CINEMA GUILD: HAMILTON / PUTTY HILL DVD REVIEW (By Alex Hansen)

Matthew Porterfield's first feature Hamilton (2006) is a low-key affair, following a few summer days in the lives of young parents, Lena and Joe. When the film surfaced in 2006, it must have felt like a breath of fresh air, standing out from the crowded pastures of the American Independent Film, a field that's known for "originality", "daring", "provocation", being on "the cutting edge", and whatever other buzzwords the tastemakers of Sundance and its ilk use to lure in audiences. The last six years has seen a rise in similarly-minded, laid-back, undramatic features, so first-time viewers might wonder what was special enough about Hamilton to get someone like Richard Brody to froth so enthusiastically in his New Yorker review?

Despite it's fitting into the now-fashionable DIY-genre suit, Hamilton is a film that doesn't feel "contemporary". Nor is it a throwback. It exists amid its own timestream. Humble and with modest aims, much like the characters with whom it invites us to spend time (characters who don't appear to have any goals or aspirations, and are content to drift along with life's ebb), in Hamilton things are left unsaid for not knowing where to start or how to say it. Even the filmmaking follows suit. Porterfield makes use of a few motifs / tics (circular motions and loops, objects and bodies moving in and out of frame) and allows these to occur naturally. He doesn't force any "style" on the proceedings. Hamilton isn't a film on which a viewer can make demands or expect "development." You either take it as it is, or you don't. Much like Joe might visit Lena and his baby before they leave town, or maybe not.

The scope expands with Putty Hill, both in cast and environment. A gaggle of people are brought together through the death by overdose of young Cory. We're introduced to family members, close and distant friends (emotionally and / or geographically), some who are no more than acquaintances, and a few tangentially connected folk. Putty Hill resembles its predecessor in pacing and style, with additional touches: the most prominent being the interviews with the characters.

Stylistically, these interviews aren't self-conscious—as in Ingmar Bergman's The Passion Of Anna (1969) or the opening of Hour Of the Wolf (1968)—they're woven into the doldrums. A character will be sitting, possibly thinking, possibly not, and an offscreen voice asks them simple questions. "What's your name?" "How did you know Cory?" "Is this your first time paintballing?" Unless it's a question related to the deceased, the actors answer as themselves, rather than as their character. At first the interviews rankled because I was coming at them narratively: "Why is he asking questions to which we already know the answers?" Eventually it dawned on me that the answers weren't important for the information they conveyed but for the way the answers were given, implying that the way we phrase and word things says more than we think they do. This evolution in Porterfield's work, from simple spectating to scratching at surfaces, could rock a viewer's world (as its handful of appearances on "Best of" lists attest). Personally, I'm more interested in situations and places and how people fit into them, than I am in the actual people. When confronted with these glimpses into real, live human beings—which come from a truthful place and are admittedly of some interest—I can't help but muster more than a shrug. I just don't care. But that's my failing, not the film's.



Even with that baggage, I look forward to what Porterfield does next. His third film I Used To Be Darker (2012) should be coming out fairly soon. The opening and closing sections of Putty Hill—respectively, a tour of and a visit to Cory's house—tickle the right spots. As does the detour to a swimming hole, where Porterfield and cinematographer Jeremy Saulnier shoot bare skin like they're auditioning to be the next Claire Denis and Agnes Godard. And I love how he handles the awkwardness of being reunited with someone who is now more of a stranger than a friend.

Cinema Guild's two-disc collectors edition offers several special features and—though I typically don't give special features the time of day—I'm glad to have them and Cinema Guild always accommodates. Hamilton, which could be considered an extra in and of itself, has some deleted scenes and a very brief interview between Porterfield and Richard Brody. It's more of a chat than an interview that provides an opportunity for Brody to wax rhapsodic. The majority of the extras are on the Putty Hill disc. A 30-minute "making-of" and a commentary featuring Porterfield and three crew members are the main attractions. There are a few deleted scenes (mostly of more interviews with the characters), and also the screen test for Metal Gods, the project Porterfield was about to shoot until the funding dissolved (and whose cast he then rolled over into Putty Hill). There's just enough in the test to see the similarities between the projects and how Putty Hill went off on its own path. This screen test is definitely the highlight amongst the special features. Also of note is the accompanying booklet to the Cinema Guild two-disc release. It's slight in size but the essays by Andrew O'Hehir on Putty Hill and Richard Brody on Hamilton do a nice job of setting viewers up for what they're about to experience. Especially Brody's, as he has more of an opportunity to explain what makes the film so special for him than he does in the Q&A clip.

Of related interest is Andrew O'Hehir's Salon review for Putty Hill.

YBCA: NEW FILIPINO CINEMA—The Evening Class Interview With Raya Martin (by Alex Hansen)

In the "New Filipino Cinema" series curated by Joel Shepard for San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA), Raya Martin's seven-minute short Boxing in the Philippine Islands (2011) has been grouped into a program entitled "Sex, Drugs and the Avant-Garde: Filipino Shorts." Shepard synopsizes this shorts program: "With a lurid title but a serious intent, this program of new shorts will give you a taste of the work of nine younger artists from all over the archipelago. Featuring a little bit of everything—doc, drama, experimental, and even some student work—this is a great intro to the contemporary film scene. All films (except Boxing in the Philippine Islands) are U.S. premieres." Ticket info can be found here.

Raya Martin was born in 1984 in Manila, Philippines. He graduated from the University of the Philippines Film Institute in 2005 and worked as a writer and researcher in local television, newspaper, radio and online magazines. His short film The Visit (2004) won the Ishmael Bernal Award for Young Cinema at the 2004 Cinemanila International Film Festival, and his documentary The Island at the End of the World (2005) won best documentary at the .mov International Digital Film Festival 2005. His first feature film A Short Film about the Indio Nacional (Or The Prolonged Sorrow of the Filipinos) (2005) won the Lino Micciche Award at the Pesaro Film Festival, Italy in 2006. He is the first Filipino filmmaker to be accepted into the prestigious Cannes Festival Cinefondation Residence in Paris, France.

Idaho filmmaker and Evening Class intern Alex Hansen—who has an admitted interest in all things avant-garde and experimental—conversed with Martin regarding Boxing in the Philippine Islands and enquired after Martin's craft and practice within the contemporary Filipino film community. The Evening Class extends its thanks to Alex for his welcome contribution.

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Alex Hansen: Tell me about Boxing in the Philippine Islands?

Raya Martin: It was a commissioned work for a public park exhibit in Manila. At the time, I was obsessed with drugs after researching for my last feature Buenas noches, España (2011) but it was impossible to do something around that. So I thought about making something around sports or fitness, and it happened that a Manny Pacquiao fight coincided with the exhibition. I went to look for current boxing underdogs in the province and shot them with a pinhole that I made with a digital camera during their training. When I came to editing, we found footage of Pacquiao rehearsing and played with it using an analog camera. The analog dirt looked energetic enough to box our pinhole footages, so I thought, why not put them together? The work became a visual arena.

Hansen: Your shorts seem to lean more towards the experimental side, at least on the surface level—they "look like experimental films"—while your features seem to work these experimental tendencies into a more conventional appearance. Does your approach differ whether you're working on a short or a feature? Did your approach to Buenas noches, España, which "looks" like the shorts, differ from the previous features?

Martin: I'm a frustrated experimental filmmaker, but also because of my cultural background I have a love-hate relationship with the narrative. My "proper" cinema schooling was simultaneous art house and avant-garde works: discovering Tarkovsky and Brakhage at the same time while I was in film school. It just meshed into this consciousness in me and that's how I started seeing things around me. That's probably why I jump here and there: documentary, fiction, experimental elements... Buenas noches, España and Boxing in the Philippine Islands were made around the same time and that's probably the only reason why they feel related to each other; but, for me they're different. All of my works are different from each other, or at least they try to be.

Hansen: What prompted your interest in using history as creative fuel?

Martin: The blatant historical references come from my personal background. My parents, especially my father, were activists during the dictatorship era. He also happened to be a huge historical buff, mostly local, regional stories, which explains our modest library of Filipiniana books at home. Those were my childhood books, playmates, while most of my friends who I grew up with had other "timely" things to read or play with. I'm trying to grow out of it though.

Hansen: What is it about the filmmaking scene in the Philippines that has allowed it to become a breeding ground for such a surge of interesting and exciting work?

Martin: The Philippines is really a strange, beautiful country. It's neither Asian nor American, but we're also both in a lot of sense. Our lives are bound by American rules: we speak your language really well, and we dream of Hollywood all the time. But also we're a poor country, and we have to make do with what we have. So it becomes this bastard scene of your film industry. It's wretchedly beautiful. I don't think there's much difference with how we work as filmmakers here than in the U.S. I don't believe in national cinema. It's just become this monster, this ghost that exploded the past couple of years, but it's not there. It's also like sex tourism, they all come here and it's one big playground because we all look the same in bed, and we're like, hey this works, let's build this. But I don't feel we're critical with how we work here. Most of the filmmakers do independent works as name cards for studios. Sometimes it works, but most of the time they're just imitations. But maybe delicious imitations nonetheless.

Hansen: A commonality that all the work coming out of the Philippines seems to share is looking to the surroundings / environment, history, and local culture for subject matter and inspiration versus the "dream factory" Hollywood mindset that a lot of American independent filmmakers try to emulate. Do you think the lack of familiarity with these sources lessens the impact for foreign viewers? For instance, I wouldn't know Manny Pacquiao is a congressman if it hadn't been for a commercial I'd seen (and since I can't remember what was being advertised, it apparently wasn't a very successful one).

Martin: The beauty of working in the Philippines is that the creative minefield is really bottomless—we live on so many layers—but, at the same time we're never apologetic about our parochialism. We love our own little bubble, and it's up to all of you to take all those references and do your homework. We probably stole that arrogance from the colonialist mindset. It's some form of resistance, a backwards version, but a resistance nonetheless.

Hansen: What was the first piece of work you created that felt like you had successfully expressed something? In my work I tend to intuitively piece a film together as I go. As a result, while they've had certain qualities, I've never felt my early films have been completely successful (until my latest piece, which still feels like dumb luck more than artistic intent). Does the end result matter as much to you as the journey it takes to get there?

Martin: When I did my first short film in high school, which seems to be missing now, I knew that this is what I wanted to do. I come from a family of writers, and when I did try it out it became this huge frustration. I needed my brother to double-check for me all the time, so then I couldn't operate on my own if he wasn't available. But working on images feels more natural to me, that's why I love it. I could be alone, but at the same time I'm very good working with people. Soul mates. I take the end product seriously. For me, it's like dressing up in public when you go out of the house. You want to be comfortable. You want to be respectable. But at the end of the day it's who you really are, how you've raised it. Shooting a film is probably the best feeling in the world. We can shoot for two days straight and still won't be unfazed. It's a really magical feeling.

Hansen: How do you feel about your work being shared on the internet? As a viewer, it's been a blessing for me. Living in Idaho, I wouldn't have any other opportunities to see your work. How much does it help or hurt your opportunities as a filmmaker? I can't imagine there are a lot of companies clamoring to release your work on DVD here in the U.S. (though if they did, I'd be the first in line).

Martin: I love the internet. I love piracy. That's how we got our early education of films because we couldn't just buy from Amazon every time. This was when the internet was just starting to boom, and then eventually we'd share each other's downloaded stuff. The whole idea of capitalism labeling piracy or the internet being a threat to creativity is bullshit. The artists don't get paid, sure, but they always haven't been paid or treated well before these things exploded. I don't have DVD distribution of any of my films. They're all just there floating. In the beginning I concentrated on just making them. There was too much coming out of me at the time that—whenever my producer wanted to sit down and talk about proper distribution—I would always delay it. I can breathe better now so hopefully we can do something about that.

Hansen: Perhaps a better way to have phrased my earlier question about the distinction between filming shorts or features would be to say that your shorts—Track Projections (2007), Ars colonia (2011), and Boxing) play more with the medium and the material aspects of cinema while your features play more with conventions (running time, shot duration, etc.). Buenas noches, España is more a mixture of the two different modes. Not sure there's a question there, but anyway.

Martin: I don't think I'm conscious about those things. I love my mash-ups. It's an elementary level of dialectics but I'm a kid like that and there's something pure about it. I could listen to Nine Inch Nails while watching Buster Keaton. I have to add that I'm also a frustrated structuralist.

Hansen: You mentioned earlier that—because of your cultural background—you have a love-hate relationship with narrative. Does your inclusion of radio drama, television, and old films (as elements in Now Showing (2008), for example) relate to this? Perhaps the frustrated experimental filmmaker in you subverts this material in order to reject how it fixes characterization and temporality into the narrative?

Martin: Our idea of time is much different than what is propagated here. Despite our stance, we are islanders. Our sense of time is dictated by nature. There's a lot of waiting. We are very patient people. I like finding odd things in different media, though. I grew up listening to radio dramas, and then moved on to a lot of television shows where they show all these classic local films. But my generation has encountered them in odd ways: dramas are interrupted intermittently by advertisements, as opposed to watching them on the big screen, or on stage. The more you fight this reality, the more it won't make sense. So I try to embrace this.

Hansen: Your description of the filmmaking scene in the Philippines—doing the work to get noticed by the studios; being enamored with Hollywood—sounds comparable to filmmaking in the States. I imagine the main difference might be that American independent filmmakers often resist making do with limited resources, waiting instead until they have enough money to shoot with this latest and greatest camera or that high-end piece of equipment. Everything has to be done "right" or why bother? "If it's not done right, I won't get to direct the next Batman." What do you feel are the benefits of simply getting out what needs to get out versus sitting on ideas until they can be executed perfectly?

Martin: It’s survivalism. There are just more institutions willing to support your laziness than there are over here. If we had the luxury of that process—which I actually learned during my stay in Paris and tried to apply in a project like Independencia (2009)—then I'm sure we'd be more alike as filmmakers. Unfortunately, the government is not as supportive in funding cultural works, and the idea of arts and culture for private funding is just more backwards than it is there. Our arts education isn't non-existent, but it's a few decades behind. I've encountered artists from the province who come to Manila and discovered that it's possible to do something beyond painting landscapes or sculpting politicians. Nudes are still considered progressive. Just imagine if we try to pitch this thing called "cinema."

Hansen: I'm one who enjoys putting in the extra effort after watching something to better understand it, but some audiences don't like to do their homework. Are you ever conscious of how a viewer (no matter where they're from) will respond to a film while you're making it? Does that influence you in any way? Does it matter to you how big of an audience your work gets? If two people "get" and enjoy your films, does that offset the thousands who might be baffled by what they've seen or disregard it shortly afterwards?

Martin: If I did succumb to the idea of an audience present from the beginning, I wouldn't be able to come up with these works at all. It was probably luck, anyway, being stubborn about this process of creation. One of my favorite stories comes from Kidlat Tahimik, who happened to be my mentor in college, and is a good friend of Werner Herzog. During their younger days, Kidlat rode with Herzog to some far-flung town for a screening and asked why they had to go all the way just for a screening, unsure if people would even watch there. Herzog said that one has to go to his audience and cultivate it. Only businessmen count their present paying audience. We never learn from Van Gogh.

Of related interest: Raya Martin's Tumblr page.

CINEMA GUILD: NE CHANGE RIEN (2009)—DVD Review by Alex Hansen

Pedro Costa's Ne Change Rien (2009) is a glimpse into the abyss that is process: long hours spent pouring endless energy and concentration into minute details that the majority won't even notice, perfecting an expression, giving it a power to punch the viewer / listener in the stomach, wielding only a silence, a gesture, a cut, a word, an unexpected note.

Jeanne Balibar is presented as the creative driving force behind the music—it's her name on the album just as the films are "by" Costa—but both receive aid and inspiration from their peripheral collaborators. Balibar's music is co-written. She is guided by the musicians who play with her, patiently persisting, playing and replaying until she can find the tempo and get her phrasing right. Costa's films, likewise, are created with the input of those who appear in them. They bring to life onscreen versions of their own life stories, leading Costa and his films to their eventual expression. Both draw inspiration from material that's come before, which they use as a foundation to build on, whether it be a "Superfly" sample or a Jacques Tourneur plot. Even Costa's shooting methods mirror the musical process. Just because a scene's been committed to tape doesn't mean he won't revisit the material and shoot it again weeks later, allowing the atmosphere and "vibe" of the room and/or the day to imbue the performance.

Costa shed the baggage of celluloid after making Ossos (1997), feeling it constrained and imposed on his process too much. One can imagine him reacting similarly to Balibar as she rehearses La Perichole. She isn't in control of her process. She's stopped every other syllable to make adjustments. Her frustration visibly builds as she's forced to bend to another's will and the demands of the medium, much as Costa himself once had to bend to the needs of film (lights, crew, etc.).

Costa's latest work—this and the 2010 short O Nosso Homem, another variation on the footage used in Tarrafal (2007) and The Rabbit Hunters (2007) and included on the Masters of Cinema's must-have Colossal Youth (2006) set—looks towards the past, without a hint of the future. Compare that to a filmmaker with whom he is often compared: Lisandro Alonso, whose Untitled (Letter to Serra, 2011) similarly deals with the filmmaker's past work but dangles a few tantalizing possibilities about what is to come. Will there be another shift in his process? Where does Costa go from here? Where is there to go after In Vanda's Room (2000) and Colossal Youth? Perhaps the answer, or maybe just a hint, can be found in O Nosso Homem, which proves the malleability of images. Just because something's been done or seen before doesn't mean it's potential has been exhausted.

It comes as no surprise that The Cinema Guild's DVD release of Ne Change Rien is top shelf. Image and sound are stellar and the extras are plentiful with a few deleted scenes and a sampling of Balibar's "Tronomettes" (musical sketches featuring accompaniment by a metronome). Cinema Guild continues their habit of including short films when possible (and bless them for it), as their Manoel de Oliveira and Agnes Varda discs, and the inclusion of an early Bela Tarr short on their upcoming Turin Horse release attest. The real gem is Costa's short film The End of a Love Affair, a modest piece whose pleasures are derived from the simple act of viewing, much like how the subject of Costa's short watches the street from the window. The curtains billow in from the edge of the frame. Light dances on the bed sheet and across the chest of the man. The title song joins in after a spell; but, we learn nothing about the man. In the parlance of Billy Brown, we "span time" with him. And in many ways, that's all we should ask of the moving image.