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CHAIN
6/10
USA (USA/Ger) 2004 : Jem COHEN : 99 mins
[[warning
: review contains "spoilers"]]
- Moral = MODERN LIFE IS RUBBISH. Suitable subtitle : Casualties
of Capitalism (Chapter 68) Original, enigmatic hybrid of FICTION,
ESSAY and DOCUMENTARY... Twin strands kept teasingly apart : Business
Trip (story of Tomika, thirtyish, globetrotting, chic Japanese
businesswoman, works for company designing theme-parks) and The
Mall (story of Amanda: mid-twenties Chloe Sevigny-ish American
drifter). Top and bottom of the "food chain." They
only obliquely make contact : Amanda cleans hotels/motels, applies
for various McJobs... Location and dislocation. Found questions: "Where
are we?" Artist's response to hypercapitalist world. Reference
points: Keiller, Benning. Issues of credit and debit. Brief shots.
Repeated cuts to black. Active Tomika, passive Amanda.
- Fact or
fiction? A crucial issue because of Tomika's astonishing, scandalous
speech about "racial mix": "Without
a pure race, it will be difficult to have a pure goal for business.
In the US, big Japanese factories are built where there will be less
mixing, and more racial harmony." Is this an accurate depiction of
Japanese management practices? Impossible to tell based on facts given
in the film. Troubling, in retrospect.
- AMANDA
: the mall has "way too many stores to list" - atonal
mallrat. The wreckage of capitalism as the mall expands. Amanda's story:
video-diary of a squatter. Fictional "story" told to vid-cam.
She's a motel cleaner - little motels are, she says, dying out, forced
into obsolescence by the chains. (Workers of the world unite,
indeed). Broken cellphone - camcorder recharges (handy!) Real? Why
lurking round the mall? She personifies a certain kind of exploited
worker. Management may terminate her contract "at any time for
any reason or for no reason." The Spurlock generation. Revisits "dead
mall" amid wreckage. Constructs "letter" to her sister:
slight fakey air of contrivance: some sequences are clearly staged
(Piano shop - inside and outside shots).
 TOMIKA: consumerist Japonaise. Taught English by monotone computer.
Japan : steel factory becomes amusement park (cf climax of On
the Seven Seas). Tomika's business activities = Robinson's "missions" from London and Robinson
in Space. Eastern Europe is "something born out
of nothing." She personifies a certain kind of well-heeled but
soulless capitalism. Her childlike enthusiasms. "The future starts
here". Intelligent, educated, articulate, but determinedly non-reflective.
Workaholic, dominated by "The Company." World as building-site.
Fakey: 2.21am wakeup call. Artificial construct. "Floating World" is
name of her organisation. Bodysnatcheristic pod person? "I look
down from the airplane and see nothing for miles and miles." Hit
hard by Japanese economic downturn, but we don't feel much sympathy
for her. Amanda is perhaps her roomcleaner: like a 19th century novelist,
Cohen's goal is the extension of sympathy. On-camera masturbation
: "Oh!" She's clearly under some kind of instruction.- "The 'noise' you hear is the sound of freedom" -
USMC.
- End credits - The Mall Canada - USA - France - Germany - Poland. Business
Trip Australia - USA - France - Germany - Netherlands - Poland...
LONESOME VALLEY... We've suspected that these are real people, even
if slightly modulated through Cohen's lens... but both are actresses!
- a genuine surprise. Miho Nikaido as Tomika, Mira Billotte as Amanda.
Music by Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Dedication : to Humphrey
Jennings and Chris Marker. Thanks to James Benning
- Summary: Intriguing, engaging, ambitious depiction of modern world
as capitalist-ravaged dystopia. Clear-eyed and driven by anger. Fact/fiction
hybridisation tends to get in the way somewhat, however. We do get
the drift very early on - quite a lot of padding and repetition along
the way. Surely some middleground is possible between these extremes?
Ruminations. Un poco slow. Depressing but necessary. We are kept at
one remove. Original form. Content more familiar. Eloquently put. But
99 minutes is pushing it.
3rd October, 2004
(seen on video, 24th August : Videotheque, Edinburgh
Film Festival)
click
HERE for
our full coverage of the 2004 Edinburgh Film Festival
by Neil
Young
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