This won the Best Foreign Film Academy Award and it has received a lot of very high plaudits here. I didn't like it quite as much as would justify all that enthusiasm -- but I did like it.
It's a sweet story, touchingly told, with very good acting from all involved. Because it's presented in two parts which, when combined, make for a fairly long movie, it has time not only to follow its characters but to develop themes -- prominent being that of the loneliness of people in the big city and the sometimes unwise things they do to relieve it.
Because of the wise scope it moves slowly, but that and the effective device of setting in two distant times allows for the payoff of some affecting moments in the second half.
While it's nominally a drama-comedy, it means more on the side of drama, and sometimes feels almost novelist in its wide scope. It was also interesting to see how it addressed various aspects of the social implications of the introduction of television and the social effects of income disparity in the two times. But overall personally I found myself more appreciative than enthusiastic.
It's a sweet story, touchingly told, with very good acting from all involved. Because it's presented in two parts which, when combined, make for a fairly long movie, it has time not only to follow its characters but to develop themes -- prominent being that of the loneliness of people in the big city and the sometimes unwise things they do to relieve it.
Because of the wise scope it moves slowly, but that and the effective device of setting in two distant times allows for the payoff of some affecting moments in the second half.
While it's nominally a drama-comedy, it means more on the side of drama, and sometimes feels almost novelist in its wide scope. It was also interesting to see how it addressed various aspects of the social implications of the introduction of television and the social effects of income disparity in the two times. But overall personally I found myself more appreciative than enthusiastic.