The Chinese Typewriter is about education and language, and the way a society is shaped by them. It exemplifies the politically committed film that defies the strict rubric of avant-garde. Daniel Barnett seems less interested in challenging traditional form than in exploding his own occidental vision. He transforms cyclonic cutting among a character-filled Chinese printing shop, a school, and street life into a visual poem that extracts the country’s fierce mechanistic energy while leaving the fragrant residue of humanity.
Category: Short
The film takes place in the XIX century. In a rich house come to the New Year’s tree children from rich families. A servant girl, similar to Cosette from Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, observes their holiday. After the holiday, during the cleaning of the hall, she dances with a broom instead of a partner and sees an abandoned nutcracker – a toy that was cracked with nuts and almost broke. She awakens a pity for the Nutcracker, and he comes to life and tells the main character about his past.
The human eye, the human form, the human face: these are the three central images of this avant-garde collage and kaleidoscope of shifting and fractured images, changing colors, and pulsing rhythms. Near the end, a tree appears briefly, and birds fly – first white, then red and blue. Celtic knots morph from one to another. The images become Rorschach tests although the mood, driven by the rapid changing images and the soundtrack, remains frantic.
Bobby is about to abandon Tessa, but in a suicidal panic she persuades him to stay one last night and reenact the good old times in front of a video camera for posterity.
Rarely has a film exploded onto cinema screens with such a joyful splash of colour and rhythm as A Colour Box. Made as a commercial for the General Post Office, New Zealand born Len Lye painted directly onto the film strip, synchronising his dynamic shapes and squiggles with an upbeat rumba track. The film captured the heart of audiences on its release in 1935 and continues to do so today.
Ten-year-old Adan lives a carefree life in the rural town of Palmarejo, Puerto Rico, in the late 1950’s, surrounded by his friends, his caring mother, Lilliam, and his beloved pet goat, Chivo. His father, Pablo, returns home from New York City after a brief absence, bringing good news that he has found employment there and announcing he will be moving the family to the distant city immediately. Although Adan initially thinks the trip will be fun and exciting, he discovers that he cannot take Chivo along with him. With the help of his childhood friend, Denise, Adan embarks on a quest to find a new home for his goat…
John Korty’s first film is a short documentary made for the Quakers (with whom he fulfilled his service as a conscientious objector to war) about a peace march. Toward the end of his career Korty called it his most personal film.