47th San Francisco International Film Festival

Matewan

One of the special events at the 47th San Francisco International Film Festival was a screening of Matewan (beautifully restored by the UCLA Film Archive), in honor of Chris Cooper, the recipient of this year’s Peter J. Owens Award. The Award honors an actor “whose work exemplifies brilliance, independence, and integrity,” three words which seem tailor-made for Cooper.

Best known for his Oscar-winning performance as the gap-toothed John Laroche in Adaptation (2003), Cooper has made a career of idiosyncratic, gutsy, yet remarkably subtle performances. From brooding Sheriff Deeds in Lone Star, to violent, homophobic Colonel Frank Fitts in American Beauty, he has consistently resisted typecasting and the lure of more conventional “leading man” roles. Emanuel Levy says it best in the Festival program: “Cooper’s quintessential roles are of highly individualistic outsiders who are uniquely American in embodying the most cherished of human values: decency, honesty, common sense.” Cooper not only appeals to the outsider in all of us; he imbues that outsider with a basic humanity.

His role as charismatic labor organizer Joe Kenehan in Matewan is a perfect example. John Sayles’ 1987 classic about the fight to bring the union to the coal miners of 1920s West Virginia is gritty and big-hearted. You root for the little guys, the scrappy coal miners vs. the monolithic coal company and its piggish thugs, but not without first examining every facet of their struggle. Like many Sayles films, it’s a tapestry of larger forces — capitalism, greed, racism, immigration, religion, friendship, and courage — distilled into a single, explosive historical moment.

Although I generally put little stock in what celebrities have to say, I was excited about Cooper’s appearance before the screening. There aren’t many actors I would pay $25 to see. So, I was rather surprised to find myself slightly bored. Interviewer David D’Arcy of National Public Radio began with the standard questions: How did he get started as an actor? How did he make the transition from theatre to film? What kind of training did he have? D’Arcy ventured to mention that the critics’ favorite description of Cooper is “laconic.” His performance thus far seemed to bear that out.

Then it dawned on me: Chris Cooper wasn’t performing. He’s an actor, but he’s not an entertainer. On TV shows like Inside the Actor’s Studio, we’re accustomed to seeing personalities who are always “on” when the camera is rolling, trying to say something witty or pithy that will make a good sound bite. Cooper, by contrast, came across as a “regular person,” refusing to play to the audience or to linger on a particular detail of his past. He wasn’t trying to regale us with tales of wacky, wonderful Hollywood or how he found inner peace through the practice of Tantric sex. He was simply and politely answering D’Arcy’s questions — not quite perfunctory, but not egotistical, either.

Suite Habana

Things picked up once the floor was opened for questions from the audience. Cooper’s demeanor brightened, and his answers were much more engaged. One woman, whose grandfather had been a coal miner in the South, asked if he had done any research in preparation for Matewan. He was almost in tears recounting his visit to a West Virginia church, filled only with women. It was the first day of squirrel-hunting season, and the preacher opened his sermon with a prayer for all the men out hunting for the village’s main source of meat. Clearly a man with a big heart in the right place, Cooper comes across as a craftsman more than a celebrity. In his dedication to the art of becoming other people, he somehow manages to remain truly himself.

The Festival’s other highlights included B. Ruby Rich’s “The State of Cinema” address. Critic/curator/professor Rich took on this daunting task with her signature humor. She would begin to talk about one topic, only to retreat, saying, “But I’m not going to talk about that,” or “But that’s a topic for another speech.” In this way, she cleverly addressed everything from the congruence of American military policy and the glut of recent revenge films, to the abuse of high-tech special effects in turning films into amusement park rides and vice versa.

But her “real” topic was the history of film festivals, which she sees as one of the last hopes for democracy. From their inception, film festivals have been sites of political contestation. The first film festival took place in Venice, and required a special concession from Mussolini in order to remain uncensored. In 1968 at Cannes, angry filmmakers protesting the Festival’s commercialization, jumped onstage and attempted to keep the curtains from opening. Rich argued that film festivals, unlike blockbuster movies at the multiplex, are community affairs. They foster a sense of ownership and collective pride, serving as cultural and political rallying points for all kinds of disenfranchised groups.

Rich also touted the film festival as one of the last remaining filmic experiences that can induce us to leave our homes and interact with other people. No small feat in the days of Netflix. As some of the few places to see the latest films from other countries, they also allow us to empathize with people we might not otherwise know about, and in the process, to envision our own worlds differently. It is film’s power to transport us that is so full of tension and possibility.

Suite Habana, screened immediately following Rich’s speech, illustrated her point perfectly. This gorgeous, lyrical film by Cuban director Fernando Perez is Habana’s “Symphony of the City.” Following a cross-section of residents over a 24-hour period, the film is beautifully shot and edited, with virtually no dialogue. The actors’ silence feels awkward at first, as if you are watching a nature documentary, but it allows you to soak up sounds of the city you might otherwise ignore: birds chirping, bulldozers scraping, high heels tapping pavement, even the sound of a needle and thread.

Someone Else’s Shinjuku East

Far from the languid, exotic Cuba of Buena Vista Social Club, the film portrays everyday people doing everyday things — getting ready for work or school, washing, cooking, eating. A laundry man moonlights as a drag queen. An apparently indolent young man turns out to be a dancer in the national ballet. A 79-year-old woman sells peanuts on the street. And most curiously, people sit in shifts, around the clock, in front of a statue of John Lennon.

Rich describes the film as politically indeterminate — it’s either pro-revolution or anti-embargo — but whichever, it’s a rich picture of contemporary Habana, a love song to the people. Relying entirely on ambient sounds and visuals, Perez creates engaging characters and short, compelling narratives. The film is as much about the power of the visual as it is about Habana. (And, as if to prove that film festivals are contested political terrain, the director was denied a visa by the U.S. government and was unable to attend the screening.)

Michelle Chu and Yang Li-chou’s Someone Else’s Shinjuku East offers yet another glimpse at a world usually unseen in the U.S. A documentary about Taiwanese immigrants in Tokyo, it portrays an ethnic and economic minority in what is commonly thought of as a completely homogenous (and notoriously intolerant) society. Depicting the difficulties faced by Taiwanese immigrants in Japan, who are often subjected to an intra-Asian version of racial profiling, the film focuses on Chang, illegally employed as a foot masseuse, who dresses in a tie and slacks in order to look like an office worker and avoid being hassled by cops. Unlike his fellow masseurs (also Taiwanese), he can’t pass for Japanese.

Burning Dreams

Such stories expand our often limited and stereotypical view of Japan as technological wonderland or den of perverse cuteness. As in any developed nation, its service and entertainment sectors are built on the backs of exploited low-wage workers. Unfortunately for U.S. audiences, the film fails to provide much-needed context for the workers’ struggles. Everything is so personal, it’s hard to get a sense of larger trends in immigration, economics or culture.

Another Taiwanese documentary, Burning Dreams, takes a dance school in Shanghai as its subject. Shanghai Dreams 52 Dance School is the only school in China that teaches “rock ‘n’ roll,” jazz, and hiphop dance. It was founded by Liang Yi, a charismatic, if autocratic elder, who has no formal dance training. Although he speaks with authority, he learned to dance by watching Gene Kelly movies in Taiwan. Like Someone else’s, it focuses on personal experiences, although the use of intertitles reveals the filmmaker’s perspective. Shot on 16mm in black and white, it has the grainy richness of an old school documentary, à la Frederick Wiseman, but the camerawork is too self-consciously arty.

Still, the bubbly enthusiasm of the mostly young, mostly female dancers is infectious, and director Wayne Peng juxtaposes it with shots of Shanghai’s burgeoning skyline, reflecting the energy of a city on the verge of international importance. But the film is so relentlessly focused on the school and its students (we rarely leave the rehearsal room) that it never looks outside, to chart the growing popularity of Western dance and its implications for Chinese culture. The film ends up being a tribute to Shanghai’s headlong rush towards globalization without much understanding or critique of the effects.

Get Up!

Kazuyuki Izutsu’s Get Up! considers globalization from another perspective. A Japanese Yakuza comedy, it is typically slapsticky, and not the kind of film usually seen in film festivals. While the genre doesn’t always translate for U.S. viewers, this film has a hook: James Brown. A Yakuza boss obsessed with James Brown is being sent away to prison. As a farewell present, his henchmen decide to kidnap JB for one last private performance. Mayhem ensues, but along the way, the film provides numerous occasions for racialized performance: old men in expensive suits singing and dancing to “Sex Machine” with heavy Japanese accents, a black James Brown impersonator, a funk-ercise aerobics class and school kids in exaggerated afro wigs.

But the movie’s highlight is a single performance. When the JB impersonator fails to show up for an important gig, the Yakuza boss takes his place, and without the benefit of makeup, wig or costume, so thoroughly channels the Godfather of Soul that you forget you’re watching a Japanese actor. It’s a beautiful moment, when cultures clash and cross at once, with all their contradictions and mis-appropriations. It also creates an utterly new form of culture, as something so thoroughly American suddenly belongs so completely to someone else.

Last Life in the Universe

Last Life in the Universe is quite possibly my favorite film of the year. It’s a Thai/Japanese production about a suicidal Japanese librarian, living in Bangkok, who befriends a Thai woman after they both lose their siblings, one in a Yakuza killing, the other to a freak accident. A beautiful, gently humorous portrait of an unlikely relationship, its sexual tensions easily rival those in Wong Kar Wai’s In the Mood for Love with considerably less pretension.

Kenji (Tadanobu Asano), living in a spacious and obsessively well-ordered apartment, is a privileged, but troubled expat. Extroverted Noi (Sinitta Boonyasak) lives in a ramshackle old house littered with trash and debris. The film exposes and then dissolves their economic and cultural disparities. Reticent, self-conscious Kenji sets to work cleaning Noi’s house and doing the laundry. Noi shows him small kindnesses, like buying expensive sushi (only to find that he’s allergic to fish). In their grief, they find some solace and connection with each other, even though they can barely speak each other’s languages. Christopher Doyle’s cinematography is lovely, and Pen-ek Ratanaruang’s direction, touched with magical realism, is sensitive and quietly funny.

Last Life in the Universe will be released in the U.S. in the Fall, but most of this year’s offerings will never make it out of the festival circuit. Festivals maintain a fragile ecosystem for challenging films outside of the Hollywood scene. But beyond an early (or only) opportunity to see foreign and indie gems, the SFIFF reflects the diversity and quirkiness of the city itself. It’s big enough to assemble an admirable range of films from all over the world, but still relatively low profile, eschewing the industry pressures of a Sundance or Cannes. There’s not a whole lot of “buzz” about individual films, and no “must-sees.” I was surprised to learn that one of the first shows to sell-out was a documentary, The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill. Sure, it had local appeal, but it had neither the cool factor of the opening night film, Jim Jarmusch’s Coffee and Cigarettes, nor the hype of Super Size Me. At the SFIFF, it’s entirely possible to assemble your own festival within a festival, to choose your own adventure. Like life in San Francisco, you can forget about the next big thing in favor of doing your own thing.