Face
“It’s better to impose than to hide what one has.”
Well, Tsai Ming-liang’s Face is certainly imposing. Visually, audibly, thematically and cinematically, Face is definitely not for the faint of heart.
“Welcome to my dream,” Tsai said by way of introduction. And as with any dream, the film is entirely open to interpretation and indeed eschews any rational, cinematic conventions. With its obscure storyline of a director dealing with the death of his mother and the players in his production, Face is much more about the visual experience. In fact in the post screening Q&A Liang admitted, “I’m not here to tell you a story.”
So what is the film if not a story? Tsai seems fascinated with reflections and refractions. This speaks not only to his marvellous use of mirrors (particularly in the Tuilerie Garden scenes), but of water, windows and especially light. Perhaps this was drawn from the idea of a face in the mirror, or — considering the Louvre commissioned this film — the impressive glass pyramids by I.M Pei might have informed Tsai’s reflections.
There is no doubt Tsai’s compositions are spectacular. His use of deep focus and shots of fearless duree are reminiscent of Antonioni and Truffaut. Indeed both are referred to in the film, with the final shot of 400 Blows featured as a flip book and Antonioni cited in a back-and-forth naming of filmmakers. The temporality of Face certainly refashions the Deleuzian time-image favoured by Antonioni in particular, while the cast is certainly a tribute to Truffaut. Not only does Jean-Pierre Léaud reassume the name Antoine (from 400 Blows), but Jeanne Moreau and Fanny Ardant were both cinematic and romantic loves of the famed director.
Face may be refuse to tell you a story, but it will dazzle you with stunning costumes by Christian Lacroix and some truly beautiful tableaux. You’ll also be privy to hidden parts of the Louvre, including an overtly reflexive shot in an underground river. So while you could certainly call this film an imposing work of self-indulgence, it’s perhaps worth asking, what dream isn’t?
Missing Water
Can you imagine what it was like?
Khoa Do asks a lot from his audience in his ambitious third feature Missing Water. In this highly personal story, the director recounts the dangerous and harrowing flight of refugees from post-war Vietnam. Some 1.5 million people took to boats — often barely warranting the name — in the pursuit of freedom, claiming the lives of 600,000.
The most striking feature of this film is the fact that the re-enactment takes place in a sewing factory. The production designers have done an ingenious job fashioning a boat out of tables, sewing machines and racks of clothes. It may take a while to get used to the conceit, but if you can get on board (terrible pun intended), then you’re definitely in for a compelling experience.
For a film so pared back in setting, the onus is more squarely on the actors to carry this story. And for the most part they succeed. The two sisters, Kim (Kathy Nguyen) and Hanh (Sheena Pham) are wonderful together; teasing and comforting each other in turn, with recurring jokes that take you to the heart of their loving relationship. Both performances develop as the film progresses and both are clearly invested in relating this story. Vico Thai as Chau also has some good moments, though his character seems to be underdeveloped compared with the sisters, which results in his story not translating as well to the audience.
However Hieu Phan powerfully embodies the character of Uncle, which is a painful re-enactment of his own journey undertaken 30 years ago. At the post screening Q&A Phan spoke candidly about how he wept during rehearsals as the memories of his experience came flooding back. So again, while his character may have been limited to the more symbolic and melodramatic scenes, no one can fault his absolute commitment to the role.
Alongside his cast, Do also shoulders the huge burden to capture this Spartan setting with innovative cinematography. Only rarely resorting to rocking the camera in mimicry, Do’s compositions succeed in being emotive and intriguing. Interacting well with his set, he not only establishes the reality of this rickety boat, but captures the plight of these people in a provocatively cinematic way.
Missing Water is a courageous film on many levels. For Do, the responsibility of telling the story of his people must have been intimidating at times. So too, the decision to navigate a film set in a sewing factory and recounted in Australian English. The result may be too much of a reach for some, but for those willing to take the journey, these elements coalesce in an enlightening and moving story; one that, translated into Vietnamese, means “Missing Country”.
For full program details, see the Sydney Film Festival’s website
La nana
The well-trodden British genre of ‘upstairs downstairs’ films is reinvented in Sebastian Silva’s Chilean drama, La Nana (The Maid). Drawing from his own experience raised in a household with live-in maids, Silva brings both an inquisitive and empathetic eye to this ignored domestic sphere.
La Nana follows the institutionalised life of Raquel (Catalina Saavedra), a live-in maid who has been serving the family for 23 years. The film begins on her 41st birthday, and with a delightfully awkward scene that clearly establishes her place as an intrinsic part of the family, though ultimately and irrevocably an outsider. When Pilar (Claudia Celedon) decides Raquel needs help and brings in a new maid, the stressed-out and headache prone Raquel begins to unspool.
After a series of humorous if borderline creepy run-ins with two of the new maids, Raquel eventually meets her match with Lucy (Mariana Loyola). Unable to scare her away like the others, Raquel eventually opens up to Lucy’s infectious enthusiasm and light-hearted approach to life.
It’s easy to see why this film won at Sundance. Saavedra totally embodies the role of Raquel, holed up in her disinfected cage, while Sergio Armstrong’s handheld cinematography underscores the claustrophobia of her existence. Silva and co-writer Pedro Peirano’s screenplay comes across as personal and insightful without being indulgent. Indeed Silva saw the film as an opportunity to, “exorcise [the] unsolved emotional relationship with [my] maid.” To that end, he specifically asked Armstrong to, “shoot as if the camera was a curious boy” while his story reflects his own understanding of Raquel: from wary distance to warm-hearted empathy.
This world of live-in maids seems particularly foreign to Australian audiences. Indeed the festival crowd seemed so caught up in ‘the maid phenomenon’ — as Silva refers to it — that in he had to gently remind us that it’s not really what the film is about. Despite La Nana‘s uplifting ending, the film is ultimately a rather poignant portrait of woman breaking out her state of protracted childhood by learning how to love.
Disgrace
Scratch the surface of the ‘new’ South Africa and you’ll find a painful patchwork of old wounds. Steve Jacobs’ adaptation of J.M. Coetzee’s Booker Prize-winning novel Disgrace fearlessly pares back the layers of post-Apartheid South Africa within the microcosm of a father/daughter relationship.
David Lurie (John Malkovich) is a jaded university English professor, cast into disrepute after an aggressive affair with one of his students. His stunning lack of remorse is matched only by glimpses of self-loathing. “A thing. Not possible to love and condemned to solitude,” he pointedly describes in one lecture. Seemingly content to crucify his career, David leaves Cape Town to visit his daughter in the rural regions of Eastern Cape. Immediately concerned about Lucy’s (Jessica Haines) vulnerability living on the farm alone, his fears are soon realised when the pair are brutally attacked and the farm ransacked.
This film is not easy going. Jacobs and his cast unflinchingly bring the harsh realities of Coetzee’s story to life. Malkovich — who always tends to play Malkovich — here softens his trademark clipped diction with a South African accent and embodies David with a wretched and compelling conviction. Haines, in her feature debut, holds her ground with Malkovich. She portrays Lucy with a steely resolve: the devastating inheritance stemming from her father’s dogged narcissism.
While both actors shoulder the weighty subject matter, cinematographer Steve Arnold both underscores and contrasts the tone of the film with stark, beautiful images. The craggy mountains that surround Lucy’s farm are an omnipresent reminder of how penned in she’s allowed herself to become. The landscape is at times lush and bountiful, and at others barren and hostile. Arnold captures it all with a skilful and cinematic eye.
Jacobs’ wife, writer-producer Anna-Maria Monticelli, had the intimidating task of adapting Coetzee’s work, and the source material is evident at times in the episodic nature of some scenes. But where she, and the entire production team do succeed, is in translating the density and sophistication of the work, particularly in the thematic comparisons between human and animal.
Celebrated academic Benedict Anderson described a nation as “an imagined community”, existing only as a shared idea in the minds of its inhabitants. For a population still reeling from a tumultuous and devastating history, a united South Africa must seem at times impossible to imagine. “It’s finished now,” Petrus (Eriq Ebouaney), the black co-owner of Lucy’s farm repeats to David. But acceptance does not come so easily for those mired in disgrace.
For full program details, head over to the Sydney Film Festival’s website
