Documentary Educational Resources - Filmmaker / McLaren, Les / All Films

Life Is a Very Strange Thing

Tue, 2 Jul 2019 09:22:22 GMT

Life Is a Very Strange Thing
Buy Now: $320.00

Life Is A Very Strange Thing is an intriguing mosaic of post-colonial France revealed through four generations of a remarkable French family.

Australian filmmakers Les McLaren and Annie Stiven last saw Frédéric Duvelle in the 1970s when he was a rebellious teenager recording traditional music in remote villages of Papua New Guinea. Forty years later, a chance reunion became an opportunity to fill in missing decades and to discover his remarkable family history, from his Governor grandfather in colonial Indochina to the populist politics and terror attacks of contemporary France.

We meet Frédéric's parents: mother Elisabeth, a politically engaged textile artist who raised Fred and his two sisters in a working-class suburb of Paris; and composer father Charles who grew up in Laos and Cambodia, and became celebrated for his pioneering recordings of traditional music in Africa.

Frédéric's recounts his own unlikely journey from school dropout, to ethnomusicologist then executive of a multinational garbage enterprise. He is a wily raconteur and avid collector of brocante. Shadowed by his endearing ancient dog Punch, encounters with friends in Paris and Bordeaux unfold rich layers of French culture and identity: an enigmatic African artist discusses Cubism; a cameo family lunch with a menu of oysters, history and politics; a 93-year-old WW2 Resistance veteran who forgives; and an irascible brocanteur who can't forget.

The youngest generation confront issues at the heart of cosmopolitan France: Frédéric's niece is an activist with FEMEN who protest against conservative values as the populist right-wing National Front is on the rise, and his daughter has a near encounter on the night of the Bataclan terror attack.

Life Is A Very Strange Thing is part road movie, part meditation. Its unique mix – of observation, archive footage from PNGand Indochina, indigenous music and rich sound design – evokes a lyrical and compelling portrait of family, place, politics, and memory.

“The film crackles with energy, fueled by Duvelle’s irresistible charm and intelligence; as a character, he’s every director’s dream: irascible and an oddball; cuddly, endearing and benevolent. A complex man encapsulated in a film that’s impressive in scope yet full of heart as an intimate study of a storied, colourful individual.” – John Catania, Metro Magazine

“An unusually nuanced, subtle, and insightful foray into the culturalpolitics of contemporary France.” – Steven Feld, School for AdvancedResearch, Santa Fe

“I haven't seen such a brilliantly crafted film for a long time. The film shows us that the story of France is not only local but includes the stories of travellers throughout the colonial and post-colonial world. Yet at the same time it carries us into the life of metropolitan France today with an intimacy that is thoroughly enjoyable.” – David MacDougall, Filmmaker & Film Scholar, Austrailian National University

SELECTED SCREENINGS

Cinematographiques de Cannes, France, 2018

Rencontres - cinema des Antipodes, St Tropez, 2018
Brisbane International Film Festival, Australia, 2017
Antenna Documentary Festival, Sydney, Australia, 2017

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Cowboy and Maria In Town

Thu, 30 Aug 2018 08:16:00 GMT

Cowboy and Maria In Town
Buy Now: $320.00

Attracted by the myths of town life and the chance of work, people from villages all over Papua New Guinea have come to the towns. Cowboy and Maria in Town tells the story of two such migrants living in the settlements that surround the capital, Port Moresby. Cowboy is a reformed 'rascal'- unemployed and illiterate with a criminal record. He invents an electric guitar out of scrap materials and plays his distinctive rock-and-roll on street corners, earning just enough for his family to get by. Maria lives an equally precarious existence. Seasonal gardening and her husband's small income as a night security guard are their sole means of survival. Only her resilient humor keeps her going when inter-tribal conflicts, inflamed by frustration and alcohol, erupt in the settlement. Cowboy and Maria are vital players in the new urban Papua New Guinea. Their interwoven stories highlight the consequences of urban drift, where traditional and Western values meet. These intelligent and determined optimists are far from being Third World victims; they go about their daily lives with humor and imagination, rising to the enormous cultural changes that confront them.

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Kama Wosi

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 11:12:00 GMT

Kama Wosi
Buy Now: $320.00

Traditional music of the Trobriand Islands is played on a variety of flutes, from simple curving stems to panpipes. Songs (wosi) are also an important part of Trobriand music, and although everyone may compose and sing, people with special talents are encouraged to develop their skills. A range of songs are filmed and translated here: gardening and sailing songs, kula trading songs, songs of love and enticement, of grief and mourning. The film also reveals glimpses of everyday and ritual life: villages, gardens (and their magic), exchange, harvest dances, children in the rain.

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Namekas

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 14:11:00 GMT

Namekas
Buy Now: $320.00

On the southern shores of Lake Chambri (Middle Sepik River) live 1500 Pondo-speaking villagers. The Chambris trade fish, mosquito nets and baskets for sago, pottery, and other goods. All elements of the natural world are associated with spirits which have individual personalities and powers, characterized in legend, art, and music. A constant dialog between man and spirits is carried on through various communicative media, including invocations, dreams, and music.

As this film beautifully reveals, there is a wealth of musical tradition in Lake Chambri: carved wooden drums whose lively vibrations are said to shake loose ripened fruits for harvest; pairs of sacred bamboo flutes used in boys' initiations and concealed from women; orchestras of flutes identified with dogs or turkeys; flutes captured in warfare used with dance masks to invoke fish; and the panpipe with its melodies of mourning.

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Taking Pictures

Mon, 27 Aug 2018 08:56:00 GMT

Taking Pictures
Buy Now: $320.00

Australia's most internationally renowned documentarists (Kildea, O'Rourke, Connolly/Robin Anderson) are part of a group of expatriates who honed their documentary filmcraft while residents of Papua New Guinea. Their films, brimming with wit and character, capture the energy and contradictions of a country in transition from a backward colony, to a young nation in the modern world.

But whose stories are they? Filmmakers are now often challenged about cultural rights, and the Western domination of representation. Taking Pictures explores the issues and pitfalls of filming across a cultural boundary - through interviews with Australian filmmakers and by sampling their powerful award winning documentaries about PNG that include First Contact, Trobriand Cricket, The Shark Callers of Kontu, Joe Leahy's Neighbours, Black Harvest, Cannibal Tours and Man Without Pigs. It also covers the work of indigenous PNG filmmakers, and their own experience of interpreting film and culture.

Taking Pictures is a inquiry into the practicalities, politics and aesthetics of the documentary experience.

"A 1930's black and white clip of Papua New Guinea (PNG) people opens this stunning documentary film. We never see the photographer, a white Australian explorer. The people in front of the camera are not actors yet they are acting. Victor Turner called life a performance and we are all in a play. In a documentary film we expect reality and yet only get a glimpse of what we want reality to be. The question is, are the people playing to the camera or is the action real? Is it part of reality or a play? For anyone interested in cultural ramifications of documentary film or ethnography this is more than a glimpse into the lives behind the lens and in front of it. I would highly recommend this film for college/university undergraduates, graduates and faculty."— Patricia Sarchet, MLS, State University of New York at Buffalo

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