From: Yoel Meranda (email suppressed)
Date: Tue Dec 05 2006 - 08:38:30 PST
Dear Franciso Torres,
As I mentioned before on this thread, I consider Amos Gitai one of the
best filmmakers alive. To say something on the topic this listserve
should be: he has a few good and some very good experimantal shorts.
They are definitely worth watching.
His narrative films, except some weird exceptions such as "Alila", are
either good or great. The last one, "Free Zone" is a very experimental
narrative feature that has a difficult and maddening sense of rhythm,
which reflects the political madness in the region.
So there are some important cultural products that come from Israel.
Whether you would define him as mainstream I don't know. (relative to
many avant-garde filmmakers, he can be considered a star, i guess.)
I live in Turkey since April. I do agree that the Turkish mainstream
cinema can be horrible but I think it's very unjust to single out the
Turkish films... all mainstream films (except Michael Mann's "Miami
Vice") are almost unwatchable nowadays. I would claim that the Turkish
mainstream is slightly more interesting than the U.S. or French or
Spanish ones, partly because it's very new. I am curious to know which
Turkish mainstream film you're talking about, and how many you've
seen...
And by the way, Nuri Bilge Ceylan makes wonderful films, his latest
film "The Climates", certainly not mainstream, is one of the best
films of the year, and at moments he can be very experimental...
yoel
for a list of my favorite films in 2006:
http://waysofseeing.org/filmsyear.html
On 12/5/06, Francisco Torres <email suppressed> wrote:
> Excuse my ignorance but as a filmaker I'm not aware of any "cultural
> production" coming out of Istrael in the last ten, twenty years....
> Must Israeli films I'm aware of (musicals, teen comedies,war films)
> can hardly be described as "Cultural" products.So even without an
> organized boycott I'll avoid Israeli films,they remind me of
> mainstream Turkish movies- just try sitting through one of THOSE!!!
> (To be avoided at all cost too). Israel seems to be a very arid in
> terms of cultural production anyway. Maybe there are other areas other
> than film that are thriving...
>
>
> __________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
>
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.