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THE CHICAGO MAROON - MAY 13 , 2016
ARTS Film by UChicago Student Director Is Cannes-Bound BY KENNETH TALBOTT LA VEGA ARTS STAFF
Last Friday I sat down with Max Asaf, a fourth-year cinema and media studies major in the College, the day before he boarded his fl ight to France, where he is promoting his fi lm at the Short Film Corner of the Cannes Film Festival. “Memories from a Vanished World” is a 33-minute documentary that uses interviews with Asaf’s family members and photographs of his grandparents’ family to capture pre-Holocaust Poland. We discussed his fi lm—its inspirations and the process of making it—as well as his experience as a cinema and media studies major and his agenda at Cannes. “Memories from a Vanished World” was primarily intended to be the creative portion of Asaf ’s senior thesis. “It made my written thesis a lot easier,” he admitted with a laugh. The concept for the film began a couple of spring breaks ago, when he discovered an old box in his father’s closet containing black-and-white photos. His grandparents had brought them with them to America when they emigrated from Poland, right before political tensions climaxed. As the only members of their family to leave Poland before the Holocaust, they were also the only ones to survive it. The fi lm is based on interviews Asaf conducted with family members, in which they discuss the pictures and provide personal reflections. “[Most of the time] they’re basically guessing, they don’t know much more than I do,” Asaf observed. Sometimes these interviews are voiced over the cryptic photographs, a technique he believes contributes to ambiguity and poetic reflection. Asaf also juxtaposes these photographs of the past with modern-day footage he collected on a trip to Israel, fostering interaction between images “signifying absence of the past” and those
“showing life that now exists.” Asaf ’s adoption of this technique was influenced by Night and Fog (1955), an iconic documentary about the Holocaust in France. While the contrast between the obscurity of the past and the reality of the present runs through “Memories of a Vanished World,” Asaf explains that this is not the primary theme of the film. In the process of interviewing his family about such an arcane part of their history, he found that the film’s true aim is verbally engaging with stories that aren’t talked about. Asaf elaborated, “I originally thought it was just going to be about the images, but then I realized it had to be about speaking, with the images as a catalyst… [The fi lm] is about speaking about ‘it’ for the fi rst time… just talking.” It’s the evocative nature between image and dialogue—this artistic dialectic at the heart of cinema—that completes his film. Upon applying for a student job position at Cannes through the American Pavilion, Asaf discovered he could submit his own short fi lm as a student work. However, this required him to speed up his production rate to meet the Cannes deadline. “It was a month of all-nighters in Logan,” he joked. For Asaf, the most difficult part of creating the fi lm was the editing stage. Faced with roughly 60 hours (!) of digital fi lm footage, he had to construct a story no longer than 35 minutes, the limit for a short fi lm submission at Cannes. “[With this footage], there is an infinite number of stories I could create,” he said. “I had to narrow it down to one or two good ones.” We also talked at length about the cinema and media studies department. His most enthusiastic advice for any prospective fi lm student is to take Judy Hoffman’s two-quarter sequence on documentary production. Besides being one of the only production-focused classes offered in the College, he gushed
Max Asaf
Pictures that Max Asaf found in his father’s closet are the basis for his documentary, Memories From a Vanished World.
that Hoffman “taught me everything I know on how to make a film—even with fiction, which I still want to do.” Asaf also highlighted the resources available to film students willing to experiment, such as the Cage in the basement of the Logan Center. “It’s invaluable to learn what not to do,” he stressed. “If you want to make something, or even think you want to, just go there… It is pretty intimidating, but once you get over that, you’re going to end up making something.” Finally, we discussed his plans for Cannes. Asaf told me that his Cannes
experience will be relatively unconventional, as he will be working five hours a day, promoting his fi lm at the Short Film Center at other times, and eventually enjoying the other fi lms and opportunities in his free hours. He’s looking forward to attending the premieres of new fi lms by Steven Spielberg and Park Chan-wook, among others. Asaf won’t be skipping out on the nightlife either. He let me in on some insider Cannes information: “Most of the networking at Cannes happens at the after-parties.” I hope he remembers to give Scorsese my e-mail.
All Packed Up and Ready To Go BY ALEX YE ARTS STAFF
My first visit to the recently opened, a nd now re cently closed , Packed : Dumplings Reimagined was full of expectations. I put aside my traditionalist views on dumplings and was ready to embrace the vision of Chef Mike Sheerin and Aaron DiMaria’s new, sustainably sourced, “farm-driven” fast food joint. While ordering at the cash register and browsing the menu, I couldn’t help feeling the indignant insecurity in DiMaria’s manner, almost desperate to defend the unconventional dumpling fillings. This was off-putting, as I was genuinely willing to give each one of the dumplings a try. After all, Mike Sheerin, once Chef de Cuisine at Paul Kahan’s Blackbird, was supposedly behind these dumplings, so I had to pay my respects. However, the rea l it y was that the beautiful produce and proteins that Packed sourced were not handled well. Their Peking Duck dumpling punched the palate with ginger, and their Pastrami reeked of salty whole-grain mustard. Their take on macaroni and cheese was a lazy combination of udon noodles and sticky queso cheese, unsalvageable even with toppings of raw jalapeños and stale
dried shiitake. Lackluster food was compounded by a dent in my wallet and small portion sizes to create an extraordinarily mediocre experience. To reiterate, I’m not opposed to innovative interpretations of traditional cuisines. Whether a Chinese dumpling, Polish pierogi, or Italian ravioli, this food form—things sealed in dough and then cooked—serves a few key functions that must not be screwed up. The dough must be properly cooked. Notes of raw f lour are not welcome. T h e r e mu s t b e s o m e f l av o r ful liquid. I don’t care i f it’s gooey cheese or porky soup, this is the du mpl i n g ’s q u i nt e s s e nt i a l t r a it . The filling needs to be seasoned well. You have one chance to salt the product you want to showcase, and that is before cooking. No sauce or extra salt and pepper atop the finished product is going to redeem an under-seasoned filling. Packed violated all three of these cr iter ia. W hat was termed as “reimagined” consisted mostly of familiar, even clichéd f lavor combinations inconsiderately sealed in dumpling w rappers. D id the cor n dog really need to be in dumpling form? The Spicy Meatball Dumpling was pleasant, but I would have been just as happy with two succulent meatballs. Sheerin and DiMaria weren’t work-
Karyn Peyton
Packed’s dumplings lacked originality. Now Packed is sacked.
ing the same magic as Roy Choi with the Kogi Truck in Los Angeles or Eddy Huang with Bauhaus in New York. More often than not, the pursuit of reimagination and/or cultural fusion will please neither trendy foodies nor purists. Packed’s color ful website, sleek wooden decor, and avid social media
managers dialed into the millennial aesthetic: fast, trendy, and environmentally friendly. Both Packed’s opening and premature closing gathered a considerable amount of attention, which is a testament to its customers’ faith in its mission. Packed wasn’t inherently doomed, just badly executed.