THE SLOW BUSINESS OF GOING (2000, Athina Rachel Tsangari, Greece/USA, A+30)

 

THE SLOW BUSINESS OF GOING (2000, Athina Rachel Tsangari, Greece/USA, A+30)

 

1.ในที่สุดเราก็ได้ดูหนังของผู้กำกับคนนี้เสียที หลังจากที่ได้ยินชื่อเสียงของเธอมานาน พอดูจบแล้วก็กราบตีนไปเลย นึกว่าเกือบทุกฉากในหนังเรื่องนี้คือฉากคลาสสิค

 

2.ชอบความ limitless cinema ของมันมาก ๆ ทั้งในส่วนของ “เนื้อเรื่อง” และ “สไตล์” คือรู้สึกว่าเนื้อเรื่องของมันไร้ขีดจำกัดมาก ๆ และสไตล์ของมันก็ไร้ขีดจำกัดเช่นกัน

 

3.ตอนที่เราดูหนังเรื่องนี้ เรานึกว่าตัวละครนางเอกเป็น “มนุษย์” นะ แต่พอดูจบแล้วมาอ่านเรื่องย่อ ถึงค่อยรู้ว่ามันเป็น cyborg 55555

 

4.ปรากฏว่าช่วงนี้เราได้ดูหนังที่รู้สึกว่า เป็น “ยำใหญ่ใส่สารพัด” 3 เรื่องในเวลาไล่เลี่ยกัน ทั้ง TAKLEE GENESIS, MEGALOPOLIS (2024, Francis Ford Coppola, A+30) และ THE SLOW BUSINESS OF GOING คือเรารู้สึกว่าหนังทั้ง 3 เรื่องนี้ผสมเอาอะไรหลาย ๆ อย่างเข้ามาไว้ด้วยกันแบบยำใหญ่ ซึ่งเราก็ชอบหนังทั้ง 3 เรื่องนี้มาก ๆ แต่เราชอบ THE SLOW BUSINESS OF GOING มากที่สุด ถึงแม้มันจะเป็นเพียงแค่หนัง thesis ของนักศึกษาก็ตาม

 

ซึ่งก็อาจจะเป็นเพราะว่า THE SLOW BUSINESS OF GOING มันมีความเป็น “หนังทดลอง” อยู่ในตัวสูงมากก็ได้มั้ง เหมือนมันผสมอะไรหลาย ๆ อย่างเข้าด้วยกันแบบตามใจฉันอย่างเต็มที่ โดยไม่ต้องถูกกดทับด้วย message, สารทางการเมือง หรืออะไร พอเราดูหนังแบบนี้เราก็เลยรู้สึกโปร่งโล่งสบายใจมาก ๆ รู้สึกเป็นอิสระอย่างเต็มที่

 

ส่วน TAKLEE GENESIS ก็อย่างที่เราเขียนไปแล้ว ว่าเราชื่นชมหนังเรื่องนี้มาก ๆ แต่ไม่ได้ชอบเป็นการส่วนตัว ส่วน MEGALOPOLIS นั้น เราชอบแต่ “สไตล์” ของหนัง โดยเฉพาะการตัดต่อ/สีสัน/องค์ประกอบ บางช่วงของหนังที่ทำให้นึกถึงหนังทดลองในทศวรรษ 1950 พวกหนังของ Kenneth Anger อะไรทำนองนี้ แล้วก็ชอบพวก production design ต่าง ๆ ที่ทำให้นึกถึงหนังเงียบในทศวรรษ 1920 มาก ๆ ทั้ง METROPOLIS, THE INHUMAN WOMAN (1924, Marcel L’Herbier, France, A+30), PARIS QUI DORT (1925, Rene Clair, France, A+30), etc. แต่เราเฉย ๆ กับ “เนื้อเรื่อง” ของ MEGALOPOLIS

 

ก็เลยขอยกให้ THE SLOW BUSINESS OF GOING เป็นผู้ชนะในดวงใจของเราไปในบรรดาหนังยำใหญ่กลุ่มนี้

 

5.ดู THE SLOW BUSINESS OF GOING แล้วนึกว่าต้องฉายควบกับ UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD (1991, Wim Wenders) และ THE LIMITS OF CONTROL (2009, Jim Jarmusch)

 

6.เราดูหนังเรื่องนี้ออนไลน์จาก LE CINEMA CLUB ซึ่งหนังจะเปิดฉายจนถึงราว ๆ เที่ยงวันศุกร์ที่ 4 ต.ค.

https://www.lecinemaclub.com/now-showing/the-slow-business-of-going/

 

PARIS QUI DORT (1925, René Clair, France, A+30)

VS. MEGALOPOLIS (2024, Francis Ford Coppola, A+30)

 

ไม่แน่ใจว่า “การหยุดเวลา” ใน MEGALOPOLIS นี่เป็นการจงใจพาดพิงถึง PARIS QUI DORT หรือเปล่า 55555

 

 

พอดู MEGALOPOLIS (2024, Francis Ford Coppola, A+30) แล้วก็เลยนึกถึงพวก production design ใน THE INHUMAN WOMAN (1924, Marcel L’Herbier, France, A+30) มาก ๆ ซึ่งหนังสองเรื่องนี้ห่างกัน 100 ปีพอดี

 

SONGS OF REVOLUTION (2017, Bill Mousoulis, Greece, A+30)

SONGS OF REVOLUTION (2017, Bill Mousoulis, Greece, A+30)

1.This film is really an ear-opening for me, and I guess most viewers outside Greece may feel the same way, too. The film tackles a subject which I have never heard of—revolutionary songs in Greece, which come in various styles—punk, rock, hip hop, blues, experimental, old styles, etc. So the first thing I like about this film is because of its subject matter. It talks about things I have no knowledge about, or things I have never seen portrayed in films before. Actually I have never seen a film which deals mainly with revolutionary songs in any countries, and I also have never seen a film about music in Greece.

As for the films I have seen until now, I think the subject of “revolutionary songs” is talked about only as a small detail in some documentaries. For example, the film 40 YEARS OF SILENCE: AN INDONESIAN TRAGEDY (2009, Robert Lemelson) talks a little bit about the song GENJER GENJER, which was associated with communists in Indonesia before the massacre in 1965. The documentary ABSENT WITHOUT LEAVE (2016, Lau Kek-huat, Malaysia) also portrays some Malaysian communists singing songs from the past.

So I like it very much that Bill Mousoulis chooses this subject for his film. It is great that the lyrics of these Greek songs are translated into English in this film, so that people all over the world can understand the power of these lyrics, and may be inspired by them, too.

2.Apart from the subject matter, I also like the form or the style of the film very much. I think it is part-documentary, part-neorealist musical. I use the word “neorealist”, because most of the musical scenes in this film portray an actor or an actress walking down some streets. The locations or the situtations in Greece are portrayed as they really are. There is no attempt to make the locations more colorful, vibrant, or beautiful than what they are. The songs in this film also talk about some subject matters which correspond to neorealist films, especially the economic problems.

I think the form of this film is unique, or something I have never seen before. Combining documentary parts with musical parts in the same film is something rare already, but this film also combines neorealist style with the musical parts, too.

3.Because the form of this film is unique, I can’t find any films that I can compare with this film easily. This film is like a rare combination of various elements from many films I have seen. For example:

3.1 The dance/music films of Carlos Saura, such as FLAMENCO (1995), IBERIA (2005), and FADOS (2007), because in some parts of SONGS OF REVOLUTION, especially the parts portraying Thodoris Arianoutsos and Marianthi Koliaki, we see some musical scenes continuously, without knowing any information about the artists who made the songs. We only enjoy the songs in these scenes. We are fully immersed in the feelings of the songs. It’s like we are floating in some fictional worlds created by the songs, and not weighed down by the information about the artists, or not pulled back to the world of reality by the documentary parts. (It’s hard to describe the feelings in these scenes. These scenes in SONGS OF REVOLUTION are tied to “reality” via the real locations, but not via information.) This kind of feelings—fully immersed in the world of music—is like the feelings I have when I saw those three films of Carlos Saura.

3.2 However, there are also some documentary parts in this film. And I think these documentary parts remind me of such films as NEAPOLITAN HEART (2002, Paolo Santoni), SOUND OF BRAZIL (2002, Mika Kaurismaki), and Y/OUR MUSIC (2014, Waraluck Hiransrettawat Every, David Reeve). These are the kind of films which give us information about music from some specific places, too. These documentaries are interesting because of their subject matters. We learn a lot about the music in Naples, Thailand, and Brazil from these films. But these documentaries somehow lack the “interesting styles” or lack “the floating feelings”, which are found in SONGS OF REVOLUTION and Carlos Saura’s films.

So in conclusion, I think SONGS OF REVOLUTION combine the best parts of these two groups of films together. SONGS OF REVOLUTION has both the floating feelings in musical parts, and the interesting information in the documentary parts.

4.I also like the use of news footage and old photographs in this film. It gives this film the political dimension, without weiging the film down too much. I mean if this film chooses to be “an ordinary documentary”, the film would have given us directly specific information about the political contexts and the history of Greece. But if the film chooses to be that way, the viewers will be flooded with information, and somehow “the floating feelings” from music will be greatly diminished or destroyed. So I think the use of old photographs, news footage, and real locations in this film is the appropriate way to give the film “political dimension”, without weighing the film down too much.

5.I like the use of real locations in this film very much. At first I wondered why the film doesn’t give us a few full-blown music videos, instead of neorealist musical scenes.  I wondered why the film doesn’t give us colorful scenes such as in Carlos Saura’s films. But when I paid attention to the lyrics, then I found that this neorealist style is really appropriate for this kind of lyrics.

In a way, seeing characters walking up and down the real streets in this film is a little bit like watching people in real streets in FROM THE EAST (1993, Chantal Akerman). It’s hard to describe the feelings watching these two films. It’s like half-floating half-down to earth, half-surreal half-real, half-body half-soul, half-physical half-spiritual—to see people in the real streets in SONGS OF REVOLUTION and FROM THE EAST.

6.As for the musical parts, the scene that I like the most is the scene for the song  I WAS BORN AT ONE MOMENT. I think the actor in this scene can convey the sadness via his eyes very powerfully. Just look at the sadness in his eyes, you can imagine easily how hard his life would have been, how much he have struggled in his life, how many times he has been defeated and disappointed.

7.As for the documentary parts, the scene that I like the most is the scene in which some people talk about how revolutionary songs influenced their lives. I mean the scene in which a woman talked about the song HONORABLE MAN, MR. PANTELIS, and a man talked about the band REBELS. This scene made me think about how some songs influenced my life, too.

I also like the scene in which Antouan Parinis and friends sang ALL THOSE THAT HAVE A LOT OF MONEY for a garbageman. This scene is a curious blend between documentary and musical.

8.I also like how the film portrays some “preaching” scenes without making me feeling bad about being forced to listen to it. I mean the scene about the Underground Manifesto, and the short scenes in which some interviewers talk about their beliefs or their mottos. If these scenes were presented badly, they would come out like the “final speech” scenes in Hollywood films, in which the protagonists talk about what they would like the audience to believe, or preach indirectly to the audience. The latest example of this kind of scenes can be found in MISS SLOANE (2016, John Madden).

It’s hard to say why I feel positive for the Underground Manifesto scene.  I think the film finds the right “tone” to convey its messages.

9.  I feel sad and envy at the same time while watching this film. First, I feel sad because of the lyrics. The lyrics of the songs in this film talk about the problems in Greece, including economic problems, social problems like bad cops killing people, and political problems like the song SMASH THE FASCISTS by Oust! Some musical scenes also show the refugees from Syria.

But at the same time I feel envy for the people in Greece, because at least they still have “freedom of speech”, which cannot be found in Thailand now. Greece may be in crisis now, but at least they can “talk about the crisis” openly. They can sing about the problems openly. Thailand is also in crisis now-- the human right crisis, but we cannot talk about it. There is a Thai musical band who made some songs opposing the military dictatorship, but the members of the band were persecuted by the authority, and all of them fled the country and are in exile now. I guess musical artists in Thailand now only have two choices--stay silent for your own safety, or praise the military dictatorship.

As for Thailand in the past, there was once a big market for a genre called  “songs for life”, which talk about the problem of the poor, especially in the 1980s. But I think this kind of market have become much smaller nowadays. No one has made a Thai feature documentary about this subject yet, though there’s a biographical film called YOUNG BAO THE MOVIE (2013, Yuthakorn Sukmukdapa), which is about the origin of a Thai musical band who made “songs for life”. There are also some Thai short films about political protesters and songs, such as COLLECTION OF POPULAR SONGS (2015, Anuwat Amnajkasem, Chantana Tiprachart, 11min). And there are a few fan-made music videos for some Thai “songs-for-life”.

While I was watching SONGS OF REVOLUTION, I couldn’t help imagining what would happen if someone made a film about revoltionary songs in Thailand, too. But if someone makes a film about this subject in Thailand, the film would be in an ironic tone, not in a positive tone like SONGS OF REVOLUTION (I mean SONGS OF REVOLUTION portrays the artists in the film in a positive way), because what is interesting in Thailand is that some left-wing songs in the 1970s have been appropriated by right-wing groups (or groups which support the military dictatorship) in this decade, and some Thai bands who used to make music for the poor a few decades ago have turned to side with the military dictatorship now. The military dictatorship in Thailand use “anti-capitalism sentiment” as their weapon, so songs which are anti-capiltalism can be used by the Thai right wing, too.

10. Let me end this note with a list of my most favorite eight songs in the film. They are:

(in no particular order)

10.1 NORMAL KIDS – Trypes

10.2 DUST, ROCKS, MUD – Dmitris Poulikakos

10.3 I WAS BORN AT ONE MOMENT – Nikos Xylouris

10.4 THE FACTORY – Sotiria Bellou

10.5 I WILL SEND A LETTER TO GOD – Sotiria Bellou

10.6 THE JUMPERS – Antouan Parinis

10.7 LAUGH – Lost Bodies

10.8 NOTHING REAL – Lost Bodies

I hope SONGS OF REVOLUTION will be shown all over the world, and the film might inspire other filmmakers to make some films about revolutionary songs or political songs in their own countries. The world seems to be falling apart every day now, so at least what we can do is to try to give each other inspiration, hope, and positive energy as much as we can, may be by broadcasting or listening to great songs from far away land, from people who have suffered a great deal like us.

WILD AND PRECIOUS (2012, Bill Mousoulis, A+15)

WILD AND PRECIOUS (2012, Bill Mousoulis, A+15)

There are many things I like in this film, including:

1.How the film surprises me a little bit about its focus. At the beginning of the film, I thought the film would focus solely on Greece's economic crisis, which I think may or may not be the beginning of the end of the economic and financial world as we know it. The first segment of the film, which touches on Greek crisis, made me assume wrongly that WILD AND PRECIOUS might be a good companion piece of COSMOPOLIS (2012, David Cronenberg, A+30), because both COSMOPOLIS and the news about Greece's economic crisis capture my current fear--the fear of the collapse of the financial world and the capitalist system.

But later on, I'm not sure what is the real theme or the main message of WILD AND PRECIOUS. The film turns to focus on a few aspects in the life of Giulio, an Italian cinematographer working in Greece. At the end of the film, I find that what I'm impressed the most in the film is the various shots of cats and dogs interspersed throughout the film, though this is not at all the main focus or the main message of the film.

2.How the film portrays both the political problem and the personal problem intrigues me a little bit. I have seen only three films by Bill Mousoulis, so I'm not sure what the main characteristics of his films are. But I like the humanistic quality of BLUE NOTES (2006) and WILD AND PRECIOUS very much. Maybe his humanistic tendency is one reason why WILD AND PRECIOUS doesn't focus solely on the economic crisis and doesn't turn out to be as intellectual and political as COSMOPOLIS. WILD AND PRECIOUS doesn't try to analyze the Greek crisis. You can learn much more about the Greek crisis from a newspaper than from this film. But what WILD AND PRECIOUS does very well is to observe what happens in Greece, including things which may not be newsworthy at all, such as  the Riot Dog or daily lives of Greek people. Instead of trying to be the crisis' analyzer, the crisis' participant, the activist or the teacher of the audience, WILD AND PRECIOUS seems to choose to be the observer. And it observes people and characters, both humans and animals, with a tender, nonjudgmental eye.

While COSMOPOLIS makes me feel that the financial world may collapse soon, WILD AND PRECIOUS makes me feel that no matter whether the financial world may collapse or not, our lives are small. However, I don't think this is the main message of WILD AND PRECIOUS, and I don't think the film intentionally wants to make the audience to feel like that. I just want to say that I like both COSMOPOLIS and WILD AND PRECIOUS for different reasons. And I just compare these two films together because COSMOPOLIS is one of my most favorite films of the year, so it becomes my benchmark, and thus I tend to compare other films dealing with financial problems with COSMOPOLIS.

While the main character of COSMOPOLIS sits at the heart of the financial problem/capitalist system and seems not to be a real human being, but an index of a particular state of consciousness or something like that, the main character of WILD AND PRECIOUS is an observer of the economic crisis and seems like a real human being. COSMOPOLIS dissects my fear effectively by presenting us the ridiculousness of our financial world, while WILD AND PRECIOUS makes me stand back a little bit from the crisis and take a look at myself, my other problems, and realize how small my life is.

In conclusion, I think there is no fixed formula about how to balance the political problems and the personal problems in a film. Each filmmaker must find the right balance for each film himself according to the subject matter, the purpose of the film, and the strengths/weaknesses of the filmmaker. I think COSMOPOLIS tends to focus more on the political/social problems, while WILD AND PRECIOUS is more impressive when it deals with the personal problems of the characters. But each of these two films finds the right balance for itself.

3.I also like it that WILD AND PRECIOUS doesn't overdramatize both the political problems and the personal problems in the film. The financial problem of Greece is very worrying, but it is not the job of this film to scare us about that. The film presents us some shots of homeless people and beggars in Greece, and also some scenes of the riots, but these scenes are not overdramatized. The film doesn't exploit the Greek problem at all.

What I like very much is how the film presents the problems of the characters. In a normal mainstream film, we usually see a protagonist facing a big problem and then the protagonist overcoming the big problem in a very dramatic situation. But in WILD AND PRECIOUS, the problems of Giulio are presented in a very realistic, almost non-sentimental, way. He seems to have no big problems in his work. I mean he may have problems in his work, such as how to avoid getting injured while filming the riot, and how to satisfy his employers. But the film doesn't overdramatize these things. Giulio has a problem connecting with his wife and daughter, but the film doesn't try to make us weep for this. His family problems are presented tenderly, but not melodramatically. It is as if the film just presents us a slice of life of Giulio, and in this slice of life, we don't feel too sad or too happy with the characters, and the characters also don't experience an extremely sad, or an extremely happy, or a cathartic situation in this film. This is the opposite of most mainstream films, of which the characters and the audience usually learn a (pseudo) great lesson in life.

4.I also like the character of Irene very much. She seems to be very independent. I'm not sure what she really feels for Giulio. Does she still love him? Does she want to stay with him or not? She seems not to hate her husband, but she also doesn't need her husband to be happy. It is as if she feels okay with or without her husband. I'm not sure if I understand this character or not, but I find this character very intriguing. Does the scene of Irene wandering in the streets imply her loneliness inside? I'm not sure. What I like very much is that she doesn't quarrel with her husband about how he neglects her and their daughter.

5. One of the things I like the most in this film is its digressions from the main plot, such as the one dealing with Tony and his debt-ridden friend, the story about the lost cat Doris, the dying cat, and the Riot Dog. I'm not sure if the subplot about Tony has anything to do with the main theme of the film or not. I also don't know the real meanings of the shots of cats and dogs interspersed throughout the film, but I know that I like them very much, though I'm not sure why.

I think each film presents us how the filmmaker views the world, and when the filmmaker doesn't exclude digressions and stray cats and stray dogs from the film, that also directly or indirectly indicates how he views the world; and this way of viewing the world, when one glances at cats and dogs in the streets from time to time, wondering what these animals might feel or think about, corresponds with my way of viewing the world.

Though I wrote that the film is almost non-sentimental, I have to admit that there's a scene in this film that touches me very much in a very sad way. It's the scene of an old, dying cat. Why does the most touching scene in the film which is partly about the Greek crisis turn out to be the scene about the old cat? I don't know, but I really like it. If the capitalist system that we live in is "a dream", the scene of the old, dying cat somehow presents me a simple truth of life. Everyone must die sooner or later. Everything is temporary, anyway.

6. There are many interesting aspects in WILD AND PRECIOUS, and I think each viewer may find that the aspect that appeals to him/her the most may differ from other viewers. The interesting aspects in this film include how to present a country in crisis in films/TV news programs, and the experience of a person in exile, which may also be inspired by the experience of Bill Mousoulis himself. However, since I have never been abroad (except walking a little bit into Myanmar), the experience of a person in exile in this film is not the thing that touches me the most in this film. What I feel connected with the most in WILD AND PRECIOUS is how Giulio feels torn apart between his work and his family. If he wants to continue working in Greece, he will not have time to spend with his daughter in Italy. What can he do? What should he do? What should he choose? This kind of problems reminds me of my own problems. I also feel torn apart between doing necessary things and doing the things I love. I have to work to earn enough money to buy necessary things, such as food, clothes, shelter, and medicine, and that means I don't have enough time any more to write about films or to watch as many films as I would like to. Ten years ago I had a dream that I could earn a living and still had enough time to write about films. Now I don't have that dream any more. Earning a living is too much difficult and requires too much time from me already. Giulio wants to stay with his daughter, but he can't. I want to have enough time to write about films, but I can't. That's why I feel very connected to this aspect in WILD AND PRECIOUS.

7. WILD AND PRECIOUS cannot be easily compared to any other films at all. Some parts of it remind me a little bit of VIDEOGRAM OF A REVOLUTION (1992, Harun Farocki + Andrei Ujica), especially the part which shows the footage of a riot/demonstration and may look like a home video.

But if I have to screen WILD AND PRECIOUS with another film, I may choose to screen it together with THE ALL-AROUND REDUCED PERSONALITY -- REDUPERS (1978, Helke Sander, West Germany), though these two films are very different. I choose it because I think both films deal with a photographer who has problems dealing with many aspects in his/her life, and both films also present an interesting balance between personal problems and political problems in a film. THE ALL-AROUND REDUCED PERSONALITY -- REDUPERS is a very feminist film, so I think it may act as a counterbalance when it is shown together with WILD AND PRECIOUS. However, I don't mean to say that WILD AND PRECIOUS is anti-feminist. I just think it is interesting to compare and contrast between the representation of a mother who has to raise her kid alone in both films, or something like that.

There's also something in WILD AND PRECIOUS which unintentionally reminds me a little bit of THE FAREWELL -- BERTOLT BRECHT'S LAST SUMMER (2000, Jan Schütte, Germany, A+30). It's the way small moments in life are juxtaposed against the immensity of a political system--the repressive Communist system in THE FAREWELL, the capitalist system in WILD AND PRECIOUS.

This is what Leslie Camhi wrote in Village Voice about THE FAREWELL -- BERTOLT BRECHT'S LAST SUMMER:

" Now that the very state whose existence he toiled for has itself become a phantom, Schütte's film (aided by John Cale's pensive score) focuses on the small moments punctuating a lazy summer afternoon: a lover's embrace, a passing cloud, a poem recited by a schoolchild. They are what remains, it seems to suggest, in a life's final hours, when all ideals and bitterness are gone."

Likewise, I like WILD AND PRECIOUS very much because of the small moments in it, especially the moments of the Riot Dog and various other dogs and cats in the film. These small moments in life are what is precious to me.