First Impressions: Thinking Aloud About Film

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/12/06/thinking-aloud-about-cinema-the-youssef-chahine-podcast4-shorts-by-chahine/ In 1997, 47 years after he first went to Cannes expecting to win something, Chahine was finally awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award. It was handed to him by a luminous Isabelle Adjani, who praised him for his humanity, tolerance, courage and clemency. That plus his intelligence, tact an...

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/12/04/the-youssef-chahine-film-club-no-3-mandabi-ousmane-sembene-1968/ A discussion of Ousmane Sembène's Mandabi. José had never seen it before and found it a revelation. Richard's now seen it twice, once at the cinema in a beautiful restoration that's now been put out by Criterion. The film is currently screening on MUBI and we highly recommend it. We talk issues of...

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/11/22/thinking-aloud-about-film-encounter-at-the-station-hsin-chi-taiwan-1965/ Encounter at the Station (Taiwan, 1965) is the last of the 5 Hsin Chi films programmed by the Anthology Film Archives in New York and available for all to see for free until November 30. It is a melodrama in the truest sense, with songs narrating or underlining the action at almost every mo...

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/11/15/the-youssef-chahine-film-club-the-will-kamal-selim-1939/ In Egypt, The Will is often voted the greatest Egyptian film of all time, one of the greatest ever anywhere, and a precursor to Italian neo-realism. Youssef Chahine recommended it and provided the impetus for our viewing. In this podcast we discuss how much we liked it (the representation of a whole way of...

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/11/01/taiwan-film-festival-edinburgh-2021-wrap-up/ In our final podcast on the Taiwan Film Festival Edinburgh 2021, we praise its programming, its accessibility, and its decision to also include live events alongside the digital. We also delve into other types of films in the programmer not covered by this podcast so far, Pai Jing-jui's Morning in Taipei (1964) with i...

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/10/25/splendid-float-zero-chou-2004-taiwan-film-festival-edinburgh-2001/ A beautiful queer film, poetic, expressive, moving. Roy is a Taoist priest by day, a drag queen entertainer by night. One magical night, on the road, he meets a gorgeous fisherman, Sunny, and falls madly in love. But Sunny leaves without saying a word. It's only when he's hired to summon back his...

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/10/23/interview-with-curator-kuan-ping-liu-on-taiwan-film-festival-edinburgh-2021/ The Taiwan Film Festival Edinburgh 2021 runs from 25-31st October. It has live screenings in theatres but it also has a digital component which is free and accessible to all. We interview curator Kuan-ping Liu to discuss the highlights of this year's programme: Archival Films, 8mm home...

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/11/02/peony-birds-huang-yu-shan-1990/ A discussion of Peony Birds, part of a strand of films by women directors or films focussing on women that is a most welcome additions to the Taiwan Film Festival in Edinburgh. It is also a slight historical corrective to what may be seen as the 'all-boys' account of New Taiwanese Cinema from the 1980s and 1990s. In the podcast we...

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/10/21/the-best-secret-agent-chang-ying-1964/ Definitely not a masterpiece of cinematic art but Best Secret Agent is a sexy melodrama, drawing on the Bond craze then current but putting it in the context of Taiwanese history and culture. Sometimes popular cinema can teach us at least as much as art. Charismatic stars, action, superb costuming and a director and cinemat...

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/10/18/the-youssef-chahine-podcast-no-42-omar-gatlato-aka-omar-it-kills-him-merzak-allouache-algeria-1976/ A greatly beloved work, a landmark film in Algeria. Filmed in 1976, in that period between the end of the Algerian War in 1962 and the start of what would become known as the black decade of the 90s, Omar Gatlato is a study of machismo, a document of Algiers in th...

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/10/09/the-youssef-chahine-podcast-no-41-a-nightingales-prayer-henry-barakat-1959/ The Nightingale’s Prayer, based on a 1934 novel by renowned Egyptian author Taha Hussein, is an extraordinary melodrama, a critique of patriarchy anyone interested in cinema’s treatment of these issues should see. A philandering husband is killed for his actions. His shame extends to his...

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/09/27/the-youssef-chahine-podcast-no-40-lets-talk-marianne-khoury-2019/ Let's talk about 'Let's Talk', Marianne Khoury's exploration of mother/daughter relationships across generations. The film is of interest to us because we wondered if it would enhance our understanding of Chahine's cinema; and it does! Marianne's mother was Chahine's sister, and her story was dram...

We return to the work of Youssef Chahine, spurred on by by MUBI's decision to screen a selection of his works, in what turns out to be marvellous copies. We focus on two of his films, Daddy Amin (1950) and The Devil of the Desert (1954), we compare the visual quality of the MUBI versions to those we saw previously, confirm our admiration for Youssef Chahine's skills as a director, José takes a dig...

A conversation with Ana María Sánchez-Arce on The Cinema of Pedro Almodóvar, her new book, the most recent on the subject and, in my view, one of the very best. What did she learn about Pedro Almodóvar's cinema when writing the book and what can we learn from reading it? I wish we could have talked for longer.

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/08/30/hou-hsiao-hsien-25-contexts-15-growing-up-chen-kunhou-1983/ We discuss this absorbing and extremely likeable film in the context of New Taiwanese Cinema. Chen Kunhou was then Hou's regular cinematographer. This feels , to an extent,  like a transition between the style of the earlier Hou films and the later ones. Hou Hsiao-hsien collaborated on the screenplay an...

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/08/24/hou-hsiao-hsien-24-contexts-14-that-day-on-the-beach-edward-yang-1982/ Two old friends reunite after 13 years apart. One was in love with the other's brother but the couple were forced to separate after he was forced into an arranged marriage with someone else and this ruined his life. His sister ran away to marry for love but ended up just as unhappy as her bro...

A conversation with Ilaria Puliti on Luca, focussing on how it lends itself to readings of queerness and of migration, and also relating the film's world to postwar Italian culture and society.

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/08/09/hou-hsiao-hsien-23-contexts-13-in-our-time-yi-chang-ko-i-chen-tao-te-chen-edward-yang-1982/ A central film in the history of New Taiwanese Cinema. A portmanteu film, like The Sandwich Man,  composed of films by four different directors :Dinosaur/ Little Dragon Head, d: Tao Te Chen; Expectations/ Desires, d: Edward Yang; Leapfrog, d: Ko I-chen; Say Your Name/ Sho...

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/08/02/ritrovato-2021-with-richard-layne-jose-arroyo-digital-offerings/ We thank the Cineteca di Bologna for the 2021 digital offerings and return for the third year in a row to discuss their programme. This year we reflect on the digital absence of major strands such as the Romy Schneider or George Stevens films which were only shown in situ. We discuss difficulties w...

A discussion of OUR TIME, OUR STORY, a more traditional documentary than FLOWERS OF TAIPEI but all the better for it. A film with various kinds of contexts (production, distribution, exhibition, reception) that historicises well, finds extraordinary archival footage, interviews many of the leading people involved in Taiwan's New Cinema and really enhances our knowledge of the period, the movement,...

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/07/23/hou-hsiao-hsien-21-a-city-of-sadness-1989/ After all our contextualising, we return to Hou Hsiao-hsien films proper, focussing on the masterpiece that is a City of Sadness. We are able now to discuss not only what the film feels like to watch or what it is about in formal terms but can now add various kinds of contexts: historical, political, social, aesthetic,...

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/07/15/18745/ We continue with our discussion of Edward Yang films in relation to Hou Hsiao-hsien's work. We discuss the film in relation to Postmodernism, Existentialism, contingency, nausea, chance. We note that Fredric Jameson wrote on Sartre, Postmodernism, and this film. We discuss, Yang's characteristic visuals, his distinctive way of filming, narrating, and styl...

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/06/25/hou-hsiao-hsien-19-context-10-edward-young-1985/ Richard and I discuss our admiration of Edward Yang's Taipei Story. It's connection to Hou Hsiao-hsien, who stars and co-wrote the screenplay. It's a mosaic of a film in which a relationship between two people who care for each other falls apart and as it does so we get to see stories of a people and of a city in...

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/06/21/hou-hsiao-hsien-18-context-9-flowers-of-taipei-taiwan-new-cinema-chinlin-hsieh-2014/ A discussion of FLOWERS OF TAIPEI, a documentary on Taiwan New Cinema. José saw it twice; the first time finding it interesting but almost instantly forgettable; the second time it incensed him, seeming an attempt to get a production to pay for a director's networking opportunit...

https://notesonfilm1.com/2021/06/16/hou-hsiao-hsien-17-contexts-8-the-rice-dumpling-vendors-hsin-chi-1969/ A discussion of Hsin Chi's THE RICE DUMPLING VENDORS, a rare male melodrama. The protagonist kicks his wife out of the house for perceived infidelity; as soon as he does the whole family falls apart and is plunged in a spiral of poverty, the father at one point abandoning his baby even as his...