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Three… Extremes

I find it ironic that “Three… Extremes” came out before “Three” outside of Asia. Without a doubt, the original “Three” is much more Asian and probably also much less accessible. After all, if you have seen Park Chan-wook’s or Takashi Miike’s movies, you already have a good idea what these movies would be like. All that gruesome, Asian gore – “Three… Extremes” has it, but “Three” doesn’t. Overall, these films were much more, uh, extreme indeed.

Dumplings: I knew that there was a longer version of this film (probably about double the length), but as it is the case for most of these films, I prefer watching the shorter version first so in case I want to see the longer version, I won’t feel like something is missing. “Dumplings” felt like it was exactly the right length – all of its main elements, and the terror that comes with it, were all there. The most horrible part was where you could hear the cracking of the bones when the main character was eating the dumplings… Brrrr. This is definitely one of the smarter psychoterror films out there, and the memory of it is still haunting me. Yet at the same time, the film was strangely funny? I wonder how that happened.

Cut: Ever since I saw “Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance” I am careful about Park Chan-wook’s films, despite the fact that I loved every single other one of his films. I expected “Cut” to be gory, and surprisingly it wasn’t even that bad. “Cut” had a very simple premise and probably not a lot of plot, but it managed to build up the tension just perfectly. The desire to kill someone because they are too good strangely resonates with me – this logic is pure Park Chan-wook and I love it. I didn’t really like the ending, which all of a sudden didn’t quite make sense, but I thought that there was a pleasant irony in how the guy slipped on the wedding ring.

Box: Yes, the film looks pretty awesome, and there are some beautiful shots there, especially towards the end. I like how the younger and older Kyoko blend in together, how the dolls and the actress look eerily alike and how Miike uses fabric as a texture. Unfortunately, just like the weakest segment in “Three”, this film relies on its visuals a little bit too much. The story is awfully predictable (ok I am fine with that) but also lacks anything else. Incest cannot shock me as much as eating fetuses and killing children, so the whole film appeared strangely bland to me.

I think an omnibus should always start with a good film, go through a section of lesser films and then end with the best one. In that respect, the order should have been “Cut”, “Box” and then “Dumplings”. Overall though, I would say that each of these films is worth a look and especially “Dumplings” and “Cut” are not comparable – one is gory and simple, the other one psychologically disturbing and almost funny.

Three

It seems that have a (light) cold. It so happens that I also have a bunch of lemons available, so I made a pound cake and used the rest of the lemons for tea. Before I was able to do that I decided that it was a good idea to watch these films in the morning. I don’t know why it is, but horror movies actually do give nightmares. Even though I never get scared of them, my subconscious is still terrified.

Memories: I remember how Pixelmatsch and I tried to watch the film years ago. Three minutes into the film, I got annoyed and gave up. This time, while we saw the first scene I was asking “Why is the movie paused?” Turns out the movie was not paused at all, but just unmoving for an unexpected long time. “Memories” is probably one of the slowest movies I have ever seen in my life, and its story could have been told in half the time without sacrificing too much of its atmosphere. At the same time, the film did have a bit of atmosphere, and there were a few genuinely surprising moments (or “cheap horror devices” as other reviews would say). All in all, it was a somewhat predictable and sufficiently entertaining film, mostly style over substance.

The Wheel: I always thought that puppets are positively creepy. That definitely holds true in this film, which did a good job at creating a psycho-horror atmosphere. Unfortunately, besides the beautifully surreal shots, there is nothing in this film. The storyline is totally confusing and practically meaningless, resulting in a film that may be interesting for the eyes but otherwise totally forgettable.

Going Home: Leon Lai is strangely hot, isn’t he? But apart from that, I think all actors involved are doing an awesome job here. (I can’t believe I failed to recognize Eric Tsang, who was Sam in the “Infernal Affairs” movies.) I also read somewhere that Christopher Doyle (of “In the mood for love” fame) did the cinematography here, and it clearly shows. While this film looks nothing like the other stuff he did, I think the composition of the shots give off quite an expert feel. In terms of film-making handicraft, I think this is by far the best amongst all of the films both in “Three” and “Three… Extremes”. It is quite obvious that the movie is rather done on the cheap, but it still manages to look awesome. Besides being made up with gripping storytelling and an overall lovely story, I especially liked its powerful ending.

In conclusion, I’d say watch “Memories” first, then watch “Going Home” and skip “The Wheel” altogether.

Lars and the Real Girl

Let me explain. Typically I hear about a movie and decide that I want to watch it for some characteristic, be it a nice premise, a director I like or an actor I like. I am also a completionist, so I desire to see all films by a director I like. In the case of the Coens for example, I am explicitly counting the number of films I am at. But most of the times, I would just put them onto my mental “want to watch” list and forget about them forever.

For “Lars and the Real Girl”, I was ecstatic when I saw that it showed up on Netflix, and I wanted to see it right away. The premise is just so awesome! I don’t think I have ever heard of anything better than this. Awkward main character buys a Real Doll and presents her as his girlfriend. I fell in love with that idea immediately, ever since Gorp mentioned the film for the first time.

Unfortunately, my love affair with the film ended. There is much to love about the film – lovely Emily Mortimer, a great Ryan Gosling, Patricia Clarkson (!) and a bunch of very touching moments. The film is funny at times, yet always tasteful and sweet. (I loved the scene where Lars revives Margo’s teddy bear!) It’s just… while I appreciate the niceness of the townspeople and was genuinely touched by it, all of it felt strangely fake. If “Winter’s Bone” was about a depressing world with a glimpse of hope, then “Lars and the Real Girl” is about an excruciatingly good world with a glimpse of sadness. I just don’t buy that level of goodness, and maybe that is the reason why the film felt endlessly dragged out to me.

Another thing that bothered me was how – ultimately – Lars was just inconveniencing everybody and acting selfishly in a strangely unpleasant way. I guess I just don’t buy how the entire town is making an effort to accomodate Bianca into their lives, and that it is supposed to be meaningful in some way. Did she actually make anybody’s life better? Or bring anybody closer? Apparently not. All I see is that Lars’ odd behavior is jeopardizing his brother’s marriage and his own relationship with a perfectly lovely girl. (In fact, too unrealistically lovely, if you ask me.) Having a Real Doll as a girlfriend is one thing, but imposing onto others with it is a completely different thing.

Maybe my expectations for the film were just too high. “Lars and the Real Girl” is a good movie that was, for some reason, just not good enough.

Winter’s Bone

We recently got Netflix, which is letting films expire yet again, so I canceled my MUBI subscription. It took over 20 days for me to get bored of MUBI. Unsurprisingly, when I get to watch a movie on Netflix, I typically enjoy it more than your average MUBI film.

“Winter’s Bone” got marked as expiring soon, so I finally decided to watch it. I didn’t really know much about the film and the poster also didn’t look inspiring. (For a similar reason, I have never seen “The Road”.) But Gorp saw it and said it was good. It so happens that even when a film is not amongst his absolute favorites, I would typically like it.

I learned that the film is classified as neo-noir, similarly to “Brick”. I actually thought that there were many parallels. Both films are strangely stylish even though they are set in a rather ugly environment, both are strongly focused on a very strong main character and start with the disappearance of a person and a mystery asking to be solved. While said mystery is not entirely solved in the case of “Winter’s Bone”, the structure is still strangely similar. Just like Brendan, Ree has to go confront people who she dislikes and who are pretty much rotten down to the core, get help, get beaten up and poke around in the drug business. Maybe she is a little less clever than Brendan with his smooth detective work, but she makes up for it in perseverance and character strength. “Winter’s Bone” had much less story, if you want, but I liked how the mystery got revealed slowly and quite subtly.

As you can imagine, I was also mesmerized by the style of the film. Everything looks so incredibly grey and bleak, yet the main character is strangely beautiful and looks awesome even when she is bundled up in cold winter clothing. Jennifer Lawrence definitely deserved all the praise for her acting; in fact, I am now interested in seeing more of her performances. (Unfortunately, my dislike for “The Hunger Games” still persists.)

The internet, or rather the Imdb forums, are full of people who write about the film. It seems to be the kind of thing that lots of people have watched, and everybody and their mother critiques it. Several people commented on how realistic the film is in portraying rural life, and perhaps that is the aspect I liked most about it. Certainly life is hard for the main character and everything looks awfully bleak, yet there is hope to be found: in her neighbor who takes care of her horse, in the best friend who she adores, and finally in the scene where her siblings hold little chicken in their hands. (Cute!) If that is not a sign for a hopeful future, then what is? As a foot note, I think it is noteworthy that the disappeared father actually loved his family and was not just a drunken meth cook who left them willingly. There is so much subtle goodness to be found in this film.

Overall, “Winter’s Bone” was a pleasant surprise, an I wish I had seen it together with Pip. Perhaps I would even want to re-watch and re-evaluate it some day as well.

24 City

I have really only seen one other Jia Zhangke film, “Platform”. What struck me the most about the film was not actually the story (which I thought was rather cliché anyways) but the way the film was executed. Nostalgy for older times coupled with period music seems to be Jia’s trademark, and one of the nicest aspect of “24 City” is the way music is used to set the mood. It’s a matter of taste whether you find that boring and artificial, or rather subtle and beautiful.

There is one thing which bothers me about this mix of using real factory workers and actors. I have seen other reviews in which people disliked this mix because they couldn’t see who was an actor and who was a real interviewee. But honestly, I thought it was pretty obvious – you can see it in their physiognomy. Actual factory workers have much more worn-down faces and, more importantly, visibly rough hands. My parents, for instance, are a totally special case – they have those rough hands from working in factories and writer’s bumps on their fingers. (In fact, they even make fun of me for not having them.) Unless they help you with good make-up, I doubt it’s possible to act real as a factory worker, and in “24 City” they typically don’t.

A couple of years ago, I met a girl on the bus who was from the same city as Jia Zhangke. Her parents owned a factory and she loved Wong Kar-wai. Unsurprisingly, she absolutely hates Jia Zhangke’s films, which she thought were boring and utterly wrong. According to her, this is not the real China; but in Jia Zhangke’s defense, she is probably just as foreign to these people depicted in his films as I am, just in a different way.

I thought that “24 City” was interesting and beautiful in quite a memorable way, but its strange topic and execution make it a hard film to recommend.

35 Rums

I have heard of Claire Denis’ “Beau Travail” several times, but until today, I never actually saw any of her films. “35 Rums” caught my eye because screenshots showed me that none of the main characters are white (at least father and daughter are not) yet the film was supposed to be an homage to Ozu. I mean… Ozu, really? Surprisingly enough, I can see where it’s coming from. There may be no kimonos, no still Ozu-style shots and not a single “douzo”, but besides the basic storyline, the homage is indeed very obvious. All the characters are rather bourgeois and middle class, and I thought it was especially notable how they spoke very clear and proper French. Furthermore, they care for each other and act respectful around one another. Not only they feel a certain nostalgy towards their past together, it is hard for any of them to accept that the future brings change. It is a certain backwards melancholy, coupled with the fact that nobody is truly able to speak their minds, that makes this film so inherently Ozu-like. Denis pays a lot of attention to detail and lets the characters converse through looks. It is only on the surface that the characters and style look different, but actually “35 Rums” is as close to Ozu’s “Late Spring” as “Brick” is to “Out of the Past”.
The biggest difference, however, is that Ozu would never make a scene in which characters mostly look at each other longingly, accompanied by kitsch music; in fact, Ozu’s characters never seem to be motivated by jealousy (that is too simple, really). One could say that Denis took something great and made something better out of it. Her stuff is not really better than Ozu’s though, so it is safer to say that Denis deviated from Ozu according to her own style, and that is fine with me.

Speaking of style, I was completely in love with Josephine’s wedding dress at the very end. How simple and stylish is that? I am in love. What she needed was a Jackie Kennedy-like hat to go with it, and it would have been perfect.

It took me a little while to get into the film, and perhaps there is something artificial about it (how realistic is the relationship between father and daughter within the context of modern France really?) but the film is beautiful. It is a somewhat invisible beauty somewhere hidden in those moments the characters share, and by the end of the film it left me with a strange feeling of peace. This is a mood film done right.

Detour

The solution is pretty simple: Because we want to see a good story. Documentaries aside (which, by the way, I don’t really like anyways), watching a film is a lot like reading a book, both of which are primarily there to transport a story. Back in high school, we had to write an essay about that, and I suppose the “right” answer to the problem is that a good book has more than just a story. Nowadays, I am not so sure if that is true, and forget what I said in this posting. If a good story is not present, I may still be able to enjoy whatever I see, but more than anything else, I prefer a good story.

“Detour” is the kind of film where the story really isn’t all that great. Main character accidentally kills guy and gets mixed up with crazy woman who he accidentally kills as well. On top of that, the whole thing only takes an hour and both storytelling and cinematography are decent at best – it is certainly a cheap film after all. Roger Ebert, who seems to have loved the film, has this theory that the story has a double bottom, that not all is how it seems and a psychological twist on the main character whose skewed memory makes him believe of his innocence when he actually is just a petty criminal. That’s rather boring, huh?

Actually it’s the woman herself who makes the film interesting. When you have no budget and no story, the least a film noir can do is to present a good femme fatale. This one is quite symbolic for the entire film: She’s not bad (in fact the actress plays the bitch really well) but at the same time she is also not that interesting. All she does is complain, threaten and scream really. One can hardly call her a femme fatale, but being a strong woman with the je ne sais quoi make her qualify.

I have no idea why the film is amongst Ebert’s “Great Movies”, in the “1000 Greatest Films” from They Shoot Pictures and amongst their “250 Quintessential Noirs” as highly recommended. What do they all see in this movie? I thought it was a completely forgettable film and makes me wonder how many good film noir there really are out there

Django Unchained

I don’t know what to say about this film. Recently Loris came online and his first question was about the film. Maybe it was a bad idea to tell everyone I was going to watch “Django Unchained”, but if there is anything that unifies my friends, it is a common interest for Tarantino. A lot of us grew up with his films and if there was one film we considered cult, it was “Pulp Fiction”. If you are in the mid-twenties today, either you like movies in general (and then you like Tarantino) or you don’t have a particular interest in movies and Tarantino is the only director you know. That is how big of an impact he has.

With that in mind, “Inglorious Basterds” also happens to be on my favorite 30 films list, a feat which not even Wes Anderson managed (despite my incredible love for “The Darjeeling Limited” and “Moonrise Kingdom”). Tarantino is certainly not one of my favorite directors (his films are just too pointless?) but he manages to deeply impress me, either with uninhibited laughter in the case of “Death Proof” (oh yes, that was a PIFF experience only paralleled by “Sunrise”) or with a strong grip on my heart, leaving me almost shivering with excitement in the case of “Inglorious Basterds”. Unfortunately for “Django Unchained”, the only film you can really compare it to happens to be “Inglorious Basterds” and in comparison to that, it completely pales. While Hans Landa represents the creeping terror of Nazi Germans, Calvin Candie is a mere shadow of how cruel white people probably were back in the day – he is more talk than action in fact. Even so, he is probably the most interesting character precisely because of the way he talks. Until the point where he let Django and Broomhilda go, Monsieur Candie was the perfect evil guy who smooth talks himself through life, taking pleasure instead of hiding the way he objectifies human beings. If anyone thinks that there is no depth in Tarantino’s characters, Calvin Candie (as well as characters like Hans Landa) are examples to the contrary. At least to some degree, they are awfully realistic and multi-dimensional. This is how fearsome people really talk.

Apart from Calvin Candie, everybody else is either boring (Django and wife) or so utterly good-hearted that not even funny lines could make up for this empty feeling the character leaves behind (King Schultz – what kind of name is that anyways?). Don’t worry, I loved the character of King Schultz and Christoph Waltz is the perfect guy for the role, but did he really have to be a smart, resourceful, funny and – on top of all of that – good-hearted man from a culture with superior morals? Even though he was responsible for 90% of the fun in the film, it did leave me with a somewhat bad taste, especially when the most nationalistic German legend is being simplified to a “hero saves his woman” tale.

I also told Loris that for most of the film, “Django Unchained” is to Tarantino what “True Grit” is for the Coen brothers – they are the directors’ most recent works, they have a more simplistic story than most of their other works, and most of all, “good” and “bad” characters are unusually well-defined in both films in comparison to what they normally do. Overall, “True Grit” is a little more true to its feel-good character, and it is probably for that reason that I prefer it. Nevertheless, it goes without saying that “Django Unchained” is a much bigger spectacle, worthy of a Tarantino film and a definite must-see. At least this is the case if you are the kind of person who enjoys some politically incorrect fun.

Time

So, I have never actually seen another Kim Ki-duk film besides “Bin-Jip” which is surprising because I liked it and because “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring” has been on my plan-to-watch list forever. I have also considered “Bad Guy” and “Samaritan Girl”, but the premise of “Time” ended up being the reason why it was chosen.

I think I just like the theme of face-changing. There is something haunting about it, the face being the one thing we probably identify with the most, even if our conscience would like to tell us otherwise. A face is more than just an outward appearance, and while an obsession with it might be unhealthy, there is still an aspect of it that seems to be inherently human. Unfortunately, this particular film seems to be mostly about obsession, but in a melodramatic kind of way. Even before I started watching the film I named it “The poor man’s Face of Another”, and after seeing the film, I still stand by that statement.

Certainly some aspects of the film are quite stylish. The beginning and end of the film match nicely (It’s an eternal loop, creepy!) and I appreciate the interior designs, the food and especially the silly little sculpture garden. It is obvious that the movie is carefully shot, and that itself can make it interesting. But oh wow, the characters are just batshit crazy. If this was the only Korean movie I had seen, I would assume that Koreans love bitching at strangers in public, and whenever a couple goes into a café they have to get into a loud argument. If only that was comical, but “Time” is more like a horror drama and unfortunately has no comedic element whatsoever.

All in all, I thought it was an intriguing film which did something interesting with its great premise, but it was an okay experience at best.

The Fighter

To be honest, when the film started I thought it was “The Wrestler” all over again. In fact, it was totally the opposite. We start with the end of “The Wrestler” and end up somewhere in dreamland Hollywood. It’s nice and emotionally rewarding to see the “loser” turning into a winner against all odds, but that simple tearjerking device alone would not be doing the film justice. It’s the road to get there that counts, not necessarily the result. And boy that road was strangely interesting.

What makes the film worthwhile to see is the entire family of Micky’s, and the struggles they all went through. The exposition of the film was wonderfully written in my opinion. The portrayal of Lowell and its inhabitants, the snottiness of the sisters, the struggle between these very intimate yet destructive family relationships – I was quite impressed by how much they dragged me into the film. I actually liked how this family openly fought out its problems, and the moment where Dicky finally makes up with Charlene ended up being quite powerful. If the conflicts and fights in the family hadn’t been so dreadful and sad at the beginning, the final coming together of all those characters, all of whom ultimately want the best for Micky, would not have become so meaningful.

The weakest aspect of the film is probably that Christian Bale outplays both Mark Wahlberg and Amy Adams easily. He has so much stage presence and is so charismatic as crack addict, it makes the other two leads appear bland in comparison. I am not into Amy Adams and I have absolutely no idea where she got that Oscar nomination from – there is nothing great about her acting here, and there was at least one scene in which I thought she looked strangely fake. In my opinion she should go back to playing romantic comedies really. That’s the type of face she has. Unfortunately she also had a rather annoying role of the girl who curses and fights on the surface, but actually just plays of the role of the comfort woman to her man. She never gets to have her own life and her own character, and I disliked how her character seems to have nothing going on for herself besides her love for Micky. Sure, this is a boxing movie and it’s all about men, but hey the mother had a fairly proper role there (although she is never shown contributing to Micky’s later success after all), so why not the girlfriend?

It’s not like the film moved me to tears, and I thought it was actually not as emotionally involving as “The Wrestler”, but it was certainly an enjoyable and well-executed Hollywood-style film. Recommended.