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I keep forgetting the original title, harr harr

drrt

If you are the one

I am wondering if it would be easier to write about a chinese love comedy, especially when I do not feel like promoting it. Don’t misunderstand, I have thoroughly enjoyed the film although it uses some silly, overly kitsch background music and obviously would never make it outside of China, because it copies Hollywood way too well and is way too full with Beijing dialect jokes.

This is actually one of the main appeals of Chinese love comedies: Their “chineseness”. Just like “The Host” seems incredibly Korean to me, Chinese people love their comedies and they feel especially close to those jokes that mirror their society. “If you are the one” is actually a brilliant example of this, it’s indescribable.

What is comparably easy to describe, however, is the great acting of the main protagonists. The ugly, bald guy is Ge You, perhaps one of my favorite Chinese actors if not the favorite and the girl is played by formally soft-porn-movie star Shu Qi. Although she’s not exactly my type, I must admit that her acting is top-notch and I think she comes off much more natural and believable than most other Chinese actresses despite her rather young age.

In China, the film apparently has exceeded everybody’s expectations and was the most popular film last year or something like that. It’s unusual for a Chinese movie to be able to stand against the concurrence of Hollywood, and with this movie, I actually can see why: Surely Hollywood has become weaker too (now that Lord of the Rings is over and The Dark Knight apparently didn’t cater to Chinese tastes as much), but this film has everything: Witty dialogue, a funny yet emotional story and a brilliant cast.
It’s so cute how he fell in love with her because he felt he was one of these rare women who are serious about a reltionship. I think a lot of people see themselves in the idealistic way the main characters are struggling for love. Maybe that is wishful thinking, but it surely is attractive to a lot of people.

For me, it was quite an experience to see one of these so very Chinese movies without too much depth again. While I thought it was quite silly at times, I actually also enjoyed it a lot and ever since the Berlinale, I would value enjoyment higher than the meaningful in a heartbeat. Maybe “If you are the one” is not necessarily the artistically greatest film and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone but those who master the Chinese language, but I surely had a lot of fun watching this yesterday.

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Tüddelbaums

drrt

The Royal Tenenbaums

Since I am now forced to study for the possibly most boring exam I am going to have this whole year, I will be motivating myself with a comparably pleasant activity: Commenting on yet another great film.

I have decided to watch “The Royal Tenenbaums” because it’s one of the movies in the schedule at Movie of the Week. Unfortunately, I still have not seen “Requiem for a Dream” yet and I am not very interested in watching “Wristcutters”. The concept of the website is great, but I am a little underwhelmed by the line-up starting April. Well, I am in no position of whining, of course.

After totally fallen in love with “Little Miss Sunshine”, “The Royal Tenenbaums” is great on a completely different level. It is an ode to what we call family as well, but its comedy is much sharper and blacker than “Little Miss Sunshine”s. Comparing these two movies is rather difficult and probably inappropriate anyways. Of course, both start with a dysfunctional and end with a loving and close family, but the characters are fundamentally different.
A propos family, I find it very interesting how French films tend to either outright ignore family or disassemble them while Hollywood and the likes prefer to take a more optimistic look at this societal institution we all love and hate.

I don’t even have a favorite character though, it’s mostly the ensemble and the way they interact with each other. Perhaps I do dislike Margot for randomly mistreating her husband though; on the other hand, I can somehow identify myself with her. She’s quite a great emo character and her cynism is surprisingly understandable.

Unlike Little Miss Sunshine, I actually think that there is quite a lot to discover at “The Royal Tenenbaums”, let alone the greatness of its actors (Gwyneth Paltrow is actually pretty good, she’s just too… blonde?) This site for example has quite some inspiring observations, although it’s just noting some minor details about the film, it’s still interesting. Most other websites are just praising at how great the humour in the film is – and that probably is indeed its biggest strength. You have to like that type of black humour and be able to detect its wittiness, and then you would come to like a character like Royal just as much as his grandsons do.

Another appeal of “The Royal Tenenbaums” is its unusual and slightly artificial setting. Everything just cries black comedy into your face and it clearly looks like everything is supposed to be at the place it is. Although I hate it when characters wear the same outfit throughout a movie, in this case, it makes perfect sense. Perhaps Wes Craven actually is an interesting director?

It’s been 7 years since I have seen a poster of it at the CinemaxX Potsdamer Platz in Berlin for the first time and I still remember how I was intrigued by that poster. I am glad to have finally watched the film now and I especially recommend it to anyone who likes the cast, because it is in a film like this that they can show their brillancy. (Except Bill Murray though, it’s disappointing how he only got a silly character and just a bit of screentime.)

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I have never had actual wild strawberries in my life

drrt

Wild Strawberries

First of all, I have committed the sin of being extremely tired while watching the middle part of the story, and so in the end, it felt like I have seen the beginning and the end, but forgot a large part in between. I deeply apologize to the film, because it’s a masterpiece.

Why it is so great needs no further explanation, I feel, and so I guess I am only going to be able to rant randomly about the film without digging deeper into it at all. I wish I could do better, but films at this level always give me the impression that other people have said much greater things about it than I possibly could after one single viewing late at night. It is true that the story itself is rather simple, it’s a little like Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”: An old man encounters many people and then changes from an egoistic and horrible person to someone great, while throughout the whole story, his background is being told as well. But Bergman is such a genius at bringing this story to life! He puts so many layers onto these characters and especially the main character that it gives you the impression of being very complex. I also think that Isak’s dreams at the beginning were very creative and the interaction with his daughter-in-law and especially the characterization of these silly young people were extremely well done and sweet.

Another aspect that makes “Wild Strawberries” so precious to me is the simple fact that it’s a road movie. It has a start and an end, and the story itself too ends with a very realistic and touching character development towards a “better” person. The possibilities the road opens for character development is what makes me like them so much, and I can only remember one single road movie I did not like (which, incidentally, is “Viaggio in Italia”). Of course, Bergman manages to make this perhaps a little simplistic premise into something great while bringing together some interesting characters.

It’s not even a depressing movie in my opinion especially since it closes on such a good note. I do not agree with people who tag Bergman as “the gloomy director” at all, not even “Persona” was all that depressing in my book, it just had a great atmosphere. After I have liked “Persona” so much and thoroughly enjoyed this film, I have the deepest respect for Bergman now. Maybe he’s not a Godard or a Jarmusch yet, but he comes very very close to it.

I wonder what will happen when I am old and will be re-evaluating my life. At least I hope the number of relevant men in my life by then won’t be growing too significantly from the current number of 3 3/4, harr harr. On a more serious side note, this year’s short film which won the Oscar for Short Animation this year is also a film about an old man who looks back at his life. It’s a really wonderful story and you can torrent it from here. I actually think it deserves another posting, and maybe I will write about it to promote it even further…

So, all in all, while I think that “Persona” is the better film, “Wild Strawberries” is my personal favorite so far. And now, shall I move on with “Tystnaden” or rather with “Cries and Whispers” or “Fanny and Alexander” or…? Ahh, luckily Bergman has made so many films. XD

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I too couldn’t have let the girl die

drrt

Zuo You

What can I say. First of all, I don’t recommend this film to anyone except Thomas, because it’s sooooo slow. I haven’t seen such a slow movie for quite awhile and it annoys the hell out of me that Chinese movies made for the European audience is always so immensely slow-paced. But apart from the slowness, the movie delivers on every aspect in my opinion.

I was very suspicious at the beginning, because I loathe “Beijing Bicycle” with a passion and I warned my parents about the film. Luckily, we had a lot of fun watching the film together, especially since my parents recognized all the actors from other movies except for the female protagonist (who, by the way, was also the weakest of the four of them in my opinion). But now I am glad that I have seen this.

First of all, I can see how the screenplay has won the Silver Bear at the Berlinale. The story (and the characters) is the movie’s strongest point. Just like “Beijing Bicycle”, the film is also quite a portrait of Chinese society, and one aspect of it is the infinite love for one’s own child. Every character in this film is so disturbingly realistic. I would have acted exactly the same as them, and I feel exactly the same as them. I suppose this makes me rather Chinese when it comes to the topic of family.
Thus, I especially liked how they interacted with the child. When they were “playing airplane” by lifting up the girl and running with her, my parents said that I was just like that when I was small. All these details in their lives is sooo Chinese, it’s great and I must say that the director does have quite an eye for the portrait of everyday lives.

Directing-wise, the film has quite a few great details. (It also has a Totoro as decoration! XD) I love how the film played with “left” and “right” and used it at some crucial parts in the movie. The composition of the picture was brilliant at times in my opinion, for example when the TV was shown in the mirror, or the way the eating scenes at the very end were shot. If it were not so incredibly slow, technically this is quite a mature film in my opinion and the direction conveys the characters feelings.

The problem with slow-paced movies is not necessarily the slowness itself. Although I do think that too many “mood shots” actually destroys the mood, because I tend to want to fall asleep instead of feeling suspense, I think that the problem mainly lies in something else: A movie is just that long. There are so many feelings involved with these 4 human beings, and I feel like there are so many more things that they could have shown, I wanted to know more about the characters, more about their lives, other aspects of how they feel. I don’t just want to see some frowning faces for minutes, I actually want to see what they are thinking. To me, these frowning faces are not just ‘subtlety’ and ‘art’ or whatever, to me, it just looks like the director was taking the easy way out because he didn’t know what to make them say. More conversations or actions could have made the film deeper, but instead one to the accumulation of way too many mood shots. I was missing “content” a little bit in this movie, and that’s all due to its slowness.
Also, when people move slower and speak slower than I would in reality, I feel alienated to them. But that’s not what the film is about, you are supposed to feel with them. I guess this is the great thing about books: One can skip over Tolkien’s descriptions of landscapes and move onto the interesting action.

Finally, I am glad that I have found a poster picture that is suitable for the movie. I think that the official English poster is horrible and doesn’t do justice to it at all. The worst scene of the whole movie was the sex scene at the end, so utterly tasteless. But the interaction between the characters was what makes this little film so precious.

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Berlinale 2009, Films we have missed

A list of films we would have been interested in, but ended up not watching because of numerous reasons (the time spot was bad, the film wasn’t all that interesting or – we didn’t get tickets). There are quite a lot, heh. So, which ones of these would you have seen? Or which ones would you want me to see and review here?

Since I ended up watching so few films, more links you can dig into:
– The Daily at IFC.com which even has a posting on Ai no Mukidashi
– Daniel Kasman’s blog at The Auteurs

Oh my gosh, I just realized that the Berlinale obviously also has an English website >.< I am so stupid - expect an update of these blog posts in the next few days. Without further ado, here are the ones I have picked, in no particular order: Continue reading “Berlinale 2009, Films we have missed”

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Berlinale 2009, Day 8 (Members of the Funeral)

Now that Pixelmatsch has taken upon the task of finishing the dreadful blog posting, I can now proceed onto our last movie, a Korean one yet again! Harr harr.

This time, we went to the CineStar, which leaves us with only the Urania, the Berlinale Palast and the Friedrichstadtpalast that we did not go to. How sad. The CineStar indeed is not as good as the CUBIX and I agree that original versions should run in the CUBIX instead of the CineStar. Oh well, who knows, maybe one day there will be a good German movie coming up that we can watch in the CUBIX then.

drrt

Jangryesigeui member (Members of the Funeral)
South Korea 2008, Baek Seung-Bin, 100′

The critics seem to agree that “My Dear Enemy” is the best Korean movie of this festival. I would agree but add that “Members of the Funeral” comes pretty close. To be exact, the two movies are very difficult to compare – the one is about a perfectly normal love relationship and the other about, well, a completely abnormal family.

The film starts at the funeral of a boy, and a family is introduced as the ‘members of the funeral’. Mother and daughter seem to hate each other and the father is completely alienated from them. Throughout the film, these family members’ backgrounds are shown, and especially their encounters with death. At the same time, the story of the dead boy and the three family members are told: All three of them are fascinated by him in their own way; the father who is gay and tries to become a sugar daddy for the boy, the mother who aspires to become a novelist and takes an interest in his novel (namely “Members of the Funeral”) and the daughter who simply falls in love with him and his weirdness.

Compared to “My Dear Enemy”, I suppose that there is much less identification potential: While I could totally relate to both characters in “My Dear Enemy”, my own family is actually disgustingly sane and normal, and I also do not have a particular relation to death. However, I think that “Members of the Funeral” is more sophisticated in many ways.

First, I think that the techniques of storytelling in “Members of the Funeral” is quite interesting (I only disliked the end). I like how the whole story is a flashback, and there are multiple flashbacks within the flashbacks. Although all the characters only interact with the boy and not with each other, you can see how the story comes together.

Second, I find the novels mentioned in the film quite well chosen. I especially loved how the boy up “Death in Venice” at the bookstore while shopping with the father. While I do not think that Agatha Christie is a great novelist and generally am not a big fan of crime and mystery books, I approve of most of the other choices (except the Koreans which I did not know). Speaking of book selection, I am surprised to see so many foreign titles. I think this is an indication that “Members of the Funeral” is yet another film made to reach a foreign audience. (Would Koreans actually like a movie that uses swearwords and shows penises so much?)

Apart from the characters, the only thing that places “My Dear Enemy” over “Members of the Funeral” is the fact that I was a little disappointed by the end. I didn’t really expect a surprising revelation or anything, but I have hoped for a little more interaction between the family members. Basically, the setting was given from the start and for me, the story ended at the point where the boy died. Especially the story arc with “the fourth family member” was totally unnecessary and did not add anything to the story in my opinion. But why did he exactly do this? What is the aftermath of his death for the family? Are they just going to never talk about it and forget him? Unlikely.

Finally, I am actually not sure whether I would recommend the movie (mainly because I remember that there were parts I have rather disliked), but I surely have found it to be inspirational in some ways. Summa summarum I’d say I recommend it.

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Family stories are the best

drrt

Little Miss Sunshine

So, instead of writing something about the last Berlinale film, here you have a “normal” movie review.

There is not much to say about the movie except that I agree with everybody: it’s good. The characters are most endearing, the plot is great and I actually like Greg Kinnear’s “I kind of want to punch him” face. Hahaha.

“Little Miss Sunshine” is, similar to “Once”, another one of these movies about lovely outsiders that everybody loves. When I see a movie like that, I would naturally feel very sympathetic towards those outsiders, but the way how these movies get promoted towards the mainstream audience. The truth is that an “ugly” girl like Olive is looked down upon and while we can all say “beauty pageants are evil”, we cannot overlook the fact that we too are superficial people who strive to be with the smart, the rich and the beautiful. As silly as it might sound, and perhaps it’s just a coincidence, but I have no close friend who I do not consider good-looking, even not the internet friends. Why is that?
And so, the premise of “Little Miss Sunshine” leaves a little bit of a bad taste in my mouth after watching it.

However, the film is just so much fun! Compared to many other movies I have seen, it’s just so much more enjoyable to see. Sure, the movie has its actual weaknesses, like how I find it sad that none of the characters actually got any of their problems resolved, because there was just not enough time to develop any of the characters, but I have loved how the family grew together.

That is why the ending was just so brilliant! I wanted to cry, or perhaps I did a little bit. I am wondering if this is a good criteria of whether a movie is good or not. If a film is so touching without being kitsch in any way, it automatically reaches a higher level in my esteem. In fact, many films in my ‘favorite movies list’ are those that have touched me emotionally.

By the way, being overweight can be quite beautiful, I recently read an article about overweight ballerinas in… argh, a Latin American country I forgot, and I have found those dances to be quite aesthetic. These are exceptions though, I guess. I think it’s very difficult to an overweight body in the way they did.

Finally, there is not much to add to the endless numbers of other reviews on this film. It’s just good, it really is.

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Berlinale 2009, Day 7 (Treeless Mountain)

It’s the Delphi again and thus, it was a little more of the same: The producers were present, a bunch of people were waiting for getting in (like 40 minutes before the film started), but at least we had no problems getting tickets. We also had rather good seats and I swear I am never going to the Delphi again. It’s old, dirty and snobbish. Oh and the seats are horrible. Maybe I just wished I had seen some more movie theaters this year (Urania, Zoo Palast, the Berlinale Palast! ahhh), that is all.

drrt

Treeless Mountain
USA/South Korea 2008, So Yong Kim, 89′

There is not much to say about this movie, because it’s the type of movie where nothing actually happens: The main characters are little girls whose mother leaves them to their aunt one day. She says she’ll come back when the girls have filled up a little piggy with coins. And thus starts the girl’s wait for Godot…

So, what can I say? First of all, it’s like a copy of “Nobody Knows”. The atmosphere, the way the girls acted (although they are much younger of course), the extreme slow pacing, the evil world around them. If you like “Nobody Knows”, you’ll also like “Treeless Mountain”, it’s just as easy. The film is not sad or depressing, it has its little funny scenes and it conveys the girl’s feelings in a very non-sentimental way. It’s just like the press said, and I was prepared to see a movie like that. This is all there is to the movie in my opinion, and I think it does a good job at conveying that.

My favorite part about the film was the point when they climbed the “treeless mountain”, a hill of rocks, while they see their mother go away. It’s the screenshot featured on the posters of the film, and I think that alone tells you everything that the film does.

There is one thing that bugged me about the film personally: In my opinion, this film totally fails to show “childhood” itself. How many children grow up like that, unloved and left alone by their parents? Surely this is a horrible thing, yadda yadda, but the truth is that most children in Asian societies grow up in an environment of overdose of love, or at least expectations. You have to do great in school, have a lot of talents, grow tall and pretty and make it into a Western country, if possible into a good university and then into a large company. Why do people love to make these films about orphans (or at least unloved children)? I guess it’s because it’s easy to do that. Why some kid would shoot around at Virginia Tech – the question is too complex to make a beautiful movie out of it. And a beautiful movie, that’s all “Treeless Mountain” is, but since it is so beautiful, it would also be able to stand out if “Nobody Knows” didn’t come before.

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Berlinale 2009, Day 6 (It might get loud)

For this movie, we went to the CUBIX, a comparably new and rather large multiplex next to Berlin Alexanderplatz. It’s very comfortable, stylish and good-looking – the movie theater that gives you the impression that it could convert the last multiplex hater. And I am sure it gets a lot of hatred, because I can’t imagine another area in Berlin that is as leftist and alternative as where the Cubix stands.

We were also very lucky, we waited in line for spare tickets and actually got some, yay yay! I wonder if we will be this lucky in the future again…

drrt

It might get loud
USA 2008, Davids Guggenheim, 97′

It’s this year’s Berlinale music documentation, I guess. Pixelmatsch said that he watched the “Bananaz” film with similar impressions: It’s all about seeing and listening the music, compiled together in an interesting documentary.

“It might get loud” was no different. Basically, it’s Jimmy Page, this guitarist from U2 and Jack White getting together, talk about playing the electric guitar, and of course, actually playing together. They are the type of musicians that people tend to build legends around, and although you get the feeling of getting very close to them, taking part in tiny details of their lives, the film contributes to this legend-building by inserting the musicians witty jokes. (“It’s gonna be a fist fight.” Haha.)

Speaking of legends, I really thought that Jack and Meg White were actual siblings… So are they not? XD By the way, I think I am a little moe for Meg White, I wonder why?

I’m not a big fan of all this bullshitting about music. Surely they are good musicians, but all of them are those who made it big and whose popularity is more a chain reaction, it’s not like they are the best guitarists out there. Of course all of them were very creative and are serious about their music, but something tells me that making music is not the kind of pseudo-profound blah blah like that. Some details were interesting, some dialogue tidbits made me laugh, and I especially were interested in, erm, the “hardware” – what kind of sound effects they make, how they actually played the guitar. (For example, I loved how Led Zeppelin made a huge effort in recording their drums in this staircase, because the height made a great sound.) Considering how these situations were rather sparse, that was not really what the film was about for me.

It was interesting to see where they grew up, where they see their musical roots in (I died many deaths when I heard the blues song that Jack White considers his favorite), that they all looked horrible and silly when they were young and that they don’t really seem to know anything about music theory at all and have learnt everything by self-experience, and thus would say things that professional musicians who have learnt it would be surprised and shocked at because it’s so trivial. But this is not the reason why I enjoyed the movie.
Although I have never actively listened to Led Zeppelin, U2 or even the White Stripes, I absolutely loved the music they played in the movie. Although movie theaters are not designed to play music, the sound is still much better than speakers at home. I would even go as far to say that rock music only sounds good live and with appropriate equipment. Even though I was not as thrilled as I used to be when listening to rock music, something similar to this intense feeling did come back, and I loved it. Back in the day, I have found Led Zeppelin to be utterly boring and I cannot see how they are references all these punk rockers (whose music is totally simple and brute to me – the Ramones, eek), but in the multiplex, it sounded absolutely great. If anything is my type of music, this is it. If I were younger, this is the type of movie that might would have gotten me into playing the guitar.

Although I am not convinced when millionaires talk about ideology and music ethics, I understand one thing: As much as I seem to like to listen to it, pop is just not “me”. There was a time when I loathed all music except for the stuff I listened to, and while that has completely changed now, I still know what I do not like typically.

Finally, I can see how there were many fans in the audience and since Rock’n’Roll is the type of music that everybody at least pretends to love, I am sure that the movie will gain some good reviews. As for myself, I cannot see myself ever watching this again – unless it’s in a movie theater.

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Berlinale 2009, Day 6 (My Dear Enemy)

Since it was sold out on Sunday, we went today and got a ticket, yay yay! It’s a little sad because on Sunday it was screening in the nice CineStar while today, we had to go to the Delphi yet again. On a happier side note, however, I have finally seen the top part of the Delphi for the first time – there were even comfortable couches with silly fleur de lys patterns embroidered on them. XD That alone made this screening very interesting for me.

drrt

Meotjin Haru (My Dear Enemy)
South Korea 2008, Lee Yoon-Ki, 123′

Okay, the main characters are annoying, this is perhaps what I will remember the best from this film. Then again, this is the very first film I have seen that deals with a relationship of two people who have broken up before. It might sound so trivial and obvious, but who has ever bothered to make a movie out of this? As much as the film might have felt melodramatic and banal at times, it’s my first movie about a normal and simple broken relationship. Compared to that, there are way too many movies about marriages, divorces, new loves yadda yadda. Except for “Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind” (which is way too pretentious and unnatural to compare it with “My Dear Enemy”), people never get together or even simply meet after breaking up.
In the Q&A, the director was asked why he thought of making a movie about a past love, and my initial reaction to that was “Why not?” But now I realize that it might not be as natural and obvious to make a movie like that.

In that respect, I have liked how the movie unfolded. As much as I hated both characters at the beginning, I knew that they would be slowly warming up, and although I have expected it, I loved the scene a lot in which they showed that the male character is an outstandingly great person who actually helps out people selflessly. If I remember back, I only know one single person who helps people out of selflessness, not out of weakness – and this person had a room in which you literally couldn’t walk without stepping onto something. I think it was very heart-warming how they showed why this man is actually worth loving and I wished the main characters were better actors so the last scene would have had a bigger impact on me.

So this is what I disliked about the film: the execution. The actors were horrid, the cinematography mediocre at best (in my opinion), the precise execution of the dialogue was not sophisticated enough for me (yes, I admit that my benchmark is Horváth). And oh god, the directing… way too many useless scenes, and the actors were yelling at each other so much it made my head hurt. But the story itself is quite a sweet one. It might not sound like it, but watching this film was actually memorable for me: It has great characters, a nice albeit predictable storyline and would be such a great movie if it lived up to its potential.