The indie sci-fi drama Another Earth opens this week in select theaters, and this is just a quick reminder to Libertas readers that our own Joe Bendel reviewed Another Earth earlier this year at Sundance – so be sure to check his review out, along with the film’s trailer. Special thanks again to Joe for his great Sundance coverage.
Posted on July 22nd, 2011 at 4:53pm.
By Joe Bendel. Fred Stiller does not know Kung Fu. However, he learns some hard truths about The Matrix decades before the Wachowskis sent Keanu Reeves down the rabbit hole. In fact, he helped develop what is known as the ‘Simulacron’ in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s newly restored two-part 1973 television miniseries, World on a Wire, which opens theatrically this Friday in all its three and a half hour glory at the IFC Center in New York and in select art house theaters nationwide.
Prof. Henri Vollmer’s death was suspicious. The disappearance of his friend, Günther Lause, the head of security for his supposedly nonprofit research facility, is even more so. At least people remember Vollmer as the man who created the Simulacron. However, Lause seems to have disappeared entirely from people’s memories after literally vanishing in the midst of a conversation with Stiller, Vollmer’s trusted deputy.
In a case of good news-bad news, the Machiavellian foundation head promotes Stiller to Vollmer’s position, but the researcher is equally unreceptive to proposed commercial applications for the Simulacron. Essentially a virtual environment populated by six thousand artificial intelligence programs, the Simulacron is designed to project social development twenty years into the future. None of the sentient identities knows they are artificial, except Eisenstein, the designated contact program. As one would expect, he is a rather morose collection of code, never particularly happy to see Stiller or his lead programmer when they helmet up to pay him a visit.
Continue reading Retro Sci-Fi Dystopia: LFM Reviews Fassbinder’s Newly Rediscovered World on a Wire
By Joe Bendel. In today’s China, girls are an endangered species. Largely due to the government’s one-child policy, sex-specific abortions and abandonments have sky-rocketed. It was not much easier for Chinese girls during the early Nineteenth Century, either. However, the Laotong (roughly translated as “Old Same”) oath of friendship helped sustain many young women. Yet the turbulence of the time will test two women’s Laotong bond in Wayne Wang’s Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (trailer here), which opens today in New York.
Snow Flower and Lily were born under the same sign and had their feet bound on the same day. Even though Wang waters down the literally bone-crunching reality of this practice, what the film shows is still enough to make a brawny man cringe. Unfortunately, this was considered necessary to strike a suitable marriage bargain.
Despite her family’s mean circumstances, Snow Flower’s dainty feet earn her a prestigious match. In contrast, Lily experiences the reverse social mobility, winding up betrothed to a lowly butcher after her father’s opium addiction ruins her family. Though separated by events obviously beyond their control, the two women exchange messages written within the folds of a fan, employing Nüshu, the secret script used by many Chinese women up until the Twentieth Century. (One hopes there is now an internet equivalent in widespread use today).
In parallel lives, Faye Wong Canto-pop listening high school students Nina and Sophia become a late Twentieth Century Laotong pair. Nina excels academically, while Sophia struggles emotionally in the wake of her bankrupted father’s suicide. Despite their recent estrangement, Nina puts her career on hold when a traffic accident renders Sophia comatose. As it happens, Sophia was carrying on her person a copy of her manuscript, which tells the story of Snow Flower and Lily.
Based on Lisa See’s bestselling novel, Secret Fan’s screenplay (credited to Angela Workman, Ron Bass, and Michael K. Ray) adds the contemporary story arc, allowing them to write in a part for Hugh Jackman as Arthur, Sophia’s sketchy night club impresario love interest. He even has a musical number, a novelty love song probably not designed to showcase his Broadway chops. Continue reading Laotong Story: LFM Reviews Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
By Joe Bendel. The price of liberty has always been high, in both blood and treasure. It was true during the revolution we just celebrated on the Fourth of July and it was true during the Baron’s Revolt against King John, which led to the Magna Carta – a flawed but important document that informed our founding fathers’ conception of constitutional rights. Preferring the divine right of kings to the rights of man, John tried to reassert his absolute rule and nullify the Magna Carta, but an intrepid band of warriors will defy him, to their last breaths, in Jonathan English’s rip-roaring Ironclad (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.
Tired of his cruel and erratic rule, England’s barons rose up against John the First (and only), but for political reasons, they left the weakened despot on the throne after securing his signature on their revolutionary document. Unfortunately, many were lulled into a false sense of security. When John makes his play, assembling a mercenary army and securing Rome’s support, he catches most of his foes unawares. Only Rochester Castle stands between him and London. However, twenty men assembled by Baron Albany are determined to hold it at all costs, in hopes that the French will arrive to install a proper monarch.
One of those men is William Marshal, a Knight Templar recently returned from the Crusades. Like the Twelfth Century equivalent of the IDF, the Templars are well accustomed to facing numerically superior enemies. Granted twenty against one thousand is a tall order, but thanks to its construction, Rochester can be ably defended by a small force. Yes indeed, the siege is on.
Ironclad delivers plenty of old school hack-and-slash action for Game of Thrones fans jonesing for a fix. However, equally striking are its scenes of the aftermath of battle, conveying the pain and bone-weariness of the warriors. The film also presents the best depiction of medieval siege techniques yet captured on film.
While the action is thoroughly satisfying, Ironclad proves to be a film of unexpected substance. The screenplay by Jonathan English and co-writer Erick Kastel (based on a first go-round by Stephen McDool) takes notions of faith and freedom deadly seriously. Marshal explicitly states that there is nothing noble about war, ever, yet some things are still worth fighting for—in nearly those exact words. Continue reading The Price of Liberty: LFM Reviews Ironclad
By Joe Bendel. War, what is it good for? The conscripts from Baekje have absolutely no idea. They perfectly demonstrate the superiority of a volunteer army. The men (and at least one woman) of the still independent (just barely) Goguryeo Kingdom are hardly there by their own free choice, but they have a stronger motivation to fight. Yet they will still do all the dying while the glory will be reserved solely for the officers in Lee Joon-ik’s caustic farce Battlefield Heroes (trailer here), which screens during the 2011 New York Asian Film Festival.
Prepare to get muddy, bloody, and absurd. If Brecht recast Braveheart in the Seventh Century Korea, it would look a lot Battlefield. Of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, Baekje has fallen to the Chinese-aligned Silla. The Tang Dynasty has enlisted the wary Silla in its campaign against the weakened Goguryeo. However, the crafty Silla general Kim Yu-sin is only biding his time. He might look like an addled old coot, but he’s crazy like a fox.
None of these grand macro schemes matter to “Thingy,” a dirt poor disrespected serf from former Baekje. In fact, when he accidentally defects to Goguryeo, it would only mean switching from a besieger to the besieged, were it not for Gap-sun. Meeting the ardent Goguryeo lady warrior makes quite an impression on Thingy. Needless to say, it is not mutual.
Frankly, even as a medieval keep under attack, Pyongyang was probably more livable then than now. However, Battlefield is seen as something of an allegory, with the plucky but riceless Goguryeos signifying the North, the devious Sillas serving as the South, and the Chinese Tangs functioning as stand-ins for the good old USA. Yet, as Lee must understand, North Korea is not starving because of a Southern blockade, but through the deliberate policies of its government. Not to sound churlish, but good luck making veiled political commentary in the tightly regimented DPRK. As for the imperialist Chinese, perhaps they better represent, you know, China. Continue reading LFM Review: Battlefield Heroes
By Joe Bendel. People think religion is all about sermonizing and casting judgment, but not Osamu Tezuka. His Eisner Award winning manga serialization of Gautama Buddha’s life emphasizes all the good parts, particularly the violence and passion of India circa 500-600 BC. Check your peaceful coexistence t-shirts and bumper stickers at the door when Kozo Morishita’s anime adaptation, Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha: The Great Departure, the first installment of projected feature trilogy, screens as a joint presentation of the 2011 New York Asian Film Festival and the 2011 Japan Cuts Festival of Contemporary Japanese Cinema.
Of course, Buddha was born Siddhartha Gautama, the privileged son of the king of the Shakya Kingdom. Shakya’s bounteous natural resources are coveted by the more Spartan Kosala kingdom, but providence has protected somewhat more peaceful Shakya, so far. As the Kosalan Army masses for an invasion, providence gets a bit of help from Tatta, an untouchable Oliver Twist with a supernatural power to possess nature’s creatures. Much to Tatta’s surprise, his new running mate Chapra takes advantage of the fog of war to save the Kosalan general, earning his protection and patronage as a supposed warrior class orphan.
None of this really has anything to do with Siddhartha. His path will only tangentially cross that of Tatta and his compatriots, at least in this film. However, as untouchables, they act as an effective counterpoint to the insular upper-class life Siddhartha will eventually reject. Indeed, Departure is a pointed critique of the caste system, largely driven by the story of Chapra’s forbidden attempt at social mobility. Naturally, combat will play a significant role in his efforts. Continue reading LFM Review: Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha: The Great Departure