Four documentaries

Before Monday's medical meltdown I managed to watch all the documentaries I'd borrowed from Alice in Videoland last week. I began with Herzog's Wheel of Time (2003), which was just beautiful. Some people have criticized Herzog for embarking on this project without adequate knowledge of the subject matter (Tibetan Buddhism, and in particular the Kalachakra initiations), but personally I found his approach, which resembled that of an impartial observer, and the quirky questions he directed at the Dalai Lama extremely engaging. Visually the movie was stunning, with lots of lingering close-ups of devotees' faces, fascinating footage of the creation (and destruction) of the Kalachakra sand mandala, and a bonus segment about the pilgrimage at Mount Kailash.

I was slightly underwhelmed by the three Wim Wenders documentaries. The first, Tokyo-Ga (1985), was my favourite, mainly because it was shot in Tokyo just a year before I first went to Japan and so felt extremely nostalgic. Much of the footage (of pachinko parlors, of golf driving ranges, of driving along neon-lit streets at night, for example), I found a bit clichéd, although I must admit I did enjoy the scenes inside the factory making wax food samples for use in restaurant display windows. The scene with Werner Herzog atop Tokyo Tower was unsubtitled, so I'm none the wiser as to what he was on about. The film included an interview with Atsuta Yuharu, who spent practically his entire career working as the cinematographer for Japanese film director Ozu Yasujiro (a hero of Wenders'). Atsuta explained how Ozu stuck to just one lens and eventually dispensed with tracking and panning altogether, preferring to film from a fixed position less than a metre off the ground. Normal tripods wouldn’t go this low, so a special tripod had to be built. Atsuta became quite emotional as he reminisced about his career with Ozu, and eventually had to ask Wenders to stop filming.

One final comment on Tokyo-Ga. At one point in the movie I think Wenders comments that Tokyo is a city best captured on video as opposed to film (the relationship between these two is a theme that crops up in all three Wenders docos), but looking at the footage of early-1980s Tokyo it struck me as still a very analogue city. There was neon, but none of the huge video screens you see on the sides of buildings throughout Tokyo now, and even the pachinko machines seemed very mechanical compared to the ones you see today (not that I'm an expert or anything). I was reminded of how much Tokyo has changed over the 25 or so years I've known it.

Fashion designer Yamamato Yohji, the subject of the second Wenders documentary, Notebook on Cities and Clothes (1989), came across as a very nice chap, but apart from the nice shots of Paris from the top of the Pompidou Centre, that's about all I remember about this rather uninspiring biopic. Perhaps it would have been more inspiring if the entire cast (designer, assistants, models) weren't dressed in black all the time.

The premise behind the third and final Wenders doco, Room 666 (1982), was certainly interesting. Wenders was concerned about the future of cinema, and so he went to Cannes during the 1982 Film Festival, hired a hotel room (room 666 was the only one available!), set up a camera and a piece of paper with a list of questions, and invited some of the world's leading film directors to go in and film their responses. In an earlier post I noted how to me movie directors often come across as extremely articulate and knowledgeable in a wide range of subjects when interviewed, so I was looking forward to the results of Wenders' experiment.

First up was Jean-Luc Godard, who certainly didn’t disappoint. According to Wenders' commentary on the DVD, Godard first asked how much film was in the camera (about 11 minutes' worth), and then proceeded to talk for exactly the amount of time required, attacking television and Hollywood among other things. The funny thing is, while his name is familiar to me, I don’t think I've ever seen any of Godard's films, although I did spot a DVD of La Chinoise on sale the other day (along with a couple of Michael Haneke movies) and briefly considered buying it.

After that it was pretty much downhill all the way, with few of the other directors having much of interest to say. At least Werner Herzog did something a bit different by taking off his shoes and socks. He was also the only interviewee to switch off the TV in the hotel room, which Wenders had left switched on before the start of each interview.

Well, whadya know. Here's the entire Jean-Luc Godard segment on YouTube. Love the music at the end!