Bright Star

Completely enamored with Bright Star's online production scrapbook. So many beautiful pieces of ephemera displayed in such a sweet and simple way. via all the mountains...

Stills of Zooey Deschanel in Catch a Tuesday, a short film directed by Autumn de Wilde for Oliver People's 2009 campaign. Kinda Breakfast at Tiffany's meets The Royal Tennenbaums. (this post inspired by Ally)

From top to bottom:
1. Clip from The Red Balloon (1956), Directed by Albert Lamorisse (via Three Potato Four) - you can also watch the entire film on Google Video
2. Still from Flight of the Red Balloon (2007), Directed by Hsiao-hsien Hou
3. Photo by Max Wanger (via Cup of Jo and swissmiss)
4. "Monsieur III" print by Blanca Gomez (via Oh Joy!)

Our Glorious Years Have Passed Like Flowers

This is the Japanese poster - the best one. The color saturation in this movie will make your heart ache and weep. Why is it so hard to locate the soundtrack?

think/feel hosts a screening

In honor of my friends over at Remedee, think/feel is hosting our very first event. We want to share with you a special advanced screening of Remedee's pilot program, Reel Lives, which consists of five powerful documentary films made by teenagers from a gang-infested neighborhood in Los Angeles. Here's the trailer:



If you're interested in any aspect of youth empowerment through storytelling and film, you'll want to see this. It has been amazing what Remedee has been able to accomplish from the ground-up in just a year. Please feel free to pass this wide and far to those who are in the area and may be interested, but note that space is limited and a seat at the screening will require a RSVP. We hope to see you there! Here's the info:

Remedee, in partnership with think/feel, presents

The Reel Lives Project
Short Films by Extraordinary Youth

Saturday, March 8
8:00 reception
8:30 screening
merriment to follow

Special guest Remedee co-founder and Executive Director, Mara Abrams
Special guest DJ, Luiseño

Bedford-Stuyveant, Brooklyn
Contact us for the exact location

Space is limited! Please RSVP
info@thinkfeelstudio.com

On 1940's Shanghai fashion through Lust, Caution

I had been so wound up to see Ang Lee's Lust, Caution ever since we met the movie's Foley Editor at a bar downtown over the summer who described the film as "the soft porn version of Casablanca."

I did get to see an advanced screening a couple weeks ago at Columbia, and since then I have not been able to stop thinking about the east-meets-west fashion of Shanghainese high society during the Japanese occupation of China and 2nd World War. The garb was at its peak in reflecting the two polarizing political situations of the time that was transforming China - remnants of the last Chinese dynasty which fell three decades years earlier while the country was just a few years shy of the Communist takeover. In between this time, Shanghai was susceptible and open to many Western influences which allowed the city to compete with chic metropolises such as Paris and New York.




The costuming in Lust, Caution lent itself to a mixture of traditional Mandarin gowns (qipao) and Casablanca-esque trench coats and business suits. Women's looks were always accompanied with impeccably applied makeup, gem-incrusted jewelry and perfectly coiffed hair. In my opinion, it's one the most romantic time periods in fashion because it evokes the heartbreaking realities of the bourgeois Chinese during the war. Men and women rarely showed emotion, bit their tongues when making sacrifices, knew their roles and were always "put together," but on the sidelines, clandestinely experimented and discovered their sexual identity and power (or whatever it was that was being repressed) in the throes of the utter political turmoil of war.




That is usually the context of films depicting this time period anyway, and watching these epic stories unfold on the screen is the main reason my heart gushes over the costuming. I do not feel the same by just looking at photos. My love for the fashion of this era is derived directly from the dramatic narratives and sagas, and also the fact that my grandparents were students in China (as the protagonists were in Lust, Caution) during the Japanese occupation. Teased with crumbling photographs and oral histories lost in translation from Mandarin to English, I am always thirsty for the romanticized version of my grandparent's young adult lives through the eye of not only a historian or documentarian but of an artist and storyteller.

I didn't notice this while watching the film, but if you watch the trailer, the color concept is a cool palette running consistently throughout the movie. And traditional qipao, while quite often tailored in vibrant fabrics, were at most a faded sage or dark blue in the film, communicating an ominous fear prevalent for even the rich and powerful during this time. Warm notes of bright fuschias and deep reds hinting at the intense but short-lived passion between the main characters revealed itself in fleeting splashes here and there of small decorative details: flowers, textiles, wall colors, accessories, lipstick and nail polish.

How amazing it would've been to work on the costume design or art direction of this film!