Culture Breach

1. Copie conforme – Certified Copy – Copia conforme – رونوشت برابر اصل (directed by Abbas Kiarostami)

A French woman meets a British man on the streets of Tuscany. In a mix of English, French, and Italian at times cacophonous, at times melodic, they — the silver-maned baritone William Shimell and the luminous Juliette Binoche — play out scenes from a marriage between intellectuals who think, and of course love, across cultures. Things they share, like wine and art and an enlightenment (though not necessarily enlightened) of self, don’t necessarily transcend national borders, but certainly make their trespassing so much livelier. The director is Iranian master Abbas Kiarostami, long called one of the artists of our times, but who for the first time imagines “our” beyond his native soil and across continents.

2. Carlos (directed by Olivier Assayas)

His name needs no translation. Carlos didn’t try to topple nations, he tried to bust OPEC. He aligned himself with Marxist and pseudo-Marxists from Paris to Palestine to Tokyo. He was protected by multiple nations and hated by more. To realize such a story, you need a director with an international pedigree — Olivier Assayas (Irma Vep, Demonlover, Summer Hours, Boarding Gate, HHH: a Portrait of Hou Hsiao-hsien) — and an actor who can slip chameleon-like into any culture — Édgar Ramírez, born in Venezuela but reared everywhere. IMDB lists eight languages spoken in Carlos, but rather than count the cultures this mini-series traversed, why not just say that it is film about terrorism and capitalism — phenomena of the nation, yet carry no passports.

3. My Name is Khan – माय नेम इज़ ख़ान (directed by Karan Johar)

An American film? An Indian film? My Name is Khan is a fantasy of American justice done up as a cross-country road film. It’s also Bollywood melodrama of the tallest order. Shah Rukh Khan’s character is hokey in a way only Hindi cinema can concoct, and Kajol is the penultimate Bollywood woman. And yet it’s also a movie about what it means to be Muslim in the western world.  I wouldn’t say that My Name is Khan denies a nationality — content-wise it is an Asian American film — but it certainly forces us to ask questions about what happens to familiar styles and genres when they gets lodged between cultures. The making of the film too proposes new possibilities: that there are no big musical numbers might have to do with the participation of (gag me) Syd Field. Also, while on the set during a climactic scene of MNIK, I observed how smoothly crews from two industries can work together when they speak the same language (English) and share the standards of film production.

4. Exit through the Gift Shop (directed by Banksy)

We know Banksy is British, but he’s also a shadowy figure, a kind of subterranean creature who sees not nations, but walls, signs, and pavement that he can claim and transform. Meanwhile, documentary subject Thierry Guetta is a French transplant in Los Angeles, whose ideas of art are European but his talent and motivation purely Hollywood. The characters creep around the world with their posters and bad attitudes. They love in-between spaces like the West Bank and Disneyland — zones where cultural confusion become ripe for cultural mischief. Banksy is a modern-day Carlos the Jackal, only with the talent to back up the celebrity terrorism.

5. The Warrior’s Way – 워리어스 웨이 (directed by Lee Sngmoo)

American bombshell Kate Bosworth, Korean hunk Jang Dong-gun, Australian thespian Geoffrey Rush, and Hong Kong legend Ti Lung star in a martial arts Western set in the American badlands. It’s also a New Zealand production with financing from India. I’m sure the producers received some pretty government penny, so I won’t exactly claim that The Warrior’s Way doesn’t need nations. But not since Dragon Wars has there been such a cineplex perplexity, inviting — no, daring — mainstream American audiences to wonder where the heck this movie is from. (Or how to pronounce the vowel-challenged name of South Korean director Lee Sngmoo.) Hollywood makes plenty of “transnational” films set in faraway places with cast and crew from around the world. But with decades of experience, Hollywood makes it look seamless. When foreign companies attempt a Benneton blockbuster, colors clash but new identity combinations are forged.