Under The Skin and Cinematic language

Under The Skin (2013) has been met with such a wide range of opinions, from disgust to amazement, that it is almost impossible not become intrigue by what you will see once you take your seat. Under The Skin, for me, is simply one of, if not the, best film made by a British director.

Under The Skin maintains a sense of transparency and opaqueness, letting you get close, inviting the cliché that it gets ‘under the skin of the audience’, while also refusing to be easily defined. Glazer clearly understands cinematic language, and knows how to play with it. Glazer’s previous film, Birth (2004), is full of audience manipulation, making you believe the impossible, letting it and wanting it to convince you, before revealing the mundane fact that it is exactly what it seems like. However Under The Skin sees Glazer creating new ways of using film, creating new ways to use language, which goes some way to explaining how some have been so incredibly repulsed by the film.

 Visually Glazer is willing to experiment more than most, layering images upon each other for symbolism. At one stage, Johansson is shown beneath a collection of images with a yellowy hue. As images flash by, melt into each other, drift out of the screen, we are seeing how Johansson sees the world, a confusing mix of flashes. Never has Earth seemed so alien. We can barely understand what we are being shown, and nor can Johansson. We later get a more defined image layered image, Johansson sleeping in an ocean of trees. It provides a strange, startling image as Johansson slowly melts into the image of the forest. Glazer could have left us with the image of her asleep in the cabin, however Glazer chooses something far more alien, something that not only shows her asleep, but connotes a whole host of simultaneous meanings. Does it mean she is starting to understand and become part of Earth as the image literally shows us? Or is it saying the opposite, that the fact she is looks so strange that she could never be part of this world? We have seen how she has struggled to assimilate with humans, and her strangely floating in the forest seems to symbolise something similar. I would go with the latter, but there is an interesting case for both, especially in light of the ending.

During the first half of the film, some of the most creative set-pieces involve men Johansson has picked up being drawn into the black ectoplasm. Watching the men sink into it, only for Johansson to walk back over it moments after are powerful images, but the moments prior to these events are perhaps just as interesting. A lot of the first half of the film involves people watching from her white van. Her inviting men into her van, men who had no idea they were even being filmed. Glazer has purposefully flipped the infamous ‘male gaze’ here. The men are completely objectified by Johansson, they have one purpose only for her, and she will spend hours just watching, hunting around, to find the right man. Johansson becomes an incredibly powerful creature, partly sexually, partly for her otherworldliness. When the men are instead ‘gazing’ at her (one man with a fully erect penis), they literally walk straight into their death without even noticing. There is no struggle, no fight, just the inevitable sinking into blackness. Their gaze is made impotent, so hollow that they eventually become just skin floating around in the ectoplasm. This intentional change of gaze again may explain why many critics have perhaps felt uncomfortable watching Under The Skin, with male critics suddenly finding themselves the objectified, rather than the one objectifying. It is, after all, more fun watching, than being watched.

A slightly more traditional, but just as creative sequence is during the ‘creation process’ during the opening. The opening is comparable to scenes in The Tree of Life (2011) creation sequence, or the Star Child in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). We are shown confusing images of things we can only assume are parts of DNA or blood cells floating and merging, creating Johansson into the alien being that she is. Images quickly shift from CGI images into an extreme close-up of an eyeball, the process of creation being completed at that moment. As well as these images, we hear her practicing sounds, words, in order to complete her transformation. We are left to piece together the meanings of these images and sounds, as it is not clearly explained at all, with only the harsh-cut to the eyeball giving any form of explanation. Glazer is brave enough to throw the audience into the deep-end straight away, throwing in questions a load of existentialist questions from the first moment about what it means to be human. Throwing these questions straight at the audience right at the start is bound to put people off, but it sets up an incredibly deep and unique film, full of images and sounds that will haunt of days.

British Indie Film Renaissance? Maybe not…

MaryAnn Johanson recently wrote an interesting piece for indiewire, entitled ‘Why British Film is in the Middle of an Indie Renaissance’[1]. It was widely shared, receiving attention all the way up to the BFI who were quick to jump on an unbiased appraisal of British Cinema. I have also written about the strong state of British cinema[2], which has also incidentally been my most viewed written piece on this blog. There is obviously a strong interest in current British cinema. However, I do have a major problem with the writing of Johanson with this piece, and that is the term, ‘indie’.

The term Independent Cinema since the 1990s has entered, in an almost paradoxical way, the mainstream. Quickly big budget studios were attempting to push films with an indie tag, selling it as unique, fresh, and interesting. It has become almost a genre within itself. People would not flinch at someone saying “I saw this fantastic indie movie the other day!”, just as that wouldn’t flinch at someone saying they saw a fantastic horror film. But people are easily duped into believing it is an Independent production, when it rarely is.

A discussion of what is truly independent is an impossible task, as it is an almost impossible criteria to attain. If we are to take it at its most literal sense, this would mean a film made with no restrictions whatsoever, and therefore we would be limiting ourselves to a small handful of films. I, therefore, do not wish to attempt to state a firm definition of what ‘indie’ cinema is, but a few broad statements that can help place films within this context. I do think it is fair to say that if a film receives financial support from an major outside source, one that often runs into the millions, the film is more than likely not a true independent movie. This obviously rules out American studio-productions, but becomes slightly more tricky in non-American movies, where the studio system is not the same. I would therefore like to suggest that if a film is made for more than ten times the average yearly wage of an average citizen in that country, the chances are again that it has received a fair amount of outside support. If we are to take the UK as an example of this, where the average yearly wage is £26,500[3], this gives a fairly large budget of £265,000. This is obviously open for criticism, as it is a very cheap and quick barometer to measure by, but does give some sort of range to consider.

We could delve deeper into this, to investigate with whom final cut was with, if outside support was provided unconditionally, and so on, but this would then require a film by film investigation. I rather, for now, provide the shorthand approach mentioned before to the films MaryAnn Johanson has discussed.

My two main problems with the films mentioned by her are, firstly, the broad usage of ‘British film’, and broad usage of ‘indie’. Here, we can look at each film mentioned by Johanson, and use the term broad ideas I have also used. In her opening paragraph we are presented with a strange selection of films to use as an introduction for British indies:

Gravity (2013)– As Johanson acknowledges, is studio backed, and is therefore a strange example by Johanson in an article about independent cinema.

Les Misérables(2012) –Budget of $61mil, and heavy studio support.

World War Z (2013) – A mind-boggling budget of $190mil, not exactly indie cinema range…

Fast and Furious 6 (2013)– Another massive budget of $160mil, and with very little British involvement.

Rush(2013) – Johanson stats that its budget of $38mil is ‘paltry’ (for who exactly?!), as well as acknowledging its Hollywood money, instead claiming that its British cinematography and location of sets makes it a perfect example.

We are then taken onto how the Harry Potter series has drawn big productions to British shores (again, this is clearly true, but I struggle to see its relevance to an article about independent cinema?). We are also teased with the future big budget American films that are shot in the UK, Fury (2014) and the new Star Wars (2015) films.

Johanson then presents us with some core films of her argument.

Locke (2013) – Made on a budget of under $2million[4] is a more realistic example of British Independent cinema. However this is another cross-country production, joint with American support through American production company IM Global.

Dom Hemingway (2013) – Although I failed to find the budget for this film, it did receive a large amount of studio support from the likes of BBC Films,  as well receiving distribution from major faux-indie companies, Lionsgate and Fox Searchlight Pictures.

Filth (2013) – Another slightly too high budget at £3million, but can fairly be classed as a purely British (Scottish?) film with about as little interference a film of that budget that could expect.

A Fantastic Fear of Everything (2013) – Again, I struggled to find the exact budget, but it was financed by a Pinewood Films initiative to help low-budget British films[5]. Although a positive thing, it would be silly to claim that no interference or ideology would have been placed on this film.

The Selfish Giant (2013) – Clio Bernard is one of the key British film-makers today, but The Selfish Giant received huge support (and rightly so) from both the BFI and Film4.

Sightseers (2012) and A Field in England (2013) – This pair of films are both fantastic, and provide examples of fresh British cinema. A Field in England is perhaps the closest example of independent cinema. However, it became a flagship film for Film4, as it was released simultaneously by them in Cinema, Television, VOD and DVD. A lot of money was pumped into the release of it in this experiment. The film however is unarguably unique.

Metro Manila (2013) – Is just as Filipino as it is English, and can be claimed as either. I do however feel this is perhaps the truest out of all the films mentioned as being British indie cinema.

Philomena (2013) - $12mil budget staring Judi Dench and Steve Coogan?

The Invisible Woman (2013) – Another big name project, all the way from director, writer and cast.

Under the Skin (2013) – Another joint production with America, staring Scarlett Johansson, and despite its strange story is unlikely to have received little interference.

The Double (2013) – Big names in cast, big financial support, and big distribution.

What MaryAnn Johanson has attempted to write about is fantastic, and a lot of the films mentioned by her deserve more recognition. However these are nearly all not really independent films by any stretch. British mainstream cinema is currently in a fantastic place, and great films are often being made by British people, and big productions are being drawn to Britain. However, independent, low to no-budget cinema is almost non-existent.

Collective film-movements, or film websites, discussion, or festivals are few, and far between in the UK. The Raindance Film Festival is perhaps the only festival that gets any sort of recognition that takes any risks with the types of no-budget films it shows. However, very few of these films or those involved take a step-up into the mainstream. The bridge between these two worlds is not there sadly, despite the talent obviously being there. Despite it never being easier to watch films for cheap, no truly low-budget film has exploded onto the British scene in the way it has often done in American cinema. There is no, and will be no British Indie Renaissance until that bridge can be made stable, and sustainable.

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[1] http://www.indiewire.com/article/why-british-film-is-in-the-middle-of-an-indie-renaissance

[2] http://whatsthepointofcinema.blogspot.com/2013/11/new-british-cinema-post-2000-cinema-in.html

[3] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20442666

[4] http://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-latest/locke/5059867.article

[5] http://collider.com/fantastic-fear-of-everything-image-simon-pegg/

Frownland and Disability

So far the only feature directed by Ronald Bronstein, Frownland (2007) is one of the most powerful films from the 2000s, and from the independent scene in America. Bronstein spends over an hour and half tearing its audience apart with its lead character, played to painful affect by Dore Mann. Frownland won the Special Jury Prize at SXSW Film Festival.

Bronstein, in his feature, creates a film that not only makes you hate the characters, but hate yourself for hating him. Dore Mann plays Keith, who although never stated, seems to have some sort of disability that prevents him from dealing with apparently simple and easy day-to-day social encounters. Although you are aware that you should feel sorry for him as he struggles, it is almost impossible not to wish to lash out like the characters around him. This conflict has stuck with me since first seeing Frownland. Should I feel sorry for him? Am I bad for feeling sorry for him? Does he even deserve any sympathy?

Keith is treated badly, lives in mess and poverty, and yet it seems impossible to have any sympathy for him. Bronstein however seems to be attempting to empower Keith by removing his disability from the equation. It becomes a background factor, and rather we judge Keith on his day-to-day actions. Disability, when featured in a film, is often the key feature to that film, the driving force behind the narrative, something we, the ‘normal’ can belittle and sympathises with. We attempt to fit them into a spectrum we understand, making ‘them’ more like ‘us’. We watch a film like Rain Man (1988) in order to see him ‘overcome’ his terrible life, attempting to ‘normalise’ him instead of embracing what he is. The Intouchables (2011) is a more recent high-profile example. Very few films embrace its main character’s disability or refuse to sympathise with it. Whereas Frownland normalises by making us not feel sympathy for Keith, Beeswax (2009) does this by almost ignoring the fact our main character is in a wheel-chair, or Punch-Drunk Love (2002) placing its character in a traditional rom-com situation, while embracing its slightly off-kilter lead.

The ugliness of the characters, Keith’s struggle to understand what is happening around him, is matched by the direction of Bronstein, who never allows the viewer to settle. We are constantly presented with blurry, hard to understand images on scratchy film. This is done more than for aesthetic reasons, but rather to give an idea on how hard it is for Keith to understand daily social situations. When we can’t focus, Keith can’t focus, we panic, are frustrated, confused. We can understand Keith, yet not can’t as well. It’s beautiful, painful, tormenting and destroying. For a short amount of time, you are placed in the mind of someone who cannot deal with simple situations, and we quickly begin to hate ourselves for becoming part of it. Just as Keith clearly hates himself for living. The only difference is after 110 minutes.

All done on a tiny-budget.

Kentucker Audley - What's The Point of Cinema?

KENTUCKER AUDLEY -

"I make movies to document the personalities and relationships of those around me. 

What I get out of watching movies is a pure mystery, which I like to preserve."

Filmography

Director - 

Team Picture (2007)

Holy Land (2010)

Open Five (2010)

Open Five 2 (2012)

Actor (Selected) -

Marriage Material (2012)

V/H/S (2012)

Sun Don't Shine (2012)

Ain't Them Bodies Saints (2013)

NOBUDGE - NoBudge is an online screening venue & hub for true indie films. It was started in February 2011 by filmmaker Kentucker Audley to premiere & compile true indie films.

Anti-War films and The Wolf of Wall Street

After reading the fantastically written and studied article by Tyler Sage on BrightLights Film about The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), and if it condemns or promotes the rash behaviour of its protagonists, I couldn't help wonder about the comparison used by him in regards to anti-war films. He lists a number of films that are supposedly ‘anti-war’, focusing on Apocalypse Now (1979), Platoon (1986) and Full Metal Jacket (1987). It discusses the idea that by demonstrating war in itself, they are in essence glorifying it, no matter how brutal the images that are shown are. He pulls an example from Tony Swofford and how these films demonstrate the ‘magic brutality’ of war. Sage extends this to The Wolf of Wall Street where the ‘magic of excess’ is shown. In simple terms, how can it be ‘anti-anything’, when it looks so great and is so much fun to watch?

However, it seems to me that Sage, as well as Swofford are aware that this is not always the case. Sage quotes Swofford in his memoir, Jarhead,

 "Mr. and Mrs. Johnson in Omaha or San Francisco or Manhattan . . . watch the films and weep and decide once and for all that war is inhuman and terrible," while at the same time, "Corporal Johnson at Camp Pendleton and Sergeant Johnson at Travis Air Force base . . . and Lance Corporal Swofford at Twentynine Palms Marine Corps Base watch the same films and are excited by them, because the magic brutality of the films celebrates the terrible and despicable beauty of their fighting skills."

Swofford acknowledges the paradox of this (and films in general), in that two people can watch the same film and get two different versions. Whereas as one is repulsed by the images, someone else is just as likely to find it exciting and wish to replicate. You are just as likely to be for it, as against it.

I do feel that there are films that are generally seen as ‘anti-war’, but become explicitly ‘pro-war’ by demonstrating it as glorious and heroic. Saving Private Ryan (1998) is perhaps the best example of this, with its infamous extended opening on the beaches. Spielberg shows the brutality, but shows it as heroic, as ‘us vs. them’, ‘good vs. bad’. It’s almost impossible not to want to join those men on the beaches. This, for me, makes it a failure in its aims. In contrast, a film from the same year, The Thin Red Line (1998), is able to show the brutality of war, without giving into the same traps as Saving Private Ryan. We instead see the inner-conflict within those taking part, and how it destroys them, as well as everything around them. These are what separates good cinema from bad cinema, intending to send a message, and sending it in a clear and correct manner. Saving Private Ryan by sticking to structure muddles its message, whereas The Thin Red Line by using muddling voiceovers and scenes has a clear and structured messaged. War will always be controversial and provoke innate response both for and against it, and money (and therefore power) provokes the same kind of extreme reactions.

The Wolf of Wall Street completes a trio of films from 2013 that deal with excessive natures (specifically of that in America), and how money corrupts. The Bling Ring and Pain and Gain look at this in contrasting ways, with Pain and Gain being more along the same lines as The Wolf of Wall Street in its chaotic nature, matching its extreme topic with extreme displays on-screen. All three have been met with mixed responses in a certain manner, suggesting similar conflicts with the audience when discussing greed. The Wolf of Wall Street examines corruption at its most extreme and ugliness. The Wolf of Wall Street is played for laughs, Jordan Belfort is such a disgusting person, and with Scorsese ramping everything up, it’s almost impossible not to see the humour involved. We are shown the absolutely ridiculousness of these men who can get whatever they want, but we are always laughing at them, not with them. These are terrible people who are guilty of greed at its most extreme. Scenes of Di Caprio crawling to his car are incredibly well done and made, but who truly wants to be in that state? Criticising the ending, questioning if Belfort ‘got what he deserved’ seem even stranger. Well the answer is obvious, he didn't, but do any of these men, both then, and now get what they deserve for exploitation? Scorsese shows us what is wrong with capitalism, where a person can get off with mass-fraud with limited punishment, in a fairly comfortable environment. By making the film into almost a farce, Scorsese however makes this idea more accessible than perhaps other attempts to demonstrate the same idea in a more obvious way. Many reviewers seem to be struggle with the blurring of lines between enjoying and appreciating the film, but not agreeing with the characters actions. By enjoying (or not enjoying) you are not agreeing (or disagreeing) with what a film is saying. Criticising 12 Years a Slave (2013) for poorly sending its message does not mean you condone slavery, nor does enjoying The Wolf of Wall Street mean you like Jordan Belfort.

Where I do feel The Wolf of Wall Street does let itself down is in terms of its near complete dismissal of women. Its main female roles are purely sex objects, and the surrounding roles are often objectified. The clearest example of this is during one of Belfort’s speeches, in which he points out a female member of staff who had been in the company since the start. However this is the first time we have seen her, or even mentioned. She is wholly ignored, perhaps because Scorsese felt that women had no place within this pumped up environment. Does this however make the film sexiest? Again, no, but it does give it a massive blind spot that needs to be addressed by film critics when discussing the film.

Or, perhaps I am just a greedy sexiest pig, because I loved every moment of The Wolf of Wall Street.

Black Cinema and Gaining Recognition

12 Years a Slave (2013) is a fantastically powerful work, one that has deservedly-so been gaining acclaim from critics and the average cinema-goer. It has also gained a heap of nominations at this year’s Oscars, leading to the discussion of ‘will Steve McQueen be the first black director to win?’[1]. After watching the film, and being a huge admirer of the previous two McQueen feature films, I couldn’t help but wonder why this film has led to McQueen making a massive jump into the mainstream conciseness. Hunger (2008) and Shame (2011) are as equally compelling and creative as 12 Years a Slave, yet received none of the same adulation in the mainstream (both did however do fantastically well with critics and on the festival circuit). All three films seem to deal with taboo subjects, Hunger with IRA hunger strikes, Shame with sex addiction, 12 Years a Slave with slavery. All three deal with issues of the body, all have scenes and structures that stray from the norm and all three maintain a visual beauty to them.

The main difference is clear however, 12 Years a Slave deals purely with a ‘black-persons history’. It can be called a ‘black story’, and located as ‘black cinema’. Whereas the other two are ‘raceless’[2], 12 Years a Slave can be specifically sold as a black film by a black director. This may seem counter-intuitive in the fact that if it is a ‘black film’, then how can it become the norm in a white mainstream. But slavery is something white people can feel sympathy for, being able to stand from afar and say “Yes, what terrible things happen to black people!”, feel satisfied and then leave the cinema. By watching 12 Years a Slave, the vastly white majority of Oscar voters (94% are white, 77% male. 2% are black[3]) can show that they do care about black people. It can be argued therefore that there is almost a taboo about criticising a film such as 12 Years a Slave. If you criticise the film, are you therefore saying you don’t care about the treatment of people during slavery? Of course not, but with the rise of White Guilt[4], white people are often weary of race-related comments. Add to this a lot of old white men man panicking over their voting cards, then we are bound to get some strange voting. This almost makes the voting hollow. If the white voters can find a film in which they can seem to prove they actually do care about black people, then they can feel satisfied.

We can see this kind of view with previous nominees. If we look at the two previous black director nominees, Boyz N The Hood (1991) by John Singleton and Precious (2009) by Lee Daniels, we can see similar themes where white people can say “Oh what terrible things are happening!”. Boyz N The Hood allows old white men to not only seem ‘cool’ and ‘hip’, but to also show they care about the ‘young street urchin’ who can’t help themselves. Precious allows them to feel sorry for the stupid, ugly, fat black girl who is riddled with disease and cannot look after her own child. With the help of a white support team however, she can pull through! Both help fulfil negative black stereotypes, while simultaneously giving the white audience the satisfaction of feeling they care and want to help these poor people. Lee Daniels presents an interesting case to support this. The Paperboy (2012) is a non-race specific, and was ignored by the mainstream (despite star-names being involved). However his follow-up to that, Lee Daniels’ The Butler (2013), this time a race specific film, become one of the biggest financial hits of 2013 (it did however miss out on Oscar nominations despite gaining awards elsewhere. Perhaps one black film a year is enough?).

This is repeated in Best Picture nominees, and those with black producers. In addition to the three mentioned, we also have The Colour Purple (1985) that talks of slavery and poverty. The Blind Side (2009) with a stupid black man who makes it to the NFL thanks to his white adoptive Mother, and finally Django Unchained (2012) with Tarantino blaxploitation riff on slavery. Again, all are able to fit into a race-specific frame work, which limits black people into only a few select stories, that of poverty and slavery.

This is not to say that any of these films are bad. I would say that out of those mentioned, only The Blind Side is overtly racist and poor. Nor do I feel these films intend to re-enforce negative (or any) stereotypes, but what they do do, is reaffirm the limited number of stories that can be had for films involving black people. This does not mean that story on slavery is any less important or valued because of this.  Although a Best Director win at this year’s Oscars for McQueen would be a fantastic leap for black directors, it will not really break any ‘glass-ceiling’ for black directors. Until a black director makes a film that cannot be identified as being black, and wins major awards for it, are we truly making progression in terms of where non-white film-makers are in Hollywood and the mainstream.

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[1] http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/jan/17/steve-mcqueen-first-black-director-oscar

[2] Raceless in the terms that white characters are seen as the norm. More reading can be done on this with the essay by Peggy McIntosh and ‘White Privilege’. http://www.amptoons.com/blog/files/mcintosh.html

[3] http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/movies/academy/la-et-unmasking-oscar-academy-project-html,0,7473284.htmlstory#axzz2qw13rmVH

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_guilt

Watching films from other cultures, and can we truly understand? Specifically focusing on the two feature films of Djibril Diop Mambéty.

One of the main reasons I enjoy cinema is that it opens doors to any corner of the world I wish to see. I can be transported into regions that I may never visit, and see people I could never even imagine. Each national cinema is unique to that culture, to its own national/regional stories and symbolism. Because of this however, how can the outsider ever truly understand or appreciates a film that comes from a place they have no knowledge of. How much does the outsider miss? Do they see a completely different film to those of the films native country? Do we even want to see the reality of a country, or rather a blurred view of the exotic?

Edward Saïd, in his book Orientalism[1], wrote in his post-colonialism book how the West imposes certain values and stereotypes on cultures (specifically focusing on the Middle East), both enforcing negative, and romanticised versions. Western Cinema (focusing specifically of that of American and Western European) has inevitably fallen for this short-hand trap, and continually does so. Najat Z. J Dajani’s thesis, Arabs in Hollywood: Orientalism in Film [2] not only presents a fantastic filmography of a number of offending films, but also a fantastic background to a number of case studies and how these views have changed and developed over-time. Sadly however, his work only focuses on the same group as Saïd, and hints at a potential for redemption by Hollywood. However, this was stunted in post-9/11 Hollywood where the Arab would quickly become less exotic, and more demonised. When foreigners are shown in Western films, they are often reduced to these ‘oriental’ ideas.

Foreign made films find it notoriously hard to find audiences in the Western world. However, when one does break through, they often find themselves fulfilling a kind of self-prophecy, as they meet certain stereotypes. We can continue to see such representations of other broad ethnic groups, both negative and romanticised in many foreign made films. The ‘Gesiha’ female East Asian (You Only Live Twice (1967), Memoirs of a Gesiha (2005)) , or ninja male, in a Wuxia film, (The Karate Kid (1984), The Last Samurai (2003))is just one example. If we look at the most successful 50 foreign language films at the Hollywood Box Office[3], 8 are from East Asia, 6 of which are Wuxia. The most successful of not only this group, but of any group is Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) directed by Ang Lee. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon became an incredibly successful film, featuring plenty of fighting scenes, Gesihas and old Chinese buildings. It can be seen as a blend of all of the East Asian stereotypes in one, epic film, a perfect storm of unintentional orientalism that had the West foaming. It perfectly fits into the prism of a Western view of that culture, and therefore the impressive film-making becomes recognised, rather than mistrusted or dismissed. This doesn’t diminish the work of Lee, but rather provides an example of how the West is only willing to accept certain films that fulfil certain viewpoints. As an audience from the West, we automatically impose Western ideas and symbolism onto these films, even when they are not intended for that purpose. When these are missing however, we are likely to quickly dismiss, or become weary of film or film-maker.

Senegalese film-maker, Djibril Diop Mambéty, provides an interesting example of how films can only be successful when they are easier to digest through Western views and symbolism. Mambéty made only two feature length films, Touki Bouki (1973), and Hyénes (1992). Touki Bouki became the far more successful film of the pair, picking up awards at Cannes, as well as entering in at 52 in Empire magazines top 100 non-English language films[4]. But what is interesting is the reasons why it is considered to be so great. The Empire magazine entry alone states that the film is “shot through with French New Wave fizz that flies in the face of conventional African cinema”[5], and that it is a “hybrid of French style and African subject matter”[6]. Apart from the massive generalisation made by Empire, implying that the whole of Africa shares the same influences and problems (a similar statement would never be made in respect to Europe, or Asia), these statements clearly suggest that the film is important because it looks European. Touki Bouki goes hand-in-hand with French New Wave. The reason for this is simple, and understandable, it gives the audience a reference point when watching the film. It provides a place to enter, and understand what they are watching.  When we see quick jump-cuts and frenzied editing, instead of being confused, we can say, “ah, yes, Godard did this as well”. We automatically bring it back into our culture, and elevate it above what we do not attempt to understand.

Hyénes on the other-hand, is a far less successful film in terms of its canonical place in film history. Hyénes is a slower-paced film, and is clearly less reliant on the French New Wave influences. This however removes the entry point that Touki Bouki has, and is therefore rather hidden beneath this monolith of African cinema. Writing on Hyénes is far more limited because of this. Hyénes is a simple story of how money, love and greed can change anyone for the worse. A well-respected future mayor, Dramaan (Mansour Diouf) suddenly finds his life threatened when an extremely wealthy ex-lover returns home and places a bounty on his head. Richard Porton’s review is quick to attempt to position it with a Western entry point, by saying (and again, generalising a whole continental cinema) that “Contemporary African films have been preoccupied with two interlocking themes: the painful legacy of a colonialist past and a concomitant ambivalence towards Western modernity”[7]. Although this is a clearly unavoidable issue the film is attempting to deal with, Porton ignores altogether many more interesting themes and ideas that Mambéty uses.

One of the few interviews with Mambéty, done by N. Frank Ukadike, provides an interesting outlook by Mambéty on how cinema is viewed. Ukadike asks why one of the bodyguards is Asian; Mambéty says that “The point is not that she is Asian. The point is that everyone in Colobane--everyone everywhere--lives within a system of power that embraces the West”[8]Mambéty also continues throughout to try press the point that Hyénes is a human film, rather than a specific type of film representing a specific group.

“To make Hyènes even more continental, we borrowed elephants from the Masai of Kenya, hyenas from Uganda, and people from Senegal. And to make it global, we borrowed somebody from Japan, and carnival scenes from the annual Carnival of Humanity of the French Communist Party in Paris. All of these are intended to open the horizons, to make the film universal. The film depicts a human drama. My task was to identify the enemy of humankind: money, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank. I think my target is clear.

While Hyènes tells a human story to the whole world, I also wanted to pay homage to the beauty of Africa when I made the film.”[9]

This flies in the face of the Western view that a film of this nature could only be a response to internal problems faced by those in Senegal or Africa. Mambéty has instead intended to make a global film, rather than one that pleases Western critics through images of the ‘Oriental’.  When Mambéty is later on asked about the potential of co-financial productions with European and African film companies, Mambéty reply is clear “I don't want to talk about Europe. Let's talk about making films in Africa. Europe is not important for me.”[10] With Hyénes, Mambéty shuns the views of the ‘Oriental’, and embraces the human. This perhaps could be seen as a threatening stand-point, as it shows Africans not needing help of the superior West, but rather attempting to mutually help each other. We cannot look down anymore, but rather look eye-to-eye.

Whether this patronising view, the view of the ‘Oriental’ will change in the near future is extremely doubtful. While Western film critics continue to dismiss films that they do not understand, rather than attempting to learn what certain types of symbolism may mean, or embracing new regional styles of film-making, it is extremely unlikely that a highly successful film will emerge from a smaller country and enter mainstream Western consciousness. However, living in an age where it is incredibly easy to discover at access films from anywhere, there is room for the tide to slowly change, and for undiscovered films, both from the past and present, to be found, and appreciated on the level it deserves. Maybe we can never understand completely a film made on the other side of the Earth, but that doesn’t mean we cannot appreciate it and enjoy.

DANNY MOLTRASI

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[1] Orientalism by Edward Saïd (Published 1978)

[2] Arabs in Hollywood: Orientalism in Film by Najat Z.J Dajani (Published 2000) https://circle.ubc.ca/bitstream/handle/2429/10580/ubc_2000-0378.pdf?sequence=1

[3] http://www.boxofficemojo.com/genres/chart/?id=foreign.htm (Accessed Jan 2^nd 2014)

[4] http://www.empireonline.com/features/100-greatest-world-cinema-films/default.asp?film=52 (Accessed 2^nd Jan 2014)

[5] Ibid

[6] Ibid

[7] http://www.ebertfest.com/four/hyenas_rev.htm (Accessed 2nd Jan 2014)

[8] http://newsreel.org/articles/mambety.htm (Accessed 2nd Jan 2014)

[9] Ibid

[10] Ibid