HOW TO MAKE A BOOK WITH STEIDL

How to Make a Book with Steidl. 2010. 88 minutes.

How to Make a Book with Steidl begins with legendary German publisher and printer Gerhard Steidl explaining to British photographer Martin Parr his work style, qualifying "Just so you know, so you don't get mad about me." They both laugh. But he is serious too; there is real caution in his warning. Steidl hands Parr a copy of his book "How to Make a Book with Steidl"- given to each of his collaborators - which Parr covetously accepts, insisting Steidl sign it. Making a book with Gerhard Steidl is a sign that a photographer has arrived. But the booklet presented to Parr is a reminder that this is a collaboration. It is a primer for those photographers lucky enough to collaborate on a publication of their work and necessary, presumably, because Steidl's style is so unusual.

Wetzel and Adolph's documentary is an engrossing portrait of Steidl vis-à-vis his unorthodox style. At once humorous, obsessive, volatile, and awesomely intelligent, Steidl is not just a match for the artists with whom he chooses to work. He is himself an artist, and the documentary can be seen as a portrait-of-the-artist. He was born in Göttingen fifty metres from his printing house because, he claims, he was too busy to move. We see Steidl seated at his desk, surrounded by mountains of paper and books, as he types notes on a manual typewriter and files the paper on a vast wall of organized information. The printing house is both spotless and cluttered, seemingly an extension of Steidl's own relentless mind.

This movie isn't just a portrait of an important publisher-printer. It captures the beauty of analogue production. Steidl publishes in a decidedly digital world. His staff works on computers. He and Joel Sternfeld create a book of iPhone photos. And Steidl's multiple iPods seem to be his constant travel companions (we never do find out what he's stored on them!). But he also takes notes with pen and paper. He chooses paper for how it feels. And several times he extolls the virtues of specific printing inks for their smell. "This is a lost knowledge: that books should smell good," he only partly jokes. 

And Steidl physically spans the globe to meet with his photographer-collaborators. This is something that makes the documentary a joy to watch. We travel wide and far to be flies on the wall as Steidl meets with the greatest living photographers in their studios. Robert Frank, Joel Sternfeld, Robert Adams, Ed Ruscha, Jeff Wall. For photography fans, the voyeurism value of these sequences is impossible to overrate. 

But perhaps the most unusual trip is Steidl's journey to Qatar where he meets with Khalid Bin Hamad Bin Ahmad Al-Thani. He is soft-spoken and almost meek, despite (or due to) being a member of the autocratic Qatari royal family, and, at first, Steidl's collaboration with him smacks of a vanity project. But then we camp overnight under the desert stars. And watch Al Thani and Steidl select stones and plants for their soft colours. When Steidl and Al Thani finally present their project to Al Thani's father inside a trailer in the middle of the desert - elaborately furnished and powered by humming generators, the blanketed camels resting outside - we see Al Thani's photographs. In austere black and white, the first star shines in the fading desert sky; a sand dune is sculpted by the wind. They are jewels of pure photography. This is no vanity project. 

For almost a generation we have been slowly lulled into the belief that photographs are to be consumed as digital images capable of endless reproduction. But How to Make a Book with Steidl reminds us that photographs are physical, that the consumption of information is not only visual; it is visceral. Perhaps this is Steidl's most important contribution to contemporary photography: he produces beautiful books, beautiful objects. We no longer look through the image. Steidl demands that we remember the other senses when we see. He reminds us to stop and smell the photos.  

FISH TANK

Fish Tank. 2009. 122 minutes.

Katie Jarvis plays teenage Mia so believably it's as if writer-director Andrea Arnold pulled her right out of the brutal world of UK council estates where Fish Tank is set. Mia's accent, her hair, wardrobe, walk, and expletive-laced dialogue: all of it taken together gives us the impression of a character so complete, so real that Katie and Mia become one. We are no longer watching a character. We are watching a real person.

Jarvis' non-performance, her on-camera naturalness, makes watching Fish Tank unsettling. It's as though we are are spying on a real person. And we feel guilty because we're able to experience her world without taking any of the risks that she herself must. The reality that Arnold presents is harsh. Mia and her mother and younger sister are poor, and while not completely miserable, they definitely treat each other miserably. There is no mention of Mia's father. And judging from how casually her mother has boyfriends stay over, we assume there's been a steady procession of men through their life.

But Mia has an escape. Every day she hides herself away in an empty apartment, along with a portable stereo and a two-litre of some kind of alcohol, where she practices her own dance moves choreographed to hip hop music. She emulates the music videos she sees on TV, videos with shaking asses and exploding sexuality. But strangely, almost innocently, Mia's dancing is not to entice. Instead it's done for herself, for her own pleasure. And while her moves are often generic and even banal, Arnold shows Mia dance with such sincere intent, that we can't help but take her seriously. Perhaps her belief in her own talent will take her somewhere better.

It's this contrast between Mia's world of violent bitterness - adolescent disdain on steroids - with her world of escape that gives us a sense that Mia has a plan. It makes everything about her life a little less dismal when we see her try so hard, when we see her want to get the hell out of there. We hope along with her.

It's Mia's capacity to desire and build something good for herself that makes us see the entry of her mother's latest boyfriend - played by Michael Fassbender - as something significant. Connor is different. He is beautiful, funny, and sincere; a breath of fresh air. And despite the way Mia sneers at him, we understand this is the only way she knows how, that she in fact feels differently, and her challenge is to learn how to overcome the fear to express it. And it doesn't hurt to have Fassbender at his charming best as your motivation. The sexual tension between them is both shocking and understandable. Who wouldn't be tempted? After being surrounded by bleakness your whole life, to give-in to such a positive force would be a rational choice. Connor's capacity to build happiness is seductive.

Considering the world she comes from, Mia's naïveté is, on the one hand, unexpected, but it's also another reminder that she can hope. To hope despite, also, the world she comes from. Arnold presents us with a paradox. It's Mia's innocence that let's her dare to leap frog out of this life to another, to a place of experience. Of experience that is chosen, not determined.

RUST AND BONE

Rust and Bone. 2012. 120 minutes.

Expectations are understandably high when your last film earns critical raves and a Best Foreign Film Oscar nomination. If writer-director Jacques Audiard's A Prophet (2009) is an undeniable masterwork, then, rest assured, Rust and Bone is a worthy successor. Marion Cotillard is Stephanie, a killer whale trainer in the south of France who's hospitalized after an accident, and Ali (Mattias Schoenaerts) is the boxer who helps her recover. But ultimately, in true movie fashion, they help each other, and fall in love along the way. In that sense, there is nothing new here. It's the execution that is fresh and bold.

So much of Audiard's latest work - of all his work - is worth mention that it becomes difficult to say specifically what makes it so good. With Cotillard heading your cast you know the acting is going to be unbeatable, and Schoenaerts proves every bit her equal with his quiet layered performance. Stephane Fontaine's cinematography infuses the film with warm Mediterranean light, the occasional exposure overflowing with flares of sun. Much of the shots are handheld but just subtly enough to let the frame breathe. The visual effects, crucial to telling part of this story, never overpower: they appropriately deceive and remain in the background. The picture editing and sound editing (yes, I'm mentioning sound editing) build elegant, strategically-placed sequences that serve both narrative pacing and, often more importantly, emotional punctuation.

I could go on. And on. But I think it's with this specific kind of carefully constructed sequence that Audiard has made his mark and where he succeeds best. Often he'll pull everything into extreme slow motion. The camera, no longer loose, now moves in smooth controlled shots. Sound ebbs or fades into silence to be replaced by Alexandre Desplat's elegant score, or a mix of score, source music and ambient sound. Audiard shifts from a hard, verité style into poetic abstraction. Things are no longer themselves; they symbolize. Animals become totems; characters become types. The everyday begins to resonate. And that's what we want from a film. We want to believe that stuff matters. That life matters. It can exist on another plane.

Testament to his talent, Audiard always reconciles this duality elegantly. Who else could one moment use a Katy Perry song for both real and ironic detail, and then shortly thereafter use it again, but this time with full-throttle sincerity? He can pull it off, and his accomplishment - his career - demands and deserves our attention. Rust and Bone is a rich experience that invites multiple viewings. It gets under your skin.

THE SKIN I LIVE IN

The Skin I Live In. 2011. 120 minutes.

Only in a Pedro Almodóvar film could the housekeeper be dressed as elegantly as Marisa Paredes' character in The Skin I Live In. The opening intercuts between the sophisticated Marilia preparing a tray of food and a much younger woman upstairs performing her morning exercises, dressed nowhere near as well. She wears a nude bodysuit over a perfect body. Her room is a beautiful but barren cell. Some kind of evolution is underway. The housekeeper sends the breakfast tray in a dumbwaiter to her captive above, but not before adding a copy of Alice Munro's short story collection Escapada. Both a body and mind are being formed.

Vera (Elena Alaya) is our prisoner and Roberto (Antonio Banderas) the mad surgeon who keeps her. He claims she's his patient. But she's a patient receiving treatment against her will, judging from the locked doors and ubiquitous cameras monitoring her every breath. Even though this is where the film begins, it's clear Vera has been under Roberto's care for some time. Long enough for him to declare, "I don't want to improve anything." Her process is complete.

But how did we get here? Where did Elena start? And what exactly needed improving?

Following an Almodóvar plot can be a challenge. Typically his narratives leap back and forth in time. As a result we end up paying extra attention to where we are, accepting that we will eventually learn how we got here. Accordingly The Skin I Live takes us into each character's past, and back again.

Perhaps because we begin where Elena has wound up, we accept who she is - no matter what Almodóvar throws at us. Despite all the Hitchcockian overtones, this is not a whodunnit. It's a what's-been-done and why-was-it-done. And Almodóvar throws a lot our way. Much has happened and a lot has been done. "The things that a madman's love can do," Marilia mourns. Things that resonate beyond even Freud's comprehension. To confuse us further, Almodóvar mashes genres beyond recognition. Science fiction becomes mystery, mystery becomes tragedy, tragedy becomes farce, and farce becomes drama.

But there is method in his madness. The characters' transformations are so unbelievable, it is all the more miraculous to see Almodóvar pull it off. Precisely because the emotional journeys are performed so credibly, we buy the physical journey. We trust, despite our eyes. We believe the unbelievable. And only because we accept how we've gotten here, can the film's chilling last line become a true revelation. We now understand the enormity of the journey that lies ahead.

FRANCES HA vs. MANHATTAN

Frances Ha. 2012. 86 minutes. Drama.
Manhattan. 1979. 96 minutes. Drama.

When watching Noah Baumbach's Frances Ha it is hard not to think of Woody Allen. Careful compositions shot in beautiful black and white, zippy montages seamed with music, and stiltedly natural dialogue all recall Allen's style - Manhattan in particular. Baumbach's setting isn't New York; it's Woody Allen's New York. But any invitation to compare shouldn't only draw our attention to likeness. Similarities are important as a jumping off point; but it's the differences that matter more.

Manhattan is about Isaac and his relationships with two women. While Greta Gerwig's Frances might be an updated 70's Allen character, she nonetheless remains the central character. And Frances Ha is not about her aborted male relationships. Instead, her mostly platonic friendship with her best friend Sophie plays centre-stage, and when that hits a serious snag Frances spirals into a start-of-life crisis. With Manhattan, Isaac finds his way by looking for the right woman. But Frances's challenge is to build a life she wants to live, a challenge all the harder since she's forced to go it alone.

And her journey is often tough to watch. But Baumbach tempers our pain with near-satiric touches of Brooklyn high-hipsterdom. We get smoking indoors, ukeleles, and knitting, all in perfect cameos. "It's just that this apartment is… very aware of itself," Sophie nervously observes of Frances's shared home.

Witnessing a New York of the 70's gives Manhattan a new magic. It's become a period piece, and any shock this realization entails soon resolves into a new, subtle duality. When Isaac and Mary discuss a then-contemporary Sol Lewitt, in a very different Museum of Modern Art, it becomes both humour and art history. Over thirty years have passed, and, seemingly before our eyes, Allen's every-day touches gain new impact.

I'd avoided re-watching Manhattan for years. Ever since the Woody-Mia-Soon Yi sideshow, I've found it hard to watch his films without being biased by that context. As a result, his later films can seem out-of-touch and anachronistic. Maybe because Manhattan pre-dates those events - and has taken on a historical aura - it remains oddly fresh. If you haven't yet seen Frances Ha and if the personal lives of filmmakers colour your opinion of their films, then read no further. Because, interestingly, a friend recently attacked Baumbach's film for similar reasons.

Had I been aware of those facts when I watched Frances, would I have enjoyed it less? Maybe not. But my response would have been different. Sophie's uncomfortable observation describes more than her friend's apartment: Frances Ha itself is self-aware. Though, depending on how you watch it, perhaps not enough. It might just be still too fresh.

EL BULLI - COOKING IN PROGRESS

El Bulli - Cooking in Progress. 2011. 108 minutes. Documentary.

Towards the end of El Bulli - Cooking in Progress the head chef Ferran Adriá speaks to the restaurant's group of new recruits. "What is the concept here?" he asks. Adriá and his sous chefs are introducing the new season's menu to the young chefs tasked with its creation. And he might as well be posing the question to us.

"Going to eat in an avant-garde restaurant gives you something like a creative emotion. It's not just about, 'Mmm, tastes good.' You feel something… This dish is based on an idea." Adriá's explanation would serve as a good guide to anyone not familiar with molecular gastronomy. The Catalan restaurant elBulli was considered a mecca for this style of cooking - and Adriá its forerunner. This isn't your mother's cooking, and the contrasts with our expectations of food is largely the point.

Gereon Wetzel's documentary offers us a behind-the-scenes journey that begins with the restaurant's annual pack-up and move from the sleepy seaside town of Roses to Barcelona, where the chefs set-up not quite a kitchen but something more like a lab. We accompany the sous chefs to the local markets as they collect the raw materials for their creations. And back in the kitchen we see their daily exploration evolve into the year's menu. The process is sometimes playful but largely serious, and the methodical documentation, ordering, and consideration of what they discover is fascinating.

Months later, we travel back to the restaurant where the dishes are implemented by the year's new chefs in something akin to a military operation. The method is exacting and Adriá is often unforgiving. But there is magic. As he samples a dish, Adriá's eyes fix onto those of his chefs' with a wide-eyed stare, and we seem to witness his mind set fire. Wetzel catches that moment when the master's creation makes him feel that something.

GERHARD RICHTER - PAINTING

Gerhard Richter - Painting. 2011. 97 minutes. Documentary.

Considered perhaps the best living painter, it is a privilege to watch Gerhard Richter paint. And a lot of Corinna Belz's documentary is spent with the camera quietly hovering over Richter's shoulder, as he works on a series of paintings which, with each pull of colour across the canvas, grow and change before our very eyes. Paintbrushes are almost secondary for this current work; instead, Richter uses a plexiglass plank the same width of the canvas. His assistants have rigged the plank with handles so that Richter is able to drag it over the length of the canvas. The changes are often extreme. And breathtaking. Depending on the pressure of his grip, and whether paint is being added or subtracted, the paint either grows or pulls away, revealing a new painting with each "stroke". It is magic.

We also get to see the other workings of his studio: his assistants preparing the paint; the to-scale models for the arrangement of paintings in his upcoming shows; a visit from Marian Goodman his New York dealer. And we get the sense of what it must be like to be there. Pristine white walls and concrete floors contrast with the sounds of birds chirping in the gardens outside.

However, to watch a great artist at work here is not just a privilege. It is also torture. With a single drag of the plexiglass a beautiful pattern of colour is lost forever. Or revealed. You never know how the next stroke is going to result. The only thing keeping you from yelling Stop! is the knowledge that Richter already feels this doubt.

"I don't know what to do next," he says to the director behind the camera. "It's not working." The blue paint was an error, he claims. "It was an overblown idea." He pauses. "At the moment it seems hopeless. I don't think I can do this: painting under observation... It is the worst thing that there is." To see a master lose confidence is unsettling. The camera's presence comes to represent the artist's greatest enemy: his capacity for self-criticism, for being overly self-conscious, and their crippling effects. Gerhard Richter - Painting shows us the artist's daily battle between creation and self-doubt. And surprisingly that struggle - probably because it is portrayed so honestly - becomes our inspiration.

POETRY

Poetry. 2010. 139 minutes. Foreign drama.

In this completely engrossing portrait of a fading beauty, Mija (Jeong-hie Yun) finds herself entering life's final chapters as part-time care-giver to a semi-paralyzed stroke victim and sole guardian to her thankless teenage grandson.

Writer-director Chang-dong Lee introduces us to Mija with a visit to the doctor where she reports recent memory-loss. Shortly after, we see her burdened further with the consequences of a suicide by one of her grandson's classmates. But Mija's enrolment in a class for beginner poets allows us to witness her incongruous juggling act between a daily search for poetic inspiration and the unjust acceptance of responsibility for the actions of the men around her. Her capacity for compassion and finding beauty grows proportionate to her worsening circumstances.

Since we know Mija only after her early steps into dementia, it is impossible to be sure if she had always engaged the world with such sensitivity. Nevertheless, Lee seems to propose that it is Mija's dementia that opens her to surrounding suffering and beauty. But ultimately it is Jeong-hie Yun's masterful performance that provides us with arguably the most complex and satisfying portrayal of aging.