So the mere existence of a film such as Ceyda Torun's Kedi is extremely interesting in the sense that cats, in our over-wrought and overloaded information age, with the internet as the fortified haven, seem to be the vanguard of such a realm. Maybe they are the puppet masters, easily controlling the masses by emoting infinite cuteness with just one look towards a camera.
Kedi moves beyond that, sidestepping the mimetic pigeonhole that cats seem to have been placed, restricted within the aspect ration of videos taken from iPhones. If anything, one layer of the film explores our infatuation with cats. It is maybe a reason for you, personally, as to why you find cats so damn adorable that your knees become weak. But, through this exploration, Ceyda applies more layers into her study of cats, and exploration becomes rumination and rumination becomes revelation. A simple premise such as this film is expansive in opportunity. And although one could feel a certain repetition due to its length, the filmmaker makes something very clear by the end: that this cat film is really about people and what they long for, what they seek, and what they find to make them happy. In short, it is unobtrusively a human story. And you cannot film cats anywhere. No, the place must be Istanbul, where apparently thousands of stray cats live and survive, an urban wildlife of sorts. Although we see hundreds of cats over the course of the film, Torun closely follows the lives of six cats and the humans who associate with them. Each is said to have a distinct personality and, as the camera both observes and even participates in each cats' activities, it becomes surprisingly convincing that these cats are individual and are a product of their own experiences. Take Psikopat (yes, the name means exactly how it almost sounds), the no bullshit feminine feline who lets no one touch her husband and who gets what she wants. Or Duman, penned as the 'aristocratic,' cat, and the only one with a collar, sits passively under chairs, not wanting to be pet and not snatching customers' food, eventually banging on the glass of his chosen delicatessen when hungry, not even taking on step into the establishment. This reminds me of one of my cats growing up, named Tigger (a girl). One of the humans interviewed says she has conversations with the cat who always runs around her shop. I have personal experience with this. Written in some imperceptible code of law, Tigger was never allowed on the kitchen counters. Nevertheless, the cat's stubbornness persevered and she always loved jumping up there even when I was sitting right there staring straight into her soul. When she did jump up, I would shout in a signature raspy voice, "Hey!" and she would respond with a brisk, "Meow." A battle of vocal wit commences as we volley our heys and meows back and forth and for quite a while. My initial annoyance of Tigger's defiance whisked away into this proud appreciation with my cat, as if a serenity formed between us through this strange figment of mutual comprehension. Goodness, I miss my cat. Personal tangent aside, watching Kedi is not just observing the rituals of these cats and their immediate environment, but the people who care for them and confide in them. Of course, we cannot really say how emotional or humanized these cats really are. Some of it are the projections of our fears and desires. I recall the profundity expressed in the naturalistic and slightly sardonic portrayal of people in Errol Morris's Gates of Heaven (one of the greatest films, I might add). The Turkish residents in Kedi find solace, peace, and companionship with the cats even though they are not their pets. In fact, maybe that is what strikes them the most, that, despite their independence, that cats also find some sort of solace with these humans and, like the bizarre mutuality I established with Tigger, an indivisible bond is created between a two species. Just as enlightening is the romantic portraiture of the city itself. Ceyda grew up in Istanbul and grew up in admiration of the stray cats so Kedi is a pompous love letter to a city that could use some love (every city could use more). Among the incredible architecture, the winding and slanting streets, the busy markets, and the lush Bosphorus Strait, there are the cats that roam, finding a way to live just like every human that roams the cement dominion. Structurally, although I found the slow pacing peaceful and aligned with its sense of quiet observation, there was a sense of repetitive aimlessness that obscured how or when the film was going to end. It is one of the feelings you get where you sense some sort of finality only to be rejected multiple times as we then focus on another particular cat. If something like this makes you anxious, then it may derail you from contemplation. If you can manage, you might have more fun at this movie than many others currently. It is like a nature documentary, set in a city, that ultimately exposes a human fragility we must acknowledge and appreciate. One of the (human) subjects makes quite possibly the most profound statement of an animal since the aforementioned Morris film: Cats believe in the existence of God. Dogs think humans are God but cats see us as the middleman, they see through us. They know better.
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I stand accused of doing harm/Cause I'm Louder than a Bomb -Chuck D The rat-tat-tat of each verse jabs away at not just a glass ceiling but a glass floor and glass walls. Soon, with each vocal punch thrown, Sonita Alizadeh hip hops her way out of a cage she lyrically and ferociously annihilates. Every line recited, every series of words rhythmically spoken, Sonita's voice carries both a bludgeoning desperation and an unapologetic aura of triumph; a combination spawning a vulnerable but muscular performance. Music is her ammunition, and as it pierces through the weak glass it ricochets across Iran, Afghanistan, and all around the world. And any girl able to listen to her syllabic suppresive fire will understand, no matter what sort of culture they were brought up in. Sonita's humanity mobilizes through her art. And thank goodness for that because for the majority of the time in Rokhsareh Ghaemmaghami's Sonita, every bit of the society she lives in wants to suppress such explosive behavior. Ghaemmaghami is not afraid to divert from Sonita's musical talent and focus on how she lives because the longer we are inhabiting the space this woman lives and breathes the more clearly we see that she cannot sit idle, that if unkempt and if ignored, we could lose such a prodigious storyteller. Sonita is a very intimate film, we see the titular subject live as an Afghan refugee in Tehran with her sister, go to school in a specialized institution, and slowly develop more of the courage and bombast to create and deliver her meteoric verses. We see Sonita talk with her friends, one of them is being married off to a thirty-five year old. Another one was beaten. It is certainly not that they find these things right but know it to be normal, constructed by powers beyond their realm of control. Sonita raps to one of her friends in consolation, deeply moving her; Sonita realizes the direct and intimate power her songs hold. Yet, her situation is even more complicated than that, one that grows from a conflict of identity. Sonita is Afghani and must proscribe to different traditions than her Irani brethren. Her mother and father still live in Herat, Afghanistan, absent in familial love as well as enforcement of cultural rules. In a class exercise, Sonita was asked to create a fantasy passport that would include where she liked to have been born. Choosing the US, Sonita flanked her first name with Jackson, wanting Michael to be her father. Although we cannot quite tell how much she really despises her parents, even in the toughest of times, there are moments where she would have the right to snap. When Sonita figures out the real reason why her mother, after eight years, journeys to Tehran to see her daughter it is then that we see a cultural and economic blindness that propels Sonita into the unnecessary world of marital profiteering. To be forced to wed so that the family can have enough money for someone else to wed is unfathomable for me to comprehend. To be pressured into submitting, "for the good of the family," creates an insurmountable tension for this young girl who just wants to exist without the expected orbit of a masculine figure. Such pressure heats up tension between Sonita and her family. We watch this. Ghammaghami watches this...but not for long. One of the most interesting aspects of this film is the complexity of the filmmaker-subject relationship. Traditionally, authenticity is retained when the filmmaker does not intrude into the reality of their subject. Like Steve James paying for the Agees' electric bill so their lights can turn back on in Hoop Dreams, Ghaemmaghami actually pays Sonita's family to allow their daughter more time in Iran (it is a scene both raw and exciting where, if I might say, I have never seen a boom operator speak with such conviction...no offense to boom operators). But then she goes a step further. Not only do they produce a now famous music video, Ghaemmaghami connected Sonita with a music academy in the United States. The director, herself, becomes a primary subject. What started out as a casually intimate filmmaker-subject relationship, where Sonita regards the camera as an opening to vent, becomes a blurring of traditional roles in which the filmmaker influences the subject. In fact, this whole movie has the audience witness the dynamics of closeness and trust between filmmaker and subject materialize and reinforce. As they bond, there is a sense that the intrusion of the filmmaker creates a palpable motivation for our protagonist. One female artist begins to vehemently support another female artist. Ghaemmaghami knows what Sonita wants and knows how she can fail. Lensed through comprehension, a fondness is imbued in the concentration the director places on the artistic process, how art is created in a restricting context that eventually begins to crumble (after releasing the music video, a superior at Sonita's school exclaimed that, by law, they can no longer support her). Sonita was born to express. At the beginning of the film she is asked to theatrically recreate a memory from her youth. In revisiting her trauma escaping Afghanistan, Sonita confidently directs the scene without words though folds under her still fragile and youthful mind. Later, she is shown directing the music video. The same confidence is there but a dormant anger seems to have possessed her; a possession that amplifies her performance, creating a beacon signaling through cyberspace, captivating global audiences. It's silly when girls be selling their souls because it's in -Lauryn Hill It must be noted, though, that all the glass-breaking and societal destruction Sonita is reeking is not without the filmmaker participating in such an act. As the camera is the weapon of choice, I witness the rise of a woman waxing poetic from the struggles she was thrown into. I am allowed a brief glimpse of her world, of Iran, whose citizens are so excruciatingly normal I hate that our the US government and Iranian government keep us so far a part. I am granted the opportunity to see Afghanistan through eyes not affiliated with American news or military personnel, realizing that Kabul, though certainly not a safe city...is a city, with buildings and people and life. Though I gasp at the security one needs just for a hotel, I long to see more of this country because my image thus far is an obscure melding of explosions and terrorists and soldiers and debris. As you can tell, there is a lot to take away from this film. In general, it is a a feel-good documentary, one that would certainly grant investment from most people watching. The truth is, there are still many things I wished to see in the film or at least see more of. In a more ambitious direction, I can only wonder what sort of film could be created if Ghaemmaghami followed in the footsteps of Steve James and created a Hoop Dreams equivalent for Sonita. There are many similarities between the narratives. Yet, the blemishes are greatly overshadowed by an incredible heroine of rhythm and rhyme, by the clarity of conflict she must overcome, and by the intricate bond she makes with the filmmaker. It makes sense that Ghaemmaghami breaks tradition to help a younger woman break tradition. Be damned, authenticity...at least for this instance. I know this review has turned into an extension of my own obsession with detailing every nook and cranny of a film I enjoyed, so I will end by saying what Sonita endorses and represents is important. Although I am not the targeted demographic to her music and message (I think), I'd like to say she inspires me. As a man who continually re-evaluates what he has learned and witnessed in the past, I use this opportunity to, at the very least, build hope from where my previous mistakes lay. I hope her rat-tat-tat, verse jabbing, lyric popping, and world-building grabs a hold of more and more people and never, ever lets go. And, by extension, I hope Ghaemmaghami, whose Sonita is her first feature-length film, gets to document her stories, feelings, and desires with far more frequency. Just a day in the life of narrating the scene -Ohmega Watts There are not many films that destabilize my ignorance, uprooting it from some locked portion of my mind. I am not referring to the kind of ignorance attributed to something I know absolutely nothing about (see the previous review on a film about a Chadian dictatorship). No, this ignorance stems from something I know of: the civil rights movement, the racial and social struggles befallen on African Americans, and the white scare accompanying this conflict. Yet, as I sat in the theatre and Raoul Peck's documentary I Am Not Your Negro proudly shone on the giant screen, I was reminded of this certain ignorance swelling in my mind because one of the biggest question I had going into this screening was: who the hell was James Baldwin?
Peck's film is undoubtedly an essay film, stitched together by the words of the first thirty pages of a book Baldwin was to finish before he passed on, entitled Remember This House. Baldwin traces the evolution of systemic racism in America lens through the deaths of three of his contemporaries and friends: Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. As if Peck has resurrected the soul of the scholar, whose words hover through the air of the theatre embodied by the voice of Samuel L. Jackson in a hushed tone bubbling with a suave courage of spearheading intellectualism. Coupled with the numerous and fortunate interviews of Baldwin, where we regard his wide-eyed and curious complexion, I Am Not Your Negro transcends the basis of an essay film and becomes conversational; Baldwin is talking to us and we are listening. Sitting there, the audience and I are wrapped by confident prose of outcry, unique passados toward white American culture and its fossilizing antiquities. "History is not the past. History is the present." So says Baldwin at some point in the film. A riveting statement that, after only a few days, is branded into my mind. Maybe it was branded in Peck's mind to because the visuals, which almost seem to dance in a carefree nature, are indelibly hinged upon the recitation of Baldwin's ideas. Peck distributes footage across many epochs, ignoring the more traditional notion of time that is flows like a river or flies in one direction like an arrow. Rather, the editing celebrates the alternative interpretation of time in that it is an expanding splash in a still pond, rippling out ungoverned. The Watts riots blend into Ferguson, Doris Day morphs into lynchings, and a medium close up of Baldwin cuts to a shot of a living breathing black man staring proudly into the camera. All the while the congealing of Baldwin's thoughts levitate over what we are required to see; what has passed is contemporary and the problem persists. History is not the past. History is the present. So with Peck grouping the struggles of the past with the struggles of the present, he and Baldwin peel away at a fundamental and cultural irresponsibility that has not soften, that has hid itself in shadow. Sinking into my seat as the film went on, a road wave of disparagement hit me. Was I feeling guilty on behalf of white America? I'm not sure but I knew I felt bad. And to place I Am Not Your Negro into the larger cinematic climate, if this film represents the unveiling or introduction to such irresponsibility then Ezra Edelman's O.J.: Made in America is that irresponsibility put into practice, where a troubled man was seen as a symbol by everyone which, in turn, exposed a serious problem of perception and how huge of a divide we do have in our country (along with, of course, two murdered individuals). I left the theatre knowing who James Baldwin was. If there is a weakness of this film it’s that I only wished to linger in his timeless presence longer. His early life, organized in a chapter entitled “Heroes,” is brilliant as it is shocking. We moved on from such an episode too soon. Yet, I know him now. History is not past. History is the present. That is no more true than the influence of James Baldwin. His presence in the now comes in the form of the ignorant, like me, to maintain curiosity. I think I will read one of his plays. Much has already been said about how Jim Jarmusch's most recent film, Paterson, explores the poetry of the mundane and cyclic nature of everyday life. Adam Driver's Paterson, who lives in Paterson, New Jersey, drives a bus around the city but is usually fixated on the sights and sounds of his hometown to fuel his quiet formulation of poems. Paterson takes the time to sit, before he drives off to pick up the first passengers of the day, and write as much of a poem as he can possibly usurp. Meanwhile, his wife, Laura, played by Golshifteh Farahani, seems to be exploring her artistic expression with all sorts of mediums: interior design, cupcakes, or country music. While Paterson keeps his poems in a secret notebook, Laura happily parades her new designs in front of her husband. They both love and support each other. After work, and after the daily conversation Laura has with Paterson urging him to publish his poems, Paterson takes his dog, Marvin, for a walk, stopping by a local bar to drink one, and only one, beer and chat with his friends.
That's about it in terms of a general synoptic description, as the film observes one week of their lives, we experience the sense of the gentle banality and repetition we all face in our un-cinematic lives. Viewing the world through Paterson's poetic eyes, we break out of that sameness and into a natural lyricism, visualized by text of written poetry and some lovely superimpositions as Paterson stitches together the things he has witnessed into something profoundly personal. So go if you like poetry, if you are from Paterson, if you like dogs, or cupcakes, or Method Man. Because each of these things (or person), whether they are important or not, are respected with a joviality of their existence. And that is something most films don't even regard and audiences take for granted. Yet, I'd like to indulge in some analysis as a way to further celebrate this film, an angle of exploration that ties into the brilliant approach Jarmusch, I think, intended. This begins with the title, itself, Paterson. It is the name of both the protagonist and the city of which he lives in. Sufficient enough, but lets us stretch the significance and promote the idea that Adam Driver's Paterson is the city. Now, let us ask: what is a city? Superficially, it is a collection of buildings and roads. Well, in fact, there are a lot of definitions, but the one definition that aligns quite snuggly with the film is an melding of individual ideas, experiences, and feelings. Due to dense population, where people are in close proximity most of the time, there is a high probability that you will run into someone vastly different from you. Actually, that is no less than a guarantee. Driver's Paterson as a bus driver is important because his vehicle is, essentially, a vessel for an assemblage of experiences. Paterson drives and he listens. He listens to guys talk about girls, anarchist talking about anarchy, and many other seemingly random topics. Paterson absorbs these experiences and thoughts. He thinks...contemplates. Eventually, he expresses or, in other words, reflects his own experience. And what is a city but a reflection of the mish-mash of individual's living their lives? Cities are filled with anarchists, poets, interior designers, bartenders, rappers, bus drivers...they are filled with people dealing with hard times, people discover new things, people content of their life's direction. And that may change eachand every day! A city is never at a resting state, always dynamic, always at an imperceptible flux. Many films have a city as a character (see The Third Man, Man With a Movie Camera, Blade Runner, Dark City, Lost in Translation, Truman Show...alright, I'm done) but not many films, if I am remembering correctly, literally have the city be a character. Cities, whether you like them or loathe them, have an erratic nature that is still tied down to some order, no matter the imperceptibility. What Paterson achieves is finding the lyricism within the dynamism, become fully aware of life's, or city life's tendency to produce its own repetition or motifs. The loose mailbox, the one glass of beer, the bus route; there are patterns of which we can extrapolate among the arbitrary. And this arbitrary nature does not settle with the present, no, it has its history, so it also makes sense that Paterson always has an eye on what has already happened, the history of the city, and the influence of figures like Lou Costello and William Carlos Williams. And because Paterson illustrates the intersection of many forms of humanity in such a mundane way, Jarmusch may have made his most ambitious point: that we cannot escape an overwhelming diversity of people, who may share some notions of life and living but will most certainly hold very different perspectives. And that is the way it is...it is just that, just like the film. Driver's Paterson is a hushed character (not a boring one, mind you) that one could say he is not only a representation of the city he lives in but a tabula rase, a blank slate of which all sorts of experiences latch on to. Once enough things have adhered to his being, he manifests a poem. He understands the many kinds of people that live around him...and that is all he needs to do. And yes, that, my friends, is the end of the lesson. |
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