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The Long Walk (Mattie Do, 2019): Death, Damnation & Deliverance

Writing calmly about Mattie Do’s The Long Walk is difficult. But sometimes you just have to be honest and shout (digitally) about a damn fine film. In all honesty, what I want to do is grab people by the shoulders like a crazed John Carpenter character and say: have you seen the way to horror? It is Mattie Do! But I’m not that creepy and there’s a pandemic on. I will say to you, reader: Mattie Do is everything I want from a horror filmmaker.

Thanks to LAAPFF for programming this film. While Mattie Do is California-born, she lives and works out of Laos and is Laos’ first (and only) female filmmaker (as of the date of this review). Platforming her work is critical to women in genre-filmmaking and the Laotian cinema world in general. The LAAPFF has featured a litany of incredible films all by, for and about Asian women. Effective on regional and global levels, it is a continual joy and inspiration to watch and write about these films. My great hope is that these films play everywhere, not just in festivals. Everyone should see this work.

I like to know as little about a film as possible before I see it. I call it the “Tabula Rosa approach.” No trailer, no reviews, no reading of descriptions or reviews. Genre & country are usually enough for me and occasionally if someone I know says: YEAH, that was awesome, I listen to them. 

All I knew about The Long Walk before watching was that it was Laotian and a horror movie. I am BEYOND glad that was all I knew. Deftly written by Chris Larsen and hauntingly lensed by Matthew Macar, Mattie Do’s direction makes this movie a genuine force to be reckoned with.

I’m going to try to keep this as spoiler-free as possible. I don’t want to say too much. Honestly?

JUST SEE THE DAMN MOVIE. IT’S LIKE NOTHING ELSE YOU’VE SEEN BEFORE.

Admittedly, there are some aspects to this movie that make it a subjective hole-in-one for me. So here are a few of my personal sweet spots and why The Long Walk is definitely one of those films that was “made for me” but may not be everyone’s film. 

First of all, it has the “told through a kid’s eyes” aspect. I love films like that. Germany: Year Zero (Roberto Rosselini, 1948), Come & See (Elem Klimov, 1985), and Forbidden Games (René Clément, 1952) are all films told through the perspective of a child and films that I consider favorites. They are also some of the. Most. Disturbing. Films. Ever. While this film isn’t Klimov-level, it certainly holds its own and the way Mattie Do utilizes the child’s perspective in this film was a good call. Her sensitivity to innocence and betrayal was perfectly balanced, depicting the kind of confusion and discomfort only a child can feel.

The tragic life of the young boy (played exquisitely by Por Silatsa) is certainly a story we’ve seen before, but it is in the telling that the dynamism becomes real. Do’s regional specifications and temporal involvements of modernization are what drive this part of the film. What would be a simple dysfunctional family story is transformed into grounded work and distinct circumstances in small town Laotian life.

The Old Man (Yannawoutthi Chanthalungsy) is one of the great new figures in modern horror cinema. Chanthalungsy’s performance is just mind-blowing. I am desperate for more people to watch this film so they meet him (and, selfishly, so we can talk about his narrative!). Rarely has such a calming character led me on such a beautiful and horrific ride. Inspiring empathy, anger, nausea, pity and frustration, this is a fucking horror movie in every sense of the word.

The Long Walk is a meditation on ghosts (personal and supernatural), death (natural and not-so-natural) and concepts of growth and stagnation. The underlying narrative of technology in the Laotian countryside plays a critical role, upping the ante and bringing different kinds of monstrosities to the landscape. This language might not be making it sound sexy, so like- if you need that kind of review or recommendation? Let me reassure you- this is a scary and messed-up film!  

Playing with ideas of horror and science fiction with skillful fluidity, The Long Walk will make genre-rule-obsessed viewers uncomfortable as hell.

To those viewers:
Concede the fact that fantastic cinema can work within and between genres. Genres are like gender: fluid as fuck and that’s how they SHOULD be. To produce quality art like The Long Walk, you need to be able to be slippery while maintaining suspense, terror, and the right to whip out OMGWTF moments at the right time.

And I live for those shifts when they are done well. This was absolutely an exercise in How To Do It. Every Western filmmaker who tries (and fails) should take some classes from this film. Big ups on this. It wasn’t exploitative, it was smooth, and it kept on rocking the film. That third act. Hot damn. I shouted at my screen: “OH hell no. What????? No way. Shiiiiiit.” On the other hand, my cat then went into the other room. He may not be a fan. 

Finally, while the film features men as the protagonists what hit me hard was that their stories were actually entrance points to a larger exploration of women and women’s experiences. Like horror is wont to do, The Long Walk viciously reveals some of the worst parts of humanity. But it does so in a nuanced and complex way. A road trip of masculinity and growth, this movie takes a scalpel to gender issues and power structures, ripping those bodies open like a drunk mortician, allowing us to revel in the pure unadulterated pain, joy and liberation that exudes from that screen.

Part of the LAAPFF, this film can be seen through the Eventlive link here starting on October 15, 2020. It’s only up for a few days so get on it!!! This film is only available to viewers in Southern California (excluding San Diego County) from October 15, 2020 at 12pm PT to October 18, 2020 at 11:59pm PT

Mortician of Manila: Brutal and Brilliant

Leah Borromeo’s Award-winning short film on a 24-hour funeral parlor in Manila and its clientele is not for the weak of heart (or stomach). But every frame is worth it.
This short film, initially created for the Al-Jazeera Witness documentary series, is yet another lesson in the almost trite slogan of ACAB but this is on an entirely different and global level.

Mortician is a detailed and heartbreaking examination of Orly, the elderly (yes) mortician whose job it is to take care of some of the most savaged and battered dead bodies of the city. As this documentary unfolds, Borromeo shows Orly’s complex ethics and personal life with great skill, making Mortician of Manila one of the most incredible documentaries I’ve seen in years. Orly is a challenging and complicated character to follow but there’s truly no one like him. Charming and maddening at the same time, this Mortician has to be seen to be believed.

With a sign on the wall reading “Autopsy is Free of Charge,” Orly believes he is doing a service to the painfully poor community that he serves. But this community (and the entirety of the Philippines) has been ruptured and is continually terrorized by current President Rodrigo Duterte and his anti-drug policies. These policies (the Philippine Drug War) actively target the poor, authorize public citizens to kill drug addicts (the government does not see them as human), established death squads, and encouraged police to murder young Filipinos and plant evidence on them to establish “guilt.”

Let’s be clear: this is a very graphic short doc and totally qualifies as a horror movie. But it will leave your heart shattered by the end. The terror of these families who would rather see their children stay in prison for a safer environment is a real thing. Young men in their 20s are shot like animals and left to die in an alley, families just accept this as life and move forward trying to make the next step…if they can afford it. Which they usually cannot. Funerals are a luxury. Orly does what he can but…it’s tough out there. Bodies keep coming and the money isn’t there for anyone.

This is a must-see if you can handle hard-watches. Leah Borromeo is an excellent documentarian. Using Orly’s story as a through-line, heartbreaking social issues, political commentary and graphic imagery are handled with sensitivity and incisiveness. An incredible film.

This film is part of the Juke In The Box package for the LAAPFF, only available to viewers in the United States from September 24, 2020 at 12pm PT to September 30, 2020 at 11:59PT. From October 1, 2020 at 12pm PT to October 31, 2020 at 11:59 pm PT, this film is only available to viewers in Southern California (excluding San Diego County).

You Belonged: Never Forget J-Town’s Atomic Cafe

When I moved from Los Angeles in November of 2019, I knew I was going to miss the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival terribly. It was an event that I regularly attended for many years. Whether it was just for one movie or the entire run-of-fest, I could always count on the LAAPFF’s programming for charming, challenging and entertaining content. Year after year, the LAAPFF has consistently kept me engaged in what I love doing most: watching movies. So having this virtual option and the wide access that they have introduced has been very satisfying.

This year, I started out by watching a World Premiere documentary short. I try to know as little about a film going in as possible so all I knew about Akira Boch and Tadashi Nakamura’s Atomic Cafe: The Noisiest Corner In J-town was that it was about Los Angeles and punk rock. Being born and raised in Los Angeles (Hollywood, specifically) and having cut my musical teeth on local punk, this film was definitively unique and dominantly Angeleno.

At one point in the film, an interviewee notes, “From pop stars to kids from East LA, everyone was [at the Atomic Cafe].” That was the punk scene in LA at the time. The ease with which everyone mingled at the Japanese American-owned restaurant named after the atomic bomb was impressive but like…punk AF. Years and years later, patrons of the Cafe still remembered their favorite dishes and relished describing them to the documentarians. But it really wasn’t ever about the food. It was about the space and those that made it happen. And isn’t it always?

Opened in 1946 by the parents of “Atomic Nancy” Sekizawa, the Atomic Cafe established the Sekizawa family in Little Tokyo/J-Town. Nancy’s parents had seen their fair share of suffering but the Cafe’s placement in Los Angeles weaved them into the downtown Japanese American community. The film does a wonderful job of looking at the kind of people the Sekizawas were and the kind of tolerance and acceptance they gave to the misfit punk kids who came to their restaurant (including their daughter who then ran the shop).

I felt wildly awkward because while I knew about the rest of the places mentioned in this piece- Madame Wong’s, The Masque- I knew very little about the Atomic Cafe and even less about Nancy Sekizawa and her family. I wanted to call myself out- LA punk rock cred has been rejected! Hometown privileges revoked! How did I not know the Germs hung out here? This was a place where X used to go? But by the end of the film, when they show where the location was, I realized that I had been to that place a thousand times (not as Atomic, of course) and it brought it home in a really surreal and sad way. I love my city so much and I love punk rock so I definitely teared up a bit. My heart was here for this film.

The Sekizawa family, LA punk, Japanese American history and the cafe are cleverly quilted together in this excellent documentary short. People in the film use the word “magic” repeatedly to describe the restaurant and I don’t think they were wrong.  Atomic Cafe: The Noisiest Corner In J-town is a vital story. The images shown examine the history of Los Angeles, music and the Japanese American cultural experience and what it really means to be punk rock.

This film is available to watch online via the LAAPFF through this link here.

Don’t miss it!!!

This film is only available to viewers in the United States from September 24, 2020 at 12pm PT to September 30, 2020 at 11:59PT. From October 1, 2020 at 12pm PT to October 31, 2020 at 11:59 pm PT, this film is only available to viewers in Southern California (excluding San Diego County).

There’s Nothing Like It: Ursula Liang’s 9-MAN

9-Man (Ursula Liang, 2014)

To a native Californian and Angeleno like myself, volleyball has always meant white guys and the beach. While I know that it is played professionally, and there are women’s teams, the concept of anything volleyball-esque brings up a Pavlovian response in me. Visions of blonde men with their tanned caucasian bodies appear in my imagination and I see these perfectly formed specimens, glistening with sunscreen, throwing themselves around in the sun and sand, as their bikini-clad-companions watch. While that may seem romantic and sexy, it’s always been an extreme turn-off to me.

These are precisely the kind of guys and just the kind of culture that I want nothing to do with. In fact, it is the kind of world that I spend an alarming amount of time railing against. They represent the worst of the worst to me. They are the frat-boy types who eat, sleep and breathe white privilege and couldn’t see the world any other way than monied and upper and of the higher-classes. They are blind to what is really going on and that pisses me off. I feel a little bad for the sport of volleyball, since it has suffered my associations, but I will recognize here and now that is my prejudice.  Too many summers near Santa Monica watching people play, I guess.

With this in mind, I can only describe myself as insanely curious and awkwardly starving for Ursula Liang’s documentary, 9-MAN (Ursula Liang, 2014), which played at the Director’s Guild of America as part of the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival on Friday night, May 2nd. Co-presented by the Asian Youth Center in the San Gabriel Valley and the Chinese American Museum in Downtown LA (they’re currently running a whole exhibit on hot sauces called “LA HEAT”- it’s totally great! Check them out!), and introduced by the popular and highly entertaining Phil Yu, also known as Angry Asian Man, this documentary blew my mind. Completely unseen, Yu told the audience that he was putting 9-MAN on a list of films he would consider to be in his “Angry Asian Film Club.” “Unless it sucks.” he joked,  “But I know it won’t suck!” And boy was he right. This belongs on that Film Club List with honors!

For what it’s worth, 9-MAN is a sports documentary. Technically, 9-man is a volley-ball-style sport that began in Chinatown communities in the 1930s but it is quite definitely not volleyball.  In fact, that may be why I liked it. The terms “jungle ball” and “streetball” were thrown around quite a bit. Yeah, my ears perked up for sure. As a huge fan of brutal and hyper-masculine sports activities, the minute one of the athletes described 9-man as a game that commits itself fully to a “warrior mentality” I was IN. But it’s not simply a game. 9-man developed historically and has played a significant part in the way that Chinese men have been able to keep their culture alive and dynamic, especially between fathers and sons. As Liang documents so eloquently, this was one of the only outlets that many Chinese men had to express their masculinity during the 1930s/40s and onwards. The Chinese Immigration Acts that started in the late 1880s had seriously diminished roles for Chinese men to play in American culture, and the places that they were allowed to inhabit were exhaustively feminized at that time: laundry work, food service, etc. In order to regain a sense of masculinity and as a way to bond as a community, this game was created. It gave them a sense of dignity, fun and released the stress from these daily horrors.

Picture of 9-man team, 1946

Picture of 9-man team, 1946

But, as Liang stated in the Q&A after the film, she wanted to give a sense of this historical background while still keeping the modern storyline. And that is what she most certainly did. The core of the film and the “meat” focused on today’s teams and the journey towards the 2010 Boston Labor Day finals for several regional teams, and, like a truly great sports film, she makes you truly love and care for all the characters. If I thought that I cried in fictional films like Warrior or He Got Game, this film gutted me. I was at the edge of my seat, really WITH every character. Loving them, routing for them, on their journey. But what made it more interesting was each person’s discussion of the cultural ties and the fact that this was not just a game to them. This was part of their life. While Liang did pointedly say afterwards that her goal was to reimagine Asian men in the sports world and do some stereotype-busting through diverse portrayals (which was quite well-done, I might add) the sports/culture/ethnic connection was what really stood out. The media does not often investigate these issues for Asian men. The discussion of these 9-men player’s masculinity stories, whether done through tales of family connections, cultural struggles or sports dedication was really singular and revealing.

Credit: A player dunks over the net at a 9-man game in Philadelphia. (Andrew Huynh), published in LatitudeNews.com

The film does an excellent job in explaining the rules of the game with animated visuals- there is a difference between 6-man and 9-man games, for instance, and no women are allowed to play. There were wonderful illustrations to explain these things and the placement of the players as well. The intertitles were also quite helpful, as far as technical info was concerned. As of 1991, there was an “ethnic rule” that became part of the rule book- at least 6 men on the court had to be Chinese. The other 3 could be mixed. When asked about this in the Q&A afterwards, the responses were fascinating and reflected a very different 9-man than what had started so many years ago. Ursula was joined on-stage by two 9-man players, and each answered this question differently but with the same basic result. Both agreed (as did Ursula) that at this point it is really up to how good the player is. Many times, it comes down to that and not ethnicity. They will have the “how Chinese is he” arguments, but it will really boil down to “how good of a player is he.” They added that there are many mixed players now, and that will probably increase with time.

Credit: Andrew Choy, Flickr

Credit: Andrew Choy, Flickr

I wondered if this was losing the spirit that been expressed by so many of the older interviewees in the film, especially certain men who had discussed playing 9-man in the 1970s, who had learned to have Chinese community and brotherhood through this activity, and had passed the tradition on to their children. It also made me think about something more serious. As someone who has studied sports that are familial and passed on in that manner (ie wrestling), this “more sports than culture” view being expressed might end up deteriorating the 9-man community and a cultural history and important activity that goes beyond “sports.” But as the final interviewee in the film said about the game, sports or cultural expression, “There’s nothing like it and I’d never give it up.”

Producer Theresa Navarro, director Ursula Liang, and producer Bing Wang of 9-MAN, at Boston premiere

Producer Theresa Navarro, director Ursula Liang, and producer Bing Wang of 9-MAN, at Boston premiere

Ursula Liang has created a documentary that has inspired tears of triumph and heartbreak, nail-biting suspense and loud cheers of joy. This primarily female-produced film (as Liang discussed during the Q&A, most of the crew were women as well, something “you don’t see very often these days!”) combines historical fact with tough sportsmanship and really intelligent discussion about a highly marginalized and underrepresented community.

One of the most beautiful things about the screening was when Phil Yu asked the athletes during the Q&A what it was like to watch the film, and Lawrence, one of the athletes, replied, “I got to see people I know for once.” While it was clear that this referred to 9-man players he was pals with, it had a double-meaning: he got on-screen representation for once. Which is really what the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival is about, and I am glad for it.

 

CS_9Man

FILM ARCHIVIST’S PLEA:  One final note that I would have to make and this is more of a plea. I spoke to Ursula after the screening because, as a moving image archivist I was SINGULARLY IMPRESSED by the footage in the film. Not only is the subject INCREDIBLY unique and rare (she told me very few people she encountered had even heard of 9-man) but the stills and visual elements that are used have come almost entirely from personal collections. Museums and archives that specialized in Asian or Chinese historical works didn’t have anything on this, regional archives were empty, barely anything. I know that Prelinger Archives was on there, but they are amazing like that. Here’s the thing-  THIS WAS ALOT OF HOME MOVIE STUFF, GUYS.  This is not a surprise to me. PLEASE see this movie. I will tell you why:

1) It is THAT good. I’ll say it again. IT IS THAT DAMN GOOD.

2) The archival footage will show you that you need to go looking in your Nana’s house for all the cultural 16mm/8mm/etc stuff. It can be really important. LIKE NOW. GO.

3) If you are a POC, your works are EXTRA important and MUST BE SEEN. This film is a FABULOUS WATERSHED EXAMPLE of what can be done if you have a good subject and are a great researcher & can get some help. Liang went the extra mile on this because she taught herself how to be a filmmaker as she was making this film.

4) If you know of anyone who might have any other footage like this, let’s make sure it’s all out there. Seeing this was so great. As an archivist & as someone in preservation, this is *exactly* what we strive to do- restore history to its rightful viewers: us and everyone in the future. Make goodness happen with film. It can be magic. I BELIEVE THIS.

5) Female filmmaker. Need another reason?????

 

DID YOU MISS 9-MAN LAST NIGHT? NO WORRIES. IT’S PLAYING AGAIN! HERE’S THE INFO!

9-MAN – LOS ANGELES ASIAN PACIFIC FILM FESTIVAL

MONDAY, MAY 05, 2014 – 4:30

Tateuchi Democracy Forum, National Center for the Preservation of Democracy
111 N. Central Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90012

BUY TICKETS HERE!