January & February 2013 - Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film ...

Chronicling the last days and feverish dreamsof a reluctant kamikaze at the end of WorldWar II, Okamoto (who spent “three terribleyears” as a soldier) expresses the madnessand psychological disorientation of war inways forbidden in his studio war epics. SamFuller by way of Hunter S. Thompson, HumanBullet is war on hallucinogens, crazed, mad,and haunted. Jason Sanders1/2Written by Okamoto. Photographed by Hiroshi Murai. WithMinori Terada, Naoko Otani, Chishu Ryu, Tanie Kitabayashi.(116 mins, In Japanese with English subtitles, B&W,35mm, From The Japan Foundation, permission Toho)Sunday / 2.24.132:00ShuraToshio Matsumoto (Japan, 1971)(a.k.a. Demons, a.k.a. Pandemonium). Experimentalfilmmaker Toshio Matsumoto first partneredwith ATG for 1969’s queer-camp roundhouse,Funeral Parade of Roses; his second feature,Shura, is ostensibly a “mere” samurai film, yetunderneath its seemingly traditional surface lurksjust as many subversions. A samurai becomesdistracted from duty by his love for a courtesan,who in turn betrays him. His vengeance, playedout in stately black-and-white nightmares, islong, and bloody; in fact, it could be not real atall. A Borgesian satire in the guise of samuraihorror, this nocturnal masterpiece is one ofthe darkest—visually, and politically—films ofthe era. Jason SandersWritten by Matsumoto, based on the Kabuki playKamikakete Sango Taisetsu by Nanboku Tsuruya, asadapted by Shuji Ishizawa. Photographed by TatsuoSuzuki. With Katsuo Nakamura, Yasuko Sanjo, JuroKara, Masao Imafuku. (134 mins, In Japanese withEnglish subtitles, 16mm, Color/B&W, From The JapanFoundation, permission Toshio Matsumoto)Wednesday / 2.27.13A Man VanishesShohei Imamura (Japan, 1967)Wildly startling in its execution.Mahohla Dargis, NY Times7:00(Ningen jōhatsu). What at first purports to be adocumentary on the missing-person problemin overcrowded Japan develops into Imamura’smost brilliant illustration of the absurdity of“objective cinema.” Using only a small crewand no cast as such, Imamura investigates amissing-person report, interviewing the man’sfamily, friends, and fiancée. The film takes on asurreal aspect, though, when the fiancée takesa strong liking to the interviewer himself. Usingsync-sound and hidden-camera techniques toblur fact and fiction filmmaking (long beforeit was trendy to do so), Imamura effects thefinal breakdown of cinema verité in the film’saudacious final sequence.Photographed by Kenji Ishiguro. With Yoshie Hayakawa,Shigeru Tsuyuguchi, Sayo Hayakawa, Imamura. (125mins, In Japanese with English subtitles, B&W, 35mm,From The Japan Foundation, permission Icarus Films)Documentary Voices is presentedin conjunction with the UC Berkeleycourse History of Documentary Film,taught by Linda Williams during thespring semester. We begin our serieswith a selection of films from therecent Robert Flaherty Film Seminar.Flaherty, often called the father ofdocumentary film, approached hissubjects without preconception, yetreadily combined staged scenes withbeautifully observed ones in orderto elucidate the human condition. Inthat spirit, we feature films rangingfrom documentary-fiction hybridsto cinematic essays, ethnographicfilms, and documentary animations.Documentary Voices continues inMarch and April.Kathy Geritz, Film CuratorWe thank the Flaherty Film Seminar; SarieHorowitz, coordinator of Flaherty on theRoad; and Josetxo Cerdán, curator of the2012 Flaherty Seminar, Open Wounds,from which our series is drawn.1. 48, 2.26.132. Free Land, 2.12.13documentaryvoicesTuesday / 2.5.137:00Broken StonesGuetty Felin (Haiti/France/U.S., 2012)In PersonGuetty FelinSee African Film Festival 2013, p. 19.Tuesday / 2.12.13Free LandMinda Martin (U.S., 2009)In PersonMinda Martin7:00Minda Martin’s powerful, beautiful essayfilm traces her family history back to theforced Cherokee relocation of the 1800sand forward to her own nomadic childhoodof poverty and homelessness. Drawing onfound footage, interviews, and archivaldocuments, Free Land examines, in herwords “what it means to be constantlylooking for opportunity in America,” whiletracing a legacy of social inequities.(63 mins, Color, Digital File, From Flaherty FilmSeminar)Preceded by Family Nightmare (DustinGuy Defa, U.S., 2011). Defa composes an intimateportrait of his dysfunctional family from VHS homemovies. (10 mins, Color, Digital File, From FlahertyFilm Seminar).Ah, Liberty! (Ben Rivers, U.K., 2008). Rivers’spoetic ethnography is a collaboration witha family living in rural England. (19 mins, B&W,16mm, From LUX).Total running time: 92 minsTuesday / 2.19.137:00ChangMerian C. Cooper, Ernest Schoedsack(U.S., 1927)Introduction Linda WilliamsSee On Location in Silent Cinema, p. 23.Tuesday / 2.26.137:0048Susana de Sousa Dias (Portugal, 2009)Susana de Sousa Dias’s remarkable, hypnoticfilm is composed of photographstaken upon the arrest of political prisonersduring the forty-eight years of the Portuguesedictatorial regime. As the prisonersstare out at us, we hear their testimony,recorded in the present, reflecting on theirtime in prison. “The film tries to expandthe duration of that fraction of a second inwhich the picture was taken, and in whichthe prisoners opposed their oppressors,face to face,” Dias explains. In this expandedmoment, the image is transfigured, andwe are invited to contemplate what aphotograph reveals and what it conceals.Photographed by Octávio Espírito Santo. (93 mins,B&W, DigiBeta, From Kintop)Preceded by Heroes No Longer (Sun Xun,China, 2008). Sun Xun’s charcoal animation offersa lesson in history. (9 mins, B&W, DigiBeta, Fromthe artist)Total running time: 102 mins26 january & FEBRuary 2013