Hey folks, Harry here and this is the latest report from the official AICN intrepid reporter on the spot and the scene in Toronto... He's hearing rumors about ALMOST FAMOUS and the Audience award.... I wonder if CROUCHING TIGER is eligible... because the response I've heard is extraordinary... Hmmmmm, we'll all find out soon enough... Here's Anton....
Day Eight
It rained today. Fitting, as the fest’s vitality was slipping away before my very eyes. Most of the coolest films have already played, with only the Nihilist Spasm Band and some Midnight stuff to really look forward to.
Joe Coleman wasn’t around for my interview this morning with Asia- something about meeting a shrunken head collector. I just wish my own head had been more together- Asia was on, but I wasn’t (wait ‘til you guys read her ‘rock star’ line!) If she worked at it she could probably become Italy’s answer to the Prophet Bill Hicks- her tolerance for bullshit is that low.
Hot rumor sweeping the fest is that Almost Famous has the Audience Award wrapped up. Apparently Dreamworks was contacted about bringing some of the key celebs back into town for the weekend. Two years in a row for the SKG crew- not bad, not bad at all.
I also got little scoops on Dario’s newest (a new giallo, after Phantom of the Opera’s, um, disappointing reception) and the latest Hal Hartley project, currently being shot in Iceland with (get this cast) Sarah Polley, Helen Mirren and Julie Christie. It’s called Monster and sounds like… well, it sounds like a Hal Hartley film.
Oh yeah, and in my interview with Rose Byrne, she may just have talked a little wee bit about a certain Lucasfilm due to be released summer 2002 that she was in. Ask me nicely and I MIGHT transcribe that one before some of the others.
Only time to throw down a couple of reviews before the Spasm Band gig tonight (appropriately enough, at an upscale
What About Me: The Rise of the Nihilist Spasm Band (not made in 2000, not directed by Zev Asher)
If you’ve never heard of the Nihilist Spasm Band, you’re a great big loser. No, hang on, that’s not the best way to start. Let’s try this: at big lI f yord of thst pasm Ban d, yoSu’re a greoser. u’ve ne ver heae Nihili
Yeah, that’s a little better.
The Nihilist Spasm Band, as they themselves say, are the fathers of noise and the uncles of punk. Formed in 1965 in London, Ontario (the Canadian equivalent of Toledo, maybe) they’ve played pretty much every Monday night for 35 years. I can’t say they’ve played music, because what they do isn’t music- it’s chaos, in a pure, beautiful, audio form. Originally seven guys, now not, they wail and pound away on homemade instruments and generally try to piss people off. This is, after all, a band that rates success inversely proportional to the number of people left in the audience at evening’s end. It hasn’t work, though- like everything North American that defies easy explanation they’ve developed a rabid cult following in Japan, and their little pockets of fans include Thurston Moore from Sonic Youth. And, scarily enough, their influence is growing, as more of their records become available again and new generations can have their music taste irrevocably sabotaged.
Zev Asher’s film about the Band forms the perfect companion piece to the band itself- raucous and disorienting, not only do you not get to hear any Spasm Band song in its entirety, the film ends with two of the members good naturedly telling Zev and his camera (and thus, eventually, the audience) to fuck off ASAP. Outstanding work.
If only this film had been made sooner, and shown to Britney and the N’Sync boys on their 12th birthdays
Adanggaman (2000, directed by Roger Gnoan M’bala)
Over the last few years of the fest I’ve pushed the Planet Africa program to the back burner in my thinking, or at least the African portion of it (non-African Planet Africa films like, say, Third World Cop usually grab my attention.) It’s not that the stories they were telling weren’t interesting, it’s that I felt they, for the most part, lacked the technical know-how and cinematic history to tell them effectively. In other words, their film industries were simply too new to make anything that could be looked at as more than a historical curiosity.
I think I’m going to have to reconsider that approach.
Adanggaman tells a story we’ve heard very little about on this side of the ocean- how those slaves got on the white man’s boats in the first place. Set in the 16th century and based on historical fact and characters it follows Ossei, a young rebel who refuses to marry the bride chosen for him by his father and the village elders, instead professing his love for a slave girl. He runs away, only to return when he hears the sounds of battle. He arrives too late. The village has been gutted, his father and love slain, and mother taken away, along with the other survivors, by the fearsome amazon warriors of Adanggaman, who will sell them into slavery to the Europeans. Ossei sets out in pursuit, determined to save his only living family from a life in chains.
The power of this film comes in the contrast between the storytelling and the technique. The story is presented as a myth of sorts- supporting characters aren’t even named unless they have direct relevance to the story, and the dialogue (the subtitles, anyway- the film is from the Ivory Coast) has a poetic simplicity that drives the emotions home. On the other hand, the film looks great due to more than just the fabulous landscape, and in direct contrast with the dialogue the horrors of slavery are fairly graphically depicted, from branding to rape. As well, the performances for the most part walk the fine line between portraying realism and larger-than-life fantasy. Adanggaman at least did a better job of showing the African experience of slavery than Amistad, that’s for sure.
I will remember this moment- the day, in my mind at least, African cinema caught up to the rest of the world. Now if only Hollywood would do the same…
