11:04 a.m. - altar

Nodame Cantabile - The Movie (I) (Japan, 2009)
Rating: Fresh 7 out of 10 tomatoes

I don't think someone like me was intended to be the target audience for this film, but the filmmaker took care to not leave me out. The film is based on a popular manga (Japanese comic book), serialized in a magazine, that was turned into both an anime and a live-action TV series, and this film, I gather, is the first of two films making up the finale for the TV series.

However, the creators of the film apparently did make an effort to try to make this a stand-alone piece, not requiring knowledge of previous events in the series or the anime or the manga. As such, it was pretty successful. The characters are introduced and the situation and background are set, and although my appreciation level was likely much different from a long-term fan, I needed no prior knowledge to understand what was going on.

The story is a light drama about two classical music students in Paris. Chiaki had come to prepare for a conductor's competition which begins the film, and the titular Nodame is studying piano at the Paris Conservatory.

Although Chiaki wins the competition, he is passed over as the new conductor for that orchestra, but is offered a position with another orchestra whose glory days have long passed. He doesn't know the orchestra is in decline, but accepts once he hears his mentor once conducted the orchestra.

Nodame is as delusional, as Chiaki puts it, as Chiaki is bone-dry serious. She's flighty and quirky and pretends to be Chiaki's wife and dreams of the day when she will rise to the same level as Chiaki and they will perform together.

Nodame is the life of the film. She's fun, big smiles, endearing, gets stepped on, gets angry, and with the madcap cast of surrounding characters, makes the film reasonably entertaining. But Chiaki's story is the main focus in this film, and I assume Nodame will become more of the focus in the second film.

The filmmaker draws attention to the fact that it was based on a manga by including quirky elements, possibly distracting, that may have been used to convey emotions and feelings on paper, but which are not necessary in live-action media. The filmmaker humorously keeps them in and makes those expressions live-action, and anyone familiar with manga would recognize the pedigree.

Also adding to the quirkiness is that the main European characters are played by Japanese actors and actresses, and are indicated as Europeans by wearing white-people-hair wigs – mostly blonde, but in some cases from the style.

Personally I found that a bit vindicating for Asians after decades of being degraded by Hollywood casting white actors as Asian characters. The portrayals here, however, are not the least bit humiliating to Europeans as what Hollywood did. Although the Japanese actors don't change their behavior or mannerisms to mimic Europeans. They still all seem pretty Japanese. All the white actors and actresses parts are dubbed into Japanese.

The film also spends time at the end setting up the second film, establishing a tension between Chiaki and Nodame, with Chiaki's triumph becoming Nodame's soul-crushing revelation, and introducing a host of new characters and cleverly tying them into the events in this film. It may become a mess in the second film, considering how many subplots are suggested, but it was likely necessary because they are probably characters in the TV series whose stories need to be resolved. If so, I appreciate the attention the filmmaker put in to avoid just dropping the new (old) characters in the second film.

I think I will look out for the second film. I saw another Japanese film earlier that was based on a manga which was the first of three (!) films, and I just never found it compelling to rent the other 2 films when they came out, even though I gave the first film a fresh rating. Hm, maybe I should check out those films.

Taipei Exchanges 第36個故事 (2010, Taiwan)
Rating: Fresh 7.5 out of 10 tomatoes.

This is a concept-driven film about the meaning and value we place on various elements in our lives, tangible and intangible, such as clutter, stuff, jobs, skills, aspirations, dreams, stories, experiences and memories. What is important? What has meaning? What has exchange value?

I was able to appreciate the film once I locked onto the concept. The film has several vox pop sections where ordinary Taipei citizens are asked philosophical questions about meaning and value about various things brought up in the film (I'm actually pretty sure I passed by one of the vox pop filming sites on a pedestrian walkway in Xinyi District a while ago because I remember making a mental note of it).

Another device used several times is when the mother character is talking to her 2 daughters and asking hypothetical questions while trying to make a point, and then a 3rd person worker (foot massager, hairdresser, shaved ice vendor, taxi driver) mistakenly answers, thinking the question was aimed at them, implying the questions are meant in general and for the viewer to think about.

The film doesn't really have a plot, it's about 2 sisters who start up a coffeeshop in Taipei (my neighborhood, actually, I'm pretty sure I found the actual coffeeshop), and after they get an influx of junk from their friends after they invite them to come for the grand opening and to "bring a gift", they start telling customers the stuff in the coffeeshop is available for exchange for something else. Thus the concept of what has value is probed.

Much of the film is in flashback, also well-done since that's a pet peeve of mine after one film did it really poorly and made me feel stupid for not catching it.

My problem with the film is that individual scenes just weren't that compelling. At 82 minutes short, I should've had no problem viewing it straight through, but I found myself getting distracted, and actually during the first viewing, I shut it off to do something else and didn't come back to it for a few days.

It's possible that the film is one that will grow on me. It was produced by Hou Hsiao-Hsien whose films blow me away. He's one of my favorite filmmakers. His films are definitely non-mainstream and are almost meditations. So it may be that his influence and aesthetic is strongly imbued in this film, but not being a Hou Hsiao-Hsien film, it may take longer to sink in.

The flashback is bookended by the arrival and stay of American "sofa-surfers" at the coffeeshop. The sofa-surfer, or couch-surfer, website is a real social networking site which allows people to find people who are willing to offer their sofas for travelers to save on lodging expenses while traveling. It also ties into the concept of value and exchanges.

The Chinese title of the film is "The 36th Story", and the significance is that when the film returns from the flashback, where the 35 stories are explained, the final scenes are the springboard for the 36th story. And what are our lives if not stories? And if our lives aren't stories, what value do they have? And if the future isn't a story, is it worth living?

Dajia riverside park, Taipei. Nikon N70, Ilford XP2 Super.

Keelung riverside bikeway, Nangang District.

Taiwan east coast

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13 - Kaohsiung. Uncle's rooftop before departure on a group bus tour. Nikon N70, Ilford XP2 Super.

Unknown locations on the drive from Kaohsiung to the east coast.  

Children of God (2008, Nepal/Korea)
Rating: Fresh 8 out of 10 tomatoes

I can't say this is among the best or most moving documentaries I've seen, but it is intriguing in its odd subject matter and I was taken by the candid and honest manner in which it is presented. It's about a group of street children in Kathmandu, Nepal, who live on the riverbank of the sacred Bagmati River, where there is a hospital where apparently people with terminal illnesses are brought ("7 out of 10" people don't come out alive). And I suppose they are brought there because it is right next to a Hindu temple whose primary purpose is to serve as a crematorium for said dead people. The street urchins make their living off cremations, scavenging for anything worth anything left behind by mourners of the dead.

There is no narration and the Korean filmmaker lets the children and the subjects speak in their own words, although sometimes questions can be heard being asked, indistinct in the background. However, the documentary nature is not hidden as the subjects sometimes make reference to the Korean filmmakers.

I guess it's easier to get candidness when you're dealing with children, and I think that's what I found most compelling about this documentary. These are children in difficult circumstances, but some are on the cusp of adolescence and they have an idea about what the future is, and they have no idea what it will bring. They have an idea of what hopelessness is, but it hasn't sunk in what that means or what it will bring as an adult.

I highly recommend this documentary to anyone interested in the Himalayan region or developing countries or social justice. It won't change everyone's lives, but it's definitely worth viewing.

Radio Dayz (South Korea, 2008)
Rating: rotten 3 out of 10 tomatoes

Oh well, so much for my Korean fetish. I guess it was just a matter of time before I hit upon a Korean film that was less than a disappointment. The first words that come to my mind to describe this film are "clumsy" and "hopelessly directionless".

I guess this film is supposed to be a comedy of sorts, a farcical view of the initial days of broadcast radio in Seoul, Korea, in the 1930s during the Japanese occupation, but that's where the problems start. It's not a particularly interesting foil for a comedy, and a farce involving the Japanese occupation just sounds like bad taste.

Aside from the story surrounding the radio station's staff developing a drama to broadcast, a subplot is introduced involving revolutionaries who have been trying unsuccessfully to find a way to subvert the Japanese for 10 years. They find a way to infiltrate the radio station staff when the leader finds he has an uncanny ability to create sound effects, thinking they can use the radio station for their purposes.

Elements are clumsily introduced through the film that go no where or have no future relevance. The main storyline, as well as problems with it, are just pushed on through, sense be damned. There are a few redeeming qualities, it isn't a total fail of filmmaking, just a fail of storytelling. Camerawork and lighting are fine, as are the period costumes and the acting. Many times you can see what the filmmaker is trying to accomplish and there's no problem, but I couldn't even get through a second viewing of this film.

Starting to struggle with photography, uninspired. Wondering what's there. Nikon N70, Ilford XP2 Super.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8 - Taipei Main Station.

Taipei, location unknown.

OCTOBER 10 - MRT brown line along Fuxing S. Rd.

Nanjing E. Rd. from Nanjing Fuxing MRT station. Construction of the new MRT line has gone underground along this section, but some surface evidence exists.

Dahu, Neihu District.

Tibet Trip Day 9/10

Chengdu, China/Kaohsiung, Taiwan

We arrove in Xining, Qinghai Province, China, in the late morning. I did manage to fall asleep on the train and was hoping to wake up before day break. The highest altitude the train reached was 16,500 feet which I recorded on my altimeter, but then by the time I went to sleep, we had yet to fall below 10,000 feet.

I was hoping to be awake for the change to lower altitudes to see if I noticed, but by the time I woke up, the sun was up, we were at 8,000 feet and it was distinctly warmer and easier to breathe. We didn't descend much further as Xining lies at about 7,000 feet, and from Xining we flew to Chengdu.

Xining was an interesting place, as Qinghai Province is a genuine melting pot area with the convergence of Tibetan influence, Muslim Uighur influence from Xinjiang Province to the west of Qinghai and north of Tibet, and ethnic Han Chinese. Ethnically, Uighurs are Turkic and resemble people from central Asia.

There didn't appear to be any discord between the different ethnicities, possibly because no one was occupying someone else's land, and the mix of peoples was probably just normal, regardless of what government was in place.

We just had a few hours in Xining before heading for the airport, and did some touristy things, including going to the Islamic Grand Mosque and a historical site documenting Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek's involvement in the area before the Chinese Civil War, after which the Communists came to power.

Pentax ZX-5n Nikon N70, Kodak BW400CN

It was quite interesting that the Chinese preserved this piece of history, as it was Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists that the Communists were fighting. It was very strange seeing the Nationalists' emblematic star, which is now a part of Taiwan's national flag, hanging above the doors. But the defeat of the Nationalists and their departure to Taiwan was definitive, and there was never a serious movement on the mainland to bring the Nationalists back. They were never a real threat on the mainland after the war.

And Sun Yat-sen is respected by both China and Taiwan as the person who was instrumental in the fall of the imperial dynastic system, with the Qing Dynasty ending in 1912.

We flew to Chengdu in the late afternoon and stayed there overnight. I think if we could have, we would have flown all the way back to Taiwan, but maybe we arrived too late to catch the last flight to Hong Kong so we had to wait nearly an entire day.

We had dinner at a hot pot place which was really good, but I didn't get the name of the place. Chengdu is one of China's modernized cities and the quality of restaurants and hotels is pretty high. Nothing was planned in the evening, so I went out walking as I did the previous time. I found a street lined with Tibetan shops that I had noted before, but most of them were closed.

The first time we stayed in Chengdu, we left too early in the morning for breakfast at the hotel, but this time I found out what we missed. None of the hotels or their breakfasts in Tibet came close to the hotel in Chengdu and I gorged myself cross-eyed and silly on the western breakfast fare.

I suppose this is indicative of the prosperity China is enjoying. And I had no problem appreciating it; this was China, and what Chinese are doing in their own country is up to them. If they want to call themselves Communist despite the emerging opulence, that's up to them. But what they're doing in Tibet is another story. I agree that it's cultural genocide and a crime against humanity.

September 26, 3:07 p.m., Chengdu, China. The first thing I saw in China out the airport. A Maserati.

We only did one touristy thing before heading to the airport, going to a kind of theme park, but I couldn't figure out the theme. It kind of looked like a re-creation of an older China . . . lots of shops, rickshaws. Can't recall much about it of note, it was just touristy but pleasant enough.

Rainbow V 22mm lens toy camera, Ilford XP2 Super

Pentax ZX-5n Nikon N70, Kodak BW400CN

And that was it. We headed to the airport, said goodbye to our Chengdu guide who was very pleasant and professional, flew first to Hong Kong and then transferred to Kaohsiung. I lost track of all the members of the tour group immediately after getting off the plane for all they meant to me. They were nothing, I was nothing.

Car in a ditch, China. Pentax ZX-5n Nikon N70.

3:09 p.m.

4:23 p.m.

5:28 p.m.

Tibet Trip Day 8

Qinghai-Tibet Railway

It's no major obsession, but I do love trains, and one of the appeals to me for agreeing to go on this trip was that I was told we would be taking the new rail line, opened in 2006, despite the controversy, connecting Tibet with mainland China.

It's the highest railroad in the world, reaching altitudes of 16,500 feet for prolonged periods over the Tibetan plateau, and a technological feat crossing permafrost that undergoes some thawing in warmer months, and will likely see further thawing in the future due to global warming. The train is specially equipped with oxygen stations for altitude sickness.

Among the criticisms of the railway is that China is using it to further force China's influence on Tibet, and increase the influx of ethnic Chinese into Tibet. I actually wonder what incentives the Chinese government is using to coerce Chinese people to go to Tibet. Tibet is a harsh environment and the thin air is not a matter of small concern. Tibet historically has been difficult to conquer because conquerors eventually realized they liked oxygen and would leave.

I actually think the Chinese offer economic incentives to poor Chinese to move there, which further aggravates the situation in Tibet because then it is intentional to leave Tibetans out of any economic progress. I also think the Chinese criminal system gives petty criminals the choice of going to jail for 20 years for some small offense, or move to Tibet where they'll be given money to start something up. But I have no documentation for that, it just seems like something the Chinese government would do.

The train ride from Lhasa to our destination in Qinghai Province, also considered western China, took about 25 hours. It could be considered some boring going to some people, but I enjoy watching scenery go by. It never gets old. As long as I have my iPod.

I did take a lot of pictures from the train. In the daylight hours we had, I shot about a third of all the shots I took in Tibet with my digital point-and-shoot camera on the train. On this package tour, we stopped in 4 identifiable cities and otherwise were on the road between them. But the expanse of Tibet is much larger, and the train took us out through much of this expanse.

My idea was to shoot as much life in this expanse of countryside as possible. From a moving train, it meant a lot of quick, spontaneous spotting of something to shoot, then while the camera was turning on, pushing the optical zoom to its furthest at the same time, and then tracking a shot while it moved by at the same perceived speed as the train was going. The results were surprisingly sharp, even with my Canon's anti-shake, for a zoom lens from a moving train.

But yea, 25 hours is a long time on the train. Once the sun goes down, there's not much of anything to do. Our tickets were for berths – 4 to a room – and they were pretty cramped. The Chinese food in the dining car was surprisingly good. I didn't expect train food to be any good, and given the confined conditions the cooks had to deal with, they turned out some pretty tasty dishes.

After it was dark, most people tried to sleep. I sat in the hallway outside the berths reading while recharging my iPod shuffle since that was the only place with electrical outlets.

Tibet Trip Day 7

Lhasa, Tibet

We left Shigatse first thing this morning and backtracked on the same roads to Gyantse, but then took a different route to Lhasa that passed by numerous gorgeous alpine lakes that show up impressively on the map. We still had to climb to altitude, again to over 15,500 feet where we stopped to view Kharola Glacier. 

9:34 a.m. - same shot of Gyantse Fort and the wall ruins from the previous day, hoping for better composition. Proof that we backtracked to Gyantse, but the curious thing is, looking at the map, there is no "different route" to Lhasa. So ostensibly the following photos are all on the same road we took going there, but everything looked and felt different. 

10:10 a.m. - Tibetan road hazard

10:15 a.m. - Movement and perspective, two shots taken within one minute on a moving bus. The peak on the right of the light patch across the lake moves to the left in the second pic. 

10:17 a.m. - there are ruins of a structure in the middle of the lake. I'd love to know the story behind that! 

Tibet Trip Day 6

Shigatse, Tibet

Damn this thing's turning into a travelogue that is butt-long. Well it's almost done and I think I have progressively less to say here on in. Day 5 was the hump – the halfway point and kind of the climax with the whole day in Lhasa. 

This morning we headed off to Shigatse, Tibet's second largest city several hundred kilometers west of Lhasa, not as far away as Nyingchi, but still several hours driving with a stop in the town of Gyantse. As poorly planned was the unnecessary two days in Nyingchi, this was also poorly planned as we basically drove to Shigatse today, and drive back to Lhasa tomorrow, barely getting any sense of this important city at all. 

The drive took us to such great heights once again, but I was doing better with the altitude and wasn't pretending to hallucinate about the death bardos. We stopped at around 15,500 feet at a tourist lookout, and different from stops east of Lhasa, everywhere we stopped we were immediately set upon by Tibetan hawkers selling jewelry and crafts.

7:35 a.m., Potala Palace from the hotel dining room

9:37-10:14 a.m. - traveling to such great heights

At one place we practically had to push our way out of the bus because they were crowding around the door shoving necklaces in our faces. It may be an indication of how desperately poor Tibetans are and what the Chinese economic plan in Tibet is doing to Tibetans, but I can't speak too much on the issue, because the situation outside of Lhasa isn't as facially clear.

Rainbow V 22mm lens, Ilford XP2 Super film:

uncorrected scan (to be clear, black and white film that is able to be C-41 processed (color) at any photo-finisher still comes back with a color tinge, sepia or blue, which has to be removed digitally)

hawkers crowding the bus door. egregious enough for me to have presence of mind to pull out my camera and shoot them.