This weekend I attended a screening at the 27th Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, where I saw Jeff Chiba Stearns' documentary One Big Hapa Family and Patricio Ginelsa's short The Journey. Issues of multicultural identification have always been very compelling to me, and especially after seeing Kip Fulbeck's exhibits on the issue at the Japanese American National Museum, I was eager to see what looked like a warmhearted look at one Japanese-Canadian family's history with intermarriage.
Chiba Stearns looked around at his family reunion and realized that after his grandparents' generation, no one had married within the same race. Consequently, all of his siblings, cousins, and their children, are of mixed Japanese and Caucasian heritage. His documentary explores the questions of why his parents' generation married outside their race, what impact that had, and what his hapa relatives have to say about identity. At the screening, we only saw the abbreviated 45 minute cut, but the DVD includes the full-length feature, which goes further with interviewing his young cousins about their hapa identity.
One Big Hapa Family does not cover any new ground that Kip Fulbeck hasn't explored before, but his documentary could be a good introduction for people curious about issues of multiethnic identity. It's appropriate for all ages, and its innovative uses of animation integrated with footage would entertain children as well as adults. It also taught me about parallels between Japanese-Canadian and Japanese-American history, which was interesting. For those interested, you can find more information at Chiba Stearns' website, where DVDs are on sale for $20. Proceeds go to fund the documentary he is currently making about the need for multiracial bone marrow donors.
My personal thoughts on multiethnic identity as an American with multiple cultural identifiers are...numerous. For now I'll just shill One Big Hapa Family.
Showing posts with label documentary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label documentary. Show all posts
Friday, May 6, 2011
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
While Kirby Dick rolls his eyes...
This post also appears online at MediaBlvd Magazine.
Somehow I had managed not to see anything by Morgan Spurlock until last week when I went to a screening of his latest documentary, POM Wonderful presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, a look into the world of product placement (a.k.a. "embedded marketing") in film and television. Even having missed his debut, Super Size Me, I think I can understand critics who say that the premise negates the necessity of the movie in this new documentary as in that one. Of course eating at McDonalds for every meal for a month will take its toll, and of course using sponsors to finance a film about embedded marketing will shed light on the not-secret fact that advertising is used to offset the cost of filmmaking in a time when revenue is way, way down for the movie business. While Greatest Movie does provide a few interesting things to think about, it feels as though Spurlock is going through the motions, holding back from being fully along for the ride that the journey could take him on.
It is funny to see Spurlock wink at the camera for over an hour, pitching product integration ideas to potential investors, then cutting to a scene in which the exact idea is carried out, or saying multiple times, "this scene right now is in the movie." A few times, he does make mention of the fact that by signing contracts with his sponsors, he is not sure he can remain an objective documentarian. I wish he had investigated this further. What does "selling out" do to the integrity of the filmmaker? How would this process impact any future films he makes? I couldn't help but think of Kirby Dick's wonderfully meta look into the MPAA, This Film is Not Yet Rated, which provides layer upon layer of insight into what goes into rating and releasing a movie, illustrating the process itself. Compared to that favorite of mine, Greatest Movie comes up short.
There are a few attempts to show how product placement has gone farther than we all realize, such as when Spurlock discovers that public schools are selling advertising space on athletic fields, CCTV, and school buses. He even goes to Sao Paolo, Brazil, a city that has banned advertising on public buildings, but neither vignette goes far enough. He interviews Sao Paoloan business owners to see how the advertising ban has affected business, but I did not get a sense of the real toll it has taken on the economy. The representatives of the Florida school district where Spurlock buys advertisements for his movie talk about their schools' need for money, but do not really say what impact they think the advertising has on the students.
Though I'm being critical, because I think that Spurlock could have provided us with a more well-rounded look at the long-term impact of sponsorship, I did enjoy watching Greatest Movie. When he interviews members of OK Go to ask them if they'll participate by writing the movie's theme song, I could not stop laughing at the OK Go product placement so blatantly shown onscreen. It was amusing to see how Spurlock had to stay true to his promises to the sponsors by conducting interviews at Sheetz convenience stores, or by including full 30-second commercials in the film. Nothing will top what he does to shill Mane 'n Tail shampoo.
But when all is said and done, I felt I had learned very little. I learned what it was like for a documentarian to secure corporate sponsorship to finance his movie. But I wish I'd learned a bit more about how product placement in movies and television shows has affected the economy of the industry. What was the outcome of Spurlock's experiment - could he consider himself an objective documentarian, or has he just gone through the motions of financing his film? Altogether, it's an enjoyable movie to watch, but I didn't feel that it really served its intended purpose.
Somehow I had managed not to see anything by Morgan Spurlock until last week when I went to a screening of his latest documentary, POM Wonderful presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, a look into the world of product placement (a.k.a. "embedded marketing") in film and television. Even having missed his debut, Super Size Me, I think I can understand critics who say that the premise negates the necessity of the movie in this new documentary as in that one. Of course eating at McDonalds for every meal for a month will take its toll, and of course using sponsors to finance a film about embedded marketing will shed light on the not-secret fact that advertising is used to offset the cost of filmmaking in a time when revenue is way, way down for the movie business. While Greatest Movie does provide a few interesting things to think about, it feels as though Spurlock is going through the motions, holding back from being fully along for the ride that the journey could take him on.
It is funny to see Spurlock wink at the camera for over an hour, pitching product integration ideas to potential investors, then cutting to a scene in which the exact idea is carried out, or saying multiple times, "this scene right now is in the movie." A few times, he does make mention of the fact that by signing contracts with his sponsors, he is not sure he can remain an objective documentarian. I wish he had investigated this further. What does "selling out" do to the integrity of the filmmaker? How would this process impact any future films he makes? I couldn't help but think of Kirby Dick's wonderfully meta look into the MPAA, This Film is Not Yet Rated, which provides layer upon layer of insight into what goes into rating and releasing a movie, illustrating the process itself. Compared to that favorite of mine, Greatest Movie comes up short.
There are a few attempts to show how product placement has gone farther than we all realize, such as when Spurlock discovers that public schools are selling advertising space on athletic fields, CCTV, and school buses. He even goes to Sao Paolo, Brazil, a city that has banned advertising on public buildings, but neither vignette goes far enough. He interviews Sao Paoloan business owners to see how the advertising ban has affected business, but I did not get a sense of the real toll it has taken on the economy. The representatives of the Florida school district where Spurlock buys advertisements for his movie talk about their schools' need for money, but do not really say what impact they think the advertising has on the students.
Though I'm being critical, because I think that Spurlock could have provided us with a more well-rounded look at the long-term impact of sponsorship, I did enjoy watching Greatest Movie. When he interviews members of OK Go to ask them if they'll participate by writing the movie's theme song, I could not stop laughing at the OK Go product placement so blatantly shown onscreen. It was amusing to see how Spurlock had to stay true to his promises to the sponsors by conducting interviews at Sheetz convenience stores, or by including full 30-second commercials in the film. Nothing will top what he does to shill Mane 'n Tail shampoo.
But when all is said and done, I felt I had learned very little. I learned what it was like for a documentarian to secure corporate sponsorship to finance his movie. But I wish I'd learned a bit more about how product placement in movies and television shows has affected the economy of the industry. What was the outcome of Spurlock's experiment - could he consider himself an objective documentarian, or has he just gone through the motions of financing his film? Altogether, it's an enjoyable movie to watch, but I didn't feel that it really served its intended purpose.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Sugihara
Last night, I watched the 2000 PBS documentary Sugihara: Conspiracy of Kindness. Typically dry, as PBS documentaries tend to be, the subject of Chiune Sugihara, the former Japanese Consul-General to Lithuania, was fascinating and extremely touching.
Sugihara was a very worldly young man who was thrilled to become a member of the Japanese foreign service in 1919. His prewar experiences were interesting, and had a definite impact on his momentous actions years later, but I will let you read about them on your own. He was skilled with languages, and during this time, he married a Russian woman, though they divorced when he returned home to Japan.
In the 1930s, Sugihara remarried, to Yukiko Kikuchi, who accompanied him on his assignment to Lithuania. There was no Japanese community in Lithuania, so the consulate there was set up really as a spy operation for Sugihara to observe the maneuvers of the Germans and the Soviets, neither of whom were allied with Japan at the time.
The documentary gave a little insight into the Sugiharas' life in Lithuania at the time, and included first-hand accounts from Lithuanian Jews such as Solly Ganor, who was 11 when he met Sugihara. Ganor had given his Hanukkah money away to the many Polish Jews who had escaped to Lithuania and were living on the streets. However, he wanted to see a movie, so he went to his aunt's store to ask for some money. She refused him, but Sugihara, who was shopping in the store at the time, gave him some money for the film. "I can't take money from a stranger," Ganor told him, so Sugihara insisted he think of him as an uncle. Consequently, Ganor invited Sugihara to his family's Hanukkah dinner the following Saturday. The Ganors were shocked when the whole family arrived for the meal, but they all seemed to enjoy learning about each other's cultures.
The story of Sugihara's kindness started when one Jewish family living in Kaunas, but holding Dutch citizenship, discovered that they could flee Europe to Curaçao, a Dutch colony requiring no entry visa. However, in order to flee to the Caribbean, the Jews needed a two-week transit visa for Japan. Sugihara signed a few at first, but when word was spreading about this possible exit strategy, more and more Jews were clamoring for the visa. Sugihara was denied permission by his superiors, but he granted the visas anyway. He spent almost every hour of the day signing visas, or just blank sheets of paper for the desperate Jews. When the time came for the Sugiharas to return to Japan, at his superiors' orders, he continued to sign visas in the hotel, at the train station, through the windows on the train. The total estimate of how many visas he signed ranges from 6,000 to 10,000, but bear in mind that a whole family often traveled on one visa. Yukiko recalled crying uncontrollably when the train began to move and he could sign no more.
For the Jews who managed to leave Lithuania using a Sugihara visa, the road ahead would be difficult. They'd have to take a train all the way across Russia, and then a boat to Japan, a journey which would cost them US$180. Once in Japan, they had nowhere to go. There was a small community of Jews living in Kobe, who asked an American Jewish organization for money to help support the sudden influx of Jews. "Money no object Save Jews," their reply telegram read.
By now, Japan was allied with Germany, and the Japanese weren't sure what to do with this community of Jewish immigrants who weren't going anywhere. The Germans asked the Japanese to kill them or return them. The Japanese government wasn't sure, but asked the leaders of the Jewish community in Kobe to explain why the Nazis hated them. I'll paraphrase the Rabbi's response: "They hate us because they know we're Asians. Why don't you read the propaganda they write, instead of the edited translations they send you? They want a master race. The Aryans - six feet tall, not Japanese; blond hair, not Japanese; blue eyes, not Japanese. They're coming for us now, but they'll be coming for the gypsies, and the Slavs, and the Blacks, and then you next. We're from Israel, on the other side of Asia, but you and us are in the same boat."
So Japan refused to surrender or kill the roughly 20,000 Jewish refugees they were dealing with, but set them up in a ghetto in Shanghai, where they survived the Holocaust until they moved on to find asylum in Israel, the U.S., or other countries.
Sugihara was eventually fired from the foreign service as a punishment for disobeying his orders and signing the visas. He lived for a few decades with very little money, supporting his family with odd jobs, and finding himself living in Russia for 16 years, sending money home to Japan. His son Buki recalls visiting him in Moscow, and his father offering to cook a special dinner. Potatoes and sausage cooked on a hot plate in the bathroom. It was quite a treat for Sugihara at the time.
Solly Ganor was not able to leave Lithuania, even though he had a Japanese transit visa, and ended up being sent to the Dachau concentration camp in Germany. When it was about to be liberated in 1945 by the Allies, the Nazis took the Jews on a death march. Solly recalls falling asleep in a field, too sick and exhausted to go on. He was awoken by strange men. They wore the uniforms of American soldiers, but had facial features he had only ever seen on Sugihara. In an incredible coincidence, the same boy who had Sugihara's family over for Hanukkah dinner was rescued by the Japanese-American 442nd Infantry.
Living his later years at home in Japan, Sugihara accepted very little of the reward that the Jewish community wished to give him. He did accept a scholarship for his son to attend university in Israel, and a monument was built for him in Japan. In 1985, he was named Yad Vashem, Righteous Among the Nations. In 1998, twelve years after his death, Yukiko traveled to Israel where the Jews who survived the war thanks to Sugihara visas tearfully thanked her, on behalf of their families. There is a street named after him in Kaunas, Lithuania, and his former home there is now a museum. There are also monuments to Sugihara in Israel, Massachusetts, and Los Angeles.
It is estimated that there are roughly 40,000 descendants of Jews alive today because of Chiune Sempo Sugihara.
It is one of those startling cosmic moments for me to think of the bizarre circumstances in the life of Solly Ganor. To think of the Japanese-American soldiers whose families were likely interned in the "War Relocation Camps" opened by President Roosevelt, finding themselves in Europe freeing people from Nazi labor and death camps. One such prisoner having inadvertently taught Sugihara about the life and culture of the Jewish people. And Sugihara himself finding himself morally obligated to do whatever he could to help the Jews.
Whenever I think about how one person's courage helped to save the lives of people threatened by Genocide, I think of this one exhibit I went to at a Holocaust museum a few years back. I can't remember where it was, somewhere in Europe I think (maybe at Terezín in the Czech Republic, but I'm not sure). They had an exhibit to teach children about the Holocaust, and at the end the message was that genocide still exists. And we can still try to do something about it. Here is one place to help us think about what we might be able to do to honor the memories of everyone who has died at the hands of genocide by helping those who are still threatened however we can.
http://www1.yadvashem.org/righteous_new/japan/sugihara.html
Sugihara was a very worldly young man who was thrilled to become a member of the Japanese foreign service in 1919. His prewar experiences were interesting, and had a definite impact on his momentous actions years later, but I will let you read about them on your own. He was skilled with languages, and during this time, he married a Russian woman, though they divorced when he returned home to Japan.
In the 1930s, Sugihara remarried, to Yukiko Kikuchi, who accompanied him on his assignment to Lithuania. There was no Japanese community in Lithuania, so the consulate there was set up really as a spy operation for Sugihara to observe the maneuvers of the Germans and the Soviets, neither of whom were allied with Japan at the time.
The documentary gave a little insight into the Sugiharas' life in Lithuania at the time, and included first-hand accounts from Lithuanian Jews such as Solly Ganor, who was 11 when he met Sugihara. Ganor had given his Hanukkah money away to the many Polish Jews who had escaped to Lithuania and were living on the streets. However, he wanted to see a movie, so he went to his aunt's store to ask for some money. She refused him, but Sugihara, who was shopping in the store at the time, gave him some money for the film. "I can't take money from a stranger," Ganor told him, so Sugihara insisted he think of him as an uncle. Consequently, Ganor invited Sugihara to his family's Hanukkah dinner the following Saturday. The Ganors were shocked when the whole family arrived for the meal, but they all seemed to enjoy learning about each other's cultures.
The story of Sugihara's kindness started when one Jewish family living in Kaunas, but holding Dutch citizenship, discovered that they could flee Europe to Curaçao, a Dutch colony requiring no entry visa. However, in order to flee to the Caribbean, the Jews needed a two-week transit visa for Japan. Sugihara signed a few at first, but when word was spreading about this possible exit strategy, more and more Jews were clamoring for the visa. Sugihara was denied permission by his superiors, but he granted the visas anyway. He spent almost every hour of the day signing visas, or just blank sheets of paper for the desperate Jews. When the time came for the Sugiharas to return to Japan, at his superiors' orders, he continued to sign visas in the hotel, at the train station, through the windows on the train. The total estimate of how many visas he signed ranges from 6,000 to 10,000, but bear in mind that a whole family often traveled on one visa. Yukiko recalled crying uncontrollably when the train began to move and he could sign no more.
For the Jews who managed to leave Lithuania using a Sugihara visa, the road ahead would be difficult. They'd have to take a train all the way across Russia, and then a boat to Japan, a journey which would cost them US$180. Once in Japan, they had nowhere to go. There was a small community of Jews living in Kobe, who asked an American Jewish organization for money to help support the sudden influx of Jews. "Money no object Save Jews," their reply telegram read.
By now, Japan was allied with Germany, and the Japanese weren't sure what to do with this community of Jewish immigrants who weren't going anywhere. The Germans asked the Japanese to kill them or return them. The Japanese government wasn't sure, but asked the leaders of the Jewish community in Kobe to explain why the Nazis hated them. I'll paraphrase the Rabbi's response: "They hate us because they know we're Asians. Why don't you read the propaganda they write, instead of the edited translations they send you? They want a master race. The Aryans - six feet tall, not Japanese; blond hair, not Japanese; blue eyes, not Japanese. They're coming for us now, but they'll be coming for the gypsies, and the Slavs, and the Blacks, and then you next. We're from Israel, on the other side of Asia, but you and us are in the same boat."
So Japan refused to surrender or kill the roughly 20,000 Jewish refugees they were dealing with, but set them up in a ghetto in Shanghai, where they survived the Holocaust until they moved on to find asylum in Israel, the U.S., or other countries.
Sugihara was eventually fired from the foreign service as a punishment for disobeying his orders and signing the visas. He lived for a few decades with very little money, supporting his family with odd jobs, and finding himself living in Russia for 16 years, sending money home to Japan. His son Buki recalls visiting him in Moscow, and his father offering to cook a special dinner. Potatoes and sausage cooked on a hot plate in the bathroom. It was quite a treat for Sugihara at the time.
Solly Ganor was not able to leave Lithuania, even though he had a Japanese transit visa, and ended up being sent to the Dachau concentration camp in Germany. When it was about to be liberated in 1945 by the Allies, the Nazis took the Jews on a death march. Solly recalls falling asleep in a field, too sick and exhausted to go on. He was awoken by strange men. They wore the uniforms of American soldiers, but had facial features he had only ever seen on Sugihara. In an incredible coincidence, the same boy who had Sugihara's family over for Hanukkah dinner was rescued by the Japanese-American 442nd Infantry.
Living his later years at home in Japan, Sugihara accepted very little of the reward that the Jewish community wished to give him. He did accept a scholarship for his son to attend university in Israel, and a monument was built for him in Japan. In 1985, he was named Yad Vashem, Righteous Among the Nations. In 1998, twelve years after his death, Yukiko traveled to Israel where the Jews who survived the war thanks to Sugihara visas tearfully thanked her, on behalf of their families. There is a street named after him in Kaunas, Lithuania, and his former home there is now a museum. There are also monuments to Sugihara in Israel, Massachusetts, and Los Angeles.
It is estimated that there are roughly 40,000 descendants of Jews alive today because of Chiune Sempo Sugihara.
It is one of those startling cosmic moments for me to think of the bizarre circumstances in the life of Solly Ganor. To think of the Japanese-American soldiers whose families were likely interned in the "War Relocation Camps" opened by President Roosevelt, finding themselves in Europe freeing people from Nazi labor and death camps. One such prisoner having inadvertently taught Sugihara about the life and culture of the Jewish people. And Sugihara himself finding himself morally obligated to do whatever he could to help the Jews.
Whenever I think about how one person's courage helped to save the lives of people threatened by Genocide, I think of this one exhibit I went to at a Holocaust museum a few years back. I can't remember where it was, somewhere in Europe I think (maybe at Terezín in the Czech Republic, but I'm not sure). They had an exhibit to teach children about the Holocaust, and at the end the message was that genocide still exists. And we can still try to do something about it. Here is one place to help us think about what we might be able to do to honor the memories of everyone who has died at the hands of genocide by helping those who are still threatened however we can.
http://www1.yadvashem.org/righteous_new/japan/sugihara.html
Thursday, July 19, 2007
the believers
Documentary feature The Believers made its
The film opens with the voices of the choir each proclaiming, “I am made in the image of God.” This statement sets the stage for the balancing act that the members of Transcendence must perform, being caught between two seemingly opposing forces – the transgender community and the Christian ministry. Many from both sides of this spectrum could at first be shocked or offended to find that members of their community are in some way ‘fraternizing with the enemy.’ The main mission of Transcendence is to show that there is no ground for there to be hostility between Christians and transgender individuals.
Ashley and fellow choir members Prado and Bobbie Jean are the main focus of the film, giving personality to the struggles of the choir at large. They each tell a different story about what their transition was like, but they share the experiences of trying to succeed as a musical group whose member’s vocal ranges are tempered by inexperience and hormones. As the film progresses, the characters grow more comfortable with their performances, their status as notable figures in the transgender community, and their message that Jesus made them the way that they are and will return their love completely.
After Wednesday night’s screening, Holland and Burkhart expressed their relief that as they documented the growth of the choir, a story emerged about their journey to the United Church of Christ international synod in 2003 where they performed and shared their anecdotes in order to promote acceptance of LGBT people in the UCC’s official policies. The film makes it evident that Transcendence has had the ability to open up a lot of people’s minds to the overlapping communities portrayed in it.
The Believers premiered last summer at Frameline in
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