A24/Courtesy

The film opens with high school senior Sutter Keely (Miles Teller) sitting at his computer, typing a response to a college essay prompt that asks him to describe a hardship. He takes a sip of a beer. He begins to ramble on about the downward spiral resulting from his recent breakup with his girlfriend, Cassidy (Brie Larson). He describes the once-idyllic vision of his social status (e.g., “I was the life of every party”) in perfect unison with hers and laments the newly perceived deterioration of his life as he knows it. The film closes with Sutter sitting again at his computer, typing a fresh response to the same prompt.

“The Spectacular Now,” directed by James Ponsoldt (“Smashed”), is a coming-of-age story that follows Sutter on his journey to self-discovery during his last few months in high school. Sutter is the quintessential popular high school teenager, exuding confidence and a certain affable charm, social ease and fast-talking sensibility. Adapting Tim Tharp’s novel of the same name, writers Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber (“(500) Days of Summer”) characterize Sutter with a sense of humor and air that feel slightly dated or contrived, at least enough to make Sutter’s “charm” and breeziness irritating to watch at times. The film, however, harps on the shallowness of his exterior by revealing deeper emotional insecurities.

Sutter emphasizes living in the moment and embracing the present (the “now” part of the title). It is a naive and romantic kind of credo that inhibits him from — or rather, allows him to avoid — moving forward or confronting larger issues. He is prompted to reevaluate his life and complacency when he conveniently meets Aimee Finicky (Shailene Woodley). Aimee is sharp, goal-oriented and unaware of her physical beauty. Her biggest downfall is her sincere love for the surprisingly tragic Sutter, who has an “I’m tortured; I don’t deserve you” complex beneath his outward confidence.

It might sound like a cheesy portrait, but the film is more than its basic plot. Although it uses a familiar structure (yes, there’s a prom scene and a graduation scene) with more or less formulaic character models, “The Spectacular Now” takes a refreshing approach to the tried-and-tried-again coming-of-age story without any sugarcoating. As the unlikely relationship between the Aimee and Sutter develops, Sutter’s depth and emotional baggage unravel as he grapples with his relationship with his absent father (Kyle Chandler), a dangerous penchant for alcohol, future plans and an underlying struggle with feelings of deservingness. Against its comedic aspect, such topics make the film exceptionally tender.

Amid the raunchy teen movies that have dominated the past decade, it’s true that this feels much more akin to ’80s films like John Hughes’ “The Breakfast Club” or Cameron Crowe’s “Say Anything” than its contemporaries. It encapsulates sincerity that is rare in coming-of-age films of late. It captures the emotional vulnerability of adolescence and a genuine sweetness in young romance, demonstrated in the palpable chemistry and natural interaction between the characters. The film also provides an accurate image of complicated family dynamics in white middle-class America and their subsequent effect on teens, treating topics like alcoholism, sex and self-love with sensitivity and earnestness.

It is clear that the writers do not mock or condescend the teenaged subjects nor dramatize their angst. Instead, they seem to really understand these characters, recognizing the sincerity and validity behind their emotions and desires. The poignancy that results in such a compassionate depiction negates the film’s potential to be a sappy or melodramatic despite its genre.

Contact Denise Lee at deniselee@dailycal.org.

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Pol Rebaque/Staff

In The Daily Californian’s first ever fashion editorial, we show you how to stay chic in the heat. With unpredictable weather around the Berkeley campus and the larger Bay Area, layers that mix patterns, textures and bright shades will take you from balmy summer days on the Glade to dewy evenings in the Berkeley Hills. Whatever the occasion, the perfect summer look embraces tropical florals, lucite extras and printed separates. Our favorites include palm tree-printed trousers on Nazhat and a lightweight linen gown on Jahon.

Models: Jahon Amirebrahimi, Nazhat Salim

Editorial Photographer: Pol Rebaque

Editorial Director: Meadhbh McGrath

Editorial Team: Sasha Chebil, Ashley Chen, Mohana Kute, Denise Lee & Bonnie Mata Matthews

Special thanks to Sway, Mars and James Rowland Shop for providing models’ attire.

Contact Daily Cal Arts staff at arts@dailycal.org.

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Graham Haught/Staff

The fundamental neurotic character in Woody Allen films, traditionally played by Allen, is not entirely absent in his latest dark comedy, “Blue Jasmine.” It is, however, exaggerated, complicated in class satire and embodied in a female character played by Cate Blanchett. It’s interesting; whereas Allen’s male characters are charming and intellectually backed in their neuroses, Blanchett’s female character is superficial and clearly losing her sanity.

But Jasmine also has a different background. Unlike the recurring male character, Jasmine is not obsessed with existential questions or death; she is obsessed instead with money, status and security. Her extreme mental fragility does not stem from the privileged ennui of Allen’s typical neurotic character. It results from a destabilization of that privilege. Through the film’s bicoastal, bitemporal setting, split between San Francisco present and flashbacks of Jasmine’s New York past, Allen explains the root of Jasmine’s dramatic emotional turmoil.

What makes Jasmine’s frenzied desperation compelling is that her former socialite status is more or less forged. We understand this through her interaction with her lower-brow sister, Ginger, played by the phenomenal Sally Hawkins (“Happy-Go-Lucky” and “Submarine”). Both sisters were adopted from different parents. Unlike Ginger, Jasmine, who changed her name from Jeanette — a prime example of her self-fashioned identity — was able to cross class lines by marrying Hal (Alec Baldwin), a wealthy man with corrupt business schemes. The film follows Jasmine’s reluctant move to San Francisco after her marriage falls apart.

Jasmine displays uncensored snobbery, refusing to move from one social stratum to another. She does not try to acclimate to Ginger’s “modest” (actually quite average) lifestyle. Her goal throughout the film is to find a replacement husband who will provide for her the financial security and lifestyle to which she has grown accustomed. She needs to reassert her position among the 1 percent. Allen aptly satirizes excess of the upper class elite, but that is not all he is doing. The absurdism of Jasmine’s privileged whininess and class discomfort becomes quite depressing.

As is Allen’s forte, he explores deeper psychological tendencies in Jasmine’s extreme anxiety about the way she is perceived by others. Jasmine’s coping mechanism is to fictionalize her identity by averting her eyes from the realities in front of her. She becomes an absurd caricature of a person — grandiose in her social interactions, physical movements and speech. Jasmine is, at times, a deplorable character, but the baggage beneath her outward theatrics makes her sympathetic. Blanchett conveys this oscillation masterfully and convincingly, playing Jasmine with the slightest tinge of mid-Atlantic in her accent, which skillfully accentuates the character’s theatrical air. Blanchett manages to make the rather grueling experience of watching her character also wildly entertaining.

Jasmine ridicules her sister’s taste in men, criticizing her for settling for less than she deserves. Meanwhile, Jasmine’s own search for eligible suitors is strictly based on superficial terms. While Allen satirically highlights the tragedy of expectation, disappointment and complacency in relationships, his presentation of female perspectives is troublingly simplified. Overall, the concerns of Allen’s female characters in “Blue Jasmine” feel rather dated.

Still, the characters are not flat, and both Blanchett and Hawkins masterfully bring their characters to life and counterbalance some of the film’s structural shortcomings. In a portrait of superficiality, privilege, class disparity, loss and a type of awry self-making, the storyline of
“Blue Jasmine” is promising, but its execution is a bit haphazard. Its tone is indeterminable, as Jasmine’s erratic behavior is made to be equally humorous and tragic at different moments. Its narrative flow is not as taut as it should be. Regardless, Allen’s trademark humor and complicated character development are guaranteed in his entertaining, albeit emotionally exhausting, tragicomedy.

Contact Denise Lee at deniselee@dailycal.org.

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Naeem Mohaiemen/Courtesy

Brooklyn-based. Los Angeles-based. Tokyo-based. Location serves to indicate cultural ties, identification and legitimacy. But to say that Yamini Nayar, one of the eight artists featured in current YBCA exhibition “Migrating Identities,” is “Brooklyn-based” is both reductive and loaded.

“Migrating Identities” showcases the work of eight transcultural artists who are collectively concerned with the multiple cultural influences on their lives. The artists — Nayar, Michelle Dizon, Ala Ebtekar, Naeem Mohaiemen, Meleko Mokgosi, Wangechi Mutu, Ishmael Randall Weeks and Saya Woolfalk — were born between 1969 and 1981 and represent a cultural stratum of emergent diversity in the United States. The artists move between the United States and other countries, such as India, Bangladesh, Botswana, Japan and the Philippines. Each artist takes a different approach to his or her experience — some highlight the internal divide caused by these multiethnic forces, and others embrace the confluence.

Nayar uses light jet print to merge photographs of mundane resources like wood panels, bubble wrap, cement and gauze, which are torn, bent, placed atop each other and manipulated with paint. Nayar angles these gritty images to evoke an unsettling sense of “what am I looking at?” While this could arguably be an indication of novice artistic gaze, it is also an apt reflection of Nayar’s thematic interest.

The convergence of multiple raw materials — and the subsequent sense of uncertainty it stirs for the viewer — parallels the disorientation of the artist’s own experience with multiple cultural forces. Nayar strips and alters the materials in her pieces and takes the functionality out of architecture. This technique is used to “disrupt its metaphorical connotations” and illustrate the “interior psychological state of splitting” — a result and reflection of disembodied cultural identity.

Like Nayar, the other artists explore personal cultural histories and also address global issues like colonialism, globalization and war. Ebteker examines the intersection of the two places he jointly calls home — Tehran and Berkeley — through a series of images that merge the similarly masculine postures of Iranian wrestling figures and East Bay B-boys. Mohaiemen presents films and images laden with 1970s politics, highlighting the mistranslations of ideologies across cultures.

Born in Peru to American-born parents, Weeks uses recycled materials to explore personal and collective cultural narratives. One of his displayed artworks, titled “I-beam,” is a considerably large collection of books — mostly his father’s and mostly on topics of Cuban revolution and Latin American history — glued together and hung from the ceiling.

Dizon presents “Perpetual Peace,” a video installation that displays various images of globalization in the Philippines. Dizon provides voiceover narration for the video, which is also supplemented with the video of the artist in the act of narrating. Through this, Dizon inserts herself vocally and visually into the narrative, and yet the side-by-side presentation of the videos creates a sense of distanced spectatorship.

The exhibition features artists “guided by their ability to move fluidly between cultures, and drawing from the uniqueness of their individual journeys, these artists reveal the ways in which their identities have been transformed by the confluence of mobility, cultural retention, and personal history.”

“Migrating Identities” is an important and provocative collection, providing a space for conversation about cultural identity, mobility and personal history of contemporary multicultural artists. As the eight artists highlight the fluid mobility across geographic terrains, they demonstrate a less fluid disembodiment of cultural ties and experience.

The detail of an artist’s location is, then, simply an indication of where he or she currently works and lives. As the “Migrating Identities” exhibition stresses, a sense of cultural belonging and history for an individual is not limited or specific to time or space.

Contact Denise Lee at deniselee@dailycal.org.

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“Fruitvale Station” is particularly close to home for East Bay residents, evoking familiarity with the eponymous BART stop or the tragic incident that took place on New Year’s Day of 2009. In his first feature-length film, East Bay native Ryan Coogler presents a haunting, tense and striking dramatization of the devastating event.

On his way back from Embarcadero, 22-year-old Oscar Grant and several friends caught the attention of BART police officers after being involved in a fight on the train. When the train came to a halt at the Fruitvale station in Oakland, Grant and his friends were ordered to step out of the train. In an escalated conflict with the police, an officer suddenly shot Grant with a gun, which he allegedly mistook for a taser, killing Grant and stirring public aggression against BART police. BART riders captured video footage of the incident — at least snippets of it — on their phones.

Coogler’s “Fruitvale Station” opens with what appears to be real footage of the incident, creating an ominous tone for the rest of the film, which follows Grant (Michael B. Jordan) on the final day of his life. With a palpable sense of impending tragedy, the film includes several intermittent scenes of BART trains passing by — a stark foreboding of the film’s climactic moments.

It is impossible to know Grant’s whereabouts, much less his emotions, during the final 24 hours leading up to his tragic death. Coogler fills in the gaps of what is unknown in order to provide a compellingly humanizing portrait of the character. One scene stands out as a thematic thread: Grant finds a stray dog, pets it affably and witnesses its sudden death by hit-and-run. He appears to be moved by this incident momentarily before he moves on with his day.

During the final scenes of the film, which captures Grant’s eventual fatality, it is hard not to think back to the dog. Grant’s experience witnessing the senseless murder of the dog foreshadows and parallels his own fate — and with this, the film raises larger questions about the worth of an individual’s life. Coogler works sensitively and compassionately to restore its value.

He does so by spending the entirety of the film carefully texturizing Grant as a whole individual with realistic flaws, showing Grant as good-natured and family-oriented in one scene and violent, desperate and frustrated in another. As the film takes place on New Year’s Eve, Coogler inserts hopefulness in his portrait of Oscar, who appears eager to change his unemployed position and move on from the lingering memory of his stint in jail. Coogler excels in prompting the audience to develop a quick attachment to the main character, and by the end of the movie, there is little for the audience to feel other than a sense of infuriating injustice.

The undertones of racial and class tension are undeniably there. In scenes leading up to the violent moments at the station, the film shows Oscar engaging amicably with people outside of his apparent class and ethnic community, providing a somewhat simplified sense of personal progress that contrasts both the racial tension at the end of the film.

The purpose of the film is inarguably a call to action against social injustice, and it stirs interest in persisting urban racial tension. Ultimately, “Fruitvale Station” provides a gripping narrative of the real-life tragedy of Oscar Grant’s death. Coogler’s dramatization of Grant’s life is skillfully constructed and diverts attention to the humanization of individual life amid social injustice.

Contact Denise Lee at deniselee@dailycal.org.

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Graham Haught/Staff

Published in 1956, Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl and Other Poems” is City Lights Bookstore’s most famous title. With its frank and vivid descriptions of drug use, “pubic beards” and people “who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists,” “Howl” garnered national attention and notoriety for Ginsberg and City Lights. The success of “Howl” and its riotous effect on literary censorship reflects the fundamental anti-authoritarian, free-speech, fuck-the-system philosophy at City Lights’ core.

City Lights is celebrating its 60th birthday this Sunday with a party in Jack Kerouac Alley, where there will be music, flash readings and special in-store discounts. Founded in 1953, City Lights began as the nation’s first all-paperback bookstore with an all-access inclusionary vision. What once served as a space for Beat literature forerunners like Ginsberg, Kerouac, Gregory Corso and William S. Burroughs to freely express their radical ideas, City Lights continues to function as “a literary meeting place” — as its masthead still proclaims.

Although City Lights remains at its original location in the heart of North Beach, the bookstore’s initial modest-sized storefront has expanded to now occupy three floors of the entire building. It carries a mix of paperback books and hardcovers from both major and independent publishers, including City Lights’ own publishing house, which is two years younger than its bookstore counterpart.

City Lights Executive Director Elaine Katzenberger explained the need for the bookstore’s corporate side to balance its “funky independent side,” which has dwindled comparatively since the ’80s. She asserted that “changes in the book industry sort of mean that if you’re going to survive, you have to actually learn how to run a business too. So we’ve all had to learn that.”

Still, Katzenberger assured, “I would say in terms of the ethos and the aesthetics and the spirit of the place — I feel like that remains pretty much untouched.” Katzenberger explained that the core of City Lights adheres largely to founder Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s principle and vision, which “really had to do with wanting to create a meeting place where people could come and encounter books and magazines and each other in a … populist environment.”

City Lights’ mission is composed, as Katzenberger referred to it, of a “two-sided coin,” with the bookstore and publishing house on either side. Katzenberger said, “The symbiosis of the two projects is part of the genius of why we exist all this time … It really has to do with those ideals about community and open access to ideas and also an open mind about what kind of ideas deserve access.”

While Ginsberg’s “Howl” is a proud symbol for City Lights, Katzenberger explains that there is more to City Lights than its Beat beginnings: “I think sometimes people think that City Lights published the Beats and stopped there, but that’s obviously not true.” The Beats were the counterculture voice of their time, but with each new decade comes a shifting counterculture. In this sense, while Beat poetry is no longer the center of City Lights, contemporary counterculture perspective remains the focal point. As Katzenberger said, “A lot of the sort of protest and resistance movements find ways (into) the books that we publish.” Current publishing endeavors revolve around antiglobalization movements, immigration reform movements and racial issues in America.

The anarchist heart of City Lights, a true literary and political landmark, gives the bookstore its rich history and continuous cultural relevance. The new decade of the beloved independent bookstore marks the persistence of its mission to represent the underrepresented, diversify voices, promote critical cultural thought and provide a crucial alternative to the ideas circulating in mass media.

Contact Denise Lee at deniselee@dailycal.org.

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Elsa Pearson/Staff

While the campus is relatively desolate from June to August, the last thing you want is to feel like you’re “stuck” in Berkeley for the summer. This special summer issue is designed to help you find ways to maximize the remaining 70 days of summer in Berkeley.

You don’t need to leave Berkeley to find your escape: you can travel the world without leaving the dinner table and discover the hidden treasures that the Bay Area has to offer.

Whether it’s your first summer in Berkeley or your last, here’s to making it great.

The Daily Cal Summer Arts Calendar

Check out the Daily Cal summer arts calendar, the go-to place to check out all the arts events in the Bay Area over the summer.

Low-key destinations to check out in the Bay Area

Summers at Cal present the perfect time to explore the Bay Area, but finding cool sites to visit that aren’t crowded with tourists can be a challenge.

Taste the world in Berkeley

With restaurants serving cuisines from around the world in Berkeley, this summer is your time to go on a culinary adventure.

Summer dog days: a photo essay

Over the summer, the Berkeley campus, especially Memorial Glade, has become a favorite spot for pets and pet owners alike.

Summer perspectives: a photo essay

Even if you are working full-time or taking summer classes, summer in Berkeley is an experience unlike any other season.

The beauty of a Berkeley summer

With some planning and open eyes, summer in Berkeley can be a fulfilling experience.

Summer survival guide

Sports editor Riley McAtee offers some advice on survival a rather dull summer of sports.

Status update: your summer relationship

Summer is finally here, and that means more time to spend with the person who makes you feel amazing.

The post Summer Orientation Issue: (70) Days of Summer appeared first on The Daily Californian.

You don’t need to leave Berkeley to find your escape: you can travel the world without leaving the dinner table and discover the hidden treasures that the Bay Area has to offer.

Whether it’s your first summer in Berkeley or your last, here’s to making it great.

Contact Denise Lee at deniselee@dailycal.org. Contact Jennie Yoon at jyoon@dailycal.org.

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Sarah Brennan/Staff

Nothing evokes ’60s and ’70s psychedelia quite like a light show. At a time when light shows have been reappropriated by the EDM scene, Tame Impala brought the visual phenomenon back to its roots at their show at The Fox Theater last week.

Hailing from Perth, Australia, Tame Impala is composed of three core members: Dom Simper, Jay Watson and Kevin Parker — whose lead vocals have been tiresomely compared to John Lennon’s. The band performed in front of an enormous screen that displayed a range of psychedelic lights and images, synchronized to match the sonic waves of each song. What initially resembled a Windows ’98 screensaver became a rather elemental visual accompaniment to the sonic enticement of Tame Impala’s live show.

As the show progressed, the screen’s images evolved to look closely like renderings of the cover art of the band’s first album, Innerspeaker. At other moments, the screen displayed a single fiery spot at the center that resembles a volcanic hotspot — a fitting representation of the show’s overall tone. Tame Impala’s performance was far from stagnant; rather, it was alluringly eruptive with moments of subtle placidity — only before aural explosions.

With a neo-psychedelic noise that draws on inspirations like the Rolling Stones, Tame Impala has been widely praised for creating a fresh musical persona that makes them innovative without being simply derivative. The hour-and-a-half long set was packed with a balance of songs off of Innerspeaker and their sophomore album, Lonerism. There was nothing about Tame Impala’s show that was repetitive or lulled; they managed to maintain structure and fluidity in their performance while exuding consistently untamed energy from one song to the next, transitioning with compelling lengthy interludes that wove the songs seamlessly together to form one cohesive narrative of a set list.

Their performance was prefaced by an opening act from Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Jonathan Wilson, whose sound leans a little more toward bluesy folk. Wilson’s lead-in successfully set the tone and helped the crowd in smoky, excited anticipation for the show’s main act.

Tame Impala opened their performance with a new song called “Led Zeppelin” and moved straight into “Solitude is Bliss.” One of the show’s highlights was “Be Above It,” an understated song full of whispers, rumblings and bursts that was made all the more memorable in a live performance. The band closed with a wildly captivating performance of “Nothing That Has Happened So Far Has Been Anything We Could Control,” an absolute immaculate cap-off to their stimulating trip of a show.

Tame Impala’s entrancing quality was reflected in the crowd’s reception. There was moshing during the band’s performance of their popular and catchy single “Elephant.” And someone felt it appropriate to get on another’s shoulders — prompting many “this-is-not-Coachella” stares from other audience members. In fact, each song performed elicited a different response from the audience, who slow-clapped for “Apocalypse” and swayed lighters for “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards.” At some point, a bra was thrown on stage for good measure. As cheesy as they may have been, these responses managed not to obstruct but enhance the downright pleasure of the show, generated by the band’s idiosyncratic, psychedelic splendor.

Contact Denise Lee at deniselee@dailycal.org.

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Butter Lamp Films/Courtesy

Julie Bridgham’s 2008 documentary, “The Sari Soldiers,” showcased at the first annual Himalayan Film Festival in May of this year, is not unrealistically hopeful — nor is it wholly disillusioned to the prospect of social change. Rather, it attempts to unpack complexities of conflict by providing a fair scope of oppositional standpoints, each with an empathetic eye — a capacity that grants the film its continuous social relevance.

In “The Sari Soldiers,” Bridgham documents the final three years of the 10-year Nepalese Civil War, which began in 1996 — when the Communist Party of Nepal, also known as the Maoists, sought to overthrow the country’s implemented monarchy, upheld by the Royal Nepal Army. Bridgham astutely encapsulates more than just the two primary opposing forces. With the tagline “There are more than two sides to every story,” “The Sari Soldiers” follows six women with strikingly different experiences and political standpoints, providing a multifaceted vision of conditions and complexities of the war.

As each of the six stories are introduced, a new layer is added to complicate the vision of Nepal’s civil war. We are first introduced to Devi, a woman who faces the dire consequences of speaking candidly about witnessing the rape and brutal murder of her niece by members of the Royal Nepal Army. Because of her status as a witness and her open discussion about the incident, Devi became a target of the army, who, when finding Devi absent during their bombardment on her home, arrested Devi’s daughter in her stead. The film follows Devi’s search for her daughter.

Devi’s story is only one of six on which the film centers but is arguably the most devastating. The film’s other subjects are Mandira, a human rights activist who aids Devi’s search; Rajani, a Royal Nepal Army officer cadet; Kranti, a female Maoist soldier; Krishna, a woman whose small village faces violent Maoist attacks; and Ram Kumari, a student social activist at the forefront of the fight for democracy, whose voice of optimism and change is a stark contrast to Devi’s experience. The film avoids vilifying any of its subjects and instead opts to humanize and show perspectives — each of which is in direct opposition with another.

While the film illuminates how difficult it is to break down deep-rooted and overlapping forces of oppression, Bridgham’s multifaceted portrait of the six distinct perspectives allows her to skillfully avert the focus to why such structures exist in the first place. In addition to encouraging viewers to channel a curiosity for issues in countries including and beyond Nepal, Bridgham hoped to shed light on the complexities of conflict. In an interview with The Daily Californian, Bridgham stated, “Conflicts do get so complicated because there is a real human dimension, and ultimately, it’s hard to say sometimes why things aren’t just black and white. In order to understand how change can be made in the future, you have to understand what motivates people from the very beginning and why there are different points of view.”

The focus on female points of view in “The Sari Soldiers” is an aspect Bridgham claimed was incidental. She made it clear that she didn’t intend on making this film strictly about the “female experience” in modern Nepalese wartime: “At the end of the day, I don’t believe ‘The Sari Soldiers’ is a film about women. It’s a film about six really strong people that happen to be women.” While this may be true, the film undeniably highlights the forces of violence against women both in warfare and in society. Bridgham acknowledged this and said, “I felt also it was really an important perspective to show conflict through the eyes of women, because so often it’s a viewpoint that’s just not recognized, and women aren’t given that kind of platform and voice.”

Bridgham provides this platform through her documentary. Yet the film’s inclusion of Devi’s story reveals that one attempt to publicize violent acts of injustice only seems to worsen conditions, illuminating a cyclical structure from which it seems impossible to escape. And Bridgham’s own position as a documentarian, providing the lens through which the audience can access these stories, seems almost paradoxical. Not knowing when or whether the civil war would come to an end, Bridgham held a unique position as a journalist — many of whom were being imprisoned for similar work — during a turbulent time of crucial political change in Nepal. “When we began filming, there was a certain level of anxiety in knowing we were not only telling the story but following people who were very much on the forefront,” she explained. “It’s an incredible journey to be able to really get into the life of someone who is directly involved in these changes that were happening in their country.”

Ultimately, Bridgham’s ability to document and eventually show this film throughout Nepal reflects a change in the country’s political terrain. But again, the major aim of the film is not to feel a sense of hope or despondency. A jarring and profound piece of journalistic art, “The Sari Soldiers” generates a sense of empathetic understanding rather than one-sided political advocacy.

Contact Denise Lee at deniselee@dailycal.org.

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