The Art House Beat: A Uruguayan Hiroshima, a Rebuilt Evangelion, and Spalding Gray
Hiroshima (NWFF, Jan 14-20)
Among the delusions from which I suffered at the age of sixteen was the belief that a fantastic film could be made of me following myself around with a camera for one day. Apparently, such delusions among the young still persist, because I have just seen a film very much like the one I imagined some forty years ago. But my movie would have been virtually unwatchable, while “Hiroshima “ is so visually addictive that I watched at least a part of it every day for the last week.
Uruguayan director Pablo Stoll follows his brother Juan around on the day before his rock band does the gig in which he sings the song ”Hiroshima.” It is the first time we hear his voice, which is strange enough to justify its climactic appearance in a film that is otherwise verbally silent. Dialogue is communicated through inter-titles that appear after the mouthing of the words. Uniquely enough, these passages of dialogue are the quietest sections of the film, as Stoll generally cuts off the music and sound effects when people silently speak. This works to emphasize Juan’s awkwardness with verbal communication, with his most prevalent response to any question being “sure,” whether or not he means it.
Stoll has an eye that is rivaled only by that of Lisandro Alonso for finding memorable compositions within the frame of ordinariness. There is not a shot in the picture that I do not want to see again and again. Then there are his traveling shots, the most fascinating of which discovers Juan riding a bicycle through the streets. Watching a guy ride a bike without seeing the bike can be a hypnotic if disorienting experience as seen through Stoll’s eye.
Although “Hiroshima” offers little in the way of plot, the anticipation of each new image engages us more completely than any hackneyed storyline. Turning a corner may be a frightening event in a horror film, but in “Hiroshima” the apprehension provoked by such a movement into the unknown is pure joy.
And Everything Is Going Fine (SIFF Cinema, Jan 14-19)
In the eighties, performance art degraded the art of performance to the level of baby drool. It was fitting that Spalding Gray’s 1992 effort was titled “Monster in a Box,” as the experience of watching the film was akin to being trapped in a box with a muttering infant, forced to find significance in every infantile observation. With the public airwaves dominated by such blowhards of nostalgia as Garrison Keillor, culture was ripe for an average man to sit at a table with a glass of water and talk about the minutia of his life. Needless to say, the prospect of an encore performance did not stir me to anticipative heights. What I hoped for from this new film was a distanced overview of Gray’s career, something that might perhaps explain how a functional illiterate with the charisma of a middle-school history teacher rose to prominence as a theatrical storyteller. What I got was an encore of past clips, mercifully interrupted by periodic effusions from idolatrous friends and colleagues. I attribute Gray’s success more to the brain-dead culture of the Reagan-Bush era than any diabolical connivance on his part to infiltrate and undermine the integrity of the American stage. By 1982, with David Mamet’s “American Buffalo” the last gasp of dramatic intent on the Broadway stage, there wasn’t much left to undermine. At least Gray wasn’t, like Kathy Finlay, running amok. Sitting at that table with his glass of water, he reminded me of the last of the privileged class, writing his last will and testament as the rabble scaled his walls. The film stands as a testament to the self-conceit of a dull leisure class, as well as a reminder of what can happen to a culture in the absence of aesthetics. Gray himself tired of his own pontifications after a point, and began filling the contracted ninety-minutes by conversing with audience members, who shared the stage with him like guests on the Carson show. In the quarter-century since Gray’s heyday, we have descended a few more rungs into the abyss of triviality, deriving our entertainment from camera hogs who have not even mastered the few phony mannerisms of gesticular communication practiced by Gray and his ilk.
Evangelion 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone (Grand Illusion, Jan 14-20)
“Neon Genesis Evangelion” was a 26-episode anime series based on a magna by Yoshiyuki Sadmoto that first aired from October 1995-March 1996. In 1997, the first 24 episodes were edited into the feature film, “Death and Rebirth,” and later a second film, “The End of Evangelion “offered an alternate ending. In 1998, both films were re-edited into a single film, “The Revival of Evangelion.”
Eight years later, a remake, or rebuild as its creators have it dubbed, went into the works, to beef the Evangelion saga up with slick computer graphics and more high-tech battle scenes. New scenes, and even some characters, were added, and some of the original material cut. The first of this four-part feature, “Evangelion 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone,” originally released in 2007, plays this week at the Grand Illusion, with the second, 2009’s “Evangelion 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance,” to follow next week. The last two films are still in the making.
Those who remember the original series and movies should enjoy the rebuild. Even those who feel, as I do, that the high-sheen effects have compromised the artwork of the original, will be compensated with some blasting good battle scenes. The dramatic scenes between the characters, particularly those involving Shinji, the reticent boy pilot and Rei, the robot girl pilot created by Shinji’s father as an avatar for soul of Lilith, have been improved in the rebuild.
One of the things that stand out in the Evangelion saga is the use of little kids to fight the wars of the old men, being given phony scenarios regarding the nature and purpose of the conflicts. The whole story is so convoluted that you might not be able to unravel it all until the very end. But even at its most confusing, “Evangelion 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone” is a stirring and thoughtful warning about the possible future (and end) of humanity in a mendacious and malevolent universe.
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