Take One CFF2013 #1

CAMBRIDGE-FILM-FESTIVAL-REVIEW

you must be hawking In this issue of TAKE ONE you’ll find an interview with Maurice Caldera, the director of the brightly absurdist short OUR NAME IS MICHAEL MORGAN, and a feature on the cult animator DON HERTZFELDT from our animation expert Jon Toomey.

You can also read reviews of the Estonian film MUSHROOMING; Woody Allen’s Blanchett vehicle BLUE JASMINE; and UPSTREAM COLOR, which already has the Shane Carruth fans flocking.

TAKE ONE recommends another documentary, UNMADE IN CHINA, also screening on Friday.

Join the indomitable filmmaker Gil Kofman on his journey to Xiamen, where he plans to adapt his horror screenplay for a Chinese audience. It’s a funny and enlightening insight into both the filmmaking process and Eastern culture. You can read our interview with Kofman and his co-director Tanner Barklow at takeonecff.com. Fans of extreme sports will have plenty of opportunity to catch THE CRASH REEL, which screens on three days in a row. If you’d like to meet the director, come to the Picturehouse on Friday - and there is a showing in Sawston on Saturday along with DEAD CAT, a sweet British comedy which the Take One editors enjoyed.

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Visit www.takeonecff.com to comment on our reviews, interviews and features; stay in touch all year round via fb.com/TakeOneCFF and @ TakeOneCFF; send fanmail to contact@takeonecff.com.

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uk première INTERVIEW WITH MAURICE CALDERA, DIRECTOR OF

OUR NAME IS MICHAEL MORGAN Imagine an episode of Reginald Perrin scripted by Eugène Ionesco and you might conjure the spirit of OUR NAME IS MICHAEL MORGAN, part of a shorts programme tinged with absurd fantasy.

Dominic Marsh and Gerard Cooke lead as a pair of door-to-door salesmen who find themselves battling an identity crisis, and fighting over lonely housewives en route.

Clever, philosophical, funny and original, MM is one of many strong submissions among this year’s featured shorts at the Festival. We spoke to the intriguing new director Maurice Caldera.

“You don’t look anything like me.”

“YOU don’t look anything like ME.”

T1: MM’s dialogue is very nuanced and needs strong performances to carry it.

What is your directing style?

MC: I like to have as much time as possible

to rehearse with the actors. Although the film was quite tightly scripted, it was important for me that the actors questioned the script as much as possible and explored the world that we were trying to create. This is especially true because the world of MM is quite heightened and the balance between the naturalism of the performances and the surreal nature of the world that they inhabit is vital if the film is ever to succeed.

Dialogue is often a tricky thing, it can work against the actors because it is not always natural to them, but in this case the dialogue provided a rhythm and a key for the actors to enter into. It was a hugely satisfying experience for me as a director to watch these performances unfold.

T1: Have you worked with Dominic Marsh before?

MC: No, this was my first time, but I hope, not my last. He understood the role and the [cont’d on page 6]

Buy a ticket for LIFE DISTORTED or any other shorts programme and gain free entry to #t1recommends JUST BEFORE LOSING EVERYTHING, a powerful standalone short.

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REVIEW

mushrooming

eastern view When the ‘cinematograph’ was first introduced into Estonia at the beginning of the last century, it was seen as a corrupting influence: a cultural entity on par with gambling, race tracks, and circuses.

People were warned not to let their children go to the cinematograph, a form of entertainment that ‘poisons, tickles, excites and corrupts’.

With the country’s subsequent absorption into the Soviet Empire, the suspicion grew wilder as cinema was used as propaganda bludgeon under Moscow’s control.

These days, Estonia seems to have resolved its troubled relationship with cinema. Estonia has a rich, intensely creative history and the country’s cinematic output, especially in recent years, has included some of the most interesting films being made in Europe today.

Films such as THE TEMPTATION OF ST

TONY, AUTUMN BALL and THE IDIOT offered up existentialism, beauty and bleakness, interwoven with the distinctive humour and style of the Baltic region.

MUSHROOMING (SEENELKÄIK) is an out and out comedy from Toomas Hussar, his directorial debut. Hussar, who previously worked with lead actor Raivo E. Tamm in absurdist theatre productions, ‘cannot imagine life seriously’ and MUSHROOMING’s simple premise creates its comedy naturally. Aadu, a proud and pompous politician, escapes from his recent party-sanctioned humiliation on a degenerate game show, by going mushroom picking with his wife. Chance throws them together with rock star Zäk, another brilliant performance

by Juhan Ulfsak, whose turn as the hysterical Ippolit in THE IDIOT threatened to steal the film. These disparate elements mingle in a satire on the conflict between social decency and people’s true and hidden natures. Hussar himself said in a recent interview, ‘If you want to get to know more about people, study animal behaviour.’ [cont’d on page 4]

“If you want to get to know more about people, study animal behaviour.”

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FEATURE

don hertzfeldt

The animation of Don Hertzfeldt was created outside the walls of the animation mainstream. Gone are Pixar’s utopian princesses and Cigraph’s cutting edge algorithms that simulate photo realistic fur. Hertzfeldt’s stories and animation style are simultaneously esoteric and full of mass appeal. His films scrutinise the mainstream animation industry while highlighting the banality of modern existence using well-judged humour, a finely tuned animation skill set and a great sense of poetry.

Hertzfeldt is winning a war old as art itself: artistic integrity versus commercial success. And as animation is a massively expensive and time-consuming art form, it’s no surprise that few other independent animators have been able to achieve this.

There is a punk authenticity in Hertzfeldt’s assertive minimalism...

Without a firm grip of moving image theory, amateur productions can become meaningless and wasteful. It’s Hertzfeldt’s deep understanding of his medium, and his own pugnacious agenda which enable him to remain successful while taking artistic liberties with his productions. There is a punk authenticity and authority in Hertzfeldt’s assertive minimalism: his characters in REJECTED are reduced to juvenile stick men, supported by only plain white backgrounds and enough bile to corrode any happy memories of a Disneyfied animation industry.

Collectively, Don Hertzfeldt’s films are known as ”Bitter Films”: a title that draws attention to a small group of independent animators who are disgruntled about the commercial animation industry. However, despite all his anti-establishment rhetoric, there is a commercial appeal to Hertzfeldt’s films. His seemingly random and absurd comedy style is reminiscent of the postmodern humour found in mainstream animation such as FAMILY GUY. His animation has a broad mainstream appeal, while demonstrating an ability to siphon truths and emotions that are contextually very acute, and incredibly complicated to represent through moving image.

By deconstructing his own artform and medium of choice, Herzfeldt offers us a seat on his observation deck outside the walls of mainstream animation. In one direction we see the hideous, Orwellian banality of advertised truth; in the other a vast, unfathomable abstraction.

- Jon Toomey

See the special Hertzfeldt programme at Emmanuel College on the 23rd at 18.45 or the 27th at 18.30.

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REVIEW

UPSTREAM COLOR

Shane Carruth writes, directs and co-stars in this follow-up to his intriguing lowbudget maths-fi time travel film, PRIMER (2004). UPSTREAM COLOR opens with the abduction of a woman called Kit (Amy Seimetz), who becomes involved with the life cycle of a grub which has bizarre effects on anyone who comes into contact with it.

A richly detailed, likeably pretentious work...

There follows some squirm-inducing body horror, the marvellously tactile field recording expeditions of a pig farmer, and the bulk of the film itself: which concerns the romance between Kit and another abductee, Jeff (Shane Carruth). The empathic properties of the grub are hinted at in an engrossing beginning where we see its effects taking hold on some teens that use it as an intoxicant. It leads to them mirroring each other’s actions in an uncanny way, and there’s a sense of nostalgic adolescent wonder, of youth and possibility, enhanced by the warmly-lit suburban setting.

The most powerful moments are undoubtedly the ones concerning Kit’s abduction and subsequent incubation of the grub. It has the effect of making her suggestible to the point of being unable to function without someone’s commands. This suggestibility is such that [cont’d from page 2] Circumstance leads to increasingly base behaviour for either political or physical survival. Who displays more humanity? The ‘crazy’who lives alone in the woods yet loves to learn, or those from ‘civilisation’ who know how to deceive to get what they want? MUSHROOMING is one of Estonia’s most successful films of all time, even setting cultural reference points for real life political scandals. Toomas Hussar’s outlook on life is refreshing and very funny. One hopes that this will not be his last film.

- Steve Williams

her perceptions of reality are skewed by her literal responses to her captor’s often baffling commands. Kit is made to complete an abstract series of repetitive, functionally useless tasks in order to receive a deceptively pleasurable reward, in a way that could be read as an othering of Obsessive/Compulsive Disorder, an ‘insight’ into the working world, or just as a comment on the subjective, mutable nature of everyone’s individual reality [...]

- Paul Jon Milne

MUSHROOMING screens at APH on the 20th at 15.30 and the 21st at 13.00.

UPSTREAM COLOR screens on the 24th at 18.00 (Cineworld) and the 25th at 11.30 (APH)

Full review at takeonecff.com.

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uk première Woody Allen’s

BLUE JASMINE

After the collapse of her husband Hal’s real estate business and the disintegration of her life in New York, Jasmine flees to San Francisco to fall on the generosity of her sister, Ginger. Even the best of what Ginger has to offer is a far cry from what Jasmine is accustomed to, and she self-medicates an ongoing nervous breakdown with pills and cocktails while plotting her return to a more acceptable social position.

Blanchett’s Jasmine is both riveting and repellent.

Narcissistic to a fault, what’s astonishing is not that Jasmine’s every instinct is for selfpreservation, but what a limited range of skills she has in that department.

A socialite who left university to marry before graduating, Jasmine lurches through life without wealth, stricken with disbelief at the basic obstacles she must overcome. Flashbacks to better days end with her muttering to herself, still playing out events that brought her to the present, as if by doing so she could change them.

At once vexing, acerbic, and wrenchingly sad, Blanchett’s Jasmine is both riveting and repellent.

She’s almost too tremendous a persona for the film, fitting for a character who believes herself meant for bigger things than the narrative she finds herself occupying. Blanchett is surrounded by an able and nuanced cast, including Sally Hawkins as the long-suffering, sweetly gawky Ginger, Bobby Cannavale as Ginger’s boyfriend Chili, her ex Augie (Andrew Dice Clay) and Alec Baldwin as the bombastic, extravagant Hal. Comparison to Blanche DuBois is apt, but while Jasmine encounters a string of men she finds both distasteful and animalistic (Ginger’s suitors and her suggestions of blind dates), the strongest Stanley equivalent is Jasmine’s own bent for self-destruction. [cont’d overleaf]

Lost in translation... #t1recommends Gil Kofman’s wry culture clash doc UNMADE IN CHINA. See it at APH on Fri 20th at 21.00.

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[cont’d from page 1] tone of the film from the very first meeting. He brought a sympathy and a soft spoken naturalism to the character which is central to the whole film. Gerard Cooke as his nemesis could then play it up slightly and have fun with his role, which is what he did.

T1: Who composed soundtrack?

the

excellent

MC: I get so many compliments about the music and rightly, it is such a strong component of the film. It was composed by a very talented composer called Matt Kelly, who I am working with again on my second film, CAMILLA IN THE LOOKING GLASS.

OUR NAME IS MICHAEL MORGAN screens as part of the LIFE DISTORTED programme of shorts on the 19th at 17.00 and 28th at 23.00.

WHO WAS IN STAR WARS? WHY IS BEN AFFLECK? WHEN DID MEG RYAN DIE?

-FILM QUIZ-

[cont’d from p.5] Strangers, appropriately, aren’t kind to Jasmine; most interactions with the people in her new life are characterized by an agitated discomfort. When wealthy, single Dwight (Peter Saarsgard) chats her up at a party, Jasmine exhales with relief and rallies with a string of glamorous falsehoods to mask her true circumstances. The scene is thrilling, a swift, smooth, calculated re-assembling of the shattered mirror of Jasmine’s self-image.

TAKE ONE and Cambridge 105’s BUMS ON SEATS co-host a wildly popular film quiz on the first Monday of every month. We’re skipping October so please join us in the Picturehouse bar on Nov 4th at 7pm.

... to laugh at her is like laughing at a wounded animal ...

ENTRY

Her reconstruction might seem facile, but Jasmine has always been capable of rejecting and remaking reality; she was originally named Jeannette. “People re-invent themselves,” Jasmine declares. Under the right circumstances, this ability is her strength.

More focused on the painful results of human weakness than its humor, BLUE JASMINE is a departure from Allen’s recent comedic offerings as writer/director. You can’t often laugh with Jasmine, and to laugh at her is like laughing at a wounded animal, yet Allen sparingly deploys comedic moments that glean a genuine humor from desperate and ridiculous circumstances.

£1

Optimistic and inebriated, Jasmine lectures Ginger’s sons on how to behave when they eventually (and inevitably, she implies) become wealthy. Accustomed to it for so long, Jasmine believes in good fortune. That hers might prove out of her reach is permanently beyond her shattered comprehension.

- Ann Linden

BLUE JASMINE screens on Thursday 19 September at 20.00 (Cineworld) and at 22.00 (Picturehouse).

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Cover artwork (c) Paul Jon Milne.

Buy a high quality A4 print for just £12 +P&P http://www.etsy.com/shop/PJMillustration

“Can you buy, Bobby?”

©TAKE ONE 2013 Editor: Rosy Hunt Deputy Editor: Gavin Midgley Web Editor: Jim Ross