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.