The Stranger (2022) ☆☆☆(3/4): As he becomes close to his suspect

Posted on November 7, 2022 by kaist455

Australian Netflix film “The Stranger”, which was released in last month, is a chilly psychological drama which is incidentally based on one true crime story. I have no idea on how much the movie is actually close to its real-life story, but I can tell you instead that the movie works as a nice showcase for the talents of its two very good lead performers, and their uneasy interactions throughout the screen still linger on my mind even at this point.

The movie opens with the introduction of a low-life ex-con named Henry Peter Teague (Sean Harris). When he is riding a bus at one night, he is approached by some dude who happens to sit near him, and, after coming to see that Paul Emery (Steve Mouzakis) is not so different form him as your average ex-con, Teague helps Emery a bit when Emery comes to have a little document problem. Some time later, Emery contacts with him for returning the favor, and Teague does not say no although it is clear that a job offered by Emery is not so legal to say the least. After all, he desperately needs to earn some money for his living right now.

Emery introduces Teague to a guy named Mark Frame (Joel Edgerton), who in turn introduces Teague to several criminals working above him. It seems that they are the members of some powerful local criminal organization, and they are interested in hiring Teague for some dirty jobs – if he is trustworthy enough without any problem to notice.

What follows next is how Teague slowly gets the confidence of Frame and his criminal associates. For example, when Paul subsequently happens to get himself into some big trouble and needs to go away right now, Teague willingly takes care of getting rid of everything left by Paul along with Frame, and that soon leads him to more jobs and more “promotion”.

However, there is something Teague did not tell Frame and others from the beginning, and they already know, because, this is not a spoiler at all, they are actually undercover cops assigned to Teague. Several years ago, Teague was suspected of abducting and murdering a young boy, but he had to be released because there was no strong evidence to convict him. Besides that the police still cannot locate where the body of that young boy was buried, there is also a big alibi problem which has been another obstacle for the police investigation, and the movie pays some attention to how Detective Senior Constable Kate Rylett (Jada Alberts) struggles to solve this alibi problem with her partner in addtion to digging more into Teague’s rather suspicious past before the incident.

Meanwhile, Frame comes to befriend Teague more as “working” with him more, and he finds himself going back and forth between pity and repulsion. As a longtime undercover cop, he knows too well that he should be distant from Teague no matter what happens, but he cannot help but feel conflicted as observing how pathetic Teague is in many ways, even though he is also quite chilled by the dark and disturbing sides occasionally shown from Teague. As a matter of fact, his target’s creepy aspects even influence Frame’s subconsciousness somehow, and that also affects his relationship with his young son, of whom he occasionally takes care whenever his ex-wife is not available.

Frame’s supervisor is naturally concerned about Frame’s mental condition, but he and Frame have no choice but to go on as before because it looks like they and their colleagues are almost close to the finishing line. All they need to do is pushing their target a bit for making him confining to them on how he covered up his murder, though, as pointed out later in the film, they will still need to find the body of the murdered boy even after that.

The mood accordingly becomes more tense as Frame and his colleagues are pushing Teague to the final stage of their covert operation at last, but the screenplay by director/writer Thomas M. Wright, which is based on Kate Kyriacou’s nonfiction book “The Undercover Operation That Caught Daniel Morcombe’s Killer”, stays cool and detached as usual. We surely get to know a bit about Teague’s certain horrible past, but the movie wisely restrains itself instead of resorting to unnecessary sensationalism, and it maintains its restrained attitude even when its two main characters are finally not hiding anything from each other anymore.

The two lead performers of the film give a subtle but intense duo performance which strongly carries the story to the end. While Joel Edgerton, an ever-reliable Australian actor who also participated in the production of the movie, ably conveys to us his character’s growing mental toil along the story, Sean Harris, who has been one of the most intense British character actors since I noticed his solid supporting turn in Ridley Scott’s “Prometheus” (2012), deftly handle his elusive character without making any excuse, and he and Edgerton are also supported well by a number of good cast members including Steve Mouzakis, Matthew Sunderland, Fletcher Humphrys, and Jada Alberts, who effectively functions as providing another perspective to the story.

On the whole, “The Stranger” is a dry but engaging genre flick with considerable haunting qualities, and I admire its solid technical aspects including the cinematography by Sam Chiplin, who did an impressive job of filling the screen with palpable gray atmosphere. It may be a bit too slow for you, but it will be a rewarding experience once you give it a chance, and it is surely one of the better offerings from Netflix in this year.

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Hot in Day, Cold at Night (2022) ☆☆☆(3/4): Things are not so bad for them…

Posted on November 6, 2022 by kaist455

South Korean independent film “Hot in Day, Cold at Night” is a little modest character drama about one young couple who try to live one day after another despite their apparently difficult economic status. Although it is a bit too slow and dry at times, the movie is often engaging and even humorous while never overlooking their hard daily struggles, and you may admire it more if you come to learn more about how it was made under its tight production budget.

The early part of the film gradually establishes how Yeong-tae (Park Song-yeol) and Jeong-hee (Won Hyang-ra) live day by day in their small residence. While Jeong-hee is a schoolteacher currently unemployed, Yeong-tae has earned their meager living via a part-time driving service job, but things do not look bad for them because they are still happy to be together even while recognizing their economic hardship at present.

Naturally, you may expect something bad to happen to them sooner or later, but the movie simply focuses more on their strong relationship for a while. While often sharing the increasing frustration with their lack of money, Yeong-tae and Jeong-hee also enjoy having some little comfort together from time to time, and they sincerely hope that everything will be fine for them in the end once any chance for a good job comes to them.

However, such chances do not come easily. Via a friend of his, who incidentally borrowed a video camera from him, Yeong-tae comes to have a seemingly good job interview, but he later gives up just because he has a bad impression from his interviewer. When she subsequently comes across a chance to work as a substitute teacher instead of a friend of hers, Jeong-hee does not hesitate at all, but she makes one big mistake on the day when she is supposed to go to a school where her friend works.

And there are also some potential dangers around them. At one point, Yeong-tae has a meeting with some other old friend of his, and it does not take much time for him to realize that this friend is attempting to lure him into a pyramid scheme of his. As their lack of money becomes more evident day by day, Jeong-hee finds herself tempted about getting some necessary money via a local loan shark mentioned by her friend, and she becomes all the more tempted than before when she and Yeong-tae visit her mother’s residence for her mother’s birthday along with her several siblings and their respective spouses. All of her several siblings are clearly much more affluent than her and her husband, and they are certainly embarrassed when they belatedly see that they do not prepare anything in contrast to her siblings and their respective spouses.

In the end, Jeong-hee contacts with that local loan shark, but, to our little surprise and amusement, the loan shark turns out to be a bit more generous than expected. Besides gently and thoughtfully explaining what Jeong-hee will have to do in exchange of the money she is going to get, the loan shark even shows a little generosity just because Jeong-hee is deemed trustworthy on the whole, and Jeong-hee is confident that she will soon take care of this matter without telling her husband at all.

Of course, the situation subsequently becomes more problematic for both Jeong-hee and her husband. While they continue to be short of cash everyday, Yeong-tae remains stuck in his part-time job, and he also comes to have a problem with that friend who borrowed his camera but has not returned it to him yet. When the time to pay the interest comes, Jeong-hee tries to handle this problem as soon as possible, but, alas, there comes a point where she cannot possibly hide it from her husband anymore.

Nonetheless, the screenplay by director Park Song-yeol and his wife Won Hyang-ra, who also assisted her husband in several other parts besides appearing along with him in front of the camera (They previously worked together in Park’s feature debut film “Can We Just Love” (2018), by the way), does not resort to more misery and conflict even at this narrative point. While it is rather amusing to see how the matter between Jeong-hee and the loan shark is resolved in the end, the subplot involved with Yeong-tae’s untrustworthy friend has a nice comic payoff later in the film, and, above all, the movie keeps its leisurely spirit intact as its two main characters struggle to keep going together via their mutual affection and respect. No matter how much they will be frustrated again and again, Jeong-hee and Yeong-tae will still have each other at least, and there is a little poignant moment when they come to restore the trust and love between them around the end of the story.

Due to its small production budget, “Hot in Day, Cold at Night” frequently looks cheap and shabby on the screen, but its low production quality somehow fits with its story and characters, and it is also supported well by the unadorned chemistry between Park and Won. Even when they seem to be merely occupying the screen together, their plain but earnest interactions throughout the film convey to us a lot about the long history between their characters, and their good acting is surely one of the main reasons why the movie is worthwhile to watch. In short, the movie is one of better South Korean films of this year, and, considering their considerable potential shown here in this film, it will be interesting to watch what will come next from Park and Won.

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Walk Up (2022) ☆☆☆(3/4): Another Hong Sang-soo film of this year

Posted on November 6, 2022 by kaist455

Hong Sang-soo’s latest film “Walk Up”, which is another film of his of this year after “The Novelist’s Film” (2022), exactly gives us what we can expect from him. Like many of his previous films, the movie simply observes a series of comic conversations among its few main characters, and it is often playful as they drink and talk more and more in front of the camera.

In the beginning, the movie opens with of a middle-aged filmmaker named Byeong-soo (Kwon Hae-hyo) and his young adult daughter Jeong-soo (Park Mi-so) arriving at one four-story building located somewhere in Seoul. The building belongs to a middle-aged woman named Hae-ok (Lee Hye-young), and, as an old friend of his, Hae-ok gladly shows him and his daughter here and there in the building after meeting them in front of the building.

Hae-ok has worked as an interior designer, and Byeong-soo wants her to take his daughter as an apprentice. Although it is clear that Jeong-soo still does not know well what she really wants to do for her life, she is at least eager to try new things under Hae-ok, and Hae-ok enjoys talking with this young lady – especially after Byeong-soo suddenly leaves the scene for some personal reason. As Jeong-soo talks a lot about her father, Hae-ok responds with some amusement while sharing more drink with her, and we are all the more amused as wondering how much Byeong-soo is actually overlapped with Hong in real life.

After that, the movie promptly moves onto its second act. Byeong-soo and Hae-ok meet again in front of the same building, but the situation between them is a bit different than before. After working and studying under Hae-ok for a while, his daughter eventually left, but there is not any hard feeling between him and Hae-ok, and Hae-ok later takes him to a little private restaurant in the building, which is run by a woman named Seon-hee (Song Seon-mi).

While Hae-ok and Byeong-soo casually talk with Seon-hee, we get to know a bit about Seon-hee’s life. She initially wanted to be a painter, but, mainly because she did not have much talent despite her passion, she eventually gave up, and she is now happy to run her little private business. As talking more with her, Byeong-soo finds himself attracted to Seon-hee, and we are not so surprised when we later see them living together in the building at the beginning of the third act.

On the surface, Byeong-soo and Seon-hee seem content with being with each other, but we gradually come to sense some tension between them. Due to an unspecified health problem of his, Byeong-soo is doing some diet, and Seon-hee has willingly gone along with that as his partner, but they soon come to have a sort of passive argument when Seon-hee is about to go outside for seeing somebody both of them know. As their argument goes on, Byeong-soo becomes quite petty just like many other heroes of Hong’s films, and we later get a humorous scene as he imagines how he and Seon-hee may argue with each other again once she returns.

Compared to this, the last act is relatively milder in comparison. We see Byeong-soo being with a new girlfriend, and they enjoy cooking and eating some meat together on the balcony of their residence because he is not on diet anymore. As they eat and drink more, she comes to talk about a little about her religious belief, and Byeong-soo phlegmatically listens to her without much objection.

This part is less engaging than the previous three acts of the film, but then there comes a little nice surreal moment around the end of the film. I must confess that I do not know how to interpret this moment, but it surely adds some extra amusement to what we have seen during 90 minutes, and the movie eventually comes to us as a melancholic but playful autobiographical portrayal from Hong, whose personal life has been rather messy due to his recent extramarital affair with his frequent actress Kim Min-hee (She participated in its production a bit although she does not appear on the screen, by the way).

Anyway, Hong drew good performances from his small cast as usual. As Kwon Hae-hyo, who has settled as Hong’s new screen persona as steadily appearing in his several recent films including “The Novelist’s Film”, dutifully holds the center, Lee Hye-young, Song Seon-mi, Cho Yun-hee, and Park Mi-so have each own moment to shine around him, and Song is effortless during her several key comic moments with Kwon.

In conclusion, “Walk Up” will amuse and entertain you if you are familiar with many of Hong’s previous works, and I will not be surprised at all if both of them are included in the annual lists of numerous local critics around the end of this year. Personally, I think “The Novelist’s Film” is more interesting and enjoyable in comparison, but “Walk Up” is still good enough for recommendation, and I will not deny that I chuckled more than once as observing how some of its most amusing moments often resonate with Hong’s private life outside. Yes, many of Hong’s films are still a sort of acquired taste to me, but I still admire nonetheless how he has diligently kept going for more than 25 years since his first feature film “The Day a Pig Fell into the Well” (1996), and I will probably continue to follow his ceaselessly prolific filmmaking career to the end just like many other local arthouse movie theater audiences out there.

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Alcarràs (2022) ☆☆☆1/2 (3.5/4): A summer in their peach orchard

Posted on November 6, 2022 by kaist455

Carla Simón’s latest film “Alcarràs”, which was recently selected as the Spanish entry for Best International Film Oscar, is an intimate family drama mixed with some social commentary. As leisurely rolling along with its various main characters under its vivid summer atmosphere, the movie effortlessly generates one genuine human moment after another, and, around the time when it eventually arrives at its very last scene, we come to understand care about its main characters more than expected.

The story is mainly set in one big peach orchard located in Alcarràs, Catalonia in Spain. It belongs to one big family living there, and things look all right as we watch three kids innocently playing together in an abandoned car outside, but the mood is soon changed as the movie shifts its focus to what the adult members of the family are facing right now. Although they have been allowed to live and earn their living at the orchard for many years thanks to an old verbal deal between their old patriarch and their previous landlord in the past, the new landlord, who is the son of their previous landlord, is now going to use all of the orchard for his solar panel business, and the family becomes quite frustrated as realizing that there is no way to stop this sudden disagreeable change.

Anyway, the time for peach harvest has come, and Quimet (Jordi Pujol Dolcet), who has been the de facto leader of his family business instead of his aging father, and several other family members start to work on those peach trees of their orchard. While they harvest lots of peaches as usual, the mood becomes a bit more cheerful than before, but Quimet and other adult members of the family know too well how things have been not so go for them and other orchard farmers out there. They and many other local orchard farmers have supplied their peaches to some big local supermarket company, and the company has unfairly demanded them to sell peaches at a lower price than they wanted. As a result, many of local orchard farmers begin to consider quitting their business and then selling their land, but Quimet adamantly tries to keep going even though he and his family will have to let their orchard go regardless of how much they harvest this year.

And that is why the current landlord’s recent offer looks like a good alternative for some of Quimet’s family members. Because they can still live in their house in the middle of the orchard as they legally own it, the current landlord suggests that they can instead take care of those solar panels which will replace those peach trees sooner or later. At one point, Quimet’s wife attempts a bit of sensible persuasion on her husband, but Quimet remains stubborn as before, and there is a little amusing moment when he lashes out at a small solar panel installed in their residence.

Meanwhile, the screenplay by Simón and her co-writer Arnau Vilaró also pays some attention to the kids of Quimet and one of Quimet’s younger sisters. Often oblivious to what is happening around her, Quimet’s little daughter Iris (Ainet Jounou) always looks for any opportunity for fun along with her twin cousins, and this sometimes annoys Quimet a lot, but he usually tolerates them nonetheless just like his aging father and the other adults in the family. At one point, the kids hold a little entertainment show for the whole family, and the other family members sincerely encourage them to do more, especially when Iris sings a song which her loving grandfather taught before.

In case of Quimet’s two older kids, they have some small issues behind their back. Although his father frequently tells him to study more instead of working outside, Roger (Albert Bosch) is more interested in orchard farming, and he even has a little private spot in the orchard where he secretly grows a certain kind of plant of which his father will not approve at all. While usually occupied with her preparation for the upcoming dance competition, Glòria (Berta Pipó) becomes more aware of the growing conflict between her father and her aunt, and that eventually leads to one petulant moment of defiance later in the story.

Due to its slow pacing and free-flowing narrative, you may become a bit impatient from time to time, but the movie will gradually immerse you into its vibrant ambiance once you go along with that. Thanks to cinematographer Daniela Cajías, the movie is constantly filled with palpable local atmosphere, and that is particularly exemplified well by the sequence involved with a local festival attended by the main characters and many other local people. Although it will take some time for you to discern the relationships among its main characters, all of these characters will eventually come to you as real living people you will not forget easily, and the same thing can be said about a few immigrant workers at the fringe of the story.

The main cast members in the film, who are mostly non-professional local performers carefully selected via a long period of audition before the production, are uniformly good in their unadorned ensemble acting. While Jordi Pujol Dolcet is the most prominent one in the bunch, the rest of them are also wonderful in their respective parts, and young performer Ainet Jounou often steals the show with her irrepressible spirit.

Overall, “Alcarràs”, which deservedly won the Golden Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival early in this year, is another commendable work from Simón, who previously drew my interest with her enjoyable debut feature film “Summer 1993” (2017). With “Alcarràs”, she surely demonstrates again that she is a talented filmmaker with her own distinctive style and touches, and I will certainly look forward to watching whatever will come next from her.

Posted in Movies | Tagged , | 1 Comment

The Good Nurse (2022) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): A clinical true crime story

Posted on November 5, 2022 by kaist455

Tobias Lindholm’s latest film “The Good Nurse”, which was released on Netflix in last month, is rather disappointing despite a considerable number of talents gathered for its production. While its true crime story is often chilling to say the least, the movie does not delve much into its main subjects as flatly moving from one narrative point to another, and that is a shame considering the two charismatic lead performers at its center.

Jessica Chastain, who recently won an Oscar at last for “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” (2021), plays Amy Loughren, a hard-working nurse who works at Parkfield Memorial Hospital in New Jersey. Although she is actually a cardiomyopathy patient, Loughren keeps working nonetheless for supporting her two little daughters without telling anyone at the hospital, and she hopes that she can work long enough to acquire the insurance which will cover the expensive cost of her heart transplant.

All Loughren needs to do is working hard for another four months, but, of course, that is not so easy at all for her. Her doctor warns that she should be more careful about her serious medical condition, and he even suggests that she should stop working while waiting for her heart transplant. Her two daughters are taken care of by a kind old neighbor while she is working, but she sometimes cannot pay that old neighbor well, and her older daughter has been resentful about her frequent absence.

And then there comes a little change in Loughren’s workplace. A male nurse named Charles Cullen (Eddie Redmayne) begins to work at her emergency ward, and it does not take time for him to befriend Loughren as he comes to help her a bit in more than one way. Besides, he is a mild and amiable dude, so Loughren subsequently lets this guy into her daily life more, and he even comes to babysit her daughters instead of that old neighbor.

However, as already shown to us via the chilly opening scene set in some other hospital where he worked seven years ago, Cullen is actually not a good nurse at all. Not long after he starts to work at Loughren’s emergency ward, one of the patients in the ward suddenly dies for no apparent reason, and that is followed by several similar incidents during next several weeks. Around that point, the hospital administrators contact with two local police detectives due to the belated investigation of the first incident, but these two detectives soon come to realize that there is something fishy about not only the incident itself but also the behavior of the hospital administrators. If they do not have anything to hide from the beginning, why do they insist that their hospital lawyer should accompany them during their meeting with the police detectives?

As these two detectives delve more into their case, they happen to talk a bit with Loughren in private, and both Loughren and the detectives soon come to realize a horrible truth. It is clear to them that somebody has been killing patients in the hospital, and the detectives eventually come to focus on Cullen, who has moved from one hospital to another under suspicious circumstances during last several years. When they later ask for more information from his previous workplaces, all of those hospitals refuse to do that, and Cullen’s current hospital remains uncooperative as before.

The screenplay by Krysty Wilson-Cairns, which is based on Charles Graeber’s nonfiction book “The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder”, does not tell directly to us, but its big dark picture feels and looks clearer to us as the detectives keep getting frustrated during their investigation. Needless to say, all those hospitals knew about what Cullen had been doing behind his back, but they quietly let him go in one way or another for avoiding any scandal to tarnish their public image, and the hospital administrators of Parkfield Memorial Hospital are certainly ready to do the same thing without any hesitation at all.

However, despite these compelling story elements, the movie is somehow deficient in narrative momentum. Yes, there comes a point where Loughren needs to be more active for exposing Cullen’s crime, but the following part does not have much tension in addition to being pretty predictable, and the finale does not have enough dramatic impact to linger on us even though we are chilled by the darker possibility beyond what Cullen eventually admitted around the time of his arrest.

Anyway, Chastain and her co-star try as much as they could with their respective parts. As one of the most versatile actresses working in Hollywood at present, Chastain surely does not disappoint us at all while fully embodying her character’s growing weariness along the story, and she and Eddie Redmayne, who is equally effective with understated chilliness, keep holding our attention to the end. In case of several other notable cast members in the film, Nnamdi Asomugha, Noah Emmerich, and Kim Dickens acquit themselves well despite their underdeveloped supporting parts, and Dickens manages to suggest some emotional conflict behind her character’s unflappable façade.

In conclusion, “The Good Nurse” is a bit too clinical and impersonal without generating enough human interest for me, and the overall result is two or three steps down from Lindholm’s previous films “A Hijacking” (2012) and “A War” (2015), which was incidentally one of my favorite films of 2016. It is not entirely without good things to watch besides Chastain and Redmayne, but it could be better in my trivial opinion, and that is all.

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

All Quiet on the Western Front (2022) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): All Grim and Intense Here

Posted on November 4, 2022 by kaist455

Netflix film “All Quiet on the Western Front”, which was recently selected as Germany’s submission for Best International Film Oscar, is relentlessly grim, muddy, and intense throughout its 147-minute running time. I surely understand that this is not supposed to be entertaining from the beginning as your typical anti-war film, but the movie feels not only grueling and but also rather hollow in my inconsequential opinion. As a matter of fact, I was often bored and frustrated during my viewing instead of becoming engaged a lot in its story and characters, and I felt empty and disappointed when the ending came at last with lackadaisical whimper.

The story, which is based on the 1929 novel of the same name by German novelist Erich Maria Remarque, mainly revolves around a lad named Paul Bäumer (Felix Kammerer), who eagerly joins the German Army along with several friends of his in 1917 at the beginning of the story. Their country is being in the middle of the World War I, but Paul and many other lads are motivated a lot as hoping for glory and honor, and we soon see them being sent to the western front not long after their enlistment.

Of course, it does not take much time for them to confront the hellish reality of the war, and the movie already prepared us for that via its prologue sequence, which shows where the “new” uniforms for Paul and other young soldiers come from. The situation has been quite bad in and around the western front, and the movie gives us a series of strikingly grim moments as these lads struggle to adjust themselves to this extremely harsh and dangerous condition. While they frequently face the immediate possibility of death everyday, their hope for glory and honor is quickly gone, and there are only despair and disillusionment for them with more deaths around them.

At least, things are not always bad for Paul mainly thanks to Stanislaus “Kat” Katczinsky (Albrecht Schuch), a seasoned senior soldier who becomes a sort of father figure for Paul. During Paul’s first several days on the western front, Kat kindly takes Paul under his wings, and Paul willingly assists Kat when they attempt to steal a goose from a nearby French farm at one point. They and several other soldiers later enjoyed the cooked goose in private, and that is one of few cheerful moments in the film.

However, the horror of the war keeps coming to them and many other soldiers as usual. There is a chilling scene where Paul and his comrades come across a horrific scene of mass death caused by poison gas, and this and other brooding moments in the film are often accentuated by the calm but bleak landscape shots provided by cinematographer James Friend. Whenever they are demanded to fight against their enemies, Paul and his comrades always have to throw themselves into sheer peril, and the movie naturally goes all the way for showing us all the bangs and guts around them.

The technical achievement of the movie is surely as impressive as many other recent war movies such as “Hacksaw Ridge” (2016), but it was somehow difficult for me to care about what was happening on the screen. As occupied with so much with striking us as hard as possible, the movie seems to forget developing its story and characters enough to engage us, and I must point out that Paul and several other young soldiers are often indistinguishable from each other – especially when they are on battlefield. In addition, they are more or less than bland archetypes, and Paul is also not a particularly interesting hero to observe except functioning as a blank canvass onto which the horror of war is projected.

The screenplay by director Edward Berger and his co-writers Ian Stokell and Lesley Paterson also spends a little too much time on the subplot involved with German politicians and generals including Matthias Erzberger (Daniel Brühl, who also served as one of the co-producers of the film), a real-life politician who participated in the truce negotiation with the Allied. Their scenes feel curiously flat and perfunctory as politician and generals solemnly interact with each other, and the movie does not have much to tell us besides how politicians and generals are usually distant and detached from soldiers struggling to fight and survive out there.

Some of more engaging moments in the film come from Kat, who is relatively more colorful than Paul and several other main characters in the film. I especially enjoyed his warm and humorous moment involved with a letter from his dear wife, and it is a shame that the movie does not focus more on the developing comradeship between him and Paul along the story. Not so surprisingly, Albrecht Schuch often steals the show from Felix Kammerer and several other main cast members in the film, and he certainly brings some life and spirit into not only his role but also the movie.

On the whole, “All Quiet on the Western Front” is admirable to some degree for putting lots of efforts on reminding us that war is indeed hell, but I am still hesitating to recommend it. While I appreciate its gritty mood and muddy details, I remain distant to its overall result due to its glaring lack of substance, and that takes me back to the 1930 American movie version, which incidentally won the two Oscars for Best Picture and Director at that time. Yes, that film is relatively tame these days, but it was a fairly good film at least as far as I remember, and now I am considering whether I should revisit it just for comparison.

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Confession (2022) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): It’s competent, if not better

Posted on October 27, 2022 by kaist455

South Korean film “Confession”, which is the remake of Spanish film “The Invisible Guest” (2016), is fairly competent on the whole. Mainly because I belatedly checked out the original Spanish version on this Tuesday, I did not expect much when I was about to watch “Confession” at last night along with a few audiences, but it came to hold my attention to some degree with several nice new surprises behind its back, though I still am not sure whether it is better than the original Spanish version.

The movie does not waste its time in establishing the tricky circumstance surrounding Min-ho (So Ji-sub), a wealthy entrepreneur who was recently arrested for the murder of his mistress Se-hee (Nana). Although he is subsequently released after paying a big amount of bail, he is still regarded as the prime suspect of the murder case by the police and the prosecution, and that is the main reason why he really needs the legal service from one prominent female lawyer who has been quite invincible throughout her professional career.

When Min-ho happens to be at a little private cabin located somewhere in a rural mountain area on one cold and snowy day, the aforementioned lawyer suddenly comes for a very important change in the case. According to her, the prosecution gets a witness who may testify against Min-ho during the following trial, and she strongly demands that Min-ho should tell her whatever he has not been hiding before she officially agrees to defend him at the court.

Although Min-ho is quite reluctant to tell all to her, the lawyer gradually pushes and goads him as sharply pointing out how easily his claim of innocent can crumble here and there. For example, he claims that there was someone else in a hotel room where he and his mistress met at that time, but there is not any evidence to prove the presence of this unknown figure in the room, and, above all, it seemed that there was no possibility of escape at that time. When the police came to the room around the time of the murder, its sole entrance door was locked inside, and so were its windows.

This is indeed a classic example of closed room mystery, and it is fun to watch how the lawyer methodically delves into that as slowly cornering Min-ho for getting more truth from him. Not so surprisingly, he is indeed hiding something from her from the very beginning, and we accordingly get a series of flashback scenes showing how things got quite wrong for him and Se-hee around two months ago. Shortly after leaving the cabin together, they conflicted with each other a bit in Min-ho’s car, and that is when a certain serious incident occurred. Because they happened to be at a remote spot, they quickly attempted to cover up everything as much as possible, and it looked like they managed to get away with that – for a while.

Now I should be more discreet about describing the plot. There is a certain guy who may be that surprise witness for the prosecution because he happened to pass by where that incident occurred, and then there is also a middle-aged couple who turns out to have a motive as well as an opportunity for framing the murder on Min-ho. It looks like the lawyer clearly sees through almost everything from the start, but she still needs some piece of information from Min-ho, and Min-ho is still not so willing to bend to the lawyer’s demand.

While the screenplay by director/writer Yoon Jong-seok is mostly faithful to the original version during its first two acts, it also puts some extra twists on the original story during the last act for our entertainment. Regardless of whether this considerable modification is actually an improvement or not, it prevents the film at least from becoming a mere retread of what was presented in the original Spanish version, which has already been remade more than once in several other countries.

The movie depends a lot on the uneasy interactions between its two lead performers on the screen. So Ji-sub, who seems to be more interested in distributing good foreign films such as “Petite Maman” (2021) in South Korea these days, often feels rather wooden in my inconsequential opinion, but that somehow fits well with his character’s ambiguous attitude, and he also dutifully holds the ground for Kim Yun-jin, who surely has some good moments to savor as her character is looking for any weak spot from Min-ho and his claim of innocence. Although we are reminded again and again of how unreliable their characters are in one way or another, Kim and So keep us engaged via their good joint efforts, and they are also supported well by several other main cast members including Choi Kwang-il and Nana, a popular South Korean singer who demonstrates here a bit of her potential as a good actress.

Overall, “Confession” is a solid genre piece which does not surpass its original Spanish version much despite a number of enjoyable technical elements besides the nice acting match between its two lead performers. I particularly liked the chilly wintry atmosphere generated from the cinematography by Kim Seong-jin, and the constantly anxious score by Mowg certainly brings more chilliness to the overall picture. Because I gave “The Invisible Guest” 2.5 stars, I should also give “Confession” 2.5 stars, but I must say that it is not a total waste of time at all, and I think you may enjoy more than me especially if you have not watched the original Spanish version yet.

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Remember (2022) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): Isn’t he too old for this?

Posted on October 27, 2022 by kaist455

When I watched South Korean action thriller film “Remember” at last night, my mind was often more occupied with wondering how old its hero actually is, instead of being engaged in the film itself. As far as I could see from the occasional flashback scenes in the movie, its hero was clearly an adolescent during the 1940s, so he is around 85 at least if we assume that the movie is set around the 2010s, but this old dude does not look that old or weary as going through one action scene after another in the film.

As a matter of fact, the actor playing him, Lee Sung-min, is actually 53 at present, and I guess the movie cannot possibly hide his relatively younger status despite all the makeup on his face. No matter how much he tries to look as frail and aged as possible, Lee still looks as young as, say, Liam Neeson or Keanu Reeves, and that is probably the main reason why I kept trying to guess his character’s real age, just like I did as watching a supporting character played by late Christopher Plummer in Spike Lee’s “Inside Man” (2006)

Speaking of Plummer, the movie is actually a remake of the 2015 Canadian film of the same name where he played an aging dude going after some hidden Nazi criminal. Because the original version was directed by none other than Atom Egoyan, I am sure that it is quite different from the South Korean version, though I somehow missed it when it came out in 2015. After all, it is rather hard to imagine Egoyan going for something equivalent to all those gritty violence and blatant melodrama presented in the South Korean version, isn’t it?

During its opening part, the movie quickly establishes its hero’s current status. Despite being a bit too old to work, he gladly works as a part-time employee at a local TGI Fridays restaurant (Did its manager ever take a look at his identification card?), and we see how close he is to a young fellow employee named In-gyu (Nam Joo-hyuk). When he sees In-gyu being bullied and humiliated by a very rude customer at one point, he remains silent at first, but, what do you know, he already concocts a little clever plan for payback, and In-gyu certainly appreciates that as enjoying that sweet taste of payback along with him.

And then something happens to our old hero. His children notify that his wife, who was incidentally the main reason of his life, is about to die after several years of illness, and he naturally grieves for that a lot as going through her subsequent funeral, but then he embarks on executing something he has secretly planned for many years. As gradually revealed along the plot, there are five certain figures responsible for his family’s painful tragedy during the Japanese Occupation period, and he is quite determined to eliminate them all before his eventual death, though, as his concerned doctor friend points out, he may not succeed at all as he has been suffering the early stage of Alzheimer’s disease.

While his targets are as old as he is, most of them are pretty despicable to say the least as enjoying each own wealth and social prominence without any ounce of remorse. For example, one of them is a retired but very powerful general, and there is a brief scene where he shamelessly justifies what he did during the Japanese Occupation period. As a matter fact, numerous traitorous South Korean people like him were left unpunished in real life even after the end of the World War II just because they quickly allied themselves with the US military, and these vile opportunists and their descendants still have power and wealth around here and there in the South Korean society, while never apologizing for their immense crimes against their country and its people.

Because he needs some assistance for executing his longtime revenge plan, our old hero gives In-gyu an offer he cannot possibly refuse. All In-gyu needs to do in exchange for a considerable amount of cash is driving his old friend to here and there as requested during next several days, and he does not hesitate due to a desperate personal reason of his. He really needs to pay his debt to some local loan shark right now, and his old friend’s offer certainly feels like an opportunity too good to reject.

Of course, like Jamie Foxx’s character in Michael Mann’s “Collateral” (2004), In-gyu soon comes to realize that he gets himself involved into a big trouble, but he lets himself persuaded and pushed by his old friend, who does not stop at all even though his illness gets worse day by day. He surely made some preparation for that in advance, but, not so surprisingly, there eventually comes an inevitable moment when he even cannot remember well where he is going, and that surely puts some extra suspense on the story.

As he and his reluctant accomplice move from one point to another, the movie also pays some attention to several characters on the opposite side. Besides the aforementioned retired general and his hired goons, there is also a detective who comes to sense something fishy about his latest case, and the movie accordingly gives us several action scenes including the one where our old hero attempts to evade two chasing policemen along with In-gyu. Although he is not Jason Bourne or John Wick at all, he turns out to be pretty smart and resourceful despite his increasingly fragile medical condition, and he is certainly indomitable when he is almost close to the final step of his plan later in the story (Is this a spoiler?)

Directed by Lee Il-hyung, “Remember” feels rather disjointed as not only trying to be serious about its main subject but also attempting to be a cathartic action film, and it stumbles more than once especially during the expected climatic finale which is a little too melodramatic in my humble opinion. Yes, I have seen old dudes doing big action scenes on the screen during last several years (Remember how Christopher Lloyd, who is 84 at present, recently had his own brief but juicy fun in “Nobody” (2021)?), but “Remember” made me keep wondering about its hero’s age throughout its 2-hour running time, and that was a big distraction for me to say the least.

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The Invisible Guest (2016) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): An intense defense preparation

Posted on October 26, 2022 by kaist455

Spanish film “The Invisible Guest”, which is currently available on Netflix in South Korea, is one of those typical mystery thriller flicks which constantly suggest to us that they are holding some cards held behind their back for surprising us. Naturally expecting to be surprised from the beginning, I observed its increasingly tricky narrative from the distance, and I was rather disappointed to see that there is nothing particularly new to impress any seasoned moviegoer like me despite a few effective surprises served along the plot.

The mystery presented at the beginning of the film feels rather simple but intriguing nonetheless. A prominent photographer named Laura Vidal (Bárbara Lennie) was found dead in a room of some snowy rural hotel, and her married lover Adrián Doria (Mario Casas), who is also incidentally a very successful business, is arrested once the police broke into the room and then found her lifeless body, but he still claims that he is innocent. According to him, someone unknown was in the room before eventually attacking him and then murdering Laura, but there is not any evidence to prove the presence of this mysterious figure at that time. Furthermore, it also seems that there is no possible way to escape the room before the police came into the room; the room has one only entrance, and its windows, which were already shut down and then locked by the hotel staff due to cold winter weather, remained untouched without any suspicious trace.

This is surely your average closed room mystery, and we wonder what really happened as watching how a middle-aged female lawyer recommended by Adrián’s lawyer questions him step by step. As a defense lawyer, she has never lost any case throughout her long career, and it looks like she decided to handle Adrián’s case mainly because it seemed pretty challenging to her in many aspects. Besides the mystery surrounding the hotel room, there has not been any plausible suspect besides Adrián from the beginning, and Adrián keeps insisting that he is really innocent despite that.

 However, right from entering Adrián’s posh apartment where he is waiting for her, the lawyer instantly makes it very, very, very clear to him that he must tell everything to her before it is too late. It turns out that the prosecution recently happens to get a surprise witness at the last minute, so Adrián and the lawyer must come to the court exactly three hours later although they still do not know who that witness really is, and the lawyer asks him again on whether he has not told everything yet.

This can be an interesting setup for a simple but tense two-hander, but then the movie gives us a series of long flashback scenes as Adrián reluctantly tells the lawyer about what happened between him and Laura. They were indeed lovers, but neither of them was particularly willing to leave their respective spouses just because their affair was pretty much like a care-free vacation away from their respective daily lives, and then something quite bad happened when they were returning from their latest rendezvous.    

I will not go into details here, but I guess I can tell you a bit about what happened next. While Adrián and Laura subsequently try to cover up their unfortunate incident as much as possible, the situation become more complicated due to more than one reason. There is some dude who happened to pass by the spot shortly after the incident, and there is also a middle-aged couple with whom Laura gets involved after Adrián left for hiding certain incriminating evidences somewhere. 

As Adrián tells more about what he and Laura did for saving their respective careers and reputations, his lawyer remains tactful and watchful as before while thoroughly examining what he said. From time to time, she shrewdly senses what he may be still hiding even at present, and it is often engaging to watch how these main characters frequently push and pull each other till the expected climax where all cards of theirs are on the table.

However, the screenplay by director/writer Oriol Paulo often loses its narrative pacing as relying too much on flashbacks and narrative reversals. As the movie continues to become so twisty, we become rather distant to its story and characters, and you may notice numerous plot holes and contrivances here and there even before the film arrives at its ending.

At least, the main cast members of the movie sell their materials fairly well under Paulo’s competent direction. I enjoyed the tense interactions between Mario Casas and Blanca Martínez, and I wish the movie just simply trusted its two main performers and went all the way along with them in more straightforward ways. In case of several supporting performers surrounding them, Bárbara Lennie, Francesc Orella, Blanca Martínez, José Coronado, and Ana Wagener are well-cast in their respective parts, and José Coronado and Ana Wagener ably handle their supporting characters as they become more substantial along the story.

By the way, the main reason why I watched and reviewed “The Invisible Guest” is pretty simple: there have actually been several foreign remakes during last several years, and one of them is a South Korean version which will be released in South Korea today. Considering what I saw from the original version, I have no idea how the South Korean version can possibly do more except bringing some local changes as required, but I will not grumble if it entertains me as much as the original version did.

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Descendant (2022) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): The last slave ship – and those descendants

Posted on October 22, 2022 by kaist455

Netflix documentary film “Descendant”, which was released on this Friday, is about one relatively unknown black American historical fact which deserves to be known more widely for good reasons. While it is surely informative to anyone unfamiliar with its main subject (Yes, I am one of such persons), the documentary also thoughtfully examines the long and persistent connections between the past and the present, and it is surely one of the most enlightening documentaries of this year in my humble opinion.

The main subject of the documentary is a slave ship named the Clotilda, which has been known as one of the last American slave ships in the late 19th century. Although slavery already became illegal in US even before the American Civil War was started, slave trade was still thriving especially in the South during that period, and many local businessmen like Timothy Meaher, who was the owner of the Clotilda, amassed their big fortune via this heinous trade business of theirs.

The last voyage of the Clotilda, which was incidentally prompted by a little casual bet between Meaher and his business associates in 1860, brought 110 African slaves sent from an African kingdom named Dahomey, which is Benin at present. Once these slaves got off from the ship in the port of Moblie, Alabama, the ship was subsequently destroyed and then sunk somewhere for covering up its criminal activities, and these slaves were quickly sold to here and there while Meaher got all the profit from that.

At least, these slaves got freed around 5 years later as the war was ended with the victory of the North, though they still could not go back to Africa. Their leader, Cudjo Kazoola Lewis, and his fellow slaves eventually decided to buy and then settle in a certain area in Mobile, and that was the beginning of Africatown, which is also known as Plateau.

Although their slave ship was something they could not possibly talk about in public due to those rich white people with power, Lewis and his fellow slaves told their painful history to their sons and daughters, and then their oral history was handed to one generation after another during next several decades. As a matter of fact, Lewis was also subsequently interviewed by a prominent African American folklorist named Zora Neale Hurston, who has been also incidentally known as the first black female American filmmaker in the history. The documentary shows us an old silent film clip shot by Hurston at that time, and Lewis comes to look and feel a bit more vivid to us as we become more curious about what kind of a person he really was.

Hurston later wrote a book titled “Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo””, but, alas, her book was not published until 2018. When the book was eventually published, Africatown came to draw more attention than before, and that consequently boosted the longtime search for the Clotilda. Despite many failed attempts, those community activists never gave up their hope, and they came to have a bit more expectation than before when several experts from the National Geographic came to their town for exactly locating where the ship was buried.

Meanwhile, director/co-writer/co-producer Margaret Brown also focuses on how the past of Africatown is still alive well while exerting its negative influence over Africatown and its people. At one point we look at a local cemetery where Lewis and many other slaves were buried, and we can only guess how much of their hurtful histories have been forgotten and overlooked for decades. In addition, the documentary makes a sharp point on how the long environmental problem of Africatown and its people have been connected with the considerable wealth of the descendants of Meaher, and, not so surprisingly, the descendants of Meaher declined to be interviewed for the documentary.

In the end, the remains of the Clotilda were discovered thanks to a little detective work by a local reporter named Ben Raines (He also wrote his own book about the ship, by the way), and the residents of Africatown were excited to see their local oral history finally confirmed and recognized, but several community activists express some doubt and reservation in front of the camera. While they surely are happy for the discovery of the remains of the Clotilda, they are also cautious about the next steps to follow, and they are sincerely concerned about whether the history of Africatown can be respectfully presented and preserved instead of ending up becoming another Southern historical tourist attraction.

Nevertheless, things look fairly optimistic thanks to the ongoing efforts of those local community leaders and activists, and the documentary gives us a nice example showing how Africatown and its long history can be presented and remembered well with considerable respect and enlightment. At the Smithsonian National Museum in Washington D.C., there is a wonderful section devoted to African American history and culture, and we can only hope that whatever will be installed in Africatown can be as exemplary as that.

On the whole, “Descendant” did a commendable job of illuminating the past, the present, and the future surrounding a hidden story of American slavery, and you may want to delve more into its main subject after watching it. To be frank with you, I already put both Hurston’s book and Raines’ book on my reading list, and that is an achievement to say the least.

Posted in Movies | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment