About Chocolate Parfaits

Berlin Shortfilm Festival: MEX 01 “When the Lights go out”

Due to many different reasons (WordPress being evil, writing blocks), I have now decided to first write about the programs that I remember well and then go back to those that I don’t remember that well anymore. There are only three left after all: The two mexicans and one competition program.

Eden (2007, 13:30)
It was good that it started off with a very poetic film that made me think of “Y tu mamá también” a lot when it comes to the slightly sad atmosphere. Since the main character was talking about this one paradisic place so much, and the girl had a plant growing from her mouth, it was perfectly clear for me how the film would end – and that was quite nicely done.

La Maceta (2002, 18:00)
Oh, how much fun these courtyards are! I think that this film lives by the structure of an inner courtyard just like “Rear Window” does: All kinds of people get together and interact with each other, mostly in very ‘human’ and hilarious ways. In this film, however, the only actual bad guy is the one who died though, making the film even more pleasant. The humour was so beautifully black and perfectly grasped the characters’ personality.

Hasta los huesos (2001, 11:00)
An animated film! How unexpected really, especially since the animation was pretty good in my opinion. This film has made me realize yet again how incredibly good mexican music is. While I typically dislike loud dance music which are mostly rather headache inducing for me, these songs felt very warm and intriguing. They made this rather meaningless short film very, very fun to watch.

Senas particulares (2007, 12:00)
What a horrible son, ahaha. And what a bittersweet story. It was so sad but so interesting and funny somehow! At the beginning of the film, I have been wondering if it would be the mother or the son who dies, but of course it makes more sense that Oswaaaaldo does.

La Curiosa Conquista del Ampere (2008, 11:00)
Actually this was the second time that I have seen this movie. (The first time was during IC 07 “Dreams and Nightmares” which I will be reviewing later.) Interestingly, I was enjoying the film much, much more by the second time I have seen it. One reason might be that the first time was really late, another reason might be that I was able to relax a little more now that I knew the story: While I mainly saw the sad and dirty aspects of the film during the first time, I thoroughly enjoyed its hilarity during the second. This is weird enough, as I have never enjoyed a film more the second time before – then again, this might also be due to the fact that I never re-watch a film that has impressed me deeply.

La muerte menor (2007, 6:00)
When it’s about death, the chinese culture has a very special interest in the moment of death. What would you think in your very last moment on the verge of death? That’s a very typical essay question for creative writing – and here, this question is answered quite creatively indeed. The imaginery and the thoughts of the boy blend in together perfectly, adding to the hilarity. This is what I expect of a short film, I approve.

La olas del tiempo (2000, 9:00)
A little girl sees her father dying, runs out of the house towards the beach, then she runs back and turns back time… only to see her father dying all over again. This is shown about 3 times until she realizes that she cannot change fate. – With this interpretation, the short film makes a lot of sense and looks somewhat nice, but that is all. Ultimately not very enjoyable and while it is not, it felt very pointless.

Sirenas de Fondo (2006, 10:00)
So, this story is about the grandmother who is hospitalized, but slowly it is clear that it’s all some weird type of scheme by the family members to make die faster. The grumpy old grandmother was the best, however. It was utterly hilarious, and I’m so surprised that I nearly forgot this story, but then I was remembered of its beginning, which starts with a deliciously mexican quote: “Grandma, when are you finally going to die?” – “You know what? Children also die.”

I have to admit that I was a little suspicious at how these films would turn out. The topic of death is a very sensitive one for me, and I feared that I would feel depressed by watching these. Luckily, this didn’t really happen, even for the more serious ones. As Pixelmatsch has told me multiple times, it really seems that the mexican esprit is to take the topic of death with lots of humour. I’d say agree with that way of dealing with the unavoidable.

Berlin Shortfilm Festival: IC DOC 03 “Going Places”

There was one film that I found very intriguing: the clip on Ostkreuz, a really really old train station in Berlin. So I stepped over my prejudices of documentaries being all boring and filled with these horribly sleepy narrator voices: I voluntarily watched one of the documentary compilations. It was quite a surprise and I’m so glad to have seen this.

Nezrimoe (Russia 2007, 25:00)
In many respects, this was actually an amusing movie. Somebody involved with the short film was there, and from the questions it was very clear that the film was a little bad at conveying its message. I found it rather easy to understand, but I also think this is quite a good example of a film that is artistically somewhat interesting but unable to get to the point. And here I thought russians are experts at populistic propaganda *cough*

How to save a fish from drowning (Scotland 2007, 12:42)
It looks like some scottish people had a nice vacation in rural North Dakota. And wow, this is quite an amazingly enjoyable documentary about a thoroughly boring topic: Basically, it’s about nothing more than the exodus in the rural areas of the US, but it’s so delightfully done. I must admit that I have makes me want to go ice-fishing in a fishing house with a hole in the middle of it. XD
This review is describing its greatness quite aptly. To me, it was quite an eye-opener how hilarious and informative documentaries can be at the same time.

The Spot (USA 2007, 17:30)
This is about the spot where JFK was murdered. Today there’s a white cross there, with tourists running on the streets and taking pictures of themselves. Unfortunately, the whole thing had lots of special effects, a narrator who spoke about religion all the time and made no sense whatsoever, my my.

Ostkreuz (Germany 2007, 8:30)
As the title says, the film is about Ostkreuz, probably the ugliest and most horrid train station in Berlin. However, everybody loves it (including myself) and the idea of this torn-down thing that has stayed the same throughout the whole 20th century + 30 years is going to turn into a large shopping mall is somewhat sad. This sadness is not what the short film is conveying though, the clip is rather a very lovely portrait of Ostkreuz – without any dialogue, just showing the station from different angles, in different seasons, with its positive and negative aspects. Sure, the whole thing was somewhat pointless, but as somebody who has passed Ostkreuz multiple times, I just had to like this.

Garcons Manqués (Germany 2007, 33:30)
For those who are not french, I doubt that anybody still remembers the burnt cars in the Parisian Banlieues from 2005. But for me, this was quite an interesting period of time, and while I find the banlieues unbelievably ugly, they have caught my special interest. In that respect, I was expecting quite a bit of this film, and I can’t really say whether my expectations were met. On the one hand, I have not found it to be boring; on the other hand, I feel like the film didn’t contribute to my understanding of those people’s lives at all. Also, I was a little disturbed by this main protagonist who keeps saying that she hates the police, but wants to be in the police at the same time. Her reasons are not very clear (perhaps she’s just not very good at expressing herself?) and she doesn’t say much more than “I don’t want to be like them”. Hm.

In the end, I wish I had seen more documentaries. While short films can never give a thorough portrait of something, these were mostly very interesting little insights into their specific topic.

Berlin Shortfilm Festival: SP 10 “Prix UIP 1”

This definitely was the biggest surprise of all of them, because we only watched this because its time schedule was so favorable: Since we bought a day ticket and this sounded somewhat interesting, we wanted to take a look. It ended up being one of the best (if not the best) program of all of them.
Perhaps this is due to the fact that these movies have all won this United International Pictures (UIP) Prize?

Procrastination (UK 2007, 4:15)
I could never stop watching this, really, and oh I was so glad to find this on Youtube. It’s just so… smart?
Also, procrastination is blogging every single movie you have watched. Procrastination is making rankings. And of course, I will be making an extensive ranking of the incredible number of short films I have seen.

Love Me More (UK 2007, 15:00)
The main character reminds me a lot of the guys from “Control”, is it the hairstyle, the british eyes, the way to talk? At any rate, it was very cute somehow and probably one of the rather tasteful sex scenes I have seen.
Obviously the film also made me want to listen to the Buzzcocks. But oh my, the song is from 1978? XD

Joy (UK 2008, 10:00)
My my, so many british films, but this one was the weakest by far. Sure, the talk makes sense in a way, but for me this short film was unbearable to watch – there was this headache-inducing background sound there all the time.

Uguns (Lithuania 2007, 12:00)
Another completely pointless film in my opinion. Hmm…

De Onbaatzuchtigen (Belgium 2008, 14:00)
This actually was really good! The cruelty of a world in which you can sell and buy family members is shown in such a… non-chalant, stylish way. I approve.

Tolerantia (Bosnia and Herzegovina 2008, 7:00)
The animation wasn’t bad but the character design not my type. Ultimately I didn’t really dislike this and the intolerance message wasn’t exactly pointless either, but perhaps it was the other way around: it feels too obvious for me?

Frankie (Ireland 2007, 12:00)
Oh Frankie! I love the way he speaks (“me and me sister” XD), luckily there were subtitles. Anyways, this is quite a brilliant, funny and lovely story – however, I’m not sure how to interpret the end. Did he leave his “child” for his friends or not? Hm.

With 3 rather pointless films and 4 extremely strong ones, I would say that it was absolutely worth it to see this compilation. Funnily, until today, it was the compilation with the largest discrepancy in enjoyment for me.

Berlin Shortfilm Festival: IC 02 “Love and Disaster”

Just like IC 05, the structure of this selection was pretty nice. It started off very, very strongly, which lightened up my mood a lot, and ended up with quite a cute story. All in all, this selection had only one weekness: The worst two of them were unfortunately also the longest.

Struck (USA 2008, 7:00)
If I hadn’t known about the concept before (The Hating Girl!), I would have loved the idea of the stuck arrow and the cute incidents that follow. Even then, it was a sweet story and ended up with quite a delightful scene. I think it’s because the facial expression of the guy who played Cupid. XD

Paul Rondin est… Paul Rondin (France 2008, 10:00)
I think we ended up establishing that this is the best short film of all. It had everything necessarily: A truly charming main character, a nice setting and the most adorable punchline. I really want to see this again.

Otto & Stella (Denmark 2008, 4:36)
This is one of those movies that I didn’t understood what the point was… until the absolutely lovely end. Awww. Perhaps I was simply too stupid to foresee the end, but I really have found it to be a cute surprise.

How I learned to love Richard Gere (UK 2008, 12:00)
So “Shall we dance?” is supposed to be a good movie? I seriously doubt it, and I actually was surprised to see how many movies with him I actually like. However, just like how Brad Pitt is always outshined by his partners, Richard Gere is nothing compared to Julia Roberts (Pretty Woman) or Edward Norton (Primal Fear) after all.
By the way, Mr. Graffam, I don’t like Richard Gere either. He’s just… not very good. ;)

John and Karen (UK 2007, 3:30)
It does look cute, but for some reason I’m not really fond of the drawing style. And, the story was nice but nothing special. That’s it.

Preguntas Frecuentes (Spain 2005, 14:00)
Chrrrpsshhhhh. It wasn’t really late when we watched this, but I realized that I have been spending 3 hours in the movie theaters already – more than I ever did! Well, this film started off really nicely and had a great premise, only to disappoint heavily.

About Hate, Love & the Other One (Germany 2007, 1:00)
What the heck. I truly believe that repeating something multiple times makes you sound stupid.

Skal vi danse? (Norway 2007, 9:00)
Awwww. I really enjoyed the parallels in the story itself and its writer. It’s quite a brilliant idea in my book, and was executed very nicely. The only weakness this story had for me was its pointlessness: Ultimately, it was about nothing but a guy trying to ask the woman he likes to dance.

The Note (Czech Republic 2007, 4:20)
I think that the guy at the end looked better than the girl, hahaha. So yeah, I approve of this story, I wish I had a note like that as well. No decision-making whatsoever anymore! Hrr.

Na koncu ulicy (Poland 2007, 14:00)
Eek. What kind of nonsense. What infuriatingly lost 14 minutes of my life.

Lavatory Lovestory (Russia 2007, 9:00)
We had to run for the next screening, but then decided to stick with this. And how glad I was that we did. Sure, the animation wasn’t great (too comic-ish for my taste) and of course the story didn’t have any great depth, but it was a sweet love story.

Berlin Shortfilm Festival: IC 05 “Accidents and Incidents”

Just wondering since there barely are any comments as well as recent poll answers, hahaha. (Then again, the poll this time is very silly and difficult to answer, I know. XD)
But I really cannot help it – it was a coincidence that I stumbled upon “Chacun son Cinéma” recently, and there was no way I would miss the short film festival as mentioned. So, with 36 shortfilms in total, I have decided to make one posting each for the four programs we have seen. I don’t really like epic postings after all (although they tend to end up like that). Finally, there will be an epic conclusion posting at the end, harr harr.

Without further ado, here’s the first thing we saw:

Fathom (Switzerland 2007, 6:30)
I must admit that I didn’t know what this guy actually did. I only knew those things for mine searching, and so I was quite irritated. By the end of the film, I finally understood and was thoroughly amused. What black humour!

Playing President (Germany 2008, 1:36)
Now it doesn’t surprise me that this is german – germans love making fun of Bush after all. Bush is passé and Afghanistan pretty much as well, but apart from that, it was a nice little clip, albeit nothing more.

Gehrig kommt! (Switzerland 2008, 15:00)
Another one of those silly swiss productions, and with this one, I have started getting a little uneasy about the fact that all films in this program are likely going to be funny. I have liked this film about that eccentric swiss house owner, but despite its black humour touch, it’s not my type of comedy it seems.

Office Noise (Denmark 2008, 3:45)
Denmark again, huh? Heh. This one merely had a bunch of in-your-face hilarious situation comedy, so I didn’t truly find it funny either. And so, it made me wonder about my own perceptions of funny short stories. As I established in my post of Chacun son cinéma, I tend to prefer funny stories over serious ones. However, when a funny story fails to deliver the quality that I would expect from hilarity, it nearly always completely loses its value for me.

Teeth (Irland 2006, 2:00)
Hahahaha! This one was truly hilarious again. I had a lot of fun watching this, especially since it was short and to the point.

Ripple (UK 2008, 18:00)
It was a little long for its own good, but the end saved it in my opinion – the punchline was quite great, while the rest was mostly infuriating and scary (to me at least T_T)

Occupations (Denmark 2007, 3:00)
Err, I know that I have been talking about this a little bit too much, but… It’s “Occupations”! *emolarsfangirling*

Hot Dog (USA 2008, 5:50)
I wasn’t that fond of the drawing style and the atmosphere, but I found the story to be really cute. Concerning its uglicuteness, it’s on par with Densuke. XD
A trailer of this film as well as Shuteye Hotel can be seen on the official website.

Arrêt Demandé (France 2007, 10:14)
A really really delightful french movie, I must say. The best was the moment when the woman revealed: “Leave, I am married with three children.” and the guy replied: “The third one is not even on that picture!” Ahahaha.

Careful with that Axe (New Zealand 2008, 2:00)
Wow wow, I didn’t even know they make movies in New Zealand! Okay, I did from this map, but I haven’t expected I would end up liking this one so much. It’s nothing special, but a short funny film.

Istället för Abrakadabra (Sweden 2008, 22:00)
Oh, I don’t know what to say. This film managed to start off a little suspiciously (“Oh goodness, this ‘chimay’ is too stupid for its own good, ahaha”) and then turn out to be the best out of the whole lot, in my opinion. The end was shocking, funny, beautiful and the punchline made me laugh out loud.

Finally, the majority of these films, if not all, were pretty good, with some even being outstandingly nice. Also, the compilation order perfectly suited my taste: it started off with a pretty good movie and ended with the best. So, I was very pleased.

Chacun son Cinéma part 2

Instead of reading more Hetalia which is an amazingly beautiful parody of the WWII forces, with weak and stupid Italy as main character, I should continue commenting on “Chacun son cinéma” before I overload myself with an upcoming backlog due to the short film festival. (And since “Hetalia” has some heavy homosexual vibes, a group of mad girls is scanlating it, so check it out!)

Here we are, with the countries right to the Atlantic Ocean:

Manoel de Oliveira – Rencontre unique (Portugal)
It’s the pope and Khrushchev! The best part of it was when the pope patted Khrushchev’s belly (or was it the other way around?), saying that they have something in common after all, haha. So yeah, I liked it, but it didn’t make me laugh necessarily.

Ken Loach – Happy Ending (UK)
This story was pure brilliancy for me. It seems like I actually do enjoy British humor, and this one is quite a fabulous example. “Let’s go play football after all!” Ahaha.

Claude Lelouch – Cinéma de boulevard (France)
This is actually my favorite of the french ones. The reminiscence of ‘old times’ seems so typically french to me: It’s true that the great french directors are old, and the adoration of french people for the cinema (especially Hollywood screwball comedies) is definitely not for the contemporary Hollywood. Nothing seems as typical for the french cinema as tiny arthouse cinemas with obscure and old movies? So, this story seemed surprisingly sweet to me.

Olivier Assayas – Recrudescence (France)
How… stalker-ish! With that said, I wasn’t exactly fond of this story, especially because I didn’t see any relation to the theme ‘cinema’ besides that the whole thing played in a cinema.

Raymond Depardon – Cinéma d’été (France)
Another “what the heck” movie for me. I didn’t like the cinematography nor the atmosphere much, and my own perception of open-air cinemas surely are different from this short film’s, hmm.

Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne – Dans l’obscurité (Belgium)
I have forgotten what happened, really. XXXD

Lars von Trier – Occupations (Denmark)
I have seen and commented on this before, and it probably will always stay one of my favorite short films. This is just how brilliant it is! XD

Bille August – The Last Dating Show (Denmark)
Somehow I didn’t like it (why is that idiot talking bullshit to her?), on the other hand, it was so subtly funny and nice (“There are three Goebbels inside there”, ahahaha). All in all, I have found this to be so beautifully danish XD

Wim Wenders – War in Peace (Germany)
Perhaps one might expect Wim Wenders to do something better, perhaps it would have been nicer if he did something about or in Germany, but considering how Germany actually had colonies, I don’t think it’s too far-fetched to set his story into Africa and showing a cinema as a symbol of peace. (The only thing I really disagreed with, however, was how he basically equals colonization and war.)

Nanni Moretti – Diaro di uno spettatore (Italy)
I liked his short film on the Cinema 16 European Shortfilms collection, and this one wasn’t all that bad either. Of course, I loved how the dialogue played the most important part in this short film too, and the close personal relationship with the cinema was nice.

Roman Polanski – Cinéma érotique (Poland)
Hahahaha! Polanski, I never thought you could also do something funny – and this one especially was. XD “Je suis tombé!” I liked it very much.

Aki Kaurismäki – La Fonderie (Finland)
Ah ah, Kaurismäki, what a communist you are. But, I really liked this portrait of those workers’ everyday life through their run-down cinema. And those facial expressions! I never actually saw a Kaurismäki movie but feel like his longer movies would exactly have the same atmosphere as this – just longer.

Theo Angelopoulos – Trois minutes (Greece)
What, this is Jeanne Moreau? Ahaha. Honestly I did not recognize her at all, she’s become pretty old, I guess. The dialogue was beautiful and well-executed, but the whole story made no sense for me unfortunately.

Youssef Chahine – 47 ans après (Egypt)
It started off really beautifully (Nice Matin nous a mentionné, hahaha!) and then it ended with the director getting his Cannes award, eek. That’s a little bit too much self-praising for my taste. And this “Be patient, it’s worth it” was kind of infuriating too; there are enough people in the world who work hard and are patient but it was not worth it.

Amos Gitai – Le Dibbouk de Haifa (Israel)
Uh, well, omigod, poor Israel being bombed. I think this film ranks last among all 33 of them, and perhaps deservedly so.

Elia Suleiman – Irtebak (Palestine)
Oh damn. I knew I liked this short film a lot, but I forgot why? Ah, but wait, it was the silver Peugeot! It was so great! So, is it a surprise that the palestinian entry was much better than the israeli one? Harr harr.

Andrei Konchalovsky – Dans le noir (Russia)
That woman was somehow… creepy. Apart from that, this is of course a beautiful tribute to Fellini’s “8 1/2” which I have yet to see, but perhaps I actually need to watch “8 1/2” to fully enjoy this one? Heh.

Abbas Kiarostami – Where Is My Romeo? (Iran)
Crying women, huh? Well, if that is all, I don’t really see the point. It’s too bad that this was the last of the short films we have seen.

In conclusion, I think that I typically prefer funny short films over those who are simply serious/meaningful or artistically and esthetically nice. If I ever wanted to make a short film, I’d also prefer to make it something subtly funny.

PS. Oh right, I have not thought of taking screenshots like I did for Cinema 16. Perhaps I will do so some day. XD

I can’t believe I spent the last hour organizing what I want to watch, and now I am having a headache (this one might stem from the bad coffee I had though, somehow I seem to feel much better with espresso than coffee).

So, after cutting down mercilessly everything that I might not find *too* interesting, here’s a nearly definitive list of the program I want to attend:

• Thursday, 17:00 – IC 05 “Accidents and Incidents”
• Thursday, 19:00 – IC 02 “Love and Disaster”
• Thursday, 21:00 – SP 10 “Prix UIP 1”
• Thursday, 23:00 – IC 07 “Dreams and Nightmares”
• Friday, 20:00 or Sunday, 15:00 – MEX 04 “Before Fame and Fortune”
• Saturday, 15:00 – MEX 02 “La Vida y otras Curiosidades”
• Saturday, 20:00 – IC06 “With different eyes”
• Saturday, 22:00 – MEX 01 “When the lights go out”

IC stands for “International Competition”, “UIP” is a compilation of nominees for some european shortfilm award and MEX stands for Mexico. As you can imagine, For Thursday and Saturday, a day ticket would be advisable (15 euro per day). With the one other date (6 euros), it would amount to 36 euro altogether for 8 screenings – and this is less than the 40 euro for the festival ticket.

The only thing I really would want to see apart from this is IC 01 “Animated”, simply because I love animated shortfilms more than anything else. It doesn’t matter because this is already exciting enough! (And stressful too… I am going to drop dead after Thursday, haha.)

Chacun son Cinéma part 1

My my, it seems the poll this time is less popular than usual. I wonder why? XD I do admit that it’s been awhile since I posted

I’ve been wanting to see this for quite awhile, as there are quite a lot of directors I really like. Every movie was 3 minutes, amounting to 99 minutes in theory, but actually the whole thing lasted for nearly two hours. Well, it’s not like I would complain about it.
Actually I have no idea how the actual order of those short films on the DVD are; what we did was to set our own order depending on the origin of the directors. So, this is one trip around the globe, starting with China and ending in Iran. Since it’s so many of them, I will review the ones left to the Atlantic first.

Zhang Yimou – En regardant le film (China)
This was such a typical Zhang Yimou type story. It’s actually nothing but the start of a movie, showing the setting of villagers getting together. As the next shortfilms show, the chinese directors seem to love this.

Chen Kaige – Zhanxiou Village (China)
We are suspecting that the boy at the very end, who wanted to finish watching the movie, was the director himself. The idea with those bicycles is so incredibly cute though, as I would have expected from Chen Kaige. I have loved his contribution to “Ten Minutes Older: The Trumpet” too, after all. However, I hated “Wu Ji”, so who knows, perhaps Chen Kaige is just a brilliant director for short films, but his longer films are crap? Heh.

Wong Kar-Wai – I Travelled 9000 km To Give It To You (Hongkong)
Unlike everybody else, I don’t like Wong Kar-Wai’s neon light style. However, in this short clip, I happened to find it immensely beautiful, and for a reason I cannot explain to myself, I felt like the protagonist’s feeling were honest, beautiful and incredibly deep. What the heck XD

Hou Hsiao-hien – The Electric Princess House (Taiwan)
My first impression of this was “Oh, this looks so taiwanese!” Haha. I have never been to Taiwan, mind you. (But I want to go!) This is one of those nostalgic ones reflecting the changes of movie theaters, and I have found this one to be rather nice. I know from my parents that the public cinema was a really important place of getting together on Saturdays, and I somehow wish we had something like that today.

Tsai Ming-liang – It’s a Dream (Taiwan)
After four surprisingly nice shortfilms, this is the first one I didn’t really like. It felt so pointless to me that I keep forgetting what happened. The only thing I keep remembering is this “We ate durians together.” How random.

Takeshi Kitano – One Fine Day (Japan)
This cinema looked like it was out of some anime, so cute! And that burning film roll! Ahahaha! Well, perhaps it’s just that I am a Kitano fangirl, but I have found this little shortfilm to be very charming and funny too.

Jane Campion – The Lady Bug (New Zealand)
She has directed “The Piano”! I never knew. Somehow “The Piano” has left a huge impression on me, it felt very intense and when I watched it, I was about as young as Anna Paquin in the movie. Anyways, this one was pretty random, but enjoyable nonetheless. Quite an amazing contrast to “The Piano”.

Atom Egoyan – Artaud Double Bill (Canada)
Here goes the first one that I have forgotten. XD

David Cronenberg – At the Suicide of the Last Jew in the World in the Last Cinema in the World (Canada)
This was so funny! I liked it a lot and have even laughed a little bit. This is the type of randomness that I like.

David Lynch – Absurda (USA)
Absurda indeed. My my, Lynch really always does the same enigmatic, psychedelic things. That’s fine for me usually, but within 3 minutes, it remains pointless and doesn’t even really build up an atmosphere in my opinion. I should rather watch “Inland Empire” finally. XD

Gus van Sant – First Kiss (USA)
Seriously, I have thought that this movie was totally not like Gus van Sant. Somehow a beach beauty and this director don’t go well for me. XD I tend to like the shortfilms of directors I like, but in this case, it doesn’t apply because this shortfilm looked like something completely different. It was somehow sweet, but a little bit silly too. XD

Michael Cimino – No Translation Needed (USA)
I fear I have forgotten about this, but my memory tells me that this shortfilm was the one with the Cuban singer and her band. If that is so, it was another one of those utterly pointless movies for me – although the dance was quite energetic.

Alejandro González Inárritu – Anna (Mexico)
I love González Innáritu, really. Sure, I didn’t like “Babel” all that much, and I had my irks both with “Amores Perros” and “21 Grams”, but ultimately I feel that his movies were all really strong. Taking advantage of the incredibly intense soundtrack of “Le Mépris”, this short film was quite emotionally powerful.
The only thing that did not work for me was the fact that I never perceived “Le Mépris” as emotional, especially not that silly relationship drama. But, it is one of the movies that are visually very strong, and it’s a shame not to be able to see the pictures.

Walter Salles – À 8 944 km de Cannes (Brazil)
This was so funny! Perhaps this is actually the funniest of all the shortfilms in the collection. Nuff said.

Raoul Ruiz – Le Don (Argentina)
And here comes the next one I have forgotten. XD

Adam’s Apples

When I started watching this movie, my initial reaction was: “What, this is supposed to be a comedy?” Even later, I wasn’t really convinced that this can be qualified as a comedy really, but then again, what else might it be? It is full of black humour (somehow) and with that degree of absurdity, how can it not be a comedy? However, I didn’t find it to be funny at all, it’s more like it’s absurdly enjoyable? For example, the Hitler picture falling down all the time was a beautifully subtle running joke, showing how Adam is gradually drifting away from his neonazism. He is the best character anyways, and I love how he is portrayed as the one person who truly cares about others, even though he was some aggressive, violent thug at the beginning.

After going to the Fantasy Filmfestival awhile ago, I have really felt like making a movie myself, and that has somehow changed my perceptions on movies a little bit. While I watched “Adam’s Apples”, I felt impressed at how such a complex story unfolds with only 5 characters (plus that awful doctor, of course). It reminds me of traditional theatre plays that revolve around about 5 people as well.

Aside from that, I love how the story ended (the last apple that was left! XD) and seeing that little apple cake was somehow touching. It makes me want to bake an apple cake now, although I usually hate it because I’m too lazy to peel and cut apples, heh.

All in all, I have really enjoyed the movie, and I have loved its silly supernatural CG effects, making the whole movie even more absurd. However, I wouldn’t be so sure if I’d watch it again or recommend it, but I am glad I have seen it – and if it’s for the great sound that the danish language has. XD

House of Flying Daggers

It’s not “Infernal Affairs” and especially not this movie. How should I put it, “Yesterday Once More” shows him as a loving husband, what more can a fangirl ask for? (Also, the people on Amazon seem to hate this movie – understandable, somehow, but then again the reviewers’ english make my head ache when I try to read their comments… Well, what can I say, if I look at my own blog postings 2 1/2 years ago, my chest cringes as well.

Onto the topic, when I first watched the movie, I was 17 or so and the airline dared to show this movie for about one hour and then just shut it off! Aaaah! Now, I think I have seen the first 15 minutes of the movie about 4 times before watching this movie to its end today. Those scenes can totally stand on their own and are a spectacle in themselves: While I have forgotten the majority of Hero, I think I will never forget this dancing scene. And, whenever I tried to watch the movie, I start all over at its beginning but never finished it, heh. (Chinese martial arts movies somehow always are like that for me, I also never finished Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Eek.)

Compared to that, the rest of the movie is pale despite its nice fighting scenes. It’s a sweet love story, sure, but after “The Road Home”, this one really is not comparable in my book, it rather feels like one of those mindless Hollywood action movie to me. Furthermore, as much as I find Zhang Ziyi to be a good actress, her performance of a blind woman is not as good as Audrey Hepburn’s in my opinion.

I also never knew that this movie was so highly acclaimed. Before, I thought that it was merely a shadow of “Hero” and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, but actually it wasn’t too bad if one accepts that martial arts movies focus on nothing but great visuals and suspenseful adventures after all. As long as the love story is not as infuriating and stupid as in Wu Ji, it’s enough. Whoever wants to see depth or even historical insights into Ancient China is in the wrong movie after all.
There is also another criticism against the movie that I find difficult to accept: The chinese dialogue of the movie is rather refined while the english translation dampens it a lot. No wonder people would think that the dialogue is stupid?

By the way, the end makes a lot of sense to me. The one guy didn’t do anything, but I would have done exactly the same as what the girl has done – and if I were the other guy, I would also would have tested her love that way. “If she really loves him, she deserves to die.” Surely it’s cruel, but it totally fits into the integrity of this character. Me likes. And so you can see that visually stunning martial arts movies seem to be unable to touch my heart, no matter how nice the dialogue and the story actually are.