movies
BY SHANNON FINNELL
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Gregory Bateson in An Ecology of Mind
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inema Pacifi c is a bouillabaisse of
art. The fi lms, talks and visual art
exhibits aim to expose audiences
to fi lms and new media from countries
around the Pacifi c (including the U.S.), and
to connect artists and the public. Venues
across Eugene host the events, which
continue through Sunday, April 10.
Liu Jiayin and her parents invite
viewers into their home in the pseudo-
documentary Oxhide, a portrait of a
Chinese family trying to stay afl oat with
their leather handbag making business. The
fi lm follows the family members through
ordinary moments inside their apartment,
discussing their business as well as their
pet peeves with one another.
Playing characters loosely based
on themselves works for the family of
actors, and the amateurs appear so real
that Oxhide feels like a true, intrusive
documentary. Arguments and a few
moments of violence, debates and ongoing
worries show the diffi culty of transitioning
to entrepreneurism in modern Beijing.
In the tiny apartment, Jiayin makes a
virtue from a liability, choosing to shoot
each scene on one camera from a single
take. Many of the scenes reveal only hands
or torsos, and the apartment is so dim that
others are almost entirely in silhouette.
The style reinforces the economic
diffi culties that the family faces — that its
debts are closing in on them and selling
their leather purses isn’t helping them climb
out of the hole. His customers’ constant
demands for a discount stress the father’s
pocketbook and dignity. He tries to focus
on other problems, like his adult daughter’s
shortness, but the only relief from the
unsolvable height is in its distraction. Beibei
(Jiayin) hates his atrocious table manners.
The mother wishes everyone could be more
sympathetic toward each other.
The sum of these confl icts is a scab on
the wound that is their debt, and it is picked,
picked, picked. The torn fl esh is a vivid and
beautiful if somewhat forlorn portrait of
modern China, apart from the technology and
the menacing boom trumpeted in the West.
An Ecology of Mind is a traditional
documentary, a portrait of director Nora
Bateson’s father, Gregory Bateson. An
anthropologist and philosopher, Bateson
continuously questioned ways of looking
at the world, and the fi lm seeks to unpack
the way that Bateson settled on viewing it.
Whether a viewer likes An Ecology
depends entirely on the viewer. Innate
philosophers and perhaps neurology buffs
will appreciate the way that Bateson thought
and enjoy glimpses of his fascinating life.
But if you’re a person who makes fun of
people who talk about whether a table is
really a table when they are way, way too
stoned? It’s boring as hell.
ew
Oxhide plays at 6:45pm Saturday, April 9, at Bijou Art
Cinemas. Director Liu Jiayin will be present. A follow up to
the 2005 fi lm, Oxhide II, will play at the Bijou at 1pm, Sunday
April 10; An Ecology of Mind plays at 6:45pm, Thursday
April 7, at Bijou Art Cinemas, with Joan Gratz’s Puffer Girl
and Kubla Khan. Director Nora Bateson will be present.
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WHEN: Tuesday April 12, 2011
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EUGENE WEEKLY APRIL 7, 2011 23