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 FILMS:
1.25.05
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2004
Film
Wrap-up |
2004 was a good film year for me. It's not that I
saw massive amount but the percentage of the quality
films were higher this year.
So here are my top picks out of 90-some
films I watched in 2004. These films are so powerful
that I actually don't have much to say about them except "ahhhhh,
so so amazing!!!!! Please, just watch it." Bear with
me...
*Links of the film titles are linked to
Internet Movie Database site and launches another window.
Top of my list are there 2 films:
The
Return
Andrei Zvyagintsev / 2003 / Russia
Ah... what can I say... the scenery, the amazing acting
of the boys, the mystery... loved it all.
Take
Care of My Cat
Jae-eun Jeong / 2001 / Korea
Beyond
the director's keen eye of capturing the subtle human
relationships, I was quite fascinated with the film's
haunting quality.
Other favorites include:
Agent
Shiranui
"Shiranui Kengyo" /
Kazuo Mori /1960 / Japan
The evil twin of Zatoh-Ichi...
B&W
cinematography is just stunning.
Floating
Clouds
"Ukigumo" / Mikio
Naruse / 1955 / Japan
This must be the actor Masayuki
Mori's sexiest screen presence...
All or Nothing
Mike Leigh / 2002 / UK
It reminded me of people I knew and myself.
Lived Once a Song-Thrush
Otar Ioseliani
/ 1970 / USSR
Bitter sweet and sophisticated.
Kiga
Kaikyo
Tomu Uchida / 1965 / Japan
The
B&W
cinematography is stark, dark and powerful.
Solaris
Steven Soderbergh / 2002 / USA
Amazing that the original book and both film versions
by Tarkovsky and Soderbergh are all unique masterpieces.
The look and sound of this version has addictive quality
that makes me wanna come back again and again for late
night viewing.
Café Lumiere
Hsiao-hsien
Hou / 2003 / Japan, Taiwan
It's so subtle and minimal
I missed quite a bit of storyline... nonetheless
it had a slow yet deep impact on me. It captured the
air, smell and light of Tokyo with such tenderness.
Pinjar
Chandra Prakash Dwivedi / 2003 /
India
A rare blend of a solid script and gorgeously choreographed
musical scenes for a Bollywood production.
The
Saddest Music in the World
Guy Maddin
/ 2003 / Canada
What a film should be!! So deliriously
kitsch, imaginative and fun.
Taste
of Others
Agnès Jaoui
/ 2000 / France
Almost painful to watch since it depicts the clueless
state of the main character so well.
The Barbarian Invasions
Denys Arcand /
2003 / Canada
I missed seeing it on big screen,
but I am glad I saw it alone at home... I was a mess
crying my eyes out. |
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MUSIC:
12.31.02 |
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Senhaji: The King of Chaabi
This man on the right is Senhaji, the
King of Moroccan Chaabi (according to a concert
info on the net), one of the most exciting singer
right now...
Chaabi, pronounced "shaabi" and meaning
"popular" in Arabic, is a local pop
music in several Arab countries and style varies
from country to country. Moroccan Chaabi is upbeat
party music, often played at weddings. The lead
singer is accompanied by chorus and an orchestra
with violins, hand drums, electric guitars and
so on.
It's sort of a rougher and crazier cousin of Rai
music to the ear. The rhythm gets faster and faster,
woman does that Arabic shrieking noise (ah, what's
that called?), clapping hand, violins... it all
goes out of control, and goes on and on, way pass
the safety zone, throwing you into the madness
of joy.
So, Senhaji. There is something about his voice,
the way he sings and interacts with the instruments
that makes him the king of Chaabi. He's got this
very significant cracking voice, sometimes trembling
as if he's in tears, while other times giving
a nasty laughs, and it constantly stimulates our
ears.
Wooow! His concert can
be viewed at: Fabchannel.Com!!
(Big thanks to Mohamed in NL)-- While you are
at it, also check out another excellent Chaabi
artist, Mustapha Bourgogne. A couple of his CDs
are available at FNAC.com.
( Language barrier and distance makes it difficult
for me to get any Chaabi info. If you can point
me to good resources, please
let me know. Thanks! )
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FILMS:
12.31.02 |
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Unza Unza Time!
There were 3 films I had a chance to see twice at
a theatre this year. One was "Mulholland Dr." by
David Lynch and another was "Shaolin Soccer" by
Stephen Chow.
The third one gave me one of the most blood-boiling "fun" experience
I had in years, and it was "Super 8 Stories" by Emir
Kusturica, the Yugoslav director who made films like "Black
Cat, White Cat" and "The Underground.".
This 2001 film follows the director's own band, Emir Kusturica & No
Smoking Orchestra, sort of a Gypsy-Rock band, through their European
tour with interviews of each members.
The film carries the "Unza Unza" rhythm throughout, a term
they came up for their music, and this original rhythm is a maddeningly
fun and ecstatic and that comes into my bones and joints and make
them move out of control...
The music, film and people in it are all so full of madness, anger,
joy, sorrow, mischief, charm, love, violence and all that made me
wanna get up and dance for joy and cry for sorrow at the same time.
The
band's official web site.
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MUSIC:
12.31.02
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Two men from Saida
Just near the Christmas, two men from Saida, a town
160 km south of Oran, Algeria, came to my home and delivered
great songs to me.
More precisely, some CDs were delivered to my house
via internet shopping. The singing men are Cheb Mami
and Cheb Aissa -- the Rai superstars now based
in France.
Aissa's new album "Gouli" ("Say"),
which came out earlier this year, is a well produced
great album. I don't think he's that significant singer,
but his songs got special freshness. Second song in
the album, "Si Vraiment Achaktini" ("So
You Really Like Me") is my favorite, very happy
and pop (though the lyrics suggests it's not a happy
love song...).
Simply titled "le meilleur" (The Best), this
3-disk set includes Cheb Mami's earlier works which
was originally issued between 1984-86, when he was only
18-20 years old. But his singing has already reached
the masterly level, and all songs are great pure Rai.
What a gift to hear never-heard 36 songs of Mami now.
Then there was also his DVD that came in the package.
This includes 1996 French film "Cheb Mami, Le roi
du Rai" by Eric Sandrin, which follows Mami around
the time when his album "Saida" was released
and he was performing at the Zenith stadium in Paris.
This is a priceless treasure to see him on stage or
in the studio, singing. (Being continents away, I have
never got to see him live. ) He really is one of the
greatest singer of all time. His voice is heavenly,
a magic.
The film also included happy surprise appearance of
the heard-but-never-seen original Rai stars such as
Cheba Fadela and Cheba Zahounia, pushing all the buttons
of my Rai nerd core.
Beur
FM (Paris) streaming remains to be my essential
source for Rai (and some Chaabi) music.
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Cheb Mami
Cheb Aissa |
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BOOKS:
12.31.02
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Books for the road
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Selecting books to take with you to a trip is a part
of the fun travel preparation process.
I can pile up books to read for a relaxing resort vacation,
but for a backpack trip, every pound counts. The books
must be relatively light in weight, while keep me entertained
long enough during the travel. This requires some selection
process: obviously it needs to be interesting, but can't
be a "page-turner" that I'd finish in a day.
For my recent trip to Thailand, I have brought 2 paperbacks.
One was Ivan Turgenev's classic, "Fathers
and Sons" (for I like reading Russian literature
under hot weather.) I won't describe this Turgenev's
work to be a page turner, but it was quite engaging
that I finished it on the plane to Bangkok. --A good
reading, but a bad travel selection.
I was left with a thin book of short stories by Kyoka
Izumi (1873-1939) for the rest of my 16-day trip.
This was my first time to read his work, but from what
I heard, I got a sense it will be very good. And it
was. This turned out to be a perfect selection.
The first one was his renowned piece, "Koya Hijiri"
("The Holy Man of Mount Koya".) To read this
story in a heavy, sweet, erotic and unsettling tropical
air of Thailand was such an exquisite experience. This
gothic tale takes place in a lush mountain on one sizzling
hot day.
His use of words is a pure magic. The flow and tone
are strikingly avant-garde. The atmosphere is breathtakingly
vivid, eerie, erotic and beautiful.
The stories were short, but each word had such power
and rich taste that I chewed it slowly, and enjoyed
them over and over again.
Some other cases: There are occasions when reading got
better than traveling.
In Lisbon some years ago, I stopped by a bookstore after
finishing the book I brought with me. Carefully going
through their limited English literature selection,
I settled down with Truman Capote's "In
Cold Blood", not knowing anything about it.
Well. What a book. I stayed in my hotel room, reading
'til late night and continued in the flight home. (This
book... got into my skin; I felt the breathing of the
killer on my neck and smelled their cigarettes... it
scared the hell out of me for a long time.)
Another time, I brought a book "Tesso No Ori",
a part of a very popular Gothic series by Natsuhiko
Kyogoku, to Prague. I knew this was a dangerous
choice... it's like bringing Stephen King maybe... but
I had started on the series some days before this trip
and could not leave it behind.
A friend's friend unexpectedly and so kindly let me
stay at his apartment in the suburb of Prague. It wasn't
because it was 30-min tram ride away from the center
but because this room possessed such a charm and coziness
--it became my dream room... which is another story--
that made things worse: I stayed in the room for the
first 2 days all day and just read the book. I still
recall of that sunny room and me laying on the bed reading
that Japanese Gothic book.
Some works by Kyoka Izumi's
is translated in English. The story mentioned in this
article is included in "Japanese Gothic Tales"
(Kyoka Izumi; University of Hawaii Press.)
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