The Ozu Diaries is a Yazujiro Ozu documentary for his fans (Film review)

Scene in Tokyo three years ago -- the year of the

120th anniversary of Yazujiro Ozu's birth

 

The Ozu Diaries (U.S.A., 2025)

-  Daniel Raim, director-scriptwriter

- Part of the HKIFF's Filmmakers and Filmmaking program 

 

As I mentioned in a previous blog post, there are fewer Japanese films than usual being screened at the Hong Kong International Film Festival this year.  But as it turned out, I've viewed the same amount of documentaries about Japanese subjects at the 50th HKIFF as I have Japanese films (which also included anime work The Lost Blossom along with the live action Meets the World).  

 

First up was Noh documentary The Path of Soul.  And then there's The Ozu Diaries, American filmmaker Daniel Raim's documentary about the late, great Yasujiro Ozu -- mainly in the Japanese auteur's own words (taken from his private journals but also letters) but supplemented by archival interviews and recollections by those who knew him (notably, Kinuyo Tanaka, the star of a number of his early works, scriptwriter Kogo Noda, child actor Tomio Aoki and Ozu's granddaughter, Akiko Ozu), and reflections on Ozu's works by Kiroshi Kurosawa, Wim Wenders, Luc Dardenne and Tsai Ming Liang.

 

Of the quartet of directors interviewed for the documentary, my sense is that the main contributions of the three non-Japanese ones was to emphasize Ozu's international influence and reputation.  However, I found it interesting and amusing to hear Kiyoshi Kurosawa talk about how he personally "discovered" the films of Ozu -- a director out of fashion at the time that the younger Japanese filmmaker decided to give Ozu's films a watch, beginning with the later, color talkies (rather than chronologically, with Ozu's silent black and white works).

 

In contrast, much appreciated colour along with insights were added by the inclusion of the interviews of those who had worked with Ozu; and I really liked that their recollections are of him as a person, not just a director.  Among other things, The Ozu Diaries reveals that he was a man who loved his sake, to dance and laugh, had Western as well as traditional Japanese ways about him, and who cared very much for -- and laughed a lot in the company of -- his mother. 

 

The Ozu Diaries covers a lot of ground, and even features excerpts from his diaries along with photographs and sketches from the time he spent as a conscripted soldier in Manchuria and Singapore.  It is worth noting though that Ozu expressly forbade the publication of at least one of his diaries from the war years.  And I do get the sense that Daniel Raim erred on the side of caution in terms of what he decided to include from those periods of Ozu's life in this documentary.  

 

Consequently, those looking for dirt to smear Ozu won't find it in this documentary by someone who surely ranks as a fan of the Japanese auteur.  Which, frankly, is a situation I think the vast majority of people attracted to go watch a documentary about Ozu would prefer.  For, after all, many cinephiles are attracted to the films of Ozu for their great humanity -- which often comes with far more doses of humour than those who still have yet to discover his works (some clips from which -- including home movies! -- are included in this documentary) realise.   

 

My rating for this film: 7.5   

How great but also sad it is that Cageman (Hong Kong, 1992) is so very relevant and relatable 34 years on! (Film review)

 

The now 81-year-old -- but still very lively! --  Teddy Robin Kwan 

was the guest of honor at the Hong Kong International 

Film Festival screening of the restored version of Cageman 

 

Cageman (Hong Kong, 1992)

- Jacob Cheung, director and co-scriptwriter (with Ng Chong-chau and Yank Wong)

- Starring: Michael Lee, Roy Chiao, Teddy Robin Kwan, Victor Wong, Ku Feng, Liu Kai-chi, Wong Ka-kui, Lau Shun, etc.

- Part of the HKIFF's Chinese-language Restored Classics program 

 

Cageman is a film I've known about but put off viewing for decades.  It's not that I doubted that it was good.  After all, it was named Best Film -- and won in three other categories, including Best Director for Jacob Cheung -- at the 12th Hong Kong Film Awards, a very competitive year in view of other Hong Kong films made and released in 1992 including Centre-Stage, Swordsman II, and Once Upon a Time in China II.   

 

But it being a drama about people who live in cage homes -- which still exist in Hong Kong more than 30 years on, more than by the way -- makes for it having a reputation for not being easy to watch.  Also, there has not been good home video versions of it available for decades now.  Something that hopefully will be remedied in the near future now that there's a 4k restored version of it: which had its first ever public screening earlier this week; and at which one of its cast members, Teddy Robin Kwan, was the guest of honour.

 

And while director-co-scriptwriter Jacob Cheung was unable to attend the screening, he recorded a video message that was played before the start of this cinematic treasure of a film during which he sadly noted how many members of the cast are no longer with us (RIP, Michael Lee, Roy Chiao, Victor Wong, Ku Feng and Lau Shun, among others; and also the two youngest stars, Wong Ka-kui and Liu Kai-chi). On a happier note, Cheung recounted how he was so pleased about Cageman having been received positively upon its original release -- and that the award that gave him the most satisfaction was that for Best Ensemble received in Singapore.

 

After viewing this deservedly well-regarded offering, I understand why: as Cageman has an incredible cast, fully deserving of great acclaim, who infused their characters with humanity as well as worked together very well. Michael Lee was incredibly watchable as the elderly but spritely "7-11", who runs a grocery within the cage home complex with the help of the more physically mobile "Sissy" (portrayed with great empathy by the late Chinese-American actor Victor Wong).

 

Roy Chiao anchors the film as "Fatso", the manager of sorts of the cage homes who also lives in one along with his intellectually disabled son, Sam (essayed by Liu Kai-chi, who I'm more familiar seeing playing father figures in his later years).  While Teddy Robin Kwan, Ku Feng, Lau Shun and Wong Ka-kui play other "cagemen" -- there are no (cage)women, by the way, but there's an ethnic mix in the film that, interestingly, is taken as a matter of course rather than made much of -- who stand to lose their homes after it's announced that the landlord has sold the building it's located in and the building will be demolished.

 

One of the biggest ironies and tragedies presented in Cageman is that while audience members will think that the living conditions of the "cagemen" are terrible, they -- a number of whom appear to have been (non-native Cantonese-speaking) refugees from China -- themselves think that there are much worse possibilities.  (Though, strangely enough, there's a former cage home dweller who moved out onto the streets who seems to be doing better than his friends in the movie; more specifically, Charlie, the cheery character played by Joe Junior!) 

 

Arguably even sadder to see, actually, is how the district councillors (a two-faced lawyer with Western ways played by Dennis Chan and a Chinese-opera-singing bow-tie wearer played by Chow Chung) use rather than help their cage dwelling constituents.  Ironically, that might have been (looked upon as) a dig against the colonial British government back in 1992 on the part of this Sil-Metropole Organisation production.  But 24 years on, the continued relevance of this invaluable social drama that might have been seen as (produced by) "leftist" by Hongkongers is a damning indictment on the post-Handover regime(s) (too).   

 

My rating for the film: 10. 

Two Prosecutors tells a tale that's sadly predictable but chilling all the same (Film review)

 

Poster for the ninth film I viewed at the 

50th Hong Kong International Film Festival 

 

Two Prosecutors (France-Germany-Netherlands-Latvia-Romania-Lithuania-Ukraine, 2025) 

- Sergei Loznitsa, director and co-scriptwriter (with Georgy Demidov)

- Starring: Alexander Kutznetsov, Aleksandr Filippenko, Anatoliy Beliy 

- Part of the HKIFF's The Masters program 

 

For much of Two Prosecutors, one only sees a single prosecutor on screen: Kornev (portrayed by Alexander Kutznetsove, whose nose looks like that of someone who emerged much the worse from a brutal boxing match or game of rugby!), a young government prosecutor only three months into his career.  Naive and idealistic, after coming into possession of a letter written in blood by a political prisoner, he decides to go see and hear the man: a former local party stalwart who had visited and given a speech about truth and Bolshevism at Kornev's law school.

 

Despite the prison head trying to dissuade him from doing so in multiple ways, Kornev stubbornly persists in meeting with a man considered so dangerous that he's been put in solitary confinement far away from other prisoners and watched over by multiple guards.  This despite  Stepniak (essayed by Aleksandr Filippenko) being elderly and physically weak, and, in fact being pretty close to death's door. 

 

It's pretty obvious that Stepniak has been physically tortured, and so badly that his internal organs are badly messed up.  It's less certain why the old Bolshevik ended up being among the victims of what looked to have been a power struggle that saw the NKVD (secret police; precursor of the KGB) infiltrate and take control of the Communist Party apparatus in their city of Bryansk. In any case, Stepniak adamantly maintained that if only his tale was told to Joseph Stalin, he would be freed and wrongs righted.  And asks Kornev to do just that.  Or, at the very least, appeal to someone in the central government over in Moscow to come clean up the locally centered mess.

 

Kornev, an upright, card-carrying member of the Communist Party, agrees to do so.  And journeys to Moscow to report all this to the man who's effectively his top boss: the Procurator General, Andrey Vyshinsky (Anatoli Beliy plays the film's second titular prosecutor, and real life historical figure).  But when they meet... well, let's just say that this scene is as chilling, if more so, than the moments when Stepniak shows Kornev the torture marks on his body as well as arms and legs.

 

Those who know that 1937, the year that Two Prosecutors is set, was the height of what's known as Stalin's Great Terror (or Purge) will have known early on where this film adaptation of a novella by Georgy Demidov, a Soviet physicist-writer-political prisoner was heading.  But it's the journey, rather than the destination, that really matters with regards to this tale. And director Loznitsa masterfully keep's one attention and stokes one's mounting horror regarding how things will end for the honorable Kornev for this gripping work's entire running time.   

 

By the way, that director Loznitsa was unable to make this film in his native Ukraine or Russia tells you speaks volumes about the current state of those parts of the former Soviet Union.  Equally clear is how Two Prosecutors is a strong indictment of the kind of regime that punishes righteous and idealistic folks who seek to do good unto one's fellow citizens. 

 

My rating for this film: 7.5  

A Foggy Tale dispenses hope for a better tomorrow even in times of (White) Terror (Film review)

  

A Foggy Tale screened at the Hong Kong 

Cultural Centre's Grand Theatre 

 

Lead actor Will Or on stage at the post-screening Q&A

 

A Foggy Tale (Taiwan, 2025)

- Chen Yu Hsun, director-scriptwriter

- Starring: Caitlin Fang, Will Or, 9m88

- Part of the HKIFF's Gala Presentation program 

 

The "White Terror", the name given to period of martial law and violent political repression of by the then ruling Kuomintang political party, lasted for 40 years. In 1989, two years after it ended, Hou Hsiao Hsien made the first film about it, the seminal City of Sadness.  In the years since, a few other filmmakers have mined this subject, including another great Taiwanese auteur, the late Edward Yang, with A Brighter Summer Day (1991).  

 

Clearly though, there still are a lot of stories to tell about those tumultuous times. And by way of this winner of four Golden Horse Awards (including for Best Narrative Feature, and Best Original Screenplay for its director-scriptwriter), Chen Yu Hsun has produced a powerful work that deserves to be spoken in the same breath as the works of Hou and Yang -- and honoured the memories of those who unjustly perished during the White Terror and those who survived against the odds.    

 

A Foggy Tale tells the story of Yue (portrayed by Caitlin Fang), an orphaned teen from an impoverished rural family whose beloved elder brother is captured and killed by the Kuomintang.  Determined to bring his body back home (rather than have it end up in a common grave), she makes the approximately 250 kilometer journey from Chiayi to Taipei.       

 

Plucky but naive, she soon gets abducted by men aiming to sell her off to for a few hundred (Taiwanese) dollars.  Very fortuitously for her though, she also had crossed paths with a Cantonese ex-soldier turned rickshaw driver whose foul mouth belies his heart of gold and Kung-tao (played by multi-lingual Hong Kong actor, Will Or) and he comes to her rescue.  Over and over again, as it turns out.   

 

In addition to being this film's title, A Foggy Tale also is the name of a story that Yue's elder brother tells her elder sister (played by the actress whose stage name is 9m88), a Taipei resident who Yue had previously never really known as the elder sibling had been sold off when Yue was very young.  In addition, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that director-scriptwriter Chen thinks that many people today have foggy memories of the White Terror and that he wants to cast light on those terribly trying times that he, who currently is in his 63rd year, lived through.  (More than by the way, his Wikipedia entry includes the following line: "After failing the university entrance exam, he had no choice but to enlist in the military.")

 

More than by the way, there is no escaping from the fact that A Foggy Tale is an intense film with painfully tragic and stomach-churningly horrific moments and scenes.  But director-scriptwriter Chen makes this excellent dramatic work easier to watch and digest by including in it colourful characters, some light, even (darkly) comedic segments, and a hope that better days and futures lie ahead, for individual people and, also, their nation as a whole.      

 

My rating for this film: 9. 

A Japanese anime with arresting visuals and an Italian film with a whole lot of dialogue! (Film reviews)

  

Moments before the beginning of a Hong Kong 

International Film Festival screening

 

The Last Blossom (Japan, 2025)

- Baku Kinoshita, director and co-scriptwriter (with Kazuya Konomoto)

- Voice actors: Kaoru Kobayashi, Junki Tozuka, Pierre Taki, Hikari Mitsushima, Yoshiko Miyazaki

- Part of the HKIFF's Animation Unlimited program  

 

For those people who still think that anime is just for children: check out The Last Blossom.  Okay, yes, it has a child character (Kensuke is voiced by 30-something-year old Natsuki Hanae) and even a talking flower (voiced by Pierre Taki).  But this truly is a mature dramatic work about an elderly, dying yakuza serving a life sentence looking back at his life and reflecting in particular on the phase of his life back in the 1980s when he lived with the love of his life, devoted single mother Nana. 

 

Such is the length of the time line of The Last Blossom's story that both lead character Minoru and Nana are voiced by not one but two people; with Kaoru Kobayashi supplying Minoru's younger voice, Junki Tozuka his older one, Hikari Mitsushima voicing Nana in the 1980s and Yoshiko Miyazaki in the 21st century.  Yet I must confess that I only realised this when looking at the film credits!

 

Meanwhile, the Housenka flower is voiced by only one actor despite it appearing in flashback scenes taking place in the 1980s (when it was growing in the garden of the house that Minoru, Nana (who he chose not to marry so as to ensure that she would be unsaddled with yazuka connections) and her son Kensuke lived) and as a potted plant in Minoru's prison cell that Minoru talks to in the early 21st century period.  (More than incidentally: the audience of The Last Romance is informed that young and dying humans can hear the Housenka flower's utterances.  Also, people who are seriously ill (who may recover rather than die).)  

 

Such fancifulness is the exception rather than the rule in this sombre, evenly paced film that poignantly details a long, deep love and what Minoru was willing to do for the woman he loved, and also the sacrifices that he made not only for her but also Kensuke -- who Nana had accused Minoru of not thought of as his son -- and his yakusa boss/"older brother".  But director Kinoshita also is to be credited for making sure there is beauty in what would otherwise be an overly sad work: visually, including via a hanami fireworks display one festive evening; and with music, notably via inspired use of the classic Stand By Me tune.    

 

Beautifully rendered throughout, The Last Blossom is visually impressive.  But what makes it a thoroughly as well as quietly absorbing watch is its touching story revolving around a taciturn yet very understandable main character -- filled with regret but also imbued with a stubborn belief that defeat can be turned into victory in the final stretch with just one great move -- that tugs at the heart.

 

My rating for this film: 8.0 

 

Year One (Italy, 1974) 

- Roberto Rossellini, director and co-scriptwriter (with Marcella Mariani and Luciano Scaffa)

- Starring: Luigi Vannucchi 

- Part of the HKIFF's Gala Presentation program 

 

This Roberto Rossellini film was the opening film of the inaugural Hong Kong International Film Festival in 1977.  I imagine that it was very well received since the 4K restoration of it was chosen to be screened at the 50th edition of the fest; and got a far better audience reaction than that at the screening I attended, which saw a few walkouts and also people dozing off midway through the movie!

 

Early on in this neorealist work, its main character, real life Italian politician-statesman Alcide De Gasperi -- a leader of the Christian Democracy party who served as the country's prime minister from December 1945 to August 1953, passing away just one year later -- states that he prefers dialogue to monologue.  If only that was so too for Roberto Rossellini, in whose film De Gasperi (as played by Luigi Vannucchi) talks and talks and talks... at great length, and mainly at, rather than to, other people in an efforts to preserve a fragile democracy and turn a country divided and in shambles into one that could offer more to its people!

 

Year One mainly consists of three type of scenes.  The type that features the most has De Gasperi speaking in whole paragraphs -- expounding really -- without much pause, mainly about weighty, political issues, and prompting me to idly wonder how the actor was able to do so without his mouth turning dry and his needing to drink some water!  The second type features a Greek chorus or so featuring either the chattering class idly chatting in what looks like a bar situation or fellow politicians in serious discussion over political moves by various figures. 

 

And then there's which this incredibly talky film opened with, and I wish there had been more of: scenes with far more action than dialogue, and which I honestly think conveyed so much more with images than all the words coming out of De Gasperi's mouth did.  Including a dramatic World War II bombing scene; another of the terrible aftermath of bombs hitting a village; another showing Rome under Nazi occupation; a fourth showing Rome in the ecstatic moments after its liberation by Allied forces; and a fifth of frenzied rival political campaigning in the first post-war years.

 

I am sure people who with greater knowledge of Alcide De Gasperi and Italy in general would get far more out of Year One than the likes of me.  But, look: I knew about as little about Ghost Elephants before watching Werner Herzog's film about the search of them or Lebanon before viewing Lana Daher's Do You Love Me; and yet found them far more to my liking!  Also, it's not often that I come out a movie thinking its story might have been better served as a book or even as a radio show.  Or, at the very least, that it really would have been more effective in communicating its entirely serious messages with far less talk, however impassioned, and more action!

 

My rating for the film: 5.0  

A documentary about Noh and a feature film set in Kabukicho at the Hong Kong International Film Festival (Film reviews)

  

There still are (a few) films having their world premiere

at the Hong Kong International Film Festival

 

A HKIFF photographer taking photos of The Path of Soul's

director, Cheuk Cheung (and interpreter Joanna Lee?)

 

The Path of Soul (Hong Kong-Japan, 2026) 

- Cheuk Cheung, director 

- Part of the HKIFF's Reality Bites program 

 

In the wake of Japanese films being pulled from a culinary-themed film program organized by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department this past December, some of us film fans wondered and worried as to whether there would be any Japanese offerings at this year's Hong Kong International Film Festival.  The answer, we found, is that there are some in the program but just a handful.  And there would have been even fewer if not for this Hong Kong-Japan co-production helmed by Hong Kong filmmaker Cheuk Cheung.  

 

Best known for his trilogy of Chinese opera documentaries (including My Way (Hong Kong, 2012) and Bamboo Theatre (Hong Kong, 2019)), Cheuk Cheung's latest film looks at the Japan's Noh theatre.  Multiple years in the making (with footage going all the way back to 2017), The Path of Soul focuses on Hikaru Uzawa and Hisa Uzawa, two female Noh performers who also happen to be a mother-daughter pair.     

 

Although it's mentioned in this illuminating work that 15% of Noh performers are female, director Cheuk mentioned during the post-screening Q&A session -- which, by the way was wonderful for all the questions being good and the answers detailed and really interesting! -- that many people, including Japanese folks, still don't realise that there are (professional) female Noh performers.  Something else that's pointed out in the The Path of Soul is that females were only admitted into the Noh theatre world after the Second World War.  Not long in the grand scheme of things then, in view of this Japanese theatre art having been performed since the 14th century!

 

Inevitably then, The Path of Soul spends time discussing the challenges that both the senior Hisa Uzawa and junior Hikaru Uzawa face as a consequence of their being female in a traditionally male world.  At the same time though, the viewer gets the sense that females in the world of Noh are becoming normalised by way of footage showing the Uzawas not only performing but also teaching Noh to young girls along with boys and men as well as women who all seem perfectly happy to obey their instruction.  And their spouses looking to support them in their endeavors too.

 

During the Q&A, Cheuk revealed that he knows some Japanese but also worked with an interpreter when filming, and conducting interviews that were filmed and screened as part of, this absorbing offering.  He also revealed that he and Hikaru Uzawa are good friends.  Which helps to explain how open the Uzawas were with him.  Though, interestingly, he also mentioned that he felt that the best interview he had with Hikaru Uzawa was one in which she spoke with her eyes closed during it!

 

My rating for this film: 7.0 

 

Meets the World (Japan, 2025) 

- Daigo Matsui, director 

- Starring: Hana Sugisaki, Kotona Minami, Rihito Itagaki, Kiyohiko Shibukawa, Yu Aoi

- Part of the HKIFF's Fantastic Beats program 

 

This ensemble film is an adaptation of a 2022 novel by Hitomi Kanehara, a writer who has explored serious, gritty subjects like pedophilia and self harm, and whose own life trajectory has been pretty dramatic and unconventional.  (Among other things, the daughter of an academic dropped out of school when she was just 11 years old and left home at age 15!)  

 

Having not read it (this not least because it's not been translated into English), I don't know if the novel version of Meets the World is serious and gritty.  But I can tell you that the film is far less so than might be expected, considering that its characters include a woman who works in hostess club and men who work in the male equivalent, one who has been spending time in a psychiatric facility and also ones who have spent significant portions of their lives contemplating suicide. 

 

Sometimes, this can work in its favour: in that, it's novel and actually pleasant to watch unlikely friendships form between Yukari (played by Hana Sugisaki), a 27-year-old bank worker who's also never had a boyfriend (thanks probably in part to her being super-immersed in yaoi fandom), and cool bar hostess Rai (portrayed by Kotona Minami) and her (sexually) sophisticated Kabukicho-based friendship circle, which include extrovert nightclub host Asahi (essayed by Rihito Itagaki), bar owner Oshin (played by Kiyohiko Shibukawa) and the charismatically melancholy Yuki (Yu Aoi playing against type). 

 

At other times though, it can feel like director Daigo Matsui is airbrushing elements that would add depth and logic to character story arcs and general proceedings.  This particularly so in the latter part of Meets the World when certain dramatic turns seem to come from out of the blue and throw the film for a loop.  This even more so when these "developments" are left unresolved and unexplained.

 

All in all, Meets the World works best when its characters are happy.  And innocent.  With my favourite moments and scenes in this emotionally all over the place movie being those where Yukari reveals and revels in her being a super fan of a manga that very amusingly has characters who are yakiniku (grilled meat) menu items that come in the form of handsome gay men!  

 

With regards to films that feature fans of yaoi: I must say I prefer BL Metamorphosis (Japan, 2022).  And with regards to cinematic adaptations of novels: it really would not be fair to compare this to Our Little Sister (Japan, 2015) -- because pretty much every movie is not as good as that.  But yes, well, I can't help thinking that if Hirokazu Kore-eda had directed this film, it most definitely would have been a far better offering than this promising-but-ultimately-rather-disappointing one from Daigo Matsui!

 

My rating for this film: 6.0       

Two very different documentaries viewed at the 2026 Hong Kong International Film Festival (Film reviews)

  

Advertising for the 50th Hong Kong 

International Film Festival seen around town

 

Ghost Elephants (USA, 2025)

- Werner Herzog, director-scriptwriter 

- Part of the HKIFF's The Masters program 

 

Some years ago, I was talking to a film programmer about what films are fine to be viewed on a small screen and what needs to be seen on a big one.  At the time, I thought that documentaries and domestic dramas didn't lose as much when viewed on home video than blockbuster epics.  He begged to differ, stating that all films have are best seen on a big screen since that's where they were made to be screened by filmmakers.

 

Over the years, I came to his way of thinking.  And particularly appreciate it when I get to view a film on the truly big screen at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre's 1,734-seater Grand Theatre -- as was the case with Werner Herzog's documentary about the epic journey undertaken in search of an elusive herd of elephants in Angola's hauntingly beautiful as well as ecologically very important Bié (aka Central) Plateau.

 

As is expected of a work by Herzog, Ghost Elephants is not a conventional documentary.  (Though having said this, as a friend noted, it is one of the veteran German auteur's more conventional offerings.)  This particularly so in his injecting and emphasising mystical elements -- by way of the San people (popularly referred to as "Bushmen") whose tracking skills can seem close to supernatural and also a local king's recounting of an ancestral legend involving an elephant that shed its skin -- to his documentation of what's effectively a scientific expedition led by zoologist-conservationist Dr Steve Boyes in search of what could well be currently the largest land animals on the planet and maybe even a previously undocumented elephant sub-species.

 

Something that can be endearing about Herzog is how so much seems to fascinate him.  In Ghost Elephants, it's not just the titular subjects but those who go in search of it, and the peoples of the foreign land that he encounters along the way.  And while the sight of the elephants are hard to ignore when they appear on screen, the Bié plateau along with other views of the African landscape are exquisitely filmed too, and come across as characters in their own right with parts to play in the story being told.

 

Speaking of story: along with the documentation of a magnificent scientific obsession (on the part of Steve Boyes) and the wonders of nature, Ghost Elephants also tell of humans' inhumanity in the treatment of Mother Nature; pointing out that casualties of Angola's so-called "civil war" included wildlife as well humans, and showing archival footage of a 1960s-era elephant hunt that involved shooting at them from a helicopter.  

 

Which has me thinking it's a curious, and lamentable, omission on Herzog's part that he didn't mention in the documentary that the Bié plateau was, as per the Wikipedia entry on it, "deeply affected by slavery, with estimates of as much as half the local population being enslaved in the mid-1800s".  Perhaps it will be the subject of a follow-up work from the filmmaker?  Though, to judge from what one sees in the film, the chances are higher that he will return to Africa to make a work focused on the San people, who he confessed out loud in Ghost Elephants to finding it hard to not over-romanticise!

 

My rating for the film: 7.0 

 

Do You Love Me (Lebanon-France-Germany, 2025) 

- Lana Daher, director and co-scriptwriter (along with Qutaiba Barhamji)

- Part of the HKIFF's Reality Bites program 

 

In the first few minutes of her documentary, Lebanese filmmaker Lana Daher explictly informs the audience of Do You Love Me that this work will not show events taking place in chronological order and that the effect may be disorientating -- but if so, it's on purpose.  What she didn't state in the work itself -- but I think should be clear by way of a look at the offering's title -- is that this also is a film that works best if the viewer engages with it emotionally as well as intellectually.

 

Clearly a labour of love by someone who loves Lebanon, Do You Love Me presents a history of a nation with no national archive by selecting from, and splicing, images and sounds from more than 20,000 hours of audiovisual footage spanning some 70 years.  Seven years in the making, this 75 minute work incorporates news and feature film clips, TV programmes, home videos, personal photographs in an initially dizzying and altogether ingenious way.

 

Through the eyes, ears and work of Lebanese people of various ethnicities, religions, ages and so on, we see the country's complexity, beauty, problems, horrors and humanity.  Viewers are treated to scenes of everyday life, scenes of violence, and even scenes of violence that, tragically, have become everyday.  (And yes, I am aware of what's happening to, and in, Lebanon currently.  Which makes it all the more important that Do You Love Me was made, and bittersweet to view.)

 

Like it does in the country of some 5 million people, Beirut -- where approximately half of the people live -- looms large in the film.  Director Daher does not hide that this city that's the 16th largest in the Arab world is socioculturally divided along religious lines but also shows both the Christian and Muslim sides, in joyous as well as unhappy scenes, and always with humanity.

 

Although it effectively begins with scenes of the sea, it's the sense of humanity that overwhelmingly courses through Do You Love Me.  Mesmerising and increasingly hypnotic, the choices of visuals and music are masterful.  And while I admittedly came away from this work still not knowing enough of Lebanon to love it, I must say that I do feel that I learnt enough to respect the people of Lebanon and feel that they deserve better, including more peaceful and good times than they are currently facing as well as have faced over the years and decades.  

 

My rating for this film: 8.0.