Mollyblog

Mardi Gras: Made in China

(published Whole Life Times August 2006)

Produced, directed, edited and filmed by David Redmon
For release dates, visit: Mardigrasmadeinchina.com

Mardi Gras: Made in China is the latest in the recent trend of sincere, even-handed documentaries that are wresting the genre away from Michael Moore. This one’s an especially smart profile juxtaposing the young, exploited women in Fuzhou, China, who make plastic Mardi Gras beads with the privileged New Orleans tourists who bare their breasts to acquire them.

The film’s success is due to one-man-band David Redmon, the Texas native with a PhD in sociology and a lifelong interest in Carnival festivals, whose brain birthed this film. The naturally curious Redmon elicits candid, informative, intimate interviews from impoverished workers, the wealthy factory owner and drunken Mardi Gras revelers, all of whom seem to be responding to the same unbiased affection Redmon used in the editing process.

The result is a quick, engaging snapshot of globalization and its effect on seemingly unconnected cultures. What it isn’t, luckily, is a moralistic lesson on the dangers of capitalism and excess. Instead, by showing footage of China to revelers on Bourbon Street, showing footage of New Orleans to workers in China, and showing the film to everyone he can, Redmon hopes to “open up a visual connection between two people who seemingly have nothing to do with each other.” “It provides a visual bridge,” he said.

Should conditions in China change? Absolutely, said Redmon. But he doesn’t mean to rain on anyone’s Fat Tuesday parade. “The issue goes beyond the individual,” he explained. “It’s an international system of trade.”

The Beauty Academy of Kabul

May 2006 | Whole Life Review

Reel Power

The Beauty Academy of Kabul


Directed by Liz Mermin

Produced by Nigel Noble & Liz Mermin

Opens April 28 at the Nuart in LA 



At first it sounded almost like a joke: New York hairdressers opening a beauty school in Afghanistan? “It instantly jumped out as completely insane,” said filmmaker Liz Mermin, who read a newspaper story about the project—and then promptly decided to make a movie about it. “How could there not be a story here?” 

There turned out to be many stories—not only of the American hairdressers (three were Afghan refugees returning for the first time) or the first 20 students, but also of women in Afghanistan, of cultures colliding and changing, of history, of politics, of civil war. 

Beauty Academy of Kabul only skims most of these themes, without alighting on any particular one. Mermin skips conventional techniques—no narrator voiceovers, dramatic music or obvious political agendas here—instead allowing intimate footage taken at the school, students’ homes and on Kabul’s streets to tell the story of the school’s first three months. 

The method works. The film is compelling and makes us care about the characters. But it also raises more questions than it answers, which is why it’s good at 74 minutes, but would make an even better mini-series. 

No such thing in the works, but Mermin promises, “The DVD extras are going to be amazing.”

Thank You For Smoking/Paradise Now

(published April 2006 | Whole Life Review)

Reel Power

Thank You For Smoking
Directed by Jason Reitman,
Starring Aaron Eckhardt, Maria Bello, Cameron Bright, Katie Holmes
Limited theatrical release March 17, 2006

“We don’t sell Tic Tacs, we sell cigarettes. And they’re cool, available, and addictive. The job is almost done for us,” says a tobacco executive in Thank You For Smoking, Jason Reitman’s big-screen debut. And although lines like this could come across as overly sarcastic, overly serious or preachy, Reitman’s deft treatment of Charles Buckley’s 1994 novel hits just the right tone: tongue-in-cheek, wry, clever and hilarious.

The casting is genius: Aaron Eckhart makes the perfect Nick Naylor, the charming spokesman for Big Tobacco who’d be detestable if he weren’t so entertaining (or so good at his job); William H. Macy as the flappable Vermont official trying to pass an anti-tobacco bill; Rob Lowe as the obnoxious Hollywood exec who agrees to help Naylor “make smoking cool again”; and Katie Holmes as a conniving but naive reporter who screws Naylor (in more ways than one).

And though it does have an agenda (hint: it’s not a love letter to the tobacco industry), it’s remarkably even-handed, treating both Big Tobacco and its opponents to the same unblinking satire and sarcasm.

The result is a blissfully well-paced and engaging film that’s well-worth watching.

Paradise Now
Directed by Hany Abu-Assad,
Starring Kais Nasshef, Ali Suliman, Lubna Azabal
Out on DVD March 21, 2006

It’s no wonder that both Israelis and Palestinians opposed Hany Abu-Assad’s film Paradise Now: in the end, neither side looks particularly good, and no one emerges morally victorious. The movie is much truer to the issues and therefore much better than that.

The award-winning work follows two Palestinian would-be suicide bombers (Kais Nasshef and Ali Suliman) from the moment they get their orders until their mission date, two days later. We see the mundane details of this process, the difficult conditions they’ll leave behind, the hints of family trauma that might have brought them to this point and glimpses of their community’s ambivalence about this “solution” to the Israeli problem.

But though the film’s subject matter is timely, it is still more a story than a political statement or educational piece. And as a story, it’s a good one. The characters are sympathetic. The acting is stellar. The narrative is engaging. And the plot has plenty of suspenseful (yet not overplayed) twists and turns.

It may come up short as the definitive film on the current conflict in the West Bank, but that expectation might be too tall an order. What’s revolutionary about Paradise Now is that it’s showcasing the conflict at all.