First Look ’15: I Touched All Your Stuff

Strictly speaking, Christopher Kirk was not catfished or anything of the like. He knew the woman he called V. in the flesh, but she still played him for a sap. Truth is a slippery notion when it comes to their odd tale. One murky thing lead to another, resulting in a Brazilian prison sentence for Kirk. It is there María Bühler & Matias Mariani interviewed him for their documentary investigation-meditation I Touched All Your Stuff (trailer here), which screens during the Museum of the Moving Image’s 2015 First Look (this year’s coverage is brought to you by the letter “I”).

Blame Pablo Escobar or maybe Keith Olbermann. Even if they are not directly at fault, they make the story even weirder. Kirk had done a number of interviews with media types like Olbermann after a house-sitting friend wrapper everything in his apartment with aluminum foil (leaving a note with the titular taunt). Kirk had already grown weary of the rat race (seriously, as an IT guy in Olympia, Washington?), so on a half-planned whim, he set off to visit a buddy in Colombia and see Pablo Escobar’s hippos. As the last remnant of the drug lord’s private wildlife park, the transplanted hippopotamus colony has grown and thrived in their new Colombian climate. At least things turned out well for them.

Kirk lost interest in the hippos when he met V., a more demur and studious acquaintance of his buddy’s party girl friends. Half Japanese and half Colombian, she is by all accountants quite stunning, but viewers will not know for certain, because every surviving picture of her is blurrier than the average Big Foot photo. Of course, that is also part of the film’s intrigue.

For a while Kirk and V maintained a pretty heavy long-distance relationship. Yet, in retrospect, Kirk identifies odd little moments he should have paid more attention to. Regardless, he could not ignore the suspicious circumstances when he started meeting her dodgy friends. Still, she kept him on the hook, because of obvious reasons.

Kirk is a natural born story teller and Bühler & Mariani have a keen sense of the film’s narrative structure, allowing the strangeness to steadily escalate. However, viewers should be cautioned not to emotionally invest in Kirk as a tragic protagonist. After all, he is in prison for something.

Stuff is the darnedest doc. Bühler & Mariani do not exactly connect every dot in V and Kirk’s mysterious lives, but the combination of what they know for sure and their working assumptions feels like ninety percent of the truth. Of course, that confounding ten percent is what fascinates and nags at the viewer.

There are probably a few too many scenes of skype and IM chats in Stuff, but its inherent mysteries and general attitude are quite compelling. Consider it a post-modern excursion into true crime or a documented urban legend. All that’s missing is a man with a hook. Highly recommended, I Touched All Your Stuff screens this Friday (1/16), as part of this year’s First Look at MoMI in Astoria, Queens.

First Look ’15: International Tourism

Sure, Frontline estimates one out of every one hundred North Koreans is a political prisoner and famines have been widespread, but if big clunky monuments are your thing, the DPRK is the place to be. Inconceivably, tourist do come to gawk at the enormous eye-sores dedicated to the Kim dynasty. Marie Voignier takes the tours, but she excises the commentary of her guides and minders (it is all just propaganda anyway) concentrating on the telling details found in the margins of the dysfunctional dystopia in International Tourism (clip here), which screens during the Museum of the Moving Image’s 2015 First Look.

Voignier’s approach is rather odd, but it can’t be called unfiltered. She certainly has an eye for telling juxtapositions, capturing the oppressive drabness of Pyongyang housing complexes, as well as the ostentatious kitsch of the omnipresent memorials. Clearly, this is not a healthy living environment. In fact, everything about North Korean architecture appears designed to make the individual feel insignificant and intimidated.

To her credit, Voignier also recognizes a dramatic moment when one happens, as when a tour guide in the Museum of American War Atrocities (or whatever it is) loses her cool when challenged by one of the visitors. Dissenting views are not something they are accustomed to dealing with over there. Apparently when in doubt, the guides fall back on regurgitating the dimensions and weights of the various granite monstrosities, so maybe tourists are better off with the outrageous lies and disinformation, which should at least keep them awake.

Voignier also follows a tour through a North Korean film studio, where a conspicuously stilted and didactic propaganda film is in the works. At this point, it is worth noting Voignier conveys more truth in a mere forty-eight minutes with only background ambient noise for a soundtrack than Anna Broinowski’s offensively clueless brown-nosing in Aim High in Creation. Sadly, we might just be getting a sneak peak of what Hollywood’s future tent-poles will look like as studios and exhibitors continue to cower at Kim Jing-un’s shadow.

On some level, the passivity of Voignier’s method is somewhat problematic. Still, she peaks into the gap between the false façade the DPRK state apparatus presents to the world and the crummy reality its serfs endure. Recommended on balance for those who understand how to watch with critical eyes, International Tourism screens with the remarkably insightful I for Iran this Saturday (1/17), as part of this year’s First Look at MoMI.

First Look ’15: I for Iran

You can find some rather unpleasant images and references in the text books of post-Islamic Revolutionary Iran. Nobody understands that better than an Iranian-Persian filmmaker’s Persian tutor. However, he still uses a problematic text due to a lack of better options. His language lessons will illuminate deeper truths in Sanaz Azari’s I for Iran (trailer here), which screens during the Museum of the Moving Image’s 2015 First Look.

Azari was born in Iran, but lived in Brussels since early childhood. As a result, she did not speak Persia until she enrolled in classes as an adult. During her studies, she was struck by the way language carries cultural specific codes and meanings. This was particularly so with respects to Persia and Iranian identity, even and especially following the revolution. As he bemoans their textbook, Behrouz Majidi will expound on the beauties and ironies of Persian culture in a series of improvised lectures.

That might sound rather academic, but Majidi is the sort of screen presence who could read the Brussels phone book and keep the audience riveted. His delivery is sort of like vintage Mark Twain—drily witty and deceptively elliptical. Just when you think he is hopelessly off point, he brings each mini-monologue home with panache. At times he waxes nostalgic for lost Iranian treasures, like the storied Shirazi wine the Islamist government has long since forbidden. When he addresses current events, such as the 2013 presidential elections, his analysis also sounds pretty darn spot-on.

Unfortunately, that means Majidi is more of a realist than an optimist. However, his love for Persian culture and nostalgia for the Iran that once was is wholly engaging and at times quite touching.  In between his improvised riffs, Azari presents a sort of visual free association based on the particular Persian letter under discussion. Frankly, these seem to work better over time, with the latter chain of images taking on far more evident meaning. Still, for the most part, they just take viewers away from the heart of the film.

I for Iran might sound simple and in terms of its formal structure it certainly is. However, despite its mere fifty minute running time, it overflows with thoughtful insights on human nature and grand themes like freedom, cultural survival, and human dignity. For such an unassuming film, it really sticks with viewers. Even though it is hard to define its cinematic category and the exact nature of Majidi’s performance, it still ought to be a star-making turn. Surprisingly moving, I for Iran is very highly recommended when it screens this Saturday (1/17), with the equally difficult to classify International Tourism as part of this year’s First Look at MoMI.