Midnight Madness Memories: Robert A. Mitchell, Midnight Madness Junkie

 

Iko Uwais interviewed by Robert Mitchell at The Raid World Premiere.

 

A few days ago, we posted the memories of MM Photographer Ian Goring, today we're sharing the first Midnight Madness screening of another MM Blogger who you don't hear from much around here, MM Interviewer, Videographer and Man On The Scene, Robert A. Mitchell. This was originally published on the 2008 Midnight Madness blog as, "The Genesis of a Midnight Madness Junkie, (a.k.a., The Night I Met Prachya Pinkaew)." ~The Editor

 

Howdy All.

As a way of introducing myself, and also to take a little time to do a some reminiscing, I wanted to talk about my first Midnight Madness screening.

It was a Saturday, the second day of the 2003 film festival and the second year I was attending. I was set to watch two films that day. The first was Takeshi Kitano's latest film Zatoichi at the Elgin theater theater at the base of Yonge street followed by a screening of Alien with Sir Ridley Scott in attendence. That is already an amazing day of cinema. Little did I know what the night would bring. Suffice to say Zatoichiwas amazing and I wasn't the only one who must've thought that because several days later the film would win the audience award.

Leaving the theater and stepping into the bright early September daylight I slowly wandered up Yonge street bopping in and out of stores looking at DVDs. My mind wandering, thinking of the amazing sword sequences I had just watched.


By five o'clock I found myself standing in what was supposed to be my second and last line up for a film that day. Perhaps because of kismet, the unifying field or just one of those things, the woman who stood directly in front of me had stood directly behind me hours earlier while I waited for Zatoichi.

We began to talk about many different films and she asked me if I would be going to Midnight Madness that night. I replied that I had heard of Midnight Madness but that I had never gone. She then informed me that there was a film playing that night entitled, Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior.

Since my teenaged years encompassed skateboarding, eating pizza and watching kung fu films every Saturday, I was always up for a good martial arts film, but, alas, I did not have a ticket. The woman informed me she was a volunteer and that she would use one of her vouchers and procure me a ticket. True to her words she came back from the box office with a ticket for Ong-Bak and what would become my first Midnight Madness film.

Oh yeah, the Alien reissue was amazing and, not only was Sir Ridley Scott in attendence, but Yaphet Kotto sat in the audience with us and watched the film ... but I digress.

Cut to INT.: The Uptown Theater Saturday night around 11PM.

 With the usual energy that comes with a warm Saturday night, this particular night had the added excitement of a world premiere. The crowd had changed, they were younger and much more enthusiastic. Although it was a long day and I was fighting exhaustion, one could not not get caught up in the moment and feed off the energy that you were surrounded with.

We were finally seated in the amazing theater that was the Uptown 1 (see above photo (R.I.P)) and a man came onto the stage and introduced himself as "Colin Geddes, the Midnight Madness programmer" to a huge amount of applause and cheering. He then went on to relate a tale of seeing Ong-Bak at the buyers market at the Cannes film festival and that Luc Besson, the director of La Femme Nikita, had already bought the film.

Colin Geddes then introduced the director of the film, Prachya Pinkaew, who had almost not made the screening due to being held up by customs and had to resort to taking a cab from the airport to the theater to make the screening on time. In fact, he had had no time to stop off at the hotel to unpack his luggage. When Prachya stepped out and onto the stage you would never have known that a mere hour or so before he had been on a plane coming from the other side of the world.

With the introductions finished the house lights dimmed and the curtains were slowly drawn and little did we know what we were about to see. You could look in a thesaurus and no amount of adjectives could ever do Ong-Bak justice. The film was completely and utterly amazing. When the final credits rolled and lights came back on, sitting in that theater - which was now in the wee hours of Sunday morning - you knew you had just witnessed the emergence of a new talent unleashed upon the world. The star of the film Tony Jaa without a doubt would become the next big action star.

As Colin and Prachya came back onto the stage the crowd rose in a standing ovation and if you had ever been in the Uptown 1 you can attest to how many people that was.

After the Q&A I stumbled out of the theater and into the night, dizzy from the amazingness I had just watched. Wandering around the local neighbourhood I popped into a store and bought a chocolate milk, when the thought crossed my mind to double back to the theater and see if I could get a picture with the director.

Outside of the box office stood Colin  and Prachya with a few other people. I approached them and asked if I could have a photo. Colin then snapped a picture at a crazy angle and the moment was captured.  I'm the dork with the red beard standing beside one of the greatest action directors to emerge in the twenty first century.

I don't speak a word of Thai and I believe Prachya didn't speak much, if any, English. But, when I said to him that Ong-Bak was the best fighting film I had seen since Drunken Master II, a flicker of recognition passed through his eyes. We had bridged the language gap through action films.

When the house lights came back on that Sunday morning I immediately thought to myself how many times are you going to be in a world premiere audience and be able to say I was there the night the world was introduced to the next big thing. In an instant I was hooked and have been attending Midnight Madness ever since. This will mark my sixth year.

I also would like to thank that volunteer for taking me to my first Midnight Madness screening.

The Hitlist Raves about THE RAID

James Rocchi reviews The Raid for The Hitlist:

There's humor here, and wit, and economy in every sense of the word -- it's hard to think of a needless shot or beat in The Raid, and it packs more action into a small number of sets in a limited location than Michael Bay can into an entire galaxy, or than Jason Statham can in all his globetrotting Transporting --but there's also back-breaking blows and six-minute long fights that clearly took two days to shoot and bad guys' heads being bounced off of a tile wall 8 times in a second and good guys getting atomized by punk kids who laugh as they pull the trigger.

Read more here.

Your last chance to see The Raid is tomorrow:

Sat., Sept. 10th, 12:15PM, AMC 2

Barely Scratching the Surface of Indonesian Cult Cinema

The Raid is the first Indonesian film to play Midnight Madness and we at the Midnight Madness blog are pretty excited about it the promise of a straight up, asskicking action film. And since I'm sure you've already got your tickets and have a little time to kill, it seems like a good time to try and scratch the surface of Indonesian cult cinema.

H. Tjut Djalil is probably the Indonesian director most familiar to cult cinema fans.  He directed 15 movies between 1974 and 1995. What drugs were to so many Hollywood movies in the 1980s, black magic is to H. Tjut Djalil's movies of the same time. Black magic, just don't do it.

Lady Terminator / Pembalasan Ratu Pantai Selatan (1989) is probably his most famous film among cult cinema fans. It stars Barbara Constable as an anthropology student possessed by ancient spirit determined to fulfill a curse and take revenge. The film mixes sorcery, the Queen of the South Seas, and James Cameron's The Terminator making it a lot of fun if you like ancient evils, explosions and ladies of evil agency. (Teleport City has an essay I can't improve on, here).

But Mystics of Bali / Leyak / Mystik is my favorite Djalil movie, mostly because I have a degree in anthropology and a fondness for hantu penanggal / penanggalan, i.e., flying vampire heads. I don't think it's a spoiler so much as a draw to say that Mystics in Bali features both, played by Ilona Agathe Bastian. She wants to become a léak, a Balinese practitioner of black magic, and goes into the forest to study with a léak guru, played fantastically by Sofia W.D. As a former anthropology student, let me say that this is exactly what would happen. We just can't help ourselves. Eventually, the léak gains control of the young woman at night and a head goes flying. Remember kids, black magic is no good. Sure, it seems cool, but it will ruin your life.

This is your head on black magic.

H. Tjut Djalil also directed Jaka Sembang and Bergola Ijo / Jaka Sembang dan Bergola Ijo, the 1985 follow-up to the Barry Prima vehicle, Jaka Sembang. Which brings me to a legend of Indonesian cinema, Barry Prima.

Barry Prima will put an end to your Colonial and black magic shenanigans.

Born "Humbertus Knoch," Barry Prima was the son of a Dutch father and Indonesian mother. Prima was trained in Taekwondo and appeared in many Indonesian movies in the 1980s. Prima frequently stands up for the oppressed in his movies, using his Taekwondo skills to right wrongs--until black magic enters the mix. But even then, it's rarely enough to overcome his own mystic power.

Prima also played Tarzan in a few films and was in several series. But cult cinema fans probably best know him from Jaka Sembung / The Warrior (1981), directed by Sisworo Gautama Putra, and its sequels, Si Buta Lawan Jaka Sembung, Jaka Sembung dan Ijo Bergoli and Jaka Sembung and the Ocean Goddess / Jaka Sembung dan Dewi Samudra. (Sibuta the blind swordsman has his own series of films as well).

In Jaka Sembung, using all the power of his virtue and martial arts training Barry Prima resists Dutch colonial oppression so well that the Dutch team up with sorceror Ki Hitam to destroy him. But first they must reunite Ki Hitam's head and body.  (The Dutch are played with some peculiarly satisfying Dutch-face).

Shudder before the might of Dutch Colonial authority!

The important thing to know is that his movies feature a unique combination of martial arts asskickery and mindblowing mystical fights and transformations. One minute Barry Prima is kicking someone's ass, the next minute the guy is breathing fire at him.One moment, he's blind, the next he's a pig.

Prima worked steadily in the 80s and into the mid-90s before leaving the screen for about 10 years. He returned in 2005 with Joko Anwar's Joni's Promise/ Taxi Driver / Janji Joni, and has been working regularly, though not as intensively, since in movies like Upi Avianto's Reality, Love and Rock'n'Roll / Realita, Cinta dan Rock'n'Roll where he plays a trans mother and famously chases down a pickpocket.

Suzzanna challenges you to a staring contest.

According to the IMDb, Suzzanna made her first film in 1950 and her last film, Hantu Ambulance / Ambulance Ghost / Widya, in 2008 and, sadly, passed away the same year. But her career really took off in the 1980s, when she became the Queen of Indonesian horror through the films of Sisworo Gautama Putra. Where scream queens are often final girls, Suzzanna is has more in common with Ingrid Pitt or Christopher Lee than Jamie Lee Curtis. In fact, when the Indonesian take on Nightmare on Elm Street was made, Suzzanna wore the glove.

One, two, Suzzanna's coming for you...

With her powerful stare and intense presence, Suzzanna's career picked up in the 1980s in several series of films with more eeriness than gore, but still mixing martial arts action with mystic power. Where Barry Prima often represented power (sakti) controlled by discipline and virtue, Suzzanna frequently plays characters, whether as a Snake Queen or a wronged woman who learns black magic or a Ghost with Hole in her stomach, whose power is undisciplined and ruled by emotion, often a justifiable desire for revenge.

She faced off against Barry Prima in several films. In fact, his second film was her Nyi Blorong / Nyi Roro Kidul in which a man sacrifices his wife and son to the Snake Queen/Queen of the South Seas in exchange for wealth. Played by Suzzanna, Nyi demands his daughter and he refuses. Suzzanna starred in two more Snake Queen movies, Perkawinan Nyi Blorong (1983) and Petualangan Cinta Nyi Blorong / The Hungry Snake Woman (1986).

In Ratu Sakti Calon Arang , another film playing with the reputation of Bali for spiritual power, she uses a book of sutras to summon the daughter of Mt. Agung to grant her boons. She messes with black magic again, in the relatively easy to find, The Queen of Black Magic / Ratu Ilmu Hitam directed by Liliek Sudjio.

But as we have learned, black magic is never the solution to your problems. Like crack or crystal meth, it will destroy you in the end. If there were a 1980s Indonesian version of The Wire, set in Jakarta, Bandung or Bogor, the Major Case Squad would be investigating the black magic industry.

This is also your head on black magic. Any questions?

Finally, just to catch up to more recent--and probably respectable--Indonesian genre film, there are the films of Joko Anwar.  Joko Anwar wrote Joni's Promise / Janji Joni, featuring Barry Prima's return to film. But he's probably better known in North American film circles for Dead Time: Kala / Kala



and The Forbidden Door / Pintu Terlarang.

THE RAID screening times:

Thurs., Sept. 8th, 11:59PM, RYERSON

Sat., Sept. 10th, 12:15PM, AMC 2

Arts of Asskickery: Pencak Silat Harimau: A Different Kind of Tiger-Fist

After seeing Iko Uwais display his tiger-style silat (pencak silat harimau) in Merantau, I'm really looking forward to seeing more silat action in Gareth Evans follow-up, The Raid, also starring Iko Uwais, and, hopefully featuring more from Yahan Ruhian, (Eric from Merantau,) and Team Silat Harimau.

In case you aren't so familiar with silat as a martial art, there are many, many regional styles ranging from the Malay Archipelago all the way through Bali, Lombok and East Timor. Traditionally, silat is a less intensive contact sport. In fact, silat masters have been known to have matches without even touching

In Merantau, Iko Uwais shows off the famous tiger style of the West Sumatra's Minangkabau people (Silat Harimau Minang). Merantau opens with Iko Uwais as Yuda, going through his moves with a small claw-like knife, a kerambit.



While the silat in Merantau has been choreographed for maximum entertainment (check the pedestrian overpass and elevator fights). There's a lot of acting involved in traditional demonstrations, including slitting a a fallen opponent's throat. For example, an excellent perang ("machete") fight in Malaysia:



And a kris battle where the krisses are sharp enough to stick in the floor.



And, as I said, there are many styles. A woman demonstrating Pencak Silat Jati Wisesa Gajah Putih, a white elephant style, in Western Java:



A master demonstrates a Balinese tiger style:



And here's a pretty sweet compilation video including silat in a tournament context:



And, finally, footage of Minangkabau silat (silek) from the 1930s:

THE RAID screening times:

Thurs., Sept. 8th, 11:59PM, RYERSON

Sat., Sept. 10th, 12:15PM, AMC 2

Interview with Gareth Evans Director of THE RAID

The Raid has the distinction of being the first Indonesian film to ever screen at Midnight Madness, it also opens the programme. The film promises to deliver on the action as well as introduce the world to a new action star, his name Iko Uwais. I recently had the opportunity to talk with The Raid's director, Gareth Evans.





You were born and studied in Wales, I'm quite curious how you went from the United Kingdom to directing films in Indonesia. Could you tell me a bit about the journey?

After coming out of University I found myself stuck doing a 9-5 job in Wales for years. Shamefully my drive to go out there and make films was limited to just a few shorts (all of which are too terrible to share online) I would never begrudge the industry for lack of opportunities, cos I don't feel I did enough to find them myself. So around 5 years into my time at the company I had the urge to make a feature, I wrote Footsteps as something I could do on a limited budget (around $10,000) after trying and failing to get a business grant for the film I decided to just take out a personal loan and self-fund it and deal with the debt later. Thankfully my boss at the time was kind enough to let me take a month off to go ahead and make it, so repaying the budget was an affordable cost. The film didn't exactly set the world alight but it was a defining moment for me and I knew I had to pursue film more aggressively than I had before.

How that ended with me in Indonesia is surprisingly straight forward. My wife (who is now also my boss) is Indonesian and she had been pushing my name and the dvd of my film to anyone she knew back home. Luckily for me one of those people was Christine Hakim a hugely talented and respected actress and producer. She was putting together a series of documentaries to be made about different elements of Indonesian culture, each directed by an outsider. Due to my interest in martial arts cinema I was brought in to direct the episode on Pencak Silat. So I left the UK went to Indonesia to work on the documentary for 6 months and by the time I was done I found a love for living in Jakarta, an obsession with a martial art discipline I had never seen before, a ton of story ideas from the research I'd gathered and just to top it off --a leading man in Iko Uwais who I'd met as a student of one of the masters I'd been following.

2) I have been hearing that your lead actor Iko Uwais is one to watch and is poised to become the next big name in action. What makes him so spectacular? What sets him apart from other action stars?

Iko is like a little brother to me, so it's hard to answer this unbiased and I really hate to kiss his ass but I'd have to say that a large part of his success will come from his genuine likeability and the fact that he's quite a skilled actor not just a screen fighter. He's got a lot of work to do to reach the heights of his superiors, but so long as he continues to focus on each project with the same commitment and dedication that he has shown so far he'll get there soon enough. One of the things that we stole wholesale from Jackie Chan is that he's not afraid to incorporate a certain sense of vulnerability to his fight scenes. When we workshop the choreography we always look to include moments where we can see that the hero is in genuine danger, isn't always in control of the fight and could potentially lose. I feel audiences relate to "broken" heros much more than they do to undefeatable killing machines. On a personal level, why I like to work with Iko so much is that he's stayed a humble person throughout all of this. We've worked together now on a documentary and two feature films and even though he's gone from being an unknown driver for a phone company to a global martial arts star his personality hasn't changed. He hasn't let the fame side of the industry get the better of him. When you spend close to a year on a project, it helps a lot if the person you spend the most time with isn't a total dick. Luckily for Iko, I'm only a dick half the time.

3) How did you and Iko meet?

We met while I was shooting the documentary. He was a student of one of the masters we were following (Pak H. Achmad Bunawar from Silat Tiga Berantai) and during a practice session in pre-production we realised immediately that he had a certain aura about him. He stood out from the 20 or so students practicing with him, so I said to Maya that we should keep in touch with him and see if we could set up a film or a tv series to showcase his skills. What followed was a really badly shot and edited test fight (my first experience to shoot a fight scene) but one that showed Iko had potential. I told him at the time that I would come back to Jakarta one day and that I'd like to make a film with him in the lead. He presumed I was full of shit, but a few months later we came back told him to quit his job once his contract was up and we went ahead and made Merantau.

4) Who was your fight choreographer on the film? What styles of martial arts can we expect to see in THE RAID?

For The Raid the martial arts choreography was by Iko Uwais and Yayan Ruhian (also from Merantau - he played Eric). Meanwhile I oversaw the design adding some throws, increasing some of the aggression on the knife work and handling the stunt design and gunplay. Anyone who saw Merantau will hopefully recognise a similar signature in how we shoot our fight scenes with some long takes but we've also changed things up quite a bit to increase the pace of the action. The fighting style is a lot more brutal and direct in comparison. This is largely due to the change in psychology between the two protagonists. In Merantau, Iko's character was for the most part trying to avoid the fights, a simple flurry of light hits before making an attempt to escape. In The Raid however, the whole concept and situation makes it a kill or be killed environment. We couldn't get away with light hits and a push anymore--each attacker had to be left incapable of standing up again so its a lot of bone-breaking, knee-cap separating and head smashing.



On a technical level we continue to explore using silat in a practical way, you won't find any traditional posturing here, but a real life application of moves, locks and throws. Other than silat, the casting of Joe Taslim (a national Judo champion) as the leader of the swat team, Jaka, led to us incorporating some Judo techniques to give a different flavour to the action and give him an opportunity to shine also. Joe's got a huge amount of potential to break out as a big star, he has a huge screen presence and his dedication on and off camera has made it an absolute joy to work with him. But Yayan Ruhian as Mad Dog for me owns the show, his fight scenes are savage with fast attacks, showing his ability to adapt mixing complex techniques with raw aggression. I can't wait to see how the audience reacts when his first fight plays out.

5) The Raid marks the first Indonesian film to screen at Midnight Madness, can you describe what the Indonesian film industry is like? What are some of the advantages and challenges to shooting in Indonesia?

I think it's much the same as any industry--lots of very talented filmmakers struggling to get budgets to make some really great films offset by some truly terrible films that get churned out by the studio system and flood the market. The advantages are many - we have some stunning unique locations here and a rich history that can be mined for some fascinating stories. Meanwhile I've been incredibly lucky to surround myself with a crew that absolutely will not stop until we are done with the shoot. We've had some pretty punishing hours to get this film wrapped, but they've supported me throughout and given everything. When it comes to challenges, being more specific to me in my field I'd say that when it comes to action, admittedly we're in our infancy our experiences are limited but we're growing with each film. With our films we're often designing stunts that are much larger in scope than is usually performed or practiced by local stunt teams. Much of their work comes from television with stunts limited due to budget, and then suddenly they're meeting us in pre-pro and I'm showing them crudely drawn storyboards of someone jumping out of a window, dropping two-storeys and bouncing off a concrete window ledge before landing safely into a steel balcony. Naturally it takes time to adjust and work out the logistics and how to execute the shots but we get there eventually.

6) The learning curve for directing action films is pretty steep, what films and filmmakers did you study to find your own style for shooting?

Ever since I was a kid my Dad pretty much shaped my film going experiences and introduced me to the whole spectrum of action cinema. He was the one who first showed me Seven Samurai and Ran, but then he also showed me The Wild Bunch, The Getaway, Armour of God and Police Story. This is back in the days of VHS rentals and some of those films were hard to come by, especially in Wales. He really was a huge film buff, but never a film snob. If it kicked ass and was entertaining it was just as important as anything considered "critically acclaimed".



When it came time to design the action sequences for The Raid I knew we had to step up in terms of quality from Merantau, we had to show our growth from that film and prove ourselves. I've been lucky enough to build a friendship with Mike Leeder who gave me some of the most important constructive criticism that helped me find a better balance between my fondness for wide angle long takes while also maintaining the energy of both the scene and the performers. On Merantau I burnt everyone out--the shots were just too long and too frequent. For almost every shot in that final cut of the film you're seeing take number 20+ and by then everyone is wasted. So by planning those long shots a little better and not having quite so many of them this time round I was able to get a more focused performance from Iko and the fighters, with more accuracy and a higher energy. We don't undercrank in camera, we always shoot at 24fps so those hits have to come in fast and hard.

For influences I'd go back to my HKL DVD of The Young Master and see Jackie Chan's editing of Whang In-Sik's intro fight, Project A Part 2 meanwhile contains for me some of Jackie's finest work. Undisputed 3 (a criminally underrated action film) was also a major influence for it's fluid editing and camerawork. For the gunplay I borrowed heavily from John Woo and Sam Peckinpah in terms of style while looking to John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13, Escape From New York and Walter Hill's The Warriors and Southern Comfort to try and get that feeling of an unrelenting, claustrophobic attack. Merantau was very serious and took a while to get going, but on this one I wanted to have fun with it and cut to the chase faster while playing around with our camerawork, editing and action design. Hopefully it provides enough thrills to keep the audience on edge throughout.

7) You directed a short entitled Samurai Monogatari filmed with actors speaking Japanese and all of your features have been made in Indonesia, even with the use of translators--conveying your ideas on set has to be sometimes difficult, is there a technique you have developed to overcome the language barrier?

In pre-production I always show my entire cast and crew some films so they get a sense of the style we're going for--I try to pick films that apply for each department whether its art, lighting, camerawork or performance. It's a helpful step and one that transcends language barriers to make sure everyone is on the same wavelength going in.



For both Merantau and The Raid I've been lucky enough to have a core team and dept heads that all speak fluent English. So many commercials are shot here with Australian directors that it seems quite common-place in the industry. On Merantau I was lazy and relied heavily on my team being able to speak English, but since then I've started to learn Indonesian from the crew and while they have mostly taught me ways to insult someone they've also helped me to communicate bi-lingually with the rest of the cast and crew. Learning the language has been hugely important, not just out of respect for the fact that I live and work in their country, but because it's become much easier now for me to judge whether or not the performance is there. I can direct the drama and dialogue with more confidence and know when something is off. On Merantau I'd be clutching to my English script and hover between it and the monitor like I was reading subtitles.

THE RAID screens at 11:59pm Thursday Sept, 8th at Ryerson and 12:15pm Saturday Sept. 10th at AMC 2