12 Notes Down, the Danish documentary that won the Full Frame Jury Award for Best Short, is a quaint and emotional spotlight that reminds us of the painful process of moving on.
Jorgis, the fourteen-year old star of the Copenhagen Royal Chapel Choir, must face the realization that his voice is changing. With an important concert only weeks away, he must decide what to do: continue to sing and risk damaging his voice or bow out. Singing clearly is a fundamental aspect of Jorgis’ identity: he serenades his parents at the dinner table and, as seen by the pictures above his bed, has traveled all over Europe singing with the choir. The choir also gives Jorgis power and purpose: he is the respected, mature authority in the group whom others look admire.
Departing from the group presents Jorgis with his first real lesson on the difficulty in leaving parts of your identity behind. It is a hard truth, but Jorgis—in typical Danish fashion—decides to make his departure modest, and without a big fuss. Jorgis determinedly looks at himself in the mirror as he pulls on his choir robe for the last time, knowing he must conclude this chapter in his life in order to advance.
The film features some unforgettable moments. A beautifully shot dream sequence involving Jorgis singing alone at the balcony of the Chapel is the most breathtaking. During Jorgis’ final performance, the camera eventually rests on Jorgis amongst the crowd of singers, capturing the tremendous emotions he experiences as his departure dawns on him during the choir’s final song.
12 Notes Down briefly but fully reveals a life in heartbreaking transition. And, like music off of chapel walls, its story will reverberate in your mind and soul.
Courtesy GoldenBelt
The poster says it all. Local indie favorites and Merge band the Rosebuds and special guests Midtwon Dickens come together for a benefit concert hosted by Golden Belt April 24 at 9 p.m. All net proceeds go to support Durham Arts Council. Tickets are $12 a pop, and those basking in the return of OnlyBurger can get there fix at the show.
Courtesy forgettingdad.com
Richard Minnich was rear-ended in the early 1990s, resulting in a life- and family-altering case of amnesia. Minnich, at the time, was living with his second family in Davis, Calif. but ultimately left them and, years later, ended up with a new wife in a remote corner of Oregon. Almost 20 years after his father’s amnesia, son (from the first marriage) Rick Minnich set out to capture his father’s story.
Rick Minnich, and many of his family members, were left in the dust with their patriarch’s amnesia. His medical remained hidden and their father a distant figure. But there was some evidence suggesting Richard Minnich was faking his amnesia.
Forgetting Dad thrives on its narrative. Rick Minnich’s film is almost a documentary noir, his father and, in some ways, himself the anti-hero and the wives femme fatales. Rick Minnich provides the standard voiceover of the hardboiled detective, and the narrative is an engaging and constantly surprising story of a tortured-sympathetic-twisted man who has spent decades troubling his families. It’s a documentary rooted in the grand tradition of film noir, connecting classic film of the 1950s to one man’s modern family.
But some editing aspects of the film are troublesome. Rick Minnich’s involvement in the film–as director and researcher–falls to the ills of documentarians deeply connected to his work. His voiceover seems heavy-handed at times, not to mention the overuse of sustained, heavily symbolic nature shots that become cumbersome and just plain obnoxious. These faults don’t distract from the narrative, but they are a disappointing aspect of what is an interesting tale of a troubled father and his more troubled family.
Courtesy Indiewire
I’ll admit that I originally intended to see another movie on Saturday morning, but it was sold out. So, I decided to take a gamble and see Burma VJ. “It is good,” one of the Full Frame ushers assured me. I had no idea what was in store for me.
Burma VJ is a graphic and chilling story of a suppressed nation’s struggle against?a militant government and the efforts of heroic cameramen known as the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) whose efforts expose exactly what goes on inside the country. These cameramen shoot with small handycams concealed under their arms and capture brief glimpses of the country, its people and daily life. Nonetheless, ?it is hard to imagine a nation where secret police arrest anyone holding a camera.?Joshua, a DVB cameraman himself, narrates the story that starts with his personal account of being forced to leave Burma and flee to Taiwan after police arrested and interrogated him. From Taiwan, Jonathan worked as a?”fixer” and?coordinated DVB coverage in Burma.
The DVB had over thirty cameramen around the country that would shoot with handycams?concealed?under their arms or in backpacks. The cameramen were constantly on the run as secret police targeted them and the shot “silently for 19 years” until the national mood began to change one week in September of 2007. As oil prices rose in 2007, civil unrest built and people began to retaliate against the government. DVB cameramen documented the movement and were responsible for a vast majority of the images that were?syndicated?to national news organizations such as CNN and BBC. Burma VJ stitches together actual footage shot by DVB cameramen and?reenactments?of Joshua coordinating their efforts from Taiwan.?
Burma VJ is a thriller and is sure to continue to gain international attention and rightfully so.?Without the work of DVB, many of these stories would have gone untold.
Burma VJ?won three awards at Full Frame this year, including the grand jury award for documentary feature.
Will having children make Kanye happy? Courtesy rapnews.fr
Okay, okay. I am aware that there are other musicians aside from Kanye West, and I promise that this will be the last Kanye/Kid Cudi-related “Pop Psychology” entry for a while. That said, I think the most recent single from 808s and Heartbreaks tackles a very important issue. In a polarizing (and perhaps seizure-inducing) video, Kanye explains how all of his success has come at the expense of any meaningful familial connections. More specifically, he expresses his disappointment in not having kids of his own. In the opening lines, Kanye sings, or I guess Autotunes:
My friend showed me pictures of his kids
And all I could show him was pictures of my cribs
He said his daughter got a brand new report card
And all I got was a brand new sports car.
It’s a poignant and sincere song from a performer more commonly known for his bling than his blatant honesty. Kanye acknowledges that despite the fact that he has, or could have, any material good he would ever want, he is missing out on the deeper happiness that comes with family. Yet, while Kanye’s words seem intuitively accurate, a recent article in The Psychologist points to a different conclusion—namely, that having children actually has no effect on happiness. The author, Nattavudh Powdthavee, discusses how “over the past few decades, social scientists like me have found consistent evidence that there is an almost zero association between having children and happiness.”
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