INLAND EMPIRE

[Dave Monroe]

28 Film Lineup Set for 44th New York Film Festival

by Eugene Hernandez (August 17, 2006)

A total of 28 feature films are set to screen in the
main program at the 2006 New York Film Festival,
running from September 29 - October 15, 2006 at
Lincoln Center on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
Presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center, this
year is the 44th NYFF, a highly selective,
non-competitive showcase of new films from around the
world.

[...]

"The Go Master" (Wu qingyuan), directed by Tian
Zhuangzhuang (China)
The Go Master is based on the true-life story of the
world's most renowned master of the ancient Asian game
of Go, Wu Qingyuan. A Chinese prodigy practicing a
Japanese game, Wu's allegiances are torn by the
increasingly bellicose relations between the two
countries. Remaining in Japan in spite of the outbreak
of war, and later, sucked into a religious cult which
tries to exploit his celebrity, Wu (excellently played
by Chang Chen) is the still center of the storm,
following his own inner notions of spiritual integrity
and loyalty to the discipline of his chosen vocation.
Few filmmakers today can make movies as visually
elegant and psychologically astute as Tian
Zhuangzhuang ("The Blue Kite", NYFF 1993).

[...]

"The Inland Empire," directed by David Lynch (France /
USA)
A Polish woman looks, intently, into someone or
something ... an actress (Laura Dern) is warned that
her new movie is cursed ... a rabbit-headed family
perform sit-com actions on a stage set as if engaged
in a solemn ritual ... Such are just a few of the
elements and recurrent motifs of The Inland Empire, a
mesmerizing surge through countless looking glasses
that lands us on the far side of the land of
nightmares. Lynch's first foray into high-definition
video is just as visually stunning as his work in
35mm, but the long gestation period of his new film
(he shot on and off over two years, and wrote as he
went) has allowed him to give his own uniquely epic
form to many of his primary concerns: the exploitation
of young women, the mutability of identity, the
omnivorousness of Hollywood.

http://www.indiewire.com/ots/2006/08/28_film_lineup.html

"... a game where the moral stakes are so high,
ranking up there with comparable parts of Kawabata's
The Master of Go."

http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_stone.html

Though I'm not so sure the Zhuangzhuang film is
adapted from the Kawabata novel (oh, Doug ...), see
also ...

http://imdb.com/title/tt0089594/

--- Ya Sam <takoitov at hotmail.com> wrote:
 
> http://www.thecityofabsurdity.com/inlandempire/revInlandEmpire03.html

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