Annette (2021) ☆☆☆(3/4): Leos Carax back in action

Posted on August 25, 2021 by kaist455

Leos Carax’s latest film “Annette” may be another case of style-over-substance, but what a wild and ambitious genre exercise it is. Exultantly gliding from one solid musical number to another as your typical sung-through musical film, the movie confidently reaches for more style and energy from the beginning to the end, and you will come to admire its numerous operatic moments packed with whirlwind emotional intensity, if you are willing to go along with its stylish mood and some deliberately outrageous aspects.

After the exhilarating prologue musical sequence where Carax and several other figures in the production including his composer/co-writers Ron and Russell Mael of Sparks set the unabashedly artificial quality of the movie, we are promptly thrown into the ongoing romance between Henry McHenry (Adam Driver) and Ann Defrasnoux (Marion Cotillard), two very different artistic figures who have somehow complemented each other since they fell in love with each other. While Henry is a popular standup comedian as provocative as Andrew Dice Clay or Andy Kaufman, Ann is an acclaimed classic opera singer relatively more respectable compared to her lover, and their unlikely romantic relationship has surely drawn lots of attention from the media as they willingly show more of their passionate romance in public.

When Ann subsequently gets pregnant, that seems to make her and Henry much happier than before, but, alas, there comes a big trouble in Henry’s career. As boldly reflected by Ann’s vivid but troubling musical dream sequence, a group of women step forward together for revealing how they were respectively abused and harassed by Henry in the past, and that consequently leads to Henry’s long descent into self-destruction. Those provocative schticks of his do not amuse his audiences any more, and he only comes to make his situation worse as getting himself mired in more rage and self-pity, while Ann’s career ironically goes up and up with more successes.

Now you may be reminded of “A Star Is Born” (1937) and its several remake versions, but then Carax catches us off guard when Ann eventually gives birth to her baby daughter, who is named, yes, Annette. We get a weirdly sentimental musical moment as Ann is going through the agony of her childbirth, and then Carax adds more artificial touches to amuse or distract you a lot. Right from when she comes into the world, Annette is presented as a, shall we say, very artificial figure, and it is kind of amusing to see how wildly and playfully the movie goes all the way with this outrageous setting during the second half of the film, which mainly revolves around Henry’s opportunistic attempt to capitalize on his baby daughter’s unbelievable talent.

It should be pointed out that the story and characters remain to be more or less than a mere flimsy ground for a bunch of songs written by the Mael brothers, so we come to observe the film from the distance at times, but the movie keeps things rolling under Carax’s skillful direction. I must confess that I do not remember that well many of the original songs in the film, but I was entertained by how they are fluidly and dexterously presented on the screen with considerable energy and personality, and the overall result is quite less tiresome compared to what I had to endure while watching “Les Misérables” (2012).

Carax’s two lead performers willingly throw themselves into many wild emotional moments in the film. Adam Driver, who has been one of the most interesting American actors during last 10 years since his Emmy-nominated breakthrough turn in HBO TV series “Girls”, is no stranger to singing as memorably shown from “Inside Llewyn Davis” (2013) or “Marriage Story” (2019), and he ably delivers several key musical moments including the one accompanied with “We Love Each Other So Much”, which can be regarded as the theme song of the movie.

On the opposite, Marion Cotillard is rather under-utilized in comparison, but, at least, she graces the screen as usual whenever she enters the screen. In case of Simon Helberg, who was very funny in “Florence Foster Jenkins” (2016), holds his own small place well around Driver and Cotillard as another substantial character in the story, and I also appreciate how the movie presents Ann and Henry’s daughter as someone more than a plot element.

Although it is less satisfying to me compared to his previous film “Holy Motors” (2012), “Annette”, which received the Best Director award when it was shown at the Cannes Film Festival early in this year (It also deservedly received the World Soundtrack Award, by the way), reminds me again of what an adventurous filmmaker Carax has been during last several decades. After all those notorious troubles involved with “The Lovers on the Bridge” (1991) and “Pola X” (1999), his career seemed to be almost finished, but then he made a glorious comeback with “Holy Motors”, and “Annette” demonstrates again that he has lost none of his artistic ambition and talent yet.

To be frank with you, I am still not quite enthusiastic about the movie compared to some other critics and reviewers out there, and I will not deny that I was constantly aware of its many artificial aspects throughout its rather overlong running time (141 minutes). Nevertheless, I admire how Carax and his cast and crew members take a chance more than once here, and I think you should also take a chance. Regardless of whether you will like it more or less than me, I assure you that you will not forget this odd and singular piece of work for a long time.

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John and the Hole (2021) ☆☆(2/4): A boy who traps his family in the hole

Posted on August 24, 2021 by kaist455

“John and the Hole” begins with a very twisted story promise to grab your attention, but it is unfortunately not developed into something really interesting or compelling as humorlessly trudging along its increasingly flat storyline. While this is not a crappy piece of work at all thanks to some competent technical aspects to be appreciated, the movie is still no more than a hollow and superficial genre exercise on the whole, and it ultimately lets us down more with the insipid resolution at the end of the story.

At first, the movie sets its clinical tone around its equally detached young hero. Right from his first scene, we notice something odd and disturbing about John (Charile Shotwell), and the early part of the film phlegmatically shows us how this 13-year-old boy has been pretty distant to his close family members, who are living along with him in one posh modern house located in the middle of a forest. His father Brad (Michael C. Hall) and his mother Anna (Jennifer Ehle) look like nice parents on the surface, but they do not know how to get close to their peculiar son, and the same thing can be said about his older sister Laurie (Taissa Farmiga), whose mind is mostly revolving around her new boyfriend.

When he is playing with a drone in the forest during one afternoon, John happens to come upon an abandoned bunker, and that subsequently leads him to one disturbing idea. After testing the effectiveness of a certain prescribed drug for his mother, he has his whole family drugged at one night, and his parents and older sister are shocked to find themselves trapped in that bunker in the following morning. Once they come to realize what is really going on, they naturally plea to John, but John coolly ignores their desperate plea, and then he embarks on becoming the man of the house. For example, he drives his father’s vehicle for himself and then gets some money from an ATM machine, and he also makes sure that nobody is looking for their family members for a while at least.

We naturally come to wonder more about what makes this problematic boy tick, but the movie, which is based on screenplay writer/co-producer Nicolás Giacobone’s short story “El Pozo”, adamantly refuses to give us any easy answer. As struggling to survive in the bunker day by day, John’s parents ask themselves again and again on their son’s elusive motive, but they cannot find any answer, and neither can their daughter, who already knows a bit about how odd and unnerving her younger brother is.

Meanwhile, the movie continues to observe how John tries to act like a free grown man able to take care of himself and his life. At one point, he invites a boy around his age who has communicated with him via an online game, and they have some fun together at his house, but John turns out to be pretty clumsy in interacting directly with his friend, who comes to regard John with more bafflement when John later pays him some money just for being with John for one day.

Is John simply an emotionally stunted kid who happens to take a drastic measure for more freedom? Or, is he actually a cold-blooded psychopath incapable of making any meaningful human connection with others around him? The movie keeps observing his creepy behaviors as often tantalizingly suggesting these and other possibilities about its young hero, but it only ends up going nowhere without giving us any understanding or insight on him, and John accordingly becomes a more distant cypher to us. In case of his three unfortunate family members, they are more sympathetic in comparison, but the movie does not flesh them out well enough to engage us more, and we become more frustrated while also caring less about whatever will happen between them and John in the end.

Director Pascual Sisto, who incidentally makes a feature film debut here in this work, and his crew members did as much as they can for maintaining the cold and detached attitude of the movie to the end, but their fairly good efforts are often wasted due to the barebone narrative of the film. There are several morbid moments reminiscent of the twisted works of Yorgos Lanthimos and Michael Haneke, but the movie mostly fails to reach to the dark absurdity of Lanthimos’ films or the gut-chilling ruthlessness of Haneke’s movies, and a subplot involved with a mother and her young daughter seems rather pointless without resonating much with the main storyline.

The main cast members of the film try as much as they can do for filling their respective roles. Charlie Shotwell, a young actor who has steadily advanced since his notable supporting turn in “Captain Fantastic” (2016), is hopelessly stuck in his distractingly one-note role, and I must tell you that he was much more engaging in “The Nest” (2020), a little but intense family drama which is also one of the overlooked gems of last year. In case of Michael C. Hall, Jennifer Ehle, and Taissa Farmiga, they have more things to do at least, but then they only come to function as a mere counterpoint to Shotwell’s blank attitude.

In conclusion, “John and the Hole” stumbles a lot due for many reasons including thin characterization as well as deficient storytelling, and I have been feeling emptier as reflecting more on its considerable failures. At least, the movie shows that Sisto is a filmmaker who does know how to intrigue us with mood and idea, and I sincerely hope that he will soon move onto better things to come into his nascent filmmaking career.

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Words on Bathroom Walls (2020) ☆☆☆(3/4): His little mental secret

Posted on August 22, 2021 by kaist455

“Words on Bathroom Walls” is another typical coming-of-age drama about a troubled adolescent romance, but it is more thoughtful and sincere than expected. While it handles its story and characters well with considerable care and attention, the movie does not pull punches in case of depicting the dark and disturbing aspects of its hero’s serious psychological condition, and it surely earns its touching ending thanks to its sensitive storytelling as well as the engaging performances from its main cast members.

Charlie Plummer, a promising newcomer who has been more prominent during last several years thanks to his good performances in a number of notable films including “All the Money in the World” (2017) and “Lean on Pete” (2017), plays Adam Petrazelli, a teenage boy who has a long history of schizophrenia behind his socially awkward appearance. For last several years, Adam has managed to keep his mental illness under his control while actively pursuing his aspiration of being a first-class restaurant chef someday, but, alas, there eventually comes a point when his mental illness causes a big trouble in his high school, and he subsequently goes through a series of medications while his mother tries to find any other school which may have him until his upcoming graduation.

In the end, Adam is accepted by a Catholic high school located a bit far from his home, and he is fine with that. As long as he keeps his dark secret behind his back for next several months, everything may turn out to be well for him as well as his mother and her current boyfriend and then he will probably move onto some prestigious culinary school as he has always wanted. In addition, it seems that a new type of drug for schizophrenia is more effective than expected, though his life becomes a bit more boring than before due to the consequence disappearance of three colorful imaginary figures not so far from the similar ones in “A Beautiful Mind” (2001).

When he is having a little private interview with the school principal, Adam happens to have a sort of Meet Cute moment with someone in an empty bathroom in the school building. That person in question is a Latino female student named Maya Arnez (Taylor Russell), and her first encounter with Adam is pretty strained as he happens to witness what Maya has been doing behind her supposedly exemplary appearance. Although she is a top-notch senior student expected to be the valedictorian at the upcoming graduation ceremony, she has often earned some money from taking care of the homeworks of some rich kids in the school, and Adam becomes more attracted toward to her as getting to know her bit by bit during next several following days.

Because he has been in the serious need of improving his test scroes, Adam requests some help from Maya, and she does not mind that at all because, well, she is also attracted to him while quite curious about him. Although he still does not tell her anything about his mental illness, she is willing to spend more time with him, and her presence seems to help him as much as his current medication.

Of course, things later become less rosy for Adam as his mind and body experience the side effects of his new medication, and the screenplay by Nick Naveda, which is based on the novel of the same name by Julia Walton, later goes through several intense moments of emotional upheavals along with its hero. While feeling more conflicted about hiding his mental illness from Maya, Adam also comes to clash a lot with his mother, and there is a painful scene where he and his mother face old anger and resentment accumulated between them for many years. Although he has always been a dear son to her, Adam’s mother has her own exasperation and frustration as coping with his schizophrenia everyday, and even her current boyfriend, who turns out to be more decent and compassionate than he seems at first, cannot help her that much no matter how much he sincerely tries.

As he often cannot help himself, Adam can be quite rude and hurtful to others around him, but the movie never loses its empathy on its hero, and Plummer steadily holds our attention even when his character is driven to some extreme moments later in the film. Wisely avoiding exaggerating his character’s mental problem, Plummer ably conveys to us his character’s constant inner struggle along the story, and we come to accept and understand his character’s inherent flaws more besides rooting for him more.

Plummer is also surrounded by a number of fine performers, who hold each own place well around him. While Talyor Russell has a good chemistry with Plummer whenever they share the screen together, Molly Parker and Walton Goggins are also solid as Adam’s concerned mother and her boyfriend, and Andy García has several small but enjoyable moments as the no-nonsense priest in the school.

Directed by Thor Freudenthal, “Words on Bathroom Walls” is a fairly entertaining product which is also poignant for its genuine emotional moments, and I was particularly touched by how its obligatory feel-good finale sidesteps clichés and, along with Adam and others around him, recognizes what he will probably have to live with for the rest of his life. Yes, there may be more struggles for him in the future, but he is less afraid and uncertain than before, and that is a progress for him, isn’t it?

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Underground (2019) ☆☆☆(3/4): A calm and thoughtful observation of subway workers

Posted on August 21, 2021 by kaist455

South Korean documentary film “Underground” simply observes a bunch of various subway workers who have devoted themselves to making their public system work everyday for millions of citizens out there. Although it does not explain that much to us as austerely sticking to its calm and detached position, the documentary lets us understand how their system works in addition to appreciating their professional dedication, and we come to discern the importance of their labor rights more than before.

At first, the documentary begins with a group of male senior students of an industrial high school in Busan. As reflected by the very first scene of the documentary, they all are about to graduate, so they now must be serious about getting a job after their graduation, and the documentary comes to focus a bit on one of these students as he considers getting hired at a contract company which has been associated with the Busan subway.

Around that point, the documentary begins to look around several different parts of the Busan subway system. We see a big factory where disassembled subway cars are examined and repaired everyday. We watch a middle-aged subway conductor who has diligently driven subway trains for years. We observe female cleaners assigned to one of the main subway stations in the city. We glimpse on a few employees who steadily monitor many corners of that station in their control room. And we also look closely at a group of workers checking the railroads of one subway line.

While the camera often approaches close to these and many other people in the documentary, director Kim Jeong-Keun chooses not to inform us on who they are or how they work, and he simply lets the camera convey to us what matters a lot to its human subjects. Doing their respective jobs well everyday is certainly No.1 priority to many of them, but they also care a lot about their labor rights, and one crucial scene in the documentary shows a bunch of employees attending a meeting with a labor right activist from Seoul. Although they may not understand everything this activist tells them, they do believe that they deserve to be treated better by their big employer, and we are not so surprised when the documentary later tells us a bit about how things have been difficult for many non-regular employees of the Busan subway, who have been unfairly regarded as a sort of second-class workers.

Anyway, the system keeps working as usual, and we get a series of unadorned moments showing how its many employees serve the system and the public. At that big factory for repair and maintenance, we see many workers carefully working on various small and big parts of a disassembled subway car, and this moment will surely remind you of how every moment of yours on subway depends a lot on these and many other repair/maintenance workers out there.

In case of the cleaning ladies in that subway station, they remind us of how those clean subway stations have been taken for granted by many of us. Several hours before the subway station is opened to passengers, these ladies work a lot on the floors of their subway station, and they still have to work while their subway station is opened, though they do have some time for rest as shown from a small cheerful scene unfolded in their little private place.

Even at night, the system does not sleep at all as many other employees do many different repair and maintenance jobs along its several subway lines, and the documentary gives us some close glimpses into how these nighttime employees work every night. Once the last subway train is stopped and the whole subway line is shut down around midnight, a group of nighttime workers check out one area after another along the railroads of the subway line, and the camera looks at them for a while when they have to do some necessary repair at a certain spot.

In case of that middle-aged subway train conductor, he cannot help but feel a bit nostalgic when he talks about his early years, but the documentary does not dwell on his good old past at all while clearly pointing out the possible end of his occupation in the future. Like many labor jobs, his job will be completely automatized someday, and there is a little bittersweet moment when he gets on a new subway train fully controlled by its computer system.

While shuffling among its many different parts, the documentary does not lose its focus at all as gradually completing its big picture, and then it eventually goes back to that male senior student introduced to us at the beginning. Along with many of his classmates, he gets to know more about the range of his possible choices in the future, and he subsequently chooses to work at that contract company, but we cannot help but worry about him as well as other young people not so different from him. Sure, he is well aware of the possible change to come in his field sooner or later, and he remains rather optimistic nonetheless, but, considering the current industrial trend, I think the future may not be that hopeful for them during next several decades.

Often reminiscent of Frederick Wiseman’s recent works such as “City Hall” (2020), “Underground” may feel a bit too dry for you in the beginning, but it is a rewarding experience coupled with some indirect enlightenment for many of you. Even at this point, our life depends a lot on those hard-working laborers who do deserve better, and the documentary did a fairly good job of reminding us of that inarguable fact again.

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Luxor (2020) ☆☆☆(3/4): As she wanders around in Luxor

Posted on August 20, 2021 by kaist455

“Luxor” is a slow and tentative romance drama which suggests a lot with its distinctive local atmosphere to remember. Although the movie does not tell that much about the old past between its two main characters, what is subtly and quietly exchanged between these two different people is often absorbing to watch, and their somber emotional drama is further enhanced by the specific mood and details of an old city surrounding them.

When we are introduced to a British woman named Hana (Andrea Riseborough) at the beginning, she has just arrived in Luxor, Egypt, and the early part of the movie shows her getting accustomed a bit to this foreign place while staying at a posh and luxurious hotel in the city. When she is spending her first evening at the hotel bar, we get a little amusing moment when some guy at the bar tries to talk a bit with her while apparently a little drunk. He is not so funny when he mentions a certain well-known mystery novel by Agatha Christie, but Hana does not mind sleeping with him later, and that leads to another small humorous moment for us.

As she aimlessly wanders around here and there in Luxor, we get to know a bit more about Hana. She is a surgeon who has worked as an aid worker in a number of different war zones, and it is apparent from her rather detached façade that she has been emotionally exhausted for whatever she has saw and experienced from those war zones. Right before she came to Luxor, she worked in the border area between Syria and Jordan, and she will soon go to another war zone right after her current vacation in Luxor.

Quite uncertain about whether she will be able to keep going as before, Hana cannot help but reflect more on her past as looking around many old tourist spots. These tourist spots, most of which are the remains of that glorious era of Ancient Egypt, often look overwhelmingly haunting as embodying several thousand years of history, and Hana often finds herself awed by their sheer scale as well as some small details observed from them.

As a matter of fact, she once dated an archeologist named Sultan (Karim Saleh) many years ago, and she is delighted when she encounters him on a river boat during her second day in the city. By coincidence, Sultan happens to be doing another archeologic work of his at a spot not so far from the city, and he is certainly willing to show her what he and his colleagues are doing at present. Although there is nothing particularly special about what they have been excavating now, Hana sincerely listens to what Sultan enthusiastically presents to her, and we are not so surprised when he suggests that they should stay together for a while in his current staying place, which incidentally looks quite shabbier compared to Hana’s.

While Hana chooses to continue to stay at her hotel as planned, she comes to spend more time with Sultan, and it seems they are attracted to each other a lot just like they once were. When Sultan subsequently approaches closer to her during one evening, Hana does not refuse him at all, and we later get a little playful moment as they attempt to be as carefree as those younger years of theirs.

However, as they interact with each other more and more, Hana and Sultan are also reminded of why and how they broke up with each other. Although the movie never specifies whatever happened between them during that time, we still sense some degree of regret and bitterness as they tentatively talk about their past, and we come to understand why Hana is hesitating over the possibility of regaining her old romance.

While Hana and Sultan keep dancing around each other cautiously, the movie continues to engage us with its vivid and palpable sense of locations and people. I must confess that I have never been to Luxor, but this old city, which eventually comes to us the third main character in the film, looks charming and interesting not only for its old history but also its lively and colorful aspects observed from various places and people. Director/writer/co-producer Zenia Durra did a commendable job of conveying well to us the sublime qualities of the city, and we are not so surprised when an old western couple briefly appearing in the film says they have visited the city every year. As a matter of fact, I actually came to feel the need to visit there during my viewing, though that is not possible at all due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

As the emotional center of the film, Andrea Riseborough, who has been more notable since I noticed her for the first time via her supporting role in “Oblivion” (2013), gives a wonderfully tranquil performance often shining with emotional subtlety, and she is also complemented well by Karim Saleh, who previously collaborated with Durra in her debut feature film “The Imperialists Are Still Alive!” (2010). Right from their first scene, we can clearly sense some history between their characters, and the following scenes between them are warmed up a lot by their low-key chemistry on the screen.

In conclusion, “Luxor” may require some patience from you in the beginning as one of those “slow” films, but this simple but profound piece of work is worthwhile to watch for mood, storytelling, and performance, and I am already willing to savor its strong points again someday. In short, this is one of the overlooked little gems of last year, and I think you should give it a chance someday.

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Jumbo (2020) ☆☆☆(3/4): She falls in love with a machine (no kidding)

Posted on August 20, 2021 by kaist455

French film “Jumbo” pushes its preposterous romantic situation all the way, and I admire that even though I often observed its heroine’s peculiar romantic feeling with amusement and skepticism from the distance. Sure, you may have some doubt on her feverish viewpoint, but whatever she feels and experiences seems to be real to her heart at least, and you will probably come to have some understanding and empathy on her extraordinary circumstance even if you often roll your eyes on how far she is willing to go in the name of love and passion.

Noémie Merlant, who was unforgettable along with Adèle Haenel in Céline Sciamma’s great romance period drama film “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” (2019), plays Jeanne Tantois, a shy young woman whose life mostly revolves around her workplace and her residence where she has lived with her mother Margarette (Emmanuelle Bercot). As your average middle-aged busybody quite frank about her heterosexuality, Margarette is quite interested in when her daughter will finally have a boyfriend, but Jeanne is not particularly interested in meeting any man at present while usually occupied with making models in her room, and she is not so pleased when her mother later tries to match her with one of Jeanne’s fellow employees.

Jeanne has worked in a small local amusement park, and it gradually turns out to us that she has actually been quite attached to a recent new attraction installed in the amusement park. Whenever the opening hour is over at night, she usually spends some time with this new attraction as lovingly wiping its surface a bit, and she even calls it, yes, “Jumbo”.

At first, her romantic attraction toward Jumbo looks rather unilateral, but, as least in her viewpoint, Jumbo can actually communicate with Jeanne, and she is delighted to discover at one night that Jumbo is really alive and, perhaps, loves her as much as she adores it. Although it certainly cannot speak in words, Jumbo seems to be capable of expressing its thoughts and feelings to her via those numerous colorful light bulbs on its surface, and that surely makes their private moments look quite surreal as well as romantic to say the least. While it is not able to caress her physically, Jumbo can make Jeanne feel pretty good and stimulated as giving her one hell of ride, and we can clearly sense from her thrilled face that she has never been as exultant as that.

And that is just the foreplay for several odd sexual moments between her and Jumbo. Sure, Jumbo does not have any, uh, tool for making Jeanne’s body feel more intimacy between them, but she and Jumbo come to find a way to get a sort of organism as reflected by one weirdly ‘sticky’ sequence, and her following reaction in the aftermath is not so far from that cloying sense of embarrassment experienced by any person having the first sexual experience. After all, sexual intercourse is inherently not so clean and pretty from the beginning, and Jeanne and Jumbo’s case turns out to be no exception.

When Jeanne subsequently decides to be more opened about her unconventional sexuality, her mother is naturally flabbergasted and outraged, and we accordingly get some intense emotional moments between them. While quite hurt by her mother’s strong rejection of her odd romantic relationship, Jeanne becomes not only more passionate but also more confused about her romantic feeling toward Jumbo than ever, and the director/writer Zoé Wittock’s screenplay, which is, believe or not, inspired by a real-life story, keeps its attitude as straight as before, even during its heroine’s wildest moments including the one involved with her miserably failed attempt on being ‘normal’ later in the story.

Everything in the movie depends a lot on Merlant’s terrific performance, which ably carries the story to the end via its forthright display of unadulterated emotions to be felt and understood by us. Even when we observe Jeanne from the distance, we still empathize with her to some degree thanks to Merlant’s strong acting, and you may come to cheer for her character when her character is more empowered by her romantic feeling and then takes a bold step for herself as well as Jumbo around the end of the story. In case of Jumbo, this huge metallic entity is imbued with a considerable degree of personality and presence, and that is the main reason why Jeanne’s romance with it somehow works despite many preposterous aspects of their relationship.

The main weakness of the film is that its several human supporting characters around Jeanne look relatively underdeveloped even compared to Jumbo. Although she is mostly stuck in her thankless role, Emmanuelle Bercot manages to enliven her role enough to complement Merlant, and Sam Louwyck also acquits himself well as a gruff dude who turns out to be more compassionate and understanding than expected.

Although it could be improved more in terms of story and characters and the finale feels a bit too hurried in my humble opinion, “Jumbo” is still a memorable piece of work thanks to its confident and sensitive handling of its offbeat main subject as well as another fine performance from Merlant. To be frank with you, I do not think I wholly understand whatever is exchanged between its heroine and her metallic lover, but my mind is now going back to the humorously poignant lyric of “If You Could See” from “Cabaret” (1972).

If you could see her through my eyes
You wouldn’t wonder at all.
If you could see her through my eyes
I guarantee you would fall. (Like I did.)
When we’re in public together
I hear society moan.
But if they could see her through my eyes Maybe they’d leave us alone.

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Old (2021) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): Stuck in aging faster

Posted on August 19, 2021 by kaist455

M. Night Shyamalan’s latest film “Old” starts well with an intriguing and frightening story promise, but then it only ends up being quite rote and contrived instead. Sure, the movie did a fairly competent job of presenting and then developing its story promise during the first two acts, and I was entertained enough by how it relentlessly pushes the story and characters toward its possible logical conclusion. Sadly, the movie stumbles more than once during its arbitrary third act, and I felt quite dissatisfied as walking out of the screening room along with other audiences.

In the beginning, we are introduced to one ordinary middle-class family about to have what may be their last vacation. While they look mostly cordial to each other in front of their two children, Guy Cappa (Gael García Bernal) and his wife Prisca (Vicky Krieps) are actually going through a very difficult time after deciding to end their marriage for some personal reason, and the main purpose of this vacation is giving their kids some good time before whatever they and their kids will have to endure later. Nevertheless, Guy and Prisca soon find themselves arguing with each other not long after arriving in a nice big hotel located in some seaside tropical area, and their kids, who have already been well aware of what is going on between them, become more concerned even while looking forward to having lots of fun during next several days.

Subsequently enjoying the luxurious environment of the hotel, everyone becomes a bit more cheerful than before, and that is when they come to learn about a certain special spot not so far from the hotel. It seems that they can spend a little quiet private time together at that spot, so Guy and Prisca agree to go there along with their kids, but then they are not so pleased to learn later that they and their kids are not the only ones to go there.

Anyway, that spot in question looks fairly nice to the family and several other hotel guests who happen to accompany them. It is actually just a small beach isolated from the outside by the wide and steep rock wall, so they have to walk through the narrow tunnel of that rock wall, but it does not take much time for them to be charmed and then relaxed by the seemingly peaceful mood of this beach. As time leisurely goes by on the beach, Guy and Prisca feel less worried about whatever may happen next to them and their kids, and we come to sense some possibility of reconsideration and reconciliation between them.

However, there are already some bad signs about the beach. At one point, Guy and Prisca’s kids are baffled to find a bunch of objects buried in sand, and then something shocking happens not long after that. Because of that incident, everyone on the beach is certainly willing to leave the beach as soon as possible, but, not so surprisingly, that turns out to be impossible for some inexplicable reason, and then they are thrown into more panic and disorientation due to a number of equally disturbing happenings.

From these happenings, everyone on the beach belatedly comes to realize the terrifying secret of the beach. Probably because of some rare magnetic substance in the rock wall, their bodies are all getting aged quite faster than usual, and, unless they find any possible way out from the beach, they will all eventually be dead due to their accelerated aging process.

As gradually pushing its main characters into more dread and desperation along the plot, the movie, which is based on Pierre Oscar Levy and Frederik Peeters’ graphic novel “Sandcastle”, doles out one unnerving moment to another. As they get aged second by second, Guy, Prisca, and other adult characters on the beach are more reminded of their physical fragility, and Prisca soon comes to have a very gruesome emergency when her certain illness becomes quite more serious than before. In case of Guy and Prisca’s two kids, they are naturally aghast at how suddenly they grow up so fast within a few hours just like some other kid on the beach, and we are served with a morbidly intense scene when one of them happens to have a serious biological problem with that other kid due to their lack of certain physical knowledge.

However, the movie unfortunately lets us down during the last act as resorting to glaring plot contrivance, and we become more aware of a number of weak aspects in the film. While its characters are more or less than plot elements to be squeezed for more suspense or tension, some of their dialogues feel strained and artificial as trying to tell and explain to us a bit too much, and this often undermines the good efforts from its main cast members including Gael García Bernal, Vicky Krieps, Alex Wolff, Eliza Scanlen, and Thomasin McKenzie. Effortlessly conveying to us their characters’ troubled marital relationship right from the beginning, Bernal and Krieps are dependable as usual, and Wolff, Scanlen, and McKenzie are equally solid while reminding us again of why they have been new talented performers to watch during last several years.

Overall, “Old” is an initially promising but ultimately middling misfire, but it is at least a mild failure compared to “The Last Airbender” (2010) and “After Earth” (2013), which are still the lowest points in Shyamalan’s checkered filmmaking career. I cannot recommend it, but I was not that bored during my viewing, and I sincerely believe that Shyamalan will soon get a chance to rebound from another low point of his as he previously did in “The Visit” (2015).

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Blue Gate Crossing (2002) ☆☆☆(3/4): A little complicated adolescent triangle

Posted on August 19, 2021 by kaist455

Taiwanese film “Blue Gate Crossing”, which happened to be released in South Korean theaters yesterday, is a modest adolescent drama revolving around one little complicated triangle. Although it is a bit too short with some underdeveloped aspects, the movie is still fairly engaging thanks to its good mood and solid performances, and it is certainly interesting to watch considering that it launched the career of one of the most prominent actresses in Taiwan during last two decades.

At first, the movie focuses on the friendship between Lin Yuezhen (Yolin Liang) and Meng Kerou (Gwei Lun-mei), two high school girls who have been quite close to each other. In the opening scene where they happen to have a little private time together, Yuezhen is trying to imagine her future life with a boy she has had a crush on, and Kerou listens to every word from her friend with quiet seriousness, though she does not try to imagine anything about whom she wants to be with in the future.

That boy in question is Zhang Shihao (Chen Bolin), a handsome athlete student in the school where Yuezhen and Kerou have studied. As they look at this hunky boy from time to time, Yuezhen cannot help but thrilled by the possibility of romance with him, and we are not so surprised to learn later that her mind has actually been quite fixated on winning Shihao’s affection for a while. At one point, she shows Kerou a box full of collected stuffs once belonging to Shihao, and she and Kerou come to bond more together as cheerfully sharing that little secret of hers between them.

In the end, Yuezhen asks Kerou to function as a messenger of love between her and Shihao. During one night, they sneak into the school swimming pool where Shihao often practices without permission, and they watch him practicing alone in the pool for a while. Kerou subsequently draws his attention on Yuezhen’s behalf, but then Yuezhen is disappeared in the last minute, and that leads to her rather awkward encounter with Shihao, who actually becomes smitten with Kerou as coming to spend more time with her than expected.

Kerou is not particularly interested in getting involved more with Shihao, but she keeps helping her friend nonetheless, though that results in more complications to her annoyance. Yuezhen later writes a love letter to Shihao, but she uses her friend’s name instead, and, after one embarrassing incident associated with that love letter of hers, everyone in the school regards Shihao and Kerou as a couple.

Because of his growing affection toward Kerou, Shihao does not mind this trouble at all, and he tries to get closer to her, but then it turns out that Kerou has a little secret behind her back. As a matter of fact, she has felt quite attracted to Yuezhen. While not so sure about her sexuality, she is afraid that her hidden feeling toward Yuezhen may destroy their friendship, and, ironically, she finds herself being more with Shihao as he kindly listens to her growing inner conflict.

As leisurely rolling along with its three main characters, director/writer Yee Chin-yen’s screenplay plainly but sensitively depicts the development of their complicated triangle. Just for checking whether she can like other men besides Shihao, Kerou unwisely attempts to seduce her physical education teacher when they happen to come across each other during one evening, and then she has no choice but to stick to Shihao just for saving her face at the school. More attracted to Kerou’s plucky personality, Shihao is willing to try to win her heart, but, of course, he only finds himself getting more frustrated with her ongoing sexual confusion. In case of Yuezhen, she is still waiting for getting Shihao’s attention while being jealous of whatever is going on between him and her best friend, and there is a little poignant moment where she does a sort of private prayer for her wish fulfillment.

Although it does not go that deep into Kerou’s sexual conflict or its consequent effect on her friendship with Yuezhen, the movie does not push its three main characters into contrived melodrama at least, and they simply come to us as innocent kids who still need to learn and grow up more. The ending feels a bit unresolved as mostly focusing on what eventually happens between Kerou and Shihao, but it still works with a bright and hopeful sense of optimism the movie rightfully earns along the story, and we come to hope that things will get better for not only Kerou and Shihao but also Yuezhen.

The movie is supported well by its three good main cast members. While Gwei Lun-mei, who has steadily advanced further since making her debut here in this film, shines with her unadorned star quality, Chen Bolin complements her well during several key scenes of theirs, and Yolin Liang is also effective as another crucial part of the story, though her character is rather underdeveloped in comparison.

While remembered mainly for Gwei’s debut performance, “Blue Gate Crossing” is worthwhile to watch because of several other good reasons including its youthful spirit coupled with palpable summer atmosphere. It is more or less than a time capsule from its era (Gwei’s subsequent queer drama film “Girlfriend Boyfriend” (2012) is relatively more forthright compared to that, by the way), but its plain intimate drama still has some charm and vigor, and I admire that to some degree.

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Misha and the Wolves (2021) ☆☆☆(3/4): A Holocaust story too good to be true

Posted on August 16, 2021 by kaist455

Netflix documentary film “Misha and the Wolves”, which was released in last week, presents a real-life story which is surely stranger than fiction for good reasons. Mainly revolving around an unbelievably dramatic tale from one old woman, the documentary initially draws our attention as examining how much that narrative of hers appealed to everyone around her, and then it catches us off guard as pulling the rug from under us in more than one way, so I sincerely recommend you not to read further if you are already interested in watching the documentary without exposed to any spoiler.

During its early part, the documentary introduces us to several different interviewees who knew a woman named Misha Defonseca in the 1990s. On the surface, she was just an ordinary old Belgian lady living with her husband in a small rural town of Massachusetts, but she later told her close neighbors that she was actually a Holocaust survivor who lost her Jewish parents during the World War II, and her neighbors were quite touched and impressed by her harrowing narrative of survival and resilience. When she subsequently told her story at a meeting held at a local Jewish synagogue, her audiences were utterly captivated by her story, and one of the interviewees in the documentary still vividly remembers that impressive moment.

Defonseca’s story was quite dramatic to say the least. According her, her parents were suddenly arrested and then deported to somewhere along with many other Jewish people shortly after Nazi Germany invaded Belgium in 1940, but young Defonseca was fortunately protected by a Catholic family just like many other local Jewish children during that dark period. Mainly because of the lack of care and affection from that Catholic family, young Defonseca later decided to leave and then search for her parents for herself, and she surely experienced and witnessed many horrors of the war as trying to survive and reunite with her parents, but, when the war was over, her parents turned out to be dead already.

As listening to Defonseca’s story, my mind went back to one of the most acerbic lines from Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s great classic film “All About Eve” (1950): “What a story! Everything but the bloodhounds snappin’ at her rear end.” Well, Defonseca’s story does not have any bloodhound, but, surprise, it has a pack of wild wolves which somehow let her join them shortly after their accidental encounter in the middle of a winter forest. Although they regarded her as a lesser being in the pack, these wild wolves were more reliable than humans to her, and their company gave her more will and strength for surviving whatever would come upon her.

As Defonseca’s unbelievably remarkable story was spread more around the town, her neighbors suggested that her story should be known to more people out there, and one of them, who happened to be a local small-time publisher, was quite willing to publish Defonseca’s memoir. Once it was written, Defonseca’s memoir came to draw lots of attention even before its publication date in US, and everything seemed to be going pretty well for Defonseca and her publisher as her memoir was also introduced to the European market.

However, there came a big legal trouble between Defonseca and her publisher, and her publisher came to have a growing doubt on Defonseca’s story. Especially after finding one glaring discrepancy between her memoir and its French version, Defonseca’s publisher became quite determined to get to the bottom of this increasingly questionable matter, and the documentary accordingly introduces to a couple of persons hired for investigating this matter at that time. One of them was incidentally a Jewish Belgian genealogist who was also a Holocaust survivor, and that person was certainly quite interested in verifying whether Defonseca’s story was really true.

Meanwhile, Defonseca’s story continued to draw more attention outside. Her memoir became a bestseller in many European countries including France, and we see a series of archival footage clips showing her being interviewed on French TV programs. In addition, the memoir was subsequently adapted into a feature film in 2007, and that certainly boosted its popularity among many European readers – until a certain undeniable fact was fully exposed in public not long after that movie was released in France.

Around that point, the documentary takes a couple of unexpected turns later. While I was amazed to some degree during my viewing, I am not that sure about whether that really brings any extra depth to the narrative, though director/writer Sam Hobkinson and his crew members did a slick job of engaging and then surprising us more and more along the narrative. In fact, the overall result feels rather superficial at times as not delving that deep into how easily people can be deceived due to understandable human reasons, and you may be disappointed if you expect any insight and understanding on Defonseca, who later turns out to be a much more distant figure in the documentary than she seems to us at first.

Anyway, “Misha and the Wolves” is a fairly entertaining documentary on the whole, and I recommend it despite having some reservation. Because I read one review on it in advance, I was not surprised as much as intended, but I had a fair share of amusement and disbelief from its inherently compelling real-life story, so I will not grumble for now.

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Midsummer Madness (2020) ☆☆☆(3/4): One summer day of a struggling poet

Posted on August 15, 2021 by kaist455

South Korean independent film “Midsummer Madness” follows one struggling artistic process to observe and reflect on. While its young heroine wanders around here and there for getting any possible inspiration for her, the movie calmly doles out one amusing moment after another along its free-flowing narrative, and these nice moments are further enhanced by several good poems appearing in the film.

The movie is mainly about one hot summer day of a young woman named Hyeong-sil (Kim Ye-eun), who has been quite unhappy about how things have not gone that well in her current life. While not fully recovering from her recent break-up with her boyfriend, she has focused on writing five poems to be submitted to some big poetry contest which may help her career, and she has so far completed four poems, but she still cannot finish the last one. While quite pressured by the approaching deadline, she manages to write the draft at least, but, unfortunately, she does not have any good idea yet on how to polish and compress that further for bringing more artistic qualities, and she only finds herself becoming more bored and frustrated as time keeps going by without any progress for her at all.

In the end, Hyeon-sil resorts to doing something any frustrated writer usually does for solving their artistic slump. She decides to take a walk outside for a while, and, what do you know, she comes to spend a lot more time than expected as encountering a number of people in her life. At first, she comes across a young woman who was close to her male senior, and their conversation later becomes a bit awkward when that young woman reveals that she does not live with him anymore.

After that awkward encounter, Hyeon-sil’s mind cannot help but drifted toward her past relationship with her ex-boyfriend. While the void caused by his absence has been filled by her recently acquired pet dog, her small residence is still strewn with a number of stuffs belonging to him, and Hyeon-sil often finds herself missing him a bit, even though he emphasized to her that they are totally finished with each other now.

And then Hyeon-sil comes across a fellow young poet who was once her best female friend before a little private relationship matter came between them. On the surface, they are totally fine to be around each other now as casually talking with each other, but then their conversation becomes strained as we get to know a bit about what broke up their friendship at that time.

Some time later, Hyeon-sil calls a male of friend of hers who is incidentally an independent filmmaker, and we get one of the most amusing moments in the film as they drink and talk a lot together. Both of them soon get mired in self-pity and pettiness as they drink more and more, and you may chuckle a bit when they ramble about how lousy many independent films are. When Hyeon-sil later comes across the aforementioned male senior, she is willing to listen to him despite being quite drunk, but his empty talk does not help or inspire Hyeon-sil much, and we get another good laugh from that.

In the meantime, the screenplay by Kim Jong-jae, who made several short films before making a feature film debut here, gradually generates its slow but engaging narrative flow under the mundane ambience of hot summer day, and we come to sense more of Hyeon-sil’s artistic process. Along the story, her four completed poems are read one by one, and it is not much of a spoiler to tell you that the movie eventually ends with the completion of her fifth poem, but its effortless delivery of a small but significant sense of artistic achievement is surely something worthwhile to experience for yourself.

These five poems in the film, which were written by Hwang In-chan, feel plain at first, but their poetic quality will probably linger on your mind for a long time as you appreciate whatever is implied between words besides some playfulness to be savored. To be frank with you, I am a sort of dyslexic to poetry, but these poems in the movie somehow resonate with the images of the film in my mind, and I am willing to watch the movie again for appreciating how they are effectively incorporated into the screen.

The movie is also supported well by the charming lead performance by Kim Ye-eun, who previously appeared in a number of notable South Korean films including “Microhabitat” (2017) and “A Resistance” (2019). While deftly capturing the comic aspects of her character’s emotional/artistic confusion, she also imbues her character with considerable life and personality, and we come to cheer for her character more than expected. In case of the other main cast members in the film, Han Hae-in, Shin Gi-hwan, Kwak Min-gyoo, and Oh Gyu-chul are also solid in their respective supporting roles, and the special mention goes to a scene-stealing dog which plays Hyeon-sil’s pet dog.

On the whole, “Midsummer Madness” is a slow but engaging comedy drama about poetry and life, and I enjoyed its laid-back mood and sly sense of humor. This is basically another simple but talky South Korean independent film influenced a lot by the works of Hong Sang-soo, but it has enough substance and personality to distinguish itself, so I recommend you to give this little but solid work a chance someday.

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