{"id":8282,"date":"2015-11-20T11:51:21","date_gmt":"2015-11-20T10:51:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/camernew.klienci.052b.com\/marta-balaga-pochwala-spojrzenia\/"},"modified":"2015-11-20T11:51:21","modified_gmt":"2015-11-20T10:51:21","slug":"marta-balaga-pochwala-spojrzenia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.camerimage.pl\/en\/marta-balaga-pochwala-spojrzenia\/","title":{"rendered":"MARTA BA\u0141AGA: A CELEBRATION OF LOOKING"},"content":{"rendered":"

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There are certain things that just don\u2019t seem right: Star Wars without Han Solo (oh wait, they finally fixed that one), Queen without Freddy, Camerimage without Christopher Doyle. Fear not, however, for Du Ke Feng and his pointy shoes are back and we can all finally relax.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Remember that bit in Men in Black<\/strong> when it turns out that aliens are actually among us? We might have just found one. \u201cThere is nothing left between us, YouTube and Harry-fuck-you-very-much-not-doing-anything-more-than-you-expect-of-him-Potter. That\u2019s why we are here today<\/em>\u201d \u2013 states Christopher Doyle<\/strong> with conviction and you know you\u2019re in for a treat. \u201cI want cinema back. I want integrity back. I don\u2019t want Fast & Furious 74. And by the way, this red light over there is driving me crazy because there are clearly no hookers. It\u2019s really disturbing. I mean, where are the girls?<\/em>\u201d Ladies and gentlemen, we give you PPP: The Personal, Political, Poetic Approach to Film\u00a0\u00e0 la\u00a0Christopher Doyle<\/strong>. Nothing quite like it in the whole wide galaxy.<\/p>\n

Since he first went to Taiwan in the late 1970s, Doyle<\/strong> has collaborated with Zhang Yimou<\/strong> and, most notably, Wong Kar-wai<\/strong>, becoming that rarest of birds \u2013 a man who embraced another culture with such passion he basically became a part of it. The self-appointed Keith Richards<\/strong> of cinematography, he just keeps proving that our parents were right after all and no job is ever too humble. Now, after dabbling in photography and some occasional cow-herding, he can add yet another occupation to his ever-expanding r\u00e9sum\u00e9: feature documentary director. Although to call his latest film a documentary would be an understatement and, well, just a straightforward lie \u2013 the Kickstarter-financed Hong Kong Trilogy: Preschooled Preoccupied Preposterous<\/span><\/strong><\/em> is a film so bizarre it doesn\u2019t even need commas.<\/div>\n

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Chris Doyle<\/em><\/div>\n
While not a complete stranger to the world of directing \u2013 his was one of the segments of the portmanteau film Paris, je t\u2019aime<\/span><\/strong><\/em> and, ahem, Polish political thriller Warsaw Dark<\/strong><\/em><\/span> with the late Anna Przybylska<\/strong> \u2013 this time around Doyle<\/strong> took on quite a challenge. And boy, doesn\u2019t he know it. After a year spent on recording interviews with over 300 people, he turned the material into a quasi-fictional narrative to express his love for a place that is, and has been for years, his hometown. \u201cWe wanted to learn what Hong Kong was about through the process of listening to all these different people telling us about their lives<\/em>\u201d \u2013 explained his producer and partner in debauchery for the evening, Jenny Suen<\/strong>. \u201cPeople who live there don\u2019t feel that their voices are being heard. So this film is our own small way of giving the people who gave us so much something back.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

By showing the struggles of 3 different generations, from parental pressure to senior speed-dating and the outbreak of the Umbrella Movement<\/strong>, a pro-democracy political movement born in 2014, Doyle<\/strong> tries to capture the past, present and the future of Hong Kong. His characters ask a lot of questions: why are there so many gods in the world? How come you run into people all the time and yet there are so many you have never met? They don\u2019t find all the answers, but at least they realise they are not the only ones looking for them. \u201cThe whole process was about where you are and who you care about<\/em>\u201d \u2013 admitted the cinematographer. \u201cThe important thing to me is that you learn from what you share \u2013 this is what that film is about.<\/em>\u201d<\/div>\n

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Stills from Hong Kong Trilogy: Preschooled Preoccupied Preposterous<\/em><\/div>\n
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And share he does. Touching upon everything from Derek Jarman\u2019s Blue<\/span><\/em><\/strong>and Ai Weiwei\u2019s<\/strong> clashes with the Chinese government to the videos of people swimming with sea turtles in slo-mo, Doyle<\/strong> finds inspiration just about everywhere. \u201cThe journey is to get rid of the shit. In any Asian philosophy it\u2019s always all about nothingness. We should remove ourselves from the process, be open and just receive<\/em>\u201d \u2013 he stressed. \u201cI know that if I can do it, as fucked-up as I am, anybody can do it. You learn to look \u2013 that\u2019s the great process of what we do. And instead of making an installation in some art gallery, all these textures and colours inform your day. That\u2019s the astonishing privilege of being a cinematographer \u2013 it\u2019s just a celebration of looking. You know that we never work? We just look all day. What a great life we have \u2013 I am here and you actually believe everything I say, you poor fuckers.<\/em>\u201d <\/p>\n

Yes \u2013 as anyone who remembers his rather heated reaction to Life of Pi\u2019s<\/strong><\/em><\/span> Best Cinematography Oscar win will surely attest, Doyle<\/strong> has never been one to keep his mouth shut. Not so much a cinematographer as an unstoppable force of nature, he tries to capture what words can\u2019t. And if it means drinking wine on stage, slamming the establishment and dancing with our esteemed juror Matthew Libatique<\/strong> to Bla Bla Bla Cha Cha Cha<\/em> (true story that) \u2013 so be it. Just a friendly word of advice: kids \u2013 don\u2019t try it at home. He might have a penchant for the F-word, but this man is a true professional.\u00a0<\/div>\n

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Marta Ba\u0142aga<\/em><\/div>\n
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There are certain things that just don\u2019t seem right: Star Wars without Han Solo (oh wait, they finally fixed that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[143],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wiadomosci-camerimage-2015"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.camerimage.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8282"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.camerimage.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.camerimage.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.camerimage.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.camerimage.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.camerimage.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8282\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.camerimage.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.camerimage.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.camerimage.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}