Review: MIFF ‘10: Poetry, Blank City
Poetry
Dir. Lee Chang-dong
Poetry opens on the dark surface of a vast flowing river. The camera then focuses upon a group of boys playing near the banks of the river, which is revealed to be flowing through a huge clearing in a beautiful forested landscape. One of the boys sees something unusual and directs his friends’ (and the camera’s) attention towards the river. A distant white shape floating slowly downstream draws closer and closer to the camera. In what is the first of a series of quietly shocking moments encountered in the film, the white shape is suddenly revealed to be the down-turned body of a dead schoolgirl.
For the rest of the film’s duration up until the final few scenes, the camera in Poetry constantly remains in the close company of its delightful protagonist Yang Mija, an elderly woman with a cheerful, stoic manner and, as the characters around her repeatedly joke, a “chic” dress sense. We first discover Yang watching television in a hospital waiting room. Learning from the doctor that her recent troubles remembering the names of things likely indicate the onset of a serious medical problem, Yang Mija – along with the audience – is casually made aware of her impending death. In the subsequent introductory scenes we learn that Yang Mija works as a carer for a physically impaired and endearingly grumpy old man; she is caring for her adolescent grandson while her daughter is overseas; and finally we learn that Yang Mija, re-evaluating the state of her life in lieu of the news that she might be seriously unwell, decides she would like to learn to write poetry.
I don’t want to give too much away about how the rest of the film’s plot unfolds. However by a series of harrowing and unfortunate turns and encounters, the film’s narrative eventually begins to connect Yang Mija’s life and fate with the death of the schoolgirl. Simultaneously, the film also explores Yang Mija’s desire to write poetry and, through Yang, involves the audience in a serious meditation on the purpose and origins of poetry and its obsession with elucidating beauty and truth. Revealingly, a considerable (but certainly not overwhelming) portion of the film is spent alongside Yang at her poetry classes and at community poetry nights, examining the daggy but charming reflections of Yang’s peers and teachers on the question of poetry. Key to her character’s development throughout the film is Yang Mija’s anxiety that she is somehow incapable of evoking and writing poetry.
The manner in which the film links its endearing and sincere concern with poetry to the existential gloom that begins to consume Yang’s life is remarkably handled. The critique of human (and more specifically, Korean) society that burns brightly beneath the film’s beguilingly calm and mundane surface, is a testament to the work of the filmmakers as well as narrative cinema’s powerful ability to evoke emotion through understatement.
- Alifeleti Brown
Blank City
Dir. Celine Danhier
There’s a lot of mythologising about certain scenes in this film – Olympia in the 90s, London in the 60s, even Australia in the 80s to name a few – but especially New York City in the late 70s and early 80s. Often there’s a feeling that this was a time and a place – certain circumstances and certain people – and if you missed it, well that sucks for you, ‘cause it’s over now.
Unfortunately Blank City isn’t really different in this regard. Essentially it’s a a great backgrounder on the ‘No Wave’ film movement and ‘The Cinema of Transgression’ and how it came to be. The legacy of the Beats and Warhol, the economic circumstances of New York City at the time etc etc all lead to a creative explosion of art, music and film.
It’s a talking head variety doco featuring interviews with John Waters, Jim Jarmusch, Debbie Harry, Steve Buscemi, Thurston Moore, Lydia Lunch, Nick Zedd, Lizzie Borden, Amos Poe, Richard Kern and more. Some great anecdotes are dropped along the way as well – who knew Cookie Mueller was Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s dealer? However I couldn’t help wondering how interesting and exciting the film would be to people that weren’t already interested in that era of music and film to begin with?
The film is brilliantly edited – moving seamlessly between interviews, hard to find film footage (including a young Steve Buscemi breakdancing!), evocative photos of all the young cool kids of the time and archived footage of parties and performances. Of course it also features a brilliant soundtrack. The film footage, most of which is almost impossible to find, was a definite highlight and left me wanting to see more – which perhaps is the point of it all?
All up, Blank City manages to be informative as well as entertaining, but overall the film fails to be anything more than a history lesson – though an expertly and beautifully made one – which interestingly enough is almost in exact opposition to No Wave aesthetics.
- Samantha Chater
