[ WEEKEND ]
The spotlight
shines on
HIFF films
The Hawaii International Film Festival started in full-swing yesterday, and three of the five nominees for this year's Golden Maile award for best feature play this weekend at the Signature Dole Cannery multiplex. We've got reviews of "Blind Shaft," "The Twilight Samurai" and "Don't Cry" below plus Nathan Kurosawa's locally made "The Ride". The other two nominees are:
23rd Hawaii International Film Festival
Where: Signature Dole Cannery, the Doris Duke Theatre at Honolulu Academy of Arts and Hawaii TheatreWhen: Today through Nov. 9
Tickets: $8 adults; $7 children, military, students and seniors 62 years and older; and free to festival Ohana members ($6 each additional ticket)
Call: 538-3456 or visit www.hiff.org
"Goodbye Dragon Inn": Taiwan's Tsai Ming-Liang presents a minimal and cinematically eloquent look at lonely souls who frequent a local revival theater. (6:45 p.m. Tuesday and 3:30 p.m. Thursday at Signature Dole Cannery)
"Magnifico": A heart-tugging film by Philippine director Maryo J. Delos Reyes. The film's title is the nickname of a 9-year-old boy who tries to live up to it, but who is, at heart, ashamed of it. All the attributes and expectations his father invested in naming his second son "Magnifico" acquire absurd dimensions in their humble town environment of poverty, sickness and suffering. (7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Signature Dole Cannery and 8:15 p.m. Nov. 7 at Doris Duke Theatre)
‘Blind Shaft’
"Blind Shaft" isn't really about the plight of coal miners in China, although the mines provide a convenient backdrop. The Middle Kingdom is undergoing a speedy transition from socialism to capitalism. Its people are changing to adapt, but without proper consideration and precautions, their spirit and humanity can be lost.
Deep in the mine tunnels, lit only by the miners' head lamps, middle-aged Song (Yixiang Li) and raspy old man Tang (Wang Shuangbao) take a break from hacking and hauling dusty ore.
"How's your old maid?" Tang asks a third man, apparently his younger brother. The three men chat innocently, casually.
"How'd you like Song to send you home?" Tang asks his brother. The man demurs. They've only worked a few days and haven't been paid yet. How can he leave?
Song raises his pickax. One hit to the back of the head, a cave-in to cover the body, and the murder's so quick it's comical in a slick, well-practiced sort of way. Director Li Yang seems to favor handheld cameras, giving the death a truthful, documentary-like feel.
Tang and Song's humanity is erased by their calculated slaying. It turns out they're more gold diggers than coal miners. They convince desperate unemployed strangers to pose as relatives to find work.
"Who cares about those little sh--s?" declares Tang. He's embraced the worst aspect of capitalism, materialism, with a vengeance. Collecting family hardship compensation for dead "relatives" he's killed suits him fine.
COURTESY OF HIFF
"Blind Shaft" screens at 10 p.m. tomorrow and 4 p.m. Sunday at Signature Dole Cannery Theaters.
Ironically, the first thing the two protagonists do is send money home to their real families, showing that they still hold to some aspects of traditional Chinese values.
Fresh-faced Yuan Feng Ming (Wang Baoquiang) is the next to be recruited for Tang and Song's deadly tricks. The idealistic teenager has left home in hopes of finding work to pay for his sister's schooling. He possesses qualities that remind Song of his son, eventually pitting Tang and Song against one another.
Through measured and deliberate scenes, the movie implies that a return to compassion can beget redemption. Like a blind shaft reaching out of a cave though, this release is incomplete. Just don't blink as you watch. Some of the most important scenes take place in seconds, while the longer ones go nowhere but give us time to ponder earlier events.
This film's heart lies with China's citizens as they struggle in a country with a shortage of everything but people. While the ending's predictable and rather abrupt, it doesn't make this story any less worthwhile or enjoyable. It's a well-told universal tale of humanity and could have taken place just as easily in America's underground coal mines of the early 1900s.
‘The Twilight Samurai’
In the 19th-century world of "The Twilight Samurai," the men of Japan's warrior class are regular working stiffs who just happen to carry swords to the office.
"The Twilight Samurai" is more soap opera than swashbuckler, and I mean this in a good way. Quiet and dignified, the film is about everyday struggles, small humiliations, a compact love story -- all made fascinating by the distinctive cultural setting.
Our hero, Seibei Iguchi, is a supply clerk whose days seem to involve precisely accounting for the clan's stock of dried cuttlefish. Family life is one of unending responsibilities and debt. His wife dead after a long, costly illness, Iguchi must care for his two daughters and his senile mother. His life is filled more with childcare and housework than swash and buckle.
His co-workers find him pitiful. They call him "Twilight" because he must return to his family at dusk, while they're heading out for drinks. But Iguchi rejects their view, as well as family attempts to finding him a new wife. Money's tight, he admits, but he loves his daughters. He is Mr. Samurai Dad, and he's fine with that.
Hiroyuki Sanada is appropriately strong and silent as Iguchi, but it is the entrance of Rie Miyazawa as Tamoe that gives life to the story.
Tamoe, a childhood friend, walks softly into Iguchi's home, befriending his daughters and bringing some small sense of order to his household. Miyazawa is perfectly luminous in the role, as the gentle force nudging Iguchi into realizing that love and beauty are within reach, even for him.
COURTESY OF HIFF
"The Twilight Samurai" screens at 7 p.m. Sunday and Nov. 8 at Signature Dole Cannery Theaters.
Director Yoji Yamada takes his time getting to this point, building character and a convincing sense of simple village life in the years just before the Meiji Restoration. But this is a samurai movie, and not without action.
Iguchi shakes off his quietude when it becomes necessary to protect Tamoe from her brute of an ex-husband. (Iguchi is so mild-mannered that when he wins the advantage he simply says, "Perhaps that is enough?") When he later defeats the man in a duel using only a big stick, Iguchi draws the attention of the clan's leadership and is chosen to go after Yogo, a top swordsman who has offended the code of honor.
Iguchi is a reluctant hit man, having lost his taste for the sword, and besides, he rather likes Yogo. But duty is duty.
Their encounter takes 20 minutes, 15 of them spent in a soul-baring conversation that gives purpose to the entire story. The battle itself is tightly choreographed within the confined space of Yogo's home, five minutes of breathless exertion and pain. No superhuman displays. No fountaining blood. It is the anti-"Kill Bill."
The beauty of this film is in the details, so pay attention -- to the rituals of mealtime, the relationships between Iguchi and his superiors, Tamoe's grace in helping him prepare for battle. "Twilight" presents the samurai as a regular guy, and that teaches more about this warrior class than any number of sword-clinking fight scenes.
‘Don't Cry’
Blanketed in snow and ice, the landscape surrounding Sat-Jol village in Kazakhstan is stark and desolate. Activity is meager, and fittingly, so is the action and dialogue in this dour, yet quietly compelling 120-minute feature from Amir Karakulov.
Aspiring Kazakh opera singer Maira, played by real-life soprano Maira Muhamed kyzy, has left her home in China to stay with Grandmother (Bakira Shaihinbayeva) and 7-year-old niece, Bibinur (Bibinur Aidabergenova) in Sat-Jol. Life in the remote village is simple. Townsfolk spend their days tending to daily tasks and enjoying quiet talks at the dinner table.
COURTESY OF HIFF
"Don't Cry" screens at 7 p.m. Monday and 9:45 p.m. Tuesday at Signature Dole Cannery Theaters.
One morning, Maira hitches a ride on an industrial vehicle to shuttle Bibinur to the nearest clinic for an examination. The findings are not good. The doctor says Bibinur's persistent cough is the result of a life-threatening disease, and unless Maira can acquire proper medication, Bibinur will not make it through another year. "If you don't need her, bury her," he scolds. In response, Maira goes to market with her opera gowns, her only possessions of worth. When that fails, Maira sells her own blood to procure Bibinur's medication.
To raise her spirits, Maira promises Bibinur she will take her to see the opera, and does her best to live up to her promise in the film's poignant final act.
Karakulov's reliance on digital video, amateur actors and a partially improvised script gives "Don't Cry" a convincing, documentary-like feel. Scenes are allowed to breathe and develop naturally and conversation, though sparse, always appears sincere. The finer details of this movie, more than anything, show Karakulov to be a gifted storyteller and a director of note.
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