Saturday, February 26, 2011
The Housemaid (Sang-Soo Im, 2010)
A gorgeous house is more or less the only reason to watch this movie, especially the crazy and beautiful chandelier. Well, it's not a reason to watch the movie, but it is a thing to enjoy if you somehow find yourself having to watch it. And despite the production team's obvious adoration for beautiful aesthetic, it's just another dull hodgepodge of a poor, naive, innocent, unadulterated, sweet, childlike, etc. etc. girl being manipulated into the Machiavellian machinations of the twisted, evil, greedy, self-involved, cruel, heartless, etc. etc. rich upper classes. Other than Yeo-Jong Yun as a self-loathing servant the characters and performances are all dully one-note. And the "erotic" part of this supposedly erotic thriller is mostly comical, featuring silly camera placement that feels completely abnormal and Jung-Jae Lee as the male lead exclaiming some weird things you're unlikely to even hear a guy shouting in your average porno flick. The thrills don't add up to much, either, unless you get your jollies watching a helpless girl being slowly trapped into a situation you know she will never escape from (maybe Lars Von Trier is a fan). The ending, too, is a confused mess, seemingly poking fun at the naivete and uselessness of the very character the film spent its time trying to get us to root for.
Uncle Boonmee
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2010)
A Letter To Uncle Boonmee (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2009)
While this is neither the first, last, nor probably the best or the worst example of this idea, it is AN example, and so I am going to use this film to talk about a broader aspect of filmmaking. It is true that Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives occasionally moves at a pace that a snail would laugh at. But what it accomplishes in this slowness is the reclamation, or, at least, reinvigoration, of editing. At one point a cut in a film was a surprise. Eventually, it became the norm, and so now there is a heavy expectation to cut. The audience may find itself bored if there aren't enough cuts. What Uncle Boonmee does is take the idea that the audience can be bored by not enough cutting and use it against itself, making the audience look at a still frame for so long that the viewer's eyes become so accustomed to looking at it that they might begin to think the movie may never cut again. The benefit of this is that when the cut does happen (which is usually not long after, at least to me, I began to feel that feeling), suddenly editing is surprising again and the juxtaposition of images becomes even more pronounced and more affecting. No longer is he simply telling a story through a series of different pictures, but he is actively inviting us to contemplate how the previous picture and the one you're seeing now work together (as well as conflict) with each other. There are very few cuts that I remember specfically in films, but a couple of them are in Uncle Boonmee.
As to the rest, and the reason I put A Letter to Uncle Boonmee as part of the same review, is that I think that short film helps clarify much of what is difficult, at first, to comprehend in the feature film. There are implications of class tensions, and of Thailand's battle against communists during the '70s, and the slaughter that many governmental soldiers carried out. But all these things are implied rather than stated, and much of the viewer's work comes in piecing these hints together to form a coherent vision of familial separation and anxiety and loss. Of the otherness that can sometimes stem between adults and their children as those children also become adults. The divide between generational politics and ideas and the abuse that can stem from failing to recognize the humanity of others. I have not yet seen his other features, but I intend to soon. There is more to write, but I'm not quite sure how to put it in words and I fear that the longer I put off writing this the less satisfied I'll be with the results. It is, so far, my clear winner for the Portland International Film Festival and the best movie I've seen in theatres in the last two years.
A Letter To Uncle Boonmee (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2009)
While this is neither the first, last, nor probably the best or the worst example of this idea, it is AN example, and so I am going to use this film to talk about a broader aspect of filmmaking. It is true that Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives occasionally moves at a pace that a snail would laugh at. But what it accomplishes in this slowness is the reclamation, or, at least, reinvigoration, of editing. At one point a cut in a film was a surprise. Eventually, it became the norm, and so now there is a heavy expectation to cut. The audience may find itself bored if there aren't enough cuts. What Uncle Boonmee does is take the idea that the audience can be bored by not enough cutting and use it against itself, making the audience look at a still frame for so long that the viewer's eyes become so accustomed to looking at it that they might begin to think the movie may never cut again. The benefit of this is that when the cut does happen (which is usually not long after, at least to me, I began to feel that feeling), suddenly editing is surprising again and the juxtaposition of images becomes even more pronounced and more affecting. No longer is he simply telling a story through a series of different pictures, but he is actively inviting us to contemplate how the previous picture and the one you're seeing now work together (as well as conflict) with each other. There are very few cuts that I remember specfically in films, but a couple of them are in Uncle Boonmee.
As to the rest, and the reason I put A Letter to Uncle Boonmee as part of the same review, is that I think that short film helps clarify much of what is difficult, at first, to comprehend in the feature film. There are implications of class tensions, and of Thailand's battle against communists during the '70s, and the slaughter that many governmental soldiers carried out. But all these things are implied rather than stated, and much of the viewer's work comes in piecing these hints together to form a coherent vision of familial separation and anxiety and loss. Of the otherness that can sometimes stem between adults and their children as those children also become adults. The divide between generational politics and ideas and the abuse that can stem from failing to recognize the humanity of others. I have not yet seen his other features, but I intend to soon. There is more to write, but I'm not quite sure how to put it in words and I fear that the longer I put off writing this the less satisfied I'll be with the results. It is, so far, my clear winner for the Portland International Film Festival and the best movie I've seen in theatres in the last two years.
Friday, February 25, 2011
The Double Hour (Giuseppe Capotondi, 2009)
Apologies if my last few (and next few) reviews don't seem up to their already low standards of quality. I've seen a lot of bad movies at the Portland International Film Festival and I'm trying to plow through them as quickly as possible to get on to the good stuff (also I'm blocked on my totally rave review of Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, which looks like it's gonna be the far away winner unless Alex de la Iglesia's new movie blows me away tomorrow (a possibility, de la Iglesia is awesome!)). Promise they'll get better once I start writing about stuff I like again.
One might call director Giuseppe Capotondi generous, in a way. Instead of one bad movie he decided to give us two, loosely connected by a mid-section twist that works in the sense that it would be impossible to predict, but doesn't in that the only reason it is impossible is because it makes almost no sense. Given the buzzing conversation of patrons as I walked out (and the fact that the festival arranged for an extra screening, because the movie was proving so popular), it seems that this kind of mystery-weaving is what people want these days. The forsaking of ideas for the minute pleasure of confounding us. It's a neat trick -- a sort of magician's distraction -- showing people two things that don't go together, but feel as though they should, and letting people use that as a means for discussion, causing them to ignore the bigger issues of why the director even asked us to watch it in the first place. It even goes to the effort to throw in a last-minute reference the way Inception does, inviting the viewer to wonder what is real and what is not real as they throw their leftover popcorn and soda in the trash can.
I don't know, to me it's a thriller without any thrills (mostly lame jump scares, and zero scenes with a hint of built up tension), a romance without much chemistry, and features a main character who early on has sex with a woman and then basically tells her to get the fuck out and the movie somehow appears to be on his side. He's sad and dark and conflicted, so it's sorta okay that he treats some poor lady like a prostitute he didn't have to pay. Nah, not buying it. The movie, the actor, the character, the gimmick, none of it.
One might call director Giuseppe Capotondi generous, in a way. Instead of one bad movie he decided to give us two, loosely connected by a mid-section twist that works in the sense that it would be impossible to predict, but doesn't in that the only reason it is impossible is because it makes almost no sense. Given the buzzing conversation of patrons as I walked out (and the fact that the festival arranged for an extra screening, because the movie was proving so popular), it seems that this kind of mystery-weaving is what people want these days. The forsaking of ideas for the minute pleasure of confounding us. It's a neat trick -- a sort of magician's distraction -- showing people two things that don't go together, but feel as though they should, and letting people use that as a means for discussion, causing them to ignore the bigger issues of why the director even asked us to watch it in the first place. It even goes to the effort to throw in a last-minute reference the way Inception does, inviting the viewer to wonder what is real and what is not real as they throw their leftover popcorn and soda in the trash can.
I don't know, to me it's a thriller without any thrills (mostly lame jump scares, and zero scenes with a hint of built up tension), a romance without much chemistry, and features a main character who early on has sex with a woman and then basically tells her to get the fuck out and the movie somehow appears to be on his side. He's sad and dark and conflicted, so it's sorta okay that he treats some poor lady like a prostitute he didn't have to pay. Nah, not buying it. The movie, the actor, the character, the gimmick, none of it.
The Six Dollar Fifty Man (Mark Albiston & Louis Sutherland, 2009)
Kudos, at least, for packing an awful 90 minute formula of the bullied school kid overcoming obstacles to get the girl and win his classmates' respect into a 15 minute movie. I don't have much positive to say besides applauding its brevity. Nor much to say at all, really. It's sappy, rote and filled with a dim kind of nostalgia for the simplicity of youth. Exactly the kind of short film I would expect to be nominated for an Oscar (and it was).
Little Children, Big Words (Lisa James-Larsson, 2010)
The only of the bad children's shorts that I had more execution problems with than ideological problems. The idea, that it's important to teach children about language and what words mean, even when doing so is uncomfortable and fraught with pitfalls, is something that isn't brought up enough in works intended for children.
Unfortunately the film mishandles the premise with melodramatic close-ups, the main character's performance, filled with aching, glassy-eyed remembrance of some past traumatic event, and the strangely fantastical and aura-like lighting that rob the idea of its weight, rather than infusing it. It's a textbook case of a director not trusting the material to speak for itself, so she feels the need to hit the audience hard over the head with it. Makes me appreciate even the relative subtlety and poignance Pixar, despite their many flaws, are capable of bestowing children's films.
Unfortunately the film mishandles the premise with melodramatic close-ups, the main character's performance, filled with aching, glassy-eyed remembrance of some past traumatic event, and the strangely fantastical and aura-like lighting that rob the idea of its weight, rather than infusing it. It's a textbook case of a director not trusting the material to speak for itself, so she feels the need to hit the audience hard over the head with it. Makes me appreciate even the relative subtlety and poignance Pixar, despite their many flaws, are capable of bestowing children's films.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
The Wonder Hospital (Beomsik Shimbe Shim, 2010)
After watching Cyriak's experiments in turning the everyday into something frightening and nightmarish, this comes across pretty dull and flat-footed. Mirrors the previous short, Flawed, in that it is possibly for children and about perceptions of attractiveness and the terror of cosmetic surgery. Though not only cosmetic surgery, but hospitals in general. Which draws a very fine line when crafting entertainment for children, raising some chicken/egg questions with regard to its depiction of hospitals as a terrifying and monstrous world. Like, at what point are we no longer reflecting children's views, but instead supplanting them and making them afraid of an entity that, for very many practical reasons, we should be encouraging them under all circumstances NOT to be afraid of. As a child I was never afraid of hospitals, because I never thought that I should be. In fact, I was always weirdly jealous of children who got to spend the night in a hospital for various ailments (usually tonsils being removed). To me it seemed adventurous, like when we'd go traveling and get to stay in a hotel. A new place! Had I seen this short I might've thought otherwise.
But to an adult none of the imagery is as frightening or mind-boggling as it seems to think it is. Only a pair of gloves flapping in the wind of a small desk fan, blowing empty fingers across a clacking typewriter seem like the kind of strange and imaginative imagery the entire movie seems to be trying very hard for. And even it is emphasized for so long that it ceases to be weird and becomes just another thing in the large number of things that sit there and don't do anything. There's never a feeling of tension that something bad might actually happen to the child, as everything is so outlandish and feels more like decoration than something existing in an unreal world, that it's a bit like a dull museum of oddities. Atonal soundtrack does much to increase this feeling of bored annoyance.
But to an adult none of the imagery is as frightening or mind-boggling as it seems to think it is. Only a pair of gloves flapping in the wind of a small desk fan, blowing empty fingers across a clacking typewriter seem like the kind of strange and imaginative imagery the entire movie seems to be trying very hard for. And even it is emphasized for so long that it ceases to be weird and becomes just another thing in the large number of things that sit there and don't do anything. There's never a feeling of tension that something bad might actually happen to the child, as everything is so outlandish and feels more like decoration than something existing in an unreal world, that it's a bit like a dull museum of oddities. Atonal soundtrack does much to increase this feeling of bored annoyance.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Flawed (Andrea Dorfman, 2010)
If Panahi can consistently find the perfect balance of emotional thrust to be affecting without being cloying, then Andrea Dorfman's Flawed would be a sort of antithesis to that, coming off as a pandering, endlessly didactic film that must be aimed at children, as it has absolutely no value to any reasonably well-thinking adult. But, like the worst of children's literature, it suffers from a lack of self-awareness about the message it purports to be teaching. It suggests the old platitude that we should accept people for who they are and not judge them based on superficial looks, but it does so by relating the story of a woman who ends up in a relationship with a plastic surgeon. I suppose because it is told from the woman's point of view (and narrated by the director, implying an autobiographical quality to the film) it somehow justifies that her opinion on the matter is the one that is depicted and the film achieves its happy ending when she has convinced her surgeon boyfriend to see things from her perspective, yet it comes off as narcissistic and braggy. What about his opinion? What about encouraging children not only to look deeper than the surface, but also to have healthy and meaningful conversations with the people around them rather than resorting to manipulation and celebrating "winning" the argument. She never once asks why he became a plastic surgeon, only telling him why she resents them and our superficial culture. She also somewhat suggests that people with things that make them different should be okay with martyring themselves to ridicule and emotional suffering for the greater good of eventually convincing everyone it's okay to be different.
As a person who generally feels that cosmetic surgery is a bad way to stem the tide of superficial prejudice, this film somehow made me walk out being more okay with it than I was walking in. It convinced me that maybe, if I sounded like her, I might be the one who was wrong.
As a person who generally feels that cosmetic surgery is a bad way to stem the tide of superficial prejudice, this film somehow made me walk out being more okay with it than I was walking in. It convinced me that maybe, if I sounded like her, I might be the one who was wrong.
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