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Jeonju Film Festival’s annual project to commission 30-minute films from East Asian directors struck gold this year. Song Il-Gon’s Magician(s) shows the reunion of surviving members of a rock band on the last night of the year. Tsukamoto Shinya’s Haze is a visceral, Cube-like puzzle: a man wakes in a narrow space between two spiked walls and tries desperately to escape. And Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Worldly Desires juxtaposes a commercial shoot in the jungle with the quest for a sacred tree. With Apichatpong’s latest short Ghost of Asia (Thailand, 8 mins), a game for kids of all ages, made for the Tsunami relief campaign.
Ghost of Asia
Directed By: Christelle Lhereux,
Apichatpong Weerasethakul
(
Thailand,
2005,
9 min
)
In Apichatpong’s latest short, initially designed as a video installation and made in support of Thailand’s Tsunami relief appeal, Sakda (the country boy/tiger in Tropical Malady) has to perform all the actions called out by a group of three kids. He may or may not be a ghost... (TR)
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Worldly Desires
Thailand,
2005,
40 min
)
Apichatpong (director of Mysterious Object at Noon, Blissfully Yours and Tropical Malady) focuses on his own predilection for and memories of filming in the Thai rainforest jungle. By day, a young couple search the jungle for a sacred tree; by night, a film crew headed by woman director Pimpaka shoots two incongruous song-and-dance routines. Apichatpong describes the film as "a small simulation of manners." He effortlessly puts the mystery back into camp.
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Haze
Japan,
2005,
25 min
)
Tsukamoto (whose lengthy filmography starts with Tetsuo and stretches to last year’s Vital) offers a visceral, Cube-like puzzle: a man wakes in a narrow space between two spiked walls and tries desperately to escape. Rationally inexplicable (at least, until its closing moments), but agonizingly gripping.
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Magician(s)
South Korea,
2005,
35 min
)
Song Il-Gon (director of Flower Island and Spider Forest) offers an intricate one-act drama which slips between past and present without cuts. The underground rock band Magician broke up when a friend died; its former members have gathered in a bar in the forest to remember their late friend... and their own youth, when they were inspired.
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