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by Cibbuano

Without knowing anything about the film, the title gives it away - a movie where the centerpiece is likely to be the reproduction of an execution by stoning. This is deep, heavy material, and I admit it was with some trepidation that I watched this, never quite sure if I'd be ready for The Stoning of Soraya M.

Fortunately, the film is quite engrossing, using the book as background material - written in 1994, it describes the true story told to a French-Iranian journalist as he was passing through a village. Told by Soraya's aunt, the story unravels the deceit and lies told by the men in the village, using the convenient charge of adultery to stone Soraya to death.

What was Soraya's charge? The movie is quite one-sided on this: she was falsely accused by her husband, who only wanted a divorce, but did not want to pay her to support herself. Using his connection with the corrupt local mullah, he convinced the men in the village that she was a lusty woman, mostly because she smiled at a widower.

The men in The Stoning of Soraya M are portrayed as awful thugs, manipulating and cavorting in their supremacy over women - this, perhaps, is the weakness of the film, which also suffers in its predictability and exploitation of the stoning scene.

None of this matters, however, as director Cyrus Nowrasteh's feature offers that incandescent ability of the cinema: it can give you the experience of being there. Without this film, I would have, perhaps, continued to complain about Sydney traffic and look forward to a Scotch after work.

As it is, I'm haunted by the admission that, in some places in the world, this can happen. Worse that this, too, if you really want to think about it - but I'm already dejected from the miserable depiction of the pack-like mentality of men that think they are right.

It'd be easy to be nihilistic about this - after watching The Stoning of Soraya M, I'm glad I don't have my finger on the big, red button - but I can't help but wonder: are men responsible for all the evils in the world? A world without men, as told by Y:The Last Man, is as cruel and violent when led by women. That's comforting - or disturbing - but, after watching The Stoning of Soraya M, it's hard to believe that things would be any worse.

*this image is from The Stranger.

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The 10 Conditions of Love

March 1st 2010 12:05

by Matt Shea

It’s difficult to think of a more controversial recent film than The 10 Conditions of Love. The work generated a storm of debate at the last year’s Melbourne International Film Festival, becoming a major headache for festival organisers.

After the posting of the initial schedule, representatives of the Chinese government contacted MIFF director Richard Moore, demanding The 10 Conditions of Love be removed from the festival. Naturally, Moore and his associates stood their ground, and soon there were reported death threats and a full scale hacking of the MIFF website. Ticket sales were halted and the festival ended up losing at least $50,000 in sales.

Later in the year, ABC Television, the Australian national broadcaster, managed to stir up even more debate when they delayed indefinitely a planned December 17 airing of the documentary. Suddenly ABC MD Mark Scott found himself in front of the Australian Senate, the target of pointed questions from Greens senator Bob Brown.

Coming into 2010 and we’re now finally seeing a general release of the film. Umbrella Entertainment, who had originally planned to release The 10 Conditions of Love the day after its ABC airing, are now rolling out the DVD of the documentary through Borders from March 1. It’s a welcome move, and long overdue.

Of course, all the controversy ultimately puts the quality of the actual film under a more intense spotlight. Has it been worth all the contentious debate? Perhaps, but probably not quite.

The 10 Conditions of Love follows the struggle of Rebiya Kadeer, the exiled leader of the Uyghur, and her campaign for her people’s human rights. The Uygher come from the part of China known as Xinjiang Province, a territory formerly called East Turkistan and annexed by the Chinese in 1949.

Kadeer was once the richest woman in China and a Uygher cultural ambassador to the National People’s Congress. But when she refused to toe the party line she soon found herself followed, then imprisoned, and finally in exile in the United States.

Since then Kadeer has quickly grown in political stature, picking up powerful allies both in the US and throughout the western world. Her attacks on her former government are precise and fearless, but the Chinese have responded by accusing Kadeer of terrorism and imprisoning members of her family.

It is well and truly a battle of David versus Goliath, and if the MIFF experience proves anything it’s that Kadeer probably has the upper hand in the modern world of instant media, slicing up the Chinese case through a thousand tiny cuts.

Jeff Daniels’s (no, not that Jeff Daniels) documentary is of course another belt of ammunition in Kadeer’s fight for human rights, but it’s actually a fairly by-the-numbers made-for-television effort that probably would have floated by with nary a skerrick of coverage if hadn’t been for the quivering trigger finger of China’s state apparatus.

Daniels’s biggest problem is his failure to build a clear portrait of Kadeer. The audience never really gets to know this indignant, fearless and truly intimidating woman. We don’t even get a blow-by-blow of her self-made ten conditions of love – strange, given it’s the title of the film.

Indeed, there’s a sense that Daniels has attempted to squeeze too much into his sub-60 minute running time: for all the material he tries to cover, you suspect a feature length documentary would have been better – the subject certainly deserves it.

Still, Daniels also aims to inform you about the situation in the former East Turkistan, and this he does despite the almost overwhelming amount of information tackled. The filmmaker’s substantial narration certainly helps to piece together all the different strands of the story, even if it sometimes feels like a made-for-school overview, something your teacher puts on as an introduction to a new term subject.

Hinting at what could and should have been are the film’s poignant moments with Kadeer’s US-based daughter. The imprisonment of her siblings back in China too much to take, she clearly disagrees with her mother’s prioritisation of countrymen and women over family. And yet, once again, this personal aspect of the Kadeer struggle is never expanded upon, an obvious conflict remaining hidden from the audience.

Ultimately, this is a film that you admire more than appreciate. Daniels is still a young and relatively inexperienced filmmaker, and perhaps with a few more runs on the board he would have done things a little differently. 10 Conditions of Love’s existence is important, however, highlighting both the human rights violations of a forgotten people and the draconian nature of a government that is keen to leverage its worldwide economic importance to daub over bad press.

I say: An important film, but not necessarily a great one. But bravo to Umbrella for taking on its release.

See it for: Kadeer’s impassioned, uncompromising speech on Radio Free Asia, detailed in one of the final scenes. It’s enough to make any free speech-suspicious Chinese official shit their pants.

‘10 Conditions of Love’ is now available on Umbrella Entertainment DVD in Australia exclusively through Borders.

*This image is from the East Turkistan Australian Association

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Umbrella Entertainment announces the DVD release of The 10 Conditions of Love

February 19th 2010 02:46

by Matt Shea

The independent Australian-owned distribution company Umbrella Entertainment yesterday announced the DVD release of the highly controversial documentary, The 10 Conditions of Love
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The Good, the Bad, the Weird

September 30th 2009 05:52

One of world cinema’s divinely luminous talents, director Kim Jee-woon, reinvigorates a fading genre in his masterful ‘Oriental Western’, The Good, the Bad, the Weird, a much-awaited follow-up to his bravura Korean crime drama A Bittersweet Life in 2005. Amalgamating inferences from a host of genre trendsetters, Kim applies his own visionary talents to a tale of three men in search of a buried treasure in the lawless plains of 1930’s Manchuria.

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Posted By: David O'Connell - Category: Asian

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Crazy Stone (Feng Kuang De Shi Tou)

September 4th 2009 02:56

Crazy Stone Guo Tao checking out the jade stone

At night, a crumbling museum guarded by well-meaning, but hapless security guards, stands alone on a deserted street in Chongqing, China. It's the perfect target for thieves, as the flimsy defenses stand to protect an unbelievably rare jade stone on display at the museum.

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Posted By: Cibbuano - Category: Asian

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The Killer

July 14th 2009 04:13

All the John Woo trademarks are present in scene after scene of explosive action with bullets flying, bodies splaying, white doves scattering, and simple, melodic electronic music, supplemented with dreamy Asian colours, sounding. In The Killer (1989), an astonishing early work that brought Woo’s name to the attention of the world, the director strives for operatic heights in a familiar, but daringly realised, tale of the perplexing duality adjoining adversaries on opposing sides of the law.

In one corner is the hired assassin, Jeff (Chow Yun-Fat), a man with a peripheral sense of morality, despite the ruthless efficiency with which he performs his duty. When he accidentally blinds a nightclub singer, Jennie (Sally Yeh), during his latest hit, his sense of guilt compels him to look out for her; he befriends her without revealing his identity but soon has both the police and the triad he works for on his trail for allowing his identity to become widely known

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Posted By: David O'Connell - Category: Asian

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Win Tickets to see Red Cliff!

July 10th 2009 03:36

Doves. Lots of Doves.

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Posted By: Matt Shea - Category: Asian

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The Vampire Who Admires Me

May 19th 2009 00:42

I bought this movie when I was visiting China, trapped in an underground mall that seemed to spiral out for miles, and deep into the earth.

The mall was called 'Victory Square' and had, hidden in its nooks, all kinds of bizarre, fascinating elements. I might despise malls in Australia, but in China, there's hardly any other place that's more representative of the pulse of the place. People moving like blood corpuscles, pumped out through loud arteries and into shady veins

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Posted By: Cibbuano - Category: Asian

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Big Samurai man fills up the screen

March 5th 2009 02:10

Toshiro Mifune in Sanjuro Akira Kurosawa samurai

Elsewhere on Orble, Spike 2 wrote a short review of Akira Kurosawa's double punch of "Yojimbo" and "Sanjuro", two samurai movies featuring the nameless, wandering samurai played by Toshiro Mifune

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Posted By: Cibbuano - Category: Asian

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Lan Yu

February 27th 2009 04:02

Today in Filthy Fridays comes a review of a movie that involves the pleasures of the flesh, but is far removed from anything resembling filth.

It is, in my most honest opinion, the gayest movie that I've ever seen - and that includes a movie that I saw at the Palace that featured a real gay threesome
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Posted By: Cibbuano - Category: Asian

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My Horny Girlfriend

January 29th 2009 22:03

The ridiculous name of this Hong Kong Category III movie is diminished by the spectacularly poor production and acting, so awful that it manages to reach a level of simple enjoyment.

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Posted By: Cibbuano - Category: Asian

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Before the Rains

January 27th 2009 23:10

Set in 1930s Kerala, the southernmost province in India and the homeland of my family, "Before the Rains" attempts to capture the magic and fertility of the landscapes of this hidden paradise, using it as a backdrop for a tragic love story.

The above image tells the audience all we need to know: a rich British colonialist falls in love with a local girl, despite the tensions between the two cultures and the forbidden nature of the tryst; sadly, though, there's not much else required, as the film is maddeningly predictable, the love story despicably lacking in passion

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Posted By: Cibbuano - Category: Asian

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Beijing Bicycle

January 21st 2009 00:08

"Beijing Bicycle" was heavily applauded when it premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival; director Wang Xiaoshuai released it to the festival without permission from the Chinese government, causing the censor board to ban it in Mainland China.

It would be banned until 2004, meaning that the film served well abroad, depicting life in real China, as opposed to some of the more mainstream Chinese films... "Beijing Bicycle" is rooted deep in the traditions of Neorealism and is obviously influenced by De Sica's "Bicycle Thieves" and the rest of those groundbreaking Italian directors

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Posted By: Cibbuano - Category: Asian

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Red Cliff (Chi Bi) Part II

January 12th 2009 08:23

Last week's review of the blockbuster war epic "Red Cliff" was gushing with enthusiasm about the film, a bloody chapter in Chinese history, full of sneaky counterattacks and famous war heroes. The second chapter of the film opened up yesterday in Chinese cinemas and I raced to get tickets, cheering and clutching them with glee.

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Posted By: Cibbuano - Category: Asian

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