Author: Sasa

Dersu Uzala

The Wikipedia article says that Jonathan Rosenbaum contributed to the list and I think it totally shows. The large quantity of Stroheim films, some of his more recent favorites – they are all in the list. I have no idea who put “Dersu Uzala” into the list, as JR is amongst the few film critics I actually know, but that person did well. It might not mean much to be in the same list as “Babe” or “Blair Witch Project”, but its appearance definitely made me more interested in the film.

As almost always these days, I had absolutely no idea what “Dersu Uzala” would be. I didn’t even know it was supposed to be a name – not every combination of two unintelligible words must be a name, right? If titles actually had to be representative of a film, the movie should rather have been called “My friendship with Dersu Uzala”, or if you want an even more comprehensive title: “My friendship with Dersu Uzala: Kurosawa’s vision of the beautiful landscapes of Siberia”. It sums up all you need to know about the film.
Yet at the same time, there is much more than that. I am fascinated by how Kurosawa is the director of this film, and how it was the first film he made after getting over his suicidal depression. “Dersu Uzala” is one of those slow-paced, beautiful films without all that much action (very much unlike what Kurosawa normally does) but a lot of life-affirming humanity. It delves in its cinematic beauty and tells a very simple story of friendship between two men whose backgrounds could not be any more different. Dersu does not only save their lives multiple times, even at the risk of his own life, but the film subtly transports a deep affection between the two characters which goes beyond simple gratitude. Most importantly, Dersu is not portrayed as some “wild person” like most of those civilized-protagonist-meets-native-person movies à la Pocahontas and almost everything playing in Africa do, instead the friendship between the main characters is inherently human and thusly immensely beautiful. It took me awhile into the arguably long film for the emotions to sink in, but by the time the captain meets Dersu for the second time, I was so into their relationship and cared for the characters so much that I felt a lot of suspense when they tried to save Dersu from drowning. (It is my favorite scene in the film!) Dersu is also a really cute person, I love the way he talks (especially when he calls the captain’s son “the Little Captain!”) and I am impressed by his incredible willingness to be a good person.

Recently, I have been reading “The Hobbit” – in fact, I still do – and we amused ourselves to make jokes about parallels between “Dersu Uzala” and the Hobbit book. Sometimes the Russian survey expedition group looks just like a bunch of dwarves, and Dersu is their hobbit. They are out walking through the woods, and in many cases the hobbit aka Dersu is the one saving the day. “Dersu Uzala” might not really work as an adventure film, but there definitely are some life-threatening situations scattered throughout it.

I don’t really care about whether the real Dersu Uzala was anything like the film. The film stands for itself, and it is wonderful execution of a simple but great story. Also, it was shot in 70mm so if you ever get a chance to see this in theaters, you must and then let me know how it was!

L’Age d’Or

I was never really able to get behind Bunuel’s movies. First I saw “Belle de Jour” which I thought was infuriating because the main character made no sense whatsoever, then I saw “Un chien andalou” but really the film is just as confusing as its most famous scene is shocking. I don’t really get Bunuel, but I’ve been telling myself to find out what is so immensely great about his films. He is amongst the most accomplished directors according to They Shoot Pictures and at least “Viridiana” and “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” sound intriguing.

My impression of the film can be summarized in one sentence: Thank goodness it is short. For most of the time, I was interested in what was going to happen next, only to realize that the happenings in the film don’t really connect well. Even as a surreal film there is a little bit too much suspension of disbelief. At the same time, some of those absurd scenes were precisely what actually made the film interesting. If you accept that the film seems nonsensical at times, it is those silly scenes which make the film strangely funny and enjoyable, like this guy randomly kicking a little dog (poor thing, but you can’t help but laugh!) or another guy destroying his violin on the streets, or that guy who threw out the bishop out the window! Without knowing anything about the film, it becomes quite obvious that the film criticizes Catholic morals (ugh, this Sade novel character who looks like Jesus?) and high-class bourgeois life, but if it doesn’t quite make sense, what else is there besides some provocative imagery?

Right after “L’Age d’Or” we watched this year’s Downton Abbey Christmas special. I am sorry, Bunuel, but that one was so much more memorable and interesting. It must be sad to lose against a lame soap opera. I am glad to have finally seen what this film is about, but it won’t really stick with me nor become a source of inspiration like some other Dali works have been.

Tony Takitani

Happy new year, dear readers! In the next days, you might think that it looks like I have made a new year’s resolution to watch more movies, especially when considering the fact that I have not watched much recently. That is most certainly not the case; however, MUBI US has a 30-day trial before it institutes its new system. That system consists of adding and deleting one movie from the library per day such that you always have the choice amongst the 30 most recently added movies, all for 5 dollars a month. I am not sure if I like that – somehow it feels strangely restricting on what you can watch and when, yet at the same time, that very restriction can be a godsend when you have a hard time picking something (like I often do).
In any case, this is a unique opportunity for me to see tons of movies, and you can be sure that I will want to make use of that.

“Tony Takitani” was picked almost randomly from the current movies MUBI offers, and I have been meaning to see it ever since the anime blogosphere at the time was totally in love with it. There are a bunch of die-hard Murakami fans amongst them, and they raved about the film like crazy. For the first perhaps 20 minutes, I had no idea what they were talking about. The film was awfully slow and I wasn’t really sure how I liked the premise of a woman who is crazy about clothing and a husband who doesn’t know how to deal with it. In reality, the film is almost a masterpiece – beautifully photographed, well-written and its story is so Murakami-like sad. It took me awhile to understand that because the composition of the film only becomes clear at the end. Similarly, the sadness of the film can only be seen as a whole. It is those last few minutes in the film where the depth of the characters really come out. The husband who is afraid of the loneliness without his wife, the wife who tried to change her essence out of love for her husband, the woman who weeps because of somebody else’s dead wife – all of them act in this strange realm of Japanese strangeness we know so well from Murakami. Ryuichi Sakamoto’s music underlines this melancholy wonderfully, and the subdued color scheme of the entire film helps as well.

The melancholy and fatality of lovei in this film reminded me of Takeshi Kitano’s Dolls, and if you like the beauty of that, you should definitely take a look a this movie.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Seeing blockbusters in movie theaters is a very recent addition to my life. It’s almost like not watching a movie but going to a circus or to an opera performance, and blogging about them always feels a little strange. Going to a movie theater is almost a ritual: we always use the same theater, almost always go on a Sunday matinee and get a large popcorn and large Diet Coke to share between the three of us. We even typically get one exactly refill during the movie. This experience is what makes going to the movies so special to me, and so very different from my youth when we never got popcorn and the likes. (On a side note, we saw The Hobbit in 2D because we rather dislike 3D. I am still interested in the HFR business, if only it wasn’t so expensive. But the 2D screening of the film had some crazy motion blur, and I wonder if it is better in the HFR version.)

Recently I told Shii that I tend to watch many more TV series rather than movies these days, and one of the reasons is that TV series are much more entertaining and “easy” to watch. I find it hard to motivate myself to see a movie, but with TV series that almost never happens. However, while I enjoy discussing TV series afterwards, I typically find myself having nothing to say after a very short while. Even though I spend much more time watching and enjoying TV series, I don’t really think about them much afterwards. Somehow most movies seem to have a greater impact on me. I found myself contemplating and researching various aspects of the Hobbit adaptation throughout the entire day, both before and after seeing the film. This is where movies really make a difference, and I predict this posting will subsequently become very, very long.

So, onto the actual movie. First of all, I love the Hobbit. Everything I will say about the film will be in relation to the books (which I have re-reading recently), and seen from the clouded eyes of a Middle-Earth fangirl. I fell in love with Tolkien’s universe like everybody else in my environment, but I probably took it to another level. I read the Silmarillion and other related works, I spent hours and hours on the internet and after realizing how much I enjoyed deciphering the inscription of the One Ring, I even started learning some Quenya. (The choice of Quenya over Sindarin is a stupid one, but at the time it made sense – the grammar is actually a bit easier and there was a much better “textbook” for Quenya out there.)
Tolkien’s universe has many weaknesses and I absolutely understand anyone who does not like the books whatsoever, but I couldn’t care less. I am mesmerized by the beauty and the richness of this world, it is akin to my fascination for Greek and Nordic mythology.

However, my love for the universe seems to be displayed in a different way than what I read on the internet. Those who watch the Hobbit will most likely have seen the Lord of the Rings trilogy as well, but not all will have read the books. Amongst those who have read the books, only a fraction will have read them back when they came out, and everybody else is probably delving in their youthful memories of it, with a certain refusal to accept that Peter Jackson’s Middle-Earth might look different from what they imagined. As for me, I grew up with the books and the movie at the same time, and I have always found them to be quite complimentary. When I read the Hobbit years ago, I never had a specific image in mind when it came to the dwarves. None of them really stood out, and they could have all looked the same for all I care. This is where Peter Jackson’s images come in. I find it perfectly alright to give the dwarves more distinguishing features, and it contributes to my enjoyment of the film that each one of them appears to have even more individual character than the hobbits in the Lord of the Rings series. I like that Balin acts as an old consulter to Thorin, and that the role of the silly youngest one is fulfilled by someone else than Kili and Fili, who are being portrayed as the young dynamic hot dudes. And Thorin – he is probably the most different amongst all of them. In the book, Thorin clearly had more privileges than the others (being the one who grabs the Orcrist etc.) but he never really appears as a leader throughout the book – it is implied at best. In the movies, his role is much more heroic, having confronted the Pale Orc when he was younger and inspiring others to follow him out of loyalty. He goes out of his way to protect his people and even save them at the expense of his own life, a character trait you don’t see in the books. I am not sure how I like this new Thorin, and I wonder how they will deal with Thorin’s much less heroic character traits later concerning the Arkenstone.

Besides being more individual, more funny and generally more likable, the biggest philosophical changes of the film are related to the dwarves. I don’t think it’s the addition of Radagast, or the Pale Orc, or the completely unnecessary inclusion of Galadriel which make the movie different from the books. Instead, the dwarves are driven by a desire to go home, as opposed to wanting to find gold and jewels. (In fact, not only are they less greedy, they are also honorable and loyal!) I suppose greed is just not a great motive nowadays anymore. Back in the day people set out to make a fortune and were not ashamed of desiring to do so. Nowadays money stinks and your reasons have to be a little more meaningful. But what a reason! The book does talk about reconquering Erebor, but it never makes a huge deal about how that was considered their home. In the book, the dwarves sit around the fire and talk about getting rich, not about going back home. I made some jokes yesterday about how Jewish conspiracies in Hollywood and that the film’s attitude is strangely reminiscing of the Jews (who have no home) who are now “taking back” Jerusalem (certainly a very desirable home from a long, long time ago). Maybe the bad joke had a little more truth to it after all when looking at politics in Israel. From what I can see in human history, territorial entitlement really is just as bad as greed, but much less obviously so. I was deeply touched by the scene in which Bilbo declares that he wants to help them find their home, but my mind kept telling me “Damn, this is also rather questionable”.

All in all, though, the story in the film is more consistent than in the books. It was to be expected that the film will be a grown-up version of the books, and so many things are better explained. Everybody has a consistent motive and there is an explicit reason why everybody is there: Thorin wants to reclaim his home, the other dwarves are loyally following Thorin, Gandalf is looking for the unknown evil and Bilbo wants to help his friends. It’s all quite understandable, and I am glad that these adultifying changes are not too substantial apart from the aspect I mentioned in the previous paragraph. Even the Pale Orc, Saruman and the Necromancer are thankfully playing a small role so far, although of course there is some evil foreshadowing the events in Lord of the Rings. Maybe the changes will be greater in the next films, but so far, I like most changes I have seen here.

One aspect I don’t really get about Peter Jackson is that he has to dumb down the animals. Sure, speaking animals belong to children’s books rather than an “adult” movie but is that really how it should be? Is it so hard for adults to accept anthropomorphized animals who can speak and think for themselves? Animals in the movies are all either servants (like Radagast’s animals, the orcs’ wolves etc.) or they are helpless little creatures which must be protected. It goes well with our adult impression of animals, but I think that is looking down on them too much. Also, I was amused to note how the goblins eat the troupe’s ponies in the book – but in the film they didn’t have any ponies at that time in the first place. I figured that it is acceptable to show gory deaths of humans and orcs, but certainly you can’t show how poor little ponies get eaten.

Finally, I really enjoyed Gollum as I always have. That sad creature is just so fascinating somehow? I know of several people who find him cute (must be the big blue eyes, huh?) and while I do not do so, I am impressed by how unusual a villain Gollum is. They only changed a minor aspect in the encounter with Gollum (Gollum loses the ring and Bilbo takes it consciously, as opposed to Bilbo randomly finding it) so everything in that scene pretty much went exactly as I imagined. Good job.

If you have followed me until here, you must either have an impressive determination to read my blog postings, or you are a fanatic just like I am. In any case though, this film is a must and I hope you’ll enjoy this as much as I did.

God Bless America

Throughout the entire movie, I kept wondering about who that main character guy was… Turns out he was that almost forgettable guy in Mad Men. My goodness, I am ashamed I didn’t realize that.

With that said, I was constantly reminded of “Mad Men”. Both are trying to make some political commentary while ultimately being mostly entertaining. There is some sort of depth to Mad Men, which says a lot of witty, funny things, but the general setting is rather superficial and limited. The exact same thing can be said about “God Bless America”. Especially at the beginning, Frank makes a few great statements about what he perceives as wrong with society, and comparing talk shows to the coliseum. (I really liked that one.) Roxy says a few things which might sound cliché but ultimately capture her teenage heart pretty well. (“My parents don’t even try to understand me!” Ahaha.) But overall, the whole film is criticizing only a single thing – the stupidity of media, which strongly make you wonder why in the world they just don’t turn off the TV. There is a lot more to be criticized than how shallow media influences people. Most importantly, the film indulges too deeply in what I call “white people problems”. For a film titled “God Bless America”, I find it shocking how it almost seems to pretend minorities barely exist, except for asian girls as sex objects and black people as providers of hip hop music.
However, I like the premise of the film. I like the idea of serial killers who don’t kill because their messed up psychology tells them to (think Dexter) but purely for some political agenda, yet without supporting or being part of some political organization. I was tempted to see the film ever since I saw a trailer coming out over a year ago, and I am glad I finally did.

Another aspect I liked about the film was how it portrayed the relationship between the main characters. Frank makes a pretty good point about how he has no intention of becoming a pedophile, and while he developed feelings for Roxy, he had the decency to only tell her in the moment they were going to die. This brings me to the dramaturgy of the film – it ended in the perfect scene. The whole film was a rollercaster of entertainment and not all that much more, and I am glad that the producers of the film mainly conceptualized the film as such. The story always managed to keep me interested, and strangely reminded me of “Pierrot le fou” where it’s also all about a couple stumbling through the world and running away from the police.

Lately, I have been immensely bored of people who just complain about things. The world might suck, but nobody enjoys listening to that because we all know it. Surprisingly enough, “God Bless America” is fun enough to keep itself interesting and amusing besides the constant nagging of its main characters. Having been able to achieve that feat, I’d say that the film is quite recommendable if you are looking for distraction on a bored evening.

Everything is Illuminated

It’s been awhile (actually only two weeks) since I saw a film at home, and boy that is a strange feeling. Watching movies is such an integral part of my life, it is almost like I am addicted to it. Or it’s like how a friend used to tell me that men need to jerk off every once in awhile or they’ll feel physically uncomfortable. (Is that true, really? Certainly it does not appear to happen to women.) However, watching films is not technically a productive thing and I have been desiring to be more productive these days. As a result, I made lots of food recently – even more due to Thanksgiving – and I begun studying Japanese intensively. In fact, I spent the majority of this morning reflecting upon it and researching what I shall employ next. (Perhaps there will be another posting about this. We will see.)

I am not digressing. The key word of the last sentence over there is “reflecting”, and that is exactly what I have been looking for. I wanted to see one of those self-indulgent films which reflects upon itself, but for a change I do not mean the philosophical Rohmer-like Nouvelle Vague kind of way. Perhaps “The Darjeeling Limited” is the kind of film I was thinking about, a journey to oneself. “Everything is illuminated” is pretty much just that, except with a little bit more pathos. Unlike “The Darjeeling Limited” they are not really looking for a new self but rather for their own past, and human connections stemming from that past. What connects Alex and Jonathan is now not only their grandfathers’ past but also the experience they shared by trying to find it. As a result, most of the second part of the film just feels so damn solemn, and honestly it kind of destroyed the subtlety of the first part a little bit. Whereas the characters showed great chemistry in the beginning, suddenly all that cute awkwardness between them turned into silent, meaningful motions. Uh oh. Taking that weakness aside, however, the film was quite perfect. It had all the right humor, absolutely lovable characters (Sammy Davis Jr. Jr!) and a great overall story. The execution might have been a little bit too kitsch, but there is something beautiful and meaningful in the message the story transported. I also liked how all the characters evolved, for instance we see how Jonathan came to love Sammy and got over his fear of dogs.

I know that I am a sucker for road trip movies and perhaps my view on this film is romanticized because I find all road adventures more meaningful than they might really be (after all, it seems that Shii was disappointed by the movie). Nevertheless, I think it is a beautifully made nice film which appears to be totally underrated.

Skyfall

Recently, I have been pleasantly busy. Surprisingly enough, I managed to make 5 dishes (two of which were very simple, of course) in just a little bit of an hour. It tasted super great! Sometimes, a quasi-elaborate Chinese dinner is exactly what I need. There is almost nothing as comforting as that. In comparison to that, our Thanksgiving dinner comprised of roughly 8 dishes (plus cranberry sauce and gravy) and it took two entire days. That is a little less comforting, but I consider it an achievement.

This blog does not have a single entry of a Bond movie, because I never saw Casino Royale nor Quantum of Solace. In fact, I saw “Die Another Day” in theaters and the roughly 4 or 5 Bond movies before that as well. To me, Pierce Brosnan is the movie Bond that I grew up with and the others are the “TV Bonds” which I remember only vaguely from the many films I saw on TV at the time. Ever since I seriously got into films though, I have been following the development of Bond in movie reviews but even Eva Green could not get me to actually watch the movies. It is only most recently that we got into watching films in theaters, and boy I enjoy it.

This Bond film is a very special one to me. It’s the first one I am seeing as an adult person, and a strong sense of nostalgy goes throughout the entire film. I feel like the story is written just so they can bring out all those classic bond scenes (chase scene on trains, falling off huge bridges, cars with gimmicks etc. etc.) while still having a modern outlook. It’s a film about how the old must make place for something new, in almost every aspect. I thought the film was surprisingly gloomy in how it was almost mourning the past, and at the same time it was lovely how the series tries to add some sort of depth to it. In my opinion, it is well done and rather thoughtful, making me look forward to more of the entire package – Bond action coupled with an engaging storyline.

The biggest downside of “Skyfall” is, without a doubt, the women. While Judi Dench got a spot in the sun, as the title of this posting suggests, the other women (Moneypenny and the superfluous Bond girl of the year) were absolutely shameless. I am more or less OK with women randomly falling for Bond and not really being more than a pretty face, but “What a waste of good scotch” was probably the most deprecating thing James Bond ever said. The irrelevance of these disposable female characters has never been this obvious, I don’t think Bond typically made morbid jokes in the moment of the death of some woman he slept with just awhile ago.

The brightest side of “Skyfall” is not Judi Dench, however, but obviously Javier Bardem. He is just so damn awesome, and needs no further explanation. This is the fifth film I saw with him (Los lunes al sol, No country for old men, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Biutiful) and I thought he was brilliant in every one of them. His character in Bond was especially delightful here, I absolutely approve of his gay scene with Daniel Craig. Lovely.

Unless you have an incredible disdain for the franchise, “Skyfall” is definitely one of the better Bond films, and if it’s just to see Javier Bardem in blonde.

Wait til you’re older

Okay, the film actually had a happy ending. But… it was ultimately not that happy! I was turning around in bed because the film left that bitter taste in my mouth, and I couldn’t really get rid of it, no matter how often I’d tell myself that it was a good outcome. More than funny (which it also was), the film was unrealistically touching and none of the characters really made sense. Yet at the same time, I strongly felt for all of them, and it left me thinking about them, with all their weaknesses.

In the same line as “Big” and other films with the premise of a little kid suddenly growing into the body of an older man, “Wait til you’re older” mostly reminded me of “Save the green planet”, which I loathed. It’s just so damn sad! Luckily, “Wait til you’re older” is mostly funny and has a bunch of really lovely scenes with sweet human interactions (Kwong with his teacher, Kwong with his best friend and finally, Kwong with his father and mother). On top of that, the film has a lovely imaginative style (although the CG is not always super great) and the heart-warming storyline totally draws you in. The film is more meaningful than your standard mainstream comedy, as it combines light-hearted comedy with real world problems.

Another odd aspect was that all adult male characters were assholes and all the women were lame. Every single problem in the film occurred because the two main male characters (apart from the kid) were unable to commit to just a single woman. Love triangles are the root of all problems in the world! One could say this was the moral of the story, ahaha.

It always surprises me how deeply sad even comedies are in Asian films. The willingness to pay money to witness heartbreak is impressive. It is pretty much exactly the opposite of the Hollywood tradition which must end up happily and no good person shall die. In contrast to that, in an Asian film, a good person almost always dies. I am really glad I randomly discovered the film (yay Netflix!) as I think it is quite a gem, even if it’s a sad one.

Der blaue Engel

I learned about this film for the first time in “The Dreamers” when Théo gets caught masturbating in front of a picture of Marlene Dietrich, one of the more famous stills from the film. After seeing the film, I would say that visuals are definitely triumphing over everything else in the film, much like other German films at the same time (oh God Metropolis ahahaha). Emil Jannings was Josef von Sternberg’s breakthrough entry into the film business, but Marlene Dietrich is the one who he truly set his eyes onto. He made movies written for Marlene Dietrich, basically to just show off her sultry looks, and one can easily see how “Der blaue Engel” is the perfect beginning for that. Some of the best scenes from the film are indeed her musical numbers – everything looks impeccable there.

So what about the story? Well, at least it was not boring. The pacing was good, and it’s a fluent descent into despair and ultimately death for our main character here, masterfully played by Emil Jannings. However, the story itself was not all that interesting. I read that Heinrich Mann’s book shows a completely different demise for the professor, one which is a much stronger social satire. The way the story is written in “Der blaue Engel” is indeed rather superficial and almost pointless in comparison. Throughout the entire film, we are basically shown what was obviously going to happen, and none of the characters had any depth whatsoever, not even the professor whose inner thoughts we are not really partaking in (very much unlike “Der letzte Mann”, which Murnau practically wrote as a monologue without words for Emil Janning’s character). The most interesting aspect is perhaps Marlene Dietrich’s charms, and the way she lures the professor into her “trap”. She is quite a great femme fatale, and I can totally see how they chose her to be the aforementioned picture in “The Dreamers”.

I wouldn’t say that I liked the movie, but it was on my list of classics I wanted to see for a very long time, and it was… interesting. After nightmares in German class about “Der Untertan”, I don’t think I am ever going to read “Professor Unrat” though, no matter how well written it might have been.