DAY 7 - surrealness and Stonewall

Day 7, films number 30 to 34 -- "White Meadows" (Iran), "Winter Vacation" (China), "Screaming Man" (Chad), "Sawato Decides" (Japan) and "Stonewall Uprising" (USA).

The first film of the day were surreal. "White Meadows" buried the director's criticisms of the Iranian regime in analogies. An old man sails from island to island collecting peoples' tears in a small vile which he promises to turn into pearls to absolve them of their sins. It is the Caspian Sea and the beaches are made of salt, toxic and painful. In one scene an artist is buried up to his neck in salt and half-blinded for having painted the sea as red. "We don't want to take away his right to paint, but he must do it correctly," explains an Elder. Of course he must be tortured for not seeing things correctly, and eventually sent to a prison island to isolate him because he obviously has a disease in his eyes that allows him to see things differently from the right way and that disease must be contagious amongst the masses. The analogy wasn't obscure enough and the director was imprisoned in Iran and his film banned.

The second film was a Chinese version of a Jim Jarmusch-styled movie: minimalist and absurd for what doesn't happen or get said. It is winter break from school and no one can think of anything much to do other than standing around or sitting very still. The sound of distant fireworks throughout the film speaks of something exciting happening somewhere not far away but only the audience seems to be able to hear it. There are some very funny lines from the mouths of babes (one child is asked by another what he wants to be when he grows up and he replies "an orphan") and several ludicrous situations and action sequences.

"A Screaming Man" ("L'Homme Qui Crie") is the story of a son and father who work together tending a swimming pool at a ritzy hotel in Chad's capital city, but times are tight and the father's position is eliminated, but his self-identity as former swimming champion for central Africa is deeply threatened by this even though he is given another job. A civil war is brewing and the father has his son drafted so he can get his job back, then changes his mind and sets off to the front lines to fetch his son back.

"Sawato Decides" is a silly but entertaining story about a young woman with a bad track record with men and goals in her life, who tries to rescue her father's fresh water clam business when he becomes ill. It was the weakest of the day but they each, for various reason, only make it to 3-stars.

"Stonewall Uprising", however, really swept me up and it was a well put-together doc about those few hot days in late June, 1969, when the world changed for gays everywhere, not just in the US. I was swept up in old, old feelings of being part of a secret sub-culture, the exclusivity, and well as the fear and shame of being part of a hated and vilified minority that wasn't of my choosing. And when the weight and night-sticks came down I felt the immense rage and urge to fight back with violence I used to feel in my 20s and 30s. But at the end of the film, it brought back feelings of great love and brotherhood, a huge release as the weight lifted off and an immense pride for having stood up and faced the police, which I too have done personally, though not until the early 80s during Toronto's bath raids wars. The film merits a 5-stars, since my rating system is about how the films touch me personally.

When I stepped out into the night air, I looked around for others I could connect with who had just come from the same film and who were glowing like I was. I didn't see anyone, but I enjoyed the glow just the same.