Bonded Labor/Debt Bondage according to Anti-Slavery International:

“A person becomes a bonded laborer when his or her labor is demanded as a means of repayment for a loan. The person is then tricked or trapped into working for very little or no pay, often for seven days a week. The value of their work is invariably greater than the original sum of money borrowed. Millions of people are held in bonded labour around the world.

Bonded labor has existed for thousands of years. In South Asia it took root in the caste system and continues to flourish in feudal agricultural relationships. Bonded labor was also used as a method of colonial labor recruitment for plantations in Africa, the Caribbean and South East Asia.

Bonded laborers are routinely threatened with and subjected to physical and sexual violence. They are kept under various forms of surveillance, in some cases by armed guards. There are very few cases where chains are actually used (although it does occur) but these constraints on the bonded laborers are every bit as real and as restricting.”

Shocked by modern day slavery, young filmmaker Gregg Helvey, (we discussed an earlier film of his here: Overexposed’ and Responsibility in Image Making), has made a fiction short ‘Kavi’, which portrays several days in the life of a young bonded worker.

It’s the best student film I’ve seen since George Lucas’s breakout ‘THX 1138 4EB’.

Set in a brickworks that could be anytime/anywhere, the images are corrosive, seething, painful.  The cast is powerful, the roles archetypal.  The photography has an oily sheen – as if the film stock itself is shamed by what it’s recording.

The image-making is simple – the compositions don’t bring attention to themselves till the end – when the pic allows itself, in relief, some wit as Kavi makes one small step for humanity*

‘Kavi’ has been shortlisted for a Student Academy Award – we’ll find out tomorrow what it wins.  Regardless of its honours ‘Kavi’ should be seen by the widest audience possible – if it’s on your favourite streaming service or in a festival near you please take the opportunity to watch it – it’s a small, yet important film that’s trying to make the world a better place – if only more movies, and people did the same.

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* Whitey on the Moon

Just finished watching Gregg Helvey’s 2006 USC student documentary, ‘Overexposed’, about the arguably corrosive effect pornography has on men’s sexuality and it got me to thinking: what responsibility do we image makers have when it comes to portraying the erotic in our mediums?

In this Pinewood Dialogues interview Werner Herzog says something to the effect that “unless you know the heart’s of men you have no right to make a film” – is the same true for erotica?

When I was eleven or twelve I spent a lot of time on my own in the TV capital of Holland: Hilversum, (never mind why I was there – the fact was I was alone and spent much time living in an artist’s studio).  Being at that age I was sexually curious and my only pictorial companion in those matters was a book on ‘Renaissance Masters Drawings of the Female Nude’.  This of course was very exciting and perhaps explains my fascination, extending into my teen years, with very curvy women.  I felt at the time that the images in this book had immense power over me, (as mentioned in ‘Overexposed’ men’s response to sexual imagery includes ‘drive’, something apparently not found in most women).  As an adult now planning to have children I can’t help but be concerned by the infinite amount of pornographic content available on the web for free.

So I ask: how is pornography affecting both men and women’s sexuality in the ‘post rise of the internet’ generation?  And what responsibilities do the makers of erotic images have?

Overexposed touches on these matters only slightly, but it is a short film, and a student one to boot, so it can be forgiven for not giving a deep analysis.

It does offer one way forward though for film makers: at the end of the doc we have a non-sexual scene of intimacy between a couple – will this type of thing – intimacy presented in a postive, and glamorous way, be a possible way forward away from the current crass, limiting and destructive portrayal of sex in our society?

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UPDATE May 7th, 2009:  If you’re interested in seeing ‘Overexposed’ please send an email to: info@overexposedthemovie.com to request a copy for free, (plus shipping cost)

(Jett is a Juror at this year’s Nashville Film Festival, (April 16th-23rd); he’ll be updating ‘The Film Talk’ throughout the Fest with thoughts on films seen both in and out of competition – as always Spoilers Ahoy)

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I Am So Proud of You / By Don Hertzfeldt

Normally.

Normally.

Normally I wait a couple of days after seeing a film before commenting on it – letting it digest, you know.  But I find myself with fierce urgency typing this – so compelled am I to tell you what I’ve just seen.  You don’t see two good films in a day, man.  I don’t see one good film in a month it seems – and I see everything.

So today – to see two extraordinary – remarkable – films requires an exclamation point at the end of this sentence, !

First – ‘I Am So Proud of You’:  It’s everything Benjamin Button wanted to be – an extraordinary meditation on life, childhood, aging, futility and the search for meaning.  Fusing the work of artists like Guy Maddin, David Lynch and Crispin Glover, animator Don Hertzfeldt has created a masterwork.

Watching this twenty-two minute life story of stick-figure, ‘Bill’, is to see someone in complete control of their medium.  It’s hysterically funny, whimsical, macabre, horrifying, sentimental, mawkish, chilling, insightful and sublime – all at the same moment.

Make the time to see this picture – if you can’t see it at the Fest then put it on your queue, your download in-box, your phone insta-list – whatever, whatever you use to view films – make a note and see it.

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‘I Am so Proud of You’ screens as part of the ‘Cartoons for Grownups’ program: Saturday, April 18th at 9:30pm and Tuesday, April 21st at 9:30pm.

Slaves / Directed by David Aronowitsch and Hanna Heilborn

While ‘I Am So Proud of You’ uses a vast array of cinematic tricks and grammar to produce intense emotional effects in the viewer, ‘Slaves’ uses one very simple technique at the start and end to completely enwrap you in a story.

I say story – but that’s not right – let’s call it for what it is – the human condition.  This condition being the tendency we have to treat others in ways different than we would like to be treated – in short it’s 2009 and we allow slavery.

There are slaves here – just a plane ride away.

Does that bother you? Yes?  Well what are you going to do about it?  Anything?

In ‘Slaves’ we hear an audio recording of two escaped slaves giving a history – this audio interview has been animated – a method of film making very similar to what we see in ‘Waltz with Bashir’ – but with an important difference.

The audio in this film isn’t polished as in ‘Bashir’; we hear the interviewers having problems with recording equipment, futzing around with levels, bumping the mic, etc.  By letting us hear these technical problems at the start as well as at the end of the film, and by including other bits of business commercial cinema normally cut out such as sneezes and coughs our ‘cinematic minds’ are conditioned to believe everything we hear – in short – we accept we are witness to a truth.

This is motion-picture manipulation at its most elegant, most powerful and most justified – the same exhortation I used above for for ‘I Am So Proud of You’ applies to ‘Slaves’ -  I can’t think of two more important and urgent pictures to watch right now.

‘Slaves’ screens as part of the ‘Animating History / Animating Reality’ program: Saturday, April 18th at 07:00 PM and Monday, April 20th at 03:15 PM.

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An additional note: watching these films am struck again by the absurdity of categories for films – ‘animated movies’ – why?  ‘Documentaries’ – why? In an age in which in the Western world everyone has a video camera in their pocket, the need for ’silos’ for different kinds of pictures becomes not just otiose but unhelpful – we’re at the beginning of an explosion of new types of moving pictures – why compartmentalise this new work?; (additional and perhaps contradictory thoughts on the subject can be found in this post).

(Jett is a Juror at this year’s Nashville Film Festival, (April 16th-23rd); he’ll be updating ‘The Film Talk’ throughout the Fest with thoughts on films seen both in and out of competition – as always Spoilers Ahoy)

Instead of Abracadabra / Written and Directed by Patrik Eklund / Starring Simon J. Berger

Chimay!

There, it’s done – I’ve found my mantra – the word that will restore my focus when I’m befuddled – bring me up when ever I’m down.

What’s that you say?  The hard-hearted cynic of ‘The Film Talk’ who vents spleen at Hollywood product like ‘Knowing’ whenever he gets the chance has been revitalised by a short Swedish comedic portrait of a failed magician who lives with his parents and whose magic word ‘Chimay’ is mistaken for ‘Shemale’?

Yes.  Yes, of course I have.

Without shame I say ‘Instead of Abracadabra’, (original title ‘Istället för abrakadabra’ – thankfully this isn’t the show and I don’t have to say that out loud), is the feel good hit of the…well, it was the feel good hit of this Easter Sunday.

That may not sound like a ringing endorsement.  But let me tell you something – I see a lot of films.

A. Lot. Of. Films.

I have stacks of screeners surrounding me as a write this – little known Abyssinian dramas tumble down from piles onto unsolicited mumblecore weepies shot entirely on Cell Phones shooting through Pixelvision viewfinders.

Not all of these films are gold.

So when a pic feels fresh, confident – is full of the razamatazz – full of the hoo-haa – full of Chimay! then I stir from the seemingly narcostised slumber that watching one bad student feature after another instills, (note to “Joe” who’s mortgaged his girlfriend’s house to pay for a ‘shot on 65mm’ dream picture about one crazy last summer before adulthood:  you can do better).

The acting is sharp, the camerawork witty – you will feel fear – you will laugh – you’ll worry about the characters – in short:  it’s a well made film.

If you’re at this year’s Nashville Film Fest try to make it to ‘Instead of Abracadabra’, (or go to the ticket booth and ask for ‘Istället för abrakadabra’ – go on, I dare you), you’ll leave the cinema shouting ‘Chimay!’*

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‘Istället för abrakadabra’ / ‘Instead of Abracadabra’ screens as part of the ‘Fun With Our Shorts On’ program – Friday, April 17 at 06:30 PM and Thursday April 23 at 01:00 PM.

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* I realise this sort of film critcism sounds like a puff piece – I think unconsciously I’m trying to get my name on a poster – you know, the kind of thing you’d see on ‘Fast and Furious’: “An Action Packed, Adrenaline-Fueled Thrill Ride!”  The fact that I’m blurbing for a little known Swedish Magician Pic, (is that a genre?), speaks volumes.  Chimay.

(Jett is a Juror at this year’s Nashville Film Festival, (April 16th-23rd); he’ll be updating ‘The Film Talk’ throughout the Fest with thoughts on films seen both in and out of competition – as always Spoilers Ahoy)

Streak / Featuring Brittany Snow – Rumer Willis / Written by Kelly Fremon – Allan Loeb / Directed by Demi Moore

Was Marylin Monroe beautiful?

I don’t know.

Her face and body have been reproduced so many times in the media that I find it impossible to form even a remotely defensibly objective view about her image or talent.  If only I could erase all knowledge of her then perhaps I could appreciate Eisenstaedt’s photos or Wilder’s ‘Some Like it Hot’.

With this in mind how am I able to see clearly the new short film ‘Streak’ knowing as I do that Demi Moore directed it?  If only I hadn’t looked it up on IMDB first.  But I did.

So this short flick, the story of a young woman who rejects the obsessive calorie counting of her gym rat pals and finds salvation in running nude, (streaking), can’t be separated in my mind from director Moore’s own use of her body as assertive career changer.

Seen in the context of Demi disrobing, (for the cover of Vanity Fair – pregnant! / thrusting herself on the stage in ‘Striptease’), ‘Streak’ is fascinating.

Freedom in nudity.

Rejection of suffocating social norms by running wild – your flabby bits wobbling everywhere for the world to see.

Well not quite.  ‘Cause the heroine of ‘Streak’ is actually in great shape – oh why couldn’t she have been played by someone with the body of Kathy Bates?

So in that sense the film disappoints – but, if I didn’t know the pic was from an Industry Superstar I’d applaud this first time helmer’s effort – and look forward to more films from said director.

In fact Ms. Moore has shown that she can direct – I would pay to see a feature film by her – she’s proven she can keep it all together and tell a well crafted and quite moving story.

Only, next time Director Moore – let it all hang out.

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‘Streak’ screens in the program “Grow Up Already – Coming of Age Shorts” – Tuesday April 21st at 1:00 PM and Wednesday April 22nd at 05:30 PM.