Exciting news! I am introducing a new element to our chashama viewing experience: the perspective of the filmmaker. While my commentaries and interpretations remain the central driving force behind the blog, the opportunity to learn the filmmaker’s intentions will enhance our understanding of the film’s purpose and provide background to the creative process. Today, I’m looking at the historically educational documentary “Virtual JFK” and the disturbingly comedic “Le Chat Noir.”
Koji Masutani’s “Virtual JFK” provides a new angle on history in a look back to John F. Kennedy’s presidency: the “what if” angle. The film stimulates an onslaught of alternative possibilities to widely held historical interpretations. It’s a smart documentary that could be used as a supplemental learning tool for educational purposes, with the potential to encourage and excite discussions in and outside the classroom. Masutani hopes the audience will “consider the possibility that a devastating war in Vietnam could have been avoided had Kennedy not died in 1963 and had been re-elected in 1964.”
“Virtual JFK” is Koji Masutani’s first non-student film. It took him three years to gather never-before-seen footage and never-before-heard audio from the Kennedy administration. His documentary will get history buffs all tingly and eager to speculate over “what if.”
Tristan Convert’s “Le chat noir” is a lot of fun to watch. It has an Edgar Allan Poe-meets-Twilight Zone edge to it. It is filmed well and incorporates various shots that entices the audiences to voyeuristic activities. The lack of a dialogue is not unnerving since it’s not needed to convey the plot. Not to mention the music soundtrack. The Savage Resurrection’s psychedelic rhythms and lyrics add to the film’s heightened tension. The best part, though, is the actor. He’s hilarious with his obsession with his toy train set, a psycho and annoying black cat. This film will remind people why a dog is a man’s best friend and how it is bad luck for a black cat to cross your path.
Convert explains the genius—and perhaps madness—behind the creation of his film, “Le Chat Noir:” it was his first time experimenting with a “dysnarrative story based on images, feelings and ambiance, in a thriller/funny/horror genre.” His style involves jumpy continuums and psychologically induced horror. He wants it to be an interactive movie where the audience “feels more than just sitting in the front of a show.”