tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/miff-2015-19135/articlesMIFF 2015 – The Conversation2015-08-14T05:53:27Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/453072015-08-14T05:53:27Z2015-08-14T05:53:27ZBreaching Transmissions – can expanded cinema expand your mind?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/91854/original/image-20150814-477-mrdx5x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Viewers can stand, sit, or be positioned in patterns and relations that breach the traditional movie theatre encounter.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Breaching Transmissions/Images courtesy of MIFF</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/articles/how-expanded-cinema-rethinks-film-screening">Expanded cinema</a>, a term coined in the mid-1960s by American experimental filmmaker <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0066388/">Stan Vanderbeek</a>, extends and enriches the way cinema can engage with its viewers. The art form is taken into galleries, museums, subterranean vaults and installation spaces, and the moving image is opened up to the different shaped walls and surfaces found there. </p>
<p>Viewers can stand, sit, or be positioned in patterns and relations that breach the traditional movie theatre encounter. The space can itself move, living performances can interact with the screen, sound can bleed out from the floor, and bodies can be literally touched. </p>
<p>This expansion in screen, space and self is explored in <a href="http://miff.com.au/program/film/breaching-transmissions">Breaching Transmissions</a>, British-Australian director <a href="http://www.sallygolding.com/">Sally Golding</a>’s new immersive audiovisual performance, which premiered at Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) last night. </p>
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<span class="caption">Breaching Transmissions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Images courtesy of MIFF</span></span>
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<p>The audience is, according to the <a href="http://miff.com.au/program/film/breaching-transmissions">festival program</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>taken on a hallucinogenic dark carnival ride exploring the slippage between parapsychology and technology.</p>
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<p>In her <a href="http://www.sallygolding.com/biography">artist’s statement</a>, Golding has defined her work as focusing on the:</p>
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<p>experience of the audience, pushing the boundaries of visual and auditory perception through the breakdown of the cinematic system into flicker, wave forms and colour fields. </p>
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<p>Participatory by design, the viewer is invited to be a:</p>
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<p>collaborator within the work, evoking a form of <a href="http://www.britannica.com/topic/autoscopic-hallucination">autoscopic</a> hallucination.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As the reviewers of this piece, we wanted to test this assertion: we wanted to immerse ourselves in the work and respond to the hallucinations offered to us. We wanted to see whether our senses had indeed been breached in the expanded contours and liquid horizons of the work. </p>
<p>Our individual impressions follow.</p>
<h2>Hypnotic Machine, by Polly Stanton</h2>
<p>Part performance and part screening, Breaching Transmissions uses the body as an intervention between projection and screen space. The performance begins with Golding hovering around one of the 16mm projectors, putting out candles and executing ritualistic gestures. They in turn instigate flashes of light and high-pitched noises that slice though the sonic pulse that already fills the room.</p>
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<span class="caption">Breaching Transmissions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Images courtesy of MIFF</span></span>
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<p>An opaque suspended screen, hovering in the middle of the room like a piece of flotsam, catches the light of the projectors. As the film threads through the machines, I notice the used film strip pooling behind the projector like a pile of shiny celluloid guts. It’s a simple reminder of the materiality of the medium, an appearance that suddenly seems foreign in the digital area. </p>
<p>Golding physically approaches these projections as though they are something tangible to be shaped and seized. Moving around the screen with a small circular mirror she catches flickers of projected light and reflects it back out into the room, as though she had plucked a solid piece of light from the screen. </p>
<p>Working in tandem with Golding, sound artist and musician <a href="http://spatial.infrasonics.net/ssc03">Spatial</a> has created a bristling mass of notes and frequencies in response to her visual work. Dull and deep modulations pulse in time with the projections that are then broken up by high inflections that constantly resonate and seep through the space and crowd. </p>
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<span class="caption">Breaching Transmissions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Images courtesy of MIFF</span></span>
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<p>Golding’s interactions with the projectors, screen and space are formal, her movements deliberate. There’s an odd sense of the theatrical to her muted performance, which is highlighted when two strategically placed members from the audience break away from the encircling crowd and weave their way around the screen, mirroring the projected shapes and forms in a what soon becomes a choreographed set of reciprocal actions between the screen and participants.</p>
<p>Suddenly the wall of sound cuts out and the hiss of quiet is a shock to the system. The whirring of projectors slow and the last flickers of light fade, leaving the empty screen swaying in the dark like a lifeless spectre.</p>
<h2>Get out of My Body, by Sean Redmond</h2>
<p>My impressions watching this performance? Well, let’s see … </p>
<p>Get out of my head. Noise. Shadows. Headlights steeped in nitrous oxide. Dead candles flickering. A sea of disconnected atoms. The universe laid out on a worn bed-sheet. A snake emerging without its head from the film projector. It crawls along the floor into my wide-open mouth … </p>
<p>Get out of my head. Static. Nylon. Scouring pads on soft skin. The scarring sounds of red. Black clouds vibrating on a hot summers day. Decay …</p>
<p>According to the American cinema theorist <a href="http://www.tft.ucla.edu/2012/03/vivian-sobchack/">Vivian Sobchack</a> in her book <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/786569.Carnal_Thoughts">Carnal Thoughts </a> (2004):</p>
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<p>As “lived bodies” … our vision is always already “fleshed out” – and even at the movies it is “in-formed” and given meaning by our other sensory means of access to the world: our capacity not only to hear, but also to touch, to smell, to taste, and always to proprioceptively feel our dimension and movement in the world. In sum, the film experience is meaningful not to the side of my body, but because of my body.</p>
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<span class="caption">Breaching Transmissions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Images courtesy of MIFF</span></span>
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<p>I engage with Breaching Transmissions on similar terms, as a living and fleshed encounter. I meet the installation on synesthetic and haptic terms and in the realm of the senses: in the eyes that taste and the mouth that sees and in the brain that feels. </p>
<p>The senses that Golding’s work evokes and stimulates are connected to the processes of dissolution or a deterittorialisation of the self, a becoming animal, to draw on <a href="http://www.iep.utm.edu/deleuze/">Gilles Deleuze</a>. I feel myself vanishing, being emptied, being poured out, being remade into something else as I feel my way through Breaching Transmissions. This is a something more wild, a something else freer. </p>
<p>This is what great visual art does – it sensationalises our carnal beings – it takes us home. It screws us up. It sets us free.</p>
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<p><em>Breaching Transmissions was as the Melbourne International Film Festival on August 13. Details <a href="http://miff.com.au/program/film/breaching-transmissions">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/45307/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Expanded cinema, a term coined in the mid-1960s by American experimental filmmaker Stan Vanderbeek, extends and enriches the way cinema can engage with its viewers. The art form is taken into galleries…Sean Redmond, Associate Professor of Media and Communication, Deakin UniversityPolly Stanton, PhD Candidate - Film and Moving Image Studies , RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/453042015-08-13T20:33:23Z2015-08-13T20:33:23ZGoing against the flow in Grant Scicluna’s debut feature film Downriver<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90054/original/image-20150729-30846-1jtb9a6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">This film conveys a uniquely Australian sensibility, at equal turns calm and intense.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Images courtesy of MIFF </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Australian director <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1583261/">Grant Scicluna’s</a> first feature-length film, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3764122/">Downriver</a> (2015), is a tangled, tense and mercurial work. The director, who <a href="http://downriverfilm.com/miff-interview-grant-scicluna/">garnered significant attention</a> with his short films <a href="http://www.irisprize.org/hurts-rescue/">Hurt’s Rescue</a> (2014) and <a href="http://www.thewilding.com.au/">The Wilding</a> (2012), was among those at the film’s premiere at the Melbourne International Film Festival last week. </p>
<p>The story follows James (played by The Wilding’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3581307/">Reef Ireland</a>), newly released from prison after having drowned a child when he was nine. Committed to atonement, James and his mother (performed with palpable rawness by <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0289098/">Kerry Fox</a>) return to rural Victoria in an effort to find the victim’s body, which was never recovered. </p>
<p>The film winds itself around the scene of the crime, with every character grappling to understand the events leading to the child’s death. The characters are weighed down with things they can’t say, so the narrative unfurls through visual imagery instead. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-98kUEnkxHM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Downriver (2015) trailer, Grant Scicluna.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Modern Australian drama has developed its own language of realism, where images assume the weight of the story and the dialogue remains sparing. Downriver doesn’t so much use this style as perfect it; in one instance James’ relationship with his cellmate is revealed in a single shot of their matching friendship bracelets. </p>
<p>This nuance of approach appeals to the eyes and ears as much as the mind. And on occasion, when the audio track drifts out of sync with the visuals, the viewer is forced into a different way of looking at events on screen. This clever craftsmanship belies the fact that this is Scicluna’s feature-film debut; Downriver has the feel of a far more experienced creative talent. </p>
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<span class="caption">Downriver (2015), Grant Scicluna.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Images courtesy of MIFF</span></span>
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<p>There’s a lilting poise to much of the cinematography, a kind of quiet grace. Shot by <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0053039/">Lázló Baranyai</a>, the film’s images pause and move slowly, before suddenly spinning into sharply edited montages. </p>
<p>Like the titular river, the film drifts through its moments until it whirls into eddies of revelation. Refreshingly absent are the red-dust desserts, postcard beaches or Sydney suburbs that so often feature in Australian films. In their place is the lush green and murk of the Victorian river system, and the stark sameness of holiday caravan parks. </p>
<p>Scicluna uses the narrative tradition of criminals returning to the scene of their crime, but he veers from this tradition with a cast that is predominantly gay. The sexuality of the characters is complicated and ever-present in their interactions, yet it’s not a focal point for the characters themselves. </p>
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<span class="caption">Downriver (2015), Grant Scicluna.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Images courtesy of MIFF</span></span>
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<p>Instead, it’s a means of turning them into co-conspirators, victims and protectors. As such, the film marks a maturation in Australian queer cinema’s sensibilities; it presents a story that is both queer and universally resonant. </p>
<p>It has a lot in common with the New Zealand television series <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2103085/">Top of the Lake</a> (2013), which took a similar story and viewed it through a feminist lens. Both works allow subtle politics to play out in the background of a larger narrative; a sophisticated approach that allows audiences to identify with the narrative and its characters on many levels. </p>
<p>Downriver also makes broader cinematic references to Gothic thrillers, and there are strong echoes too of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0139898/">The Boys</a>, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0259393/">Lantana</a> (1998), and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1313092/">Animal Kingdom</a> (2010). At the same time, the film’s aesthetics share the simplicity and tenderness of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0708903/">Lynne Ramsay</a> or <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0359734/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1">Michael Haneke</a>. </p>
<p>Although it was filmed in 29 days on a shoestring budget, its bush setting and narrative twists give it an expansive feel. It is a visually stunning piece, with superb performances and an utterly gripping story.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90056/original/image-20150729-30867-1p37tvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90056/original/image-20150729-30867-1p37tvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90056/original/image-20150729-30867-1p37tvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90056/original/image-20150729-30867-1p37tvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90056/original/image-20150729-30867-1p37tvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90056/original/image-20150729-30867-1p37tvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90056/original/image-20150729-30867-1p37tvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90056/original/image-20150729-30867-1p37tvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Downriver (2015), Grant Scicluna.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Images courtesy of MIFF</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Downriver is, in every sense of the word, an Australian film. It received its first grant from MIFF’s premiere fund, was buoyed by Screen Australia, and finished with the contributions of hundreds of non-industry folk through Pozible. </p>
<p>It also conveys a uniquely Australian sensibility, at equal turns calm and intense. As such, it’s a film that we all have a stake in. With any luck, the film will garner deserved international success and be taken under the parochial ownership that Australian audiences designate to our other bright stars. </p>
<p>The audience on Wednesday’s screening spoke with evident pride, pleased to see the Australian Gothic genre find new ground in Scicluna’s work.</p>
<p><br>
<em>Downriver screens at the Melbourne international Film Festival on August 14 and 16. Details <a href="http://miff.com.au/program/film/downriver">here.</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/45304/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laura Henderson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Filmed in 29 days on a shoestring budget, Downriver’s bush setting and narrative twists give it an expansive feel. It is a visually stunning piece, with superb performances and an utterly gripping story.Laura Henderson, Tutor and PhD candidate in Screen and Cultural Studies, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/453052015-08-11T20:36:38Z2015-08-11T20:36:38ZDeer penis with hagfish? City of Gold celebrates the eclectic flavours of LA<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90047/original/image-20150729-30854-hizcjp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jonathan Gold has a charming curiosity for food and a willingness to try out weird and wonderful dishes. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Images courtesy of MIFF </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Jonathan Gold, the “belly of Los Angeles” and the only restaurant critic to <a href="http://www.pulitzer.org/works/2007-Criticism">win a Pulitzer Prize</a>, is in Melbourne! So what better reason do we need to see the Australian premiere of Laura Gabbert’s documentary on the man himself? </p>
<p><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2614776/">City of Gold</a> (2015) is an engaging profile on the <a href="http://blogs.kcrw.com/goodfood/tag/jonathan-gold/">famed foodie</a> and self-proclaimed “failed cellist” as he eats his way across town. Sampling everything from deer penis to slimy hagfish, Gold is an enthralling character who delights in the wonderfully diverse tastes that Los Angeles has to offer. </p>
<p>He has a charming curiosity for food and his willingness to try out weird and wonderful dishes dismantles the usual coupling of food criticism with high-end restaurants. </p>
<p>The film is beautifully shot and soundtracked by an eclectic mix of hiphop, classical and blues that perfectly captures the rhythm and vitality of the city. Gold is in fact a classically trained cellist and former punk who started his career as a music critic. Celebrating a fusion between high and low culture with genuine warmth, Gold quips that “an aria is in some way equal to a well-cooked potato”.</p>
<p>Gabbert’s documentary focuses on Gold’s penchant for seeking out the hidden treasures of LA: small, secluded gems that are off-the-grid and usually family-run. Drawing upon Reyner Banham’s architectural critique of Los Angeles, Gold attempts to make sense of the city through food.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/M4Was_KO-mE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">City of Gold (2015) trailer, Laura Gabbert.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Gold delights in the roaming taco trucks, alleyway eat-outs and the family restaurants that populate the shopping mall. It is here that Gold finds LA. He philosophises that these ritualised moments in time provide an experience through which community is created. </p>
<p>Gabbert considers the role of the restaurant critic and also touches upon the responsibilities bound up with Gold’s position as an established and privileged voice. Gold’s brother, Mark, is the Associate Vice Chancellor for Environment and Sustainability at UCLA and the former President of the environmental group <a href="http://www.healthebay.org/get-involved/take-action/support-environmental-education-programs">Heal the Bay</a>. </p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Food critic, Jonathon Gold.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Images courtesy of MIFF</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In one scene, Mark teases Jonathan about his willingness to eat endangered species and surmises that he has “to be an environmentalist because Jonathan is eating everything I’m trying to save”. This moment hints at the complexity of the food critic’s role as a public figure and the possibility of using this position to raise awareness about conservation. </p>
<p>But the documentary is mainly focused on the families and communities that run, support and keep alive the numerous eateries and restaurants that make up the LA food scene. Guerilla Tacos, Soban, Chengdu Taste, Jitlada, Meals by Genet, Pho Minh, Petit Trois and Earlez Dogs all get a special mention with interesting snapshots into how these places got started. </p>
<p>Many of these are stories of migration, financial struggle and passionate determination. These fascinating mini-narratives are a celebration of the ethnic diversity of LA and support Gold’s contention that cuisine should continually break with convention and create something new. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90048/original/image-20150729-30846-1obugtv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90048/original/image-20150729-30846-1obugtv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90048/original/image-20150729-30846-1obugtv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90048/original/image-20150729-30846-1obugtv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90048/original/image-20150729-30846-1obugtv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90048/original/image-20150729-30846-1obugtv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90048/original/image-20150729-30846-1obugtv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90048/original/image-20150729-30846-1obugtv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">City of Gold (2015), Laura Gabbert.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Images courtesy of MIFF</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By providing insight into the migrant experience, Gabbert suggests a link between Gold’s work as a food critic and the importance of food in creating community. The piping hot bowls of pho, glazed duck wings and street vendor hot dogs open up the possibility of new tastes, smells and sensations. </p>
<p>If food defines place, this diversification articulates an exciting regeneration of the city in which new ground is continually being re-mapped and explored. </p>
<p>Towards the end of the film, Gold reflects on some of the significant cultural and social shifts that have defined LA. He refers to the <a href="http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_watts_rebellion_los_angeles_1965/">Watts Rebellion</a> of 1965 and the <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/riots-erupt-in-los-angeles">riots, lootings and fires</a> of 1992.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90049/original/image-20150729-30867-1m7cnrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90049/original/image-20150729-30867-1m7cnrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90049/original/image-20150729-30867-1m7cnrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90049/original/image-20150729-30867-1m7cnrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90049/original/image-20150729-30867-1m7cnrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90049/original/image-20150729-30867-1m7cnrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90049/original/image-20150729-30867-1m7cnrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90049/original/image-20150729-30867-1m7cnrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">City of Gold (2015), Laura Gabbert.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Images courtesy of MIFF</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Gold’s philosophy is that, similar to art and music, food allows for us to make sense of a city. By seeking out new culinary experiences and investing in local restaurants and their stories, Gold reminds us of the importance of a diverse community. His warmth and enthusiasm suggest that a healthy, functioning city is one open to new tastes, flavours and smells. </p>
<p>Beyond the marinated crab and salsa verde, this film is really a celebration of diversity that encourages us to seek out something just a little bit different. </p>
<p><br>
<em>City of Gold is screening as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival. Jonathan Gold will be participating in Q&A events and panels. Details <a href="http://miff.com.au/program/film/city-of-gold">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/45305/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Felicity Ford does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Jonathan Gold, the only restaurant critic to have won a Pulitzer Prize, has a charming curiosity for food. Laura Gabbert’s new documentary focuses on Gold’s penchant for seeking out the hidden treasures of LA.Felicity Ford, Researcher and Tutor in Screen and Cultural Studies, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/453022015-08-10T20:14:17Z2015-08-10T20:14:17ZFrom iPhone to iFilm: the queer experience of Tangerine<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90032/original/image-20150729-30858-1yazbbj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Set in what seems like an eternal dusk, Tangerine is breathtaking in its beauty and garishness.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Images courtesy of MIFF</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3824458/">Tangerine</a>, a film by US director Sean Baker currently screening at <a href="http://miff.com.au/">Melbourne International Film Festival</a> (MIFF), is a remarkable piece of cinema for a number of reasons. </p>
<p>It’s queer in both content and approach: not only does it feature queer actors (the film has garnered much critical acclaim for its use of trans actors in trans roles), it’s also queer in its irreverent approach to style, form and storytelling. Filmed on an iPhone 5S, Tangerine presents an alternative to the dominant Hollywood or even Indiewood model of filmmaking.</p>
<p>The film’s central protagonist is Sin-Dee (<a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm6702770/">Kitana Kiki Rodriguez </a>), a trans sex worker fresh out of jail, who finds out that her boyfriend/pimp has been cheating on her with a cisgender woman. Seething with rage, she seeks revenge. </p>
<p>Sin-Dee pounds the pavement throughout the film, looking for her boyfriend and his lover. Meanwhile, her best friend Alexandra (<a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4924757/">Mya Taylor</a>) tags along, using every conversation as an opportunity to advertise a gig for that evening. </p>
<p>As the women approach fellow sex workers, pimps and friends in the streets of Hollywood, Baker’s camera swoops in on them. At once intimate and distanced, these camera movements mirror the intensity of movement that underpins the film: a violent and volatile walking tour of the city, Los Angeles, in which no one walks.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90037/original/image-20150729-30879-h09394.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90037/original/image-20150729-30879-h09394.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90037/original/image-20150729-30879-h09394.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90037/original/image-20150729-30879-h09394.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90037/original/image-20150729-30879-h09394.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90037/original/image-20150729-30879-h09394.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90037/original/image-20150729-30879-h09394.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90037/original/image-20150729-30879-h09394.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Tangerine (2015), Sean Baker.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Images courtesy of MIFF</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In between, we cut to segments featuring Rasmik (an Armenian taxi driver with a hidden desire for trans women) and his family. Just over midway through the film, his mother-in-law condemns Los Angeles for its superficiality. Searching for the truth behind Rasmik’s erratic behaviour, she describes LA as “a beautifully wrapped lie”. </p>
<p>Baker juxtaposes (and ultimately joins) the two narrative threads, and in doing so cultivates a unique rhythm: the fast pace of the street is contrasted with the slow pace of the vehicle. This reminds us, as Alexandra proclaims early on in the film, that: “Out here it is all about our hustle. And that’s it.”</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Tangerine (2015) trailer, Sean Baker.</movie
Discussion of the film has focused on digital utopianism, or the idea that the digital era has democratised culture and that greater access means increased choices and content, as well as greater potential for community and participation. As Mark Duplass, one of Tangerine’s executive producers, said at South by Southwest (SXSW) earlier this year:
There’s no excuse for not making short films on the weekends with your friends, shot on your iPhone.
Tangerine (2015), Sean Baker.
Images courtesy of MIFF
That said, describing Tangerine purely as an “iPhone film” seems false. To describe it in this way is to suggest that Baker picked up his phone one day and decided to get creative; it’s to say that Tangerine is in the same league as the low-grade videos and Vines that we watch on our phones when we’re bored.
But Tangerine wasn’t made to be viewed on a small handheld device. It was made to be viewed in a darkened auditorium, on a screen that towers over its audiences as they sit still, captivated by its imagery.
To make the film appear at home on this big screen, Baker cultivated its aesthetic. In addition to the iPhone 5S, he also used a prototype anamorphic lens which allowed it to be shot in a cinematic aspect ratio (2.35:1 to be precise), a US$7.99 video camera app for high-definition filming, a Steadicam rig to steady the images and allow smooth camera movements, and an array of sound recording equipment.
Baker also enhanced the images during post-production where he amped up the colours and applied a digital grain to provide a richer visual texture.
Tangerine (2015), Sean Baker.
Images courtesy of MIFF
Evoked through all of this is not the feeling of authenticity that I expected to come from an iPhone film, but rather an aesthetic that complements the premise of LA’s inhabitants leading lives of beautiful lies. The iPhone camera is incredibly mobile and captures light in a sublime and unique manner.
The resulting film has a palpable kinetic energy that is accompanied by a hallucinatory, indeed tangerine, glow. Set in what seems like an eternal dusk, Tangerine is breathtaking in its beauty and garishness. It is both a camp fever dream of Hollywood’s seedy underbelly and a sincere rumination on friendship and love.
<em>Tangerine screens on August 14 as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival. Details here.</em></span></figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/45302/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Whitney Monaghan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>US director Sean Baker’s Tangerine is a film that’s queer in both storyline and filmmaking approach. Featuring trans actors and shot on an iPhone 5S, it teases with ideas of authenticity and truth.Whitney Monaghan, Teaching Associate in Film and Screen Studies, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/432502015-08-10T01:59:13Z2015-08-10T01:59:13ZHolding the Man, and bringing HIV/AIDS in Australia to a mainstream audience<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/91241/original/image-20150810-12471-j3bmyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Adapting a much-loved text is always a delicate task as the audience can be fiercely protective.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sydney Film Festival</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A significant amount of anticipation has met the film adaptation of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3671542/">Holding the Man</a> (2015). Based on Timothy Conigrave’s 1994 <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1364772.Holding_the_Man">memoirs of the same name</a>, Timothy and John’s love story has a firm place in the gay canon. After penning a successful theatrical adaptation, playwright <a href="https://australianplays.org/playwright/CP-murcam">Tommy Murphy</a> returns to the Tim and John’s story for the big screen. </p>
<p>The film – directed by <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0035462/">Neil Armfield</a> – had its world premier at the closing night gala for the Sydney Film Festival in June and was <a href="http://miff.com.au/program/film/centrepiece-gala-holding-the-man">the centrepiece gala</a> at the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) this weekend. The importance this film has to Melbourne was highlighted by MIFF’s artistic director Michelle Carey in <a href="http://www.starobserver.com.au/features/entertainment-features/entertainment-play/not-too-queer-for-cinema/139075">a recent interview</a> with the Star Observer:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s not just a screening – this is such an important story to put up there and screen as a piece of Australian cinema, as well as all the local resonances and the Melbourne story.</p>
</blockquote>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Holding the Man (2015) trailer, Neil Armfield.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For those yet to read it, the book is turbulent and gut-wrenching. I remember reading it when I was in my first year at university following a recommendation from a new friend I had recently met in the queer lounge on campus. </p>
<p>Like many others, reading the book was a rite-of-passage as I began to articulate my own gay identity. Holding the Man has been a pivotal text in the formation of an Australian gay identity.</p>
<p>Holding the Man intimately follows Tim’s 15-year relationship with John Caleo, the star of the school football team. Their story begins at Melbourne’s Xavier College, where their high school romance is filled with sneaky pashes, love letters and secret rendezvouses at night. This theme of forbidden love is made even more obvious through Tim’ role in the school production of Romeo & Juliet.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84986/original/image-20150615-9571-1cpluea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84986/original/image-20150615-9571-1cpluea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84986/original/image-20150615-9571-1cpluea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84986/original/image-20150615-9571-1cpluea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84986/original/image-20150615-9571-1cpluea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84986/original/image-20150615-9571-1cpluea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84986/original/image-20150615-9571-1cpluea.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Holding The Man (2015), Neil Armfield.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B7atLxLK4W0YeVF5SERiMWxROGM&usp=gmail&tid=0B6kTxuZcr_BUSnoyeElvMlZud2M">Images courtesy of Sydney Film Festival </a></span>
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<p>Tim and John’s years at Xavier College are lovingly captured in the film with their youthful infatuation adapted from key passages in the text, from Tim writing on John’s pencil case in class to the dinner party where they share their first kiss.</p>
<p>Early into the film, Armfield cuts to a later stage in their relationship, a transition that is particularly disorienting for the viewer. We learn that they have been together for 15 years and are both HIV positive. This devastating announcement is a harbinger for what’s to come for their relationship. </p>
<p>Casting actors to play characters in their teens through to their 30s is always going to be a difficult task. The film does manage to transition <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1507708/">Ryan Corr</a>’s Tim and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2412545/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1">Craig Stott</a>’s John smoothly through the 15 years of the story. Their chemistry is palpable, which is imperative in order to convey the deep bond these two men had. </p>
<p>It’s important to note how funny the film is. Quite a few lines sparked laughter in the Sydney crowd, when I saw the film there. As John and Tim argue at a movie date, John complains that all he really wanted to do was see the film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080319/">Nine to Five</a> (1980) as he’d heard it was very funny. My personal favourite is Tim’s friend’s retort to a violent, homophobic pub patron: “I’m a dyke, ya dipshit!” </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84989/original/image-20150615-9537-63ij4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84989/original/image-20150615-9537-63ij4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84989/original/image-20150615-9537-63ij4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84989/original/image-20150615-9537-63ij4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84989/original/image-20150615-9537-63ij4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84989/original/image-20150615-9537-63ij4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84989/original/image-20150615-9537-63ij4a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Holding The Man (2015), Neil Armfield.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B7atLxLK4W0YeVF5SERiMWxROGM&usp=gmail&tid=0B6kTxuZcr_BUSnoyeElvMlZud2M">Images courtesy of Sydney Film Festival </a></span>
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<p>There is a charming, Australian irreverence to these characters, which balances out the impending heartbreak.</p>
<p>This film isn’t ground-breaking when compared to other queer films that deal with a similar subject matter, such as <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108649/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Zero Patience</a> (1993), <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104745/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Living End</a> (1992), <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1684226/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Normal Heart</a> (2014), <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091725/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Parting Glances</a> (1986) or <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0487273/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Witnesses</a> (2007). Stories of middle-class white gay men have been told in abundance in comparison to other queer identities. </p>
<p>The film does, however, contribute to the small but growing list of Australian queer cinema to receive a limited theatrical release – <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116931/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Love and Other Catastrophes</a> (1996), <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111309/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Sum of Us</a> (1994), <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138487/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Head On</a> (1998), <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3100636/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">52 Tuesdays</a> (2013), <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109045/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert</a> (1994), to name a few. More importantly, it captures a personal, Australian perspective of the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s.</p>
<p>Adapting a much-loved text is always a delicate task as the audience – familiar with the source material – can be fiercely protective. </p>
<p>This is a story that is held incredibly dear to those that read the book. As shattering as reading this book was, Conigrave’s book was a beautiful text that was informative during my early years at university. Many friends have similarly recounted to me how important this book was for them as they grew up. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84988/original/image-20150615-9556-9qhon2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84988/original/image-20150615-9556-9qhon2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84988/original/image-20150615-9556-9qhon2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84988/original/image-20150615-9556-9qhon2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84988/original/image-20150615-9556-9qhon2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84988/original/image-20150615-9556-9qhon2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84988/original/image-20150615-9556-9qhon2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Holding The Man (2015), Neil Armfield.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B7atLxLK4W0YeVF5SERiMWxROGM&usp=gmail&tid=0B6kTxuZcr_BUSnoyeElvMlZud2M">Images courtesy of Sydney Film Festival </a></span>
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<p>The film adheres to the original text closely with key passages recreated in the film: Pepe’s dinner party, various sexual encounters and Tim calling John and asking, “Will you go round with me?”.</p>
<p>It also places a significant emphasis on the high school period with the final, devastating turn of events not being as drawn out as they were in the book. The book provides a distressing amount of detail at how totally destructive the disease was to the body during the crisis. The level of detail provided in the book was at times overwhelming – I could only ever read it in short bursts. </p>
<p>There is an affective power when one revisits a text such as Holding the Man. Sitting in the screening during the closing scenes – with an audibly sobbing audience – the sheer emotional toil the book had on me returned, particularly when the photographs of the real Tim and John appear before the closing credits. </p>
<p>It’s important that this emotional weight of this tragic period is told to younger Australians, and particularly gay Australians. </p>
<p>If ever the devastating effect of AIDS in Australia was going to be told to a mainstream audience, Holding the Man has the potential to be that film.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/43250/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stuart Richards does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Holding the Man, the screen adaptation of Timothy Conigrave’s much-loved memoir, has seen audiences laughing, then sobbing at its devastating portrayal of AIDS in Australia. It’s an important story to tell.Stuart Richards, Researcher and Tutor in Screen and Cultural Studies, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/453742015-08-06T04:47:13Z2015-08-06T04:47:13ZMy Life Directed By Nicolas Winding Refn offers strained insight into the Danish director<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90221/original/image-20150730-10368-hgmccq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Liv Corfixen's documentary seems motivated by a fascination and fear of immersion in the creative process. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Images courtesy of MIFF </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>At the sprightly age of 44, Nicolas Winding Refn has garnered critical acclaim for films such as <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1921070/">Pusher</a> (1996), <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1172570/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Bronson</a> (2008) and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0780504/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Drive</a> (2011), and collected two lifetime achievement awards. It’s no surprise then that the famed <em>l’enfant sauvage</em> is a captivating figure of enquiry. </p>
<p>Winding Refn was the subject of Phie Ambo’s documentary <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0832348/?ref_=nm_flmg_dr_9">The Gambler</a>, which premiered at the Rotterdam International Film Festival in 2005. He is once again placed under the microscope in the Australian premiere of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4029998/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">My Life Directed By Nicolas Winding Refn</a> (2014) at this year’s Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF). </p>
<p>The documentary is directed by Winding Refn’s wife, Danish actress <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0179828/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1">Liv Corfixen</a>, and captures the creative pressure and mounting doubt following the unexpected success of his most commercially viable film, Drive. Corfixen films Winding Refn as he finishes production on his controversial 2013 film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1602613/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Only God Forgives</a>, and provides intimate access to the emotional toll this process has on his marriage and family life. </p>
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<span class="caption">My Life Directed By Nicolas Winding Refn (2014), Liv Corfixen.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Images courtesy of MIFF</span></span>
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<p>There was indeed enormous expectation placed on Only God Forgives, which reunited the director with the star of Drive, Ryan Gosling. Corfixen beautifully captures the strong bond between these two men and the complexity of their close friendship and creative collaboration. Surrealist filmmaker <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0423524/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1">Alejandro Jodorowsky</a> is obviously a strong influence on Winding Refn and he also makes an appearance in the documentary, performing tarot readings for the director and his wife that bookend the film. </p>
<p>While the documentary is of course concerned with what is produced and brought to life by the creative process, it also suggests that something must in turn be sacrificed. Corfixen remains off-camera for most of the documentary but it is her voice that guides the narration and presses Winding Refn to vocalise his thoughts and feelings. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">My Life Directed By Nicolas Winding Refn (2014) trailer, Liv Corfixen.</span></figcaption>
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<p>It is apparent that their relationship has been put under immense pressure by this process and many of the conversations between them are strained.</p>
<p>Winding Refn is at his most animated during the press releases and shooting but otherwise assumes a subdued and relatively silent presence in gentle defiance of Corfixen’s questions. In one scene, Corfixen pushes him on why he is feeling despondent after the release of Only God Forgives at Cannes Film Festival in 2013. Her probing elicits a sudden angry outburst from the director that is shocking but never engaged with further. </p>
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<span class="caption">My Life Directed By Nicolas Winding Refn (2014), Liv Corfixen.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Images courtesy of MIFF</span></span>
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<p>When Corfixens’s documentary was screened at the Forum Theatre, it was preceded by Ursula Meier’s exceptional profile of the young actor, Kacey Mottet Klein. Reflecting on what is means to lose oneself in the role, Meier’s short film (<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4286004/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Kacey Mottet Klein, Birth of an Actor</a>, 2015) received a warm round of applause. It is perhaps this emotional resonance that is lacking in Corfixen’s film. </p>
<p>Her documentary shares a similar problem to Yves Montmayeur’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2673724/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Michael H Profession: Director</a> (2013), which was screened at MIFF in 2013. Both documentaries endeavour to expose some essential truth behind an enigmatic and elusive creative mind. But both films only ever scratch the surface and, in fact, suggest an impossibility of getting any closer. </p>
<p>So while Corfixen’s intimate relationship with Winding Refn is what provides her with seemingly complete access to her subject, it is also what limits her. Her documentary seems motivated by a fascination and fear of immersion in the creative process. </p>
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<span class="caption">My Life Directed By Nicolas Winding Refn (2014), Liv Corfixen.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Images courtesy of MIFF</span></span>
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<p>At the end of the film, Corfixen asks Jodorowsky for advice on how she can fulfil her role as mother and wife but also pursue her own creative ambitions. While left unanswered, Corfixen’s question hints at a sense of frustration that resonates with how gender roles and responsibilities are negotiated. </p>
<p>Winding Refn is a captivating director who takes impressive risks in his creative work and continually pushes the boundaries of cinema. Fans of his work may be disappointed that this documentary doesn’t offer a more detailed engagement with his creative vision of the film, especially as Only God Forgives continues to elicit such strong responses of hatred and admiration. </p>
<p>Perhaps the impenetrable nature of Winding Refn is less a fault of Corfixen’s film and more a necessary state for the director to maintain a sense of mystery. By peeling back the curtain, it is possible that some of the mystery and magic that surrounds such an enigmatic figure will be lost, destroyed and unable to be retrieved. </p>
<p><br>
<em>My Life Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn is showing at the Melbourne International Film Festival. Details <a href="http://miff.com.au/program/film/my-life-directed-by-nicolas-winding-refn">here</a></em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/45374/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Felicity Ford does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Liv Corfixen’s documentary about her husband captures the creative pressure and mounting doubt following the unexpected success of his most commercially viable film, Drive.Felicity Ford, Researcher and Tutor in Screen and Cultural Studies, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/453012015-08-03T04:58:27Z2015-08-03T04:58:27ZA German Youth brings the Red Army Faction to the Melbourne International Film Festival: review<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90074/original/image-20150729-30862-fnth29.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Périot neither condemns nor romanticises extreme 'resistance' and 'revolutionary' actions, nor the state’s response.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Images courtesy of MIFF </span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1516014/">Jean-Gabriel Périot</a>’s feature-length documentary <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3431798/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">A German Youth</a> (2015) – showing at the Melbourne International Film Festival – maps the Red Army Faction’s (RAF) metamorphosis from student protest movement and left-wing political origins to what the state called a “terrorist organisation”. </p>
<p>This story is told through a cavalcade of media forms that is of itself of interest as predictive of our media-saturated daily lives. Student protest in the 1960s against the Vietnam War and for women’s rights occurred on a number of fronts in the West but with a particular twist in occupied postwar Germany. </p>
<p>West Germany’s 1960s postwar generation further reacted against the views of parents who had lived through and implicitly or explicitly participated in the Nazi regime. </p>
<p>The Red Army Faction came to the view that the anticommunist capitalism that superseded Nazism still contained fascist tendencies. RAF’s response evolved from student protest to bombings, kidnappings and shootouts with police. The group transformed dissent into a spectacular media event. </p>
<p>The film predicts the kind of personal stories of radicalisation of middle class Muslim youth now being recruited to participate in the formation of ISIS states in Syria and Iraq. </p>
<p>Périot has mined media archives for traces of RAF’s core group. Journalist <a href="http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/people_meinhof_ulrike.html">Ulrike Meinhof</a> is available through her television appearances as voice for the far left. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horst_Mahler">Horst Mahler</a> performs as lawyer to the student protest movement. Holger Meins’ alternative films are included and students Gudrun Ensslin and Andreas Baader are depicted in media reports and university activities. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yubODoBFo5Q?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A German Youth trailer, Jean-Gabriel Periot (2015).</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A German Youth is constructed from an amalgam of archival footage, news reports, filmed debates, audiotapes, slogans and experimental films, compiled without commentary. These modules are intended to speak for themselves. The viewer needs to bring that toolbox of looking and unpacking, gestures developed to negotiate today’s social and digital media. </p>
<p>This kind of visual thinking is already available in rudimentary form in <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0576941/">Holger Meins’</a> radical student films that pepper Périot’s more considered container, the most celebrated of which is called How to Make a Molotov Cocktail (1968), a precursor to the kind of DIY pieces that now populate YouTube. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/iczvwyzM_EQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">How to Make a Molotov Cocktail.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Périot neither condemns nor romanticises these extreme “resistance” and “revolutionary” actions, nor the state’s response. His assemblage strategies deftly counterpoint the multiple views and reactions expressed through the alternative and mainstream media of the time. </p>
<p>This is not entertainment. Périot performs a visual form of critical thinking in his assemblage. He builds his argument and historic narrative through the film’s architecture, as a performed textual analysis. History is revealed as much by the aesthetics of the film’s various elements than by what is said. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90076/original/image-20150729-30882-1e8d01e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90076/original/image-20150729-30882-1e8d01e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90076/original/image-20150729-30882-1e8d01e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90076/original/image-20150729-30882-1e8d01e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90076/original/image-20150729-30882-1e8d01e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90076/original/image-20150729-30882-1e8d01e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90076/original/image-20150729-30882-1e8d01e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90076/original/image-20150729-30882-1e8d01e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A German Youth, Jean-Gabriel Periot (2015).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Images courtesy of MIFF</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The origins of Périot’s own visual language can be located in the innovative film-making of the 60s and 70s, a creative community in which Meins participated. Two of its innovators, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0460176/">Alexander Kluge</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0895048/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1">Dziga Vertov</a> are acknowledged inside Périot’s construction, as is Belgium’s influential <a href="http://www.luxonline.org.uk/histories/1960-1969/knokke_experimental_film_festival.html">Knokke-le-Zoute Exprmntl Film Festival</a>. </p>
<p>During this period cinematic dissent moved out of the street into the academy, developing textual analysis and kickstarting a feminist counter cinema but also eventually domesticating dissent into aesthetic form. The anomalous Red Army Faction moved in the opposite direction, out of middle class family life, through student protest into hardcore political resistance.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90075/original/image-20150729-30889-16zfcib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90075/original/image-20150729-30889-16zfcib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90075/original/image-20150729-30889-16zfcib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90075/original/image-20150729-30889-16zfcib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90075/original/image-20150729-30889-16zfcib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90075/original/image-20150729-30889-16zfcib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90075/original/image-20150729-30889-16zfcib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90075/original/image-20150729-30889-16zfcib.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A German Youth, Jean-Gabriel Periot (2015).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Images courtesy of MIFF</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Today, images are everywhere. Attention spans may have shortened, but the contemporary eye, roaming both screen and city street, has been trained by daily life to negotiate the most complex of images in an instant. Media theorist <a href="http://www.egs.edu/library/vilem-flusser/biography/">Vilem Flusser</a> called these “technical images”, highly constructed and malleable, no longer guaranteeing any photographic residue of “truth”. </p>
<p>Périot builds his truth invisibly through deft editing. His is a visual argument that utilises the insight that each historic period has its own look, from the cave painting to the tweeted selfie and everything in between.</p>
<p>For Flusser “technical images” saturate public and private space, their mobility inducing an amnesia of their origins. Found footage cinema like Périot’s responds to this by bringing a critical history back a-historically, in the architecture of the image’s construction. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90077/original/image-20150729-30882-eivabq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90077/original/image-20150729-30882-eivabq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90077/original/image-20150729-30882-eivabq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90077/original/image-20150729-30882-eivabq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90077/original/image-20150729-30882-eivabq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90077/original/image-20150729-30882-eivabq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90077/original/image-20150729-30882-eivabq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90077/original/image-20150729-30882-eivabq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A German Youth, Jean-Gabriel Periot (2015).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Images courtesy of MIFF</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Like our names and spoken accent, this strategy offers an implicit trace of their heritage. This is a familiar shorthand skill for the digital native, and is mobilised in A German Youth to situate the piece’s TV programs, newsreels and low budget activist cinema mixture.</p>
<p>This is Périot’s first feature film but he has made a number of shorter films that plumb a trauma, scratch at a historic wound. His 200000 Phantoms (2007, 11 minutes – see below) is constructed of numerous photographs of Hiroshima’s Genbaku Dome, the only building left standing, at ground zero of the atom bomb detonation on August 6, 1945. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-ZZhgzLB1xw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">200000 Phantoms.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Like a ten-minute historic timelapse the series of photographs and postcards from 1914 till the present document the site’s transition from business centre, through instantly obliterated ruin to eventual memorial park. </p>
<p>The celebrated filmmaker <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001202/">Rainer Werner Fassbinder</a>, a contemporary of what the media called the “<a href="http://www.baader-meinhof.com/whos-who/terrorists/the-red-army-faction/the-baader-meinhof-gang/">Baader-Meinhof Gang</a>” has the last word in A German Youth through his contribution to <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077427/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Germany in Autumn</a> (1978), an omnibus film initiated by Alexander Kluge to respond to the murder of Dresdner Banker Jürgen Ponto by the Red Army Faction and a film whose mix of cinematic forms predicts Périot’s practice. </p>
<p>At a kitchen table, Fassbinder screams at his mother about the importance of an open democracy in Germany, while his mother yearns for an enigmatic leader to take us out of this mess. </p>
<p><br>
<em>A German Youth is showing at the Melbourne International Film Festival on August 12. Details <a href="http://miff.com.au/program/film/a-german-youth">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/45301/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dirk de Bruyn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Germany’s Red Army Faction evolved from student protest to bombings, kidnappings and shootouts with police. The group transformed dissent into spectacular media event. This documentary picks up the story.Dirk de Bruyn, Senior Lecturer in Animation, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.