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Berlinale 2009, Day 1 (Ai no Mukidashi)

The first day started off okayish. First of all, we did not get into the screening of a short film compilation, because it was nowhere written on the internet that it was only for journalists. (Damn, I want to be a journalist.) Then, we easily got tickets for the film we wanted to see, but then, about 40 minutes before the scheduled start of the film, people started lining up for entering. Then, perhaps 10 minutes too late, the screening actually started.

At that point, however, my impression of the Berlinale turned very positive. The movie was totally the kind of action-packed thing you should watch in a cinema (so it was a good choice to see it) and surprisingly, the director and the actress for the main protagonist were present and it was actually very interesting to hear them talking about the movie. It’s too bad that they looked totally jetlagged and utterly not interested in this event at all, but I can’t blame them.

drrt

Ai no Mukidashi (Love Exposure)
Japan 2008, Sono Sion, 237′

First of all, I was obviously a little worried about spending 4 hours in a movie theater and already prepared myself to fall asleep. For a few moments around the end, I felt a little tired, and especially so when we left around 11.30pm, but the movie itself actually did not feel long at all.

In a silly way, I find it really difficult to talk about the movie this time, because I seriously want to promote it. It was that that good! Surely it’s a movie for, erm, people who are familiar with Japanese subcultures, but if you are, you will wholeheartedly appreciate it, I am sure. It just has everything: Cute girls, a wicked character, a sympathetic loser who keeps fighting for his love (amazing, isn’t it?) and finally, quite a bit of splatter, action coupled with some witty dead pan comedy. Oh, I forgot to mention that the movie is visually absolutely stunning.

The main story is about this catholic raised boy whose father (a priest) got lovesick and so made him confess his sins everyday. To cope with that, he had to, well, actually commit sins. And so he came into the world of taking panty shots of girls. This is how a seemingly rich girl took an interest on him and devised an evil plan, during which he meets his sister, the girl he comes to love. It turns out that the rich girl is the head of some evil sect, trying to lure his family into it. She begins with hooking up with this sister and making out right next to his room…

I have researched Sono Sion and saw that he directed “Suicide Circle” (the movie to a manga scanlated by Omanga), and that he worked on Beineix’ “Otaku” movie, which already shows how familiar he is with the world of, well, perverts. It is so obvious how the director is not just doing something random with this movie, no, the world of otaku is the main audience of his movies and the movie is a laudatio on the social outcasts. Every single of the characters is perverted in a sense, and it becomes quite clear throughout the movie that

During the interview session, we asked about the end, whether the director intended it to end it as such. Furthermore, another person asked what the director wanted to convey with the movie. Despite his reluctant and somewhat vague replies, we could easily see that the main point about the movie is that it’s a love story, no more and no less. That love is something beautiful, even (or especially?) when it comes from a pervert who takes panty shots, and that a movie mainly has to be a lot of fun. Now, at this point of my life, I must admit that I wholeheartedly agree. If these were his intentions, he absolutely succeeded in my book.

In my opinion, the best character is Koike, the evil rich girl. The main character and his sister/love interest are pretty cute together, but Koike is the one who makes you think. Now here’s my interpretation: She fell in love with the main guy, but since she hates men and how she lusts for him, she feels disgusted with herself and wants to hurt him. This gives her a reason to stick with him and stalk him the whole time, but at the same time feel superior over him. That is why she makes him fall in love with another girl and then takes this girl away from him. Then, in the end, she realizes that she is never going to get him and his love for this girl drove her so crazy that she finally freed herself by, well, killing herself? This still makes her death feel wrong and does not seem to do justice to her rather complex character, but the explanation sounds somewhat consistent, I guess. The best scene is the one in which she sits on this half-dead bodyguard and says “Now go die!” And then she dips her cigarette into his blood.

So yeah, my only irks with this movie is that it lacks a certain depth in its meaning. The only comedy that has made it into my all time top 10 is “To be or not to be”, and that is mainly because most great comedies don’t really have a very great message, and I guess for me, a movie that enters into the top 10 has to have everything: A sophisticated meaning, great execution and a good story. “Love Exposure” only fulfills the latter two, when it comes to the meaning, I guess it would be “Perverts are the greatest and nicest people in the world” and “If you have any serious problem in your life, just take some knives and bombs and go berserk, then everything will turn out fine”? I’m joking, but really, there isn’t much behind this.

But who cares? Perhaps I was just pleasantly surprised by a movie that I didn’t know much about before I watched it, but it was a lot of fun. If you enjoy Japanese movies in general, I think this is a gem that should not be overlooked.

PS. Oh yeah, there are pictures of Sono Sion, but I doubt you can even recognize him on the cellphone pictures. XD It also feels like there were many more things I wanted to say, but I forgot about them. Well, I might consider adding some comments later.

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I can’t help but try to nitpick here

drrt

Once

This movie is just too perfect for its own good. The characters are real and authentic, the movie barely had any budget (only in the 10^6 range, you know) and one absolutely has to love how the movie was rejected from all those European film festivals and then won the Audience award at Sundance. An Irish guy and a Czech girl. She speaks English with this cute accent and he says “Foack’s sake”. On top of that, the main characters are even a real couple. In real life, the guy has even loved her for over 6 years, from when she was 13 until 19. What a lolicon. So how is it even possible not to love this story?

Let me explain. My first encounter with this movie must be blamed to the Parisian advertising system. The poster of the film was literally everywhere. Every single movie advertised in the French subway system gave me a bad impression, and this one was no exception. I immediately recognized it as one of these “normal life” type movies where the main characters are sympathetic and plain people, losers that are supposed to win everyone’s hearts in a rush. Gah.

By the way, the blog post I have linked in the previous paragraph is really funny. I especially loved the “Things That French People Learned About Dublin Thanks To ‘Once'”. And here I thought both France and Ireland are in the E.U. Then again, no, the one is in the E.U. and the other in the U.E. after all.

It turned out that I actually like the characters, and that I even really like the movie, but another thing bugged me like hell: The budget, the long songs and finally, the horrible actors. Of course this all extremely cute and I can see how people find this authentic unlike most productions about ‘the music scene’. But with such bland and outright incapable actors, I can’t feel any of these ‘authenticities’ myself. These characters don’t even feel in love to me at all, they don’t show any happiness, any anger, any sadness… nothing. All they do is sing, ahem. With better actors who can actually give me the impression that what they are doing is not acting, I can perhaps feel with the characters a little more. And perhaps then I might also be able to feel some connection between them. It’s good to know that both of them don’t seem to want to continue acting.
Next, the story has some pacing issues: I am fine with long songs, after all, I have loved the long opera sequences in “Amadeus” and there are quite a few musicals that I have liked. Also, I can deal with long shots of people simply living (I call this slice of life in a good way). But really, they really could have kept certain scenes shorter.
In general, the direction was the worst I have seen for a long time, especially the cinematography. Heads cut off, awkward angles (what is her head doing in the picture extremely large, looking into the nothing while he’s standing there in the background for no reason?), mindless jumps… I can’t fault them for using a hand camera (that’s really sympathetic and beautifully actually), but I wished they would have made use of this very nice device called tripod a little more often.

The biggest appeal of the story in my opinion actually is the music. The scenes in which they sang seemed unnecessarily long, but just as both of them are horrible as actors, they are actually pretty good musicians. I think that the main song of the film is sweet, and some other songs were even better. They could have provided emotional support to the film easily, too bad the film couldn’t take advantage of this potential. When people like this film, they put an emphasis on how it’s so honest – to me, the honesty was shown nowhere but in the songs they made. In that respect, the performances of their simple, little indie songs is what I probably will remember this film for, in 5 years or so.

Finally, I do think that this movie is something special: Outstandingly brilliant as a movie in its idea and story, but outstandingly bad as a movie in its technical execution. Oh yeah, Markéta Irglová is really cute.

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Would you like to be the Marx to my Coca-Cola?

drrt

Masculin Féminin

There is nothing in “féminin”, huh? But really, Godard is GOD. That his movies make me want to fall asleep is not so much of a problem when you do other random things while watching them, like how I started tweaking my resume today, ahaha. (By the way, I wrote “film” as one of my interests, and now I am wondering if I should specify it. But how?) Actually I really must admit that I was extremely distracted while watching the film, and now I am distracted while writing this posting, but let me give it a try. (I am very tired though.)

So, what should I say? Years ago, I have been told that “À bout de souffle” and “Le Mépris” are Godard’s only movies you can watch, everything else is just artsy shit. (Okay, he didn’t say that, but ultimately this is what he feels about it.) In some ways, he is right, but on the other hand, Godard is God. Even though everything he does feels a little bit l’art pour l’art (to me at least), he is able to make this combination of relationships and sex with politics in an incredibly charming way, all the actors he use look much better in his movies than they possibly could in another, or so it seems to me. If I were Anna Karina, I probably would have dated him despite his ugliness as well. That is how I feel about Godard today.

The film itself is quite a artistic feast for the most part: If you don’t like the other Godards, you won’t like this one. If you like Godard, you might like it, and you will recognize his style: The parisianness, the nonchalant characters with their coquette, perverted and bad personality, the incredibly good humour (“Tu savais qu’il y a masque et cul dans ‘masculin’?” – “Et dans ‘féminin’?” – “Il y a rien.” [1]) and finally the great cinematography. There even were Godard’s sudden flashes of random or meaningful words.

In most ways, I think “Masculin Féminin” is the most like “Alphaville” so far; not only by the techniques he uses, but also because of the sociocritical storyline. This is much less subtle than it is in Alphaville, it makes quite clear how “Masculin Féminin” carries a strong politicalness – I wouldn’t exactly say there is a political message, but it deals with capitalism critique quite a bit after all. In that respect, I have found the dialogue tidbits quite smart at some points. Although for some reason I forgot what it was, but there were a few memorable quotes, much more than the ones that Imdb lists.

By the way, I also love how Godard references himself and his Nouvelle Vague friends. “T’es pas Pierrot le Fou toi!”, and two seconds later they were talking about a “Doinel” Ahhh, how brilliant.

And now, before I start on a long rant about how damn attractive Jean-Pierre Léaud is, I shall conclude with the that “Masculin Féminin” was definitely worth to see – as Godard fangirl.

[1] This quote is even greater because the end is a flash, with a white “Feminin” on the black screen that turns into “F in”. It is perhaps the second best last two seconds of a movie after “Some like it hot”.
(Yes, I am going to install some footnotes plugin some day.)

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Sie küssten und schlugen ihn ja gar nicht!

drrt

Les Quatre Cents Coups

I really, really love the german title of this film, which literally translates as “They kissed and they hit him”. It is such a good title, and I have a certain history with it. Years ago, the film was shown in german television and for some reason I cannot remember, I was intrigued by the title, thinking that it was some soft porn. What the heck XD

What can I say. I have recently looked at the list of The Criterion Collection releases when I saw that I have only watched 21 of those films. Well, now it’s 22 but the quota is still ridiculously low considering that the Criterion collection features many, many directors that I actually like. The decision of watching “The 400 Blows” came much, much earlier though. I think it was recommended to me years ago, but then it kind of drowned in my endless to-watch list. Before the day I am going to retire, I am pretty sure that I am never going to be able to work myself through this list. XD

But really, Truffaut is a genius. Today, I wish I too had put some metro tickets onto his grave. Of course “Jules et Jim” already made me totally in awe of his work, but while “La peau douce” has kind of weakened my admiration for Truffaut, “Les 400 coups” makes me want to see much, much more. Jean-Pierre Léaud was a genius at that young age, even his classmates are actually pretty good. (Daniel Radcliffe is absolutely nothing against this.) I think he is amazingly good-looking, especially for a french guy, and although he is never going to be able to reach my top 3 (E. Norton, G. García B. and J. Gyllenhaal of course), he makes me really interested in seeing the rest of the Antoine Doinel series.

All in all, this film was a little different from what I have expected myself. I actually wanted a story about a child who faces the harsh reality of adults, a little bit Horváth-style. I have expected more sex, a comparably more brilliant boy who does somewhat more reasonable things, but I have been forgetting that this is a Nouvelle Vague movie. Despite the slightly sad end, it is actually rather cheerful, extremely stylish and takes everything with a grain of salt. I would even go as far to say that many dialogues had comedic effects. Plus, the whole film was showing a very romantic Paris in black and white – this really is the first Nouvelle Vague, and reminds me of how much I love the style.

My favorite scene was the very last, I think. I really loved how he reached the sea at the end, and I liked the cinematography of this boy running through the countryside. Even though it does not play in Paris, I think this is the kind of feeling that makes the film nice. So unless you absolutely need an adult to be the main character of a film or you hate Nouvelle Vague films with a passion, I would totally recommend the film. On the other hand, I would probably not recommend “Les 400 coups” to somebody to get familiar with the Nouvelle Vague – in that case, I’d rather go for “À bout de souffle” or “Jules et Jim”.

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Of course it cannot compare to the book…

drrt

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

…which is why the picture shown in this posting is a cover of the book instead of the movie, which I am going to review today – or not?

It’s rare since I have seen such a highly praised movie. I do understand how it has received these reviews, and I really think it did the best what it could, but I did not particularily enjoy watching the movie myself.

Sure, the storytelling is great, the directing is nice, especially the omitment of certain aspects of the movie is totally well done. I expected Sabina to play a more important role and of course I also expected Sabina’s and Franz’ relationship to be portrayed insufficiently. That was okay. What I could not accept that easily, however, is my insatisfaction with the cast.

Tomas… is horrible. The worst character of all of them, I guess. He just feels like a perverted bastard to me, that’s all. You couldn’t feel his love for Tereza at all in my opinion, and I think that the actor sucked. Also, I expect Tomas to be taller, with a sexier voice and actually with fully grown hair.

I knew from the beginning that Juliette Binoche as Tereza would be horrible. I really think that Natalie Portman would have been the perfect Tereza, even Julia Roberts could have been nice. (I probably am the only person in the world who likes Julia Roberts, but she is rather good in the role as the unhappy lover.) In my imagination, Tereza has to be a girl-like woman with long, black hair.

Now, what surprised me was Franz: He looked surprisingly nice. However, I would have expected Franz to be much, much taller than Sabina and actually strong-looking. I wanted a scene in which he holds her in his strong arms while she touches them, haha.

Personality-wise, the character I have disliked the most is Sabina. In the book, her betrayal to Franz is quite understandable, while she comes off as a weak woman who wants to run away. I do think that Sabina is quite strong though: In my opinion, she has never betrayed herself, and ‘herself’ is actually woman for whom betrayal is pivotal in her life.
Acting-wise, I think she was the best of them, but she doesn’t fit the character at all. I would have expected Sabina to be prettier than Tereza, and very femininely shaped.

Since I love the book so much, I absolutely had to watch the movie of course, but I cannot see myself seeing it again. I’d rather read the book again and again, and keep all the emotional and delicious scenes in my own head.

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In fact, I bought the DVD of this movie!

drrt

American History X

I can’t believe they only made a DVD for this with some short deleted scenes and that is it. There would be so much to say about it – I want interviews with the director, with the actors, about the background, argh. Amazing.

Another thing I would like to say is that I don’t want to say anything. Seriously, the topic of this movie just makes anything I could possibly say feel wrong, opportunist and dishonest. And so, this is the type of movie that I would love to discuss with other people who have seen it one-on-one, but I don’t want to ramble about it, although there are so many things I would want to see: The racism issue itself, the way the story was built, the characters (especially this high school teacher who started off as a really charming character and ended so annoyingly for me) and of course the very end.

Finally, I loved the movie, and it left me awake and thinking for the majority of the night (although I suppose that my worries about my thesis actually played a part in it too). So whoever wants to discuss it with me: Leave me an IM possibility of an e-mail address if I am not in touch with you already (I guess every reader of this blog is, haha).

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Takehara Fusa’s love: Oh no, the bento!

drrt
It’s all about these memorable 500 ms.

Let me explain the title first: Takehara Fusa (Takehara is her last name) is the mother of the main character of a currently airing anime called “Xam’d: Last Memories”. In the most recent episode, her husband and the story’s main evil guy are confronting each other in a psychological dialogue on life and death. At some point, they start fighting each other with their swords and guns – it’s a scene with lots of drama, action and ‘meaningful’ dialogue. During this suddenly dramatic moment, the bento (= lunch box) that Fusa gave her husband before suddenly drops onto the ground and the majority of the food is spilled. And so, my very first reaction was: “Oh no, the bento!” Totally ignoring the suspenseful fight between the two men, in that very moment, I only cared about Fusa’s bento. To me, this showed quite clearly what the strongest appeal of this anime is for me: The great description of a love between two grown characters.

There are tons of love stories out there, and Fusa and Ryouzou aren’t even the main couple. The focus on them spans at most 2 episodes out of the 22 that have aired so far. However, given the short airing time, the characters have shown themselves to be quite fascinating. I totally think that these two deserve more attention.

Continue reading “Takehara Fusa’s love: Oh no, the bento!”

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Famous directors making commercials for perfume


Sofia Coppola x Dior: So pink and Marie-Antoinette-ish!


David Lynch x Gucci: Where is the random 180° plot change?

Today, I stumbled upon this interesting site which I have taken these two videos from… Now this is a combination, Sofia Coppola and David Lynch! Although both commercials totally look like you would expect a commercial for perfume to look like (glamorous women, lots of make-up, perfect photoshopped skin-tone), I am amazed at how the both of them managed to get their own style into these commercials: Sofia Coppola’s video is just as clear and pastel-colored as every other of her movies and David Lynch’s has his trademark dark and mysterious tone coupled with an obviously crazy main character; the dancing moves are quite great though. I approve.

And now for more added randomness, I feel like watching “American History X”. I wonder why? Unfortunately it’s too late for it already.

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Another list! 100 (actually 90) great books

Happy new year, everyone! I hope you guys had a good start into the year, and thanks everyone who has voted in the poll! In fact, I am quite happy that the new design seems to be popular. ^^

It’s been awhile since I last watched a movie, isn’t it? Well, partially this is because my rabid anime consumation has kicked in again, and partially it is because I truly don’t have much time for movies anymore. This is quite sad indeed. Instead, I have been talking with my father about Anna Karenina recently, when he mentioned a list of 100 best quotes from literature made by some chinese person. The list really is interesting, especially since my favorite book “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” is on it.

Although my view really might be tilted due to the appearance of my favorite book, the list is also very interesting from the perspective of my “chinese-ness”. There is no chinese work in the list at all (probably intended like that), and it is quite a mirror of what chinese people consider the world’s masterpieces of literature. It is quite an amzing list with a lot of japanese, english, french, german and russian literature, but it also features some classics, some rather recent books and also covers some areas in the world that gets less attention (India, Latin America). Except for Horváth and Schnitzler (who ultimately only seem to matter for the german-speaking anyways), this list basically has everything I can currently think of if I had to make a canon of literature: Hemingway and Steinbeck, “Ulysses”, Goethe and Schiller, Homer and Platon, Tolstoy, Chekhov and Dostoyevsky, Maupassant, Camus and Sartre, Kafka, Dickens, Gogol, “The Count of Monte Cristo” and “La dame aux camélias”, “Madame Bovary” and “Le Rouge et le Noir”, “A Doll’s House” and “Lolita”…

And so, without further ado, here it is the list after the jump. Unfortunately, I couldn’t figure out some of the original titles and so it’s actually a list of 90 works. Also, I will bold the titles that I have read, or at least partially read.

Continue reading “Another list! 100 (actually 90) great books”

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Actually, this is the true last silent

drrt

Wall-E

I don’t care about the LA Film Critics Association, but I find it amazing enough that an animated movie (this one, heh) got the award for best movie. Of course I don’t think that Wall-E is the best animated movie (it’s Paprika!), but it comes pretty close. It’s so incredibly cute!

The main reason why Wall-E cannot possibly be the best animated movie I have ever seen is the fact that it tries to be a little too tree-huggingly for my taste. I don’t mind that children’s anime can be silly and naive, but I’m not a big fan of the attempt of dwelving into complex things in a very superficial way so that children can understand. It’s not that much of a big deal in Wall-E, but I can’t help thinking that the problems would only begin after people went back to Earth.

All this doesn’t matter though. Wall-E is probably the cutest love story Disney has ever made. On the one hand, both Wall-E and Eve are rather stereotypical and disney-like ‘humans’: Wall-E is a rather classical hero who shoes the marvels of his world to Eve and then goes on to save her, and Eve is a smart girl who first rejects him and then, after coming to like him, she keeps shaking her head (figuratively) for the crazy things he does. The constellation “weird, but interesting guy + down-to-earth damsel in distress and potential nagging housewife” is quite a classic, but if you look at it closely, Wall-E and Eve are probably the best characterized couple in the Disney world ever. While all the others are rather shapeless, Wall-E and Eve are pretty unique in my opinion and have displayed a lot of characterics and even development throughout the movie – even though they didn’t even speak!
I think the flashback in which Eve finally wakes up and remembers Wall-E is too tear-inducing. Wall-E~

It’s quite amazing how all the robot characters including Wall-E and Eve are able to get sympathy from the audience simply by the shape of their eyes and their movements. Why the hell do we have mouths anyways? Heh. It makes me wonder if there actually is academic research on what people consider to be cute.

All in all, I think that the praises for Wall-E are absolutely deserved, it is indeed the best Pixar movie up to date. My favorite american computer-animated movies would be these:
1. Shrek
2. Wall-E
3. Ice Age
4. Finding Nemo
5. Monster Inc.
6. Ratatouille
7. A Bug’s Life