About Chocolate Parfaits

L’amour en fuite

Colette is clearly my favorite Doinel woman. I find it amusing that she calls herself an “ancienne d’Antoine Doinel” considering that she never actually had a relationship with him. Back in the day, I also thought that her way of talking was really strange, very 60s French nouvelle vague-ish, but also emotionless and cold, basically indifferent. The “new” Colette is the exact opposite of it, I think the actress does a great job portraying her character, she is something like the ideal woman, who loves but also who suffers and feels compassion even for somebody like Antoine Doinel. She was ravishing especially in the one flashback scene where Antoine meets her with her husband and child. I want the coat she wears!

I think the Doinel cycle finds an awesome ending with “L’amour en fuite”. I thought that “Les 400 Coups” was mostly unrelated to Doinel’s later life, even if Truffaut largely explains it with his mother’s affairs. Instead, I think that “Les 400 Coups” is mostly about childhood and growing up, whereas all the others are about, well, Antoine Doinel being the same egoistic, ridiculous yet likable character who never ever changes. Truffaut criticizes this character tenderly and I am a total sucker for that. Indeed, Antoine feels emotions and suffers, but much more than that he makes other suffer, because that’s just the Schnitzlerian romantic he is. It was lovely to see flashbacks of the other films, and I cannot quite decide whether I preferred this film or “Baisers volés”. I liked “Baisers volés” for its lightness, its witty dialogue and its nouvelle vague style (oh God so stylish!), but “L’amour en fuite” has the complexity I have been looking for. Just because Antoine has proven to be unable to keep his relationships, the film is far from being a mere amalgam of the previous stories, trying to tie them together; instead, the film ambitiously portrays several of his relationships, past and present, at the same time – successfully so, in my opinion. The movie ends on quite a happy note, with the notion that love is worth it, despite all the suffering and injustice.

One thing I absolutely love about the two only nouvelle vague directors I have seen (Godard and Truffaut, whom I also obsess about) is their subtle humor, and the fact that their movies have these little scenes, like Anna Karina and Jean-Paul Belmondo striking poses, or Jean Seberg selling newspapers, or Anna Karina and whats-his-name insulting each other by displaying parts of book titles to each other, Anna Karina and the two boys dancing in the café, or literally any scene of Jules, Jim and Catherine together. “L’amour en futile” has such a scene as well, I think, namely Antoine Doinel at the train station with his son, sending him to some music camp:
– Be good and study your instrument. If you study well, you can become a musician.
– So papa, what if I don’t study well?
– Then you only become a music critic.
That totally cracked me up!

Truffaut is typically considered the nouvelle vague director who loved women, but is that really the case? With Antoine Doinel, the true enemy of all women, I am not so sure. And yet I cannot help but love the Doinel cycle.

Sleeping Beauty

With Jane Campion and this other lady whose name I have forgotten, Australia seems to be producing a lot of high-profile female directors. Julie Leigh is not exactly one, but style-wise her movie certainly tries to be.

I am not sure what to make of the film. More than anything, I thought the movie was strangely vanilla. While the premise is great and almost reminds me of Banana Yoshimoto’s settings, the movie practically lacks both death and sex. Banana Yoshimoto’s stories at least were never about how men mistreat women or look down on them, although gender was always an issue, namely with respect to gender identity. This movie has this extremely subtle feminism to it – the way they touch her, the shameless Salò copy in which somebody makes the main character trip and fall on all fours, and of course the guy who screams “whore!” into her sleeping face. Back in the day, when I read Banana Yoshimoto’s books, I strongly believed I was running into emotional disaster because I was young and hopelessly in love, not because I was a woman. I was fascinated with men (and humans in general), but – never having actually been abused by a man – I was never that interested in how women are sexually dominated by men until I realized how often it happens to others.

Enough ranting: Bottom line is, the movie feels otherworldly, sometimes I even feel like the main character has never actually talked to a man. The premise of the film is so, so awesome and it’s unfortunate to see it ruined by this rather weak storyline. The film failed at showing me anything interesting, except for one scene: I liked the moment when Claire, the madame, showed genuine interest in the well-being of her girl (in real life, I assume that’s a very unlikely thing to happen), which was very different from Salò. Apart from that, I remember the somewhat Sofia-Coppola-like clothing design which I thought was pretty lovely but rather unsexy, almost frigid.

One more detail: One of the men describes the storyline of “Das dreißigste Jahr” by Ingeborg Bachmann. This is a little ironic, because I have a backstory with it. Back when I just turned 15, there was this school event which our biology teacher organized, a trip to somewhere in France. Anyways, during that trip I sat next to this guy who was one class level higher and read “Das dreißigste Jahr” out loud to me. I completely forgot the story by now, but only remembered the character Moll. It was through him that I realized it must have been the same story. At any rate, listening to the charaterization of Moll, I thought that Ingeborg Bachmann’s writing style was very male. She details things about this man which, well, normally only men would realize. With that in mind, I think the gender identities in “Sleeping Beauty” are even more screwed up.

If the mere looks of a nicely shaped girl arouse you even though the paleness makes her look like a corpse, then “Sleeping Beauty” might be the right thing for you. Otherwise you’d probably be bored, and you might be even more bored than I was, because I am a sucker for these kinds of pastel-colored, stylish prostitution films.

One Million Yen Girl

Many comments on the movie were about how the film is “merely a generic self-finding trip”. Is that really true? Maybe this “go out to different places and find love” thing is a typical theme in movies, but it certainly is not in other fields. Literature has its Bildungsroman but those types of coming of age stories are rarely related to travels, in anime I remember one single title with something like “self-finding”, namely “Honey & Clover”. Here is what I think: Every road movie is somewhat special, and “One Million Yen Girl”, by virtue of being a Japanese road movie, is rather different from most movies I have seen.

Most of all, I think the premise is lovely. The first and second stops she makes (beach and peach village) were very interesting, although I wished they had shown more of it. In fact, I think I wished they had shown more of it. Why did she not like the beach? What exactly did she get from the next place? The movie is a little bit like “Lost in Translation” where all we see is that the main character is lost, and I don’t actually feel like she grew that much, except at the very end, which is witty and great but feels almost out of character. Unlike “Miryang”, another movie heavily focused on the main character, I didn’t actually get the impression that we learned so much about Suzuko. Specifically, the story could have been more developed, perhaps into a miniseries and it could have turned into something like Kino no Tabi.

I love Aoi Yuu, especially with this movie, I have to say that she is one of Japan’s best actresses, and I think she also is much better than Rinko Kikuchi (who, I think, is overrated). Sure, she always gets these awfully Japanese roles where she has to smile awkwardly and look demure – but in many ways, she reminded me of Scarlett Johansson in “Lost in Translation”, which can only be a good thing. Aoi Yuu is amazing at looking gentle and sweet and so incredibly lonely, and she needs to get more appreciation for that.

Unfortunately, however, I don’t really like the idea of the movie. I have been thoroughly annoyed at the last part of the story, which was supposed to be some love story, but with an awfully boring and generic guy. I much preferred the guy from the beach shop! So what if he had blonde hair? He was cute and seemed so serious and honest and genki. The last part of the film was just painful, and it also didn’t help that I was thoroughly bored by the storyline of her brother. I felt sorry for him but this “I will go to an idiot child’s middle school to confront my bullies” crap was painful to watch. It’s ridiculous beyond belief and enough for me to question the point of the film, because it turned Suzuko’s eventual decision to go home (that is how I interpreted it) into a ridiculous endeavor as well.

This is a movie entirely for Aoi Yuu fans. If you don’t like her as an actress, or have no interest in these somewhat pointless, modern Japanese movies whose direction and quality are closer to live-action TV shows rather than movies like “Departures”, then stay away from this.

Miryang (Secret Sunshine)

There were only two reasons why I watched this movie: Jeon Do-yeon and Song Kang-ho. Okay, I have to admit that there is a secret third reason, which is that Criterion picked up the film. I set myself the secret goal of watching all Criterion movies, and while my rate of completion is steadily increasing, rising from 10% to nearly 18% now, Criterion is unfortunately having more and more films where I would just go “What, why this movie?” It will take me forever to watch all those films for the simple reason that my tastes are evolving, and they certainly are not always Criterion tastes.

Back to the actual film: I was impressed and surprised. Originally, I was expecting some very good acting performances (which I totally got) and a rather painful story. Husband dead, son dead, woman turns towards mad religiousness – not really the kind of story you expect to be uplifting. Not to mention that the guy who falls in love with her is stuck in one-sided admiration for this miserable main character (what in the world does he see in her?) You’d expect a Korean melodrama, and my last experience with a Korean tragicomedy was disastrous. With these low expectations in the film, I had no idea that it would end up being so funny. The film just has so incredibly many scenes which make me chuckle, carefully dispersed throughout the film so that there always is some uplifting moment even amidst the saddest events.

As mentioned, the two actors make the film. My love for Bae Doona and Lee Young-ae will never waver, but Jeon Do-yeon is just brilliant – a well-deserved third, but not because her acting is worse than the other two. It just so happens that the other two came first. In terms of acting, she’s perhaps the deepest Korean actress out there, so powerful and talented. Wow. But Song Kang-ho is shining even more, in my opinion. It’s the polarization between their two characters – tragic and comical – that the film becomes really great. He is the exact opposite of her, and even though none of what he ever does affects of helps her at all, it seems like, for the movie, his presence is extremely crucial. It contrasts her dreaminess and her self-centered desperation with the down-to-earth character of the guy who is strange yet completely normal, clumsy yet smart, and totally good-hearted.

I also think that the ending, which deviates from the original novel in which the woman kills herself, is very hopeful. Whereas we see the sky in the beginning, the camera points to the ugly trash on the ground at the very end, but it is the confrontation with the ugly reality that will the main character will find true salvation. She is taking matters into her own hands by cutting her hair, which also might be a symbol for some sort of change, and she lets him help her, which might mean that she wants him in her life. Perhaps, after going through all those stages of grief, she is gradually going to get some character development, and allow the possibility of a new relationship. I thought this interpretation of the end would be lovely. (Is it too naive? Hah.)

Despite having written so much about the film, I am not sure if I would recommend it. It’s not my favorite Korean movie, but I think it’s a great example of a good Korean film, and totally underrated. Well, I know only 3 people with a special interest in Korean films. Person 1 has watched the film with me, and person 2 claims “One fine spring day” to be his favorite Korean movie. So “Miryang” is probably not for him.

Tropa de Elite 2 – o inimigo agora é outro

I loved “Tropa de Elite” and the sequel reminds me of why that is. The story probably had less of an impact and in many ways, despite Matias’s death, it was less tragic. Whenever I write a blog post on sequels, I tend to re-read what I wrote on the first part back in the day. Especially my favorite films get such treatment, during which I realize over and over again how lame my old blog posts where. Whereas I tend to remember the respective films vividly, the posts I write on them do not reflect that at all. In this case, all these things I wrote about “Tropa de Elite” back in the day still hold true. But actually, it was much more than that. “Tropa de Elite” made me think, it made me cry and – most of all – it gave me a fresh perspective on the world that rarely another film did. In comparison to that, “Tropa de Elite 2” is much smarter yet at the same time, maybe it’s a little too smart. Nascimento obviously had to grow up some, and we all know that it’s the system itself that is wrong; that corrupt politicians and police are the reason why the slums in Rio de Janeiro is a horrible place.

I was actually really sad at Matias’s death, although I saw it coming. I thought it was really touching how Nascimento called him “André” all the way until the end, and how serious he remained about their friendship. I also really enjoyed Fraga as the likable antagonist. The dangerous mix of Nascimento’s work and family life was what made this film so different from the first, even though direction, atmosphere and storyline were largely similar. The film might be mostly a “more of the same” kind of sequel, but in this case it’s more of the same awesomeness.

I doubt they will make a third movie out of it. If they do, it’s pretty much bound to become inferior to the previous titles like “Infernal Affairs 3” or “Godfather 3” which I still have not seen. As just a sequel, “Tropa de Elite 2” did almost perfectly in reviving my love for the franchise.

Les demoiselles de Rochefort

After I learned that, it became much easier to come to terms with the sheer… silliness of musicals itself. “Les demoiselles” are very, very American (especially the dance style!) yet at the same time, the core elements of the film – ballet, quasi-classical music, romantic fated love, wanting to go to Paris – are all very French. And boy I loved it. The “jumelles” song is amazingly catchy and the dresses they wear in the scene are beyond glorious.

Unlike “Les parapluies de Cherbourg”, which was sad and emotional and almost deep, this film is all about the looks and the songs and the dances, but that’s okay. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and I might still be looking for my brain which I probably left at the door. With that said, if you like musicals just a little bit, you will have to love this movie.

Saranghanda, saranghaji anneunda

… but maybe it’s just the hunger, hahahaha. Especially the procedure of pasta-making, I can barely believe I have ever seen such a surprisingly good-looking food-making scene. Wow this movie just hurt so much, and I don’t even know why. It’s somewhere in my subconscious, silently creeping up on me. Breaking up is the saddest thing in the world, it makes you think it’s something that should never happen.

I loved the simplicity of the premise. The film does nothing else but depict a couple which has broken up and nothing more happens besides the female character packing and preparing to leave. That’s it.

The only aspect I felt somewhat unhappy about was perhaps aforementioned female character. When the film just started, he began packing some of her cups and other things. The way he did that, so careful and loving! Oh my God, how can a woman in her right mind ever leave a man like that? It’s just… not fair.
But then again, these things happen. None of the two ever talk about their relationship, which is fairly unusual for a relationship movie. However, even that makes sense. There is some beauty to it, to show that they still care for each other, that they delve in memories together yet both know that there isn’t anything else to say. This is a film that doesn’t talk, but shows.

And everything else was just plain wonderful. The slow pacing totally contributed to its beauty, both actors are absolutely splendid in their role, and Hyun Bin is perhaps the only good-looking Korean actor who acts well. I am thoroughly impressed. Most of all, however, the style of the film is just amazing. “My Dear Enemy” was nothing special in that regard, but this house is just… the house I want to live in! I want to make pasta like that, even though it looks like they are using way too much oil and eat them out of these large restaurant-style plates. Maybe one day life will look like that.

I am generally in a contemplative mood today, and it’s hard to say whether it was because of the film or the other way around – I watched it because I felt contemplative. I wouldn’t recommend this film due to its slowness, but it’s special. After “Ai no Mukidashi”, this was probably the second best Berlinale film.

Ohayo

My impression of Ozu is clouded by “Tokyo Monogatari”, an incredible borefest almost impossible to sit through. “Ohayo” is everything that “Tokyo Monogatari” is not. The Japanese awkwardness is present, but since Ozu is making fun of those antics, it’s awesome!

In “Floating Weeds”, you can see glimpses of the humor so omnipresent in “Ohayo”. It just has everything – all characters are amusing or lovely or both, the actors are all splendid and the visuals are amazingly stylish. I can almost not find a single fault with the movie, unpretentious yet sophisticated, critical yet subtle, stylish yet it only uses a small set. To top it off, it’s just so, so funny; I am seriously considering recommending it to Loris, and that means something.

Why is “Ohayo” not on the list of 50 movies children should see before they turn 14? This is an amazing example, and Minoru’s little “monologue” on how adults talk too much should become a classic in Japanese culture. Discovering that Ozu can be so funny was a revelation like reading the humorous newspaper articles Chekhov wrote when he was young. Ozu = Chekhov. Both were extremely observant and master the art of subtle humour.

According to a Criterion review, the “loose” neighbors have a poster of The Defiant Ones on their wall. That is quite an interesting movie to be displaying there (I want to see it!), and it shows how aware Ozu was of his surrounding – and of American influences. All Japanese directors, including Ozu, are American in some sense, and that might be the most interesting aspect of Japanese cinema, which is so lovely in its Japanese style.

The film is one of Shii’s favorites, and I can definitely see why. Perhaps there are other films that made me laugh more than this one, but it stands high as a great comedy coming from somewhere else than my usual sources (i.e. screwball or modern films).

The Wrestler

Some of you might remember how much I disliked “Requiem for a Dream”. To be honest I couldn’t even finish watching it, and that is despite my appreciation both for Jennifer Connelly and Jared Leto. Something about the film just annoyed me deeply, I don’t even know how to describe it.

For the first 10 minutes, I thought “The Wrestler” is going to be the same. I was not a huge fan of “Black Swan” – of course it was a great movie, I just didn’t thought it was as great as advertised and, as always, Darren Aronofsky overly exaggerates everything. I don’t like that, especially not about something I hold as dear as ballet. That the film is an exaggerated portrait of the main character still holds true for “The Wrestler”. At first, I couldn’t relate to Randy at all and was almost grossed out by the somewhat bloody portrayal of wrestling, which I knew nothing about. For instance, I had no idea it was all just show and still think there is something strange and disturbing about wrestling. It’s all about seeing people being violent – and it’s just a show too. That’s on the same level as gladiator games which I think was the perfect indication that the Roman Empire had to go down. Although I found wrestling itself despicable, it didn’t take too long for me to appreciate the depiction of people in the film. Oh wow. Mickey Rourke was great in the role, and Evan Rachel Wood was cast perfectly. Certainly it was a film about a wrestler, but at the same time, I thought he was a character easy to relate to in his existential struggles. Darren Aronofsky can do them so well, this existentialism, and “The Wrestler” is probably his masterpiece at it.

Just like Gorp said, the end of “Black Swan” = the end of “The Wrestler”. The film has completely overwhelmed me to the point of being incapable of properly writing about it. Definitely recommended. I’d even say I want to see what else Aronofsky made.