On the last weekend of the Seattle International Film Festival, I saw two documentaries that I recommend people seek out:
Last Train Home was about the largest annual human migration in the world: when 130 million Chinese workers leave their factory jobs to return home to the countryside to visit their families for Chinese New Year. The filmmaker follows one family over the course of four years to gauge the impact of China’s position as the main manufacturer to the world. This film was much better than I expected it to be, and definitely worth seeking out, especially if you’d like to know who makes your blue jeans, t-shirts, iPods, and other inexpensive, imported goods.
Plug & Pray – a film about computer technology, robots, and artificial intelligence might seem like something only an egghead would care about. But this film centers on interviews with Joseph Weizenbaum, a retired computer science professor at MIT, who is critical of the impact of computers and handheld devices on our culture and lifestyle. His realist viewpoint is juxtaposed with interviews of computer scientists and engineers who are trying to bring about a future where people will become human/machine hybrids. Their stated goal is to find a way to cure disease, but eventually their real goal is revealed: eternal life—but only for a select few. If you think genetically modified food is bad, this film will scare the heck out of you.
This year, like every year, SIFF had a lot of really good films. But Seattle is a film mecca year-round, with several independent screens. For example, SIFF will be showing The Best of SIFF this weekend: three days of films that were voted the best of the film festival by audiences and the SIFF jury. (The SIFF Cinema is located in the basement of McCaw Hall at the Seattle Center.)
Also this weekend, Northwest Film Forum will be showing The Oath, a documentary I reviewed on May 31st (see my blog post for that day). It will run from June 18th through the 24th. Check it out.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Monday, June 7, 2010
More SIFF Films
Here’s a few of the better feature films I’ve seen at the Seattle International Film Festival this year:
Crab Trap – a fine little film set in an Afro-Colombian community on the coast. Having just won an electrical hook-up from the Colombian government, the residents find themselves fighting a white developer who wants to turn their beach into a tourist resort. Meanwhile, another outsider, who wants to hire a boat to sneak him out of the country, finds himself caught like a crab in a trap because all the local fishermen have taken their boats far out from shore in search of an ever-dwindling supply of fish. A beautiful film with its own leisurely pace.
Southern District – Set in a wealthy household in the Bolivian capital, this film was remarkable for the director’s use of long, single-scene shots that pan away from the characters to show the house and all its rich possessions. The house eventually becomes the main character of the film. Few films have done a better job of showing how wealth can so effectively create tensions with a family while isolating it from the rest of the world, and even the lower-class servants who also inhabit the house.
Winter’s Bone – A 17-year-old girl is the head of her Ozark mountain family, since her mother’s mental breakdown and her father’s arrest for cooking methamphetamines. Her father puts the house up for his bond to get out of jail and promptly disappears under mysterious circumstances. Not convinced that he disappeared on his own, the daughter goes in search of him. Her search reveals hidden, disturbing secrets about her rural community. This film deserves a wide release, but don’t hold your breath. Look for it on DVD.
Cell 211 – winner of Spain’s Goya Awards, this film is intense and violent, but also contains a critical look at the brutality of prison life. The main character is a prison guard starting his first day of work who gets caught in a prison riot and is forced to pretend he’s an inmate to survive. Eventually, he comes to sympathize with the prisoners.
And these three documentaries were outstanding:
American Faust: From Condi to Neo-Condi – This film was a fascinating look at who Condoleeza Rice really is and what motivates her. Many folks have been perplexed by how an intelligent, African-American woman could become involved with the Bush neo-cons. This film shows you how.
The Two Horses of Genghis Khan – I found this film particularly moving, maybe because I’ve been reading about the Chinese government’s efforts to suppress its 50 minority populations. Two Horses follows the travels of a Mongolian singer/songwriter who goes in search of the lyrics of a traditional Mongolian song her grandmother used to sing to her. With beautiful cinematography and lots of Mongolian music, it reveals that the Cultural Revolution is far from over.
The Tillman Story – Far better than I expected it to be, this film tells the story of Pat Tillman, the major league football player who gave up a multi-million-dollar career to enlist in the army after 9-11. Expecting to fight in Afghanistan, he was shocked and disillusioned to find himself deployed to Iraq. It tells the story of how the Pentagon and Bush administration used his death for propaganda purposes, and how his family eventually found out the truth.
The film festival continues through Sunday, June 13th, and I hope to see at least six more films. I hope they’re as good as the ones I’ve seen so far.
Crab Trap – a fine little film set in an Afro-Colombian community on the coast. Having just won an electrical hook-up from the Colombian government, the residents find themselves fighting a white developer who wants to turn their beach into a tourist resort. Meanwhile, another outsider, who wants to hire a boat to sneak him out of the country, finds himself caught like a crab in a trap because all the local fishermen have taken their boats far out from shore in search of an ever-dwindling supply of fish. A beautiful film with its own leisurely pace.
Southern District – Set in a wealthy household in the Bolivian capital, this film was remarkable for the director’s use of long, single-scene shots that pan away from the characters to show the house and all its rich possessions. The house eventually becomes the main character of the film. Few films have done a better job of showing how wealth can so effectively create tensions with a family while isolating it from the rest of the world, and even the lower-class servants who also inhabit the house.
Winter’s Bone – A 17-year-old girl is the head of her Ozark mountain family, since her mother’s mental breakdown and her father’s arrest for cooking methamphetamines. Her father puts the house up for his bond to get out of jail and promptly disappears under mysterious circumstances. Not convinced that he disappeared on his own, the daughter goes in search of him. Her search reveals hidden, disturbing secrets about her rural community. This film deserves a wide release, but don’t hold your breath. Look for it on DVD.
Cell 211 – winner of Spain’s Goya Awards, this film is intense and violent, but also contains a critical look at the brutality of prison life. The main character is a prison guard starting his first day of work who gets caught in a prison riot and is forced to pretend he’s an inmate to survive. Eventually, he comes to sympathize with the prisoners.
And these three documentaries were outstanding:
American Faust: From Condi to Neo-Condi – This film was a fascinating look at who Condoleeza Rice really is and what motivates her. Many folks have been perplexed by how an intelligent, African-American woman could become involved with the Bush neo-cons. This film shows you how.
The Two Horses of Genghis Khan – I found this film particularly moving, maybe because I’ve been reading about the Chinese government’s efforts to suppress its 50 minority populations. Two Horses follows the travels of a Mongolian singer/songwriter who goes in search of the lyrics of a traditional Mongolian song her grandmother used to sing to her. With beautiful cinematography and lots of Mongolian music, it reveals that the Cultural Revolution is far from over.
The Tillman Story – Far better than I expected it to be, this film tells the story of Pat Tillman, the major league football player who gave up a multi-million-dollar career to enlist in the army after 9-11. Expecting to fight in Afghanistan, he was shocked and disillusioned to find himself deployed to Iraq. It tells the story of how the Pentagon and Bush administration used his death for propaganda purposes, and how his family eventually found out the truth.
The film festival continues through Sunday, June 13th, and I hope to see at least six more films. I hope they’re as good as the ones I’ve seen so far.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Gaza: The Media Blockade
On Monday, Israeli troops boarded a boat in international waters that was carrying humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. During that raid, at least nine people were killed, all of them activists who are working to end the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Aside from the horror I felt at hearing this news, I was dumbstruck at the ineptitude of the news reports of the raid. The US media not only fell down on the job, it fell into a black hole.
The worst offender was the New York Times, which adhered entirely to the Israeli government line. They reported, as uncontested fact, that activists on board the boat fired pistols at the Israeli soldiers, who rappelled onto the ship from helicopters hovering above. They reported that nine people died, but not that the dead were activists, members of the flotilla, not Israeli soldiers. Instead, after mentioning the number of dead, The New York Times never mentions them again at all; it lingers instead on the wounds suffered by Israeli soldiers and makes much of the fact that two soldiers were treated for bullet wounds. Apparently, The New York Times reporter never thought to ask if the wounds were from friendly fire.
Oh, and by the way, pipes and knives were found on the boat. I can think of many uses for spare lengths of pipe on a ship. And knives—for heaven’s sake. What else are you going to use to cut rope, or—for that matter—cut your vegetables to make soup?
The Associated Press wire service articles were little better. They relied on quotes from soldiers and the Israeli government and when they did quote an activist, it wasn’t a person who’d been on the boat during the raid. The articles never mentioned the names of the organizations that sponsored the flotilla, and only one article mentioned that a group formed by Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, and former President Jimmy Carter (the group remained unnamed, of course) condemned the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip as “one of the greatest humanitarian rights violations”—but that quote was in the second to last paragraph of a 20-paragraph article. [“Israel boat raid sparks condemnations, protests,” by Selcan Hacaoglu and Lee Keath, AP, 5/31/09.]
Both the New York Times and AP articles barely mention the blockade of the Gaza Strip, and when they do, they quote Israeli government assurances that residents of Gaza are well provided for. No other viewpoint is sought, no effort is made to find out what is really happening inside the Gaza Strip, as if fact-based reporting might reveal inconvenient truths about one of America’s biggest allies in the Middle East.
As I told a friend today, the US press corps’ silence over the effects of the Gaza blockade remind me of a similar resounding silence over the brutal effects of sanctions the US government imposed on Iraq throughout the 1990’s. Like the continuing blockade of Gaza, the Iraq sanctions came after an outside force--the US--destroyed most of Iraq’s vital civilian infrastructure in the first Gulf War. Israel, having bombed the heck out of Gaza, is now starving the Gazans of the equipment needed to rebuild and provide clean water, food, electricity, sanitation, medical care, safe housing, and other necessities to its residents. And this is provoking a major outcry from nearly every other nation of the world except the US.
And the US people remain insulated from that truth.
Aside from the horror I felt at hearing this news, I was dumbstruck at the ineptitude of the news reports of the raid. The US media not only fell down on the job, it fell into a black hole.
The worst offender was the New York Times, which adhered entirely to the Israeli government line. They reported, as uncontested fact, that activists on board the boat fired pistols at the Israeli soldiers, who rappelled onto the ship from helicopters hovering above. They reported that nine people died, but not that the dead were activists, members of the flotilla, not Israeli soldiers. Instead, after mentioning the number of dead, The New York Times never mentions them again at all; it lingers instead on the wounds suffered by Israeli soldiers and makes much of the fact that two soldiers were treated for bullet wounds. Apparently, The New York Times reporter never thought to ask if the wounds were from friendly fire.
Oh, and by the way, pipes and knives were found on the boat. I can think of many uses for spare lengths of pipe on a ship. And knives—for heaven’s sake. What else are you going to use to cut rope, or—for that matter—cut your vegetables to make soup?
The Associated Press wire service articles were little better. They relied on quotes from soldiers and the Israeli government and when they did quote an activist, it wasn’t a person who’d been on the boat during the raid. The articles never mentioned the names of the organizations that sponsored the flotilla, and only one article mentioned that a group formed by Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, and former President Jimmy Carter (the group remained unnamed, of course) condemned the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip as “one of the greatest humanitarian rights violations”—but that quote was in the second to last paragraph of a 20-paragraph article. [“Israel boat raid sparks condemnations, protests,” by Selcan Hacaoglu and Lee Keath, AP, 5/31/09.]
Both the New York Times and AP articles barely mention the blockade of the Gaza Strip, and when they do, they quote Israeli government assurances that residents of Gaza are well provided for. No other viewpoint is sought, no effort is made to find out what is really happening inside the Gaza Strip, as if fact-based reporting might reveal inconvenient truths about one of America’s biggest allies in the Middle East.
As I told a friend today, the US press corps’ silence over the effects of the Gaza blockade remind me of a similar resounding silence over the brutal effects of sanctions the US government imposed on Iraq throughout the 1990’s. Like the continuing blockade of Gaza, the Iraq sanctions came after an outside force--the US--destroyed most of Iraq’s vital civilian infrastructure in the first Gulf War. Israel, having bombed the heck out of Gaza, is now starving the Gazans of the equipment needed to rebuild and provide clean water, food, electricity, sanitation, medical care, safe housing, and other necessities to its residents. And this is provoking a major outcry from nearly every other nation of the world except the US.
And the US people remain insulated from that truth.
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