Author: Sasa

Laura

After seeing “Die Legende von Paul und Paula”, I must admit that “Laura” has become much less important to me now. With these two movies, however, I think I have officially entered a string of good movies yet again. Although “New York I love you” was pretty bad (but again, this was expected), I feel like everything has been incredibly great ever since “Yi Yi”. It makes it even more difficult to choose a new film now because it makes me wonder if it’ll live up to my expectations. There are several possibilities of course: 1. I don’t want a movie for awhile, 2. I always choose movies by directors I know so I’ll have a somewhat clear expectation, 3. I choose movies I have been wanting to see for a long time.

“Laura” is very difficult to compare to these other films, but it was at least as great. For some reason I am not a big fan of Gene Tierney and don’t actually find her to be that, but her acting was good and the character of Laura was a surprisingly likeable one. Unlike every other film noir I’ve seen, Laura is not an evil femme fatale, in fact, she is ‘merely’ a very attractive, strong woman and thus by far the most modern film noir character I have seen. In some ways, she is ‘really’ perfect: Smart and strong-willed yet good-natured and with a healthy love for men. Typically female characters in any sort of fiction are either the one or the other, and you can barely ever find an intellectual and somewhat pure woman who, by the way, also has a love life.

Apart from a very likeable main character, I was surprised how suspenseful the story was. I’m not really sure what to think about Preminger’s directing (I just can’t judge it at all!) but the cinematography definitely oozes of style. So either I really love film noirs or the ones I have seen (“Out of the Past” and “Angel Face”) are just the best ones out there. I hope this is not the case and look forward to seeing more. (What should I watch I wonder? XD)

Die Legende von Paul und Paula

Uh… oh God, how difficult. This movie cannot officially figure in my favorite movie list of all times, because I don’t like the characters and because ultimately this movie is not me. I came to Germany 1 month after the GDR ceased to exist, yet I grew up in a very Eastern German environment for quite a few years. (It is very Eastern German for little children to openly make fun of foreigners, by the way. So not so much Ostalgie from my side here.) Yet it’s fascinating in a similar way as North Korea is fascinating, and as somebody who has seen the Alexanderplatz changing over the years, I have a certain attachment to everything Eastern German.
(Honestly, however, I wonder if I would feel different if I went to the Heinrich Hertz Oberschule which is where my grade school teacher wanted to send me. I would most likely have preferred Schrödinger over Schnitzler and Hertz over Horváth today.)

I dislike Paul for obvious reasons – not because he considered his career more important than his love (if I had a choice, I’d say I despise men who prefer women much much more) – but because he changed his mind. And by his obsession he ended up killing her, isn’t that lovely. As much as this love story is beautiful, I cannot help but think that this supposedly very powerful scene was tainted by his irresponsibility. Finally, however, seeing Paul sleeping in this small bed with his three children is too lovely.

Paula on the other side is a little child who wants ‘everything’. There are indeed things in the world that you cannot have, but she wants them anyways. Then again, is it really too much to ask for? This thing she is asking for is ultimately coming out of an egoistic, yet very pure desire. I don’t think I have ever seen a more openly passionate character in film history. And for that to come from a German woman at that! It’s not this French, elegant and somewhat reserved charme, and completely different from the Latin hotness, no sophisticated, overly dramatic words; it’s just plain and simple but immensely strong embraces. An angry Emmanuelle Béart is nothing against that, really.
She must have suffered so much, but I am so happy for her! To have somebody to love so deeply! Not complex, but deep!

Visually, the movie has nothing special really. It’s just a good movie. Unlike the wonderfully photographed and at least as touching “Live of Others”, this movie is not in the 1000 movies of all times. I think about 99% of the greatness of this film comes from its GDR feeling, because of the way people dress, they think, what passion they display in contrast to their life. This movie is great in the same way the Ch’tis are great – and they had the same kind of impact. They open a world of dreams that we will never see in reality and we even accept it that way.

Paths of Glory

I’ve been trying to sort out my feelings (or rather: my non-feeling for that matter) about this movie. People on Netflix who gave this film a bad rating (there aren’t so many of them) do so for rather petty reasons in my book, which none of them I agree with: Bad acting, slow, Kubrick’s a a communist who wants to make ideals like patriotism and nationalism look bad (LOL)… This is all not what I’m thinking about. Perhaps my impression can be summed up with the last scene: I don’t buy it, because, unlike for the whole rest of the movie, it sounds extremely unbelievable that soldiers would start crying at a repetitive song by some German girl.

In the end, something always felt off to me: Somehow I expected something like “Full Metal Jacket”, but this movie is pretty much its exact opposite. You don’t learn very much about people’s character except for whether they are a coward or not, the main character is more a hero than a person and finally, the whole movie does not seem to attempt at making you feel. This is so unusual for a war movie, and it makes the film extremely great, yet offputt-ish for me. Weird, isn’t it?

The strength of the movie definitely lies in the story and the visual execution. The dialogue is absolutely brilliant and quite a few things that are being said there make you want to tear your hair out. Wonderful. “Full Metal Jacket” might be my favorite Kubrick movie, but most of his other films have greater visuals, “Paths of Glory” included – I love the contrast between the huge palaces displaying the absurdity of war and the very realistic looking trenches, where not so much blood is shown, but instead we see soldiers shivering while hearing the sounds of the fire. I am very much in love with the way “Paths of Glory” is made, I even love the fact that it leaves me very confused.

I am still one movie away from seeing all the relevant Kubrick movies (okay I am actually also interested in “The Killing”), but I already have a feeling that “Paths of Glory” will rank quite highly among them.

8 1/2

These surreal visuals! Claudia Cardinale! The italianness of the movie! The jazzy soundtrack! (I want it!) The overture to Rossini’s Barbiere di Siviglia! Oh God, only 8 minutes into it and I loved this movie already.

Ahhh, die Zuckerfee! I remember watching the beginning of “Stardust Memories” and was surprised that it was a direct reference and homage to the beginning of this film. These kinds of details: the music, the actors and especially the visuals are distracting me a little bit from the story, but that one is suprisingly lovely too.

Except for La Strada, Fellini’s movies are long, sometimes surreal portraits of life, society and people without a real plot. Unsurprisingly, this one is not too different from that even though it is centered around the main character and his struggles to make a movie. But the storyline is not all that obvious, which is where my surprise came from. Usually, Fellini’s later movies are a plain borefest for me even though there are aspects that I have liked, but why is it that I like this one so much? Is it the great actors? Is it the deep focus of a main character?

So I have seen two movies with Chiara Mastroianni now, and I am seeing my first one with Marcello Mastroianni. Wow, she really took after him, and not after Catherine Deneuve at all! They look exactly the same when they smile.

There is one thing I am really wondering about: The movie is supposed to be somewhat autobiographical and the women are playing an important role here. I also know that he married Giulietta Masina at age 23 and was with her until his death. “8 1/2” really makes me wonder about whether they had a relationship like Guido and Luisa here – just looking at Giulietta Masina’s face makes it impossible for me to believe.

Due to the non-existence of a plot and since I don’t really want to get into detail when it comes to the meaning of the film, I find it difficult to talk about more than directing craftmanship and the actors. The film deserves better, yet I don’t even feel all that pressured; considering the high acclaim of the film, I can just leave the analysis and dissecting to others. This movie definitely deserves this high acclaim in my opinion, and it was much less of a bore than some other Fellini’s. I recommend it… unter Vorbehalt. No plot is always a bad thing. Finally: why is this movie’s name 8 1/2 after all?

PS. The movies in the title are the ones from the Sight and Sound Critics list that I have yet to see.

New York, I love you

In many, many ways, I preferred Paris je t’aime. First of all, it was much less of an actor-fest but had some actually good directors who made nice pictures. And second, Paris je t’aime had some stories which were actually touching and whose stories were plain brilliant. Those were stories about love where you could actually feel something like love, where New York I love you is either funny or kitsch. Even the one I liked the most had its fault (that the dialogue was a little off), but the biggest mistake of the whole movie is that it did not end in a remotely powerful way as Paris je t’aime did. Especially since it had absolutely nothing to do with New York.

“Paris je t’aime” had 3 segments that I found absolutely brilliant and “New York I love you” had 2 that I would recommend. That is all, and the latter definitely fails.

The ones I liked:

(4) Yvan Attal – Ethan Hawke just as annoying and yet funny as ever
These pick-up lines were a lot of fun. I can’t believe Ethan Hawke but then again I have a feeling that no other actor could pull this off. Chris Cooper’s scene with Maggie Q. is love and brought a grin onto my face though. And the last part… oh my, I watched it a second time with the knowledge of its somewhat amusing end; it seems like the dialogue doesn’t work and suddenly feels fake. But even then, this segment wins by having a French director and by using a Radiohead song as ending.

(9) Fatih Akin – Shu Qi and the old painter
I like the close up shots of Shu Qi’s face very much, they looked very nice and the mise en scène of her huge mouth is lovely. The story was also surprisingly nice, with a simple, unpretentious approach. It just had one silly detail I really disliked: How the heck can it take so long to cut tree leaves? XD

(3) Shunji Iwai – Orlando Bloom as anime soundtrack composer.
Somehow I liked this reading Dostoevsky theme – light-hearted, slightly amusing, Orlando Bloom being less silly than usual – why not?

(5) Brett Ratner – Wheelchair girl in Central Park.
The idea is quite funny and so politically incorrect. But I liked it. And oh my God, Serena is in it! XD

(1) Jiang Wen – Hayden Christensen as a thief
It took me awhile to understand the beginning of the story; in fact, I had to go back to it, but still I would say that I enjoyed Jiang Wen’s directing for some reason. The story itself was nothing too special, but not all too bad either.

The ones I disliked:

(8) Natalie Portman – Black guy, white child
Woah, Natalie Portman’s directing debut. I wish she would restrain herself to acting in movies.

(10) Joshua Marston – A young and an old couple quarreling
I guess New York is not like Paris – for the Paris compilation, you mostly show romantic beginnings, with (I think) only one exception and even that one was very romantic. New York, I love you shows much more ‘older’ couples who have been together for a longer time, and I wish it would have used this potential some more. This is the guy who did “Maria Full of Grace”, how?

(7) Shekhar Kapur – Some horrible-looking high class hotel room and a sick server
The music, please! Ahhhh! How can they abuse such lovely opera sounds? I didn’t know the actors, although they weren’t bad; the setting looked horribly stuffy, the characters unlikeable. At least the film made some sort of attempt of dialogue about New York, but even that came off as horribly pretentious. Also where is the point of those mirror shots?

(6) Allen Hughes – Thinking and talking about sex
I have yet to see such a predictable short story ever in my life – shallow and predictable, and to top that, the directing is extremely cliché too. And the overly dramatic music! Ugh.

(2) Mira Nair – Natalie Portman without hair
Natalie Portman’s weird jewishness pisses me off. She takes it so seriously somehow? Perhaps I’m just too used to the likes of Billy Wilder and the Coen Brothers and Woody Allen that I am unable to appreciate. Nevertheless, this segment was annoying.

Also they are planning Shanghai I love you and Jerusalem I love you. How much can you milk a bad franchise like this? The cities they picked are also weird… I would have expected so many others to come first: Tokyo, London, Rome, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Seoul, Hongkong, San Francisco etc. etc.

Whatever works

Holy crap, the main character looks like a mix of Scarlet Johansson and Reese Witherspoon, except she’s sort of not as… sparkling? She dated Marilyn Manson at some point though, so she probably has a very interesting personality.

Hey, this film actually made me laugh out loud. For a silly reason though, I laughed when she says “Protons? Did I just say protons? I mean cretins!” Ahem. She makes disgusting grits too! <3 But really, Woody Allen’s jokes have become sillier and less intellectual/sophisticated. At the same time, I find the older Woody Allen surprisingly young, unpretentious and openly funny, which seems to be a great thing for itself.

The worst thing about the film is that it’s way too short. It’s amazingly funny, it has the best characters and the way they evolve is lovely. Bu the shortness of the film makes it impossible for you to really feel the growth of the characters, or emotionally connect to them in the way it was possible for Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

In the end, I don’t understand the mixed reviews for this movie. Sure, the story itself isn’t all too deep and usually I hate physical jokes and artists who think that quantum mechanics require the smartest minds in the world. But that Heisenberg joke made me laugh, and the film has some great characters aside from an engaging storyline. I enjoyed the movie a lot (and actually the physicist friend of mine recommended the film to me!)

Tirez sur le pianiste

I’m writing this blog post right now because I don’t want to stop listening to Explosions in the Sky, which I would have to if I started watching a movie now, ahahaha.

The German Wikipedia article says the film is 79 minutes long, the French says 85 and the English 92. Beautiful… And this Criterion version I have seen actually says 1:21 hours?

These two main characters don’t look very Nouvelle Vague at all. Charles Aznavour is not tall and attractive enough and Marie Dubois looks like a Hollywood character. However, they feel absolutely perfect for this movie. His sad face is hilarious and melancholic at the same time; and she is very nice – the good thing about women in film noirs is that they always feel somewhat strong and smart. I definitely prefer women like that.

Instead of a synopsis, the French Wikipedia article on the film has a surprisingly nice “synopsis”. Usually the French articles are completely worthless as they don’t typically say much, but this one includes a very nice-sounding interpretation of this film to be some sort of parody of ganster stories, where the gangsters are actually the most amusing and likeable characters in the story. It also postulates that the film is mostly about love – knowing Truffaut’s other movies, I perfectly agree. The depiction of different women is crucial here, and give so many insights to the main character.

They have an essay month for Truffaut’s films at Not coming to a theater near you and in its esprit, I have already cut my promise not to see a French movie for awhile. Then again, a Nouvelle Vague film by someone I know is relatively safe, and honestly I don’t feel like experimenting all too much lately. There are too many films I want to see after all. The review for Jules et Jim is nice in how it mentions that Catherine is actually honest, but the one for Shooting the Piano Player is even better.

Finally, I love how Marie Dubois, the actress of Léna is the one who is pantomiming “Tirez sur le pianiste” in “Une Femme est une femme”. Speaking of titles, I think that “shooting” fits the of the movie perfectly, because on the one hand, you can take shooting in its first meaning; on the other hand, it seem to mean “a portrait of a piano player” which is exactly the layer of the film underneath its gangster comedy/parody.

I am glad I have seen this film despite my late disappointment with French movies. I wonder how Truffaut’s other work are going to compare to his first three very, very young Nouvelle Vague-ish films.

Yi Yi

It’s been awhile since I planned to watch this movie, mainly because everybody told me it’s very slow. Maybe it is… but it never felt slow to me! In fact, this is the very first thing that I noticed, I found myself caring for everything that happened in the film, and really none of the scenes were all that long, weren’t they? It’s more like most of the scenes are showing seemingly uninteresting details of people’s lives, especially the dialogues where the little boy is involved. Yang Yang is always posing such delightfully smart questions! I love them very much – he’s like the best little boy character ever! It is true that over these 3 hours running time nothing much happens, but at the same time, every scene is filled with so many of these beautiful details that never bored me, not even a bit.

What I do not agree so much with is the cinematography, which seemed nothing out of the ordinary for me. Sure, there are some interesting details like the video games and the observation cameras, which are lovely ideas. But in comparison to that, I definitely favor Jia Zhangke’s absolutely stunning images, which blow you away with atmosphere at times. The greatness of this film rather lies in the way the characters are portrayed, and how down to earth this is all executed. There are no shocking sex stories, nothing openly socio-critical, nothing political at all. But instead of all that, the film has something much more precious for me: it says so much more about life than perhaps all movies of the 6th generation together. (Okay, I am exaggerating.)

It’s been awhile since I have seen a movie about ‘life’, and I am happy to have found another one. I wonder how I would feel about this movie when I re-watch it in a few years, and I feel this urge of discussing the film now. I wish we would have seen it at a PIFF!

There are some scenes that were somewhat annoying, but then, Ting Ting’s love story became so cute when she was on a date with her boyfriend! I find it wonderful how they are engaging in such an innocent conversation in the Bagels café. That scene alone makes the film worthwhile a watch! I think that movies make our lives into a thousand lives.

Maybe I am just an idiot, but the last 2 1/2 minutes made my slightly distant and nonchalant face covered with tears. It was just so cute and touching, oh my god. Note that this scene has no music, this is not “The Boat that Rocked” that uses music to generate your tears, it’s much much more genuine. I have a feeling that in a few years, I am going to cry myself through the whole film.

I hope my parents would watch this movie, with Chinese subtitles if necessary. Even though they are not Taiwanese, the only thing that really distinguishes these characters from Chinese people is… their ‘Taiwanese accent’.

PS. To choose a movie to watch among two, I often choose the shorter one. I just looked up how long “Whatever works” is and happily I saw that it was only 92 minutes. Then I looked for the other film I wanted to see, “Tirez sur le pianiste”, and it was 92 minutes as well! Ahhhh!