settima

1990s

Sure Fire (Jon Jost, 1990)

May

31

National Utah Day

Sure Fire (1990)

The Utah landscape with part of the text from “Doctrine and Covenants 3, The Lord’s course is one eternal round” superimposed over it. It reads: …y come to naught, for God doth not walk in crook…. DP: Jon Jost.

Wes has it all laid out. His business partner just needs to see it. And his wife. And the people from the West Coast, California, where there's smog and people and no space. They surely want a home, or a second home, in Utah. It's close to Vegas, sure they'll love it. The people.

“One cannot even be sure, whether it is a sect, a mystery cult, a new religion, a church, a people, a nation, or an American subculture; indeed, at different times and places it is all of these.”

– Sydney E. Ahlstrom, historian (1982)

With Sure Fire, director Jon Jost accomplishes that what Lynch tries. A mundane gem with an ominous undertow, but all without the need for mystery or eccentric characters.

 

Just Utah, and its people.

薄面佬 [Mee Pok Man] (Eric Khoo, 1995)

May

24

National Caterers Appreciation Day

薄面佬 (1995)

Bunny (Michelle Goh) leaning on a small table littered with empty beer bottles. Mee Pok (Joe Ng) is to her left, holding a stack of dirty dishes. In the background, a large pile of noodle boxes leans against the restaurant wall. DP: Yoke Weng Ho.

At night, a small group of prostitutes frequent a local 面薄 / mee pok #restaurant. One of them, Bunny (Michelle Goh), caught the hawker's eye, but she's not interested in the “mee pok” (the “fish ball”, as they call the vendor) (Joe Ng) and besides she has a boyfriend. Then, a car crash. Bunny is left for dead in front of the eatery. He takes her in, preparing endless meals

愛情萬歲 [Ai qing wan sui / Vive L'Amour] (Tsai Ming-liang, 1994)

Mar

24

Flatmates Day

愛情萬歲 (1994)

In a black-tiled bathroom, a black dress and black shoes are fitted. DPs: Pen-Jung Liao & Ming-Kuo Lin.

May Lin is a real estate agent who meets up with a man in the bare, too sterile flat she brokers. Another man who took the key of the same dwellings for his own cause, decides to settle in.

 

Over time, the apartment serves not only as the space where events take place, but locks and guides the flatmates through their compulsions.

洞 ​[Dóng / The Hole] (Tsai Ming-liang, 1998)

Mar

22

National Sing It Out Day

洞 (1998)

The man upstairs and the woman upstairs, both dressed in that perfectly cool, 1960s Chinese style, break out in song in their crumbling apartment block The woman's singing voice is legendary Grace Chang's. DP: Pen-Jung Liao.

In a #plague-ridden Taiwan, it rains relentlessly. The #rain and a #virus forces people to retreat. In Hsiao Kang's crumbling building, a plumber inadvertently punches a hole from his floor to the unnamed woman's below. While she, another victim of the #disease, holes up in her apartment they struck up a strange detached relationship.

 

Between the endless downpour and frantic #food hoarding, in her heart a #musical sings.

Paris Is Burning (Jennie Livingston, 1990)

Mar

6

National Dress Day

Paris Is Burning (1990)

Pepper LaBeija is a stunningly extravagant gold-sequined dress. DP: Paul Gibson.

Paris Is Burning is probably best known for its fabulous #ballroom and #vogue​ㅤing scenes but in its heart, it tells the story of #family, of people who found their new ménage where they can live and love without fear and prejudice.

“In the ballroom circuit, it is so obvious that if you have captured the great white way of living, or looking, or dressing, or speaking – you is a marvel.”

– Pepper LaBeija

While you may expect a fierce documentary about #TransRights, or maybe merely a glamorous parade, you will be confronted with the flagrant #racism that made the #BallroomScene so essential for the Black and #Latinx LGBT+ community who founded it. And the tragedy of its demise in the name of pop culture even more heartbreaking.

Bakit Dilaw Ang Kulay ng Bahaghari? [Why Is Yellow the Middle of the Rainbow?] (Kidlat Tahimik, 1984/1994)

Jan

23

First Philippine Republic Day

Bakit Dilaw Ang Kulay ng Bahaghari? (1984/1994)

Young Kidlat Gottlieb Kalayaan in the midst of defacing political pamphlets of Ferdinand Marcos. DPs: Kidlat Tahimik & Roberto Yniguez.

“When you work with the cosmos, suddenly you get ideas for how to treat some visuals, like some images that had no intention of being in the film. That’s the freedom of the independent. Normally when you’re making a movie, it's almost pre-set, what elements will go in, so it will have “a unified structure”. But for me, I shoot so many things impulsively, that once I start editing a movie, suddenly there is an imperative for this obscure shot to come in here … or there. You keep juggling until you find on organic flow. You don't have a script, you just do it by feel. You're surprised that audiences like it.”

– Kidlat Tahimik, via