SFIAAFF 2012—Michael Hawley Previews the Lineup

The San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival (SFIAAFF) turns 30 this year, thereby joining Frameline, Mill Valley and SF Jewish in that pantheon of Bay Area film festivals whose essentiality has earned them a fourth decade. My own earliest SFIAAFF recollection is of watching A Scene at the Sea—my first Takeshi Kitano movie—at the Kabuki Theater some 20 years ago. Highlights of 2012's anniversary line-up include an in-person tribute to Joan Chen, a pair of world premieres from the talents behind Colma: The Musical, and Patrick Wang's In the Family, one of the most acclaimed American indies from last year.

Of all this year's programs, however, I'm most anticipating Scenes from a Memoir with Cherylene Lee. This celebrated playwright has been my neighbor for 10 years. What I didn't know until just recently is that she's also that Cherylene Lee, the Chinese-American child star who danced with Gene Kelly, headlined Vegas with her older sister and had numerous roles in movies (Flower Drum Song, Donovan's Reef) and TV (Bachelor Father, Ben Casey, McHale's Navy, My Three Sons, Dennis the Menace, M*A*S*H.) On Sunday, March 11 at Berkeley's Pacific Film Archive, Lee will stage a reading from her upcoming memoir, Just Like Really, augmented with photos and film clips, followed by a conversation between Lee, her sister Virginia and film historian Stephen Gong. The accompanying photo is of Cherylene Lee and actress Ruth Roman, from a 1967 episode of The F.B.I.

Back in 2008, SFIAAFF programmed Brilliante Mendoza's Slingshot and Foster Child (my reviews are here). These two films almost single-handedly reignited my interest in Filipino cinema, which had been dormant since the days of melodrama maestro Lino Brocka (himself the subject of a posthumous 2010 SFIAAFF retrospective). Ensuing exposure to directors like Raya Martin, Adolfo Alix Jr. and Lav Diaz furthered my enthusiasm for this national cinema. I was therefore very pleased to open up this year's festival catalogue and discover five new Filipino features in the line-up. I've had the chance to preview all but the Closing Night film, Prison Dancer, an "interactive web musical" which riffs on the viral 2009 YouTube phenomenon, Dancing Inmates of Cebu.

My favorite of the four films I did watch is Marlon N. Rivera's The Woman in the Septic Tank, a smart n' snarky comedy in which a young filmmaker cynically sets out to make a "typical" Filipino art movie, i.e., one specifically targeted to win international festival prizes. His project, With Nothing, tells the grim story of a mother forced to sell her son to an old white pedophile. Chris Martinez' well-constructed, rapid-fire screenplay follows the production team as they gleefully scout picturesque slum locations, take a meeting with their lead actress (real Filipina star Eugene Domingo, in manic mode) and visualize their film as a musical. It's frequently laugh out loud funny, especially if you're familiar with the films being sent up, like Mendoza's Foster Child and the works of Adolfo Alix Jr. I'm a big fan of the latter director's film Adela (my review is here), which screened at SFIAAFF three years ago—his new film Fable of the Fish, perhaps not so much. Here Cherry Pie Picache (who starred in Foster Child and cameos in Septic Tank) plays a poor dumpsite denizen who gives birth to a fish, but is determined to raise it like a child. This inspires absurdist, dead-end scenarios like Mom taking fishy on pram strolls through an aquarium and Mom attempting to baptize her offspring in the Catholic Church. If this fable had a moral, or even a discernible point to make, it was too subtle to register with me.

As its title suggests, there are real infants aplenty in Eduardo W. Roy Jr.'s Baby Factory, a low-key docu-drama that addresses the acute overpopulation problem of the Philippines. Shot in a beat-up, government-run "labor" hospital that in real life facilitates the birth of almost 100 babies per day, Baby Factory exposes us to the institution's inner-workings and daily dramas of patients and staff. Our fictionalized guide is a harried head nurse (actress Diana Zubiri) with her own issues—she's pregnant by a married man and is being pressured by her greedy family to work abroad. All this transpires over the course of one hectic Christmas Eve, with the action never leaving the crowded confines of the holiday-decorated hospital.

For a jaw-dropping look at another Filipino institution, I highly recommend Give Up Tomorrow. Michael Collins' documentary covers a 13-year legal case in which a young man is sentenced to death for the rape and murder of two sisters, despite photos and 42 witnesses putting him in another city on the day of the crime. Toss in paid prosecution witnesses, a lack of corpses or other hard evidence, a sleeping judge who later commits suicide, corruption leading up to the President's office and a mother channeling her dead daughters' spirits in the courtroom, and you've got just the iceberg's tip of this exasperating steampot of judicial miscarriage. Collins, who is related to the accused and therefore had special access, expertly navigates the case's twists and turns, delivering a cogent and absorbing piece of non-fiction filmmaking. Give Up Tomorrow won the audience award at last year's Tribeca Film Festival and has been deemed a "must see" by no less than Yoko Ono.

It's impossible to think back on last year's SFIAAFF without remembering the devastating news of Japan's earthquake and tsunami, which arrived on Day Two of the festival. A highlight of this year's line-up is The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom, a haunting new documentary from Lucy Walker (Waste Land) which was nominated for, but alas did not win, an Oscar® for Best Documentary Short. Filmed one month after the disaster and featuring an elegiac music score by Moby, Walker's film profiles survivors who find strength and hope in the blossoms' on-time spring arrival. The only other doc I previewed is No Look Pass, an interesting enough gaze at one young woman's transition from college to professional sports. A caveat to non-sports enthusiasts—the film is as much about basketball itself as it is the story of one particular Burmese-American lesbian athlete struggling with family and identity issues. Docs I'm hoping to catch during the festival include The Jake Shimabukuro Documentary (a portrait of the virtuoso ukulele player, featuring a live concert at the Castro Theater), There Once Was an Island (how the residents of a Polynesian atoll are facing climate change and a rising ocean), Love Crimes of Kabul (about an Afghani prison for women convicted of "moral" crimes) and Mrs. Judo: Be Strong, Be Gentle, Be Beautiful (the story of 98-year-old Keiko Fukuda, the world's foremost female Judo practitioner).

H.P. Mendoza (writer-actor-director) and Richard Wong (writer-director-cinematographer) are the multihyphenate talents behind Bay Area crowd-pleasers Colma: The Musical and Fruit Fly, both of which world-premiered to acclaim at SFIAAFF. This year's festival boasts two new works by this prodigious duo. First, Mendoza branches into the supernatural thriller genre as writer-director-cinematographer of I Am a Ghost. This haunted house mystery spins the tale of Emily, a ghost caught in a repetitive (and I do mean repetitive) cycle of events, necessitating a medium's involvement to guide her onward. It's a premise that increases in complexity and ultimately leads to an attention-grabbing climax. Anna Ishida gives an effective performance, although it's distracting that her lines, as both written and delivered, fail to match the Victorian era suggested by the film's art direction and costuming. Mendoza also penned the screenplay for Yes, We're Open, a sophisticated sex comedy of sorts which is the festival's Centerpiece Film. Richard Wong shot and directed this tale of an urban couple toying with the idea of an open relationship—with a second couple anxiously hoping to lead them astray. Yes, We're Open benefits from some knowing dialogue, an attractive cast and pleasurably recognizable San Francisco locations like Green Apple Books and the Roxie Theater.

This year's CinemAsia section (formerly known as the International Showcase) continues a recent SFIAAFF trend to de-emphasize the works of acknowledged Asian auteurs in favor of emerging filmmakers. For example, Hong Sang-soo, Kim Ki-duk, Lav Diaz, Pen-ek Ratanaruang, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Lou Ye, Shoji Aoyama, Jia Zheng-ke and Johnnie To all released new films in the past 12 months, but you won't find any of them in this festival. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I know many Bay Area cinephiles are feeling nostalgic for the days when such directors were an important part of SFIAAFF. Remember the knock-out retrospectives given Hong Sang-soo and Kiyoshi Kurosawa in 2007 and 2009 respectively? It's also notable there are no films from Iran this year, nor is there a Bollywood at the Castro screening (and as long as I'm lamenting, what's happened to the popular Out of the Vaults program?).

The most renowned director who is in CinemAsia's 2012 roster is prolific screwball Takashi Miike, whose Ninja Kids will undoubtedly prove to be great fun. Rithy Panh (S21: Khmer Rouge Killing Machine) is another name many will recognize. His latest is The Catch, an engaging low-budget, Vietnam War-era drama about an African-American pilot who is captured by Cambodian villagers recently brought under the ideological sway of the Khmer Rouge. I've also had a look at Ryang-Kang-Do: Merry Christmas, North! This slick, South Korean dramedy is a shamelessly saccharine yarn about a talking toy robot and some too-cute North Korean urchins. The world is certainly begging for humanizing images of North Koreans, but this goes beyond the pale. I was shocked to learn it was written and directed by a former North Korean political prisoner. Of the remaining CinemAsia selections, I'm most intrigued by 11 Flowers from prominent Chinese director Wang Xiaoshuai (Beijing Bicycle), South Korean war film The Front Line, which was that country's 2011 Oscar® submission and Night Market Hero, Taiwan's 2011 box office champ.

The festival kicks off on Thursday, March 8 with the world premiere of Quentin Lee's White Frog, followed by what's sure to be a typically fabulous Opening Night Gala at the SF Asian Art Museum. This will be one star-filled evening, given the famous cast Lee has assembled for his film: up and comers Booboo Stewart (The Twilight Saga) and Harry Shum Jr. (Glee), plus veterans B.D. Wong and Joan Chen. As I mentioned at the start, Chen will be given her own SFIAAFF Spotlight tribute this year, with two screenings that will highlight her accomplishments as both an actress (Saving Face) and director (Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl). (Chen will live forevermore in my own heart as Jocelyn Packard from David Lynch's TV series Twin Peaks). In this preview I've only touched upon half of what the festival has in store, so for the big picture be sure and check out the rest of SFIAAFF30's Doc Competition, Narrative Competition, CinemAsia, Special Presentations and six programs of Shorts. There's also New Directions, a catch-all for the festival's many non-filmgoing events that include a number of salons and panels, the Directions in Sound DJ party and extremely popular outdoor celebration Festival Forum, which takes place in Japantown's Peace Plaza.

Cross-published on film-415.

SFIAAFF28 2010—Michael Hawley Previews 10 Narrative Features

The 28th San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival (SFIAAFF) kicks off tomorrow night, March 11 and continues throughout the Bay Area until March 21. I've already posted an overview of the line-up and capsule write-ups of some documentary features. Below are capsule write-ups of 10 narrative features you'll find in the festival, more or less in order of most favorite to least. All were seen on DVD screener, except where noted.

About Elly (Iran dir. Asghar Farhadi)—Director Farhadi deservedly won Best Director prize at 2009's Berlin Film Festival for this complex psychological thriller about a group of young, upper-middle class Tehranis on holiday at the Caspian Sea. After a harrowing, near-tragic event, Elly, a teacher and interloper in the group who's been set up for some uninvited matchmaking, goes and disappears. The film becomes not so much "about" Elly, but about the deceptive, flawed personages who are left to deal with the aftermath of her disappearance. This was Iran's 2009 Oscar submission, and it's a glimpse into an Iranian social milieu we rarely see, at least in films which get exported. My favorite Iranian film since 2005's Iron Island. (Seen at the 2010 Palm Springs International Film Festival.)

City of Life and Death (China dir. Lu Chuan)—Lu spent five years making this stunning masterpiece about the brutal 1937 siege of Nanking by Japanese occupation forces. Brilliantly walking the line between massive widescreen epic (cast of thousands, impressive sets, sweeping score) and intimate art film (B&W, hand-held camera), the film is constructed as a series of tangentially connected set pieces. A group of resistance fighters battle the enemy while perched atop bombed-out buildings. P.O.W.s are marched along atrocity-strewn roads en route to mass execution. In the film's central story, a Chinese collaborator, a German businessman (real-life figure John Rabe) and a young schoolteacher struggle with increasing desperation to maintain the integrity of the city's International Safety Zone, with its 300,000 refugees. Perhaps most surprising is the film's broadminded portrait of a conflicted Japanese sergeant and his relationship with a comfort woman. This month's scheduled U.S. theatrical release of City of Life and Death has been indefinitely postponed while distributor National Geographic Entertainment "negotiates" with the Chinese Film Board. Best to see it at SFIAAFF—this is one film that demands a big-screen experience. And be sure to check out the schedule changes which affect the film.

The Housemaid (South Korea dir. Kim Ki-young)—For 2010's Out of the Vaults selection, SFIAAFF has chosen this disturbing 1960 doozy which has been restored by Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Foundation and the Korean Film Archive. Rat poison, abortion, blackmail, suicide, marital infidelity, murder and a caged squirrel all figure into this transgressive, anti-consumerist cautionary tale of a music teacher and the treacherous live-in maid who shoehorns her way into his home. From the dripping opening titles, to the nerve-racking score and sound design, to Kim's determined, constantly roaming camera, The Housemaid is an unsettling experience that should be enormous fun to watch with a crowd at the Castro Theater. (Seen on streaming video at The Auteurs.)

Seven Intellectuals in a Bamboo Forest, Part 4 & Part 5 (China dir. Yang Fudong)—Anyone who's curious what contemporary avant-garde Chinese cinema might look like won't want to miss this. And while I normally have a low threshold for ponderous artiness, I found myself engaged throughout. SFIAAFF will be screening two of the piece's five parts with separate admissions. While they're mostly self-contained, there are overlapping motifs and stylistic similarities—both were shot in B&W with zero dialogue and feature studied compositions, slow and purposeful camera movements, and full frontal nudity. Part 4 is set amidst a seaside community of kelp harvesters and dried cuttlefish cultivators. Part 5 takes place in a modern day Shanghai seemingly overshadowed by nostalgia for the city's opulent past of cafes, bathhouses and rooftop baseball (?!?). A coterie of business-dressed men and women, presumably the titular seven intellectuals, lug suitcases across both sea and city landscapes. Of the two parts, I'd probably recommend the more varied and playful Part 5.

The Forbidden Door (Indonesia dir. Joko Anwar)—Gambir is a successful sculptor of pregnant women who lives a chic lifestyle. He also suffers from erectile dysfunction and has a beautiful wife with her own Forbidden Door in their home. He becomes obsessed with a Lynchian private club where patrons watch unspeakable things being done to people on live TV, including an abused boy who keeps sending him messages for help. These are the key elements of this ultra-stylized metaphysical thriller from Indonesia, which reaches its apotheosis with a Christmas dinner scene worthy of Grand Guignol. Fortunately there's sufficient substance to warrant all that style, at least until the film's rather creaky denouement.

Talentime (Malaysia dir. Yasmin Ahmad)—In her final film (the talented filmmaker passed away last year at age 51), Yasmin Ahmad explores themes that are recurrent in all her works, namely love and loss and the need for tolerance in a multi-cultural/racial/religious society like Malaysia. The story focuses on three students who are finalists in a high school talent competition, each possessing their own set of familial tribulations. The film has a bittersweet, corny charm to it, but is hampered by some overly broad supporting characters, mawkish songs, abrupt editing and an overabundance of Debussy's "Clair de lune."

Like You Know It All (South Korea dir. Hong Sang-soo)—With Hong you either admire his persistence of vision or become really irritated/bored over how he essentially makes the same film over and over again. I'm pretty much in the second camp, but am still interested enough in how he reworks his themes to jump ship just yet. His latest contains all the signature Hong moves—an immature protagonist who's approaching middle-age and has a career in the arts, a bifurcated story structure, a trip away from home and lots of public drinking that leads to fighting or fucking or both. Hong's avatar this time out is an art-film director. In the first half he juries an out-of-town festival (falling asleep during films) and reconnects with an old friend. (I believe this section contains Hong's first dream sequence!) The second half finds him guest-lecturing at an out-of-town university and reconnecting with an old mentor. In both cases he leaves behind a wake of petty resentments and pissed-off people. Many Hong fans are considering this film one of his best.

Dear Lemon Lima, (USA dir. Suzi Yoonessi)—This debut feature about a half Yup'ik Eskimo girl coming to terms with her heritage plays like a sweet and snarky after-school special. Thirteen-year-old Vanessa is the token minority student at a well-to-do school in Fairbanks, Alaska. She's appointed a team captain for the school's annual Snowstorm Survivor Competition, and enlists fellow nerds to do battle against her self-obsessed ex-boyfriend. Some fine performances, worthy intentions and snazzy visuals are nearly enough to overshadow the film's mega-cuteness and strained quirkiness. A shocking tragedy just before the final act nearly capsizes the whole enterprise.

Prince of Tears (Taiwan/Hong Kong dir. Yonfan)—This overwrought, yet stodgy tale of passion and betrayal during the communist witch hunts of 1950s Taiwan was Hong Kong's Oscar submission for 2009. It's based on director Yonfan's memories of growing up in that era, during which time he must have witnessed lots of impossibly gorgeous women and men languorously exhaling cigarette smoke. Come for the history lesson, stay for the truly sumptuous art direction (also by Yonfan). (Seen at the 2010 Palm Springs International Film Festival.)

The People I've Slept With (USA dir. Quentin Lee)—Nothing gives me less pleasure than to slag a festival's Centerpiece Film, but man, this was no fun at all. Putting a broad, Asian-American spin on the sex comedy genre, we watch as a self-avowed slut (Karin Anna Cheung) discovers she's pregnant and sets off on a laborious mission to find the father with the help of her gay best friend. One candidate turns out to be Mr. Right (Archie Kao), and she (cluelessly? maliciously?) withholds the fact of his dubious paternity until seconds before they say their wedding vows. Ha ha ha. On the plus side, Cheung and Kao have an amazing chemistry in their scenes together, which might have worked wonders in a different movie. And I did crack up at a line where Cheung bemoans finding yet another white pubic hair.

Cross-published on film-415 and Twitch.