Yves Montmayeur to explore feminism in Asian pop culture

1000 Eyes Of Dr Maddin to screen in Göteborg.

by Anne-Katrin Titze

Guy Maddin with Kim Morgan in photo booth in Yves Montmayeur's The 1000 Eyes Of Dr Maddin
Guy Maddin with Kim Morgan in photo booth in Yves Montmayeur's The 1000 Eyes Of Dr Maddin

The director of Michael H - Profession: Director, the documentary about Michael Haneke which features Jean-Louis Trintignant, Susanne Lothar, Josef Bierbichler, Béatrice Dalle, Juliette Binoche, Emmanuelle Riva and Isabelle Huppert, is off to Beijing, Taipei and Tokyo. Yves Montmayeur has his sights on Shu Qi (Hou Hsiao-hsien's The Assassin), Michelle Yeoh and Cheng Pei-Pei (Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), Zhao Wei (Ma Jingle and Dong Wei's Mulan: Rise Of A Warrior) and Eihi Shiina (Audition, Tokyo Gore Police) for his "new documentary film on 'Amazons in the Asian Pop Culture'! Or how Asian warrior women are dealing with martial arts and feminism."

The 1000 Eyes Of Dr Maddin director Yves Montmayeur
The 1000 Eyes Of Dr Maddin director Yves Montmayeur Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

His latest film, The 1000 Eyes Of Dr Maddin, which stars Isabella Rossellini, Udo Kier, Kenneth Anger, John Waters, Stephen Quay and Timothy Quay and has music by JG Thirlwell, focuses on The Forbidden Room's Guy Maddin working on his Séances project at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, won the Venezia Classici award for Best Documentary on Cinema at the 72nd Venice International Film Festival.

In The 1000 Eyes Of Dr Maddin, Montmayeur follows his subject strolling through a Metropolis exhibition or catches Udo Kier by mock-surprise while he is working with Guy and sporting samples of his extensive moustache collection. Kier enjoys playing the baddie and points out that in his private realm, he lives on a farm and likes to cook for his friends. His neck wrapped in an elegant beige and purple scarf, the actor fidgets with a bright red pencil, a detail picked up by Montmayeur's camera, who uses the accessory as segue to Buñuel's Un Chien Andalou. Maddin has a thing for lost eyes, it turns out, or so he says, while a swan-feeder checks his clock.

The 1000 Eyes Of Dr Maddin will screen at the Göteborg International Film Festival on February 2.

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