"Oka!" takes a musicologist from the sickbed into the wild

The film “Oka! Amerikee”, directed by Lavinia Currier and written in part by real-life ethno-musicologist Louis Sarno, comes across as creating a sub-genre.  That is, science fiction or fantasy, placing the protagonist and moviegoer in another world, almost that of another planet, while needing nothing supernatural (with a caveat about the ending, and maybe about his reception of a "message" in his sickbed, below).  The film is part “Avatar”, part “Lost”, part “Terra Nova”, and part “Lord of the Flies”, with a touch of “Into the Wild” and “Cast Away”, maybe even “Dances with Wolves”.

The word means “listen” in Akka (or Aka), the basis of the language of the Bayaka Pygmies, of Central Africa.  Most of this film was shot on location in the Central African Republic, north of the Congo. There are some references to the Bantu and the serious tribal problems covered in other films.

The film invents a fictional character, Larry Whitman, played by Kris Marshall (“Love Actually”).  As the film starts, his doctor warns him he needs a liver transplant and should not travel.  He also has tinnitus and fears danger of going deaf  (like Beethoven), ruining his life as a musician.  He wants to document one more musical idiom in Central Africa, that of the Bayaka.  He goes anyway.  Having plenty of energy and ability to live in the wild while lugging high-tech gear, he doesn’t really have many obvious medical problems (until almost the end),  and he looks pretty good physically (just not perfect).   The film does make him look like a giant compared to the natives (as if out of “Gulliver’s Travels”).  He’s able to make the native people like him and communicate with them in their language and value set.  He (probably knowing this before he left home) runs into the political aspirations of the “mayor” (Isaach de Bankole) and a logging developer (Will Yun Lee), prepared to deforest the area to do business with the Chinese.  The mayor has a political front, to stop the pygmies from hunting and eating elephants, which we know are very intelligent animals deserving of respect. (At this point, I should also refer to the CBS “60 Minutes Presents”, reviewed on the TV blog Jan. 23, which had a segment [also called “Into the Wild”] on elephants as well as wildlife migrations in this general area.)  

The mayor demands that Larry bring in his equipment for bureaucratic approval (“we are now a modern country” – laugh) and claims that Larry needs copyright approval to record wildlife and native music.  That’s an ironic point, given the current political battles in the US now over copyright infringement (like SOPA and Protect-IP), but this takes copyright to absurdity.

As the movie unfolds, the music works its way into the story. The music tends to comprise chants, and two-or-three note motives played on primitive woodwinds or percussion, often counterpointed and danced to. As the people chant and dance, they come alive spiritually. This is not music that emphasizes development or personalization of emotion the way European classical music (since Bach, or at least since Mozart or Beethoven) does.  Instead, it is more like a ritual experience, like hymn singing (the same verses over and over) among Evangelical Christians.  As the film progress toward a penultimate climax with the elephant hunt, another crude and very large woodwind is introduced (“The Bayaka”) and the sound has a mesmerizing effect.  The music has taken over and driven the plot.

At the end, a medicine man has to tend to Larry.  There is an “Inception-like” sequence that the viewer must interpret for himself.  I don’t know whether Sarno really did have these medical issues in real fact. (If a viewer does, please comment.)  I like the possible interpretation that local medicine healed him (just as I once witnessed a healing at MCC Dallas in 1979 and maybe another one at an AOG in Florida in 1998). If so, I can think of small directorial changes (or images) that could have made that point stronger.

Interesting also is the “living off the land” – the quick building of tree-component huts as if they were tents, covered by huge leaves.   How many of us could build these things with our own hands?

The film was edited and processed in the US; I would have expected France (as the film is mostly in French and in Akka with subtitles).  The production companies are James Bruce and Roland, and the distributor is a small, obscure one, Dada.  I don’t see that it was in the festival circuit; it should have been, where it might have gotten a major corporate distributor and been in the running for Oscars or Golden Globes.  This is a film that could have used Imax and 3-D, although it’s hard to imagine attracting the necessary investor money for such a big project on this obscure but (morally) important story.

The movie site is here. 

I saw the film at the West End Cinema in Washington DC late Thursday afternoon in front of a fair crowd given weekday time slot. 

I did rent “Lord of the Flies” around 2004, and was left with the impression that Getty’s character was hardly much of a leader, just too young. As a substitute teacher, I ran into this novel a lot .

I saw “Dances with Wolves” in 1990 when it came out, and remember the trials of Kevin Costner’s character. I saw “Cast Away” in 2000, and remember Tom Hanks and the volleyball playmate Wilson.

Wikipedia attribution link for map of Pygmy peoples in Africa.  

"Bad Actress": what does a has-been soap star do to get back into the limelight?

Well, ready for a cynical black comedy about Tinseltown and the B-grade actors?  Well, you’ll enjoy Strand’s upcoming “Bad Actress”, directed by Robert Lee King.

Beth Broderick plays Alyssa Rampart-Pillage, who got knocked off the fame stage of soap opera in the 90s as she outgrew “HMO Nurse”.  (Funny, “Days of our Lives” has been reincarnating the characters and rehiring the actors it had axed.)  She’s had to work in the real world, just doing commercials for her husband’s air conditioning business. That’s Bernie (Chris Mulkey).  When her talented daughter Topanga stages an Earth Day demonstration at the opening of a new store, tragedies ensue and a body count mounts. The notoriety will give Alyssa her new chance for another "career".  We may learn what Alyssa and cousin Morris (Vincent Vintresca, and he is not a cat) are capable of, with the complicity of virile gigolo boyfriend George (Andrew Levitas), who is all to willing not to stay out of jail.  Alyssa’s other two kids, fraternal twins Rebecca (Whitney Able) and Russell (Ryan Hansen) are the only two solid people in the movie.   Besides environmentalism and police work, the movie has some interesting explorations into wills and the “dead hand” issue – all because Bernie, after seeing Topanga’s ghost, gets religion and starts believing in sacrifice and charity.

The movie even takes a poke at the Oscars at its “climax”.
  

The official Facebook is here. The “official site” doesn’t seem to be built yet. 

The DVD is available Feb. 21, 2012 and the pre-book is Jan. 24, 2012.

The film played in international film festivals in New York, Miami and Cleveland.

This may be a good play to mention a 2002 film for comparison, Brent Huff’s “100 Mile Rule”, where some Michigan businessmen decide they can “play” because they are more than 100 miles away from their wives when at a sales conference in LA.  The film really hits hard the nature of “sales culture”, that is, “always be closing.”   I saw this at an international festival in Minneapolis in 2002.

Werner Herzog's "Cave of Forgotten Dreams"; the short "Ode to the Dawn of Man" shows baby play, literally

Werner Herzog, with very gentle “sotto voce” narrates his stunning documentary “Cave of Forgotten Dreams”, examining the implications of pictographs and artwork found in caves (the Chauvet Cave) in the Provence Region, in an area of rolling plateaus, steep cliffs and river banks, in southern France.

The cave had been sealed off accidentally by rock slides, and was discovered in 1994. The artwork appears to date back about 32000 years, and contains probably the earliest artwork and even musical instruments (including a pentatonic flute) ever found. The people used the caves only for ceremonial purposes. At one point, the explorers follow thumbprints back into the cave to follow the movements of a typical hunter. These were true “homo sapiens”, not Neanderthals, who lived in the area and who might have been able to interbreed.

The photography has very muted colors, necessary inside the cave (where access is so strictly controlled and not open to the public), but the technique continued outside, giving the French countryside a rather extraterrestrial look.

The film, produced by Creative Differences and the History Channel, has DVD distribution by IFC. It also showed at the Toronto Film Festival (2010).

The official site is here. The theatrical release was available in 3-D.

The DVD has an expansive 38-minute short “Ode to the Dawn of Man”, which demonstrates the rehearsals for the music of the film, composed by Ernst Reijseger. The music, with a chamber group including keyboards, chamber orchestra, and wordless chorus, tends to emphasize ground bass (in 2/4 time) with many variations. The composer’s wife often rehearses with the baby in her lap, and in a sense at the end of the film, the baby plays some notes on the piano, one at a time, while Mom plays an atonal, 12-tone theme (rather odd effect). That is an interesting concept in teaching a 1-year-old music.

Can babies learn to play instruments this young? Does anyone know?

Another interesting sidelight is the keyboard artist, youthful-looking Dutch artist Harmen Fraanje (link), who sometimes conducts, but usually plays both the upright piano (keys exposed) and tracker Wurlitzer organ, arranged in a perpendicular manner so he can play one with each hand simultaneously.

Wikipedia attribution link for Chauvet Cave picture. Other pictures, mine, from northern MN.


Update: Jan. 24

Oscar nominees for 2012 ceremony are here. There are nine nominees for Best Picture.

"Clapham Junction": powerful British gay drama structured like a Robert Altman film

“Clapham Junction” is an interesting British gay drama, directed by Adrian Shergold, that plays like a Robert Altman film, or even like the film “5 Lines” about the DC Metro.  Over a period of about 36 hours, it traces the lives and interplay among several characters in south London, with a central event being a horrific slaying of a gay man in a London park. 

The film was originally produced as British made-for-TV and ran 2 hours, and was condensed to about 100 minutes for DVD release on E-1 and Regent.  It may have played in some LGBT festivals. The concept is quite intriguing and some of the characters are quite compelling, but not all of them.  The film seems uneven, but that may be because of the cuts.  (Why not release the entire original?)

The opening of the film is interesting to me, as one of the characters is walking through a featureless tunnel, almost a metaphor for passing on.  That character, who is African American, does feel taunted, but he is more of a foreshadow for the main course of drama to follow.  The tunnel metaphor appears again a few time.

The main story begins with a gay wedding, or civil union (this is 2006 in Britain). It’s lavish, almost to the level of “Melancholia”, and even offers some music from the finale of Saint-Saens’s Organ Symphony (competition, it seems, for William and Catherine picking the music of Hubert Parry right before they tie the knot.)  The partners are Will (Richard Lintern) and Gavin (Stuart Bunce).  But Will gets distracted soon by a sudden fad for a handsome waiter Alfie (David Leon).  (“Alfie” was a famous British comedy in 1996, remade in 2004.) Alfie, unfortunately, will stumble into tragedy later.

Other subplots meander, however. The most important concerns a teen, Theo (Luke Treadway, 22 when the film was made, and definitely too “mature” now on imdb for the role), who takes a liking to thrity-something Tim (Joseph Mawle), making eye contact and later watching him from an apartment window. Trying to get away from his overprotective grandmother, he eventually visits Tim and begs for some personal attention, manipulating the older man quite cleverly.  It is definitely possible for adults to get into trouble with minors this way because the minor is “mature for his age” (as Theo is) and can manipulate him.  It’s also a difficult topic for film, as in the 2003 movie “Student Seduction” (reviewed here May 4, 2010), but it puts a different spin on the “Dateline Problem”.   This situation propels the film toward a big climax to supplement the tragedy that has already happened. 

There is a dinner scene near the end where the grandmother asks why gays think they have a problem, “they” got their rights now, right?  Why can’t they just keep their ideas to themselves and leave “normal people” alone (so “normal people” can function without having to think about themselves)?  There’s another great line to the effect, “I don’t have kids because I’m gay”.

The music score uses Bach’s unaccompanied cello music a lot.

The film is quite explicit in a few places, and would probably get an NC-17 if shown in US theaters.   But I think we need films with real substance intended just for adults.  In this case, the explicit scenes are necessary to convey the entire meaning. I wonder if the full length version covers the questions about hate crimes against gays; it appears in this film that the perpetrators don’t get caught. One could otherwise compare this movie to films about Matthew Shepard (“Anatomy of a Hate Crime”, and “The Laramie Project” (plays blog, Dec. 17, 2010). This film should have become better known than it is.

The actual location in London has a site here. The area was apparently affect by flash mobs during the looting crisis in 2011.

"Bonus:"

 This might be a place to mention another Strand film, "Frisk", from 1995, directed by Todd Verow, based on a novel by Dennis Cooper where the novel author apparently admits to horrific deeds or inclinations in a letter early in the film, which leads to a first-person rendition of the deeds in the film, which are quite graphic. A potential legal oddity. 

"A Separation" (from Iran) presents divorce, eldercare, and "bribery" in a complex moral drama

The film “A Separation” (“Jodaeiye Nader az Simin”), from Iran (director Asghar Farhadi), certainly provides a roadmap for how we construct and resolve moral dilemmas. The story provides a good case for the “collective good” aim of moral principles common in most religious scriptures (whether the Koran, the Bible, the Book of Mormon), and yet at its conclusion makes personal honor an absolute.  That is to say, the “hero”, dutiful husband Nader (Peyman Moadi, who makes himself energetic and likeable), finally has to decide an issue on the basis of whether he really did anything wrong, rather than on what resolves the needs for two families.  All religions have to deal with these kinds of situations.  And so do all reputable legal systems.

Simini, Nader’s wife (Leila Hatami) wants to leave Iran to give a better life for her blossoming daughter Tehmeh (Tarina Farhadi).  Nader, however, cannot leave his father, deteriorating rapidly with Alzheimer’s disease, alone.  As the movie opens, they want a pragmatic, no-fault divorce which the religious cleric (under Shiite law) cannot allow.  She goes away briefly, while Nader tries to hire a caregiver, who, a female, at first wonders if she can even provide the physical care that the aging father needs.  After some mishaps, Nader tries to fire her, and as she leaves the apartment, she falls and soon miscarries.  There follows a complex battle in which Nader is accused of causing the death of the unborn child, but even that does not account for all of the moral complexity.

The film takes place mostly in door, with a lot of rapid, heated dialogue; the technical quality of the film isn’t quite up to contemporary standards, and the top and bottom were cropped slightly to fit into 1.85:1. 

The practical difficulties of caring for the father, who no longer recognizes his son, are well demonstrated.

The official site is here. It had played in the New York, Telluride, and Toronto film festivals and won the Golden Globe for best foreign language picture.

"Space Tourists" (from Sundance library) shows civilians who will pay millions to pay to be trained as astronauts

Sundance is offering a 2009 documentary by Christian Frei, “Space Tourists”, which documents the experience of several civilians around the world who have paid up to $20 million to fly on Russian or European space shuttles. 

The documentary is in segments, including an effort in Kazakhstan with a young adult Iranian woman as a tourist (more or less taking the first hour), and then another project in Romania (from the viewpoint of a young engineer), and then a presentation of Russia’s Star City, where Charles Simonyi, architect of Microsoft Word and Excel, is trained, in a variety of situations (centrifuge, zero gravity, wilderness survival).  Imagine paying millions of your own money to do this?  Will Mark Zuckerberg try it (having the advantage of youth)?  Simonyi comments that this is like military life. (For survival training, they are given weapons with one round.)  The young woman says she is willing not to come back from space.

There is also a section where ragtag engineers camp out on the steppes to recover components of the Soyuz as it falls.

Much of the early part is photographed by young Norwegian Jonas Bendiksen, who explains the physics of a lot of the shuttle work.

Toward the end, there is an effective animation of a lunar landing echoing the mood of Kubrick’s “2001”.
  

This film (as well as Thursday’s here) comes from a list of “New discoveries from Sundance film festival”.  I could not find these in the 2012 alphabetized list  (here ).

  

Here is the official site for this film. 

There is a review today of “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” on my “films on threats to freedom” blog (see Profile, look for “cf”).

"Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel" traces Corman's record career with B-movies, indie film, and actually some real art film; he is "an artist"

Alex Stapelton’s “Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel” documents the career of director/producer Roger Corman who produced and/or directed more movies (almost 400) than any other person.  Perhaps he invented both the B-movie and the independent film. Now 85, he sounds as sharp as ever. He has the focused mind of a Jimmy Carter. (Imdb credits him with producing 398 movies and directing 56.)

Corman made an early alliance with the infamous American International Pictures, known for motorcycle movies (“The Wild Angels”), and then, after a falling out, founded New World Pictures.  

The documentary shows a huge library of excerpts, which show how effective low budget carnage can be.  There interviews with many other Hollywood stars, including Robert De Niro, Jack Nicholson (who looks fat), and Eli Roth (“Hostel”), who looks cute.

Corman tried making some “quality” film with social statements, as in 1962 with “The Intruder” where a man  (William Shatner) tries to stir up reform in the segregated south – a precursor to the horrible disaster in Mississippi in 1964 with the three voting activists.  No one (including AIP) wanted this film at the time. 

Corman also started importing foreign film, especially Ingmar Bergman, through his New World Pictures (for example, “Cries and Whispers”), because he had developed a way to market independent film with the business models of the day.

I saw this film at the West End Cinema.

The official site (Anchor Bay) is here. 

Sundance offers "Advise & Dissent", examining the process of selecting Supreme Court justices

Sundance is offering some of the films from the current festival for online viewing, from this link. 

I watched “Advise & Dissent” (or “Advise and Dissent”), 2009, from David Van Taylor and Lumiere Films. This documentary looks at the process of picking justices for the Supreme Court, through the eyes of the “Third Branch Conference” as well as political pressure groups on both sides, ranging from People for the American Way to the Family Research Council.  The Cato Institute is mentioned in the credits.

Much of the film covers confirmation hearings of President Bush’s appointments of Justice John Roberts and Samuel Alito, along with the failed appointment of Harriet Miers.  Roberts was non-committal in his answers (he had to be pressed to name his favorite movies – “Dr. Zhivago” and “North by Northwest” but not “Casablanca”).  Alito was challenged heavily as to his record as an appeals court judge but at the end he received an apology for the grilling.

The early part of the film makes a big point of the tendency of the religious right to manipulative language of freedom for its own reactionary mindset.  The 1987 hearings of Judge Bork (“Slouching Toward Gomorrah”) are excerpted, and at one point Bork is grilled as to his views of the right to privacy. Bork fires back “privacy to do what?”  Later the right wing complains about the “minions on the Left” and that includes George Soros!  (In my own DADT book, I had coined the phrase “nightbreed minions”, referring to a Clive Barker film.)  It’s clear that the Right wants to retain the “freedom” to barge into the personal lives of people it considers dependent or morally less worthy. The film does mention many of the decisions eventually rooted in large part on privacy, ranging from Griswold v. Connecticut (contraception, even within marriage, 1962) to Lawrence v. Texas (2003). Of course Roe v. Wade (1973) is mentioned, and it has always seemed that the abortion issue is a proxy for a larger issue of willingness to commit to protecting the vulnerable. 

The official site is here.

I chose the YouTube option to watch the film, for $2.99 (48 hour rental, convenient  automatic charge for those with Google accounts).  Low-cost YouTube licensed rental of new independent films sounds like a constructive answer to Hollywood’s complaints about piracy, giving some more money, however modest, back to filmmakers.

But it concerns me that it took a film that is this important two years to get into the festival circuit and become available for watching even with paid rental. (See review Friday -- this is in Sundance library but I couldn't find in 2012 list.) 

The Sundance Film Festival runs in Utah Jan 19-Jan 29.