Change Your Image
chairvaincre
Reviews
Dans la ville de Sylvia (2007)
Male narcissism + girl-watching + intellectual pretension
Maybe it's personal, but I can't get over how much the filmmaker seems to want to project himself onto this portrait of the artist as a tres handsome, young broody male version of Farrah Fawcett. You know the type--pale, anemic, wane, tends to wax on about clouds or girls or some other such nonsense, in a self-imposed 'exile' to a land of pseudo-intellectual pretension (Petrarch--check) but whose values are completely mainstream, safely unsafe. Conventionally unconventional.
Plus the male chauvinistic gaze just really grates me. If this guy is so allegedly obsessed with 'Sylvie,' then why does he so nonchalantly flirt/sleep with some other woman? It seems a little disingenuous.
I get the filmmaker is trying to play with fiction, documentation etc etc. 'Play' is the right word, however. It doesn't get much deeper than that, and lacks the intensity of films of other (better, more seasoned, and more profound) directors in a similar vein--Marker, Akerman, Jia etc.
If you're going to put yourself in your own work, you better make sure you don't come off an oblivious a**hole.
The Tall Man (2012)
Misrepresented, clumsy, unconvincing
This is not a horror movie.
OK, marketing, I get it. But I don't think the filmmaker was sure what he wanted to make here, either. The conceit is thin; characters strain credibility (though props to Biel, sans-lipstick, for doing the best with the material); expositions are awkward (eg when the 'real' mother 'confronts' a bloodied Biel), muddy, and repetitive especially toward the end. The movie is oddly segmented and paced, with over half of the runtime devoted to the unenlightening 'aftermath.' Its social or philosophical 'point,' if there is one, is impoverished, childish, trite, ridiculous.
For some reason I was reminded of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Loft (2005), as another 'horror' film that seemed to suddenly veer peculiarly into a different trope, but there it worked (or at least worked better) in creating a disjointed, uncomfortable, can't-really-put-your-finger-on-it ambiance that ultimately fit the point of view of the movie--without the sophomoric philosophizing of this film.
I think the filmmaker might have been ambitious, but a callow hand and too many shortcuts made this tall concoction deflate into a collapsed pastry.
Guest (2010)
Lost Objectivity
The film started well, without any particular intention or purpose, capturing life, in life. But then the filmmaker acquired a purpose, and went looking for certain things, tried to film certain things to the exclusion of others, and lost objectivity (objectivity has nothing to do with whether something is fiction or nonfiction)--which could be seen in how his subjects acted toward him, as if they were performing more and more. There was almost an expression of disbelief on their faces--the cardinal sin in documentary-making. The filmmaker paid tribute to Mekas and Akerman, but could do well to learn a bit more from them.
Eden Log (2007)
Torturous
Sitting through this amalgam piece of sci fi mystery thriller creature feature supposed philosophical horror was a really painful experience for me. I felt like I was watching someone play a video game for 2 hours. The voice dubs are (intentionally?) HORRIBLE, like the kind you hear on crappy dubbed-over Japanese anime on TV, and there are (unintentionally?) too many unfortunate farcical references to The Hulk. The plot makes absolutely no sense - sure enough, even the characters themselves repeatedly state 'What's happening?' 'I don't understand what's going on' and (my favorite) 'What is the meaning of all this???'
To be fair, the film is sometimes pretty to look at, and the premise could have been interesting (hence the extra star). But it stops there. All the filmmakers end up with is a concept. Which does not a film make. This becomes apparent after about 10 minutes of viewing. I'm not one of those moviegoers who always demand an explanation (in fact, I think the 99% majority of horror films are ruined by over-explaining), or even a 'plot' as it were, but that should be an EFFECT of what you're trying to do, not the GOAL. When all you do is purposefully trying to be obscure, and putting ellipsis and 'depth' above all else, the result becomes entirely superficial, common and ultimately forgettable. Like this film.
In all, not recommended.
Zui hao de shi guang (2005)
How does one 'spoil' a Hou film, exactly?
I just saw this last night (watching it back-to-back with A Wayward Cloud), and just have a these comments/questions: I like the overall somewhat muted/faded cinematography (not drab, as the uses of color/lighting still stand out strongly - but it's as if a gossamer fog suffuses a perpetually overcast, lukewarm environment) - does anyone know what/if anything was done to treat the film itself to achieve this effect? I also like how sound is used to bridge the mimetic and diegetic aspects of the narrative (the addition of white noise in the first 2 segments, esp the second, for example - i had thought something was wrong w/ my stereo and tried to adjust it!). Diegetic sounds become expressive, and expressive music becomes also a product of their times.
The second segment is probably my favorite. In the first one I think Hou is the most self-assured, and the studied yet natural shots of the pool halls and the trajectories of the balls are simply amazing, but the 'story' I feel is just a little too saccharin for me (on second thought it IS a Time for Love, and nostalgia). The pan-Taiwan shots of the black-and-white town signs as they're traveled to are also great.
The third segment is very slick, and captures the self-involvement yet directionlessness of contemporary Youth well, and the final scene of the moped descending below the bridge, yet the tracking camera stays absolutely level and we simply get a shot of just the bridge, the traffic, the people, the river, the buildings, and the island itself, until the moped ascends & appears again - is sublime.
The middle segment I feel has the most emotional as well as historical weight. There is humor (the silent-movie format - Hou lightly 'experimenting', Shu Qi lipsynching the old Chinese song performance), gorgeous but not obscene sets, more characterization, and resonance. The scene where she walks alongside the Mother down the foyer is great. The repeated lighting of the oil lamp (I like how even when the caption reads Wuchang Uprising, the man goes about the lighting like it's any other day), and then the final injection of 'real' sound (yet it's more silent than before)...there are too many 'moments' to describe.
The triplex structure also extends to the three actresses (including Shu Qi) in each segment, in different roles. The lines 'A Yen sign tattooed on my back, Come on, Name a price, I want to sell my soul, No past, No future, Just the hungry present' are great! (Chu Tienwen is a brilliant writer.) Is there a soundtrack made from the movie?
Kôrei (2000)
Interesting, but...
Overall, this movie (and Cure for that matter) is nicely done. With Seance, appropriately, a lot of negative space mise-en-scene was deftly carried out; with Cure, narrative as well as formal (eg spliced split-second frames, abrupt scene cuts etc) ellipses are done well with good editing. I liked the continuity of both the protagonist and the restaurant (albeit from a different shooting angle) through both films. My only problem with it (and Cure) is that sometimes the aesthetics feels contrived, and the understatement/'minimalism' is, ironically, overwrought & cliché. There's no greatness here (in terms of psychological horror/terror, there are much more genius auteurs in both the East and West, eg the 'other' Kurosawa's Rashomon and Polanski's earlier films, to name a few respectively), but it has thought, and is still better than 90% of the sh*t out there.
Funny Games (1997)
Sorry, if you like this movie, then you have bad taste and/or know nothing about cinema
Heavy-handed (as is typical of (most) Germanic cinema), attemptedly clever (I cringed - only out of embarrassment for Haneke - every time someone would turn 'metacinematic' & talk to/wink at the camera), monotonously scripted, clichedly shot. It's 'shocking' (on the DVD backcover), but it's not shocking enough (self-censored); it's 'terrifying', but actually it's interminably dull & dumb; it's not radical enough (even by late 90s standards), and it's too insincere. Haneke seems interested in *telling* what the audience should see, how they ought to feel - perhaps then 'lectures' would be a better word for it than 'games'.
Misery, Death & the Maiden, Hard Candy (just to name a few in this 'genre') are infinitely superior.
Repulsion (1965)
Fascinating regard
Seriously, give me this over 3 Hitchcocks. Polanski's best (and for me the only really watchable) period is from this film, through Rosemary's Baby and Chinatown, to The Tenant. (Even the later Frantic doesn't compare to these horror/thriller masterpieces.) For me, the 'psychological' aspect isn't the most interesting in this film: Deneuve's character to me is completely devoid of interiority, of 'psychologizability'. There just isn't an ultimate explanation (that's what haunts). What's great about this portrait is it's completely surface, a thoroughly novel take on an ecology of the 'mind', and that the 'protagonist' doesn't act, rarely speaks and is fatally reactionary: she becomes as much as what she is revealed to be. 'Evil' (that is absolute, impenetrable & transparent) becomes her.
What interested me most here is the mise-en-scene - the seemingly shifting, nested, endless, labyrinthine interiors filled with indifferent and menacing objects. Polanski constructs space really well: he has the ability to make even exteriors seem like simply reflections or projections of interiors. (The shots of the street and courtyard from the high window, for example, where the 'outside' is perspectived as enveloped, inside, other buildings and 'insides'; and the meticulously formal shot of the out-of-focus neighbor in a distance standing with his barking dog in the hallway of the apartment, behind the open door to Deneuve's apartment, with Deneuve standing in the dark apartment between the door and her 'love interest' - all create a smooth ambiance of claustrophobia & paranoia.) The diegetic (and infamous) repetitions of scales and simple notes on a piano, from unbeknownst where, and the discordant jazz on her 'walks' on the streets (no doubt quoted from the French New Wave) all make for a fantastic masterpiece that takes 'psychological thriller' classics to their limits.
A note - there's a theory ('repulsion') in experimental psychology that postulates objects and attention/focus can visually distort or reconfigure the surrounding space (charted in terms of eccentricity by the perceiver) - 'warped geometry'. Just a thought.
Sam gang 2 (2004)
3 for 3
besides being possibly a contender for the goriest/gross-out movie of the century (i saw Saw 2 the next day - wish i had done the reverse), something about this post-shock treatment of basic horror myths just bothered me...was it that chris doyle, plainly nostalgic for his In the mood for love days, used his segment as an overboard outlet for cinematographic monopoly (props to doyle for being one of the rare 'known' cinematographers today, but direction should never defer to cinematography)? that's part of it. the subject matter is clearly abjection, so why stylize so much (to the point of romanticizing)? there's something disingenuous here. the second segment is more ridiculous (save for a device mirroring the beginning the film nicely with the end). it's pure commentary, collage, simulated exhibition. why is this mode of film-making rehashed again and again (see Audition for another, prior example)? it's purely ideological - the more it tries, the more obvious it becomes that there's nothing 'shocking' or 'novel' here. as john waters would say, this is bad bad taste. the third segment is OK, albeit - again - somewhat tired and unoriginal. but it's the most bearable of the three.
i'm mostly mad though about the fact that i will never be able to go to dim sum again after this.
L'emploi du temps (2001)
melodrama about banality
something about this movie just annoys me - despite some good scenes (eg when the husband & wife are walking in the snow), and the cinematography's OK - the symbolism is heavy-handed, the characters are unsympathizable/unempathizable (from the midlife- macho-pride husband to his whiny wife and obnoxious father), and the subject matter - the softer side of middle-age patriarchal psychology, i suppose - is boring, in concept and how the director played it out, w/ a very contrived ending (where everyone loves the main guy despite everything). it's advertised as a quasi-thriller/film noir commentary, but ends up ordinary (like the french takes on 'american beauty'). sure, 'ordinary' - that's the point, but life's ordinary - why bore yourself further? there's only 1 reaction to this movie: (sure it's a little embarrassing but) Get over it.
(don't get me wrong - i love french new wave & new new wave - there are contemporary 'boring' directors (akerman, assayas, the taiwanese) who are way superior in terms of vision & technique.)
Ying xiong (2002)
Comparisons, and own merits
Associations with Crouching tiger, Ashes of time and Emperor and the assassin are ineluctable. Of the four I find Hero to be most visually engaging (if not grandiose). I'm still trying to digest Zhang's message (who is more a moralist-by this I mean morals in fables rather than morality per se-than the other filmmakers), this fatalism toward totality or totalitarianism, and hope in revisionism. Fatalism is a theme through Zhang's films (esp Judo, To live, Raise the red lanterns), and he manifests it with colors (esp red in earlier films); he is more a symbolist like Mallarme than, say, a formalist like Albers, and he uses them damn well. The film is nostalgic, for dynastic China, if not escapist, from communist China, in which he grew up. But Zhang seems to see one as metaphor for the other, and he at once condemns and condones both via either. It's a hopeful hopelessness.
That said, I like Emperor and the assassin much more in terms of story and characters. Of course Chen Kaige is more a dramatist and ironist than Zhang. Zhang's epic is universal, whereas Chen's is transversal-ie Chen tells the literal and figural relatedness within and among his character-complications and world-complexities. We see Emperor Qin as both atrocious and tortured, the kingdoms idyllic and chaotic, all toward the perverse violence of origin and the present. Fundamentally, both films are exercises in extravagance. Beyond martial 'arts'.
A note: Chris Doyle is a director's favorite nowadays (Chen and Zhang-who used to be a cinematographer for the former-of course Wong Kar-Wai, and last but not least, Hou Hsiao Hsien, who also has the brilliant Chu Tien Wen on his left), and rightly so: he has a way of keeping your eyes glued to the screen, a flawless continuity of tints and hues, shadows, exposures, contrast and saturation; the framing is impeccable, and easily outshines the direction at many times. I can only hope Mr Doyle continues to develop and breakthrough his fine art.