March's EIGA ARTS programme comments

[Joss Winn]

This is cross-posted to a few lists, so apologies if bits sound weird.

monthly ramblings from Japan...of possible interest to people running small
venues or thinking of starting one. Comments on films can be quickly found
if you scroll down to the stars.

Begin....

This is not a review of films but rather comments on films, the place where
they are projected, the people that come and go and the ups and downs of
putting a monthly screening together.  This month's EIGA ARTS was quite
thought provoking.

I seem to have slipped into the habit of showing two separate programmes of
films at EIGA ARTS.  It is certainly easier that way. Putting the evening
together takes less time trying to match Japanese and foreign work if kept
apart, but it's not how I imagined EIGA ARTS to be.  It would be better if
I accepted the responsibility of 'curator' instead of 'programmer' (there's
a difference, right?).

Saturday's show included a large selection of Super 8mm films.  I'd hawked
my still camera to buy an Elmo ST1200 8mm projector for EIGA ARTS and was
very pleased with the projection.  I'd heard that the projector would
benefit from an arc lamp conversion and a new lens, but found that I could
already fill the screen with a very bright image. Tachibana Kaoru's FLESH
looked amazing.  Brighter and crisper than anything else shown.

Regrets, I've had a few......and here's some I'll mention...

Last night's show went on too long.  I realise now that when previewing
work at home, it's all too easy to forget how the films will be seen at
EIGA ARTS.  Craig Lindley's Super 8 films are beautiful, poetic, surreal,
hand processed meditations.  He sent me the original films (a large portion
of his work from the last two years, God bless you!), as did Tachibana
Kaoru, and I was pretty excited to be able to get away from video
substitutes.  His hand processing (black and white as negative and colour
tinting) looked wonderful.  My regret is that I wanted to show too much and
should have cut a couple of the black and white films from the programme.
The B/W films are dense, deeply symbolic, silent films that would probably
be better programmed as a show of their own. Including all three in a
second programme that extended over 70 mins exhausted me and most of the
audience.  After dropping the films off at home, I went out and drank
heavily until 5am.

Oh, yes.  About 40 people showed up. Craig's programme attracted about 10
more people than the first, Japanese, programme.  Donations were down this
month.  The cost of putting the night together was about 27,000YEN ($226).
The venue fee (5000YEN/$42) was kindly paid for by the Department for
International Relations in City Hall. Other costs (running around getting
spare lamps, shipping back a projector mistakenly lent to me,  phone bills
that have doubled recently, faxes, programme notes, etc), are difficult to
predict and keep track of.  Donations came to 15,000YEN ($130).  I always
indicate that donations should not exceed 1000YEN ($9...the usual ticket
price at a local cinema is 1600YEN or $13.50) and I guess some people are
donating nothing or next to nothing.  It's OK.  EIGA ARTS is free.
No-one's ever going to be turned away, but I'm broke at the moment and it's
hit me hard this month.   I have always budgeted thinking that I would put
$100 of my own cash into each month, but I was hoping I wouldn't have to
this month.  Ah, well.  The show must (and will) go on!!

With last month and this month attracting 40-50 people, I've decided to
change venues.  The current venue is good.  It has excellent facilities,
etc. etc. but is too big (seats 90 with loads of standing/sitting room) to
create much of an atmosphere.  I'm looking for gallery space, already
having one in mind, where I can set up my own projection equipment, give a
beer to people who want one, bring people together in a more intimate
environment and sit around and chat afterwards with no rush to leave.  The
gallery I have in mind has its own restaurant downstairs which would be
great. Where I am now, I'm always scrambling out the door at the last
minute with the security guard on my back.  There are enough like minded
people (judging from the growing mailing list) that would probably want to
hang out afterwards.  So, as of June, EIGA ARTS will be undergoing several
changes.  I'm going to change venues, run very slightly shorter, start
'curating' specific programmes, show more of a mixture of old and new work
and make more of an effort to create a social scene out of it rather than
just have people show up, me say a few words, project, and then lose
everyone as I'm hurrying to pack up and leave, catching up with only a few
people later on.

Having said all of this, last night, on the whole, went well. Reactions
from people were very thoughtful and each film was someone's favourite.
There were a lot of new faces in the audience as well as regulars and I was
particular moved by one Japanese guy who has come to each screening so far.
He watches the films intensely and scribbles notes during the intervals,
during the reel changes, and even after the building is locked up and I'm
getting into the car. I thought I'd thank him for his support before I
drove off and he in turn thanked me and simply said that he "loved cinema".
A lot of people have thanked me, said that the city needed a place for
alternative cinema, and it seems EIGA ARTS has stimulated a local filmmaker
to run a 16mm 2 day workshop where each person makes a film from a 100 foot
roll.  Great news.

And there ends, the first part of this month's self-reflective ramble.

**********************************************

Onto the films.....

Drifting VM (Jp: VM Hyouryuu)  (also translated as VM Drifting)  by
Yamazaki Mikio

I'm pretty sure it won an IMAGE FORUM prize but I can't find the details on
which one...Grand Prize 1990? It begins with images of a man walking down
small back streets of a city.  The shots are hand held, from the waist up,
seemingly drawing him to a destination. The colours are faded and since we
only see the man from the front, we don't know where he is going.  Hand
processed (orange tint, perforations) portions of the same shots begin to
drift in and out of the frame as do black and white images of a woman
sitting by a river bank.  More hand processed film ruptures through the
'walking' shots, as do misaligned frames in printing, each technique
bringing the material aspect of film to the foreground.  The journey (as is
indicated in the filmmaker's comments) concerns film and sex, the beauty of
each but finally their inadequacy at bringing meaning to the filmmaker's
drifting existence (clearly symbolised by the walking/journey shots).  As
the film continues, fewer and fewer images of the walking man appear,
increasingly replaced by light and darkness tearing apart shadow profiles
of the man and the woman's faces. Drifting VM becomes a journey through
several landscapes (some literal), stripping away layers of emulsion and
with each, a memory, to reveal nothing but light and darkness.  Images are
accompanied by a very moving score performed on cello.  It's a gentle,
repetitive accompaniment, that invites you to drift with the filmmaker.

Flesh By Tachibana Kaoru

The film is a portrait of a man in a gym.  The first shot is a close up of
a very hairy chest, gently breathing.  Cut to the same chest again but
deeply breathing as he lifts weights.  The heavy, slow movements of his
arms and the metallic sound of the weights clashing together, unite man and
machine and this relationship is examined further by editing shots of limbs
(always dislocated from the whole body by the camera's frame) with close
ups of the gym equipment. A cut to two men arm wrestling begins to humanize
the portrait and one man's defeat under another brings a moment of silence
before the camera cuts to the man's face for the first time.  Gentle music
fades in, the backlight behind the man's face is overexposed and projects
an aura, almost angelic, around his face.  His eyes are gentle, thoughtful
and he is at last human.  Tachibana's first film.

Northern Light  By Mitsuki Ai

I made the mistake of showing this on video because the Super 8 film is
with IMAGE FORUM as part of their upcoming festival.  A stupid decision on
my part since Mitsuki's film is a silent play with light and the grain of
Super 8 film and has to be projected on film to really appreciate what is
being offered.  Having watched it several times now, I see there is a very
vague narrative to the film.  It is a road trip to some woods with friends.
The camera films whatever the filmmaker sees along the way but there is an
obsessive interest in light and often the lack of it.  Occasionally we see
the 'cast'.  Two friends, driving, playing around during rest stops along
the way. It is a playful film, abstract to all but the closest viewing.
The film is grainy and dirty, the exposure is intentionally taken to every
extreme, light reflects off the lens often and one can see what the
filmmaker is trying to do: play with light, in her hands, on film and with
our eyes.  My only criticism of the film would be that it is perhaps too
long. The film speaks quite clearly and even though only 15 minutes, it
could offer just as much beauty in half the time.  I hate saying a film's
too long.

The Lingering Image of Summer (Jp: natsu no zanzou) By Onishi Kenji

I showed this because it complements Northern Light well, in that it is
dark and abstract.  Rather than a play with light, this is a play with
colour (of which very little oozes out of the grainy Ektachrome images).
It is a home movie, of 'memories' of the end of one summer:  The sea, an
old lady moving slowly up a street, a sunflower, and other images.  The
sound is barely audible except for the repetitive clicking of the camera
and a loud electronic rumble at the end (sounds like low pitched static or
something: this is on the video dub too so I guess it's intentional) which
woke everyone up out of the dream (or nightmare). The film conveys a
definite sense of time passed and reveals layers of the filmmaker's
memories as rapidly leaving for some place else. The film, and particularly
the unstable, grainy Ektachrome, will surely change over time, as memories
must. One member of the audience said that he pities Onishi if that's what
his memories are like.  Another person thought it was a brilliant film.  I
like it a lot (of course, I programmed it!) but after Northern Lights, I
should have perhaps have ran FLESH.  Visually, FLESH is a very sharp, tight
film, whereas Onishi's is, like Northern Light, generally out of focus and
quite demanding on the audience.  All his films are demanding.  In
Japanese, you can say, "minikui" which can mean "ugly", or "difficult to
see/watch". His films are not at all ugly (quite the opposite, he's a very
fine cameraman) but are difficult to watch at times.

Craig Lindley's films

The three silent, black and white films, BLACK SUN, MYSTERIUM and NATURE
MORTE were all hand processed as negative which distances the viewer from
the images creating a surreal, remote world of memories, myth making and
imagination.  Clearly, the images were once 'real' but when projected,
become remote, ghostly, lifeless evidence of a possible time and place. The
images are both haunting and sad. Each film offers highly symbolic,
sometimes mythical, fragments arranged by association, suggesting a
narrative that may only be realised through meditation upon the images. As
I mentioned, the films deserved their own separate screening, if only
because of the absorption that they demand.  My favourite images come from
Mysterium, which towards the end, shows a lone swimmer crossing the frame
"in freedom and oblivion." (CL)

Also processed as black and white negative, was SUBMISSION, a nude study
lasting the length of a roll of film at 18fps.  The editing is precise and
rhythmic and the female figure, projected as negative, floats in white
space out of reach.  Consequently, the audience is forced, like the
filmmaker, to submit to her unreachable, powerful presence.

My favourite of Craig's films is EMANANCE [1].  It is clearly one of his
strongest poetic experimentations with light and the physical properties of
film.  It is hand tinted, sometimes quite subtly, yet at other times the
screen is drenched with a rush of colour and light.  Part of the film is
quite brutally scratched, and when projected the result is an intense,
insane play of lines, reminiscent of Pollock's drip paintings in their
energetic display of movement.  Again, there are experiments with water,
which, when processed, looks like thick, coloured oil. Light turns into
jewels reflecting off water emerging through the colour tint.  It is even
more abstract than the three black and white films and I watched it without
any concern for Craig's possible motivations, merely content with seeing
something beautiful.

Two other pieces, DEMOLITION MAN and 2114, are less abstract, colour
portraits of people and places.  DEMOLITION MAN is refilmed off 16mm and
was the only sound film of Craig's shown.  It provided a welcome pause
between the other films (see above) and has a loud, live, musical
soundtrack consisting of a lot of chants.  The images indeed depict 'broken
men' and by filming off of 16mm, he was able to refilm several shots to
create cyclical, rhythmical portraits  of abandonded men, buildings and an
entire area.  One person thought it exploited the men in the film.  I'm not
particularly inclined to agree, although one might expect a less
celebratory soundtrack to be played alongside the images of down trodden
men.

2114 is a fairly simple, fun film of the filmmaker's suburb.  It move from
the use of single frames to long shots and back again in one roll of Super
8 film.  The shorter shots tend to be more abstract, urban images (and of
course, abstracted even more by their brevity) while the longer shots tend
to be of more leisurely, rural scenes. It was made as part of a project
with the Melbourne Super 8 Film Group and I imagine it was an admired
addition to the group's efforts.

And that brings me to the

end.  Thanks for reading this far!