I only caught two films yesterday.
A- Iris
I started the day with Albert Maysles’ latest film, Iris. What fun! Here’s what I thought about it:
Iris Apfel, a fixture in the New York fashion scene well in her 90s, dresses herself in loud, bright, and absurd clothes, augmented with even crazier accessories. And yet she looks great. Apfel still embraces her work with enthusiasm, and thus embraces life. Maysles follows her as she attends shows, shops in specialty stores in Harlem, shows off all of the absurd toys in her apartment, and treats her husband of more than 60 years to his 100th birthday party. And she’s almost always smiling.
Maysles died in March at the age of 88, so there was no Q&A with the director.
This was the last festival screening if Iris. But don’t despair, it opens in Bay Area theaters May 8.
B+ The Taking of Tiger Mountain
The bad news came as we were waiting to be let into the theater. Due to technical difficulties, this 3D movie would be screened in 2D. Oh, well. I was looking forward to seeing a 3D Chinese action epic directed by the great Tsui Hark.
Once inside, Festival Executive Director Noah Cowan MC’d the show, which was about far more than this one movie. He started with a clip from an earlier version of the story–a filmed record of a Cultural Revolution stage opera.
After the clip, Cowan brought on Hong Kong film producer Nansun Shi. They showed us clips from other Chinese and Hong Kong films, and discussed the history of Film Workshop, the company that Shi took over in 1981. Her other films films include A Chinese Ghost Story, A Better Tomorrow, and Once Upon A Time In China.
Then they screened The Taking of Tiger Mountain
Based, very loosely I suspect, on a 1946 battle, it’s a big, epic military adventure set in 1946. And it’s a lot of relatively mindless fun. A small band of devoted and virtuous soldiers set out to take a seemingly impregnable fortress from a much larger and better-equipped band of evil thugs. The story involves plenty of tried-and-true devices. It has the hero who goes undercover and manages to outwit the bad guys over and over again. It has the cute kid, traumatized by the bad guys, who slowly learns to trust the good guys. And it has several big, exciting battles, saving the best for last.
The action sequences depended heavily on CGI, much of which looked fake. I miss the old, more realistic stunt work. On the other hand, I guess it’s good that performers don’t have to risk their lives.
Even in 2D, you can clearly see this is a 3D movie. The opening credits float. Objects fly at you. When a bullet hits a person, it’s accompanied by CGI bursts of blood clearly designed for their dimensionality.
Fun as it was, it left me wanting to revisit some of Hark’s earlier, better work–especially Once Upon a Time in China and Peking Opera Blues.
After the movie, Cowan and Shi came on stage to discuss more about Film Workshop and show additional clips.
Unfortunately, this film hasn’t been picked up for an American release. But it will play one more time at the festival, this coming Thursday, at 2:00, at the Kabuki. Hopefully, they’ll have the bugs worked out by then and will be able to show it in 3D.
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