catching up with...

[ironymaiden]

all my lofty ambition of being timely with siff reportage has come to naught. but i really did write it all down at the time...


getting to the Neptune for Carmen in Khaylitsha was a photo finish due to my end of day meeting running late. fortunately C was home early enough to rescue me with the car. (the bus would have me in the u-district ten minutes late.) i've been dying to see this film - it's an adaptation of the opera Carmen sung in Xhosa and set in a South African township. (it won the golden Bear at the Berlin film festival.) the music is excellent and the setting is wonderfully appropriate. the adaptation is very strong, solving the problem of the toreador by making him an opera singer (so we see a clip of him on television singing the toreador) returning to his home town where he sacrifices a bull. Carmen and the women of the cigarette factory are beautifully lush and dark. they are so damn sexy, and they're nothing like an american standard of beauty.
paraphrasing dreamline, i'm glad i had someone with me at Princess Raccoon, or i wouldn't believe that it was real. it was this year's WTF film. imagine a kyogen play crossed with rock opera filmed by someone on LSD. the colors! the nonsense plot! the people with drums on their asses! the magic frog! the raccoon in the title is actually referring to tanuki, which leads to lines in the film like "are you sure he's a tanuki? his balls are awfully small." i expect it would be better if i had been chemically altered. spent most of the screening with my mouth hanging open.

saturday was a particularly good day, starting with Wrestling with Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner. from my notebook: it's a beautiful day to be standing in line. okay, sitting because this is Broadway Performance Hall and they are kind enough to place the ticket holders line along the wide, sittable wall. today is a documentary on Tony Kushner followed by The Five Venoms, a classic kung fu flick. i'm pleased with the prospect of strolling down Broadway to the Harvard Exit with a stop for a Dick's cheeseburger. (i'm a bit disappointed that scarlettina decided to see the Kushner film without me.)
***
scarlettina loses. not only did i get to see the movie with markbourne, but the director was present for Q&A. great stuff. i didn't realize that Kushner was originally from Lake Charles Louisiana. that might have been the most poignant thing for me - he's showing the family home and business and talking about the routine of annual flooding. i had no idea there was such a vibrant Jewish community in Lake Charles. it's so odd to me to hear a discussion of teaching Hebrew held in a southern drawl. (i loved that the mixed age/mixed race crowd at his father's 80th birthday party included a tall black man in a clerical collar.) i was all teary over the footage of his wedding (later somewhat spoiled for me by someone taking the Q&A as an opportunity to make a public call for political action - i was more upset by it because i totally agreed with her - she was encouraging us to watch the pending gay marriage challenge in the WA state supreme court and prepare to fight the conservative backlash if equality prevails.) Kushner the man is ardently political, and that is as ably documented in the film as are his plays. there's performance footage i doubt is collected elsewhere. the language in the plays is such treasure. excellent for anyone interested in american theatre as well as Kushner's experience growing up gay and Jewish.
The Five Venoms was, as the programmer put it in the intro, "totally awesome." it's more a story about police procedure and corruption than anything else, but there's some acrobatic fighting and the costumes and foley are a hoot. dreamline and i got the best seats in the Harvard Exit (back row center with miles of leg room) and had a great time alternating between genuine admiration and laughter at some of the goofier bits. all hail toad style! we followed that up at the Deluxe with inevitableguy, which was a delight. (grubbstreet blew by us in line before i had the chance to say hi. his writeup can be found here.)
i was dead tired waiting for the bus home. so tired apparently, that a woman passing by thought i looked like i "needed an orange," and tossed me one before she peeled hers and then zipped off on her bike. i love this town.

secret festival #2 was great fun. so far this has been a very strong year for Secret Festival, and for my film selection in general. i'm glad that i've seen all of them and i'm pleased to recommend them (although several are not for everyone's taste.) i suppose this means i should finally buy a membership.

Comments

[buhrger]

it's an adaptation of the opera Carmen sung in Xhosa and set in a South African township
do they retain the original music and just translate the libretto, or is it a new, more azanian score as well?

[ironymaiden]

they retain the original music. there's some atypical percussion, but otherwise, it's just Carmen.

[varina8.livejournal.com]

Wrestling with Angels is on my favorites list for the reasons you gave. I wish I'd seen the Q&A. Oh, well, you can't do it all...

BTW Add Brothers of the Head to your list of need-to-sees. That's the story about the conjoined twins who become '70s rock stars. It's done fiction as a documentary by the same directors who did Lost in La Mancha. I expected a comedy and was lukewarm on the whole idea, but instead it turned out to be this touching offbeat drama about fame and intimacy and the nature of documentary film. If you can't squeeze it in now, it's coming out in the fall.

[ironymaiden]

thanks for the recommendation - it's been on my list all along. i don't know what i did to do this well with film selection.

Apologies

[(Anonymous)]

I am deeply sorry that I blew past you. All I can say was that I had been drinking heavily earlier that afternoon and arguing about 1421: The Year China Discovered America with my comrades, and beg forgiveness.

Grubbsteet

Re: Apologies

[ironymaiden]

no worries. it would have been along the lines of "hi Jeff! yay kung-fu!" except for the part where we were very near the front of the line and would have let you in.

[markbourne.livejournal.com]

not only did i get to see the movie with markbourne...

...but I got to see it with ironymaiden. Tremendous film, magnificent playwright, superb company. A good day in my book.

[steve98052.livejournal.com]

Question about Princess Raccoon: is it good WTF or bad WTF?

[ironymaiden]

it's kind of surreal. i still can't decide if it was inspired or just stupid.
knowing what i know now, i either would not have bought the ticket or would have brought along some airplane bottles of rum for my diet coke. might be worth renting if scarecrow gets it. the music and the costumes are fun.

[steve98052.livejournal.com]

Sounds like it would be amusing for viewing with a party, particularly if some were highly familiar with Japanese culture. My awareness of Japenese culture doesn't extend much beyond "Kurosawa was brilliant", "Miyazaki rules", and "Grave of Fireflies is the saddest film ever made." I'd probably need a cultural guide to enjoy it, since I prefer to limit my intoxication to a degree insufficient for enjoying "fun when you're messed-up enough" movies.