Two European Classics

Two representative works from two recent retrospectives made into SF's Castro theatre in September. They were Ingma Bergman's Fanny & Alexander and Visconti's Leopard. Roxie, a few blocks down in the heart of Mission, also presented a BBC documentary on Visconti to time with Castro's offering on European masters. After watching all three films, I started to understand why the baby boomer critics miss those heydays of cinema back in late fifties and sixties, when Italian masters, French new wave, and Ingma Bergman were making ground-breaking films one after another, pushing boundaries on many fronts -- all are the reasons to lament on the bleak state of current cinema.

Both Bergman and Visconti are not the typical stylists who populate today's art houses, although they each developed quite distinguished styles and forms to support their own cinematic visions. They principle achievements lie on the higher intellectual grounds, raising questions and providing insights for a wide spectrum of issues that concern psychology, philosophy, politics, religion and history. But behind all these large themes, these films never deviate far from their own life. Both Fanny&Alexander and Leopard are probably the most autographical films they made. They continuing successes and timeless qualities only prove that true art only comes out of one's heart. Their powers to move and to inspire are often stamped with the art-maker's own memories and feelings, which, on the other hand, also compelled them to make these films.

So, when both films were shown side by side, the commonality can be easily summarized. They are both historical dramas set merely 50 years apart, with sumptuous interior settings and aristocratic families as the main sujects. Both Bergman and Visconti were so fascinated with family tragedies and they went back again and again to to their own life to dig out tormented characters. The BBC film traced it all back to Visconti's attachment to his mother in an unhappy marrige, while Bergman biographers wrote in details and tried hard to map real family members to his cinema characters. Both men used their films to resolve their problems with God: while Visconti was interested in immortality, Bergam was more concerned with the moral issues. If Visconti wanted his God for eternal peace, Bergman defied its doctrines and wanted humanity to shine all through. Leopard is such a historical epic that zooms in on one family from a much larger social political perspective. F&A instead used character sketches to zoom out, reflecting the values and revealing the class tensions of the time. In the end, it is a much more personal film.The BBC film on Visconti focused on the relationship between his films and his own life, spending very little time to mention other Italian film makers and how his works might be influenced by the others. It became very clear that each of Visconti's film showed a side of him: The "bitchy queen" in "Senso", the erotic attraction to Nazi in "The damned", the aristocratic upbringing from "Leopard", the hidden SM theme in "Rocco & his Brothers', etc etc. 

I first read the script of F&A in high school. The world seen from a child's eye enchanted me, although that world could not be more different from my own at the time. The last scene in the antique shop is one of the best scenes I have ever seen, with magic and visual wonders abound. Leopard was also one of the very first foreign films showed in China after the Cultural Revolution, partly due to the fame of Alain Delon. Watching both of them in the same month is a feast on my own nostalgia.

Time of Fantasies: Aniu

I have wanted to write something since I first saw Aniu’s works, but I feel words are not enough to describe them. Most of the art photographers these days tend to have a clear agenda in their mind before they shoot their works, and an expert critic can usually identify the photographer’s intent or influences. Aniu’s works are something else. They seemed to follow a unique visual instinct, editing and extracting the most ordinary scenes into something quite dark and mysterious. The mood is always melancholy, the dodging and burning are prevalent, the colors are often de-saturated, and the meaning seems unfathomable. But together these images speak loudly for themselves.

The following is the small article he wrote to when he published a group of photos in a major Chinese photo magazine. Somehow the poetry of his writing gets lost in my attempt of translating this essay. I hope Aniu, if he ever read this, would forgive me.

I always know, behind the skyscrapers and all these colorful spectrum of people, there hide secrets that can’t be explained – These secrets exit in the alleyway, under a small tree, or behind the flicking expressions of people’s faces. They are also truths. For a long time I searched between the bustling city and the neglected corners, between two kinds of truths.Until one day I came to the beach on east side of this city. Dark clouds had covered the sky and made everything look grey. A tailless fish was washed up to my side by the waves. The body was bloated and had turned white since it had been soaked in the water for a long time. Where did it come from? Why was its tail missing? What ended its life? Was it the hungry sailor or sharp blades of some propeller? Was its misfortune connected to our own life?

Many days later, the fish appeared again in front of me as in the photo I took. The same question came back and it suddenly occurred to me that behind this image there is the river of visual fantasies.

It carries plots and fleeting moments, just as very small wave has buried a surreal past, every glistening ripple reflects the city’s vulgar desires, and every sinking sand can tell a story of sadness.

I slow down my pace, lower down my voices, trying to start a dialogue with them and listening to their sighs and smiles. Now I am standing on the side of the river and looking out. The river is wide with many crisscrossing tributaries. The real and the unreal can not be distinguished. I know that I cannot add anything to that, since “every river will eventually find its own direction”.