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Berlinale 2014, Day 7 (The Midnight After)

We were considering watching “Ieji” today which, incidentally, I ended up not seeing at all and Pixelmatsch will blog about it. Instead, “The Midnight After” was going to be shown in Berlin’s best movie theater, the Zoo Palast, where we also saw “Calvary”. This time, it’s not a premiere but oh we couldn’t pass up another opportunity to go into the Zoo Palast. Hence, the evening of Day 7 only comprised on single film, and it was good that way because another movie after “The Midnight After” would mean a sensory overload detrimental to both films.

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The Midnight After
Hongkong/China 2014, Fruit Chan, 124’

Around midnight, in the middle of bustling Hongkong, a group of passengers boards a mini-bus going to Tai Po. The group’s 17 people is as diverse as can be – a few students of the University of Hong Kong, a druggie, a young man talking on the phone with his girlfriend and a young woman talking on the phone with her boyfriend, an arguing couple, a hipster who codes apps, two delinquent youngsters with nothing to do, a mafia member and finally the driver. When the bus reaches the highway exit to Tai Po, they suddenly realize that everybody else is gone – no people, no cars. In Tai Po, they quickly see that the city is empty while strange things are happening and people are dying in random ways. Why did everybody else disappear? What will the group do, and will they even stay together?
Death count: 6. (I think.)

When I went into the film, I had no idea that “The Midnight After” was going to be an utterly strange parody. I was an idiot for thinking that at some point there would be a big revelation of all these strange happenings, something that miraculously explains everything. There were people turning into zombie-like creatures and then into ashes, people completely disappearing, a guy having hallucinations about how a girl has an evil side, people in gas masks speaking Japanese trying to “save” the group, mysteries in the main characters’s past, phone calls suggesting it’s been 6 years since the film started, a containment field suggesting that some nuclear catastrophe has happened etc. etc. The film contained aspects of zombie, horror, viruses But then, pouf, the film was over when I felt like it could have gone on for another 2 hours. As a result, I think this expectation of getting an answer deterred me a little bit for taking the film as it is and enjoying it that way. Luckily I was too obsessed with it, and actually enjoyed myself lots. There is just so much to love in this film.

To be precise, there are two layers of what there is to love about the film. One is what the film is inherently great about, which only really makes up about 30% of it. The other are the homages and references the film pays to, and that may not be understandable for everyone. Just like genre films (of which we saw many at the Berlinale) can only really be enjoyed when you are into the genre, the enjoyment of “The Midnight After” heavily depends on your knowledge and enjoyment of Hongkong and horror films (and those films who are both). In my case, maybe I am just into parodies in general. I barely never watch any Hongkong or openly dislike horror films, but I loved this film. Similarly, I haven’t seen all that many James Bond films or spy films of the type, yet I love “Branded to Kill”. This case is similar, the way this film parodies the genre makes you love the genre and, even more amazingly, makes you love Hongkong. I have never been to the city, but the strong sense of local patriotism flowing through the film is so adorable that I really got into it. My feelings about Berlin are similar – somewhat dirty, somewhat chaotic, very diverse and so bustling with culture – I wish someone made a film about Berlin just like this.

I told Shii and 6451 that this is the no.1 Berlinale film they missed. I still think so, but I realize that my love for the film may be amplified by my love for parodies, for Hongkong trashiness and for confessions of love to a city. Even so, the film still has aforementioned 30% of layer one to offer. It’s a feast for the eyes, amazingly funny and just so incredibly well-written, turning a piece which absolutely makes no sense into a story where happenings at the beginning actually relate to what happen later. All characters are likable losers but each of them is in a different way, and their interactions are genuine and so much fun. My favorite scene is probably the one where Yuki is being asked to get a knife, and she can’t jerk out the knife she wanted of the wood. Instead she has the choice between a tiny knife and a cleaver, and each time she goes to get one, she ends up with the knife totally inappropriate for the task. The second best is the random Tohoku earthquake nuclear catastrophe insertion. (We joked about how we got to see Fukushima after all, having skipped on “Ieji” for the sake of this film.)
At the same time, the movie also never fails to show humanity. The ending where the insurance lady reflects upon her life and how she never really appreciated her mother’s help touched me to the point I almost wanted to cry. This little film showed more humanity and truth than many non-parodies, and that automatically made it become one of the most memorable films I have seen in recent years.

Originally, I had no idea what this film would be – I didn’t know about the web-novel it is based on, all I knew is that I have had Fruit Chan on my radar after seeing “Dumplings”, and I find him to be an extraordinarily good director. I can’t wait to see what he does next.

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Berlinale 2014, Day 7 (Bai Ri Yan Huo)

I got tickets for the film on the first day tickets were released, but after the fact I was annoyed at myself for having gotten tickets for the morning at 9.30. It was going to be a tough day with me having to go back home in the afternoon, and I was not looking forward to it. In the end, we saw this film and “The Midnight After” in the evening, and it almost became the best day of this year’s Berlinale, with both titles better than almost every film from 2009 (though I only saw 8 films during the festival at the time, so that may not mean that much).

Even though we only got there shortly before it started, we managed to get reasonable seats – a little far in front but very centered. We learn that not many people want to go to the movie theaters early in the morning on a weekday, and certainly not for a Chinese film.

drrt

Bai Ri Yan Huo (Black Coal, Thin Ice)
China 2014, Diao Yinan, 106′

In 1999, pieces of a corpse are found in various coal mines. The protagonist, Zhang Zili, is a police officer investigating the murder case and can’t put it to rest even after some of his colleagues died and the case was closed. More mysterious deaths happen and they are all related to the same woman. As he tries to find out the truth, Zhang slowly falls in love with her.
Death count: 7. (I think.)

Usually my excitement for a film is somewhat proportional to the length of the posting I dedicate to it. In the case of “Bai Ri Yan Huo”, the length does not mean much. I think this movie a must-see, and considering that it won the Golden Bear at the Berlinale, it won’t take long until it appears at least on the internet. However, I am not into analyzing a film whose main characteristic is suspense. I could compare it to classic film noirs (especially “The Maltese Falcon” which I incidentally never saw, only read) or Hitchcock movies, but I think it’s pretty moot. Perhaps it’s worthwhile to mention that I really love film noirs, and it’s important to like the genre to like this film. “Bai Ri Yan Huo” is a very classic example of the genre, though I guess we have to call it neo-noir. The film works because the female main character is somewhat special (an somewhat phlegmatic ice queen, much unlike the typical passionate femme fatale) and very attractive, the male character does the slightly screwed up, rugged policeman very believably, and the setting is suitably dark and atmospheric. Add a few absurdly comic scenes (the chase scene on ice! Hahaha!) and you got “Bai Ri Yan Huo”, the film every film noir should be like.

Personally, I suppose I have a thing for domestic love stories like “Chiisai Ouchi” and preferred it on a personal level, but from what I saw in the competition, I think that “Bai Ri Yan Huo” totally deserved its Golden Bear and wholeheartedly recommend to anyone who does not have an intense dislike against film noirs or crime stories. “Bai Ri Yan Huo”‘s win is proof that sometimes the simple wins over the pretentious, the moody over the beautiful, the underrated over the critically loved and finally, the story-telling wins over the (typically overtly political) meaning. The Berlinale jury finally gave the Golden Bear to something that is just a good film, no more and no less. That is awesome and that is why you all need to see this film to remind ourselves what movies are all about.

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Berlinale 2014, Day 6 (Velvet Terrorists)

We are back at the Delphi, and successfully purchased tickets like 20 minutes before the show started. We just couldn’t get there any earlier after “Nasake no hikari” was over. The movie theater was actually reasonable well filled, considering that the Delphi holds 1000 people. Ah, the Delphi… with “Ai no Mukidashi” we saw the best Berlinale film of all times here. Even though I always felt their organisation is pretty terrible, I generally like the theater. It’s beautiful and evokes memories of a wonderful movie, and the only Q&A where I have ever posed a question.

drrt

Zamatoví teroristi (Velvet Terrorists)
Slovak Republic/Czech Republic/Croatia 2013, Peter Kerekes/Pavol Pekarcík/Ivan Ostrochovsky, 87’

In this three-part film made by three directors, each director is following the lives of a former terrorist in the 80s while they talk about what happened at the time and reflect upon their terrorist acts. Stano tried to blow up a Communist party viewing platform out of a whim, and has been doing odd jobs after coming out of prison. In his free time, he likes to blow up things. He tries to date, and after a few humorous failed attempts finally meets a woman who seems to share no interest with him, but they find bonding moments anyways. Fero tried to kill the president of Czechoslovakia within a small, organized group. Having lost contact with his girlfriend at the time, he has since married and teaches his two sons how to make bombs and drive cars dangerously. When he tries to contact the past girlfriend again, she refuses to speak to him. Vladimir’s battle is still very much alive. He believes that the system today is just as rotten as it was back in the day, and takes a young female apprentice whom he gives military-style training, teaching her how to fire weapons and defending herself.
Death count: 0.

Personally, I thought the best part of the film is its humor. Of course I was interested in the stories and the characters and especially the past of these people, but what made the film so brilliant was definitely its humor. The most iconic element of the film is probably the cute little “pling” you hear every time there is an explosion (instead of the actual sound of the explosion). Apart from that, many comical scenes are interspersed throughout the film, showing the absurdity of both the characters and the socialist regime they were fighting against. What they do doesn’t always make sense, and the tale of their failed terrorist attempts mirrors their failures in life. With this combination of humor and political seriousness, the characters are portrayed as lovely losers, and as such they have a lot to show us.

The directors were at the screening, and there was a Q&A afterwards. Unfortunately the questions were pretty bad, and the answers seemed very awkward. The worst part was that the directors did not have an easy time answering the question “what is documentary and what is fiction in your film?” Honestly, I think it’s pretty easy to tell what is real and what is not. Everything that looks like scriptwriting, everything that is overtly funny, everything that is a “story” in the film is obviously scripted. Everything the people say, like what they think about their acts of terrorism etc. are obviously real life occurrences and real reactions. This combination actually makes the film really precious, because it’s executed so well. I don’t know why the directors couldn’t just say that, why they really wanted to stress how everything in the film was “true” – how all the dialogue was having people talk and run the camera, how their funny sound effect is related to something in real life. I didn’t want to hear that. I love a good mix between fiction and documentary, and this film executed such a concept wonderfully. Perhaps I should ignore what they say about their own film, and just enjoy the film itself.

Overall, “Velvet Terrorists” was a great surprise. It totally doesn’t take itself seriously, and I laughed multiple times during the screening. When I read about what the film would be about political terrorists talking about their past, I was afraid it might be one of those extremely boring political documentaries, but didn’t anticipate that it would be so funny. This was another great success in the Delphi!

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Berlinale 2014, Day 6 (Nasake no hikari)

Back at the Zeughauskino, we chose this film because Stephen Horne would accompany it. In the end, there weren’t actually that many interesting Japanese films in the Retrospective section, but I didn’t know that at the time and I jump at every occasion to see one of my favorites silent film pianists. Stephen Horne is definitely one of them, and it made it worthwhile to see these somewhat cumbersome movies. He also has this really cute way acknowledging the film when people start clapping after the performance, by making a presenting move at the end (like what the conductor does with the orchestra when people clap for him).

Right when “Arrete ou je continue” was over, we had to march towards the Zeughauskino and got there like 2 minutes before the film started.

drrt

Nasake no hikari (Light of Compassion)
Japan 1926, Henry Kotani, 62’

Junichi is a poor boy who has to work in the morning and afternoon to help buying medicine for his sick mother. When he helps a girl in his class, some boys start to bully him. When the girl observes the bullying and his family’s dire financial situation, she tells her father who decides to help the family.
Death count: 0.

Not many people came to see the film. It’s a somewhat strange choice, being one of those almost propagandistic films commissioned by the government. In this case, at least the film promotes moral courage and compassion for the poor, so at least I can get behind the message of the film. (And I do so very strongly.)

Apart from that, the film was really clumsy. The script was extremely one-dimensional, the characters were all tropes (the poor boy, the sick mother, the nice rich girl, the loving rich father etc.) and there was nothing special about the direction or cinematography either. I’d rather say they were pretty bad. In the first part the film spends a lot of time depicting how poor the main character is, and what a good boy he is. In the second part he helps out a girl and subsequently gets bullied. In the last part, some time passes, the boy has grown older and when his mother sees she does not have the means to send him to secondary school, the girl’s father decides to help them out financially. The entire story has no real conflict – the poverty is just there and everything else that happens leads to the final act of compassion by the girl’s father in a straight-forward manner without a single retardation, no-one who actively tries to sabotage the attempt to help, or anything like that. As a result, the movies spends an hour showing no more than “A needs help, B notices A due to his kindness, B decides to help A”.

There are tiny details I actually liked about the film. The girl’s kimono and hair-do were so cute for example! Honestly, I want to imitate that doll-like look. Other than that, the film was not really worth seeing by itself, even though I thought it was of the “bland but cute” fare.

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Berlinale 2014, Day 6 (Arrete ou je continue)

After waking up early for “Tui Na”, I was thrilled that today’s first film was going to start at 5pm. Of course that still meant that I went to the box office early to get tickets, but at least I could spend most of the morning resting. Overall, I think I would prefer a Berlinale day with 3-4 movies that starts at 12pm and ends at like 9pm, but that is so difficult to achieve. At this Berlinale, we only managed a nice schedule like that on Friday, on day 8.

drrt

Arrête ou je continue (If you don’t, I will)
France 2014, Sophie Fillières, 102′

Pomme and Pierre are in the kind of marriage in which they feel like they spent too much time with each other. While they still do things together like going to art galleries and weekly hiking trips, there is the strong doubt that there is still love left in that relationship. Frustrated, Pomme decides to not go home after one of the hiking trips and just stay in the forest for awhile to sort out her feelings.
Death count: 0.

I don’t actually watch a lot of relationship films anymore, but back in the day they were my favorites. Bergman’s “Scenes from a Marriage” and Linklater’s “Before…” series are probably the best examples, and I think they both are masterpieces. Nowadays, I still enjoy these films but I don’t hold them in such a high esteem anymore. Even so, “Arrete ou je continue” is a perfect example for it.

I think my views on relationship changes on something like a yearly basis. Back when I was a teenager it probably changed on like a monthly or even weekly basis. When I watched “L’Eclisse”, I think I ended up crying because the estrangement between the characters reflected the estrangement I felt in my own relationships. Today, I don’t even know what I would think about “Jules et Jim” anymore. What I’m trying to say is that my impression of relationship films are always tainted by my current feelings on relationships, and so my view on the films are strongly biased and dependent on the exact time I saw them. Not really a good foundation to write a blog post on, I think. Strangely enough, it bothers me when I know exactly that my blog posts are not timeless, and it appears that I do strive for some sort of timelessness, I want to think of my own opinions as something that doesn’t jitter around.
Well, “Arrete ou je continue” is about two people who think about ending their relationship. My current stance on ending a relationship is that if a relationship is fine, it will not end. To be honest I thought that the protagonists here had a fine relationship. They never really had any problems to begin with, they are faithful and do activities together that both enjoy, and they were able to have a reconciliatory moment towards the end. So I guess I was a little surprised and iffed by the ending. Luckily that ending only lasted some two minutes, so I could just as well pretend the entire film ended two minutes before. It helps my enjoyment of the rest when thinking that way.

Otherwise, the film is absolutely marvelous. It totally hit home even though my own relationships seems to be the exact opposite of theirs. But the things couples say to each other – when the dialogues are written right, they seem so universal. It’s as if every single couple in the world quarrels in the same way about the same things and makes the same mistakes. I find it beautiful to watch Emmanuelle Devos and Mathieu Amalric do that, and it was indeed the two of them who were the reason I watched the film in the first place. As you all know, I am a little afraid of overly intellectual talky French films, but the combination of those two promises to be brilliant, and it was. I think it was lovely to see Emmanuelle Devos’s character in her mid-life crisis, and Mathieu Amalric’s slightly helpless character tumble through life.

The best reason to love the film is that it is set in Lyon. You don’t really see much of Lyon, but I could tell it was Lyon by the bus going to Croix-Rousse at the very beginning of the film. French films are so set on either Paris or the countryside, nobody seems to realize that Lyon is actually the best French city and I am glad that this film goes against the tide there.

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Berlinale 2014, Day 5 (Short Films: Absolute Film)

It is also a “tradition” for every Berlinale to have one interesting short film collection. This year, it’s clearly the collection of the Retrospective. With that said, what makes the Berlinale this year so worthwhile and special is clearly the incredibly vast collection of good classic films. While we always perceive the Berlinale as a festival where new films premiere and don’t see that many old films, this year there are many old obscure titles for which we get the chance to enjoy them on a big screen.

This is especially for silent films like “Faust” or some of these shorts: They come with live piano accompaniment! For “Faust”, we had Günther Buchwald who has a very classic style (we saw him many times before at the Stummfilmfestival) and for the shorts, Stephen Horne was playing. Most of the shorts are quite avantgarde, and so the piano accompaniment was similarly crazy. He used multiple instruments and – my favorite – in a dance scene, he put a Berlinale program magazine onto the strings of the baby grand he was playing on, to create an amusing sound effect. I was thrilled, and we went to see multiple more films (“Nasake no hikari”, two Sessue Hayakawa films and “Jujiro”) just to see Stephen Horne play again.

drrt

Rhythmus 21 + Rhythmus 23
Germany 1921/1923-25, Hans Richter, 4’+3’

These two shorts were essentially geometric shapes and figures moving around. The short film collection is called “Absolute Film”, which essentially translates into the concept of making movies for the sake of making movies, without any plot or even any sort of meaning. It’s just about the image and, well, shapes. For seven minutes, especially with capable accompaniment, I had a lot of fun seeing these almost video-installation-like films.

Entr’acte
France 1924, René Clair, 20’

I think this part was my favorite. When I saw the screenshot you see above, I immediately knew that I wanted to see this collection of short films. Avantgarde 1920’s short films with dance sequences, yay! Of course I couldn’t have known that the film didn’t actually have any dance sequences in it, but I got recompensated with other fun scenes.
“Entr’acte” had some sort of story, but not really, and there was something overtly playful about this collage of scenes. Everything just looked so 1920’s style, reminding me of the fact that those times were amazingly fashion forward. It feels like European culture made a huge jump in these Weimarer Republik days, only to crumble again after the 1929 depression and the subsequent rise of fascism. So sad.

Emak Bakia
France 1926, Man Ray, 21’

Man Ray was another reason why I was interested in this short film collection. I have seen a lot of his works in museums before, and without really understanding them I was always fascinated by his sense of esthetics. Plus I liked that he dabbled both in film and photography when both arts were still rather young, and I find his works strangely timeless. Strangely, I don’t perceive “Emak Bakia” as a typical Man Ray work. I thought it was a lot of fun, but very similar to “Entr’acte” it’s not much more than fun film even though it made me laugh a few times.

Jeux des reflets et de la vitesse
France 1925, Henri Chomette, 6’

This little short was essentially a camera speeding through Paris – on the roads, in the metro, over the bridges onto the river going on and on. It was actually quite fast and head-spinning, and the 6 minutes felt like they were over way too quickly. It’s a fun, very simple little film and so so French.

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Berlinale 2014, Day 5 (Faust)

It’s Zeughauskino time again. After seeing “Tui Na” early in the morning, I spent the rest of the day at home and only went out to see “Faust” and the shorts from the Retrospective section at 7pm and 10pm respectively. Besides waking up way to early, that actually made my day quite pleasant with reasonably little stress. Shocking!

drrt

Faust. Eine deutsche Volkssage
Germany 1926, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, 108’

In order to save people from dying from the pest, the old professor Faust makes a deal with the devil. But after the devil turns him into a young man, he discovers his libido and seduces rich women. One day, he falls in love with Gretchen, your generic innocent, pious country girl, which he pursues and subsequently impregnates. Gretchen gives birth to a baby who freezes to death, after which she is condemned to die, and it is only then that Faust realizes what he has done.
Death count: 4.

I have to confess something here: It’s been 10 years since I read Goethe’s “Faust I” (I never finished “Faust II”), on which the film is based on, and I must have forgotten large parts of it. Back, the story in Goethe’s “Faust” seemed meaningful to me and I thought touched upon existential questions, but it seems that I barely remembered what happened. I used to really like Gretchen’s character, the way she spoke to Faust and I thought her love for him had something exemplary, almost allegorical. When I saw the film, however, most of the storyline drawn from Goethe’s “Faust” seemed almost dumb to me. It almost made no sense to me how obsessed Faust was with his youth when he started out as the wise professor, and I don’t know why I had the impression that Faust was dealing with an existential problem when he’s just acting upon his lust for Gretchen. Even in Gounod’s “Faust” version, Faust and Marguerite’s love made more sense to me. Perhaps this is all due to the fact that this is a silent film without all that much dialogue. When you don’t know what actually goes on in Faust’s mind, not only does it seem unbelievable how he turns from good old professor to delinquent youngster, but Faust and Gretchen’s relationship also get reduced to something very physical and superficial looking.
With that said, I especially hated the way that baby died, incidentally a deviation from Goethe’s “Faust” in which she drowns her baby on purpose. For Goethe, Gretchen actually becomes crazy and actively kills the child; in Murnau’s version, she is a terribly pitiful person who begs people to save her dying baby and then hallucinates in an long, drawn-out tearjerking scene. Ugh.

Apart from that, Murnau’s directing is so incredibly awesome. I loved the first part of the film to pieces, essentially everything before Faust meets Gretchen. Much like in “Der letzte Mann”, the dark atmosphere in this first part is splendid, and I strongly doubt there are many directors out there who can use images in such an intense way as Murnau does. Just for those images, it was worth seeing this film, and it perfectly makes sense to me why “Faust” is perceived as a classic.

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Berlinale 2014, Day 5 (Tui Na)

After years of not having been there, I finally saw the Friedrichstadt-Palast from the inside again. Last time I was probably a little girl, accompanying my parents to see a regular show there. The interior is pretty much exactly what I expected – kind of dark and outdated looking, with many many inconvenient seats at terrible angles at the screen.

The good about seeing “Tui Na” in the morning is that not so many people were there, and I got a pretty good seat. On the last day, 45 minutes before screening there were huge lines going all the way down the stairs because people knew how early you had to get there to catch the few reasonable seats. However, I sat further to the side twice (for “Chiisai Ouchi” and “La belle et la bete”) and I didn’t think it was that bad – both films were suspenseful enough for me to ignore the bad angle.

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Tui Na
China/France 2014, Lou Ye, 114’

Xiao Ma was in a car accident which killed his mother and made him blind. When he grew older, he attended a school for blind children and got educated in doing massages. Shortly after, he joins a massage practice run almost entirely by blind people and falls in love with another colleague’s fiancé. A complicated love polygon with many, many sides ensues.
Death count: I forgot, but I think it was 0.

To be honest, “Tui Na” is perhaps the hardest title to blog right after “Calvary”. There are few films in the entire festival that I wanted to love more than this one, yet it is one of the hardest to love.

First of all, I must mention that I loved “Suzhou River” to pieces. On a superficial level, the two films seem to have nothing in common, but if you think about it, both are about rather obsessive relationships. Strangely enough, however, “Tui Na”’s strength does not lie in these relationships (it’s a pretty generic A and B are a couple, C is in love with B, D is in love with C, E is in love with D story), but rather in the unique choice of blind characters. Everybody of relevance in the film is blind, and the film contemplates the consequences of being blind with a certain thoughtfulness. The voice-over says a lot of somewhat philosophical things about being blind, and while it sounded like ramblings at times, I got the impression that much of it actually made sense. In the story itself, we see many aspects of these blind people’s daily lives and their struggles with the world full of people who can see. We are dealing with a protagonist who tries to kill himself over his blindness at the beginning of the film, and never laughs until the end where his laughing face is the last shot of the film. I thought it was a cute way to show that he was finally able to find happiness, which brings me to the cinematography. I understand why the cinematography of the film received a Silver Bear for it, because it is certainly unique and made a big impression on me. However, I am not sure what this particular cinematography is trying to transmit, artful as it may be. Essentially, we often see shots in which filters and other methods are used to make our vision of the world blurry or generally difficult to see. But that looks nothing like what a blind person sees, right? Even someone whose vision is very bad most likely sees the world differently than what this camera work suggests. So the cinematography can only be understood as figurative at best, and I thought that was rather odd because everything else in the film is rather literal.

The bold choice to make a movie about blind people, and treat their condition with seriousness, is one which I applaud, hence my desire to love the film. But then there is the story itself, and I couldn’t quite get behind it. The character’s feelings seem unmotivated even when keeping in mind that love doesn’t really make sense, most of them had no chemistry with each other whatsoever I had a hard time getting into the characters and caring for them in any other way besides feeling a certain degree of pity. Furthermore, did the main character really have to get saved by a prostitute? Judging from “Suzhou River”, this seems to be an idea the director really likes – the prostitute as an angel. Finally, the worst aspect of the film – and here it seriously bothered me – were those gratuitous sex scenes. You can make a decent love story without all that provocative panting disguised as passionate love, but Chinese directors these days seem to think they are not cool unless they put in some graphic sex.

All in all, I thought “Tui Na” was worthwhile to see, and definitely gives a fresh perspective on the art of film-making and draws attention to an unusual topic. But it may not have been the most enjoyable story to watch in the world.

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Berlinale 2014, Day 4 (Akibiyori)

I am glad that Shii was able to start and end his Berlinale with the best and second-best film he saw respectively. It was unfortunate that we couldn’t see “Aimer, boire et chanter”, but in the end, “Akibiyori” was a very good substitute.

drrt

Akibiyori (Late Autumn)
Japan 1960, Yasujirou Ozu, 129’

At the funeral of Akiko’s husband, the friends of the deceased decide that they want to help her 24-year old daughter Ayako to get married. However, Ayako refuses to get married because she does not want to leave her single mother alone. So the friends make a ploy to have Akiko marry to one of the friends as well.
Death count: 0.

“Akibiyori” is the fourth color film by Ozu I have seen (besides Floating Weeds, Ohayo and An Autumn Afternoon). He didn’t make very many of them, but incidentally I saw more color films of his than black and whites (namely the older Floating Weeds and Tokyo Monogatari) and so far, I think that I prefer late Ozu by far. Somehow I think that color totally helps Ozu’s esthetics, the colors are rich and beautiful and enhance the splendor of the interior he designs.

The story of “Akibiyori” is Ozu’s favorite topic – a daughter who does not want to marry out of concern for her widowed parent. It was the same in “An Autumn Afternoon”, and I know that “Late Spring” is another one of these. I have to admit that I am obsessed with the concept too. I even liked “35 Rums” for its subtle Ozu homage, but I don’t really know why that is. There is something very artificial about this story, just like how the immensely clean and proper Ozu world is somewhat artificial too. But I just love it so much? Ozu’s late films always make me want to live in his world – the colors are beautiful and the characters have this very posed way of dealing with each other. I don’t even mind his sexist jokes (they are what I call Altherrenwitze (old man jokes) and I kind of enjoy them when they are harmless) in comparison to his younger films in which I perceived Ozu as outright misogynist. But late Ozu has a certain lovable self-indulgence and wisdom, an adoration for subtle feelings and tradition which I can totally get behind. The mizuwaris, the sake, the sushi, the polite speech – late Ozu is the pinnacle of romantic Japaneseness, and I am in love with those visuals.

The only aspect I really hated about the film, incidentally, is Setsuko Hara. Now I realize it was her who ruined “Tokyo Monogatari” for me, she just has this incredible punch-me face. Her over-the-top Japanese politeness is unbearable to me, whenever she says something it makes me want to throw up and her smile is just terrifying. Luckily, she was not the only character in the film but only one amongst many lovable ones. Sushi girl is the best! Her lovable, fierce character compensates whatever Setsuko Hara is destroying in the film.
With that said, the biggest surprise to me was how many actors from “Doshaburi” showed up in this movie! Like… 4 people at least? I am counting Yuriko, one of the wives, one of the daughters and of course Ayako’s love interest. It shows how versatile a lot of these actors are, and they really were brilliant.

When I realized that Ozu made two more color films, “Equinox Flower” and “The End of Summer” (these seasonal titles in the English translation for Ozu films is horrible… it makes them sound like they are all the same?) I totally want to see them now, even if they have Setsuko Hara in them. :D

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Berlinale 2014, Day 4 (Mo Jing)

The last two films of the day were chosen by Shii. To be honest I was surprised that he chose “Mo Jing”, and in the end it turned out to be a very classic Hongkong film, a very good example of its genre. As a result, most people in the audience did not seem to like the film very much and they flocked out the movie theater after the film was over. Or maybe everybody was just hungry and needed to get food before the next film started, like us.

drrt

Mo Jing (That Demon Within)
Hongkong/China 2014, Dante Lam, 112’

Dave is a nice police officer who leads a simple life when decides to give blood to a wounded man who comes into emergency. It turns out that the guy is one of the most brutal gang leaders in Hongkong, having robbed and killed multiple policemen. While Dave tries to grapple with what he did, he sets out to destroy the gang by himself, but in the process, his dark past is slowly being revealed.
Death count: Many.

Like I said, everything in the story is pretty much standard Hongkong thriller fare, including the end which conveniently explains everything. In the credits at the beginning, there is a “choreography” and a “car choreography” entry. That made me expect big car crashes in the film until at the very end, it finally delivered. Boy, that car crashing into the gas station scene was quite impressive. Drawing upon a long tradition of Hongkong action movies, that scene’s visual splendor is far superior than your average Hollywood action flick’s. Story-wise, I thought “Mo Jing” was rather intricate, the revelations in the film happen slowly and as confusing as it may have seemed at first, everything in the film contributes to its dramatic ending, with a final flashback explaining what actually happened in Dave’s past. I even loved that last scene of the film, in which we see Dave helping out an old woman… it may all be a genre cliché, but within the genre it’s very well done.

“Mo Jing” is definitely a film that cannot be explained, only seen. There is so much going on, but none of it is particularly meaningful. It’s just a feast for the eyes and a suspenseful story, really. Much more than your average Asian film, “Mo Jing” necessitates a certain familiarity with Hongkong films to make sense, and you would only like it if you liked the genre in the first place. It’s like watching a film noir or a Western – when you are dealing with a genre, you have to be into the genre’s rules, even if you don’t take them seriously.

Originally, I was interested in the film because of Daniel Wu. I had seen him in “Europa Report” before, in which I thought he was terrible. But he is a big name actor and so I wanted to see something else to verify. Or maybe I am just into his pretty face. Well, in this main role as Dave, I thought he was absolutely brilliant and totally believable. Perhaps there’s just something wrong with “Europa Report” – every actor in the film seemed terrible, which is surprising because Anamaria Marinca was amazing in “4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days”, Sharlto Copley was great in “District 9” and Christian Camargo was quite good as the Ice-Truck Killer in “Dexter”. So yes, I would definitely want to see movies with Daniel Wu again. At least “Mo Jing” was very satisfying.