Antonioni's China Documentary Chung Kuo (1972) Rattles Chinese

cemetery

tombstone

mule lugging stone roller

Chung Kuo ("Middle Kingdom"), Cina is a 1972 Italian documentary directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, during Mao's cultural revolution.  The PRC invited him to come.  They disliked it so much that he was charged with being anti-Chinese and counterrevolutionary.

The film is 220 mins in 3 parts, covering Beijing; Suzhou/Nanjing; and Shanghai.  Antonioni is clear from get go that they were not trying to understand the Chinese.  His commentary is very sparse.  Many of the images are unflattering.  Part 1 has an amazing operation on pregnant woman doing a C-Section only using acupuncture anesthesia at a gynecological hospital in Beijing.  On a visit to the Great Wall, he comments that it is the world's largest cemetery, as the slaves died working on it. In general, China favors cremation, although rural cemetaries arae occasionally seen.  Permission is easy to obtain. 

This film was brought to my attention in Susan Sontag's On Photography (1977), pp. 168 - 170.  Antonioni was reproached for  things that were old-fashioned.  He chose a donkey pulling a stone-roller, etc., instead of showing new tractors.

Mauritanian Movie’s Oscar Nomination Is a First

Toulou Kiki and Abderrahmane Sissako

Toulou Kiki and Abel Jafri

Timbuktu is a 2014 French-Mauritanian drama film directed by Abderrahmane Sissako. It was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or in the main competition section at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival.  It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 87th Academy Awards.  The film looks at the brief occupation of Timbuktu, Mali by Ansar Dine. Parts of the film were influenced by a 2012 public stoning of an unmarried couple in Aguelhok.  It was shot in Oualata, a town in south-east Mauritania.

Wenders' Wrong Move (1975) Turns Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship on it's Head

The Wrong Move is a 1975 German road movie directed by Wim Wenders. This was the second part of Wenders' "Road Movie trilogy" which included Alice in the Cities (1974) and Kings of the Road (1976).  With long carefully composed shots characteristic of Wenders' work, the story follows the wanderings of an aspiring young writer, Wilhelm Meister, as he explores his native country, encounters its people and starts defining his vocation. His thoughts are occasionally presented in voice-over. The work is a rough adaption of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's novel Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, an early example of the Bildungsroman or novel of initiation. 

According to Wenders, although Wrong Move is based on Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, screenwriter Peter Handke did not use any of the book’s dialogue and incorporated a minimal amount of its action, mainly borrowing its concept of a young man "on a journey of self-realization." Wenders also toyed with the idea of whether such a journey would be a mistake, and hence Handke and Wenders made the film as a refutation of Goethe's novel and German Romanticism, in which their character suffers because of his travels.

The film marks the debut of Nastassja Kinski, who Wenders' wife discovered in a disco in Munich.  She appeared topless in Wrong Move and was 12 years old at the time of filming.  Later, she played one of the leading roles in Wenders' film Paris, Texas (1984), as well as appearing in his Faraway, So Close (1993).

Audiard's Dheepan no Match for Rust & Bone

Indian actress Kalieaswari Srinivasan seduces Dheepan

A Sri Lanka Liberation Tamil Tiger Warrier, Dheepan (Antonythasan Jesuthasan) teams up with phoney wife, Yalini (Kalieaswari Srinivasan) and phoney daughter, Illayaal (Claudine Vinasithamby) to acquire dead family's passports and head for France.  In fact, he did arrive in France with fake passport in 1993.  That was after trip to Thailand, where he was jailed with no papers.  And after he flew to Czechoslovakia with fake Malaysian passport but was deported to Bangkok. 

This film is set at conclusion of Civil War (1983 - 2009) between majority Sinhalese and minority Tamils, in which SL Military defeated Tamil Tigers after 26 years.

Dheepan was a firmer Tamil Tiger soldier.  He burns his Tamil Tiger uniform at start of film.  They end up in housing project in Le Pre-Saint Gervais, NE suburb of Paris.  The new home turns out to be new conflict for him.

Abu Nowar'sTheeb Explores 1916 Bedouin Arabia

Stunning location work in southern Jordan has the grandeur of Monument Valley, is the backdrop for story of young Bedouin boy, Theeb ("wolf") who outwits potential enemies.  Film supported by Abu Dhabi's Sanad fund and Doha Film Institute.  Recently orphaned brothers Hussein (Hussein Salameh) and Theeb (Jacir Eid) meet up with British soldier and escort, asking to be guided to Ottoman train tracks so as to destroy them. The two men are ambushed and killed.  Soon Hussein dies as well.  The young boy Theeb witnesses his beloved broother's death.

Kelly Reichardt's Murder Mystery Wihout the Murder

Kelly Reichardt's first feature film (1994) "River of Grass" is a love story without the love, a murder mystery without the murder, and a road movie that never gets on the road.  Cozy (Lisa Bowman) spends whole film thinking she killed innocent bystander while pool hopping, only to learn later that she did not, much to her chagrin.  Which she resolves in final scene.