ISSUE #13
BEAM FROM THE BOOTH | GRAND RAPIDS FILM SOCIETY
EDITED BY: GRIFFIN SHERIDAN]
Welcome to an all-new installment of BEAM FROM THE BOOTH, brought to you by GRAND RAPIDS FILM SOCIETY!
We are so pleased to be starting our MAY PROGRAMMING next week with, not one, but TWO EVENTS! On THURSDAY (5/11) at 7:00pm, we’ll be hosting our second FILM SOCIETY ROUNDTABLE. Our Roundtable social events are meant to allow likeminded film fans and filmmakers to mingle and engage in group discussions about a variety of topics. If you’re interested, you can RSVP now!
But before that, we’ll have a very special screening on MONDAY (5/8)...
LADY SNOWBLOOD (Fujita, 1973) is a Japanese arthouse classic based on the manga series of the same name and served as the inspiration for Quentin Tarantino’s KILL BILL films. If that sentence alone isn’t enough to sell you on the screening, our very own David Blakeslee has watched the film ahead of time to tell you just why you need to be at this Monday’s screening…
A LADY SNOWBLOOD FOREWORD
[BY: DAVID BLAKESLEE]
The May 2023 GRFS movie lineup features two great titles from the archives of Japanese cinema: Lady Snowblood (Fujita, 1973) and Tampopo (Itami, 1985). Our selection is partly based on May being Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, and partly on the fact that we’ve simply selected fantastic, highly engaging films that we’re delighted to present in full confidence that they will enthrall and delight viewers.
Obviously, our focus is more on the “Asian Pacific” than the “American” side of the monthly theme, but the truth is both of these titles made a significant impact on Western audiences, each exemplifying distinct aspects of Japanese culture. This week, I’m going to focus my thoughts on Lady Snowblood, which is justifiably and indisputably famous as a formative influence on Quentin Tarantino’s two-part epic Kill Bill. The parallels are pretty obvious in that both productions focus on the exploits of a beautiful sword-bearing woman embarking on a mission of hellbent vengeance. The mere invocation of Tarantino’s name is probably sufficient to grab attention and stimulate interest for a sizable chunk of readers, but let me offer up a few more notes that I hope will draw in anyone who’s still in the process of wondering whether or not to reserve a few hours on the evening of Monday, May 8th, to join us at Wealthy Theatre. Even if you’ve seen this film before (it’s available as a lovely Criterion Blu-ray edition), I know that the experience of seeing it on the big screen, with an attentive and engaged audience, will deliver a qualitatively different sensation than simply watching it at home.
THE ACTRESS: If you haven’t had a chance to see Meiko Kaji do her inimitable thing, Lady Snowblood is the perfect opportunity to get acquainted. She is truly a most fascinating icon of 1970s Japanese cinema, and this role brings her unique gifts to the forefront. Her blend of immaculate poise, focused intensity, and graceful composure under all manner of duress elevates her to what I consider to be a pantheon of cinema immortals that include earlier legends like Setsuko Hara, Kinuyo Tanaka, and Hideko Takamine. Even though she portrayed more youthful and delinquent characters due to the prevailing cinematic trends, like her cinematic forebears, Kaji exudes a depth of passion and intelligence in her performance that transcends the boundaries of the story she helps bring to life – and the story itself is no slight tale! Her portrayal of this ferociously tragic figure is simply riveting, creating an unforgettable impression and an intrigue to see more of her work (and she’s also the vocalist for the film’s impeccably poignant theme song!).
THE STORY: Lady Snowblood is set in the early years of the Meiji era (1868 – 1912), a transitional phase of Japanese history that saw the nation move out of the static feudalism of the Edo period into a time of increasing contact with Western civilization which opened their culture up to outside influences after centuries of strictly-enforced isolation. It was a pivotal time that saw power slip from the grasp of traditional authorities, calling time-honored values into question and unleashing long-repressed tensions that often erupted into brutal violence and chaos. There’s plenty of that on display in this film, which illustrates both the undeniable satisfactions — but also the bitter futility — that awaits those who commit themselves to a relentless pursuit of revenge.
THE CINEMATIC POWER: This is a movie that grabs you right from the start with a gripping opening sequence, establishing the character, her lethal purpose, and an unswerving drive toward an escalating series of confrontations that leads to an unforgettable finish. Along the way, we are treated to flourishes of striking visual and auditory masterstrokes that incorporate a diverse range of techniques: handheld camera shots, first-person points of view, artfully designed set pieces customized for widescreen presentation, furious swordplay, and searing depictions of retribution that indelibly brand their images into memory. The visual narrative, broken into four distinct chapters, also incorporates panels from the original manga that the movie is based on (by the same creators of the incredible Lone Wolf and Cub series that went on to inspire a classic Japanese film franchise of its own). It’s an astonishing sensory feast, to say the least.
THE DIRECTOR: Toshiya Fujita’s reputation in the West is squarely based on this film and its sequel, Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance, and this is a great entrée into his work. Another series he’s known for that some readers might recognize are the two installments (of five altogether) that he directed in the Stray Cat Rock series, which also featured Meiko Kaji in a more contemporary role that preceded her work in the Lady Snowblood films. Fujita also made brief appearances as an actor in the seminal LGBTQ classic from 1969, Funeral Parade of Roses, and next week’s feature, Tampopo — which I’ll have a few things to say about in the next issue of this newsletter.
So that’s my pitch — if you’ve had a chance to see Lady Snowblood before, come on down to cheer her on and see the film in the company of a bunch of others who will be astonished as they experience this exhilarating saga for the first time. And if you haven’t, save yourself the future regret of missing out on this unique encounter with one of the most compelling and strikingly original female action protagonists ever portrayed on screen!
FESTIVAL SPOTLIGHT: PRISMATIC GROUND
[BY: SPENCER EVERHART]
It’s ‘Year 3’ for Prismatic Ground, an annual film festival based in New York City focused on experimental documentary and avant-garde filmmaking (although those labels don’t quite encapsulate the wide range of boundary-pushing cinema offered by its lineup). During the festival’s run from May 3rd - 7th, in addition to screenings at various venues around NYC — organized in groupings called “waves” — a number of short films included in the 2023 slate are available to watch online.
This FREE program is entitled “wave ∞” and can be streamed via the festival’s website until the end of the week here: https://www.prismaticground.com/infinity
To celebrate this exciting event’s return and its adventurous approach to programming and accessibility, I want to highlight some of the eclectic works featured in wave ∞ that are being shared for all to see...
Mélodie de brumes à Paris (Julius-Amédée Laou, 1985)
The madness of living with things as they are, and the anger of wanting to tear it all down. A city is seen in so many placid shots, but the violence that maintains it (there and elsewhere) is felt as a man’s shame. Colonial trauma abroad yields colonial guilt back home – but this is a home that rejects you; so where to go and what to do? Based on experiences of the director’s family members, these questions remain haunting even when filtered through fiction...yet Laou makes sure the film cannot stay mediated at a distance from us. A violent act is shown, then shown again, and again — repetition as formal breakdown — with reality forcefully imposing itself, at the end, once more.
Film programmer Steve Macfarlane has been working hard to bring playwright and filmmaker Laou’s underseen cinematic work to a wider audience, and this latest victory of his is the North American premiere of a stunning new restoration made from the original 35mm negative.
A Picture for Parco (Ayanna Dozier, 2022)
As far as I know, we don’t often see remakes in the world of experimental cinema, not to mention remakes of advertisements, but Dozier has done just that with this recreation of a 1980s Japanese department store commercial (this one). The filmmaker has swapped herself in for the original advert’s Faye Dunaway, working her way through a hardboiled egg while silently regarding the camera. We see her, and she meets our eyes — sometimes invitingly and sometimes with seeming defiance — but the abrasive metallic soundtrack and the anxious expressions that flit across her face suggest something is amiss. There’s a zoom that occurs right after she starts eating, and it feels predatory in its insistence on capturing her. The language of publicity is appropriated ironically here with Dozier adorned in the typical icons of for-sale aspiration (embodying chic confidence, elegance, etc.); an image of someone we’re meant to want and someone we’re meant to want to be — desire desiring — but there’s a tension between that presentation and what she’s clearly experiencing under the surface. How much we can access that emotionality is kept ambiguous. At the very least, we’re witnessing a woman struggling to maintain.
Yaangna Plays Itself (Adam Piron, 2022)
Piron begins with an opening crawl taken from a street intersection plaque where a village named Yaangna once stood (this area is now known as Los Angeles). It describes the absence of a massive tree, El Aliso, that served an important role as a sacred space for Indigenous peoples; now gone, the tree’s legacy is kept alive by Native traditions of oral history. Without much additional context, I’m hesitant to speculate about what follows outside of this introductory text (and the title, which directly reconfigures Thom Andersen’s 2003 essay epic). We see multiple sections of abstracted imagery, all vibrantly textured: flashing white shapes on a black celluloid background followed by strobing blue spheres, then a shift to red and the initial shapes return, only this time burning bright like dancing flames — finally, monochrome trees reflected in the rippling surface of water. The dense soundtrack suggests sediment and dirt, maybe digging, along with mechanical noise (construction machinery?) which nudges my mind towards excavation; both the present-day ravaging of the land itself as well as Piron’s apparent project here of unearthing the past. A closing credit mentions how the film was “shot and sourced from unceded Tongva lands,” which I think doubles as land acknowledgement and statement of method (it wouldn’t surprise me if he applied natural materials to the film strip). Shifting the dominant context of this type of avant-garde filmmaking, for an Indigenous artist the language of cinema can take part in the storytelling of El Aliso through image and sound rather than spoken word; not resorting to literal description but still no less effective in conjuring a history. Whether in this particular context or on a more broadly experiential level, it definitely comes alive.
Fin de Siglo (Maike Mia Höhne, 1999)
Another restoration! I found this fairly mysterious but was drawn in by the textures, especially the stunning nocturnal cinematography of excursions in Havana that punctuate this memoir-like film. Höhne’s editing evokes a slippery flow of memory, seemingly mixing together modes (nonfiction portrait? fictional recreations?) while voices from the past intrude upon a first-person perspective in the present.
“What I see exhausts me.”
Sex work is central, and that dynamic becomes key: how much of this is transactional? Sex, love, food, filmmaking, subject and object. What is the nature of these exchanges? Boundaries blur and power shifts but what’s foregrounded all throughout is a woman’s literal sight — processed through her camera and her montage.
“I saw a lot of things. The gaze changes.”
Exterior Turbulence (Sofia Theodore-Pierce, 2023)
Strangely assembled but still intimate in feeling, this diaristic work overlaps fragments of sight and sound into a collage of experience; the filmmaker’s memory seems to be a guiding force, and evocative moments resonate beyond their personal origins (“You know, I’m a little afraid of my brain sometimes”).
The program notes liken the film’s shape to a constellation, and certainly the artist’s approach hang its various elements together in a kind of orbit, but I experienced it more as an emotional landscape: surveying a territory, perhaps tentatively, to explore the cracks and features while also taking stock…making a map of the past (with intertitle markers along the way). This sense was also brought on by the rich collection of textures here too, and a physicality often expressed through touch; fingers on plastic buttons and then on dry flower petals — linked by a single cut. A real mood, this one.
* * * * *
For even more info, I recommend this Screen Slate podcast interview with fest founder Inney Prakash: https://www.screenslate.com/articles/episode-27-prismatic-ground-year-3
Lastly, there is also a selection of movies from the two previous editions of the festival currently available to watch on the Criterion Channel: https://www.criterionchannel.com/prismatic-ground-presents
UPCOMING EVENTS
LADY SNOWBLOOD (Toshiya Fujita, 1973)
WHAT: Based on the manga of the same name, this Japanese classic was the inspiration for Quentin Tarantino’s KILL BILL films! Don’t miss it on the big screen!
WHEN: MONDAY, May 8th, 8:00pm
WHERE: The Wealthy Theatre
FILM SOCIETY ROUNDTABLE
WHAT: Want to get more involved in the Grand Rapids film community? Want to meet other local cinephiles and filmmakers? Join us for another GRFS social event!
WHEN: THURSDAY, May 11th, 7:00pm
WHERE: The Front Studio of Wealthy Theatre
TAMPOPO (Jûzô Itami, 1985)
WHAT: A band of ramen ronin who guide the widow of a noodle shop owner on her quest for the perfect recipe. An all-new 4K restoration of this classic example of food on film!
WHEN: Monday, May 15th, 8:00pm
WHERE: The Wealthy Theatre
And so we’ve arrived at the end of another BEAM FROM THE BOOTH! We appreciate you taking the time to read it and truly hope you’ll continue to do so. Be sure to SUBSCRIBE to get each issue in your inbox every FRIDAY and stay up-to-date on all things GRFS!
Plus, join us on social media! We’d love to chat with everyone and hear YOUR OWN thoughts on everything above (you can also hop in the comments section below).
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Look for ISSUE #14 in your inbox NEXT FRIDAY, 5/12!
Until then, friends...
