Covid Numbers Climb; Oscar-Nominated Ascension

Babies and toddlers seems more at risk of Covid-19 now

Hong Kong had another record day of cases -- 7,533 -- and sadly 16 deaths, one of which was an 11-month old baby girl. There is a big concern now about children becoming infected and how they are not getting vaccinated or are too young to be vaccinated in the case of this baby.

Meanwhile the government is still going ahead with the vaccine pass that starts on Thursday. In order to get a haircut or go to a religious service you must have at least one jab and have this vaccination certification uploaded on your LeaveHomeSafe app.

Uploaded vaccine passport is on left, none on right

If you are going to a shopping mall, supermarket, department store or wet market then you may need to show your vaccine pass if a security person stops you. So there may be some people who are not vaccinated and may take the risk of going into a supermarket without having to show anything. How is this helpful?

And perhaps even worse, no vaccination is needed at all to go into a hotel! Why is that when almost all hotel staff were pushed to get the jab? It boggles the mind.

Something completely unrelated to Covid -- I watched a documentary called Ascension that was nominated for Best Documentary at this year's Academy Awards.

I didn't know quite what to expect and was surprised at the end and how it all came together.

Oscar-nominated documentary Ascension

There is no one main character, no particular storyline, but it becomes more apparent the longer you watch it. It starts off with scenes of people looking for jobs and those trying to entice them with decent labour conditions, like free wifi, air conditioning in the dormitories, but the pay is very low at around 20 kuai (US$3.15) an hour. We are not sure what the jobs entail, but some say you get to sit while working, others say the job is in an office.

People get rounded up and taken in coaches to their new destiny.

Some make rugs for Ikea, components for spray bottles, bottles of water, others make microchips, Christmas trees, jeans, and shirts. 

Perhaps the most amusing scene is watching mostly women putting sex dolls together. They are made of silicone, with large pendulous breasts, and curvy bottoms. They have permanent surprised expressions on their faces. Each one is custom made -- "Her nipples need to be pink!" one worker says, another has her wig changed from blonde to brunette. Another flings the doll's legs apart to inspect her down there. Each one is photographed to make sure it is correctly done up.

Worker checks the sex doll's face with the order

An interesting tidbit is that director Jessica Kingdon said a subsequent talk that all the sex doll factories they went to were owned by women.

Then the film shifts to jobs that have been created in the last few years, such as cryptocurrency mining (mostly young guys playing video games and eating lots of junk food), men collecting rented bikes that are dumped in a pile, people talking into their smartphone streaming online to sell things, and what looks like a pyramid company, where everyone is aiming to make over 10 million yuan in three years.

There's also people who are training to be bodyguards, hitting each other until there are scratches and bruises on their chests, and to be professional-looking assistants where they should smile to show eight of their upper teeth, while others are training to be butlers, measuring the distance between glasses and plates. The instructor asks them if they have ever watched Downton Abbey and none of them have, leaving them with little understanding with what career they have chosen.

It's an interesting look at what Chinese wealthy people think what being rich should look like, and the butlers trying to fulfill that fantasy. They probably assume everyone in England lives like that, ringing a bell for the butler to appear. 

People waiting around to get work in factories

This is similar to the aspirations of China's middle class. They think they have made it when they buy luxury brands or they go to a water park and sharks swim around them in an outer pool. It's all quite overwhelming the sheer numbers of people all trying to enjoy themselves at the same time.

Kingdon herself has an interesting background. Her father is Jewish-American, her mother is Chinese. Her brother went to China for a few years, learned Mandarin and persuaded his sister to come look at the country.

Before Covid-19, Kingdon and her small crew filmed in 51 different locations around the country and she says in interviews she had the best Chinese food. Kingdon also managed to meet relatives on her mother's side, one of which is now a cousin who works in Silicon Valley in the US.

Nevertheless, the title of the film comes from her great grandfather who wrote poems. One of them is Ascension, where he writes that the higher one climbs, one is horrified by what they see down below.

Director Jessica Kingdon, her mother is Chinese

This encapsulates the film -- how people are struggling to get ahead in some way, whether it's factory work to escape the poverty in the countryside, or to become a butler in the hopes of getting away from a terrible work environment. And with all this production and capitalism leads to terrible environmental damage, climate change, and exploitation of labour.

But Ascension doesn't preach a particular message, nor is it judgemental -- it has a fly-on-the-wall approach to the film and lets the viewers see what is going on and decide for themselves what they see in the documentary.

Ascension

Directed by Jessica Kingdon

97 minutes

Chinese and Polish Docs Looking for Hope

Photo of Tereska, a Polish Jew in an orphanage taken in 1948

The inaugural Hong Kong International Documentary Festival is on and I caught my colleague's short film called Gone With the Policy.

In 2017 the Beijing government wanted to keep the capital city's population under control and shave a  million or two people off the census. The easiest people to remove? Migrant workers and their children.

A migrant school in Beijing is slated for demolition ("chai")

It was heartbreaking to watch the scene of a migrant school in Chang Ping district, in the outskirts of Beijing being knocked down and the pile of rubble was still left there months later.

The principal of the school was keen to find another space and set up another school, having taught for 10 years. But by the time he secured the space and moved the desks and other furniture there, many families had left -- some even overnight -- which resulted in only four students signing up.

Unfortunately the principal had to admit defeat, while his subordinate, the vice principal wistfully remembers how the original school they had grew and how can the government deny these students an education? He hints at economic prejudices against them.

Students enjoying school, before it is torn down

Meanwhile a migrant worker in Beijing brings his two children, who were born in the city, back to his hometown. The older daughter seems shell shocked at the reality of having to make a new life in the countryside, where her grandmother doesn't understand what laundry detergent is, and wondering how she will continue her education, let alone get into university.

The vice principal points out many of the students' parents built the Bird's Nest for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but they also built much of Beijing as well. And what do they get for their contribution? Being shoved out of the city.

While the documentary is a bit rough around the edges, it is an important piece of evidence that documents the plight of migrant workers, who otherwise don't have much  of a voice in Chinese society let alone history.

Two people try to track down Tereska in old photos

The other film presented was called Searching for Tereska, a Polish documentary that has some fictional scenes in it.

In 1948, a Magnum photographer David Seymour took a haunting picture of a young girl with a bow in her hair. She is standing by the blackboard with a mass of circles she has drawn and a disturbed look on her face.

Fast forward to today, and a young man wants to find out who this girl is and if she is still alive. He enlists the help of a woman who seems very resourceful and determined, very much like a reporter.

They are warned at first by a group of Jews that they may not find the person, but on their journey they will meet many people. The latter was for sure. Their first clue was that she wrote her name, Tereska at the top of the black board. That was it.

Through some sleuthing they identify the building and from there go to a Jewish Centre that deals with survivors, a woman there believes the girl in the picture is her friend and so the couple meet her, but she is the wrong Tereska.

The poster for Searching for Tereska

And then they tracked down what they think is the building but the nun won't let them inside. They also try to find who they think is Tereska but it leads to a tombstone. They leave a note there, hoping someone will contact them, and the grandson does.

However, when he brings out a picture of his grandmother in her younger years, she doesn't look like the girl in the picture.

Then they hit upon a school and find very old registration records and even get copies of the contact sheets of the photographs David Seymour took. They get in touch with various experts to identify the school Tereska was in or where the building was located.

Finally the woman who showed them the school registration records realizes that perhaps because of her disturbed mental state, Tereska did not graduate with her grade, but after, which leads to a massive clue to help track her down...

At first I didn't know what was going on in the story, but as it kept going on, you as a viewer become more invested in the story and wonder if they will ever find an ending to their search (which they do). It makes you realize how important records are and that when buildings are torn down, memories and information are lost forever. And not just buildings, but people too, when they pass away.

But Tereska isn't the only one who was lost. There are thousands of other people who may not have been accounted for. Will anyone find them?



 

Chagall's Love of Life

The Red Flowers painted by Chagall in 1950

The Macao Museum of Art might not be very big, but it holds marvelous shows -- that are free!

Last year it was on Chinese artist Zhang Daqian's visits to the Dunhuang caves in Gansu province, and this time to coincide with Le French May, a show on Marc Chagall on his years in Southern France.

Three years ago we went to Nice and visited the Musee National Marc Chagall. The pieces on display were massive, requiring viewers to stand or sit back to soak in everything that was going on in each canvas.

One of Chagall's works converted into a tapestry

Here it was the opposite -- the vast majority were small pieces that required intimate viewing to fully appreciate the colours, emotions and imaginative compositions the artist made.

It also revealed how multi-faceted an artist Chagall was -- not only did he paint on canvas, but was also made lithographs, designed ballet costumes and sets, as well as painted murals, ceilings and created stained glass pieces in cathedrals. Oh and collaborated with weavers to make tapestries too.

He was born a Hassidic Jew in Vitebsk in 1887 and the theme of the Bible would resonate throughout his work. He described the Bible "like an echo of nature and this secret I have tried to transmit".

One of his impressive projects were the stained glass windows for Hadassah University Medical Centre in Jerusalem, where the 12 panels are about the 12 tribes of Israel, the descendants of the 12 sons of Jacob.

A relatively empty museum showing fantastic works of art

His life had its ups and downs. His first wife Bella Rosenfeld died in 1944, but then two years later he would have a son with an English woman, Virginia Haggard McNeil, who would later leave him. Chagall would marry again, a woman 25 years younger, Valentina Brodsky, who would manage his affairs so that he could focus on his art.

In the 1950s he moved to the south of France and was taken by the warm light, and the deep blue Mediterranean sea. Intense colours took centre stage and many of his works feature deep blues along with other symbols like sirens, fish, and mythical beings.

The paintings look so soaked through with colour that they seem so optimistic, playful, romantic and lush.

Deep colours in Siren and Fish, 1956-60

In 1952 and 1954 he went to Greece as he was commissioned by publisher Teriade to do illustrations of the pastoral romance of Daphinus and Chloe. He seemed immensely inspired by this couple and created numerous sketches of them.

He also worked on Stravinsky's The Firebird in 1945-46 and the exhibition displays several of the costumes on mannequins. The clothing is described as very light and during fittings, he would personally paint them. Over the years the costumes were worn and mended, but now they are museum pieces. Next to the display was a video showing the performers dancing in the costumes. Chagall was ahead of his time.

Despite being from Russia, Chagall applied for and was approved for citizenship in France. Many of his commissions were there, including painting the ceiling of the Opera de Paris. He was 77 years old at the time, but personally painted the 220 square metre area. The design pays tribute to 14 composers and their works.

One of many paintings on Daphinus and Chloe

He also made "Biblical Message" in 1955, featuring 12 large oil paintings that illustrate Genesis and Exodus that he donated to the French state in 1966 and wanted them exhibited together. Chagall spent time working on the sketches and small-scale oil paintings that can also be seen in the show.

In 1985 he died at the age of 98 and was buried in Saint-Paul de Vence.

I learned a lot more about Chagall and his life thanks to this show, that was only visited by a handful of other people in the late afternoon.

Even better is that I finally figured out that it is located behind Sands casino; just take the shuttle to Sands and it's a five-minute walk to the museum.

Marc Chagall, Light and Colour in Southern France

Until August 26

Macao Museum of Art

Av. Xian Xing Hai

Macau

(853) 8791 9814
http://www.mam.gov.mo/e/index

Monkey Business with Curious George

Well-researched and beautifully executed documentary mixed with animation

Another wonderful documentary that you can tell the filmmaker has poured their heart and soul is Monkey Business: The Adventures of Curious George's Creators that was released in June last year.

For the past 75 years, millions have loved reading Curious George books as children, but not many know about the couple who created the lovable simian character.

Margaret and Hans Rey created Curious George

Filmmaker Ema Ryan Yamazaki gives a pretty comprehensive presentation of Hans and Margaret Rey not only through interviews with their literary executor, Lay Lee Ong, some academics, and even the Rey's neighbours in Waterville Valley, New Hampshire, who back in the 1950s were young children that Hans would play with and entertain.

These interviews are interlaced with historical footage and -- even better -- animation of Hans and Margaret that are dropped into the black and white film to illustrate they were there.

They were both German Jews and Hans was originally dating Margaret's older sister when they met -- Margaret was only around nine years old. But they later kept in touch and while he went to Brazil to work with his entrepreneurial brother-in-law, Margaret later paid a visit to see him and decided they should get married and start an advertising firm.

Hans was always an artist, and even his studying medicine could not keep him from doodling. Margaret saw his talent and incorporated his cartoons with her copywriting and photographs for ads.

They left Paris by bicycle with only some precious items

They tied the knot in 1935 and moved to France, but this was just as Adolf Hitler was making his plans to take over the continent. By using cartoons of Hans and Margaret, Yamazaki is able to illustrate how the Reys were able to escape the Nazis in June 1940.

Hans built two bicycles out of spare parts and together they rode hundreds of kilometres south of Paris, to get to a town where they sold their bicycles to catch a train to get to the southwest coat to take a ship to Lisbon.

While they were in Paris, they had started writing a book about Fifi the monkey who later became George. They took this manuscript with them, and just before they escaped the French capital, they received an advance for the book that helped fund their journey.

The couple in their later years in the United States

They managed to get on a ship to the United States and thanks to one of Margaret's sisters who lived in Long Island received a letter from an editor who was familiar with the monkey book and gave them an advance for more Curious George books.

There are seven in total and each of them are a collaboration between the husband and wife.

It's so interesting they would spend their summers in Waterville Valley in the 1950s, at the time when anti-Semitism was very popular in the United States. The children neighbours, now in their 70s, remember Margaret as being scary, while Hans was very nice.

So while much is discussed about the Reys and how Curious George came about, there isn't much information about the Man in the Yellow Hat. Guess he will continue to remain a mystery.

Nevertheless the animation really makes Monkey Business an endearing film, inserting the couple into the story to "reenact" scenes in their lives and definitely adding a humorous touch.

Monkey Business: The Adventures of Curious George's Creators

Directed: Ema Ryan Yamazaki

1 hour and 21 minutes

Tensions Flare; Family Frictions

Large numbers of people at Admiralty, who later clashed with police...

As I write (10.30pm Sunday) there are clashes between protesters and the police in Admiralty, where crowds have overtaken Lung Wo Road.

Police knew something was coming with the Federation of Students told people to come to Admiralty at 6pm and have goggles and helmets on hand.

The crazy thing is that I was just there two hours ago and while I was impressed with the turnout -- there seemed to be just as many as in the first week of the Umbrella Movement -- I didn't feel there was tension in the air.

There was lots of police presence, standing at various points where there were barricades, but other than that it seemed like a typical night in Admiralty.

However, things have escalated in the last half hour and so far five people have been arrested.

But my blog post wasn't supposed to be about Admiralty today, but about a documentary I saw before dinner time at the Asia Society as part of the 15th Hong Kong Jewish Film Festival.

It's called Life in Stills by Tamar Tal and tells the story of a grandmother and her grandson who run a photography shop in Tel Aviv.

Miriam Wasserstein with grandson Ben in Life in Stills

The shop, The Photo House, was started in 1940 by the grandfather, famous Israeli photographer Rudi Wasserstein who captured images of the place before it was formally a country from the mid 1930s until his death. There are over 1 million negatives in the shop that they carefully archive and sell prints to customers.

Grandmother Miriam is 96 years old and a no-nonsense woman who has really dry humour, while her grandson Ben has the patience to look after her and explain what is going on around her which she may or may not accept.

Their shop is facing eviction because developers want to build something new on the block, while they try to fight to stay there. Meanwhile we find out why it's only the grandmother and grandson around -- four years earlier his mother was murdered by her husband who then committed suicide.

Miriam is still reeling from her daughter's death, while Ben has compartmentalized it elsewhere in his mind and has moved on. He also reveals he is gay and moves in with his boyfriend, but does Miriam approve? We are not sure.

Wonderful photo of a younger Miriam by her husband Rudi

The documentary is only an hour long and at the end we see the shop has to move temporarily for at least three years while the new development is built; when it is completed they will get to move back, but not exactly in the original location.

We also see photographs that Rudi Wasserstein took, and perhaps for many Israelis they are considered iconic images, but more explanation and captions would have been appreciated for those not too familiar with his work.

Ben knows the camera is watching and at times looks like he's trying to act, when he should just focus on what is going on, like Miriam who acts very natural, or maybe she doesn't even realize the camera is there!

Nevertheless, the tender portrait of the grandmother and grandson is poignant, revealing the various layers they struggle with together and individually.

Here's a taste from the trailer:

Life in Stills

lifeinstillsfilm.com