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January 20, 2007
Sundance Day 3 - Saturday Quickies
Vagina Dentata!
What a Teeth-rattling phrase
Vagina Dentata!
Ain't no movie craze
It means no story
Just wait for shlongs to be frayed
It's our acting-free film-osophy
Vagina Dentata!
Coming on Sunday, They Fuck Horses, Don’t They?, a.ka. Zoo.
Saw the documentary Nanking, which I am going to write about only briefly, as previous reporting on some of the behind-the-scene issues might well be seen as compromising my critical judgment.
The film is not terrible, but it is of a piece with Chicago 10, which opened the festival. Both films gets so caught up in form that they forget to function in some of the most basic ways as tellings of history. In this case, there is a staged reading of diaries in which well-known actors speak directly to camera in character... though it is rather impossible to forget that you are watching Woody Harrelson or Mariel Hemmingway. More significant, this cast of mostly white people expose the real heart of the doc, which is telling the story of the Westerners that created a “Safety Zone” to give quarter to many of the Chinese in the midst of a sloppy and vicious takeover by the Chinese. The film, to be honest, should be called The Westerners of Nanking.
Moreover, the politics of these Westerners asserting any authority at all in Nanking is barely addressed. One of the heroes of the film, for instance, was a Nazi – then in business with the Japanese – eventually denounced by the allies before he was, in the end, denazified. And the nice woman who ran a girls school was apparently a religiously driven person.
That said, many will enjoy the Schindler’s List of it all, even though with so much bigger a canvas, there are a lot of holes in the plot.
And as anyone who has read me for a while knows, I am deeply offended by Western films offering Western heroes as the saviors of other cultures, unless the story is very specific and very accurate. So...
P.S. I don't know if others reported the price paid for the one sale at the festival so far, Crazy Love, by Magnolia... $400k.
Posted by poland at January 20, 2007 04:21 PM
Comments
"I am deeply offended by Western films offering Western heroes as the saviors of other cultures, unless the story is very specific and very accurate."
And unless Rachel Weisz is in it.
Posted by: jeffmcm ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/nav-commenters.gif)
at January 20, 2007 04:57 PM
Eric Bana and his little hulking out "problem" will save South America from the cartels. Mark my words.
Posted by: Tofu at January 20, 2007 07:30 PM
Did the person who does all the links for the MCN homepage go on vacation too?
Posted by: KamikazeCamelV2.0 at January 20, 2007 10:36 PM
Sorry, J-Mc, but The Constant Gardener is not about saving Africans. It is an element in her character. But it is a murder mystery and a love story, not a White Man Savior film.
Posted by: David Poland at January 21, 2007 01:12 AM
It was a mediocre murder mystery and an unconvincing love story set against the backdrop of Sub-Saharan African politics. To brush off the African element as 'an element in her character' is to do exactly the same thing you have often faulted others for doing.
Posted by: jeffmcm at January 21, 2007 03:15 AM
Insightful as ever, J-Mc.
Posted by: David Poland at January 21, 2007 09:32 AM
Not to disparage the fine work at MCN, but is there a site of blog out there that comprehesively lists all the movies premiering at Sundance with links to reviews of each film? I seem to remember something like this for past festivals.
Posted by: Wrecktum at January 21, 2007 10:27 AM
Deep down, you know I'm right. It's a White Man's Burden movie through and through - that's it's raison d'etre. Remember that this is the director of City of God - he might as well have had Fiennes at the end saying to himself, 'If only I had cared more about Africa, none of this ever would have happened.'
Posted by: jeffmcm at January 21, 2007 03:07 PM
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