Jean Gentil. Written, directed and photographed by Laura Amelia Guzman and Israel Cardenas (with screenplay collaboration by Alejandro Andujar). Dominican Republic-Mexico 2010.

Jean Gentil is an example of Discovery Cinema – the first film from a country that cinephiles are likely to see. I had never watched a movie from the Dominican Republic before, and one of the pleasures of Jean Gentil is that the filmmakers knew that.

The plot follows an unemployed Haitian accountant (played by Jean Remy Genty) as he slips into penury, homelessness and despair. He is not a stupid or lazy man; he knows at least three languages, he holds the required diplomas, and he looks, dresses and acts like a debilitatingly shy white-collar office worker in his early 50s. But, due to events which occurred before the start of the film, he lost his job and can’t find a position.

We follow his journey of downward mobility. He’s evicted from his Santo Domingo bedsit, he bribes a security guard to let him sleep at a construction site, he travels back to his family village to discover that he’s not particularly welcome, and he shifts to the jungle to dig up yams and drink river water like his pre-industrial ancestors did.

We’ve never seen these places before – which is to say that white, middle-class First World movie lovers have probably never seen locations like the inside of a Haitian evangelical church, a bar in a Dominican market town or a tuber field.

The directors — Mexican husband-and-wife production team Laura Amelia Guzman and Israel Cardenas – give us lots of space to become acclimated. Many shots are purposefully atmospheric but are never cloying or obvious. The average viewer of this film needs time to adjust to the unfamiliar surroundings, and that’s provided. (Yes, I’m taking the position that a film with Mexican creators and German financing is, based on the characters and settings and subject matter, a Dominican film.)

Jean Gentil is more visually and technically accomplished than any randomly selected mumblecore film. The pans, dolly shots, sound effects and framings are inventive but not showy. When the camera swoops, it’s to highlight a point or to convey information which isn’t in the spare script.

One of the characteristics of Discovery Cinema is that, almost by definition, the first film from a nation to receive global acceptance will be an objectively high-quality film. It wouldn’t have earned the festival slots or the distribution deal if it were a run-of-the-mill local product. So try to catch Jean Gentil when it screens in your town. It’ll be the best Dominican film you’ll see this year.

“I do not especially like the idea that one day I shall be tapped on the shoulder and informed, not that the party is over but that it is most assuredly going on — only henceforth in my absence.”

New York Times obituary.

My review of Hitch-22.

The Last Intellectuals: American Culture in the Age of Academe by Russell Jacoby (U.S. 1987).

I suspect that the general argument made in The Last Intellectuals is correct. I certainly want it to be, since that would confirm my world view. But, while reading this classic 1987 polemic, I was not consistently convinced by the specifics.

In the book, UCLA history professor Russell Jacoby tells a somewhat romanticized tale. Back in the 1940s and ‘50s, “public intellectuals” could, by Jacoby’s reckoning, support themselves by writing for various public interest magazines. The likes of Edmund Wilson and Lewis Mumford didn’t need to hold university positions or become think tank fellows; they could afford to live by their pens, housed in cheap but safe urban neighborhoods alongside a cohort of fellow scribblers.

Then the Sixties happened, which, among other things, meant the decline of well-paying middle-brow periodicals like the Saturday Evening Post, but, as importantly, was evidenced by a migration of intellectuals to the steady paychecks offered by universities built to educate the Baby Boom. After settling into their faculty offices, these writers devoted their energies to maintaining their sinecures. Publishing for obscure but highly ranked academic journals became more important than writing for McCall’s, and speaking to campus conferences of like-minded professors became a far higher priority than talking on the Chautauqua circuit. (I’m playing loose with chronology to illustrate the point.)

The result, Jacoby argues, was the death of the “unaffiliated” intellectual. Jane Jacobs, a woman at a typewriter in a rented office, became a thing of the past. Now, people who wanted to contribute to public life first had to become accepted by large institutions; they had to become titled and accredited as professors or journalists or researchers, and the time and effort it took to obtain and maintain those positions necessarily left less to expend on addressing meaty concerns for the public at large. The iconoclasts became clock punchers and resume grubbers.

It’s a seductive story. Is it true?

There are obvious flaws in the model – but they either cancel each other out or add up to a human with five hands. On the one hand, there are still plenty of public intellectuals, judging from the non-fiction bestseller lists and the lineup of guests on Charlie Rose. On the other hand, Jacoby seems to have a point regarding “affiliation.” Literary agents want authors to have a “platform” – a pre-existing pulpit from which to sell the book – and the authors on the charts tend to have day jobs at CNN, The New York Times, Johns Hopkins University or Kissinger Associates. On the third hand, successful and unaffiliated writers do exist, such as David McCullough, Charles Nicholl, John Berendt and Sebastian Junger. On the fourth hand, many are not so independent as they may seem, since, for example, Berendt (Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil) was a former New York magazine writer and Junger (The Perfect Storm) has an ongoing relationship with Vanity Fair. On the fifth hand, you see where this is going — round in circles.

Many of Jacoby’s theories can be “problematized,” to use the academic jargon for “poke a hole in.” Didn’t old school public intellectuals become regular contributors to magazines or have long-term but non-tenure track associations with universities? Isn’t the selling out of promising young philosophers a theme that dates back at least to Flaubert’s The Sentimental Education? Aren’t bloggers filling the void? Was Greenwich Village ever cheap?

On the broadest stroke, Jacoby is undoubtedly correct. A person with a bent for words and thought will see that, behind one door, is a potentially tenured position with pay and perqs and, behind the other door, is a life of chasing after editors and knowing exactly when late fees kick in. Most people chose the first door if they can.

But some choose Door No. 2, and that’s where Jacoby’s thesis seems to founder. Freelance writers still exist, the journos with big names can write with a relatively free hand, and bloggers fill a part of the niche now. If the Occupy movement is anything to go by, the number of “surplus intellectuals” – the people who became bohemians because they couldn’t find teaching or research jobs prior to World War II – has skyrocketed. Many of the protesters currently camping out may have to turn to selling op-ed pieces as a matter of necessity — in which case, if even a fraction of them do so, the U.S. will have a new class of public intellectuals.

I’m willing to believe university career tracks have soaked up and distracted scholars who could have become the next Mary McCarthy. But I suspect the next Partisan Review has already been launched, but now its name ends in dot com.

While the notorious License Raj is slowly being phased out, India’s legal community remains a closed shop. The situation harms litigants and businesses and, perhaps counter-intuitively, the lawyers themselves.

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Paper Butterfly by Diane Wei Liang. China/UK 2008.

I’ve been searching for an atmospheric mystery novel set in China, and, after reading Paper Butterfly, I’m still looking. The book has a stronger sense of place than Qiu Xiaolong’s Death of a Red Heroine, the disappointing Inspector Chen debut, but it didn’t leave me with a vivid portrait of life in Beijing.

Private detective Mei Wang is retained by an impresario to find a missing female pop star. Wang is already walking a tightrope. Private detection is illegal in China, although her former colleagues in the Public Security Bureau don’t mind as long as she doesn’t step on important toes.

Wang follows the clues. Meanwhile, she has a strained relationship with her family, and her story is intercut with that of a man who is slowly working his way penniless across China after being released from jail for participation in the Tiananmen Square protests.

The mystery isn’t compelling, and it unfolds dutifully. Wang’s character is thinly drawn. There’s no real mystery to solve. There are some interesting descriptions of the outskirts of Beijing, and the novel takes English-language readers to a few places they may not have visited before, but that’s about it.

Paper Butterfly is a miss.

A lingerie model’s state of mind is poised to become Exhibit A in the criminal courts – and the rule of law will benefit from the experience.

Jessica Cambensy may seem an unlikely heroine of progressive jurisprudence. The 23-year-old Eurasian is one of Hong Kong’s top “pseudo-models.” She has promoted Wacoal negligees and Canon printers, and her first film was released this summer.

Cambensy’s glitzy world became gritty and real last week when she was arrested by Hong Kong police on suspicion of stealing HK$600 that had been left in an ATM.

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Cambensy — known as Jessica C 警鐘胸 in Asia — talked to media outside her Causeway Bay flat and again at the airport. Note the size of the media scrum — an indication of how famous Hong Kong pseudo-models are within the Cantonese world.   [defective video link deleted]

And here’s a clip of Jessica at work:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_ZmCpMZ2yw

Shenzhen International Airport

Fares to or from Hong Kong International Airport are expensive. Admittedly, if you want one of the world’s great airports, you have to pay for it. But sometimes you want a quick regional flight without the bells and whistles.

I decided to visit Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, to see some friends. The flights out of HKIA were about US$500 round-trip – steep, I thought, for a ninety-minute hop. The flights from Shenzhen Airport were US$300.

Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport is the Long Beach or Hartford of the Hong Kong region – the smaller airport trying to capture traffic by offering an alternative to the huge, congested airfields. Shenzhen’s main attraction is price. Budget carrier AirAsia flies out of SZX, and you can find bargains if you sift through the offerings of the Mainland Chinese carriers.

The airport’s drawback is location. It’s at least two hours from central Hong Kong. It’s also in the Mainland – meaning that you have to hold a PRC visa to cross the invisible line. (While Hong Kong and its next-door neighbor Shenzhen are both within the People’s Republic of China, HK is a separate immigration territory with free and easy entry, while Shenzhen is a part of Mother China with the restrictions that entails.)

But, heck, two hundred buck is two hundred bucks. I thought I’d give it a try.

*             *             *             *             *

There are two low-cost ways to travel from central Hong Kong to Shenzhen: by train or by bus.

The train is cheaper but takes longer. You have to (1) get to the East Rail line (in the upper left-hand corner of this map). The trip costs roughly $7.25 — about US$6 on the Hong Kong side and US$1.25 on the Shenzhen side — and can take up to three hours depending on the congestion at the border.

The bus is better. A Chinalink motorcoach leaves the Eaton Hotel in Yau Ma Tei and picks up more passengers at the Elements Mall adjacent to Kowloon Station. Then it’s one hour to the Shenzhen Bay Port border crossing. You alight from the bus, grab your luggage, walk through the border checkpoints – which are fast for us gweilos because there are few non-Chinese nationals at this crossing to weigh down the Foreigners line – and get onto a different Chinalink bus on the other side. From there, it’s about one hour to the airport. Costs HK$120 (US$16) one-way, and takes about two hours.

The airport is easy. It’s a medium-sized regional airport, and you can be at the gate in minutes. Terminal D – which handles international and Taiwan flights – has an awkward design in that you have to pass through the customs green and red channels before checking in for your flight.

Is it worth the savings? Probably. All things considered, it takes more than one hour to travel from the residential areas of HK to the city’s gleaming airport out on Lantau Island, so adding an extra 45 minutes of travel time to save money seems like a good idea, one that increases arithmatically if your party has multiple passengers.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv2FxByFM7M

US Airways flight 740
San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Philadelphia
US Airways flight 742
Philadelphia to Barcelona, Spain
Cost: $952.96 total with taxes and fees
 
On the morning of October 6th, I departed from the Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport (SJU), located just outside of San Juan, Puerto Rico. It’s a somewhat dingy affair, offering no wi-fi service (at least not in Terminal B) and mediocre food. But it was clean, and the security check was fairly painless. Note that a stylish new Terminal A was recently completed but is not yet operational.

Uncharacteristically, I’d upgraded the second leg of my trip to first class for an extra $500. I wanted to arrive in Barcelona free of the usual aches and pains of flying coach and thought it a worthy investment given the 8-hour flight time.

But as my ticket to Philadelphia was scanned by the helpful gate attendant, a typically green “go” light turned bright red, and I was stopped. I immediately thought, sheesh, what did the smiling woman at the counter downstairs botch? Nothing, as it turns out: my upgrade had carried over to the domestic flight as well. So after a few quick keystrokes, I was handed a first class ticket to ride, and we boarded on time.

Onboard the Boeing 757-200, I sat down in 1D and tested the legroom. Deep. The seat, Barcalounger comfy. But that was about the extent of the perks. The flight attendant was cranky, the meal (a sort of chicken “stir fry” consisting mostly of linguine-type noodles) overly re-heated, and drink service just barely there. Fortunately, however, sleep was easy to come by given the legroom and highly adjustable, plush seating.

We arrived in Philadelphia on time, and I had to walk only a few dozen yards beyond our gate to catch Flight 742. (Why can’t all airlines get this so right?)

We again boarded on time and I found myself in seat 1H amidst a cadre of upper-crust international travellers. Our Airbus A330 featured the cubicle-style seating that I despise, with each passenger set inside a deep, bathtub-like seat that does fully recline yet does not offer enough width for my football player-scaled shoulders. (No bragging, just a fact.)

The result is that you’re stuck in a virtual isolation chamber for the duration, unable to make human contact with anyone around you. While sociophobes may like this setup, I do not, but that’s me. Fortunately, legroom was seemingly limitless, and I had a calming glass of chilled sparkling wine in my hand (Il Vino dei Poeti Italian Prosecco) within seconds of being seated.

My primary flight attendant bore a striking resemblance to Sarah Palin, complete with nerdy glasses and the strong jawline, and offered exemplary service: Never hovering, but always there whenever I needed another scotch (Glenlivet 12-year), refill of wine, or cream for my coffee. Kudos.

Coupled with a 2009 A to Z Pinot Noir from Oregon, the dinner was okay, starting with a tasty app of grilled chicken skewers with red aioli (thought it needed garlic) and a dill fennel slaw. It was followed by a limp salad of seasonal greens with slightly soggy croutons and shaved Parmesan cheese. For the main course, I selected the tenderloin of beef with a gorgonzola cream sauce, sweet potato mash and haricots verts (a.k.a. green beans).

While the re-warmed beef was overly done (very well) for my taste, it was still nice, especially with the sauce, though it was a bit lumpy. The mash was excellent, with just the right amount of seasoning, while the haricots verts were, well, green beans. A cheese and fruit plate finish went down well with my third glass of the Pinot and, finally, a second go-round of the Glenlivet.

Shameful, I know, but, as I said, travelling first class is unusual for me, so I took some minor advantage.

The breakfast served several hours later was unremarkable, except in that it was really unnecessary given that we were arriving so early in the morning.

We landed at Barcelona El Prat Airport (BCN) on October 7 at 8:05 a.m. — almost 20 minutes ahead of schedule — and touched down with authority. After breezing through customs and picking up my bags, I was on my merry way.

So, was my upgrade worth the extra $500? I’d hazard a yes, especially given that my second checked bag was FREE as opposed to another $70 if I’d stayed in coach, and I would have also had to invest in about $35-40 worth of food and drink for my two flights. So my actual cost was closer to $400.

We’ll see what happens on next week’s trip home to Los Angeles.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMSZu_3S6vE

Paradise Kiss. Directed by Takehiko Shinjo. Screenplay by Kenji Bando, based on the manga by Ai Yazawa. Starring Keiko Kitagawa and Osamu Mukai. Japan 2011. 

Paradise Kiss perfectly captures the emotional tones and rhythms of Japanese girls’ comic books. I mean that as a compliment but not as a recommendation.

Shōjo manga have a characteristic style that is heavy on the emotion — heavy like Element 118, the substance created in a cyclotron that existed for less than a second before breaking apart under its own weight. In girls’ manga, the romances are drawn-out, brooding affairs with lots of meaningful glances and sententious dialogue rendered on the edge of tears as the characters guess and contemplate and ruminate some more about true feelings and motivations. It’s not for me (although, in a pinch, I prefer it to the boring, formulaic Japanese boys’ comics).

Ai Yazawa is one of the most successful authors in the genre, having written the best-selling Nana serial (which has yielded two movies) and others. Paradise Kiss is one of her efforts and bears the trademark touches.

Yukari Hayasaka is a senior in high school struggling to prepare for Japan’s make-or-break university exams. She already feels like the family failure due to her inability, at the age of five, to gain admittance to a selective primary school but she was able to land a slot at a top high school, and she can redeem herself with a prestigious university admission – although, given her grades and test results, this is looking less than likely.

Through a Meet Cute, Yukari ends up in the basement studio of Paradise Kiss, a fashion design company also run by high schoolers, but these are a different tribe of kid. They attend an art school with a poor reputation, and they already have a toe in the business world, with their clothes on consignment across Tokyo. There’s dreamy head designer George, and his co-workers are a roguish lad, a bubbly girl and a transvestite. They want Yukari to model their clothes at the upcoming Big Fashion Show, and Yukari — intoxicated by the freedom and rebelliousness and, not a little, by George’s jaunty-hat looks -- agrees, plunging her studies further into chaos.

The performances are better than expected for a teen film. Keiko Kitagawa 北川 景子, in the lead, has working comedic skills, and, in the pre-makeover scenes, she looks like an actual frumpy girl rather than, as is usually the case, an obvious knockout with a light layer of see-through dowd. The other young thesps are decent, all things considered. It’s like a teen comedy where no one is obviously miscast, and each of the friends has at least one smart line well read.  

The film’s principal artistic success will be, to some people, its flaw. This is what shōjo manga are like: overly emotional, deeply Freudian, too long, too much of everything. Director Takehiko Shinjo even translates the excess into the visuals. The Paradise Kiss office is exaggeratedly chic bohemian, and the dresses are over-the-top in their frills, and George’s apartment is stylish in the manner of a newly renovated five-star hotel. To match the dialogue, the production design and art direction are equally overheated.

That’s what the target audience wants, and that’s what the producers no doubt ordered, and Shinjo’s direction is, objectively speaking, a success. It just wasn’t my kind of film (because shōjo manga isn’t my type of read), but the sold-out crowd of Cantonese teenagers with whom I saw the film liked it. So Paradise Kiss is a good movie, but probably not for you.

(Side Point: The characters in Paradise Kiss speak in Japanese, but the Chinese teenagers in the audience, following the dialogue on the subtitles, liked the film, laughing at many of the jokes. Meanwhile, it is an article of Hollywood faith that American teenagers will not see films with subtitles. Are the Hollywood executives wrong, or are American teenagers lamer than their Sino counterparts?)

Australians have a reputation for being tough and fair, but a recent court opinion paints them as oversensitive whiners who will sue if you hurt their feelings.

In 2009, conservative commentator Andrew Bolt wrote two columns for the Herald Sun tabloid stating that several high-profile Aboriginal leaders had little native ancestry and could easily pass as white. Bolt acerbically noted that “white Aborigines” could choose from among various cultural identities yet selected the one that enjoyed preferential hiring, awards and scholarships. . . . .

Instead [of responding with a letter to the editor], an Aboriginal activist brought a class action alleging that the articles hurt her feelings and were offensive to fair-skinned Aborigines. Incredibly, this is a viable claim in Australia.

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