Falling Integers in Kyle Canterbury’s Redefining Video (2006) October 7, 2008
Posted by Richard Bolisay in .MOV, Indie Sine, Short Cuts, Video Art.add a comment
Video works by Kyle Canterbury
The avant-garde dilemma: claim it art, you’re pretentious; claim it trash, you’re ignorant. It surprises me how an entire novel of ideas can be built in an image, a flash of unmoving images, or a movement of flashing images as detailed by Fred Camper in his interpretation of Kyle Canterbury’s experimental pieces collectively called Redefining Video. Squirming grains like wiggling worms in a thousand flickers of blinding grey light, patches of indistinct figures in a faint strobe of computer monitors, geometries glowing in gloom then metamorphosing into acute polyhedrons of diffused anger, plummeting pixels and patterns of puddles and Dubya Bush in castrating ocular madness, dark spots forming glandular fickle shadows of unknown origin recklessly dissolving into subterrania, branches of trees and swaying leaves over prehistoric architectural masonry (that’s what it looks like) and houses replete with polite mix of prodding silence and drab existence – - all seem nonsense to me, but then nincompoopery is a handsome trait. Gazillion possibilities in video, even our MMDA has its own display of mockery, and whoever claims to anything these days? Words do not own us; we own them. The amiable access to video turns a nobody into a peabody; Canterbury’s hip and critic-friendly works know no boundaries – - it is an imposing subliminal torture to sit through a succession of his works but he can go on and on and on and on to examine the varying textures of his chosen medium and still come up with the same proof: an iconoclast never stops, he just keeps on destroying.
*3rd .MOV International Digital Film Festival, Bacolod, Dumaguete, Iloilo, Manila (Robinson’s Galleria), September 20 – October 7, 2008.
A Void in A Walk Into The Sea: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory (Esther Robinson, 2007) October 5, 2008
Posted by Richard Bolisay in .MOV, Biopic, Docu, Indie Sine, Queer.add a comment
Directed by Esther Robinson
All black and white footage by Danny Williams
In a way it resembles Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There in dissecting the image of a man, the (de)mystification of his existence, except that the figure being examined is no more than a dirt under Dylan’s thumb – - Danny Williams, a lowly drifter in the Warhol Factory who disappeared in 1966, believed to have been drowned in Boston Bay, and whose alleged contribution to the group remains enigmatic, if not heavily unrecognized. Esther Robinson, his niece, introduces us to him with as little knowledge as we do, but with more interest – - who would even care about the faceless names in the rolling credits of every film? – - and with more emphasis on a removed character, his actions that may well be forgotten and fumed in the vast expanse of twentieth century art, which are only as alive as a falling rain in Sahara.
Robinson autopsies not the dead body but the dead memories, all coming from the brood of Warhol’s psychedelic factory – - Brigitte Berlin, Gerard Malanga, Paul Morissey, Billy Name, Don Nameth, John Cale, Chuck Wein – - and Williams’ relatives, to evoke a startling contrast between the two camps: the fidgety, inconsistent accounts of the former and the bare emotional heed of the latter. The best and worst of times that Williams chose to put himself in, Warhol’s lover, Warhol’s light and setman, Warhol’s flyleaf, chewed him hard, and as Robinson discovers her uncle’s short pieces, comparable to those years’ frantic offspring of art with their technical sophistication, we also feel that tinge of regret, of wishful longing that somehow the man with such dreams would find a way to escape his cloudy prison and lead a less glamorous life on his own. The film connects the dots, and the filmmaker herself also adds more dots to reach a conclusion that avoids further probe – - a deadend – - because inside the box of lies is lies themselves, scattered in every molecule of truth, and neither personal interest nor cultural bandwagon can ever stir it awake – - it is random, luckless fate, Danny Williams and the like are all casualties of the era, only time can help them and set them free.
Pop culture never dies; it is an insane socio-political arena. In its gnarled gaudy fences, dreams are built and hopes are crossed. A Walk Into The Sea manages not only to trespass the muddy waters of that bygone age but also the psyche of its subject – - imperfect, incomplete, insufficient, like all truisms are. If we crave for meaning because it makes us happy, does the thought of just being a tiny speck in the universe of allusive oxymorons enough to do the same? No, because even in death equality doesn’t exist.
*3rd .MOV International Digital Film Festival, Bacolod, Dumaguete, Iloilo, Manila (Robinson’s Galleria), September 20 – October 7, 2008.
Half-Baked Cookie in Woo Ming-jin’s Days of the Turquoise Sky (2008) October 2, 2008
Posted by Richard Bolisay in .MOV, Asian Films.add a comment
Malaysian Title: Kurus
Written and directed by Woo Ming-jin
Cast: Mislina Mustapha, Namron, Carmen Soo, Arshad Zamir Zamir
Sometimes the point in not having a point is really the point itself. Pointlessness becomes an escape word, a narrow description aimed to mislead the writer from his true feelings and save him from explaining way too much, more so to the agonizing repercussions of contradicting arguments. Such directness and brevity help at times – - obtuse mainstream flicks deserve that contempt – - but films that are ambiguously structured like Days of The Turquoise Sky prove that criticism is a no-nonsense field; it is a burdensome task especially when the work being discussed is masked by sweet lightheartedness despite the troubling events of its seemingly small world. Is it a coming-of-age story? Is it about the two bullies who are slaves of their own insecurities as well? Is it about that nomad who eats pasta for lunch? Is it about the teacher who waits on the same stop to wait for her impostor boyfriend? Is it about her desire to educate her students well? Is it about the altruistic neighbor who wants to have children in exchange of lending some money? Is it about the forgotten facets of rural life? Is it about cultural imperialism, the invasion of innocence? Woo may fail to strongly characterize every one of them and every detail he presents but there is something beautiful in its vagueness that I wish I have uncovered. No matter how familiar the details are, no matter how close they are to my understanding, the point still eludes me. His decision to reveal less (or to argue less) works both ways – - it kills the fire and it digs deeper – - it hangs at the edge of the cliff, waiting to be pushed. But somehow I am left to appreciate its parading shooting stars, its understated elegance, its humble misgivings on tradition, its exacting truth, and I believe, as Palahniuk chides anyone who doubts the doubtless, A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection. And a silent kill.
*3rd .MOV International Digital Film Festival, Bacolod, Dumaguete, Iloilo, Manila (Robinson’s Galleria), September 20 – October 7, 2008.
