On the evening of March 31, 2024, at the Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF), I found myself trapped in a dilemma. Multiple movie screenings were ongoing in different locations at the same time. There were Aki Kaurismäki's "Fallen Leaves" at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, Wim Wenders' "Anselm" at Premier Elements, Stéphane Brizé's "Out of Season" at Times Square in Causeway Bay, and many more. Or perhaps, for a detox of high culture, I could just pick any cinema and watch the latest blockbuster "Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire". In the end, my choice was "Abraham’s Valley" at the Hong Kong City Hall. It is a literary film shot by the late Portuguese film master Manuel de Oliveira in 1993, at the age of 85. Of course, this prolific and long-lived director had been happily making films until 2015, when he passed away at the age of 107.
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The restored version screened at HKIFF was a director's cut lasting a staggering 203 minutes. As it turned out, or perhaps it was just my own psychological validation, I made the right choice. Inspired by Gustave Flaubert's masterpiece "Madame Bovary" and adapted from the novel "Abraham’s Valley" by Portuguese writer Agustina Bessa-Luís, this hours-long film uses literary descriptions in its narration throughout, slowly recounting the majority of attractive Ema's life, from adolescence to motherhood. It delves into her innocence and desires, as well as how she actively manipulates the gaze and demands of men. Its immense runtime of three and a half hours, low-fi colored visuals, and the authoritarianism of the last generation of European film masters from the end of the 20th century might largely serve as a deterrent to moviegoers today. Alternatively, they might feel that this old film is easily accessible through copyrighted video platforms or pirated downloads, and there's no need to spend precious time at the annual HKIFF watching it. During the festival, every second should be seized to greedily devour those hard-to-find new releases that may not make it to mainstream theaters.
However, during the mature film festival, taking the slightest glance at your phone or whispering by the ear of your friend earns you shushes and warnings from other cinephiles, allowing you to immerse yourself even more deeply in the three and a half hours of extended cinematic time. It's akin to stepping back to the dawn of cinema, and experiencing the magical moment when primitive humans gather around a bonfire in the cave to listen to stories. In an era of easily accessible information and fragmented attention, the sense of ceremony stemming from being constrained by unspoken rules is truly precious.
And before "Abraham’s Valley," on that same afternoon at the Hong Kong City Hall, I watched China's Fourth Generation film master Wu Tianming’s 1986 classic "Old Well," while bound by shackles of happiness from this sense of ceremony. Without today's 4K technology with high frame rates that can deliver the actors' subtle expressions and perhaps flawed performances right before your eyes, the restored film still retains its simple visuals and sepia tone, and presents shy and awkward villagers in the mountainous regions of northern China. Among them is the male protagonist, played by Zhang Yimou, who was later dubbed by the Chinese as the "National Master."
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I went all out the following noon and caught another movie at the Hong Kong City Hall. The movie was like a time travel machine, whisking me straight to the Bavarian mountains in Germany 104 years ago. On the screen, amidst beer drinking, wood chopping, and playful chases, were the two daughters of the Kohlhiesel family: the fierce and rough elder sister, and the demure younger sister. It was Ernst Lubitsch’s early black-and-white silent film that defined human comedy, titled "Kohlhiesel's Daughters." The film is divided into four chapters, with the first three having been recently restored and premiered at this year's Berlin International Film Festival. At its Hong Kong screening, a trio consisting of a double bassist, flutist, and percussionist replaced the large orchestral ensemble from the Berlin screening, and faithfully matched the film's rhythm and emotions with their music, often feeling a bit like live foley artistry.
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From the era of German silent films to the early years of Hollywood's talkies, Lubitsch had already cemented his place as an early film master in the annals of world cinema history. Yet, upon reflection, I realized that I had never truly watched any of his works. If it weren't for the ceremonial atmosphere of film festivals, which compels me to set my phone aside, I might have continued to overlook his contributions even with my collection of related DVDs and after having watched over 5,000 films.
There are so many new films coming out that it's overwhelming. Meanwhile, old films are easily accessible through online streaming platforms, DVD collections, or resource downloads, and this might be the mindset of most cinephiles when choosing what to watch at home or during film festivals. However, often it's the ceremonial, etiquette-oriented and non-constraining atmosphere of a film festival or at a cinema that truly allows you to immerse yourself in appreciating old films. Without such an environment, one might repeatedly pass up opportunities to do so on the excuse that "there will always be a next time" and potentially leave everlasting regrets.
At the Venice Film Festival in early September last year, I accidentally ended up in the wrong theater and thoroughly enjoyed a classic black-and-white musical film from 1938, "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm." The young lead role was played by none other than the renowned Shirley Temple. Later, I asked several film industry professionals who attended the festival, "Have you actually watched any of Temple’s films entirely?" After some brief recalls, they all admitted that they hadn't. The glimpses they had caught were from snippets of musicals selected by television stations or arts programs in schools.
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A month later, I attended a film festival in a small Asian city, where they surprisingly had a Charles Chaplin segment. Like many other film festivals I had attended before, I rushed from one screening to another, trying to catch as many films as possible, until one afternoon when I bumped into the curator. I complained about the overwhelming self-expression in independent art films, and the curator suggested, "Why not try something different, like watching Chaplin? Through curating this segment, I realized that many industry professionals haven't actually watched Chaplin films in their entirety."
Like Temple, Chaplin's absurd and satirical classic black-and-white scenes also often remain confined to television specials, short video mashups on phones, and art appreciation classes. That night, heeding the curator's advice, I immersed myself in 90 minutes of "City Lights" (1931). It was joyful, sorrowful, and so captivating; Chaplin had already captured the essence of human emotions, both tragic and comic, nearly a century ago.
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