myDylarama

Enemies of Happiness - Best of Dochouse

Miranda Mungai — 2015-03-02T12:09:39Z

Enemies of Happiness/ Vores lykkes fjender is a powerful exploration of the determination and sheer hard work of Malalai Joya in the ten days leading up to the 2005 Afghanistan elections-the first democratic parliamentary election in over 30 years and the first in which women were allowed to vote. We follow her trials as a female political candidate, accurately self-described as a ‘woman among warlords'. The film hums with the constant buzz of radio announcements and news stories, propelling Joya forward in the face of violent opposition and death threats. Yet this film is more than the story of her campaign to win electoral support. Mulvad paints a portrait of Joya that presents the sisterhood, solidarity and encouragement which she shows to those who arrive at her doorstep (from the young girl worried about being forced into marriage to an elderly woman who shares Joya's vision for Afghanistan) to be a crucial element in her fight for a democratic system freed from corruption. These stories, which aren't overtly concerned with her political campaign, are some of the most moving and significant moments of the film, performing the essential task of bringing politics back to the people. These moments save the film from exalting Joya as a singular figure and place her in a broader movement for change, whilst still recognising her courage and determination.

Mulvad's humanist approach presents an Afghanistan that the Western public rarely see. Enemies of Happiness confronts the audience with several passionate expressions of hope and emotive desires for peace, expressions which are sometimes overwhelming for both subject and audience. Joya's dedication is to people and communities who, in the midst of a brutal struggle, are overwhelmed by hope and her own passion is the hope for a whole nation, hope for a new kind of politics. We are left to contemplate the tenacity of their faith in struggle and solidarity, a conviction that is so easily lost.

Dir: Eva Mulvad, 2006

Enemies of Happiness is screening Thursday March 5th as part of the Best of Dochouse series, details below:

http://www.dochouse.org/film-screening/Best-of-DocHouse-ENEMIES-OF-HAPPINESS/423

Love Hotel by Phil Cox and Hikaru Toda - UK PREMIERE 17/09/14

Abla Kandalaft — 2014-09-13T08:08:13Z

Love hotels are short-stay hotels providing couples-husband and wife/client and prostitute/singleton and friend-with an intimate setting to explore all matters of sexual activities and fantasies. The scale of comfort and quality stretches from utilitarian sleep boxes to personal quirky, thematic amusement arcades equipped with fancy lighting, disco balls and karaoke machines. Although love hotels appear all over the world, their history in Japan goes back around four centuries.
Love Hotel is a portrait of The Angelo, one of 37,000 love hotels in Japan. And like most of them, it is facing closure following a recent governmental crackdown.

Love Hotel is a surprisingly intimate glimpse into The Angelo's clients' wildly varying uses of the premises. One married man dangles from the ceiling in full bondage gear with a rope tied round his penis while a hired dominatrix pours all sorts of condiments on him. An elderly couple rekindle their love by way of a karaoke machine. A single woman fills the gaps between longer term relationships. Two gay professionals seeks a safe retreat as they struggle to keep their relationship under raps (although what might become of the relationship once the film is screened is anyone's guess...).
One of the strengths of the film is the way in which the filmmakers avoid patronising and ridiculing the guests, so that the stories they share are given weight and scope to touch and move viewers, instead of simply inspiring giggles and raised eyebrows.
Another strength lies in the way in which Love Hotel conveys a real sense of how important these places are to their guests. They provide a safe environment for them to relax, experiment, reflect, or have fun. However, one gets a sense that some scenes feel just too contrived and intimate and so appear to be constructed and manipulated.
Another criticism I would level at the film is that the political context is never really discussed. Why exactly is there a crackdown? Who has ordered it? What's the timeline? An allusion to an increasingly conservative government trying to shift attention away from economic crises is all that is offered.

On the whole, though, the filmmakers manage to convey the charm and quirkiness of these hotels, driving us to care about their current fate.

The film will be screened with DocHouse at the ICA in London.

Love Hotel - UK PREMIERE + Q&A with Directors Phil Cox and Hikaru Toda
Dir. Phil Cox and Hikaru Toda
UK / France / Austria - 2014 - 80 mins

Wednesday 17th September, 2014 at 8:00pm

http://www.dochouse.org/film-screen...

The Invisible War

Coco Green — 2014-05-18T09:02:49Z

'The Invisible War' is less about a secret war that rape victims are fighting in the military than a series of public and private battles to fix a broken system. Well, broken for the victims of rape, not so much for the rapists who remain invisible to the criminal justice system.

Audiences will readily identify the usual drill that plays out when rape is reported: What were you wearing? What were you doing? But in the context of the US military other interesting questions are raised, such as, 'Do you have a boyfriend or husband?'. A key element of the uniqueness of military rape is its particular psychological impact. How do you cope with being a trained soldier yet unable to defend your own body? Or, worse, how do you see yourself after your band of brothers and sisters turns against you in a way that is so violent, personal and almost incestuous, given the familial relations established. It's no surprise that the repercussions of reporting rape, such as losing rank, benefits and being charged with adultery (if either the rapist or victim is married), keeps 80% of victims silent about the crime. The impact of victim's silence within this particular, closed-system results in higher incidents of substance misuse, depression and suicide.

Personally, I am against militarism; as a college advisor at a low-income school in Oakland, CA, I would dissuade my kids from joining the armed forces, begging them to use the homeless vets as an indicator of how much the military actually values their lives. But just like some of the women in the film, my kids were faced with limited options. However after the first seven minutes of 'The Invisible War' I was also ready to sign up. The US military offers travel, opportunities for public and social service, professional career tracks, camaraderie—all to a kick-ass soundtrack with convincing talking-heads. Whilst these opportunities are not exclusive to the armed forces, its telling that these women would look to the military to provide them. Here we find stories of womens' social and economic positions, as well as limited institutions in which women can receive specialised and advanced education where they can advance professionally and the shrinking pools of good jobs and college scholarships.

Going back to my kids in Oakland, who were exclusively Black and Latino, I couldn't help but notice their absence in the film (men also had a notably smaller screen time). But the omission of any in-depth stories from Black or Latina veterans seemed strategic: the filmmakers needed white women to represent an accomplished, military professional type in order to convincingly illustrate the contradictions of the armed forces. This reliance on the greater credibility given to testimonies from white professionals raises questions about our cultural understanding of sexual availability. Statistics on age, race, rank and marital status and their international comparisons were unfortunately absent. This analysis is especially crucial given that in the US media Black and Latina women are presented as wantan and fast.

In conclusion 'The Invisible War' is eye-opening, to say the least. The US justice system concluded that in the military, rape is an occupational hazard. Unfortunately we can apply this conclusion to women in the civilian world as well.

Dir: Kirby Dick, 2012

The Invisible War is showing at the Lexi Cinema, May 23rd, 8.45pm

Dochouse presents: THE INVISIBLE WAR + Panel Discussion
Friday 23rd May | 8:45pm | Lexi Cinema | £7 (£5 conc)
Tickets and more information: http://www.dochouse.org/film-screening/The-Invisible-War—Panel-Discussion/388

Tim's Vermeer

Judy Harris — 2014-05-01T11:25:38Z

For the most part Tim's Vermeer is a film about vision, about how we literally see the world- the limitations of sight and its augmentation through technological means. It's also a film about how we see the world in the figurative sense; Tim Jenison, a 21st century computer software inventor (whom I would comfortably place in the top 1% or thereabouts) sees it, affectionately, as his playground.

The film takes as its premise the idea that Tim and 17th century Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer might in fact see the world in a similar way given their penchant for optical technology. The question of Vermeer's use of optical technology (mirrors, convex lenses, the camera obscura etc) arises from the perspective, accuracy and detail of his paintings, as well as the absence of any sketching lying underneath. According to a professor of neuroscience it's not possible that the human retina could register the level of detail present in Vermeer's work unaided. Several theories have been put forward suggesting that Vermeer may have used a camera obscura to project the image he was painting and then trace the outlines onto a canvas. However this theory doesn't account for his ability to achieve the tonal details of his paintings. The elaboration of these theories and the question of how particular images come to be realised animates much of the film, although none of the film's main protagonists are that concerned with the aesthetic and philosophical issues that arise which renders the film interesting, informative but unsatisfying given the weight of the questions it raises.

When Tim Jenison looks at a painting by Vermeer he explains that he sees a computer image, a ‘slide'. He doesn't mention whether this sensation is altered when looking at an original Vermeer compared to its mechanical reproduction- surely this distinction is important, not least for Walter Benjamin's sake. The distinction between a poster of a Vermeer, the original painting and Tim's Vermeer is also not a concern; the film sets itself up in the mystery genre, its purpose is to answer the question ‘how did Vermeer create these paintings?' rather than to ask why this question is even relevant or whether the status of a work of art is intrinsically connected to its singularity and physicality.

Nonetheless, Tim is a wealthy man obsessed with discovering Vermeer's technique and, in doing so, establishing a connection between himself and the Dutch Master. In his pursuit of this imagined affinity he sets out to ‘paint a Vermeer'- an oxymoron that is never acknowledged. Tim is not a painter but is apparently able to learn how to wield a paintbrush in a nifty half an hour. He also rather ingeniously figures out how to reflect a projected image into a small mirror which he suspends over a canvas so that he can look at the image in the mirror and paint onto the canvas simultaneously. He then spends a staggering amount of time and money to physically reproduce the set of Vermeer's Music Lesson- including 3D mapping, producing lenses and pigments and commissioning bespoke ornaments and instruments which he is adamant must be produced with as much historical accuracy as possible. The magician Penn Jillette, who co-financed the film and provides commentary throughout- affectionately refers to Tim's project as a ‘wacky hobby'. This wacky hobby was begun in 2008. We can assume Tim was solvent enough to continue with this venture in the face of a global financial crisis. ‘Can I paint a Vermeer?' was his most pressing concern. However, Tim is a likeable guy with a modesty which acts as a nice supplement to his gung-ho, can-do attitude. He says ‘I don't know what I'm doing' a lot. He gives things a whirl. If his painting, which he has invested so much time, money and manual labour in, should somehow get damaged he assures us that he can ‘just start over'. This isn't the production of a work of art. There is nothing singular about his painting- he can do it all over again and achieve the same effect if he has to (and if his back can take it).

The entire project took 1825 days to complete, however we aren't told how much it cost. This is an American movie and a particularly American endeavour. Both the film and Tim's project intend to bridge the gap between art and technology, to collapse the supposed distinction between the inventor and the artist- inventors being people who produce technologically mediated images, artists being people with ‘unfathomable genius'. In fact this is the least well developed aspect of this film because inspiration and imagination are barely mentioned- no one is that interested in these concepts or the status of art. The film barely asks why Tim is so obsessed with this project (although we are given glimpses of his previous home inventions such as the creation of a lip-synching duck so we could assume he is engaged in a lifelong battle against ennui). That being said, the task is impressive and demands tremendous discipline, drive and free time, all of which Tim has in droves. He's also episodically emotional and cries as he presents his finished work to the camera. He has ‘painted a Vermeer'. It's overwhelming.

What is truly moving and unsettling about this film, the elements which make it worth seeing, is not the chance to gawp at the wacky hobbies of wealthy Texans, but the capacity of film to allow us to witness the creation of such a detailed image. It comes into being before our eyes. The most powerful sequences were of Tim diligently painting day after day, the time-lapse footage of the canvas, the close-ups of beads of light a young girl's hair, his ability to render visible the every finely weaved texture of a rug. Tim paints by matching the colour of the edge of the image he sees reflected in the mirror to the colour he paints onto the canvas .Vermeer is hardly a painter you would association with formlessness but here we see a different way of seeing- colour freed from form, precision in tone rather than precision in geometry. The end result is truly unsettling.

The question of the libidinal drive which fuelled Tim's obsession remains not only unanswered but wholly unexplored. If this was an attempt to claim some of the prestige of an ‘artistic genius' for the workers of Silicon Valley then it's fairly misguided because by the end of the film, whatever esteem and regard the audience may have for Vermeer's laborious efforts and brilliant inventiveness, his status as an artistic or visionary ‘genius' has been somewhat undermined. Or at least it seems to have been undermined - it's impossible to say because cinematic images don't testify that well to subtle differences in the tone or texture of a painting and they can't convey differences in historical or physical presence. And besides, the Queen of England owns Vermeer's original Music Room and even Tim Jenison was only granted access to look at it for half an hour. It seems fitting that the monarchy, whose authority rests on their blue-blooded singularity, should be the last defenders of original, non-mechanically reproduced works of art, since it turns out that all you really need to paint your very own Vermeer (besides an awful lot of money) is a lens, a mirror and something to prove.

Dir: Teller, 2013

Alone

Coco Green — 2014-04-20T11:31:54Z

Alone is a documentary depicting the lives of three young girls, Fen (4), Zhen (6) and Ying (10) in rural, south west China. These young children have been doubly left- first by their mother (for reasons which remain largely unknown) and subsequently by their father, whose flight from the family home is undertaken in order to find work in the city and send money home. Visually, the film's landscape scenes are so vivid and plush it's easy to forget that its very barrenness and their lack of food has forced the girls' father away. I learnt after the screening that China has 200m internal migrants and between 10m and 13m children are separated from a parent that migrates within China to find work.

Contrary to the title the girls are neither literally nor figuratively alone, but are looked after by their aunt and grandfather. It is the smaller aspects of the daily life of this restructured family that tell the story of changes in rural China. In an early scene Zhen teases the youngest child, Fen, by putting Fen's foot on her lap . Zhen delights in the torment of her younger sister which draws tears for Fen. While Fen threatens to 'tell dad', ‘dad' isn't there and everyone knows it. Instead Ying, the oldest, and now parent, comes to pick up Fen from her tantrum and wipe her tears. 'Alone' forces us to reflect on the meaning of family in these circumstances and how the displacement of workers can turn aunts in foster mothers and children into adults.

I came away from this documentary thinking of my own familial experience with worker displacement and how this both fractures families and forces people to create new relationships in the wake of their destruction. After my mother's father left the family in the late 1950's, her 9-year old sister was then responsible to take care of her younger siblings whilst grandmother worked as a cleaner and washer woman. My aunt still resents my grandmother for 'working her like a dog', while my mom understands that my grandmother had no choice. However, this forced migration created opportunities as well as negating them; five years later when my grandmother and the family were forced to move West, from Louisiana, they found improved living and working conditions. But just like the family in 'Alone' these stories of displacement, migration and labour do not fit neatly in national narratives of citizenship and national identity.

As I watched scene after scene of Ying in her worn and stained hoodie with 'lovely diary' in pink script on the back, my mind raced with constant comparisons to other 10 year old girls. Childhood may be a social concept with a fluid history of its own but, nonetheless, Ying's family is clearly a casualty of capitalism and the price this family pays is not limited to money.

Dir. Wang Bing, 2012

Alone was presented by Dochouse in collaboration with the Chinese Visual Festival- for more information see http://www.dochouse.org/