Directed by Jean-Baptiste Mondino
Author: pnea
chronicler, explorer of nature, anthroposophist
042 – the chinese botanist’s daughters (2006)
spacetime coordinate: 1980s China
Les filles du botaniste (Chinese: 植物园, Botanic Garden) is a dramatic and delicate story of two star-crossed lovers set against the fantastic lush of Chinese gardens.
based on a true story
The story starts when Min, a botanist who spent her childhood as an orphan, comes to intern at the botanical gardens under her new instructor, Chen. It is there that she meets An, Chen’s daughter, and finds herself falling in love in a time and place where same-sex relationships are an unforgivable crime.
Since it delves into a topic considered taboo in China, the government refused to allow for the film to be shot or even shown in the country (it was ultimately filmed in Vietnam)
Dai Sijie (director) “I felt that the deep love that brought these two young women together was extremely romantic. In my mind, these women weren’t so much ‘lesbian’ – since they didn’t really possess a recognition of knowledge of themselves as such – but rather they just were determined to love each other dearly. That unwavering surety of pure love just tears at the heart. Also, what really got to me was the fact that these were women denied their freedom. They were justified in their love and there should be no reason why they shouldn’t be able to continue in it–so one has to wonder, why do they not have that right? Since I have experienced losing the right to my own expression, I know what it feels like to not be able to be who you are in your own country. I felt close to both of them, because to me it seemed like we were all outsiders.”
The Chinese Botanist’s Daughters Interview with Dai Sijie in Tokyo Wrestling
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041 – The Assassin (2015)
spacetime coordinate: 8th century China during last years of the Tang Dynasty / the distant province/circuit of Weibo in the north
he Assassin (Chinese: 刺客聶隱娘; pinyin: Cìkè Niè Yǐnniáng; or: The Assassin Niè Yǐnniáng) is a 2015 martial arts film directed by Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien. A Taiwan/China/Hong Kong co-production, loosely based on the late 9th century martial arts story “Nie Yinniang” by Pei Xing, a core text in Chinese swordsmanship and wuxia fiction.
landscapes
“The King of Kophen’s bluebird failed to sing for three years.
One day the Queen remarked : Birds sing only to their own kind, set the bird before a mirror!
The King heeded her advice.
The bluebird saw its own image, it sang of its sadness, it danced, until it expired.”
(trivia: In the film, the actors speak classical Chinese which was mostly used for literary texts and almost never spoken. The final version henceforth includes Chinese subtitles.)
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0040 – georgica (1998)
spacetime coordinate: post-World War II Estonia
Georgica is a 1998 Estonian drama film directed by Sulev Keedus. The film takes its name from Virgil‘s poem of the same name.
The action takes place in post-World War II Estonia. An old man lives alone on a deserted island which the Soviet fighter planes use for nighttime target practicing. A young neglected boy, who has become mute, is banished from the mainland and sent to the island to keep the old man company. Both are haunted by memories, the boy about his mother and the old man about the years before World War I he spent as a missionary in Africa.
Jakub: If you want to live and survive… then wait… Wait…and do what you’ve got to do. And then…wait again… This is the best thing you can do in this world…
I have seen it and I can tell you… You may push but only slightly… And then wait again… And you’ll live your life – and eat bread and honey… I eat honey –
and translate this old Vergil into Swahili… And I make silage for the animals on the continent… And you too will start talking when the right time has come…
(…) This end of the wax cylinder, it’s still quite empty… This is for you… Then later you can hear what your voice was like – when you were on the island – with an old man, a horse and some bees…
0039 – [safe] 1995
spacetime coordinate: 1987 suburban California
Safe — sometimes written as [safe] or [SAFE] — is a 1995 British/American drama film written and directed by Todd Haynes, and starring Julianne Moore. The story is a character study of a suburban California housewife whose life deteriorates under the stress of “environmental illnesses” and seeks hope from “New Age” practitioners with whom she becomes involved. Safe was voted the best film of the 1990s in the 1999 Village Voice Film Poll.
Set in an affluent neighbourhood of the San Fernando Valley in 1987, the film recounts the life of a seemingly unremarkable homemaker, Carol White who develops multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS, also known as “Twentieth-Century Disease”). MCS is a medically controversial diagnosis in which a person develops mild to severe non-specific symptoms and believes that these symptoms are triggered by chemicals found in everyday household and industrial products.
Safe Soundtrack
038 – Carol (2015)
spacetime coordinate: Christmas season of 1952 – early 1953 / New York City > Waterloo, Iowa
Carol is a 2015 British-American dreamy romantic drama film directed by Todd Haynes. The screenplay, written by Phyllis Nagy, is based on the 1952 semi-autobiographical romance novel The Price of Salt (also known as Carol) by Patricia Highsmith. The film stars Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Sarah Paulson, Jake Lacy and Kyle Chandler. Set in New York City during the early 1950s, Carol tells the story of a forbidden affair between an aspiring female photographer and an older woman going through a difficult divorce.
Carol was shot on Super 16 millimeter film to resemble the look and feel of photographic film from the late 1940s/early 1950s. The cinematography was influenced by the photojournalism of Vivian Maier, Ruth Orkin, Helen Levitt, and Esther Bubley. Photography by Saul Leiter (known for shooting through windows and using reflection) was a key influence.
Prior to production, director Todd Haynes compiled a playlist of 79 songs and instrumental music that were popular during the period Carol is set in (including songs referenced in the novel “The Price of Salt”) to assist in further understanding the era and mood of the times.
Director Todd Haynes creates image books as a guide to the visual feel of his films, going back to his drama Safe (1995). The compendiums are culled from photographs, film stills, paintings, periodicals and other sources to generate ideas for the film’s style. They are meant initially for the cinematographer. (The books are not to be confused with storyboards, the shot-by-shot breakdowns he has made since his first feature, Poison(1991).) His image books are “a way of communicating beyond words that gets to the crux of what the mood, temperature and stylistic references would be.” For Carol “it becomes great reference for clothes, hair, makeup, the way women carry themselves in the period and the specificity of how they’re being created from the outside in.” The image book includes, for example, references to other films such as: Brief Encounter(1945) and Vertigo (1958) for their sense of period, and The Sugarland Express (1974) for its innovative cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond; Lovers and Lollipops (1956) for the locations and The Pumpkin Eater (1964) for the interiors; and urban photography by Ernst Haas, Helen Levitt and Vivian Maier. Haynes assembles his image books almost as a kind of visual mixtape, pulling photos and movie screen grabs of his inspirations and laying them out in pages of collages to create a kind of virtual movie. Haynes created more than 80 pages of photo collages for “Carol” that served as a road map through the production. It took him two months to compile. [from N.Y.Times 1/28/2016 “Todd Haynes Collects Images to Guide the Feel of His Films”]
037 – Amer (2009)
Amer is a 2009 Belgian-French thriller horror film written and directed by French directors Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani. The film is a giallo in three parts. The plot of the film follows the sexual development of Ana who lives on the French Riviera. The film focuses on her oppressive teenage years leading to her womanhood.
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TimeSpace Warps 