Film Journey – Page 55 – world cinema in Los Angeles and beyond

Citing sources

February 17, 2005 Doug Cummings Commentary, Site news

Although I’ve seen Robert Bresson’s films numerous times over, I never miss the opportunity to attend the rare local screening or event that pertains to his work, partly to find material for the Masters of Cinema site I co-admin with Trond Trondsen, www.robert-bresson.com, and partly out of personal interest. (Okay, fanaticism.)

Last night, I attended a lecture at a California university that was both an accredited class for students as well as a public event. It was to include a screening of Bresson’s Diary of a Country Priest (1951). As I arrived, I grabbed a copy of the professor’s …

The House is Black

February 13, 2005 Doug Cummings DVD review

“There is no shortage of ugliness in the world. If man closed his eyes to it, there would be even more.”

Thus begins the narration in Forough Farrokhzad’s The House is Black (1962), a landmark short film (roughly 20 minutes) by one of Iran’s most venerated modern poets, a woman killed at the age of 32 in a car accident whose writing still permeates Iranian culture. (Her poem “The Wind Will Carry Us” is prominently featured in Abbas Kiarostami’s 1999 film of the same name.) In the 2001 book Close-Up: Iranian Cinema, Hamid Dabashi cites The House is Black…

Mani Kaul’s Daily Bread

February 1, 2005 Doug Cummings Film review

Last night I had the opportunity to see Mani Kaul, one of the key figures of the New Hindi Cinema of the late-’60s and ’70s, present his first feature, Daily Bread (Uski Roti, 1970), at the REDCAT theatre in Los Angeles. Kaul’s career has been associated with somewhat experimental and documentary films. “As for autobiographical, experimental or otherwise self-reflexive strands [in documentary], these are almost nonexistent in India,” writes Tom Waugh in Cine Action. “Virtually the only exception is Mani Kaul.” Although Kaul studied under famed Indian director Ritwik Ghatak, his primary inspiration came elsewhere. “I think …

Updates…

January 24, 2005 Doug Cummings Site news

Gearing back up for some blogging this week after the PSIFF and an enjoyable offline project, writing the DVD liner notes for Tartan Video’s upcoming second Ozu boxset in the UK containing The Record of a Tenement Gentleman (1947) and The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice (1952).

I attended a couple fun screenings last week, including a showing of Jacques Tourneur’s superlative Night of the Demon (1957) in a small art venue, the Sponto Gallery, a few feet from the sands of Venice Beach. About 30 people crowded into the increasingly stuffy gallery (renamed the Seven Dudley Cinema for …

PSIFF diary 4

January 16, 2005 Doug Cummings Film festival

Hawaii, Oslo (Erik Poppe, Norway)

The last film I’ll review for the PSIFF is perhaps my favorite, and solidifies the strong Scandinavian presence at the festival this year. The last couple of years have produced a number of ensemble films offering post-Altman, interwoven stories (two examples are Germany’s Lichter [Distant Lights] and Peru’s What the Eye Doesn’t See) but Hawaii, Oslo is the latest and most impressive of the bunch. It has been an enormous popular success in Norway, Variety has called it “one of the best Norwegian films made in many years,” and it’s the country’s …

PSIFF diary 3

January 13, 2005 Doug Cummings Film festival

Forgiveness