Category: Movies

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.

Ma nuit chez Maud

Oh wow, I love love love Rohmer to pieces. I couldn’t stop watching “Ma nuit chez Maud” last night even though I told myself to go to sleep soon. It wasn’t so bad – the film was over shortly after midnight, but I don’t think I could have stopped even if it was at 2 in the morning. It was just that addicting.

Looking at essays and comments on the film, I think I tend to disagree with what others wrote about it, after all, film is vague by definition. While it certainly is a film about “the lack of action” when there is something lingering there, I do not think that what they were saying was so ‘meaningless’. They didn’t just discuss love and fidelity and religion, it was their own shameful way of flirting with each other talking about why one would choose not to do so. Even Maud’s and the narrator’s last meeting, described at places as “talking about banalities”, is extremely important. What they are actually doing is wrapping up their relationship and say conclusive words about what that night actually meant to them.

Rohmer is wonderful at creating an almost artificial distance between you and those characters (very much unlike Truffaut’s characters whom you emphasize with a lot), yet at the same time the story flows beautifully. I thought their talking was utterly enjoyable, because it is fun to figure out their double meaning. There is one aspect I absolutely did not understand, but that is relatively unrelated to Maud. I don’t quite get what the narrator means when he says at the very end of the film that “his wife has discovered something about herself”. Oh well, I will never find out but I feel like I might have missed something crucial here.

I think Maud is quite a wonderful character. She plays a game which she realizes that she is going to lose because for some reason her female intuition tells her that there is a blonde in his life. Nevertheless it does not keep her up from playing with fire and giving the narrator quite a hard time. It is almost obvious how much better chemistry she has with him than aforementioned blonde, but ultimately that is exactly what the film is about.

Also, who thought Clermont-Ferrand could be so pretty? It’s nice to see a Nouvelle Vague movie outside of Paris, but really, “la campagne” looks awfully Parisian. Some of those streets the film was shot in could just as well have been in Paris, and the immense stylishness of Maud’s apartment even more so. I was especially impressed by that fluffy blanket. So seducing!

I am far from having seen all the black and white Nouvelle Vague films whose fresh and youthful style I love so much, and “Ma nuit chez Maud” makes me want to watch another one again.

La Boulangère de Monceau

I know perfectly that I have been at the Parc Monceau and the area, but now I am not sure anymore. The description of streets in Paris typically make me feel very reminiscent, and I often even have a clear memory of how these streets look like. It’s very Cees-Nooteboom-like, whom I love dearly for these descriptive promenades throughout cities. But for the entire area of Monceau, I have to pass. I don’t remember it at all.

Overall, I think I liked this film almost just as much as I did for “Ma nuit chez Maud”. The film is much shorter and does not allow for as much character development, and not that much really happens. It is striking how the dialogue is less well thought-out as it was for “Ma nuit chez Maud”, but the style is almost superior. In terms of direction, cinematography and writing, I think I prefer Rohmer even over Godard and Truffaut. When I had an idea for a movie awhile ago, I was struggling with the implementation largely because it needed many voice-overs. “La Boulangère de Monceau” is the perfect voice-over movie – oh wow. I wish I could do that.

In terms of the characters and the story, this film reminded of the other Rohmer short story I saw a long time ago, “Tous les garçons s’appellent Patrick”. Unlike Godard and Truffaut whose quasi-non-serious, melancholic love stories regularly end in death, Rohmer’s are entirely different. First of all, his characters never declare their love. Unlike Antoine Doinel, they never say that they love but don’t. It’s much more the other way around, which makes it so much more interesting.

La Carrière de Suzanne

What makes this movie so annoying is that Guillaume is absolutely despicable. While Bertrand at least realizes his despicability, Guillaume is much worse than any Nouvelle Vague character I have ever seen. Most are fickle, they love quickly and are often drawn towards several girls, or they love somebody they shouldn’t. They hurt people because of their egocentrism, more because they are ignorant than that out of maliciousness. But Guillaume and Bertrand are downright mean, and certainly Suzanne actually knew about that. She liked those boys, but ultimately she also did not take them too seriously, but steadily approached her own happiness.

It is remarkable that Rohmer’s “beautiful girls” are most often of a very specific type, more often blonde than not, and the “less desirable girls” also have some similarities. Perhaps it is not very obvious to see the similarity between Maud, who is immensely strong and actually attractive, and the boulangère who really is fairly meek, but with Suzanne the connection can probably be made clearer. Specifically, these “less desirable girls” are not being pushed away because they don’t make great companion, it is because men are too engulfed in their own amour-propre (the French love this word, and I do too) and what they think they want to be or should be, that they are incapable to acknowledge their attraction to these women. I think this is a great premise, and I am glad that Rohmer decided to put this theme onto the screen a whole 6 times.

Nikita

“Leon” is perhaps one of my favorite films, but for some reason it has remained the only Luc Besson film besides “The Fifth Element” I have seen until today.

I don’t really get what is smart about this film. At several points, the main character just goes berserk without really doing anything. How likely is it that some killer would start crying in the middle of a mission and subsequently survives? It makes no sense.

To me it seems like the film trying to do two things at the same time. While in “Leon” it makes sense to have the little girl be the one who whines and Leon the capable killer, Nikita is neither completely whiny (but quite rebellious) yet at the same time she also never becomes a coldhearted killer. Instead she literally has a nervous break down at the most inappropriate moments. Technically she is responsible for several people’s deaths because of that, in a mission where she herself practically failed to do anything in the critical moment. Sure, she is supposed to be the frail girl and the psychology apparently should be just as important as the action – but where it works perfectly in Leon, it completely failed in this film. I am also not sure whether any of the other characters are human beings at all, in fact they are all surprisingly one-dimensional, even Jeanne Moreau’s character. I was quite surprised when she kissed her handler – when did that relationship get developed?

While Anne Parillaud is an absolutely gorgeous actress, I thought it was strange how little her femininity was exploited after Amande taught Nikita how to dress up like a woman. So she became a woman who can love and look feminine but she doesn’t seem to be using that to her advantage at all. In fact, in one instance she even has to dress up like a man. That sounds almost like a plot hole to me – why would you bother training a woman assassin if you have to disguise her as a man? Certainly this is not supposed to be a fanservicey film à la James Bond, but I expected a little more glamour or at least a few scenes more pleasing to the eye than Nikita’s eternally messy hair. In terms of suspense and pacing this is probably the worst action film of all times.

The one thing I really liked about the film was Nikita’s relationship with Marco. Its development is lovely and bittersweet, a little less dramatic than Leon’s and Mathilda’s but not less heartwarming. He is just a simple person and they just have a simple relationship. With that, the two of them provide a nice contrast of normality to Nikita’s otherwise very chaotic world.

The Odd Couple

With “Cactus Flower” being one of my favorite films and Jack Lemmon starring in so many films I like that I won’t even bother naming them, it is a surprise that I have never seen one of their many collaborations. What’s better than to start with this film, which happens to be one of the first films they did together?

This is one of those films I just had to love. The characters of Felix and Oscar feel like they were designed to be played by Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, even though I perfectly know that this is not the case. They did wonderfully, that is for sure. I laughed several times throughout the film, especially in the scenes where their friends are also present for added hilarity. I consider the possibility that I like the film so much because their simple presence makes me want to laugh. I blame Loris for that one.

The nicest thing about this film is that, despite all the comedic scenes and the general light tone, it’s a movie about friendship. After their fall-out in which they ultimately showed each other how much they do care for each other, Felix and Oscar came out to be better people and acknowledge that, though grumpily. It’s an utterly heartwarming film.

Oh gosh I really want to see “The Front Page” now. It has been in my to-watch-list forever, but I never came around to see it because I felt like it cannot possibly compare to “His Girl Friday”. Now I have doubts about that.

Hiroshima mon amour

I think it’s been some 3-4 years since Gorp said that I should watch this film, and I always refused because I disliked the Hiroshima theme. That is still the case – I don’t think this fear of atom bombs, which has inspired a few masterpieces in art like “The Physicists”, is of interest nowadays anymore. But a love story, especially the “Before Sunrise”-style kind in which the main characters seem to just talk to each other, will never seem old.

Despite having gotten a recommendation, I actually had no idea that this film would be this kind of talking love story. Back then, I disliked those cheap, romantic “Caucasian goes to Africa or Asia and starts some love story with native” love stories and I also disliked Resnais because of “Providence”. In essence, misconceptions and prejudices kept me up from watching this film. Of course, parts of these prejudices are true. The beginning of the film gave me a “Nuit et brouillard” déjà-vu, it’s overly political and there really is nothing Japanese about the movie except for some Asian faces, some gimmicky traditional-looking dances and the constant mentioning of the name of Hiroshima.

It is the love story that makes up for all the gimmicks. These two characters work the best when they are in bed together, which is the only place where their love can truly flourish, and they have. They also port themselves with more dignity than your average Nouvelle Vague (I’m thinking Antoine Doinel here, the most Schnitzlerian character of all times), and there is a surprising equality between them. Despite the short period of time they knew each other, there is an immense trust and closeness between them, similarly to “Before Sunrise”. As characters, they are probably better than Julie Delpy and especially Ethan Hawke who is kind of unlikable by default. It is therefore not very hard for Eiji Okada to overtake him, although I thought he was much better in “Suna no Onna”.

Resnais himself changed so much over the years, oh my goodness! Starting with “Nuit et brouilliard” and “Hiroshima mon amour” he evolved to stranger films like “Marienbad” or “Providence” and ended up at more light-hearted comedies with Sabine Azéma. My favorite Resnais will probably always be the film which is a little non-Resnais-like, since “Mélo” is neither a comedy in the Azéma-Jaoui-Bacri style nor strange in any sense nor a tragedy in black and white. It’s the only one of his films which is just a love story.

Whereas “Before Sunrise” is romantic in an almost silly way, this film is much more dark and bleak. This extremely handsome couple is painfully aware that they will forget about each other, just like the whole film is about forgetting. This awareness makes this film special, even amongst similarly disillusioned Nouvelle Vague films. It’s the better and more mature “Before Sunrise”, but it did not age all too well despite its deserved status as a film classic.

Romeo and Juliet

Boy is she beautiful! I suppose I do rant about actors a lot, but this woman is an exceptional case of beauty. I still think that Ingrid Bergman is unparalleled, but Olivia Hussey is probably the closest to that amongst all actresses I have ever seen and the two of them should win the award for most beautiful couple of all times.

This film is a classic, and I have wanted to see it ever since I saw a picture of Hussey as Juliet. Everything about this film looks right – the costumes look wonderful, the characters are beautiful beyond belief and everything just fits together including overly dramatic music. On a side note, I love how Romeo died with poison and Juliet died using the infamous dagger.

Apart from that, with 2 hours and 20 minutes, the film felt way too long. This is a problem when you know the story by heart because you have seen it so many times. I saw the horrible Leonardo DiCaprio film, Prokofiev’s ballet and of course “Shakespeare in Love”. Without having read nor seen the play, I still know almost about it, and besides a feast for the eyes, this well-known story is quite a borefest.

Personally I enjoyed the film the most in the scenes where Romeo and Juliet are together. They have a surprising chemistry despite their youth and lack of experience, and I like the purity of their relationship. Otherwise this is quite a forgettable film unless you have a love for the it as strong as I have for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. I could see that one over and over again, but not “Romeo and Juliet”.

Blue Valentine

According to Shii, the Big Two relationship movies are “Closer” and “Scenes of a Marriage”. I agree. “Blue Valentine” is a little closer to “Scenes of a Marriage”, with both having a blonde, somewhat meek female lead and revolving around a relationship which doesn’t really have anybody else involved, whereas “Closer” breathes through its many instances of infidelity and shuffling around between the characters.

If I ever had a movie-like relationship which is comparable to the aforementioned first films and “Blue Valentine”, then it’s probably the one I had when I came of age. (I know I have no reason to be so secretive, but you guys all know what I mean.) The one before was so otherworldly that I don’t think anything like that actually was in the movies, the one after is so pleasantly normal and ubiquitous that no German novelist would touch it, thence also no Hollywood movie director. With that coming-of-age relationship in mind, the quasi-attempt at having sex in that love motel totally hit home. Let me repeat this key idea for emphasis – it hit home and I felt it throughout my body. It is that particular scene which stands for everything the film is. It has its weaknesses and the nonlinear storyline works so well and oh the doggy loser-version of Ryan Gosling is so cute and “grungy Michelle Williams” (like Shii put it) is so interesting – none of these aspects really matter to me. Bottom line is, this love story is bleaker than anything else Hollywood, Bergman or the French Nouvelle Vague has ever produced, and for me, its pinnacle was not the fight at the hospital but this failed sex scene at the creepy motel.

Nevertheless, I don’t quite get the movie. There are certain things I personally cannot get behind. I would never refuse a friendship to anyone. I would also never separate from somebody who loves me. Most importantly, I would never feel contempt towards a man who so obviously loves his wife like Dean does in “Blue Valentine”. Why does she have to behave like these women who want to be “conquered” and have a man “show the way”? So what if she is the “man in the relationship” – what’s so wrong with that?

Ironically, for me “Blue Valentine” stands in the same line as “The Notebook” (the other Ryan Gosling film where I happened to find him much less attractive, hahaha). Both movies pissed me off at times, but they had these scenes which melted my heart, each in different ways. Amongst these two, “Blue Valentine” certainly is the more interesting one.