The Go-Go’s (2020) ☆☆☆(3/4): When they got the beat

Posted on August 4, 2020 by kaist455

I like good documentaries which illuminate things beyond my current knowledge, and documentary film “The Go-Go’s” is one of such cases. Following the short but impressive history of a famous all-female American punk rock band during the early 1980s, the documentary takes us into that exciting period as listening to its several former members, and it will bring some nostalgia to you if you are familiar with this band and its discography.

At first, the documentary shows and tells us how this band, named “The Go-Go’s”, was formed in California, 1978 and then refined step by step. Around that time, punk rock had been quite popular among many different people in California, and that prompted the four initial members of the Go-Gos to form the band together, though most of them did not have much musical skill or knowledge from the very beginning.

However, it did not take much time for them to distinguish themselves more than expected with considerable potential. Yes, as they all admit in front of the camera, they were really terrible during their first public performances, but you could get away with many inadequacies via those loud and aggressive notes of punk rock music during that time, and they came to improve themselves gradually as practicing and performing more and more.

The major improvement for the band came from the recruitment of three new members. Not long after Charlotte Caffey joined the band as someone to play keyboard and lead guitar, Gina Schock came as a substitute drummer, and her good drumming skill soon became a key factor behind the increasing popularity of the Go-Go’s. In case of Kathy Valentine, she was later hired as a new bassist even though she did not know much about how to play bass guitar, but she also came to function as another key part of the band, and she and the other two new members clicked pretty well with the two original members Belinda Carlisle and Jane Wiedlin.

Through several other interviewees, the documentary explains to us more on the singular presence of the Go-Go’s during that period. While there had already been a number of prominent all-female bands such as The Shangri-Las and the Runaways, the Go-Go’s was the first all-female band which not only wrote their songs but also played their own instruments, and this aspect surely brought considerable novelty to the band. In addition, their songs including “We Got the Beat” were pretty good ones, and the serial success of their songs eventually led to their first major album in 1981.

While being on the road to success, the principal members of the Go-Go’s experienced small and big things to remember. When they happened to go to Britain for their opening performance for the concerts of a popular local band, they were certainly pressured a lot, but they did their job as well as demanded, though they were sometimes verbally threatened by some of more aggressive punk rock fans. When they later came to do the opening performance for the concerts of Sting and his band, Sting courteously congratulated them for their first album being on the top of the Billboard album Charts, and that was surely a high point for everyone in the band (Even at present, the Go-Go’s is the only all-female band which achieved that remarkable record, by the way).

Of course, like many other successful bands, the Go-Go’s subsequently came to face that heavy price of sudden big artistic success. After signing a contract with a major record studio, the band began to enter the realm of pop music for more appeal to millions of potential fans out there, and some of the members understandably were not so pleased about that. When they were about to produce the second album, they were all more pressured and nervous as feeling more strains among them, but they somehow produced a fairly good album at least.

In addition, there were several personal problems. In case of one member, she happened to descend into a serious case of drug addiction, and nobody around her knew about that for a while because she managed to hide her problem well from the other members, who did not help her much because they also abused alcohol and drug from time to time as pushing themselves into more concerts and recording sessions.

In the end, there came a major rift among the members due to a petty argument on who had to be paid more, and the Go-Gos eventually broke up in 1985 shortly after releasing their third album. The mood was quite bad among them during that time, but then they had to perform together more as demanded by their contract, and they all remember well how much they endured as waiting for their upcoming breakup and release.

Although it is a shame that “The Go-Go’s” does not delve much into their next 35 years, director Alison Ellwood did a plain but commendable job of presenting her human subjects with care and respect, and it is certainly touching to see the members of the Go-Go’s gathering together again for their future musical project. I did not know much about their music before watching the documentary, but now I think they do deserve a spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and I am sure you will agree to my opinion after watching the documentary.

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The Way Back (2020) ☆☆☆(3/4): An alcoholic basketball coach with issues

Posted on August 4, 2020 by kaist455

“The Way Back” is a surprisingly low-key mix of two different genres. As a story about one former basketball athlete’s struggle for a new start in his messy life, it surely has a number of basketball game scenes as required, but it stoically stays focused on the ups and downs in its flawed hero’s personal journey instead of relying on expected genre conventions, and it ultimately works as an earnest character study to be appreciated for several good reasons including the strong lead performance at its center.

When we are introduced to Jack Cunningham (Ben Affleck) at the beginning, he has been slowly going down toward the bottom of his alcoholism. While he looks mostly fine on the surface when he works at a construction site or when he attends a Thanksgiving family meeting at his sister’s affluent suburban house, he frequently drinks, and he has usually spent night along with several other barflies in a local bar.

And then there comes an unexpected change via the principle of his old high school where he was once quite promising as a talented basketball player. The principle wants Cunningham to work as the new basketball team coach to replace the former one who had to retire due to a sudden health problem, and Cunningham cannot possibly say no – even while trying to figure out how to reject the request with lots of cold beer during the following night.

His first day of coaching is rather uneventful, but it does not take much time for him to discern each own team player’s strong and weak points, and he soon finds himself doing a lot more than expected for these players. In case of one particular player, Cunningham sees a lot of himself from him, and he naturally comes to give this player more encouragement and guidance.

Above all, it looks like Cunningham finally reaches to a certain point where many other alcoholics come to hit before taking on the road to recovery. At first, he sometimes drinks whenever no one is watching, but he cannot fool his assistant coach Dan (Al Madrigal), and he comes to realize that he must get things in his personal life under control for helping and improving his players. Although this turning point of his may feel a bit too easy and convenient on the surface, Ben Affleck, who has also struggled with alcoholism in real life, brings unadorned gravitas to this moment, and that is why this seemingly modest moment works with considerable dramatic effect.

Once he embarks on the road to sobriety, Cunningham becomes more concentrated on improving his team than before, and his team gradually rises above its rather miserable status thanks to Cunningham’s good coaching skills. While the basketball game scenes in the movie are mostly perfunctory to say the least, the score by Rob Simonsen tentatively suggests the growing hope and optimism as Cunningham and his team advance further and further, and we cannot help but feel anxious around the time when they face a very important game, where, as many of you have already expected, Cunningham delivers a terse but effective speech in front of his players.

In the meantime, we get to know more about Cunningham’s person demons. As he confides to his favourite player at one point later in the story, he made several bad decisions in the past including quitting basketball just because of his spite toward his unloving father, and then he was fortunately helped by his wife Angela (Janina Gavankar), but, alas, the stability and happiness of their domestic life did not last long due to a sad tragedy, which still hurt them a lot as shown from a few key scenes involved with the son of their two close acquaintances.

It is not much of a spoiler to tell you that our problematic hero subsequently finds himself tumbling down from his seemingly stable status, but the movie takes a couple of unexpected steps during that part. After letting down not only himself and others around him as driven by his personal demons again, he surely regrets a lot, but there is an irreversible consequence from his wrongful action, and he has to accept that along with his growing problem with alcohol.

The screenplay by Brad Ingelsby is often a little too predictable, but it is smoothly handled under the competent direction of director Gavin O’Connor, and Affleck, who previously collaborated with O’Connor in “The Accountant” (2016), carries the film well in addition to reminding us that he is still a good actor despite being criticized for his rather pedestrian acting in “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” (2016) and “Justice League” (2017). As shown from his acclaimed performance in “Hollywood” (2006), he is capable of embodying desperation and frustration without showing them off, and he is also supported well by several solid supporting performers including Janina Gavanka and Al Madrigal, who holds his own small place well besides Affleck.

In conclusion, “The Way Back” will not probably surprise you much if you are a seasoned audience like me, but it succeeds as much as intended even while mostly staying in its genre territory, and it is certainly worthwhile to watch for Affleck’s admirable effort. To be frank with you, I really have no idea on his current health status, but I sincerely hope that the movie may help him bounce further from the latest bottom of his life and career.

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The Wild Goose Lake (2019) ☆☆☆(3/4): He’s going nowhere…

Posted on August 4, 2020 by kaist455

Chinese film “The Wild Goose Lake” is a slow but stylish crime drama packed with tangible atmosphere and palpable seedy realism. Although I felt rather distant to its story and characters throughout its 110-minute running time, I also could not help but admire a number of impressive visual moments in the film, and it is certainly another notable work from one of the interesting filmmakers working in China at present

The movie opens with a meeting between two different people at a train station in Wuhan (The original Chinese title of the movie is “Meeting at the South Train Station”, by the way). When Zhou Zenong (Hu Ge) is waiting for someone in front of the concrete station building during one hot and humid summer night, a young woman named Liu Aiai (Gwei Lun-mei) approaches to him for telling him something, though she is not the one for whom he is waiting.

As they talk more with each other, Zhou reminisces about how he happens to be pursued by the police at present. A few days ago, there was a local feud between a small criminal organization led by him and one of many other local gang organizations in Wuhan when they all gathered together for deciding on how to divide their areas among themselves, and that eventually led to a petty showdown between Zhou’s organization and that organization in question, which unfortunately culminated to a gruesome case of beheading.

While he managed to survive despite getting shot by one of his enemies, Zhou inadvertently killed a police officer during his following desperate escape, and he quickly became a wanted man with a considerable amount of bounty put upon him. As a result, he has to evade not only those numerous cops and police officers eager to catch him alive or dead but also many untrustworthy figures in his underworld.

The police search team led by Captain Liu (Liao Fan) has particularly focused on the area surrounding the Wild Goose Lake, where Liu and many other poor women earn their living as ‘bathing beauties’. Under the management of a pimp who is incidentally Zhou’s old friend, Liu and these women often wander around in the lake beaches for attracting their latest clients, and we later see Liu and several other fellow bathing beauties spending some time with their drunken clients on a small motorboat belonging to their pimp.

Although the movie does not emphasize directly to us, the economic hardships in the world of them and many other poor people are evident on the screen, and their seedy environment is often accentuated by the drab texture of concrete buildings, which are usually lighted by colorful neon and fluorescent lights. Thanks to cinematographer Dong Jinsong, who previously collaborated with director/writer Diao Yinan in “Black Coal, Thin Ice” (2014), the movie is constantly filled with visual prowess, and I was especially mesmerized by a calm but increasingly tense sequence which memorably shows a bunch of figures dancing on the ground while wearing fluorescent shoes.

The story slowly becomes bitterly ironic as Zhou comes to reveal the reason why he wants to see a certain person right now. Probably because of his lifelong regret for not having done much for that person, he concocts a plan which will probably benefit that person a lot, but he is still reluctant to follow his plan, even though he is well aware that there is only one way out for him if he does not give himself up to the police.

As its hero becomes more desperate hour by hour, the movie exudes more of that fatalistic mood of film noir while throwing some twists into his complicated situation. While the police search team is still one or two steps behind Zhou, Zhou finds himself more cornered due to some of his criminal associates, and, not so surprisingly, Liu turns out to be not as innocent as she seemed at first. She shows some compassion and kindness to Zhou, and there is a tender moment when she and Zhou happen to spend a night together alone on the lake, but the following moment harshly breaks up our impression on whatever has been developed between them.

In the end, the movie arrives at an inevitable narrative point as expected, and Diao and his crew members deliver a superlative climactic sequence mainly unfolded within a big shabby concrete apartment building. While still sticking to its detached attitude, the movie continues to dazzle us with small and big details observed from here and there in and around the building, and I assure you that you will not forget easily a certain shocking moment involved with an umbrella.

Compared to the icy and stark atmosphere of his previous film “Black Coal, Thin Ice”, “The Wild Goose Lake” is surely an interesting change of direction for Diao, and he succeeds as well as intended while still maintaining his own austere handling of story, mood, and performance. The movie a commendable genre exercise on the whole, and the main cast members of the film including Hu Ge, Gwei Lun-mei, Lio Fan, and Wan Qian seamlessly inhabit its seedy noirish background as filling their archetype roles as much as demanded. Yes, this is your average slow arthouse flick, but you may be satisfied as much as I was – if you keep in mind what and how it is about.

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The Hater (2020) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): A cold, detached character study on online sociopathy

Posted on August 2, 2020 by kaist455

Polish film “The Hater”, which won the Best International Narrative Feature Award at Tribeca Film Festival in this year but then was released on Netlix without much publicity a few days ago, is a cold, detached character study revolving around a sociopath who willingly causes lots of harm and damage inside and outside the Internet as ruthlessly reaching for his ultimate personal goal. While this is certainly not something easy to watch from the very start, the movie gradually holds our attention thanks to its skillful handling of story and characters, and you will come to reflect a lot on the darker sides of social media tools with the growing gut-chilling feeling generated from its disturbing ending.

When we are introduced to Tomasz Giemaza (Maciej Musiałowski) at the beginning of the story, this young law school student is in a serious trouble due to the blatant plagiarism in his homework essay. He tries to persuade his two professors to change their mind, but they remain adamantine in their decision, and they duly notify to him that he will be promptly expelled for his serious academic offense.

When Tomasz subsequently visits his affluent liberal uncle Robert (Jacek Koman) and his wife Zofia (Danuta Stenka) for a dinner, he does not say anything about his current status mainly because he wants to look good enough in front of them and their daughter Gabriela (Vanessa Aleksander). Although Robert and Zofia do not expect much from Tomasz, they have supplied the tuition to him anyway, and it is quite apparent that Tomasz has secretly envied their luxurious lifestyle in addition to being attracted to Gabriela.

As painfully reminded again of the social and economic gap between him and his rich relatives, Tomasz becomes quite determined to take care of his problematic situation as soon as possible. After leaving the school dormitory, he moves to a small apartment, and he also begins to search for a job which may earn him more money than before.

He soon snatches an opportunity via a digital public relations firm run by Beata (Agata Kulesza), a sassy no-nonsense businesswoman who instantly senses that Tomasz has considerable potential which may benefit her company a lot. While her company looks like a plain public relations firm on the surface, it is actually a troll farm packed with many employees ready to hurl anything into the Internet for negative online promotion and campaign, and, as your typical amoral sociopath equipped with quick intelligence, Tomasz surely begins to show more potential day by day after destroying some popular online celebrity once for all with one clever online meme.

Quite satisfied with his good job, Beata hands Tomasz another famous figure to be smeared and destroyed, and that turns out to be a popular liberal politician running for the upcoming election for the mayor of Warsaw. Not so surprisingly, Robert and Zofia have been the devoted supporters of that politician in question, and Tomasz becomes obsessed with ruining that politician – especially after Robert and Zofia decide to distance themselves from Tomasz for not so being honest to them.

His latest job seems to be pretty easy at first, but Tomasz later finds himself in an increasingly tricky circumstance. While he diligently tries to gain the new trust and confidence from Robert and Zofia, he also gets himself indirectly associated with a bunch of right-wing nuts on the Internet, and he particularly focuses on one particular unstable loser who may be manipulated and pushed enough to commit something horrible. If he is not careful, he may lose everything in the worst situation, but he willfully crosses several lines which even his deeply cynical boss does not dare to cross.

Phlegmatically following its increasingly unlikable hero’s toxic quest, the screenplay by Mateusz Pacewicz often examines his twisted human aspects from the distance, and the result is alternatively alienating and fascinating. While we are certainly quite horrified and repulsed by his sheer opportunistic amorality, we cannot help but observe him with more curiosity and fascination mainly because he is so good at his virulent jobs, and the movie thankfully avoids getting too excited about his almost unstoppable advance as bitterly and sharply reminding us of the small and big ramifications of his online actions from time to time.

As the dark center of the movie, Maciej Musiałowski is insidiously intense in his deceptive appearance, and several main cast members of the film function well as his character’s mostly helpless counterpoints. While Vanessa Aleksander, Danuta Stenka, and Jacek Koman are solid as Tomasz’s unsuspecting relatives, Maciej Stuhr and Adam Gradowski are well-cast in their respective crucial supporting parts, and Agata Kulesza, who has been mainly known to us via her acclaimed supporting performance in Oscar-winning film “Ida” (2013), steals the show whenever she appears on the screen.

Overall, “The Hater” is another engaging work from director Jan Komasa, who previously drew our attention for his Oscar-nominated film “Corpus Christi” (2019). Not long after he and his cast and crew members finished the shooting of the film in 2019, Poland was struck by a terrible incident not so far from what is chillingly depicted in the climactic part of the movie, and that surely shows us how close our reality is to what is depicted in the film. We have already been experiencing many dark sides of social media tools during last ten years, but, as implied by the very last shot of the movie, we may be merely going through the prelude for whatever will come next.

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1BR (2019) ☆☆☆(3/4): Trapped in a deadly neighborhood

Posted on August 2, 2020 by kaist455

“1BR” is a little devious horror thriller film which pushes its modest story idea a bit more than I expected. While initially reminiscent of several other similar horror films including Roman Polanski’s “The Tenant” (1976), the movie gives us a series of disturbing moments once its trap is sprung on its unfortunate heroine, and it will certainly make you chilled a lot around the time when it arrives at its logical conclusion.

At the beginning, we are introduced to Sarah (Nicole Brydon Bloom), a young woman who recently moved to LA not long after her dear mother’s death. Her father is sincerely concerned about whether she will be all right while living alone in the city, and she has not planned yet much on what to do next, but she does not care much about her father’s concern mainly because some uncomfortable thing between her and her father.

Sarah wants to be a costume designer, so she is going to apply for some special education program while working as an intern in a local law firm, but she is not particularly eager to do those menial jobs handed from her direct boss everyday. At least, she happens to befriend the other intern working right next to her, and Lisa (Celeste Sully) is willing to be more than a helpful colleague to Sarah.

Meanwhile, Sarah has been searching for any suitable residence for her, and then there comes an unexpected chance. On one day, she encounters an apartment building which happens to have a currently vacant apartment, and she decides to look around that vacant spot just in case. At first, it looks like many other people have already been interested in the apartment, but she decides to try anyway even though her pet cat will not be allowed into the apartment, and, what do you know, she gets a call from the manager guy of the building, who gladly notifies her that she is chosen as the new resident of the apartment.

Shortly after moving into her new place along with her pet cat hidden in a cage, Sarah gets to know her new neighbors, who happen to be about to hold an evening barbecue party on that day. Mainly through Brian (Giles Matthey), a nice lad living at the apartment not so far from Sarah’s, she is formally introduced to several other neighbors besides the manager and his quirky wife, and she quickly befriends Miss Stanhope (Susan Davis), a fragile but spirited old lady who was once a pretty B-movie actress long time ago.

So far, everything looks fine to Sarah on the surface, but the movie slowly dials up the level of anxiety behind the screen. While there is something odd about the bland cheerfulness of her new neighbors, there is also a creepy one-eyed dude who blatantly recommends Sarah a sort of self-help guidebook which clearly emphasizes on the importance of community as reflected by its very title, and Sarah becomes more nervous as she frequently hears strange sounds every night. It looks like the building simply needs to be repaired a bit, but she soon comes to have a frequent sleeping problem due to these strange nocturnal noises, and that makes her daily life a lot more disorganized than before.

Instead of dangling itself among several different possibilities, the movie promptly enters its middle act as quickly revealing to us what is really going on around Sarah. I do not dare to describe that in details for not spoiling your entertainment, but I guess I can tell you that our heroine’s situation suddenly becomes quite more desperate and isolated than before. No matter how much she tries, it seems she will inevitably succumb to the cruel demand forced upon her, and the villains of the story will surely not stop at nothing for achieving their common goal.

As intensely focusing on our heroine’s accumulating ordeal, the screenplay by director/writer/co-editor David Marmor gradually adds more mood and details to its preposterous but undeniably chilling premise, and it accordingly serves us a number of unnerving scenes while firmly sticking to our heroine’s increasingly isolated viewpoint. There is a gruesome moment of physical mutilation which will make you wince more than once, and then there comes a brief but disturbing moment which shows another darker side of the building, which turns out to be pretty much like your average maximum-security prison.

And we begin to wonder about our heroine’s mental status, which seems to be gradually bent and then broken down along her continuing ordeal. Around the last act, she fatefully finds herself on the opposite end of the process she has gone through, but we are not so sure about her mental status despite her completely compliant attitude, and Nicole Brydon Bloom is particularly good when her character must be very discreet in front of a certain figure whom she may care about more than she seems on the surface. In case of the other cast members in the film, Giles Matthey and Taylor Nichols are gently sinister as the main villains of the story, and Susan Davis, Alan Blumenfeld, and Celeste Sully are also effective in their small but crucial supporting roles.

In conclusion, “1BR” is a humble but skillful genre piece, and Marmor, who previously made several short films before making feature film debut here, did a commendable job of holding our attention through good mood and efficient storytelling. To be frank with you, as a guy who moved into a new apartment building a few months ago, I could not help but unnerved during my viewing, and now I wonder whether I really have to be a little more watchful of the neighbors around me.

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Better Days (2019) ☆☆☆1/2 (3.5/4): Her bodyguard

Posted on August 2, 2020 by kaist455

Chinese film “Better Days” is a familiar but compelling mixture of brutal school drama, sensitive coming-of-age tale, and unabashedly old-fashioned romance. Right from the beginning, you can clearly discern what you are going to get, but then you will find yourself caring more about its two very different main characters, and you will be surprised as willingly accepting its overwhelmingly tearful moments, which are accompanied with a moment of public service.

After the prologue scene set in 2015, the movie promptly moves back to when its adolescent heroine, Chen Nian (Zhou Dongyu), was being strictly and relentlessly pushed along with many other schoolmates in her high school toward the upcoming national college entrance examination in 2011. Because this examination will considerably influence the course of the rest of their life in one way or another, everyone constantly feels pressured everyday, and we are not so surprised when one girl suddenly commits suicide on one day.

As everyone else in the school is shocked and amazed by what has just happened right in front of their eyes, Chen does a little act of compassion on the body of her dead schoolmate, and two cops coming to the school for investigating this suicide case are naturally interested in hearing more from her. Although she says she was not particularly close to that unfortunate girl, it is apparent that she knows more than she seems on the surface, and the cops, who try to be tactful with her as much as they can, soon becomes quite frustrated as she refuses to tell them more.

While Chen keeps focusing more on the examination preparation along with her the schoolmates, a hidden truth about her dead schoolmate is gradually revealed to us. Her dead schoolmate is actually the victim of the frequent bullying committed by three mean girls in their class, and Chen and many others in the class knew about that, but none of them tried to stop this soul-crushing cruelty because they did not want any problem on their hard and difficult way toward the examination.

Just because she had an interview with the cops, Chen soon finds herself becoming another target for those three mean girls, but, alas, there is no one to provide her any help or protection. There is one sympathetic boy in the class, but he does not do a lot for her while only showing a little concern and compassion. At her home, her mother is usually absent as searching for any chance to earn money and evading angry debt collectors who knock on the front door from time to time. Not so surprisingly, we later get a devastating moment when this shameful private information of hers is leaked into her high school.

As Chen desperately struggles to focus on her examination preparation despite all these and other torments thrown upon her, there comes an unexpected help. When she is going back to her home as usual during one night, she comes across a young street thug being beaten by a trio of other street thugs, and she and Xiao Bei (Jackson Lee) become associated with each other more than expected after their very unpleasant close encounter. When they come across each other again, he offers protection to her, and he even takes her to his shabby residence, which subsequently becomes a useful shelter for her when she cannot go to her residence due to those three mean girls, who become more malicious after being kicked out of the school due to her eventual testimony to the cops.

It goes without saying that Chen and Xiao become more attracted to each other as spending more time together, and there are several tender and sensitive moments showing their growing mutual affection, but, of course, they are reminded again and again of the harsh reality surrounding them. They are well aware that they will be inevitably separated once Chen passes the examination, but Xiao really wants her to get a better and happier life because she has been like a glimmer of sunshine in his tough and hopeless daily life, and he is quite determined to sacrifice himself as a lad who has nothing to lose.

As the screenplay by Lam Wing Sum, Lin Yuan, Xu Yimeng, and Nan Chen, which is adapted from Jiu Yuexi’s young adult novel “In His Youth, In Her Beauty”, enters the last act which revolves around the examination and one very serious criminal case, the movie accordingly becomes very melodramatic, but it is held well together by director Derek Tsang’s competent direction and the powerful performances from his two lead performers. Zhou Dongyu, who previously collaborated with Tsang in “SoulMate” (2016), is absolutely spellbinding with her expressive face which fluidly conveys many different emotional states barely hidden behind its seemingly docile façade, and you will be all the more amazed to learn that this wonderful performer, who will probably be regarded as the next great Chinese movie actress after Gong Li and Zhang Ziyi, is actually 28 at present. On the opposite, Jackson Lee, who is in fact 20 at present, is also terrific as earnestly complementing his co-star, and his effortless chemistry with Zhou on the screen is more than enough to compensate for a few glaring weak elements in the film including its overlong ending, which is accompanied with a rather heavy-handed delivery of public message on bullying in schools.

Overall, “Better Days” is often tough to watch for good reasons, but it is a well-made work driven by two strong performances to be appreciated. Sure, this is indeed your average melodramatic stuff, but its story is presented well with considerable care and sensitivity like any other good melodrama, and I will not deny that I was touched a lot as watching its very last shot.

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Young Ahmed (2019) ☆☆1/2 (2.5/4): A young fanatic

Posted on August 1, 2020 by kaist455

The Dardenne brothers’ latest film “Young Ahmed”, which won the Best Director award when it was shown at the Cannes Film Festival early in last year, gives us a phlegmatic observation of a young adolescent boy who happens to be driven by virulent religious extremism. Although the movie adamantly sticks to its detached objective viewpoint throughout its short running time (84 minutes), the movie is often fascinating as making us wondering about what makes him tick, and it is a shame that the story later comes to arrive at a rather contrived finale.

In the beginning, the film observes how much the daily life of Ahmed (Idir Ben Addi) has been consumed by his fanatical religious belief. Since he became associated with a local imam in his urban neighborhood along with his older brother some time ago, he has often blatantly emphasized a distorted version of Islamic faith imparted by that local imam, and this certainly disturbs and frustrates not only his mother but also his school teacher, who really cares about Ahmed but is often disregarded by him just because she is a Muslim woman dating an infidel.

The movie does not give much explanation on how and why Ahmed was turned into a little zealous fanatic, but a key scene showing his domestic life with his family members implies to us that he was quite angry, unhappy, and insecure after his mother was divorced from his Arab father. To him, the local imam, who is your typical banal Islamic fundamentalist, is probably an alternative father figure to look upon, and their private scene shows us how much Ahmed is devoted to every word uttered by his religious mentor, who openly talks about Jihad and also encourages his young disciple to follow the footsteps of a cousin who died as a member of some terrorist organization.

And we gradually begin to sense a growing trouble as the local imam deliberately fuels Ahmed’s hostility toward his teacher, who has tried to teach Arabian and Qur’an in secular ways of which they do not approve at all. Along with his older brother, Ahmed just tries to sabotage her efforts during the meeting with her students’ Muslim parents, but then he somehow comes to decide that he should do something more drastic for stopping her once for all. While the movie still maintains its low-key tone even at this point, the tension is slowly increased as the camera patiently follows Ahmed, and that eventually culminates to a very disturbing moment which inevitably throws him into the next stage of the story.

For what he committed, Ahmed is subsequently sent to a facility for juvenile delinquents, and he follows whatever is instructed to him without much resistance because he is allowed to have his rights of religion. While he still does not seem to realize the ramifications of his wrongful action, he keeps sticking to his religion as before, and he is not particularly interested in meeting his teacher again for any possible reconciliation.

Ahmed is later sent to a farm where he has to work during daytime, and that is how he comes across a young adolescent girl around his age, who is the daughter of a couple running that farm. At first, he is not that comfortable with handling animals due to his religious belief, but it does not take much time for him to get accustomed to that, and it is quite apparent to us that the girl becomes more interested in him as spending more time with him.

However, it is soon revealed that Ahmed has a hidden motive behind his back. He looks like trying to be a model inmate ready to be released, and he even shows the eagerness for meeting his teacher again, but he has actually been preparing for what must be accomplished in his fanatical viewpoint. Around the time when the time seems to come for him, the tension below the screen is palpable to say the least, and you may find yourself dreading for what may happen next due to this dangerously willful kid.

Even around that narrative point, Ahmed remains to be a sort of cypher to us, but young performer Idir Ben Addi, who had no acting experience before being selected via the audition held by the Dardenne brothers, keeps holding our attention with his restrained natural performance. I must say that his character is not so sympathetic compared to many of memorable heroes and heroines of the Dardenne brothers’ previous films, but he did a good job of drawing our curiosity and concern while never stepping back from his character’s constantly blank attitude, and he is also supported well by several other main cast performers including Claire Bodson, Victoria Bluck, Othmane Moumen, and Myriem Akheddiou, who is particularly striking during a brief key moment between her character and Ahmed later in the film.

Because of all these and other good elements in the film, I was very dissatisfied with its last act which resolves the main conflict of the story too easily in my inconsequential opinion. While watching Ahmed driven to another drastic measure during this part, I became more concerned about him, but I also could not help but reminded of one of the famous lines from “Citizen Kane” (1941): “If it was anybody else, I’d say what’s going to happen to you would be a lesson to you. Only you’re going to need more than one lesson. And you’re going to get more than one lesson.”

On the whole, “Young Ahmed” fails to reach the level of the best works of the Dardenne brothers such as “The Son” (2002) and “Two Days, One Night” (2014), but it is not entirely without engaging qualities at least. Although they stumble a bit too much here in this film, it still occasionally demonstrates why they are two of the most humane filmmakers in our time, and I sincerely hope they will bounce back in the next time.

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Steel Rain 2: Summit (2020) ☆☆(2/4): A jumbled South Korean geopolitical thriller

Posted on July 30, 2020 by kaist455

South Korean film “Steel Rain 2: Summit”, which is a sort of retread instead of being a direct sequel to “Steel Rain” (2017), a jumbled geopolitical thriller which tries too many things at once. While it strives to maintain its attitude straight as required, it also tries not only broad satire and blatant melodrama but also obligatory geopolitical lecture on that complicated relationships among US, Japan, China, and South and North Korea, and I found it too messy and incoherent in addition to being bothered by its simple-minded nationalistic viewpoint which is not so different from that of its predecessor.

Jung Woo-sung, who previously played a strong-willed North Korean hero in “Steel Rain”, plays South Korean President Han Kyeong-Jae, and the first act of the movie mainly focuses on how President Han has tried hard for a successful peace treaty between North Korea and US during last several years. When the US government led by President Smoot (Angus MacFadyen) refuses to step back a bit for the peace treaty, President Han has no choice but to accept what President Smoot demands, but then he is warned in private about the potential trouble from that political choice by the Chinese ambassador in South Korea.

As shown from the prologue scene set somewhere in the middle of the East China Sea, things turn out to be quite more complicated than it seems on the surface. President Han is reported about a shady financial backdoor dealing between one prominent right-wing figure in Japan and a suspicious Chinese businessman, but he and his ministers still cannot discern what is exactly going on, though they all sense that something may happen around the time of the upcoming summit between President Smoot and the chairman of North Korea.

When President Smoot and President Han arrive in Wonsan, North Korea, everything looks fine and well on the surface, but President Han soon finds himself in a tricky situation as sandwiched between President Smoot and the chairman of North Korea. President Smoot shows nothing but contempt and arrogance in front of his opponent, and the chairman of North Korea, played by Yoo Yeon-seok, is certainly not amused by Smoot’s boorish attitude. Although he is technically more or less than a moderator without much power, President Han tries to facilitate the progress of the summit as much as he can, but he only comes to reach to the dead end while the other two figures keep refusing to step back at all.

And then they are all suddenly thrown into a very dangerous circumstance. The Supreme Guard Command Chief of North Korea, played by Kwak Do-won (He previously played a South Korean government official helping Jung’s character in “Steel Rain”, by the way), attempts a coup d’état mainly because he has opposed to the peace treaty, and he and his soldiers quickly surround President Han and President Smooth as well as the chairman of North Korea.

Along with President Han and the chairman of North Korea, President Han is swiftly taken to a North Korean nuclear submarine ready to launch a nuclear missile at any point, and the movie accordingly enters the territory of “The Hunt for Red October” (1990) and “Crimson Tide” (1995) as the submarine sails to a certain spot in the East Sea of the Korean Peninsula. In front of his three very important hostages, the Supreme Guard Command Chief of North Korea has your average talkative villain scene, and, thanks to that, everyone in the submarine comes to realize how serious the situation really is for not only North and South Korea but also the surrounding countries.

Now you will probably roll your eyes on the sheer preposterousness of the plot, but then the screenplay by director/writer Yang woo-seok goes further with more unlikely elements. Besides the busy political intrigues around US, China, and Japan, there is a very big typhoon coming to the East Sea of the Korean Peninsula, and then there are also a series of loud and frustrating arguments among President Han, President Smoot, and the chairman of North Korea, who are now stuck together in a stuffy cabin without any progress. Again, President Han tries to get things under control, and that leads to several tedious moments as he lectures a lot on the geopolitical situation surrounding South and North Korea in front of two other guys.

During the last act, the movie throws several tense action scenes unfolded inside and outside the submarine as expected, but it still suffers from its weak storytelling and thin characterization, and the main cast members only come to fill their respective spots without anything else to do. While Jung and Kwak are engaging performers who ably carried the previous film together, both of them are again limited by their colorless characters, though Kwak seems to enjoy chewing his big moments as much as he can. In case of the other notable main cast members in the film, Yoo Yeon-seok manages to hold his own place well between Kwak and Jung, and Angus MacFadyen shamelessly goes all the way for overacting because, well, that goes with the territory if you play a character who is clearly based on that orange-faced prick occupying the White House at present.

Although it is not a total disaster like that atrocious nationalistic junk called “Hanbando” (2006), “Steel Rain 2: Summit” is one or two steps below its predecessor in terms of skill and entertainment. Yes, I did not like “Steel Rain” enough, but it was entertaining at least during its first half, and it is a bit of shame that its follow-up fails to reach to the standard set by its predecessor without anything particularly new or fresh.

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Water Lilies (2007) ☆☆☆(3/4): A tomboy’s first crush

Posted on July 30, 2020 by kaist455

Céline Sciamma’s first feature film “Water Lilies”, which is going to be released belatedly in South Korean theaters in next month, is a detached but compelling coming-of-age tale of sexuality and maturation. Mainly revolving around the viewpoint of its young adolescent heroine, the movie often vividly captures her churning state of mind under the calm surface, and that leads to several strong emotional moments alternatively amusing and painful.

When we are introduced to Marie (Paulie Acquart) at the beginning of the film, this teenage tomboy girl is watching a local school swimming competition, in which her close friend Anne (Louise Blachère) eagerly participates even though many other girls apparently look younger or prettier in comparison. As a matter of fact, we do not see how much Anne tries in the swimming pool, but she is happy and excited anyway as being about to demonstrate her swimming skill in front of many others including Marie.

However, Marie’s attention happens to be drawn to Floriane (Adèle Haenel), the captain of the local synchronized swimming team. Once Floriane and other team members enter the swimming pool, they give one hell of show to their audiences as a piece of classic music is loudly played in the background, and their every impeccable movement certainly mesmerizes Marie, who intensely looks at Floriane at the center of the show from the beginning to the end.

Marie subsequently decides to join any local swimming team for looking closer at Floriane, but, alas, she cannot do that right now due to the regulations, so she comes to choose an alternative. She approaches to Floriane on one day, and she asks Floriane whether she can hang around Floriane during her training sessions. Floriane initially does not seem to be not interested much even though Marie shows willingness to do anything in exchange for that, but she eventually agrees to have Marie around her during her training sessions.

What follows next is a series of voyeuristic moments mainly fueled by Marie’s growing sexuality. At first, she simply watches Floriane and her other team members from the distance, but then, as suggested by Floriane later, she comes to look at them in water for closer observation, and she certainly becomes more fascinated with Floriane as watching more of how Floriane and other team members look graceful on the surface while strenuously moving every part of their bodies in the water. As the movie steadily maintains its dry tone, cinematographer Crystel Fournier’s camera palpably conveys to us what strongly attracts Marie, and we accordingly become more empathized with her emotional status.

Often emphasizing the sensual aspects of Floriane and her other team members’ physical appearance in the pool, the movie naturally feels uncomfortable from time to time, but Sciamma aptly reverses usual conventions as presenting Floriane as a girl fully aware of her sexual allure to girls and boys around her. While sometimes tantalizing Marie in deliberate ways, she is mostly occupied with developing a relationship with some handsome boy in the male swimming team, and it goes without saying that Marie feels angry and agonized whenever Floriane cruelly flaunts her relationship with that boy in front of Marie.

Meanwhile, things get more complicated as Anne unwittingly become involved in this tricky circumstance. After a rather unpleasant incident between her and the aforementioned boy, Anne begins to pursue him actively, but, of course, he does not give a damn about her at all, and this subsequently affects her relationship with Marie, who becomes more distant from her friend as coming to spend more time with Floriane.

Needless to say, Floriane is the de facto femme fatale in the story, but, not so surprisingly, she eventually turns out to be as clueless as the other main characters in the story. Later in the story, she confesses to Marie on how much she is actually inexperienced in case of sex, and that seems to solidify their ambiguous relationship a bit, but, what do you know, Floriane keeps letting down Marie even after Marie does some favor to her. Although several certain key scenes in the film may unnerve you a bit for good reasons, they are presented with considerable restraint and sensitivity, and I assure you that they look rather earnest with emotional nakedness instead of looking erotic or exploitative.

Sciamma draws the solid performances from her three young female performers. While Pauline Acquart steadily holds the ground with her unadorned acting, Adèle Haenel, who would collaborate with Sciamma again in “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” (2019), shines as swinging back and forth between her attractive character’s contradicting sides, and Louise Blachère is equally terrific as another crucial part of the story.

Overall, “Water Lilies” may look modest compared to Sciamma’s subsequent achievements, but it is worthwhile to watch because it clearly shows artistic potentials to be fully blossomed during next 13 years. For me and many other South Korean audiences, it was really nice to see “Portrait of a Lady on Fire”, “Tomboy” (2011), and then “Water Lilies” on big screen during the this year, and now I am hoping that “Girlhood” (2014), which has not been released in South Korea yet unlike Sciamma’s other works, will be shown here in South Korea as soon as possible.

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Steel Rain (2017) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): A race against another Korean war

Posted on July 29, 2020 by kaist455

South Korean film “Steel Rain”, which I somehow missed when it was released in South Korean theaters around the end of 2017, is so fast, efficient, and urgent during its first half that it let me down during its middling second half. While it is not entirely without fun and entertainment, the movie could be more effective if it got rid of a number of unnecessary elements, and I also have some reservation on the nationalistic side of the finale.

At the beginning, we are introduced to Eom Cheol-woo (Jung Woo-sung), a former North Korean Reconnaissance agent who has lived a shabby daily life with his family since being discharged from his military service some time ago. On one day, he is approached by his former commander, and this dude orders Eom to carry out a secret mission which seems absolutely necessary for preventing the possible coup d’état to overthrow the current North Korean government. All Eom has to do is eliminating two certain high-ranking North Korean generals, and we soon see him accomplishing the half of his covert mission.

However, of course, it subsequently turns out to Eom that he should not trust anyone. For accomplishing the other half of the mission, he sneaks into an industry complex near the border between South Korean and North Korea, and then he waits for his target to appear along with several high-ranking officials, but then, what do you know, the target does not come while the chief of the North Korean government arrives instead.

While Eom tries to figure out what the hell is going on around him, it looks like the situation has already gone way over his head. A bunch of North Korean special agents cross the border via an underground tunnel, and then their following actions lead to the sudden attack on that industry complex. While Eom manages to survive, many people around him died or are seriously injured, and then there come a bunch of North Korean soldiers, who ruthlessly start to kill any survivor around them.

Fortunately, the chief of the North Korean government, who is simply called “No.1” without being directly shown to us, is still alive, but he is seriously injured, and Eom and two factory workers manage to get their leader out of the scene while evading the pursuit of their opponents. Because they certainly cannot go north under their situation, they have no chance but to go south, and they soon find themselves entering South Korea after luckily going through the checkpoint along with Chinese officials fleeing from the scene.

Meanwhile, the movie gives us a wider viewpoint via Kwak Cheol-woo (Kwak Do-won), who is the Chief of Foreign Affairs and Security in the South Korean government. Everyone around him including the South Korean president has been more relaxed than before as entering the transition period before the inauguration of the next president, but then there comes the news on the sudden attack on that industry complex, and the president subsequently finds himself pressured a lot by the US government, which forcefully demands an immediate response within 36 hours.

As trying to get things under control along with others, Kwak comes to learn of an incident which happened near the border not long after the attack on the industrial complex. Thanks to his lucky hunch involved with his divorced wife, it does not take much time for Kwak to encounter Eom and then discern Eom’s desperate status, and it looks like Kwan and the South Korean government now have something which will abort the increasingly perilous circumstance surrounding not only South and North Korea but also US, China, and Japan.

As our two different heroes try to prevent another war in Korean peninsula, the movie keeps maintaining the level of tension via several plot turns popping here and there along its narrative. While the South Korean president and his cabinet members are far more pressured as being sandwiched between US and China, more North Korean secret agents come down to South Korea, and our two guys come to work with each other more than expected. As going through a series of dangerous moments including one tense action sequence unfolded within a hospital building, they surely come to find something common between them, and there is a little humorous scene where they happen to have a little moment of peace at a small restaurant.

However, the screenplay by director Yang Woo-seok and his co-writer Jeong Ha-yong puts too much emphasis on the mandatory melodramatic male bonding between its two characters, and that often inhibits its plot progress in distracting ways. Although Jung Woo-sung and Kwan Do-won are engaging actors, they are often limited by their rather flat archetype roles, and the same thing can be said about the other notable cast members in the film including Kim Kap-soo, Lee Kyung-young, and Kim Eui-sung.

On the whole, “Steel Rain” is a competent action thriller flick at least during its first half, but then it comes to lose most of its narrative momentum due to several reasons including its artificial ending where everything is resolved too quickly and conveniently within around 10 minutes. I must tell you that its simple-minded view on the ongoing conflict between South and North Korea, which is blatantly expressed in several scenes including the very last one, bothered me at times during my viewing, but I will not stop you if you just want to be entertained without much reflection on your mind.

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