Author: Sasa

Knife in the Water

A labmate of mine put it like this: I am dating [my girlfriend] and I am dating [my advisor]. I was quite disturbed to hear that given how both he and our advisor are male and I am not used so-called professional contacts of mine making gay jokes, but there is some sad truth to that. I watched a whole bunch of movies lately, but there was absolutely no way I could have sat down for 10 minutes to clear my mind and write postings. (Speaking of said advisor, he wants us to think about what makes us proud in our lives. What do you think it is for me? :D)

In the case of “Knife in the Water”, it is surprisingly not a big problem. I read a few essays on the film, and it has extensive Wikipedia articles. Inexplicably, this is a film where not so much happens yet at the same time, it is touching upon so many different topics that one can exploit. It’s channeling a future Kieslowski? In other words, the film is beautifully subtle and amongst the very few Polanski films I have seen (Repulsion, The Fearless Vampire Killers), this one is easily my favorite.

On the outside, “Knife in the Water” is just about a young guy meeting some old guy with his wife, spend a day with them, talk some but not much, get into conflicts with them and finally seducing the wife. It seems like a boring love triangle, so it is surprising how there is more to it. In fact, the film barely contains any love at all – sexual tension at most – and none of the two men really interact with the wife that much. The remarkable aspect about the film is that every character has a second face. Krystyna appears rather dumb and submissive, but she is smart enough to look at aforementioned second face of both her husband and the young man. Secretly, the former is the older version of the latter, but neither wants to admit it even when the wife points it out to them. The film is not actually about a fight between two men; it is a fight between generations, between any man and their younger or older self, rendering the film one about humanity.

I found myself contemplating the film a lot after I saw it, and it certainly is not only because Jolanta Umecka looks surprisingly sexy in her bathing suit. (I want that bathing suit!) I don’t even really know why that is, but I thought it was a great display of manliness, and despite the standardized gender roles in the film I found myself very interested in the interpersonal dynamics. Unlike Godard’s and Truffaut’s fashion, in this film actually Krystyna owns them both behind her meek appearance.

Polanski’s films seem to have no common thread, and “Knife in the Water” is probably different from anything else he did, starting with the language. (Miloš Forman anyone?) For me, this film is a little gem. Very much like a Kammerspiel, and I love this kind of stuff.

Branded to Kill

These days I have been awfully busy. Two days ago I started working from roughly 11am, went to class in the middle and watched half of a movie for dinner, but then continued until 1am in the morning when I finally got done with that part. Yesterday, after working again from 11am to about 4pm, I finally decided to take the rest of the day “off” to organize my life, but since there are several problems I have not been able to solve, I couldn’t sleep well.

The reason why I am watching these movies despite a relatively busy schedule is the Netflix-expiration effect. Now that I don’t have Netflix anymore, I started watching movies on Hulu, where Criterion has uploaded all of their movies to. (Amazing, really. I am seriously contemplating getting Hulu Plus now.) Every week they have a bunch of new movies which are free, and these particular films are going to be taken down soon.

This “stress” about wanting to watch these movies is sometimes a blessing in disguise. “The Killing of a Chinese Bookie” was brilliant, “Monsieur Verdoux” was too, but the biggest surprise was “Branded to Kill”. Nobody ever recommended it to me, I watched the film solely based on the fact that it is in the Criterion Collection. We all know that they have a few awful films in their line-up (“Un Conte de Noel” anyone?) but just like “Metropolitan”, my gut feeling told me that I want to see this. Indeed, it was right.

“Branded to Kill” was extremely controversial at its time, and its director is mentioned in the same line as David Lynch when it comes to craziness and absurdity. Personally, I don’t think the comparison holds that much. Suzuki is not that absurd, in fact his stories are absolutely entertaining, and the characters make perfect sense within their world. Most of all, I am impressed by his Japanese noir style. It’s so amazingly 60’s, somewhat avant-garde and reminiscent of French films like “Alphaville” and “Irma Vep”. Everybody is looking extremely stylish, and despite the misogyny (I accept that given the age of the film) every scene with a woman is hauntingly erotic. This is essentially a film noir Nouvelle Vague mix in which, of course, everybody dies at the end.

I think that “Branded to Kill” is a black comedy. There is this scene in which the main character sleeps with his wife, and they are shown copulating literally anywhere – on the staircase, in the bathroom, on the floor. And in-between these scenes, Suzuki presents these short shots of the neat, empty bed in bird’s view, clearly indicating that they never actually have sex here. I thought it’s these details that make the film really amusing.

Suzuki appears to be extremely beloved amongst critics, as it is not hard to find essays, analyses and fansites about his movies. As for me, I might already become a fan too – at least “Branded to Kill” was a lot of fun. I might be biased due to my immense love for butterflies, but even without that the film is a weeaboo-must-watch. I mean come on – Jim Jarmusch loves him.

Monsieur Verdoux

Let’s try forget that this is a Charlie Chaplin movie. Especially at the beginning, without Chaplin’s Tramp character “Monsieur Verdoux” feels like anybody could have written and starred in it. The story itself is much more serious and overtly realistic than “A King in New York”, the only other Chaplin movie I know which does not feature the Tramp, and cinematography and style just feel so not like Chaplin. But the bittersweet black comedy elements cannot be unseen, or the way Chaplin uses a lot of pantomime and body language to get the comedy across. It’s a film that feels so different from everything Chaplin yet you cannot get him out of your mind.

For the first hour at least, “Monsieur Verdoux” is funny, deep and beautifully written. I was quite smitten with the premise of the film, and I loved the way Verdoux was moving throughout life, with a sarcastic mouth but a lot of love in his heart. Whereas typical Chaplin films only have rather one-dimensional characters, this is perhaps his only film with some really great side characters. Annabelle is amazing and even Lydia is quite wonderfully characterized. I am not surprised that Chaplin calls this his best movie, you can feel how much work has been put into this film, like the Coens with “Miller’s Crossing”.
Later on, I was actually quite a bit confused. So… he didn’t “lose” his wife and child by killing them, didn’t he?

I also think that this was actually Chaplin’s most personal film. His relationships with women – I am surprised nobody has made a movie out of this. The Wikipedia section listing his relationships reads like a black comedy itself. Almost every cliché is in it – the first (true?) love at young age, several divorce fights, rumored affairs, a short but highly publicized love story with another famous actress, relationships which turned into friendship, and finally one last wife who he spent the rest of his life with, though it took him 30 years of amorous escapades to find her.

On a less bright side note, I find Chaplin’s later talkie movies strangely painful. In “A King of New York”, for the longest time I thought Chaplin’s character was in an incredible distress because didn’t realize how absurd the film was. As a result, I almost panicked and thought that he’ll ever get out of that mess – which he did, in the most amusing way. Perhaps a re-watch of the film, knowing exactly how it will end, will help me get over that case. “Monsieur Verdoux” is even worse – you know exactly that Verdoux must fail, get arrested and so on, and it is not funny but just painful to wait, and wait for when he will fail. It is great that one cares so much for these Chaplin characters (as always!), but on a personal level, I find it hard to enjoy the comedy under such circumstances.

I am not sure if I agree with Charlie Chaplin’s sentimental vision of life, and I thought the second half of the film felt a little dragging at times, but I too agree that this is one of Chaplin’s masterpieces.

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie

Gorp says (I love mentioning him in my reviews these days, huh? XD) that this movie is best seen when you are half-asleep. As for myself, I watched the film in little pieces over 4 days, each time starting watching it after 10pm. Every day I was really, really tired. And strangely enough, the later it got the more I enjoyed the film. It’s amazingly moody, beautiful and it has a few scenes where simple facial expressions is all the scene needs. It really makes me curious about how the movies with Gena Rowlands are – I have extremely high expectations considering that John Cassavetes must love her.

Apparently there is a rather different, longer version of the film which is rarely shown in the U.S. Reportedly, Ben Gazzara disliked the longer version saying that the club scenes were too long. But the club scenes are precisely what I loved about the film! That is where the moodiness comes from, where the girls could become more than lovely side characters. Right now, all of them are sidekicks except for one who serves to show how the main character experiences love.

I am not sure if I would recommend the movie. It’s the kind of film where I’d understand if you say that you loved it, but I’d also understand if you said you hated it. But in the latter case, I’d think that it’s a shame.

Never let me go

Considering that Keira Knightley is in this, I now realize that “Never let me go” is a lot like “Atonement”. Gorp really loves comparing movies to other movies, where “Inception + Before Sunrise = Copie conforme” is my absolute favorite. In the same veins, “Never let me go” is a mix of “Atonement” and… something sci-fi?

Actually there really is nothing really sci-fi in this film. No spaceships, no aliens, nothing. But the only sci-fi element in the film is crucial. The premise of this film relies upon an alternate reality in which clones exist purely for organ donation purposes. There is something hauntingly realistic about that, and I thought that makes this film surprisingly beautiful.
At the end of the day, they are people, and by that logic, life expectancy has not grown. Actually they just made a few more slaves with the difference that these slaves prolong your life. Mankind is fairly scary. If you consider how people find Hatsune Miku creepy, then I wouldn’t be surprised if clones (much more creepy after all!) would be ostracized and mistreated, fueled by the belief that they might not have “souls”.

If I knew that I am going to die, fully healthy at around age 30, I would most likely do things very differently in life. That is why there is something beautifully haunting about these characters’ lives. They don’t have to worry about anything like a career, or the meaning of their lives, because they are not allowed a career and the meaning of their lives is an extremely sad one. They don’t have to survive, but instead their early death is predetermined. Is this a blessing in disguise or just plain sad?

When you have lived a life long enough to love, it really is incredibly sad. Especially in this movie it was. Sure, the characters have their flaws. They are incapable of pursuing their love for each other until their love rival (of all people!) pushes them to. That is kind of pathetic but you know, so are Tengo and Aomame in 1Q84 for over 20 years. It is a sweet and pure love, and you want to root for them the entire time.

I loved the movie for its incredible sadness, because it’s a great “what if” type of sci-fi story, and because Andrew Garfield is cute enough to be parts of a triangle story. I can’t believe I have not yet seen this film before considering how relevant it is to my interests.

The Producers

How come I have only seen this film now? I know about it for years, ever since I saw an ad in the Berlin subway for the musical version. I thought it was really strange, and dismissed it as one of those silly things they typically play at the theaters in Berlin – one of the reasons why I have never actually seen a play in Berlin.

At that time, I had no idea that “The Producers” is such a classic. But now that I saw the film, I have mixed feelings about this fact. The film is just very, very silly. Not so much the oh-so-offensive Nazi stuff, but more like the way the rest of the story was handled. I loved the film all the way up until “Springtime for Hitler” premiered but the aftermath seemed a little silly to me. They got to jail (which was unfortunate because I actually rooted for them) but nevertheless, they did not attempt to become better people at all but proceeded to use the same scheme again. I also think that last 20 minutes of the film were that funny, except for the crying old ladies perhaps.

It’s not as bad as I make it sound though – this is my only complaint. Apart from that, the film is comedic genius. I especially liked the beginning when the main characters met each other, their interactions are perhaps my favorite aspect of the entire film, and I wished they had fleshed out those characters even more. A delightful display of American humor, “The Producers” is totally deserving its cult status despite its silly ending.

Beginners

From what the poster says, it looks like it’s a Eastern European (Polish?) poster of “Woman Times Seven”*, a film I have heard mixed things of and am therefore not sure if I really want to see it. But now that I feel like I have stared at an illustration of Shirley MacLaine’s butt for two hours, I actually got curious about the film.

Strangely enough, I have no idea why I wanted to see “Beginners”. Nobody recommended it to me, and I am not even sure if I have put it onto any of my to-watch-lists myself. I just had the film, and it was lying around there for so long that I don’t remember why it was there in the first place. I suppose I kind of like Ewan McGregor, but he mostly played in silly romantic comedies, and I definitely have no bias for Mélanie Laurent like Shii does. So why? Oh yeah, the old father got an Oscar for the supporting actor role. But really, that role wasn’t much of a big deal.

“Beginners” was a lovely little film whose melancholy reminded me a lot of “Elizabethtown”. It’s one of these slightly artful little films heavily focusing on the main characters who are extremely aware of the sadness in the world – even though this sadness is mostly just in their heads. They don’t have trouble with money, or any other serious issues, they’re just sad. In both cases this is at least partially due to the death of the father, and both films feature another old character who goes through some major crisis in life. Wow, these two movies have a surprising amount of things in common.

Apart from that, “Beginners” is rather quirky. That starts with the main character’s extremely artsy graphic design job, and does not end with Arthur being a talking dog. Everybody lives in extremely hipster-ish stylish rooms that just scream “luxury problems” to you. I liked every character in the film, and that is definitely a great plus. At the end of the day, however, I am not sure if this is a film that needed to be made, even if I really liked the premise. It was interesting and enjoyable enough to see, but besides creating a melancholic atmosphere and musing about life in a way that feels almost irrelevant to me, I don’t think the film has contributed that much to the world.

Also wow, today I saw this amazingly old 1901 adaptation of the Christmas Carol, and it looks so… Méliès except without the supernatural stuff? Fin de siècle style film-making is so fascinating, it even made me enjoy this little film by the same guy from the same year. I think the Muppet’s Christmas Carol is my favorite children’s movie of all times, and I watch it again and again whenever I can. I would like to believe that those are enriching things in life which make me less melancholic and so strangely empty as the characters in the film.

* The movie is on Youtube too: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7.

What Women Want

Sometimes I do wonder why I watch bad Chinese movies like this. Perhaps my unconditional love for “Yesterday Once More” is one of the reasons (I think I should add that movie to my all-time favorites), but in reality, Andy Lau might be another reason. He and Gong Li share something very strange – I don’t think either of them is particularly good-looking, and if they were normal people I probably won’t notice them on the streets.* Both of them are strong because they are amazingly charismatic and just downright awesome. It’s their incredible talent and stage presence that makes them the most attractive couple in all of China’s movie world.

With that said, I don’t think they have made a movie together before, and I absolutely love how well they work together. I don’t care if the rest of the movie is bland (I’ll come back to that), these two alone seem to be able to save the movie. Gong Li’s superiority over all those acting youngsters has already been established almost 20 years ago in “To Live”, my favorite Chinese film of all times, and she appears to not have aged a bit. Incidentally I don’t think that’s the product of plastic surgeries, if that is what you were thinking. Andy Lau… well, he is the perfect Asian man? It’s hard to say which actor I like the most, but if you’d use more. Most sexually attractive actor? Gael Garcia Bernal. Actor I want to date the most? Daniel Brühl. Ugliest actor who I’d still date? Ge You. Largest amount of teenage heart content poured out? Josh Hartnett. Most unexpectedly hot actor? Nevil-errr Matt Lewis. And finally: Actor who I would be willing to watch bad movies for? Andy Lau. Only he can do that, because for some reason, I just enjoy his movies.

“What Women Want” is no exception to this strange rule. It’s just awesome to see these actors I like, and without a doubt, this movie was not as bad as “If you are the one 2”. In fact, I think that especially the first part of the story really had its merits. As far as I can see, Chinese culture is even more stereotypically chauvinistic than Western cultures to the point that my own parents were secretly hoping that I will not have to cope with a husband from said culture. Since I am personally now happily distanced from that, I can laugh at it – and boy it’s fun to do so. The first scenes of the film – definitely the most enjoyable ones – were very Mad-Men-like, just more absurd and almost laughing-out-loud funny. I love how the main character moves around all these overly tacky women who are way too well-dressed and amusing to see. Style-wise, the film looks much better to me than “If you are the one 2” does. It’s luxury and professionalism in a sophisticated sense. If I had the choice between aforementioned “Mad Men” and Gong Li’s wardrobe – I’d choose the latter any day. She looks radiant in the movie, oh my gosh: I already look like this, but I wish I had the boobs to wear this and I like this top on her too. Amongst everything she wears, I like this one the most.
Oh yeah, of course it helps the film that it constantly shows Andy Lau in a suit (heartthrob!) except for those scenes in which they show him in drag. (Just for that the film is worth a look.)

All in all – you have no reason to watch this film unless for some inexplicable reasons you are into Chinese chick flicks. But for me, the film was interesting enough to write a long rant on these totally unimportant beautiful things in the world.

* This anecdote warrants a footnote: I did see somebody I found noticeable on the streets. There was this tiny, very skinny guy in the subway who was no more than an inch taller than me, had dark brown hair and the bluest eyes in the world (next to 6451 perhaps). I think it’s the contrast to the dark hair which makes the blue feel different (and perhaps it is actually different?) from blonde people – quite fascinating.

La collectionneuse

I think it’s remarkable that this movie was practically made at the same time as “Ma nuit chez Maud”. They are so different! Certainly this is because Rohmer does play around with the notion of color, and I felt reminded of “Le Mépris” which is an impressive study of colors whereas Godard is most memorable for me when he shoots in black and white. In “La collectionneuse” it appears that there is always a reason why a character wears a certain color, or perhaps it only seems so to me because I am unable to produce specific examples.

Ultimately, I didn’t like “La collectionneuse” as much the other Rohmers I have seen so far. Senses of Cinema has an amazing essay on the film, and practically says everything one could say about it, including background information on the production of the film and mentioning of almost every detail I also found noticeable. But for my own enjoyment, I think that the colors of the film make it look very dated, and very 60s. Unfortunately Rohmer is no Antonioni, and where the 60s look great in Blow-Up, they look rather silly here. Since the characters are silly themselves, this must have been Rohmer’s purpose, but personally I suppose I prefer films à la “Les Demoiselles de Rochefort” or “L’Eclisse” where I find the characters’ clothing style strikingly pleasant. Maud, for example, is a wonderful woman and it reflects in her style, whereas Haydée looks and behaves like a little kid.

In comparison to the boys however, she is quite honest. The main character accuses her of playing games, but actually she does much less so than he does. She acknowledges that she fails at relationships, and says very clearly what he wants, albeit that might be impossible. Perhaps the film’s best line is the one in which Haydée claims the desire to have friends. Whereas the male characters might represent a cinéma-vérité-type comment on the pre-68 society, Haydée feels much more timeless. A free-spirited girl like her could have lived at any time, except that nowadays she probably won’t struggle with wannabe dandies anymore, but with burned-out investment bankers. I thought the guys were pretty vapid and unlike the incredible sophistication in “Ma nuit chez Maud”, they had absolutely nothing to say. If these actors are playing themselves, then they must have an incredible sense of self-deprecation because these people are terrible! This quality would already elevate them above these insupportable characters, so – chapeau.

I will definitely see the last two of the “Six contes moraux”, and I hope to do so soon. Now that I don’t have Netflix anymore, I wonder how my movie consumption will be in the time to come.

The day he arrives

I won’t forget so easily that Pixelmatsch disliked “Night and Day” which sounds like such an unlikely thing to happen given its great premise. But since Gorp has recommended this film to us, and showed us the trailer so awesome it had to pique our interest, we knew we had to see the film some day.

I heard that all of Hong Sang-soo’s films are similar and therefore becoming repetitive, but since this one was my first, I thought it was refreshing and amusing. Even though it is about a film director’s creative block, it is one of those films like “8 1/2” or “Stardust Memories” which give it a rather amusing twist rather than being whiny. Of course this film cannot quite be compared to Fellini’s of Woody Allen’s masterpieces, especially since this one does not really take itself seriously. I really liked how it was practically the same day over and over, but completely different things happen, and even the characters are portrayed differently. As for me, I would like to interpret this story as a Rashomon-like incident of perhaps one single evening which might or might not have happened like one of the iterations of the events suggest.

More than anything, I think that this film does a wonderful job at portraying how the characters interact with each other. Especially the scene with the ex-girlfriend was absolutely awesome, and I thought it was amazingly realistic. The equivalent to this scene, the bed scene with his new ex-girlfriend (so to speak), is just as great. It is not exactly clear why these characters liked each other, but it is made obvious that they do, and their actions are so amusingly human that it almost made me laugh.

Even if Hong Sang-soo’s movies are all like this, it’s possible that I won’t get bored of it. I am sure that every film will exploit some different aspects, especially since not so much has happened in this movie after all. I want to believe that his other films could be just as interesting as this one. I should listen to Gorp’s recommendations more often – when he likes a director, chances are high that I do too.