All in this Tea
(13th June - State Theatre)
Very early on in the film, doco-maker Les Blank captures tea pioneer David Lee Hoffman and director Werner Herzog in conversation over a cup of tea. One of them says something like "a walk through the meadow, early morning mist in the forest, fresh air on a mountain - it's all in this tea", giving the doco its name. It's an apt comment, for the film itself is a compelling look at tea culture through Hoffman's 1990 journey to China to find good leaf.
Frustrated with poor quality tea bags and the growing propensity for factory rolled leaves, Hoffman forges his way through the Chinese countryside to try and convince the tea brokers to let him buy straight from the farmers who produce the best tea. Along the way the audience learns more about tea culture, tea growing, tea rolling and tea making. It's easy to like Hoffman, despite his brashness - he knows his stuff and he essentially pioneers fair trade before the term was coined.
Les Blank took Q&A at the end and had some interesting anecdotes. He spoke of being on the road with Hoffman when the authorities became suspicious about filmmakers hanging around farmers. One official asked to see some footage - Blank was a bit nervous because he knew that there was footage of children in the fields and he knew that the authorities didn't like that because Westerners were wont to show evidence of child labour and exploitation. He handed the guy a random tape and it turned out to be one of Hoffman sniffing lots of different bushels of tea. "He was fascinated," said Blank, "he just watched the reel of David sniffing all this tea until my camera battery ran out."
By the end of this I was inspired to learn as much as I could about good tea so I could get some for myself.
Film rating: 7/10
Enjoyment rating: 8/10
Forever
(16th June - State Theatre)
It's hard to know what this doco really says. Is it a sort of 'day in the life of' the Pere-Lachaise cemetery? A comment about death? A comment about art surviving death? Doco-maker Heddy Honigmann makes it all of these things using a good nose for talent. Much of the film is serendipity as Honigmann scours the cemetery for interesting people who may have insights to the graves that they visit.
Along the way we see the headstones of such artists as musician Jim Morrison, philosopher Marcel Proust, composer Frederic Chopin, Iranian writer Hedayat, actress Simone Signoret, and other unfamous but unforgotten people through the eyes of volunteer grave carers, who look after the headstones, fans of the artists and cemetery workers. The carers are usually widows who spend a day a week looking after their lost beloved's headstone - brushing away dirt, giving it new flowers - before looking after other headstones in disrepair. All of them display an acceptance of death but also demonstrate a resilient type of love.
The fans have been chosen well. Honigmann goes into depth with just a few such as a Japanese pianist who she finds praying at the grave of Chopin. The girl explains that her late father loved Chopin and that Chopin's music speaks to her - and yet it is clear that this is an inadequate description of what cannot be said. Honigmann also finds an Iranian taxi driver at the grave of Hedayat. He carries a book of poems around with him everywhere. He also sings. Refusing to perform at first, he then obliges, the a capella a nice reminder of the power of the voice enduring over mortality.
Honigmann's most interesting find is a couple of men who happen to have a very strong connection to the cemetery. One is a tour guide, he speaks of the different graves he tells tourists about, including the crumbling grave of a young woman whose poetry can still (barely) be read inscribed on her tomb. Another interviewee is a mortician who when asked if he ever cries for the dead says "no" and then after a pause admits that he actually can't physically cry because he has no tear ducts.
All have varying and fascinating views on death, making for a surprisingly uplifting doco.
Film rating: 7/10
Enjoyment rating: 7/10
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