When I was given this box-set to review,
I immediately pictured Joshua Oppenheimer as a much older man. I was
therefore gobsmacked when I saw the picture of him on the back of the
24-page essay that's included in the set. He's flippin' gorgeous.
He's only
forty-one but he looks much younger. With his perfectly-shaped shaved
head, beautiful eyes and fantastic teeth, he could be a model. He's
gay though, sadly for me, haha, but I can still fancy him from afar.
There's no law whatsoever against appreciating the male form,
whatever the sexual orientation of the object of desire...!
Joshua
('Can I call you Joshua...?!') was
born in Texas. He has a list of qualifications and awards won as long
as your arm, so we won't list all of them here. Well, I'll mention
just one which seems particularly fancy. In 2014, he was a recipient
of an accolade known as the 'MacArthur “Genius”
Award.' Very impressive-sounding, I must say.
Genius, eh? That's
certainly the impression you get when you listen to him talk in his
interview, the impression that you're listening to someone very
talented, very committed and very passionate who really, really
knows his onions. I could well imagine him as a young prodigy.
He made
his first films when he was only in his early twenties, but they're
not the cinematic premature ejaculate (excuse my bluntness,
I'm just keeping it real...!) of
the callow youth. They're the fully-realised, carefully thought-out
and daringly executed triumphs of the more experienced director and,
I must say, from the moment I pressed 'PLAY' I
was hooked.
Let's
not do this in any particular order. My mind must be free to flit
from flower to flower, like a butterfly. Wait a minute. Butterfly?
Entymology. Insects. Cockroaches! Can you see how I got there? A
BRIEF HISTORY OF PARADISE AS TOLD BY THE COCKROACHES
(2002) is only a minute or two
long but it's surely a classic amongst short films.
Two
cockroaches on dental floss leashes have a conversation while the
theme music from the movie LOVE STORY plays
in the background, almost drowning them out. It's not what they're
saying that's
important, though the word 'cupcakes' is
mentioned and that would be a highly crucial topic of conversation in
my humble opinion.
It's
more the idea behind the film and the mind behind the idea that
would interest me. What kind of a thinking-outside-the-box brain
could come up with such a novel concept? OUTSIDE THE BOX
could have been a possible
alternative title for this collection of films. I doubt if the
handsome Monsieur Oppenheimer
ever thinks in any other way, and I mean that as a compliment.
THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF THE
LOUISIANA PURCHASE (1997)
isn't at all about what it sounds like. It's actually Oppenheimer's
attempt to free some of the essential truths from the story of a
woman called Mary Anne Ward, who supposedly killed her baby daughter
by microwaving her.
We're treated to some very out there comments
from some of the people interviewed in this film. We hear from a
'self-proclaimed Anti-Christ' who
thinks that the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were in fact the
Beatles, and that their song 'LUCY IN THE SKY WITH
DIAMONDS' actually prophesied the
aforementioned Apocalypse, but on his own mother's admission: 'For
an Anti-Christ, you're not real smart...!'
I
marvelled at the seemingly genuine speculation in the film as to
whether or not Mary Anne's pregnancy was 'alien-induced,'
as she was claiming an
Immaculate Conception-type situation and her boyfriend was denying
all knowledge of how the baby 'got started,' as it were.
There's
a disturbing recreation of the microwave murder, during which 'Mary
Anne' tells us that 'she
wanted to end the war between good and evil forever by sending the
baby back to Heaven.' Sadly,
there are some crazy people in the world. Seems like most of 'em
ended up on this one reel of film...! The burning chairs that came
later in the film, well, I just can't get 'em out of my head no-how.
THE
GLOBALISATION TAPES (2002)
is a straightforward documentary, unlike some of the other films
which get their message across through clever metaphors. This is a
film 'by workers, for workers,' and
it tells of the shocking work conditions endured by the people of
Indonesia, something to which I'd never given the slightest thought
before. I'm grateful to the film-maker for bringing it to people's
attention.
At the time
the film was made, the palm oil workers of Indonesia were the
lowest-paid in the world. A man with a family of six to feed was
being paid one dollar and fourteen cents a day, if you can get your
head around that. That was fourteen years ago. I wonder if things
have changed at all since then. That wasn't even the worst thing in
the film, though. Nope, folks, that was the Gramoxone...
Gramoxone is
a pesticide that killed 3-4 million workers annually at the time of
filming, most of them women. The job of spraying it on the crops fell
mostly to the female workers. I suppose the men were off doing the
more dangerous job of felling the trees from which the palm oil is
extracted but, quite honestly, the job of spraying the pesticide
seemed to me to be nearly more perilous.
I felt
sick to my stomach as I watched these lovely smiley women talking
about how they were supplied with no safety clothing or equipment by their employers with which to safely handly this toxic substance Gramoxone. Gramoxone, by the way, is the
brand name of something called 'paraquat.'
This
'something' causes
death by lesions in the liver, heart and kidneys and bleeding in the
lungs. It causes rashes, itching and loss of hair and eyesight. These
women all have children and families. Who's going to look after these families when the mothers die from handling this horrible pesticide? How many
women at the time of filming had already died or been left unable to
work because of it? It hardly bears thinking about.
A lot
of poor countries like Indonesia put all their eggs into the 'export'
basket because that's the only
way they can make any money. They've become used, over the years, to providing cheap raw materials for their colonial masters at the
expense of growing rice and other foodstuffs for themselves. They can
never get clear of their colossal debts, though, no matter how many
things they export.
They
export palm oil, an edible vegetable oil which is used for making everything from soap to
margarine to mayonnaise, and they also export coffee, chocolate and rubber. LUX
in particular was a brand name
that came in for a bit of a battering in the film. Unless I'm much
mistaken here, it's a brand for which workers have died during the
production of it (if that ain't not bad grammar!), presumably from pesticide poisoning.
I
remember using LUX soap
from my childhood days. I think I have some in the bathroom right
now. I buy stuff like that that I need for the house without even
thinking about it, as I suppose most of us do. If I'd known, however,
that women with families to feed had been hurt or even died just to
get that product to my bathroom shelf, then I might have thought
differently about it. (PS, things may have changed in this
industry since 2002, or then again, they may not have.)
I was also
shocked to hear about how few rights workers have in these poorer-off
countries. Here in Ireland we all complain about our bosses, but
imagine if every time you asked to see your boss in person, he was
behind his desk flanked by armed guards wielding machine guns? It
kind of puts the Monday Morning Blues into perspective, doesn't
it...?
Joshua
Oppenheimer, former student of Cosmology and Theoretical Physics,
comes across as a lovely genuine guy in the twenty-three minute interview.
Hear about how he didn't really like films when he was a kid, and how
being bullied as a child and physically attacked later on just for
being a gay man made him want to try to get inside the mindset of the
people who would do such things and show the results in some of his
work. I think he manages that feat rather heroically, personally.
He's
'looking for his own truths through the medium of sound and
images.' I think he does a
great job. Certainly, before seeing his films I would never have
equated a helpless animal being taken for slaughter with a human
being's experience of an abduction by aliens. Think about it, or
better yet, watch the films. They'll tell
you what to do alright...!
SECOND RUN released
this rather marvellous box-set earlier this summer, complete with the
interview and the aforementioned free booklet featuring a new essay
by writer and curator Gareth Evans. It only costs a piddly twelve
ninety-nine too, which hopefully won't break the bank.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA
HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
You can contact Sandra at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
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