Author: Dean DeChiaro
The 6th Annual Oxy Film Festival took place last week in Johnson 200. The contest – which was open to all Oxy students, not just film majors – spawned ten wonderful student films, with themes and genres ranging from Sci-Fi to Old Western.
Riley Hooper (junior), a Religious Studies major, took first place with her submission Don’t Wear Your Curlers To The Laundromat, a documentary about the truth behind why so many people are attracted to the allure of laundromats.
Second place went to Micah Wolf’s satirical film Action Figures, in which action figures are the actors who tell just about the most cliche superhero story ever. Third place went to Gerry Maravilla, for his brutally honest and touching film El Músico de Michoacán, the story of an illegal immigrant in Los Angeles.
The film festival was a great success, as many attendees acknowledged. However, I saw one flaw in the judges’ final decisions.Though Riley Hooper, Gerry Maravilla and Micah Wolf all produced wonderful films that were incredibly deserving of prizes, I was incredibly disappointed by the judges decision not to award any place to Max Davis’ film, Into the Concrete.
The film, which Davis created and filmed while doing research in China using money from the Richter Scholarship Fund, explores education and its relation to art in Beijing. It shows how China’s education system doesn’t allow for young students to truly explore their art, and thus, their humanity.
The film follows Liu Jing Nan, a design student in Beijing. Nan, along with other students and professors, explains the relationship between the changing economy and the ways in which young people view art. Europe and Japan have their own artistic styles which have transcended their transitions into post-modern times. However, Nan explains that while China is steeped in its traditions, it has been thus far unsuccessful in incorporating those ancient traditions into modern art.
The film further explains that the education system in China is so centered on the entrance exams for universities (much like the average American teenager’s obsession with the SAT’s), that it cripples any chance that young Chinese might have to explore true art. The film interviews one artist who claims that he would never have gained admission to one of the art schools because he wouldn’t have been able to paint the way “they” wanted him to.
Into the Concrete doesn’t fall into the trap of becoming visually dreary simply because it’s a documentary. I’m no film snob, I love movies, and I really don’t know that much about the technique behind production. However, Into the Concrete was a fantastic film that did more than simply entertain.
As students, the state of education – in this country and abroad – should always be at the forefront of our mental agenda. How are we learning? Who is controlling what we learn? And most importantly, how are we going to overcome the powers that be so that we may rule our own minds?
These were all questions that Into the Concrete posed, and for this it should have been rewarded.
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