Hong Kong superstar Andy Lau was injured in Thailand and his fans are worried

Hong Kong actor Andy Lau at the Golden Horse Film Awards in Taipei, Taiwan, November 23, 2013 AFP/Getty Images)

Hong Kong singer and actor Andy Lau Tak-wak has been injured in Thailand and his fans all over the world are worried about his condition. (I include myself among those fans.)

Lau, 55, was filming a commercial in Khao Lak, Thailand On Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2017. Something spooked the horse he was riding and Lau was thrown to the ground. Some reports say that the horse stepped on his waist, which sounds very serious. Nevertheless, Lau’s PR people said that everything is under control and that there’s nothing to worry about.
Reuters quoted Lau’s blog: “There was an accident when I was shooting for a commercial in Thailand on January 17. I fell from a horse and this lacerated my pelvic bone. Right now a medical team is taking proper care of me. I am doing well. Please do not worry. Thank you for your well wishes.”

Lau was flown back to Hong Kong for surgery. Hong Kong police stopped traffic so that his ambulance could get from the airport to Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital as quickly as possible. However, the Hong Kong newspaper The Standard said that: “Lau had to wait inside the ambulance for about 10 to 20 minutes as the hospital entrance was blocked by a large group of journalists who awaited him.”

A video on the web site of the South China Morning Post shows dozens, possibly even hundreds, of those journalists and photographers surrounding the ambulance.

The Standard said that it might take three months for Lau to recover. It also mentioned another mishap with a horse during the filming of The Warlords. “In 2007, Lau jumped off a horse after failing to stop it when he was shooting The Warlords. He was nearly trampled upon by other horses from behind.”

Andy Lau rides a horse in the 2007 Film The Warlords.

The South China Morning Post quoted “retired broadcaster Cheung Man-sun” who said that “Lau is the pride of Hong Kong and well regarded among the Chinese communities around the world. He is one of the most hard-working personalities in the industry. . .”

Fans of Hong Kong cinema will already know Lau’s work. For others. . . Andy Lau started out on TV, then moved to films. He is versatile, being equally at home with romantic comedies or criminal capers set in the modern day. He has played crooks and cops, and plays both at the same time in Infernal Affairs (2002), the film that Martin Scorsese remade as The Departed, in 2006. He has also appeared in many historical films, playing both military men and an early philosophical peacenik.

One of his most recent films is The Great Wall, directed by Zhang Yimou. The film is controversial in some quarters because Matt Damon is in it. However, in many countries, Andy Lau will be a bigger box-office draw more than Damon will. (Contrary to expectations, Damon does not “save China” in the film.) Coincidentally, in The Departed, Damon played a crook who infiltrated the police force, which was Lau’s role in Infernal Affairs.

Lau also worked with Zhang Yimou for House of Flying Daggers (2004). Other directors Lau has worked with include Johnnie To, Tsui Hark, Wong Kar-Wai, Feng Xiaogang, Ann Hui, Gordon Chan, and Sammo Hung.

In the film Lost and Love (2015) Andy Lau plays a man who travels thousands of miles throughout China, looking for his son, who was kidnapped as a young child.

Andy Lau’s films have been shown at film festivals in Cannes, Venice, Busan, Shanghai, Hong Kong, San Francisco, Toronto, and at Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival. Many get a general release in North America, as well. (Here in Montreal, Cineplex Forum often shows Chinese films.)

Here are the names of just a few of Andy Lau’s many films. (Visit imdb.com for a full list of Andy Lau’s films.)
My Beloved Bodyguard (2016); Saving Mr. Wu (2015); Lost and Love (2015); Blind Detective (2013); Firestorm (2013); Cold War (2012); What Women Want (2011); A Simple Life (2011); Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (2010); The Warlords (2007); A World Without Thieves (2004); Infernal Affairs 3 (2003); Running on Karma (2003); Infernal Affairs (2002); Saviour of the Soul (1991); Days of Being Wild (1990); As Tears Go By (1988)

The web site for Andy Lau’s fans is called Andy World Club.

Lau, or at least his Chinese given name, Tak-Wah, is even featured in the popular Korean TV drama Goblin. One character, Deok-hwa (it sounds the same as Tak-Wah) was given that name because his uncle likes Andy Lau.

Actors Andy Lau, left, Xu Jinglei, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Jet Li and director Peter Chan at a press conference for the movie The Warlords, in Beijing, Dec. 6, 2007. (Xinhua/Lu Xin)

Oh, I almost forgot! Andy Lau also has a local, Montreal connection. . .sort of. At the Golden Horse Awards in 2012, Montreal director Yung Chang won the Golden Horse Award for Best Documentary. In the photo below, Andy Lau greets Qi Moxiang, a retired boxer and boxing coach, who is the main focus of Chang’s film, China Heavyweight. Everyone connected to the film was thrilled to meet Lau.

Hong Kong actor Andy Lau, left, shakes hands with Qi Moxiang at the 2012 Golden Horse Awards in Taipei, Taiwan. Qi is the main character in the documentary China Heavyweight, by Canadian director Yung Chang.

Sommets du cinéma d’animation 2016: Review of animated film Fox Fears

In this scene from the animated film Fox Fears, Bunroku can't keep up with his friends because he is wearing his mother's clogs. — In this scene from the animated film Fox Fears, Bunroku can’t keep up with his friends because he is wearing his mother’s clogs.

The mystery of the night, primordial fears, the power of a mother’s love – those are some of the ingredients in Fox Fears (Kitsune Tsuki)
a lovely short animated short from Japan. (Nothing to do with the nefarious U.S. TV network!) Director Miyo Sato made Fox Fears using sand and paint on glass.

The story begins the way a low-key horror film might. A young boy named Bunroku narrates the story. Under a bright moon, he was walking to a night festival with his friends, but he couldn’t keep up with them because he was wearing his mother’s clogs. (Not the right size, I guess. What happened to his own shoes? Too small? They broke?)

He and his friends stop at a clog shop so he can buy new ones. While they are in there, we hear distant music from the festival – flutes and drums. One flute sounded a bit like a wolf’s howl, to me. After the boy makes his purchase, a mysterious old woman appears and tells them that buying clogs after dark means you will turn into a fox. Don’t they know that? “Lies!” they shout, and head off to the festival, with its lanterns, banners, floats and music. (I would have liked to spend a few more seconds at this festival!)

Bunroku tells us that his friends would always see him safely home, and yet somehow this night, they do not. He imagines foxes and their shadows stalking him all the long, long way home. Once he gets there (guess that’s a spoiler, sorry!) he tells his mother what happened and she reassures him there’s nothing to worry about. She uses the word “lies,” as well. Maybe superstition is too big a word and too big a concept for a little kid. Not to mention folklore or mythology.

But Bunroku needs further reassurance. “But what if I DID turn into a fox?” His mother has an answer to that. He has more complicated questions and she has more detailed answers. I won’t spoil all that for you. One of the imagined scenarios is tragic and might bring the susceptible to tears.

Bunroku and his mother, from the Japanese animated film Fox Fears.

Even thought they are having a theoretical, late-night, drowsy chat about shapeshifting, it is very clear that Bunroku’s mother would do anything and everything to keep him safe. That’s what good mothers everywhere do. It’s quite an amazing thing!

References and my reactions: It is possible that I am seeing things in Fox Fears that director Miyo Sato did not intend. Who knows, really. But, one way or the other, those things added to my enjoyment of the film.

Fox Fears has a dreamy, timeless quality. I don’t remember seeing any cars, buses, trucks, cellphones. If not for a light bulb seen at Bunroku’s home, and the Western clothes on some characters, the story could have taken place hundreds of years ago.

I find it cute that he’s wearing his mother shoes. I used to wear my mother’s boots when I was quite young (I had big feet!) That made me feel closer to her, not to mention that her boots were prettier and more stylish than mine.

The clog shop looks isolated, on the edge of the forest. That reminded me of so many films, Japanese ones in particular, where magical (and/or evil) places only exist at night. In the light of day, there is nothing there at all. Or just some ruins. The people who seem to live in those places are really ghosts or demons. Eat or drink what they give you and you will be under their power forever. Does that clog shop even exist in the day time?

A fox family in sihouette in the animated film Japanese Fox Fears. Director Miya Sato created the images using sand and paint on glass.

Foxes and fox spirits figure in Japanese folklore and films; I’ve read some of those stories and seen some of those films. They appear in Chinese and Korean tales and films too, though the details vary.

I saw Fox Fears (Kitsune Tsuki) at Les Sommets du cinéma d’animation de Montréal 2016, at the Cinémathèque Québecoise.

Fox Fears (Kitsune Tsuki)
Animation (PG)
Director: Miyo Satori
Length: 7 min., 38 sec
Language: Japanese
Subtitles: English
Completed date: 2015

Sommets du cinéma d’animation 2016: Review of the documentary Oscar

A screen grab from Oscar, an NFB/ONF documentary about jazz pianist Oscar Peterson. The film was directed by Marie-Jose Saint-Pierre.

In the 12-minute NFB/ONF documentary Oscar, filmmaker Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre uses animated sequences, archival footage, photos, news clippings and other documents, radio and TV interviews with Montreal-born jazz pianist Oscar Peterson to chart his career and to depict the loneliness of life on the road and the toll it takes on a marriage, on the relationship between a father and his children and on musical performance, too. (Peterson was only 19 when he married for the first time. He tells an unseen interviewer that he should have waited until he was at least 40.)

A telegram reads: “I miss you Daddy. When are you coming home?” We also see a divorce document – genuine or recreated, I don’t know – that lists the respective parties as “Oscar Peterson” and “Mrs. Peterson.” That’s how it was in those days, married women didn’t even have a name of their own. More cringe inducing is a radio segment from 1944 in which announcer Jeff Davis calls 18-year-old Peterson a “coloured boy with amazing fingers.”

Oscar Peterson had a regular gig at Montreal's Alberta Lounge. — Oscar Peterson had a regular gig at Montreal’s Alberta Lounge.

In addition to talk about the hardships of touring, we see daytime and night-time photos of Montreal back in the 1940s, are reminded how popular our city was with U.S. tourists, and revisit the tale of how U.S. impresario Norman Granz was riding in a Montreal taxi when he heard Peterson on a live radio broadcast from the Alberta Lounge. Granz instructed the driver to take him there right away.

When he was still a young man, Oscar Peterson shared a bill at Carnegia Hall with his idols Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie and Ray Brown.

In the next sequence, Granz has taken Peterson to Carnegie Hall, where he plays on a bill that includes Ella Fitzgerald and Dizzy Gillespie. (Granz was Peterson’s manager for most of his life; a New York Times obituary for Granz says that Peterson named one of his sons after him. Google tells me that late in life Peterson had a daughter named Celine. Was she named for our national songbird? Anybody know?)

An animated depiction of CBC radio host Peter Gzowski is astounded when Peterson tells him that he thinks ahead while he’s playing, or more precisely, that he plays behind his thinking.

Needless to say, Oscar contains lots of Peterson’s music, too, a bonus for old fans and newly created ones.

Oscar is part of a three-film selection called Animating Reality 1: Familiar Faces, that will be shown on Sunday, Nov. 27, at 1:15 p.m., as part of the Sommets du cinéma d’animation film festival, at the Cinémathèque Québecoise, 335, de Maisonneuve Blvd. E.

NOTE: Casino, a 4-minute film by Montreal director Steven Woloshen, uses music by Oscar Peterson. Casino is among the films in the International Competition – Programme 3, that will be shown at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 27, at 1:15 p.m., at the Sommets du cinéma d’animation.

Sommets du cinema d’animation: ‘If you scan an octopus, be sure you really clean your scanner well afterwards’

You don’t hear about scanning tentacles everyday; neither do you get to talk to an Oscar winner. But some of us did both yesterday (Friday, Nov. 25, 2016) when filmmaker Joan Gratz gave a master class at the Les Sommets du cinéma d’animation here in Montreal. We learned a lot and laughed a lot, too.

Gratz’s Mona Lisa Descending a Staircase won Best Animated Short at the 65th Annual Academy Awards in 1993. (Snow White announced the award. Seriously! Gratz did not mention this herself, but I saw it on YouTube.)

I had seen it before, but did not realize that she had created the images with clay. Gratz explained how she does that, and showed us many of her other films, including Kubla Khan, Puffer Girl, and Pro and Con.

An image from the animated film Puffer Girl, by Joan Gratz.

Animator Joan Gratz has written and illustrated books, too.

Meanwhile, you can see her latest film Primal Flux, as part of the International Competition 3 selection, at Sommets du cinéma d’animation, on Saturday Nov. 26 at 5p.m. and Sunday Nov. 27 at 3 p.m. Both screenings will be in the Salle Principale of the Cinémathèque Québecoise.

Cinémathèque Québecoise
335, de Maisonneuve Blvd. E.
Montréal, Québec, H2X 1K1
Berri-UQAM Metro

There’s lots to see and do at Les Sommets du cinéma d’animation in Montreal

A frame from Diane Obamsawin's film Here and There. Is Obamsawin a Habs fan? — A frame from Diane Obamsawin’s film Here and There. Is Obamsawin a Habs fan?

The 15th edition of Les Sommets du cinéma d’animation, at the Cinémathèque québécoise, will squeeze many activities into a mere five days.
The film festival’s schedule includes short and feature-length animated films from around the world, master classes, and a free stop-motion workshop for children (I’m jealous!).

Canada’s venerable nation Film Board (NFB/ONF) is well represented and there are competitions for student films, from Montreal, Quebec, elsewhere in Canada and abroad.

Admission to the films: $10 for adults, $9 for students, seniors and those 4-16 years old.

At Les Sommets du cinema dÕanimation, filmmaker Joan Gratz will demonstrate her signature technique, claypainting.

Among the other presentations: Finding Work in the Animation Industry; The secrets behind virtual monsters and creatures; Money and Eyeballs (How to get funding and exposure for your films); Round table discussion (How do journalists and critics work in a community as tight-knit as animation?); A Near-Perfect History of Animation. The Animation lecture cost $9, but the other events listed above are free.
There are two master classes: A 90-minute Master Class with Joan Gratz, who “will present her films and reveal the secrets behind her signature technique, claypainting” is free.

A frame from Diane Obamsawin's film I Like Girls. Mathilde, right, says that her first girlfriend was "half horse, half Wonder Woman." — A frame from Diane Obamsawin’s film I Like Girls. Mathilde, right, says that her first girlfriend was “half horse, half Wonder Woman.”

A ticket for a five-hour Master Class with Diane Obomsawin is $9.

Visit the web page of Les Sommets du cinéma d’animation here.

The catalogue of Les Sommets du cinéma d’animation is here, in PDF form.

Les Sommets du cinéma d’animation, Nov. 23 to 27, 2016

Cinémathèque québécoise
335, de Maisonneuve Blvd. E.
Montréal, Québec, H2X 1K1
Berri-UQAM Metro

Review of Window Horses: The Poetic Persian Epiphany of Rosie Ming

Ann Marie Fleming's animated film Window Horses: The Poetic Persian Epiphany of Rosie Ming is incredibly colourful. — Ann Marie Fleming’s animated film Window Horses: The Poetic Persian Epiphany of Rosie Ming is incredibly colourful.

It is cold here in Montreal. We had the first snow of the season on Monday the same day that I saw Ann Marie Fleming’s animated film, Window Horses: The Poetic Persian Epiphany of Rosie Ming. It was like the proverbial breath of fresh air – warm, welcoming, colourful, joyful, musical, magical, mesmerising and marvelous! It’s about the love of family, love for words and music and other good things. It’s also about more complicated stuff like history, dissent, exile, reconciliation and finding your own voice. So many elements, but they all work together well, as in a symphony, or (corny reference, sorry) a beautiful carpet. Window Horses is a treat for the eyes and ears that will touch your heart. (Not exaggerating!)

The film’s French title is La vie en Rosie : L’épopée persane de Rosie Ming – a different cultural reference, while the alliteration remains.

Rosie Ming is a young Vancouver woman of Chinese and Iranian parentage. She was raised by her loving Chinese grandparents and still lives with them. (Rosie has the voice of actress Sandra Oh and a stick-figure body. That body is the alter ego of director Ann Marie Fleming. The other characters look like more conventional human beings.)

Rosie loves Paris even though she has never been there. After self publishing a slender book of her poems (My Eye Full, Poems by a Person Who Has Never Been to France) Rosie is surprised to receive an invitation to a poetry festival in Iran.

Her best friend Kelly (voice of Ellen Page) tells Rosie that she MUST make the trip. (Kelly did not even know that Rosie wrote poetry, so she’s a bit hurt that Rosie kept that info to herself.)

Rosie Ming is drawn as a stick figure in the film Window Horses: The Poetic Persian Epiphany of Rosie Ming. Rosie loves Paris, but there's a map of Iran under her Paris poster. — Rosie Ming is drawn as a stick figure in the film Window Horses: The Poetic Persian Epiphany of Rosie Ming. Rosie loves Paris, but there’s a map of Iran under her Paris poster.

Rosie’s grandparents are happy that their little girl has been honoured; they are less enthusiastic when they learn that the event is in Iran. But once Rosie has decided to go, they can’t dissuade her. (Grandpa Stephen is played by Eddy Ko, Grandma Gloria is played by Nancy Kwan. THE Nancy Kwan, of The World of Susie Wong, Flower Drum Song, etc.)

As the airplane starts its descent to the airport, all the women cover their hair with scarves. Rosie outdoes them, going full chador. (Throughout her visit, she is told: “You don’t have to do that, you know.”)

When Rosie tells the customs officer that she is attending a poetry festival in Shiraz, he says that he is a poet, too. Everyone in Iran is a poet!

Even though she is quite young and has only written one book, Rosie is treated with warmth and respect by everyone at the festival, apart from snarky German guest Dietmar, who usually has his nose buried in his phone.

Don McKellar and Sandra Oh enjoy themselves recording the voices of Dietmar and Rosie, for the film Window Horses: The Poetic Persian Epiphany of Rosie Ming.

(Canadian actor and director Don McKellar provides the voice of Dietmar. “I have angst. I’m doomed,” he says.) Other guests include Chinese exile Di Di and U.S. poet Taylor Mali. (Mali is a real-life person.)

Rosie knows about Rimbaud, Baudelaire and other French poets; in Shiraz her hosts introduce her to the verses of Iranian poets Rumi, Hafiz (also spelled Hafez) and Saadi. The last two were both sons of Shiraz.

Window Horses is full of beautiful sequences; here are two. We hear the call to prayer coming from a minaret. The sounds are represented by colourful ribbons that fly through the air. Soon an enraptured Rosie is floating with them. (This sequence was made Kevin Langdale, who is the lead animator and designer of the entire film.) A sequence describing the life of Hafiz is exceptional, with complicated paper cut-outs, whirling calligraphy, etc. Bahram Javaheri, a Vancouver-based Iranian filmmaker, made the cutouts and Michael Mann assembled and animated them using Adobe’s After Effects software.

The Iranian poet Hafiz, right, listens to his father recite poetry in a scene from Ann Marie Fleming's animated film Window Horses: The Poetic Persian Epiphany of Rosie Ming. Bahram Javaheri, a Vancouver-based Iranian filmmaker, made the paper cutouts and Michael Mann assembled and animated them using After Effects software. — The Iranian poet Hafiz, right, listens to his father recite poetry in a scene from Ann Marie Fleming’s animated film Window Horses: The Poetic Persian Epiphany of Rosie Ming. Bahram Javaheri, a Vancouver-based Iranian filmmaker, made the paper cutouts and Michael Mann assembled and animated them using After Effects software.

(People come from all over Iran to visit the tomb of Hafiz; Rosie visits it, too. We learn that Iranians consult books of his poetry to answer questions about their lives – open any page, and his ancient words will have meaning in the present-day situation. This made me think of people consulting the I-Ching back in the 1960s.)

Rosie does not know much Mandarin beyond “ni hao,” yet she is moved to tears by Di Di’s untranslated poem. Even though she does not know the words, she feels their meaning and the emotions behind them. In a flashback scene, Rosie’s parents meet and bond immediately over their shared love for Rumi. When Rosie’s father recites a Rumi poem in Farsi, Rosie’s mother cries crystal tears.

When Rosie's parents meet, her future mother, Caroline, is reading a book by Rumi. Caroline cries when Rosie's future father recites a Rumi poem in Farsi. — When Rosie’s parents meet, her future mother, Caroline, is reading a book by Rumi. Caroline cries when Rosie’s future father recites a Rumi poem in Farsi.

Despite much warmth and happiness in Rosie’s life, and in her visit to Shiraz, there is an undercurrent of melancholy, with gusts to bitterness. Her mother is dead, and her father abandoned her when she was 7 years old. How could he do that? Many people in Shiraz knew her father, and they tell her he was a very good man. At first, Rosie does not want to hear anything about him, but then she, and we, make some surprising discoveries about him. To reveal more would be to spoil things.

Window Horses is among the two opening films of Les Sommets du cinéma d’animation, 15th edition, at the Cinémathèque Québécoise. It will be shown Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2016. at 7 p.m. (Oooops, the screening is now sold out.) Window Horses will get a general release in Canada in 2017.

RIDM 2016: Sundance Now has got a deal for you!

Here are just a few of the music documentaries available from Sundance Now.

Going to Montreal’s documentary film festival RIDM today? It’s the festival’s last day for this year.

If you go, consider having a chat with the people from Sundance Now. They have tables at all or most of the RIDM locations.

You can get a 37-day free trial of the video-on-demand service from them. If you sign up on the Internet you will only get one week. Sundance Now specializes in documentaries, but it has fiction films, and TV shows, too. You can watch them on iOS, Apple TV, Android, Roku,
Chromecast, or the web.

While it doesn’t have as many films as Netflix does, (not yet anyway) once a film is added to the Sundance Now collection, it remains in it – it isn’t deleted a few weeks or months later. That’s a plus, right?

If you don’t like the service, just cancel it before the 37 days are up.

RIDM 2016: Review of documentary film El Futuro Perfecto

In a scene from the hybrid documentary El Futuro Perfecto, Zhang Xiaobin, centre, and her fellow students in a Spanish language class prove that they understand the meaning of the word "ojos." — In a scene from the hybrid documentary El Futuro Perfecto, Zhang Xiaobin, centre, and her fellow students in a Spanish language class prove that they understand the meaning of the word “ojos.”

Xiaobin is a young woman of 17 who moves from China to Buenos Aires to join her parents.

Signing up for Spanish lessons allows her to make friends, expand her horizons and contemplate many possible futures.

Each student in the class is given a Spanish name (she gets Beatriz). They can play at new identities – a nurse from Barcelona, a business woman from Colombia, a lawyer from Montevideo.

They read questionable statements from their text book, “If I marry a rich man, I won’t have to work.” (Tsk, tsk!)

They practice mildly stilted dialogue exercises, inviting each other to meals or to the movies. Outside the classroom, Xiaobin uses those phrases when talking to Vijay, an immigrant programmer from India, and they really do go places together. They still act like they’re practicing, though. They order orange juice, and then decide to leave a few minutes later without even tasting it. “Should we go? “Let’s go.” The audience in the cinema laughs.

After the film, a friend said that the person who played Vijay was not a good actor. I’m not sure about that. I think he might have played his part exactly the way director Nele Wohlatz wanted him to.

The dialogues in their text books will sound familiar to anyone who’s ever taken a language class, but some of the overwrought things Vijay says sound like they’re from a melodramatic telenovela.

Kitty content: After a few dialogues about cats, kittens start to appear in the homes of some of the students.

El Futuro Perfecto is not a typical documentary at all. It’s some sort of hybrid thing – drama/documentary/improv, based on the real-life experience of star Zhang Xiaobin. Many parts are quite funny, too. I would have been happy to spend more time in the world of El Futuro Perfecto, but it’s only 65 minutes long. Maybe writer/director Wohlatz and her cast said every thing that they wanted to say within that time frame. If so, kudos to them for not dragging things out.

Learn more about El Futuro Perfecto or buy tickets on the web site of RIDM, Montreal’s documentary film festival.
El Futuro Perfecto, 65 minutes long, in Spanish and Mandarin with English subtitles.
Director: Nele Wohlatz
Cast: Zhang Xiaobin , Saroj Kumar Malik , Jiang Mian , Wang Dong Xi , Nahuel Pérez Biscayart
Producer: Cecilia Salim
Cinematography: Roman Kasseroller, Agustina San Martín
Sound: Nahuel Palenque
Editing: Ana Godoy
Production: Murillo Cine

El Futuro Perfecto
Sunday, Nov. 20 at 2:30 p.m., Cinémathèque Québécoise, Salle Principale, 335 de Maisonneuve Blvd E.

RIDM 2016: Review of the documentary film Mrs. B. A North-Korean Woman (Madame B. histoire d’une Nord-Coréenne)

The woman who is the subject of Jero Yun's documentary film Mrs. B. A North-Korean Woman (Madame B. histoire d'une Nord-Coréenne), in one of her happier moments. — The woman who is the subject of Jero Yun’s documentary film Mrs. B. A North-Korean Woman (Madame B. histoire d’une Nord-Coréenne), in one of her happier moments.

If Madame B had a Facebook page, she’d have to choose the “it’s complicated” option for sure. I felt sympathy and sadness as I learned more about her story.

Poverty, politics, distance, dictatorship, love, loneliness, children – any one one of those things could make a life more complicated, but what if you stir them all together? And what if the things you want now are not the same things you thought you wanted yesterday?

When Madame B was planning her escape from North Korea to China, she thought that she would work there for about one year, then return to her husband and two sons with the money she had earned.

Things didn’t work out like that. The people who smuggled her out of North Korea sold her to a poor, elderly Chinese couple, to work on their farm and be a wife to one of their four sons. (The parents explain that they could not afford a Chinese wife for all of their sons. I did wonder about the famous “one-child policy,” but it was only introduced in 1980 and there were many exceptions, too.)

Madame B accepted that situation as a temporary thing, with running away as her backup plan. In time she came to realize that her new (common-law) husband was a pretty decent guy; she grew fond of her in-laws too, and vice versa. When we meet her, she has been part of this Chinese family for nine years.

All the same, Madame B. is not happy with the status quo and she hatches a new plan that will see her, her sons, her Chinese husband and her North Korean ex- husband all living a better life in South Korea. It seems that all that could be possible with enough time, money and the right connections. (I don’t know if Madame B.. is legally divorced from her North Korean husband, but it is clear from watching the film that, in her mind and heart, he is definitely an “ex,” it’s all over between them, whether he likes it or not.)

She will go south first, and once she has been given identity papers and an apartment, she will then officially marry her Chinese husband and bring him in as a foreign spouse.

I don’t want to spell out all the twisty turny details of the film (there are lots of them, but you should see them for yourself), but the voyage from China to Seoul, in cars, buses, trucks, and on foot, is tremendously long and convoluted – imagine travelling from Montreal to Los Angeles, or maybe Mexico City, when your ultimate destination is actually New York. The filmmaker, Jero Yun, made that trip with Madame B. and her fellow escapees.

There are surprises, unexpected setbacks, resentment, stubborness and other bad feelings. On top of that, it seems that South Korean security agents assume that all defectors are North Korean spies unless they can prove otherwise. A cloud of suspicion still hangs over Madame B, her sons and her ex, even though they were interrogated many times and passed lie detector tests.

Many people in China and North Korea probably think that life would be wonderful and all their problems would disappear if only they could get into South Korea. This film shows that things are not that simple, that no matter how hopeful or resourceful people might be, the deck is truly stacked against them.

Read more about the film and buy tickets online on the web site of the RIDM film festival.

Mrs. B. A North-Korean Woman (Madame B. histoire d’une Nord-Coréenne)
Country : France
Year : 2015
V.O : Korean, Cantonese
Subtitles : French, English
Duration : 70 Min
Director: Jero Yun
Cinematography : Jero Yun, Tawan Arun
Editing : Nadia Ben Rachid, Pauline Casalis, Sophie Pouleau, Jean-Marie Lengelle
Production : Guillaume De La Boulaye, Jae Keun Cha
Sound Design : Jero Yun, Tawan Arun

See Mrs. B. A North-Korean Woman (Madame B. histoire d’une Nord-Coréenne) Sunday, Nov. 20, 2016 at 2:30 p.m., Pavillon Judith Jasmin Annexe – Salle Jean-Claude Lauzon (the former NFB/ONF, 1564 St. Denis)
Screening presented with French subtitles

RIDM 2016: Review of documentary film NUTS!

The documentary NUTS! uses animation, photos, old film footage and newspaper clippings to tell the story of medical charlatan Dr. J.R. Brinkley.

The documentary film NUTS! tells the story of Dr. J.R. Brinkley (1885-1942). He became a very wealthy man by selling his alleged medical expertise, along with his dubious potions and questionable procedures.

J.R. Brinkley was a pioneer in three fields – medicine, business and radio. He became rich and famous as the “goat-gland doctor.” He claimed to cure impotence and infertility by implanting goat testicles, or pieces of them, into his male patients, who then went on to father “miracle babies.” A public relations man saw to it that articles about Brinkley appeared in newspapers across the U.S. It was suggested that one of these miracle babies might grow up to be another Lincoln, Edison or Shakespeare. Men flocked to Brinkley’s clinic in the tiny town of Milford, Kansas for the surgery and paid hundreds of dollars for it.

Brinkley gave health advice, sexual and otherwise, on his own radio station, KFKB, which was one of only four commercial stations in the U.S. at the time. He received thousands of letters from listeners and answered them on a show he called Medical Question Box, which ran several times per day. He recommended his own elixirs, which could be ordered from the station or bought from many pharmacists. KFKB grew from 500 watts in 1923 to 5,000 in 1927. In between his talks, the station ran lectures, French lessons, and played country music instead of the staid “potted palm music” of more conventional stations. This increased the popularity of country music.

NUTS! artfully combines animation with archival footage, photos, and newspaper articles about Brinkley. He’s often seen in a white suit, like Col. Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame. Like a wealthy entrepreneur of our own day, Brinkley also ventured into politics. He ran for governor of Kansas twice, and got lost of votes. When his broadcasting license and his license to practice medicine were revoked in Kansas, he moved to Texas where he built a palatial estate and set up a one-million-watt radio station over the border in Mexico. (Many years later, the DJ Wolfman Jack would broadcast his shows from that station.)

Brinkley bought fancy cars, airplanes, three yachts and even hired a filmmaker to document a family cruise to the Galapagos Islands. Brinkley, wife Minnie and son John are seen toting guns and looming over dead creatures. They caught five turtles, too. Green Turtle Soup!

Most of the film describes Brinkley’s life as just one roaring success after another, the same way his prolific biographer-for-hire Clement Wood did in the book The Life of a Man. The only thing that kept his life from being totally perfect were some little skirmishes with hidebound naysayers in the American Medical Association and elsewhere who were determined to halt the course of progress, etc., etc. They called him a quack.

The financial success was real, but unfortunately for many of his patients, Brinkley WAS a quack, much better at selling than he was at surgery, but somehow it took years for the general public to find that out. He had gone to medical school, but it was an unaccredited one, and he did not complete the course.

In 1939, in a very unwise move, Brinkley took his nemesis, the editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, Morris Fishbein, to court, accusing him of libel. Brinkley lost the case and his reputation was shattered. Injured patients (or their survivors) sued him for damages. By 1941 he was bankrupt, and in 1942 he died of a heart attack.

NUTS! is quite fascinating just as it is, but I would have liked to know more about all the harm Brinkley did. The Internet helps with that, though. A review of the book The Fraudulent Life of John Brinkley, by Pope Brock says that hundreds of his patients died. That being the case, I find it amazing that he couldn’t be stopped sooner.

We might like to think that we live in a more sophisticated age these days, but there are all too many quacks out there, and the Internet is even more powerful tool than a one-million-watt radio station.

Minor Canadian connections that don’t appear in the film: When he was separated from his first wife, Brinkley kidnapped his young daughter and fled to an unspecified location in Canada, for an unspecified period of tiime. Later, after he achieved fame and fortune, Brinkley liked to fish in Nova Scotia. Oh, not particularly a Canadian thing, but Brinkley was also a bigamist.
NUTS!
Country : United States
Year : 2016
Duration : 79 min.
Director: Penny Lane
Editing : Penny Lane, Thom Stylinski
Production : Caitlin Mae Burke, Penny Lane, James Belfer, Daniel Shepard
Writer : Thom Stylinski
Sound Design : Tom Paul

You can see NUTS! Saturday, Nov. 19, 3:30 p.m. as part of RIDM, Montreal documentary film festival.
Cinémathèque Québécoise – Salle Principale
Director Penny Lane will attend the screening, which will be presented with French subtitles.