Close readers will have noted the cinetrix's recent removal to the south. She apologizes for the constant repetition of this information, but practice, as the saying goes, makes perfect. The closest art house to her country bunker is nearly two hours away from the buckle of the Bible Belt, but the worldwideInterweb goes a long way toward bridging the gap.
Also, sometimes the mountain comes to Mohammed. See, for going on thirty years now the South Carolina Arts Council has helped underwrite the Southern Circuit, which brings six independent filmmakers [three in fall; three in spring] on a microtour of southern college campuses and regional rep houses to show their work and conduct Q&As. Past participants include Ishmael Reed, Emily Hubley, Charles Burnett, Albert Mayles and Charlotte Zwerin, Marlon Riggs, and many more. It's the sort of thing that when you learn about it, you think, "Hey, how comes there's not a Southwest Circuit, or a Great Plains Circuit, or..." Ah, but only in the south can these filmmakers stock up on boiled peanuts and fireworks. At the same time
And sometimes the mountain looks like anything-but-mountainous lesbian experimental filmmaker Barbara Hammer, whose early 90s examination of lesbian representation, Nitrate Kisses, got caught up in the whole NEA funding kerfuffle. [It was made with NEA funding, then the agency asked for its credit to be removed, all Alan Smithee style.] In person, Hammer's exactly the spiky-haired, black-clad Westbeth denizen a certain cinetrix rarely sees amidst the blonde sorority types here.
Last night, Hammer screened her documentary Resisting Paradise, a project that grew out of a residency in Cassis, in the south of France, which coincided with the beginning of the war in Kosovo. Originally in Cassis to film the light that so inspired painters like Matisse and Bonnard, Hammer decided to investigate the role that these artists and others in Cassis played during World War II. Then the seaside resort town was flooded with the same flow of refugees she now saw fleeing Kosovo on the nightly news. Shot in 16mm, with interviews transferred from DV, the resulting film asks the unanswerable question, What would you do?
It's not an easy question. Everyone would like to think he or she would naturally join the resistance. But, see, Matisse continued painting. As his grandchildren explain, that was what he could do. But his daughter did work for the resistance, as did his son. In addition to the Matisse grandchildren, Hammer interviews the stunner Lisa Fittgo, now in her 90s, who led a dispairing Walter Benjamin over the Pyrennes, and the indescribable Marie-Ange Allibert Roderiguez, fantastic and sassy with her dyed brown hair and ill-fitting dentures, who spent the war in the Cassis town hall, boldly forging identity cards for the Jews who fled south ahead of the Germans. [Humanities grad students, please note:, Fittgo pronounced Walter's surname like Private Benjamin, not the overdetermined "Ben-yah-meeen" one hears in the academy.]
The film uses gorgeous decaying archival filmstock and glass negatives as well as re-enactments so moving there should be a new word that distances them from cheesy crime shows. Sound and music pull the viewer in and then create shrieking distance. And always, there is that light, often playing on water. Resisting Paradise is resolutely experimental, yet completely accessible, just like its creator.
The cinetrix was fortunate to join Hammer for dinner before the screening. She's the sort of person who never seems to think someone couldn't do something--like recommending a Bunting Institute stint. Unfortunately, the seemingly benign dish I ordered set my digestive system on spin cycle, so I had to duck out on the postscreening Q&A. A shame, but at least I got to enjoy Hammer vamping before the film, when technical difficulties delayed its start. It's no surprise she continues to wring out funding from arts councils and the like: Hammer is charm itself.
