When the Road Bends...
14 Jun 07 @ 04:53 PM
category » film
Anyway, you just couldn't pay for a more delightful review than this.
"Gypsy Caravan": From Michigan to Rajasthan on a thousand-year road of joy and suffering
Music documentaries are harder to describe than other films, and harder to convince people to see. I think the best thing I can say on behalf of Jasmine Dellal's thoroughly wonderful "Gypsy Caravan" is that I was thrilled and transported by it. It's a two-hour movie, and I'm only sorry it isn't two or three times as long. Let me read your thoughts: You're not much interested in Gypsy music, and the historical and cultural stuff might be pretty dry. That's what I thought too: Wrong and wrong.
What begins as a concert-tour doc about a varied group of Roma musicians (aka Gypsies, a term rejected by some Roma and embraced by others) as they travel the United States keeps getting broader, richer and deeper until it becomes a cinematic and musical experience that's absolute magic. "Gypsy Caravan" -- Dellal's full title, wisely abandoned for marketing purposes, is "When the Road Bends ... Tales of a Gypsy Caravan" -- veers from an illegal fishing trip in downtown Ann Arbor, Mich., to a backwoods village in eastern Romania to Rajasthan in northern India to the flamenco heartland of southern Spain.
Somehow all the disparate people, places and musical styles of this film -- the Roma are a worldwide diaspora, with numerous languages, religions and cultures -- come to seem coherent. You will learn a hell of a lot about Roma history from "Gypsy Caravan," but believe me it never feels like education. You'll be too busy marveling at the "knees dance," as performed by an astonishing male dancer (in drag) along with the Indian combo Maharaja, or weeping and howling at the over-the-top theatrics of Esma, a house-size Macedonian chanteuse who was a major star in the former Yugoslavia. (Her black-and-white music videos from late '60s Yugoslav TV are approximately the coolest things I've ever seen. Ever.)
Then there's Antonio el Pipa and his irascible aunt Juana, who led an electrifying flamenco ensemble from Jérez de la Frontera in Spain. And Taraf de Haïdouks, a manic string band from a tiny Romanian village (who have somehow become friendly with Johnny Depp). And Fanfare Ciocarlia, another Romanian group whose brass-band style borrows from the martial music of the Ottoman Empire. Dellal follows this random, cheerful, not-always-reliable assemblage around America and back to their home countries, illustrating the thousand-year Roma odyssey out of India and across Eurasia with nary a lecture or a chart.
As Juana says late in the film, the world owes a debt to the Gypsies, who have been persecuted for centuries (Hitler tried to exterminate them with just as much ardor as he did the Jews) without ever starting a war or even having a nation of their own. Instead of seeking retribution, the worldwide Roma caravan has enriched the musical tradition of almost every country. You can't really talk about the spirit or essence of this music without lapsing into cliché: Are these musicians tied together by something reckless, something fatalistic, a willingness to embrace laughter and tears in the same moment? Whatever it is, it's a gift to all of us, whether we deserve it or not.
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Sundance 06
30 Jan 06 @ 06:36 PM
category » film
Sundance 06 was a far more chilled affair than 05. I went on a different weekend from Nick and the Gawker posse, and avoided the horrendous party lines and the hurry up and wait craziness of getting tickets.
This year, I had 3 friends with films in the festival. Chris Paine's Who Killed the Electric Car?, Fredrik Carlstrom's Destricted (Artists' takes on porn, from Matthew Barney, Larry Clark, Sam Taylor Wood and others) and Annie Sundberg's moving account of 20 years of injustice The Trials of Darryl Hunt were all fascinating in their own ways. Kudos to Annie for selling her film to HBO, and to Chris for selling his to Sony Classics - and may 2006 bring great things for all of them.
Can't believe, though, that my BVI posse, it turns out, was in Sundance - at exactly the same time as me. In fact, they were in the same restaurant at the same time on the same night. Godammit, living on another coast means you don't talk to friends often enough to find these things out - and because I'd already arranged a dinner with them all in SF for Wednesday this week, it never crossed my mind to mention Sundance. Well, you live and learn.
So - some good movies, some good company, some fine skiing on softest powder in a white out. A quick and chilled-out trip. Now I am in SF with a whirlwhind of meetings and coffees and dinners and parties to come, catching up with old faces. Then LA for a few days, and, not soon enough perhaps, home to NYC to sleep for a week.
Movie Pitching
06 Nov 05 @ 02:27 PM
category » film
Interesting piece about pitching movies.
Kung Fu Monkey: Writing: The Pitch.
So DVD and TiVo did kill the Cinema star
26 Jul 05 @ 11:33 AM
category » film
With the increasing use of projector screens at home, and TiVo, and DVR, who wants to pay the $11 x 2 for a movie you watch with people talking behind you and rustling their popcorn? I love the cinema, but I go less and less often these days. Probably only worth it for a major blockbuster action movie, or something I just am dying to see *now*. Not so many of those any more.
Hollywood's Death Spiral, from Slate.
Handy references
01 Feb 05 @ 09:56 PM
category » film | music
I'm on a kick to learn about arts and culture history: classical composers, the best film directors, etc. I haven't time to read an entire book on each topic, but I do want to read about one new composer or director every day, or week. So I've trawled the web for some short biography sites that do the trick.
Directors
Great Directors
The Guardian's List of the Best Directors
Greatest Directors
Composers
Classical Composers 1
Classical Composers 2
SCary Grant
21 Feb 03 @ 05:15 PM
category » film
Recently, a bunch of friends and I instigated "Midweek Movie Madness" - essentially a takeout, a few bottles of wine and a good movie every couple of weeks. The first movie up was Withnail and I - a cult British movie that can't really be done justice in the explanation, just needs to be seen.
This time we graduated from our small TV screen to Adam's huge six by four foot projector screen...now that is a toy to lust after. Must say, won't be having MMM at our place any more! Anyway, we saw Hitchcock's North By Northwest. Now, I am a huge Cary Grant fan, and The Philadelphia Story is probably my all time favourite film, which I never tire of watching. And I do think Cary Grant can act (and definitely graces the screen with dashing charm and urbanity), so even if he will never requite the adoration of women, he's OK with me. But I was absolutely amazed by NBNW. The drunken car driving scene is hysterical - Cary "Exaggerated Rubber Features" Grant, how could you? I swear, if you freeze frame one particular grimace in this scene, you have the spitting image of Liberace. It's not pretty. So now I'm wondering if old Cary is like this in all his films and I've just never noticed before...or whether NBNW is just so stylized, so exaggerated, that his hamminess is intentional. But Rope and Vertigo aren't like that...
Oh dear, I feel a Cary Grant disillusionment approaching...
Disappointing Ring
14 Jan 03 @ 11:28 AM
category » film
I'm sad. The Two Towers was disappointing. I was hoping for a few hours of sheer escapist fantasy but ended up fidgeting and checking my watch too often. Perhaps it couldn't be any different as it is merely a transition piece between the set up and the denouement, but it could have been faster-paced.
