev and Castro. For Belgians who reluctantly gave the Congo their independence, the riches of the minerals in the Southern region of Katanga was too much to give up. Here Grimonprez connects the dots with the history of exploits of the region that continues to this day - from uranium to make atomic bombs that fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to cobalt and nickel to make batteries for Tesla and iphones with gross human rights violations. With so much corporate interests at stake, the Belgians, British, the CIA and even the UN - at the time Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld favoring and arming different factions to eliminate Lumumba. There's a funny bit about the US State dept. sending Louis Armstrong as a cultural ambassador to Africa and the Congo to snoop around what's going on there. Armstrong apparently later found out the CIA's real motivation and threatened to give up his US citizenship and move to Ghana.

The film builds up to the assassination of Lumumba. There is plenty of historical footage of Lumumba and his close associates including his speechwriter/political activist Andrée Blouin, Khruchshev, and enemies, mercenaries, diplomats, government officials all accompanied by jazz greats.

There are some modern documentary pitfalls in the film - obvious visual metaphors like an elephant being clumsily transported by the whites and Chubby smiling Khruchshev banging on the table over and over again, whitewashing his brutal oppression and invasion of Hungary, but Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat is a comprehensive look at the turning point in history - a glimmer of hope for the third world what it aspired and what it could have been - and how it was quickly snubbed out by the colonialist, imperialist, capitalist power that threw African continent into a turmoil with its tragic consequences still playing out all over the continent. During the Cold War, the US and Europe were seeing the world in dichotomy, quick to accuse voicing injustice as a communist activity. And how it became the prevalent mantra of the public even now. Boppers knew. Malcolm X knew. People protesting the European’s and CIA's roles in Lumumba's death in Harlem knew. Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat is a tremendous film and certainly one of the best of 2024.

21st Century Labor Movement

Union (2024) - Story, Maing It's amazing how the words "the essential workers" left our collective consciousness already, after 1.2 million died of Covid related illness in the US, only a couple of years back. Now we are back to normal, being apathetic to our e-commerce-based economy, where delivery people, warehouse workers, and Uber drivers, among many others, are not treated like heroes anymore.

That said, it is quite clear after this year's Presidential Election that the majority of the US population casted their votes out of economic anxiety, rather than any other issues. For the last four years, we were told, the economy was getting better. But for us working stiffs, it did not feel that way.

Cost of living is way too expensive for most of us, while meager wage increases couldn't keep up with the inflation. For democrats, who had been counting on anti-Trump sentiments alone, and shunned progressive working-class voices within the party, the landslide defeat was a sobering wake up call. It's not likely, though, that they would learn anything from their mistakes, just as they didn't in 2016, and again in 2022.

As we are facing a grim future for the next four years, Brett Story and Stephen Maing's new documentary, Union, should resonate more than ever. But you won't see the film streaming on Amazon any time soon.

Union tells the story about ALU (Amazon Labor Union) which made headlines in 2022 by organizing and winning the right to unionize a Staten Island Amazon Fulfillment Center. It's truly a Samson and Goliath story.

Amazon, one of the richest and most powerful online retail companies, which has 1.3 million workers nationwide, aggressively cracked down on unionizing workers who were asking for better working conditions, after many workers died during the Covid pandemic while working long hours on the floor with inadequate PPE. Chris Smalls, a former Fulfillment Center employee who was unjustly fired, became the point person, as he started organizing in a grassroots, face to face style, to have a worker's union, in and outside the facility for 11 months.

To have a union and have an election to do so in a workplace, you have to get 30 percent of the workforce to sign a petition and deliver it to NLRB (National Labor Relations Board). For the Amazon workers, just like any other heavy-turnaround e-job workers, it's an uphill battle all along the way because ALU is an extremely small and regional union (one Amazon facility among four in New York alone), no other established union would throw their support (Teamsters finally did only AFTER ALU won, of course), and even NLRB not giving a damn. There were infighting among factions: old school patriarch issues, disagreeing on abrasive tactics, class differences, all while Amazon deliberately oppressed their efforts to unionize.

Documentary veterans Story and Maing let the movement play out their efforts instead of narrating. They include several video footage of the internal Amazon meetings by the workers with their phones: in it, Amazon brought in outside consultant to discourage any kind of union activities with age-old, turn of the century talking points: the union takes dues no matter you are in it or not, which will go into the union bosses' pockets; even if you have a union, there's no guarantee that their conditions will improve, and so on. They plaster anti-union signs in breakrooms, even above the urinals.

NLRB decides that the petition for unionization is invalid because not all petitioners are currently Amazon employees. And this is the reality of the e-commerce economy. These gig jobs are not meant to be permanent. That means a company doesn't have any obligations to pay benefits.

But these are the most prevalent jobs for unskilled workers nowadays, and they are fast becoming permanent for most working class people, with no job security. The whole US economy is built on that, and companies like Amazon are still trying to cut corners any way they can for profit.

What Smalls and company are advocating is pretty obvious and simple: higher wages, workplace safety and job security. With day in, day out canvassing, they win the election to have a union. It is a small miracle. And there were some serious labor victories nationwide recently.

However, their fight is ongoing as the film shows: the second Staten Island Amazon facility failed to unionize. But the seed is planted, and the Amazon union momentum is spreading across the US. Union shows us that there is a glimmer of hope in the darkness.

I wonder as I watch Union: if only someone can tap into a worker solidarity, and speak plainly about the worker's rights in the state of our economy run by multi-million-dollar companies. With all the personal deficiencies, Smalls knew how to cut through all the bullshit that comes with organizing and actually get to people.

In a world of plutocracy, the working-class struggle is not a left or right issue. Smalls didn't care about whether he gets Biden's endorsement (again, he did AFTER they won). I wish he or someone from his organizing committee would run for office in the near future.

The film screens this week at DOC NYC. Visit their site for more information. It is also screening at Leeds International Film Festival, IDFA Film Festival, and Indie Memphis.

Death Drive

The Shrouds (2024) - Cronenberg Death, technology and commerce intermingle in David Cronenberg's new film, The Shrouds. With his bold exploration into our darkest human desires throughout all of his filmography, the Canadian body horror master still finds a lot of humor and irony in his storytelling after fifty plus years. Even the theme of death haunts every aspect of the film, The Shroud is suprisingly funny and engaging film that tells a lot about the current technology obsessed culture.

The death of his beloved wife Becca (Diane Kruger), prompted the tech mogul Karsh (Vincent Cassel) to create GraveTech, a technology that enables for grieving family to watch the images of their loved one's corpse as it disintegrates in ultra high definition, via app. The body is wrapped in shrouds with sensitive cameras attached to them. Karsh goes on about the gory details to an unsuspecting blind date, set up by his savvy and concerned virtual assistant named Hunny (voiced by Kruger with a yassified avatar). The blind date, uncomfortable and freaked out, excuses herself out the door.

On the cursp of his business going global with a dying Hungarian businessman's investment, someone vandalizes his GraveTech enabled cemetary with headstones adorned with videofeeds knocked down and smashed, including his wife's. With no one to trust, he brings in a desheveled tech expert Maury (Guy Pearce) who happens to be the ex of Becca's twin sister Terry (Kruger again). They suspect some underground environmental group based in Iceland is responsible for the vandalism. But it also could be other parties engaging in industrial espionage (Chinese company which makes the shrouds, Hungarians, etc).

Becca in intervals with her decaying body still haunts Karsh's dreams. The Hungarian mogul's blind wife (Sandrine Holt) gets into the act also. And he can't resist hooking up with Terry, a dog groomer who reminds him of his dead wife, at least in body resemblance. Terry has a tendency to be sexually aroused by conspiracy theories, which nowadays, there are plenty to go around.

As always, Cronenberg meshes both our skepticisms and fascinations about the advancement of technology into a great, thought provoking film without ever succumbing to sentimentality. Added layer in The Shroud is self-reflexivity in grief (Cronenberg lost his wife in 2017 and with Vincent Cassel with his silvery spikey hair, closely resembling the director). There's plenty of humor in The Shrouds, but the grasping at the loss of a loved one and the hard act of letting go of the earthly, bodily attachment rings true.

If I Fall from Grace

By the Stream (2024) - Hong Clocking at 111 minutes, Hong Sangsoo's new film, By the Stream, is perhaps the most busily plotted and the most sinewy among his recent output. It touches on many of Hong's preoccupations and reflexive filmmaking, along with the recent surge of the Korean feminist movement.

It concerns a disgraced actor, now a small bookstore owner Siyeon (Kwon Hyeho) in Kangwon province, being invited to stage a play in the year end festival in a women's university in Seoul, by his niece Jeonim (Kim Minhee) that he hadn't seen for years. It turns out that he is a last minute replacement, because the young director who was in charge of the production was dismissed because he slept with 3 of the cast members. The actor sees this opportunity as a kind of redeemable occasion which would rekindle his passion for art as he felt when he first started his career, which happens to be at the same university long ago.

Jeonim, in her early 40s, is living a quiet, uneventful life as a textile artist and working at the university. She is first seen sketching in her notebook by the steam in earth colored Fall attire. It was the university's department chair Jeong (Cho Yunhee) who gave her the job and trusted her and became a big sister figure in her life. It turns out Jeong is a big fan of Siyeon as an actor and really wanted to meet him. After a couple of drinking occasions and some grilled eels, the actor and Jeong get along swimmingly and that makes Jeonim a little uneasy and jealous. In the meantime, with new materials that Siyeon wrote, the 4-female play team rehearses their play under his guidance. The young women are eager and full of optimism in their expression of joy and outlook- the way only not-yet-jaded-by-life young people say and behave.

Jeonim confronts the young director (Ha Seongguk) who was let go, when he comes back into the university campus to talk to one of the girls he professed his love for. His remorseless behavior and demands to get his job back and his material being staged receives Jeonim's contempt and anger. Her reaction is almost feral.

When the young man makes a second appearance to propose to one of the girls, Siyeon steps in and has a talk with the young man. We don't get to see what's being said.

Hong leaves a lot of threads messy and untidy, unlike Jeonim's textile patterns with intricate designs. What really happened to Siyeon the actor? What made Jeonim content with her life? Why did their play receive poorly and why did the dean of the school want to talk to Siyeon? It Doesn't matter. Hong's characters interactions are delicious as always. It's a change of pace from his minimalist work with his last couple of outings, even the Isabelle Huppert starring A Traveler's Needs that came out this year as well.

Space Music

Little, Big and Far (2024) - Cohen The launching of the James Webb space telescope in 2021 changed the way we look at space. High up in space, it is able to detect the wavelength of many distant planets, stars and galaxies that the Hubble space telescope couldn't. The clear and astonishing images of the planets in the solar system are flooding in for the first time.

There was another awesome celestial development: the European Space Agency (ESA)'s Rosetta Mission put a lander probe on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, named after its two scientists who first detected it. It recorded a 24 minute video footage from the surface of the comet, and was later compiled as a grainy black and white two seconds gif, which became the internet sensation. In it, we see the great jagged mountain cliffs with specks of space dust flying about like snow with the vastness of space in the background. These jaw dropping, fairly recent developments in space explorations and discoveries and the implications of finding the origins of our known universe were never properly contemplated in current culture, until now, with Jem Cohen's Little, Big and Far.

The film starts with an Austrian astronomer named Karl. He chronicles how he got into the field and discusses his love for jazz- the soundtrack for space. It is something to see the ESA probe Philae's footage of comet's surface gif on loop with Coltrane's Manifestation (from the album Cosmic Music) blasting in the background on the big screen. Karl has studied stars all his adult life, but at 70, he is at a crossroad: His consultant gig at the university is uncertain and his physicist wife is in Arizona, utterly devoted to her work and he feels they are growing apart.

For a while Little, Big and Far is a visual/aural correspondence between Karl and Sarah, a fellow astronomer, who reside in the US. Sarah's concern is with the ecological disasters in anthropocene era, that the environmental destructions caused by human activities are too vast and frequent - recently highlighted by the Eastern seaboard in the US being besieged by unnatural orange smoke blown from a large forest fire in Canada. Sarah tells a story about an abandoned New Jersey telescope steeped in local legend and folklore by way of her young, nonchalant and wise beyond his years PhD student. The title, Little, Big and Far refers to what Karl and his wife see as the core of their work and life. Our lives seem very small to the vastness of the known universe which is still expanding, in comparison.

Cohen, as with his Museum Hours (2012), makes a gentle inquiry to human connections while presenting it within the bigger picture- in this case, the universe. His unhurried docu-fiction hybrid, using real academics and scientists through interviews and anecdotes, is so seamlessly melded together, while accentuating his micro/macro world view.

After attending a conference in Greece, Karl takes a journey to a remote small Greek island in search of the darkest skies. He talks with the eccentric locals who has his own theories about our solar system and ancient methods to measure time. The big finale to the story, which Cohen has been brewing throughout the whole film, features the awe inspiring skies studded with stars as Karl sits atop of the highest point of the hill in a remote Greek island. Our mind wanders - the stardust, the infinite vastness of space, our human connections to each other which gives meaning to our existence. With the long shutter, Cohen captures all the glories of the universe. And it's magical.

Colonial Herstory

Grand Tour (2024) - Gomes Miguel Gomes’s beguiling new film Grand Tour takes us down to the tour of Southeast Asia through the eyes of a British colonial bureaucrat Edward (Gonçalo Waddington) and his fiancée, Molly (Crista Alfaiate), as they crisscross Burma, Singapore, Bangkok, Saigon, Manila, Osaka, Shanghai and Chinese hinterland. Beautifully shot in 16mm in color and black and white by Sayombhu Mukdeeprom and Guo Liang (Chinese part) and by Rui Poças (for staged dialog scenes), Grand Tour illustrates the filmmaker's penchant for playing with its cinematic form and historicity, tinkering the boundaries of space and time. And it's delicious.

Based on Somerset Maugham's travel essays collection, The Gentleman in the Parlor, the first half of the story concerns Edward, fleeing impending marriage to his fiancé who is on her way from Britain to join him in Burma. The title card indicates it's the year 1918. The thing is, many of the footage in various places indicate that it's the modern times. That the film is not a period piece and nostalgia trip, swooning over the bygone era. That there is something bigger at work here than the mere silly screwball narrative. Nevertheless, these documentary style footage - a human powered Ferris wheel in Myanmar, Jeepney karaoke in Manila, shadow puppet play in Bangkok, the view from the boat in Yangtze river are all stunning. The dizzying display of places as Edward zips through one place to another, and the rhythm of the tour never slows down. He goes further and further away to avoid seeing Molly, his journey becomes more and more of an existential trip. What is he running away from? Even Edward himself doesn't really know.

The second half of the film is from Molly's point of view. And we repeat Edward's trajectory on the map with her. Molly is a spirited woman, and not the type who gives up easily. With her determination and charm (with a distinctive devilish laugh), she traces Edward's path like a good detective. She picks up dutiful servant Ngoc (Lang Khê Tran) while staying in a palatial house of a smitten American colonialist Sanders (Cláudio da Silva) in Bangkok and continue her journey in the pursuit of catching up with her runaway fiancé.

On the surface, Grand Tour is an old Hollywood screwball comedy of the battle of the sexes. But it's also a rebuke of the inherent male oriented adventure story- a man wants to be free and subservient woman haplessly pursues the love of her life into foreign lands and dies. In Gomes's hands, the artificiality of footage shot in studios of the exotic locale- jungles, a train wreck, colonial homes, etc., rubs shoulders with the 16mm color footage shot on locations is all the more accentuated. Molly is both that lovelorn girl in silent pictures and stubborn, fraternizing modern woman with a charismatic laugh.

Grand Tour exists on its own floating cinematic biosphere outside spatio-temporal continuum where past and present intermingle, in the context of first-world colonialism and the old-world sexism. It's another delicious concoction from Gomes.

Silent Observer

Caught by the Tides (2024) - Jia The master chronicler of China's changing times, Jia Zhangke keeps up with Caught by the Tides, again starring his collaborator/wife, Zhao Tao, taking the lead in a silent role. The film charts from 2001 to the pandemic era China. Culling from unused footage from his own films of the last 22 years, Jia, as always, inventively looks back and forward to tell the characters swept up by the times and tides of life.

When we see Qiao Qiao (Tao) for the first time in the city of Datong, She is a hustling dancer, singer, model in nightclubs and shopping malls in her Cleopatra wig. She is in a relationship with her manager Bin (Li Jubin), a two bit, small-time businessman. One day Bin texts her via mobile phone that he is moving to another province to look for business opportunities, that he will pick her up after he makes some money. His business overseeing construction takes him to The Three Gorges Dam and the cities are condemned to be demolished because of the rising water level.

Qiao Qiao decides to follow Bin, even though he doesn't reciprocate her feelings and seldomly contacts her over many years. In the meantime, Bin, trying in several business ventures, gets embroiled in political corruption when his boss takes money and runs off. When Qiao Qiao finally catches up with him in Fengjie, the town condemned by the rising waters with the dam being built, she finally breaks up with him using texts on the phone. The year is 2006.

We find Bin, now old and walking with a cane, taking a plane down to Guangdong Province, to visit an old time business associate. Everyone is wearing masks and some are in hazmat suits. He came to see if there's business opportunities in the south. But his friend is now in a hospital and because of Covid restrictions, they communicate through video chat on the smartphone. When Bin asks if there's anything he can be useful at, as he is well versed in constructions, the bedridden friend tells him that it's all about advertisement revenues off of tiktok. He manages several country bumpkin tiktok stars.

Bin goes back to Datong and finds Qiao Qiao working as a grocery clerk. Even though they wear masks and have aged significantly since they saw each other (Tao not as much because she doesn't age), they recognize each other. A lot of water under the bridge. They walk together silently as the snow falls.

Due to the Covid pandemic and restrictions, Jia couldn't shoot another film. So while looking at unused footage and b-rolls he shot over the years in various formats, he decided to incorporate them into Caught by the Tides. This experiment, in line with his formal cinematic exercises in his previous works - the blending fiction and documentary, tinkering with different genres and using different formats, adds another layer to the poignancy of the film - time passing. Not only rapidly changing technology (there are scenes shot in 360 VR camera in Tides) and landscapes, we see his actors aging right before our eyes.

Without saying much, in Tao's case, nothing at all, it's Qiao Qiao's sad smile looking at a robot greeter at the mall that tells a thousand stories. And it's much more effective than any expositional dialog. Jia finally makes a silent movie star out of his muse, who witnesses the passage of time with her sad gaze.

Manifestation

April (2024) - Kulumbegashivili After her impressive debut film, Beginning (2020), about a woman's plight in a deeply religious and patriarchal society, Georgian director Dea Kulumbegashivili returns with April. And it's a challenging feminist work, to say the least. The film features some difficult to stomach scenes of real time medical procedures.

April starts in the complete darkness, then there is a hideous naked creature, traversing shallow pool of water in the dark. Her skin's all saggy and her feature is shapeless. The sound of children playing in the water accompanies this disturbing sight. Throughout the film, we see the creature over and over again.

We are then introduced to Nina (Beginning's Ia Sukhitashvili, starring in another challenging main role), an OB/GYN delivering the baby in an operating room. It's a real-time birth filmed. After the graphic birth, the baby is not moving. Later, the father of the still birth baby blames Nina for its death. There's a rumor going around that Nina performs illegal abortions in this rural, agricultural region of Georgia. Nina rebuffs the insinuations and points out the fact the ignorant, superstitious local population - that the couple had no prior consultations or pre-natal care at the hospital until it was too late to find out that there were complications with the young mother's pregnancy. It turns out Nina does perform outpatient abortions for unwanted pregnancies (young mothers, rape victims, etc., usually on the patient's kitchen table). Her colleague David warns her about her extracurricular activity, that the hospital admins are itching to get rid of her with any excuses, "That's the side-job for the under-paid nurses, you don't need to do it. You are not changing the world."

In her spare time, Nina visits bars and cattle auctions at night, looking for anonymous sexual encounters which results in violence. It is as if she is actively challenging what she can get away with as an educated, professional woman, in a male dominant, deeply religious and superstitious society, even if it means bodily harm and even losing her career.

There is a prolonged scene where we are presented with a young deaf-mute girl's exposed midriff on the dining room table as Nina performs an abortion. Her older sister summoned her knowing she does the procedure. It is revealed that they don't know the who the father is. Yet they refuse to take pills (the older sister has five children, all delivered by Nina) because of the religious reasons and they can't let the man of the house know about the pregnancy. The scene is not graphic per se; It's procedural and detached. But It goes on forever. April is one of the few films that deals with the same subject matter that does not resort to making the actual procedure as a selling point or the emotional crux of the film. It comes later, involving the same girl.

Kulumbegashivili's formalist approach in April - full frame, long continuous shots, minimal coverage and mostly from its protagonist's POV, is effective in creating dread and isolation Nina feels in an oppressive society where she sees no reprieve for women. The director delves in to metaphysics (as she did with Beginning), and one can interpret the creature as a modern day witch. A medieval monster who kills babies and being reviled and persecuted by male dominant society, still steeped in superstitions.

Living Under Occupation

No Other Land (2024) - Adra, Ballal, Abraham, Szor As I write this non-review-review of a documentary on the West Bank in the Occupied Territories, Israel is engaging in military conflicts with Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, Syria and Yemen. Iran just launched retaliatory bombing of the airbase in Israel.

Going through what's been happening for the past year is going to be futile because it will need detailed context with how we got here - on the verge of World War 3, would take way too long. As I cover New York Film Festival which this film is part of, there's a boycott happening against the event because of many of the sponsors are deemed pro-Israel donors.

I say this is not a movie review because I'm about to lay down what happens in this very personal documentary and explain what it means at this time and place in the world, not as much about how the film was made and put together. This article is from the perspective of a person living in New York, married to a woman of Jewish descent: this is how I see it from my perspective and no one else's. So please keep that in mind as you read along.

No Other Land, a documentary by a group of Palestinian and Israeli activists, shows what it's like to be living under an apartheid state, in the Occupied Territories of the West Bank. Five years in the making, it documents the ongoing destruction in Masafer Yatta- an area consisting of a small group of Palestinian villages in the South of the West Bank. It focuses on Basel Adra, a young activist (serving as one of the directors of the film) who grew up in the village and has been documenting Israeli incursions since he was a child.

He meets Israeli journalist Yuval (Yuval Abraham who is also credited as a director) in 2019, covering land siege and demolition of the Palestinian inhabitants’ brick and mortar homes on the dry hills by Israeli military, which cites the Israeli Supreme Court ruling that Israel has the right to the land in the Occupied Territories, for building a military training ground. Confrontations ensue. But it's been like this forever. Basel's dad has been arrested many times in the past. The homes get destroyed, then rebuilt (with great difficulty I might add), destroyed and rebuilt. They live in constant fear of being evicted or being arrested. The military cuts their water lines, confiscates their generators, pours cement to the wells - all these are documented by Basel and others. Basel, along with his father, known to the Israeli military officers as troublemakers, is a constant target for harassment and threats.

Yuval is rightfully enraged by all of the things he sees, done by the Israeli military, by his name. He is an Israeli. At the end of the day, he gets to go home by breezing through checkpoints, using the Israeli citizen only lanes. He gets to shower and sleep in a cushy bed. On the other hand Basel, about the same age as him, with a law degree, can't get a job, other than manual labor. He needs to tend the gas station when his father gets arrested for protesting, since that's the sole source for the family income. Yet, it's Basel who comforts Yuval, who tells him to calm down. "You are too enthusiastic. You want to see the change overnight, it won't come tomorrow." After years of living under occupation, people become realists.

The network of resistance is done via phone, neighbors communicate that there's a raid or bulldozers coming to this town or that house, as the military seemingly selects their targets at random. They mobilize to stage a demonstration.

A neighbor gets shot while being evicted from their house. He is paralyzed from the shoulders down. They can’t afford to stay in the hospital. Their home destroyed, they move into the cave (the region is known for its natural caves). With a small camera, Basel records everything. He uploads it to the web and hopes to get the words out of the struggle. That's all he does- constantly looking at the phone. Hey, two thousand people liked my post. Their activism sometimes bore fruit and gave a moment of reprieve, like that time Tony Blair toured the region and saw their situation first-hand. And the Israelis backed down their expansion temporarily. Basel's father has a picture with him to prove it.

When they are chilling at night, sharing hookah, the conversation leads to other things between two men. "Do you see yourself having a family?" Yuval asks. Basel hesitates to answer. He is too tired. The years of struggle weighs him down. Always married to his phone, looking at the likes and responses to his posts about the daily lives of his struggle and the news. He is tired. There's nothing else he can do.

Dominating the Middle East news cycle for a year has been the ongoing indiscriminate bombing of civilians in Gaza since October 7th of 2023 by Israel, in retaliation of the surprise attack from the Hamas militants in Gaza Strip. This emboldened the zionist Israeli settler movement in the West Bank. Accompanied by Israeli soldiers, the settlers start violently attacking the homes in Masafer Yatta. Basel records his cousin getting shot by a settler. His father gets arrested. The movie ends in the early 2024. Basel and thousands of other stories like his still go on. People's suffering is staggering, so is their resilience.

Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor capture something that is so immediate and telling, living under the occupation. The systematic injustice and oppression are well documented in No Other Land. Everything we take for granted - roof over our heads, running water, electricity are in constant threat. Plus scarcity of economic opportunities, healthcare and restriction of movement, makes everyday life of people in the West Bank extremely difficult.

Social media serves a very different purpose in the Occupied Territories. Palestinians really count on getting the footage out to the world to show what’s really going on. I had no idea how much they depend on the pressure tactics by us on politicians to improve their lives. It seems no distributor is picking up this film because of its 'sensitive' nature and fear of offending the Israeli government and its powerful lobby groups even though the No Other Land won the awards at this year’s Berlinale. But injustice is injustice. These people in the film are not actors. The oppression is real. The racist vitriol is real. And I feel it is our (people who've seen the film) duty, to advocate for their plight.