Tag Archives: Pacific Film Archive
Big Screen Berkeley: The Face of Another
Sometimes I think there might just be something to the theory of synchronicity (defined by Wikipedia as “the experience of two or more events, that are apparently causally unrelated or unlikely to occur together by chance”). What else can account for my penning consecutive reviews of films featuring prosthetic fingers?
If not synchronicity, it’s a downright spooky coincidence.
Last week’s film, Rapt, told the tale of a kidnapped man who loses a middle digit to kidnappers. That finger, of course, was not ‘real’ — a stunt digit stood in for the genuine item. In The Face of Another (Tanin no kai), a 1966 psychodrama screening at 8:35 pm on Saturday July 30th as part of Pacific Film Archive’s “Japanese Divas” series, a ‘real’ prosthesis appears, albeit in a much smaller and less significant role.
Directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara — one of the few Japanese filmmakers to work outside the studio system — The Face of Another stars Kurosawa regular Tatsuya Nakadai as Okuyama, a Japanese salary-man whose face has been horribly disfigured in an industrial accident. The film begins as he pours out his troubles to psychiatrist Hori (Mikijiro Hira), a shrink who dabbles in prostheses as a hobby. How handy! (Cue rimshot.) … Continue reading »
Big Screen Berkeley: The Missouri Breaks
By the 1970s, the western was no longer the happy hunting ground William S. Hart, Tom Mix, and Roy Rogers had populated during the genre’s first half century. Black and white tales of good guys and bad guys were out, and filmmakers began to turn the genre on its head: now the baddies were frequently the characters the audience empathized with. The white man’s injustice towards Native Americans became a popular theme, and spaghetti westerns even introduced the idea that—gasp!—there might be a place for Marxist dialectics in the Old West.
Arthur Penn’s 1976 feature The Missouri Breaks (screening at Pacific Film Archive at 7:00 pm on Wednesday, June 26th) is a typical example of the American revisionist style. The film stars two of Hollywood’s biggest names—Jack Nicholson and Marlon Brando—but neither of their characters are men you’d invite home to meet mother. (Unless, of course, your mother was Joan Crawford.) … Continue reading »
Big Screen Berkeley: Dragnet Girl
Talking pictures came relatively late to Japan: it would be 1930 before a feature-length Japanese talkie was released, and silent films continued to be produced throughout the decade. Yasujiro Ozu’s 1933 drama Dragnet Girl (Hijosen no onna, screening at Pacific Film Archive at 7:00pm on Friday, June 24 as part of the Archive’s Japanese Divas series) is no exception: in fact, it doesn’t even feature a musical score.
For those who can’t abide absolute quiet, silent film accompanist Judith Rosenberg will be tickling the ivories during the screening of this rare title. Dragnet Girl’s power, however, derives from its consistently stunning imagery and distinctive mise-en-scène. Music and dialogue are definitely surplus to requirements.
The story revolves around Joji (Joji Oka, who — at least according to The Internet Movie Database —is still with us at the ripe old age of 107), a washed-up boxer turned hoodlum. Joji’s former glory and current infamy has won him an admirer in the form of impressionable young ‘Lefty’ Hiroshi (Koji Mitsui), who has abandoned his studies and taken up smoking and snooker in order to emulate and ingratiate himself with his hero.
Hiroshi’s foolish lifestyle choices have upset sister Kazuko (Sumiko Mizukubo, only 16 at the time), a record store employee who opts for traditional kimonos and get-a instead of pencil skirts and high heels. Kazuko appeals to Joji, asking for his help in convincing her brother to straighten up and fly right. … Continue reading »
Berkeley picks from 54th San Francisco Int’l Film Festival
The 1950s may be known as ‘The Golden Age of Television’, but my personal golden age of boob tubery came a little bit later. At the age of eight I was transported from a country with three television channels (all of which seemed to spend as much time broadcasting the test card as anything else) to the outskirts of a major American metropolis blessed with more than twenty stations.
In this land of milk and honey the phrase ‘Movies Till … Continue reading »
Berkeley picks from 54th San Francisco Int’l Film Festival
The clouds never seem to part and the puddles never seem to dry in Foreign Parts, a damp slice of life documentary screening at Pacific Film Archive at 2:15 pm this coming Saturday, April 23, as part of the 54th San Francisco International Film Festival. (The Festival begins on Thursday, April 21 at San Francisco’s Castro Theatre with — appropriately — Beginners, the new film from Thumbsucker director Mike ‘Not the Guy In R.E.M.’ Mills.)
Shot over a two-year period by directors Verena Paravel and J.P. Sniadecki, Foreign Parts is a Frederick Wiseman-style slice of life centered on a rough and tumble corner of New York City known as Willets Point. Slated repeatedly for redevelopment, Willets Point is adjacent to Citifield, the recently opened ballpark that serves as home for the New York Mets. Some of the film’s most memorable moments come via stunning long distance shots of the stadium, the opulence and magnificence of which contrast startlingly with the auto shops and junkyards of Willets Point.
Are the locals envious? Not at all: in fact, they’re opposed, or at best indifferent, to Mayor Bloomberg’s plans for the ‘hood, which they consider gifts from the Mayor to his developer buddies. The Point’s tight-knit working-class community (which consists of a potpourri of transients, ex-cons, drug addicts, down and outers, immigrants, and one — count him, one — permanent resident who’s lived there for 76 years) is unimpressed by the glitter of Citifield or Bloombo’s promises of new apartments and amenities. Foreign Parts is an elegiac salute to the stubborn spirit of backwoods urban America, and a reminder that you can still get great deals on windshield repair if you only know where to look. … Continue reading »
SF International Asian American FIlm Festival Part 2
The 29th San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival wraps up this coming weekend at the Festival’s East Bay flagship, Pacific Film Archive. If you enjoyed the eclectic blend of films on offer during the fest’s first week, you’ll be pleased to know that more is on the way.
Should you only have time for one film this week, make it Dance Town, a new South Korean drama screening Thursday, March 17, at 7:00pm. Apparently the third in a series of films about newcomers adapting to life in the big city of Seoul, Dance Town examines the difficulties faced by Jung-nim Rhee (newcomer Mi-ran Rha), a middle-aged North Korean housewife who flees Pyongyang for the South at the behest of her husband, a businessman whose travels have allowed him to establish connections beyond The Hermit Kingdom’s borders. … Continue reading »
Big Screen Berkeley: SF Int’l Asian American Film Festival
It’s time once again for the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, and, as in previous years, Pacific Film Archive will be flying the Festival’s flag in the East Bay. Now in its 29th year, the Festival runs from Thursday, March 10, through Sunday, March 20, and for the next two weeks I’ll be focusing on some festival highlights screening at PFA.
The Festival’s East Bay program begins at 7:00pm Friday, March 11 with an unusual drama examining the intangible relationship between spirituality and music. Directed by Naoki Kato, Abraxas (Aburakurasu no matsuri) stars indie rocker Suneohair (born Kenji Watanabe) as Jonen, a Zen Buddhist monk whose punk rock past is proving difficult to leave behind.
After embarrassing himself and his temple at a high school career day, our hero decides he must confront his demons head on because “if we become one with the noise, the noise disappears”. Jonen sets out to prove his point by performing at a local karaoke bar. … Continue reading »
Big Screen Berkeley: The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T.
Quick — name all the Doctor Seuss film adaptations you’d gladly watch more than once. The list is, of course, very short: in fact, unless you’re an easily pleased eight-year old, there’s only one, The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T.
This musical fantasy classic screens at 3:10pm on Wednesday March 2 at Pacific Film Archive as part of the undergraduate course, Film 50. Tickets will be available to the public as space permits.
Directed by the otherwise forgotten (and, truth … Continue reading »
Big Screen Berkeley: The Thief of Bagdad
Some films need to be seen on the big screen. Within this hoary platitude lies an obvious truth: a film’s impact can be severely diminished when the screen shrinks from several hundred square feet to less than a hundred square inches, an effect even the advent of so-called home theatres can’t entirely mitigate.
Films such as Gone With the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, and Star Wars pop up from time to time … Continue reading »
Big Screen Berkeley: Suspicion
Though he’s been dead for more than 30 years, Alfred Hitchcock remains an instantly recognizable pop culture icon. His French acolyte Claude Chabrol, on the other hand, could have walked down any street in America without fear of recognition, but he left behind his own impressive body of work when he passed away last September.
Pacific Film Archive’s new series, “Suspicion: The Films of Claude Chabrol and Alfred Hitchcock”, reunites the two masters of suspense via a generous selection … Continue reading »
