My prediction on the 83rd Annual Academy Awards

Posted on February 20, 2011 by kaist455

  Now the Academy awards ceremony is near again. Many people have made their predictions on the results that will be revealed on the next Sunday, February 27, and, as usual, they agrees on some categories while disagreeing on others. Although I did not watch all of the nominees, I saw all of the major contenders, so here is my prediction on the 83rd Annual Academy award.

 Don’t bet on me, by the way. After getting slapped by “Crash” in 2006(Am I only one who thinks it deserves Best Picture award besides Roger Ebert?), I checked every nominee and possibility as far as I could, but, like many of you, I have never guessed the result correctly yet. As a matter of fact, I submitted my prediction to Roger Ebert’s site, but I do not expect much – it was just for a fun, folks.

Best Motion Picture of the Year

127 Hours (2010): Christian Colson, Danny Boyle, John Smithson

Black Swan (2010): Mike Medavoy, Brian Oliver, Scott Franklin

The Fighter (2010): David Hoberman, Todd Lieberman, Mark Wahlberg

Inception (2010): Christopher Nolan, Emma Thomas

The Kids Are All Right (2010): Gary Gilbert, Jeffrey Levy-Hinte, Celine Rattray

The King’s Speech (2010): Iain Canning, Emile Sherman, Gareth Unwin

The Social network (2010): Scott Rudin, Dana Brunetti, Michael De Luca, Ceán Chaffin

Toy Story 3 (2010): Darla K. Anderson

True Grit (2010): Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, Scott Rudin

Winter’s Bone (2010): Anne Rosellini, Alix Madigan

 Let’s erase five nominees that did not get Best Director nomination: “127 Hours”, “Inception”, “The Kids Are All Right”, “Toy Story 3”, and “Winter’s Bone”. “The Fighter” has little chance for it is supporting actors’ movie. “Black Swan” will get Best Actress award as its sole reward. “True Grit” scored 10 nominations, but it is not nominated for Best Editing – not a good sign for its chance to win.

 So we have “The King’s Speech” and “The Social Network”. The latter is certainly the best film of 2010. Its electrifying drama fascinates us with how our society is being changed due to the human relationships adapted into the electronic communication network by the nerds like Mark Zuckerberg, who, ironically, does not understand much about the human relationships(Never mind about how real-life Zuckerberg is different from the movie’s version). Will this rapid change be good or bad for us? I am not sure, and neither are the writer Aaron Sorkin and the director David Fincher. At least, I know the Internet can make lots of difference in our world nowadays than before – as shown in Egypt.

 But I think Best Picture award will go to “The King’s Speech”. With the story about one historic figure who overcomes his disability with the help from others, you can say that this period drama is made for Academy Awards. And it is a very powerful movie that seems to touch many people’s heart in Hollywood; it won SAG, PGA, DGA. With this result, there is a little chance for upset by “The Social Network”.

Prediction : The King’s Speech

Preference : The Social Network

 

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role

Javier Bardem for Biutiful (2010)

Jeff Bridges for True Grit (2010)

Jesse Eisenberg for The Social Network (2010)

Colin Firth for The King’s Speech (2010)

James Franco for 127 Hours (2010)

 Considering the performances themselves, this is a heavy competition. I have not seen “Bitiful” yet, but many agree that it has Bardem’s best performance – but it is clear that his nomination itself is the reward. Bridges has won the award in last year, so he also does not have much possibility. Both Eisenberg and Franco give terrific performances, but the time has come for Colin Firth, who gives a very moving performance as King George Ⅵ in “The King’s Speech”.

Prediction : Colin Firth

Preference : Colin Firth

 

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role

Annette Bening for The Kids Are All Right (2010)

Nicole Kidman for Rabbit Hole (2010)

Jennifer Lawrence for Winter’s Bone (2010)

Natalie Portman for Black Swan (2010)

Michelle Williams for Blue Valentine (2010)

 This is another heavy competition – all actresses are very good in their respective movies. First, Kidman and Williams will be content with their nominations, and so does Lawrence. Maybe some voters think it is time to give Bening the award, but, Portman is overwhelmingly favored at present for her dynamic performance in “Black Swan”. And she has already won Golden Globe, SAG, BAFTA, and many critics award. If she beats Bening at the Independent Spirit Awards on next Saturday, there will be no more questions about her win.

Prediction : Natalie Portman

Preference : Natalie Portman

 

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role

Christian Bale for The Fighter (2010)

John Hawkes for Winter’s Bone (2010)

Jeremy Renner for The Town (2010)

Mark Ruffalo for The Kids Are All Right (2010)

Geoffrey Rush for The King’s Speech (2010)

 With SAG and Golden Globe awards, I think Bale will win an award. As a character the movie should have focused on instead of its bland hero, he was fantastic. It is possible that Rush, who recently won BAFTA award for his witty performance, will make an upset due to the popularity of “The King’s Speech”. The other three nominees – Hawkes, Renner, and Ruffalo – will take a backseat. I’d like to see Hawkes to win for his nuanced performance as a criminal uncle capable of showing ruthlessness as well as compassion to his desperate niece in “Winter’s Bone”.

Prediction : Christian Bale

Preference : John Hawkes

 

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role

Amy Adams for The Fighter (2010)

Helena Bonham Carter for The King’s Speech (2010)

Melissa Leo for The Fighter (2010)

Hailee Steinfeld for True Grit (2010)

Jacki Weaver for Animal Kingdom (2010)

 Like many times before, this category is quite unpredictable. It seems that Leo is the front runner with Golden Globe and SAG wins, but Steinfield is a strong competitor with her exceptional performance. Adams and Weaver have almost no chance in this race, and, in case of Carter, she might win the award considering her recent BAFTA win. I have stuck with Steinfeld since I watched “True Grit” – but I also want to recognize the chilling performance by Weaver, who plays a ruthless, manipulative matriarch in “Animal Kingdom”

Prediction : Melissa Leo

Preference : Hailee Steinfeld – or Jackie Weaver

 

Best Achievement in Directing

Darren Aronofsky for Black Swan (2010)

Ethan Coen, Joel Coen for True Grit (2010)

David Fincher for The Social Network (2010)

Tom Hooper for The King’s Speech (2010)

David O. Russell for The Fighter (2010)

 There is lots of chance that Hooper, who won DGA award, will win the award, but I will stick with Fincher, who made one of the best movies in his career. I am sure Academy members will recognize his achievement… about 55%.

Prediction : David Fincher

Preference : David Fincher

  Continue reading →

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127 Hours (2010) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4) : A vibrant movie between a rock and a hard place

Posted on February 19, 2011 by kaist455

 Striding freely for new risky adventures in the wilderness is, I guess, liberating to some people like Aron Ralston. They are willing to dash into their goals while appreciating the vast beauty of nature surrounding them, and, in the end, they earn the sense of accomplishment – if they are lucky. Most of them clearly know of the dangers inherent in their activities, but the nature is a merciless opponent. Even though they are careful and confident, accidents happen to everyone randomly and equally, and we hear about their unfortunate incidents from time to time.

 The same thing can be said about Ralston, an experienced mountain climber who went alone into one canyon in the Canyonlands National Park, Utah in April 2003. At one point, he thought he could climb down easily along the walls of canyon, so he began the descent, and then, oops, he happened to dislodge a boulder wedged between the walls. He fell to near the bottom, but he was all right – except that his right hand was wedged between the boulder and the canyon. No one could help him for he did not notify others about where he had gone and he did not have a cell phone. When you are alone in the wilderness, nobody, except wild animals, can hear you shout in most cases.

 Unlike Danny Boyle’s previous movie “Slumdog Millionaire”, which briskly runs amid many various aspects of India with its hero, his new movie “127 Hours” is about a man who cannot move from the place where he is stuck – and how he is led to make a certain tough choice in this grim reality. It is definitely not something you can watch comfortably, but Boyle tackles this challenging subject in an exceptional way, and it is a visually and emotionally gripping work as a result. The movie shows from the beginning that it is based on the book “Between a Rock and a Hard Place” written by Ralston himself, so you know what will eventually happen in the end even if you have not heard about his story, but the movie is a compelling experience nonetheless; it is about the situation rather than the plot. 

 After the lively prologue sequence involving Ralston’s brief encounter with two girls, their fun time in the underground pool, and the following accident, the film closely observes on how Ralston, played by James Franco, deals with his trouble. He desperately tries to move the boulder at first, but it becomes clear to him that he cannot move it for himself. He assesses his limited resources including a bottle of water, a digital video camera, ropes, and a multipurpose tool with a relatively dull knife, and he tries to solve his problems with them. One fortunate thing for him is that he can manage to rest or sleep. It could have been far worse if the boulder had him dangled above the bottom of the canyon.

 No matter how much Ralston tries, his chance for survival gets decreased second by second. He is still stuck at the bottom of the canyon while facing the dangers including dehydration and hypothermia. He manages to deal with these problems for a while, but it becomes harder and harder for him to maintain the situation as the time goes by. He has accepted that no one can come to rescue him before it is too late, so one drastic solution to his matter begins to emerge in his mind. Surely it is so risky that he hesitates that at first, but it is the matter of a choice between a torturously long waiting for his death and an excruciatingly painful trial with lots of, and lots of, fatal possibilities. After all, it goes without saying that his right hand cannot be saved even at the best condition, so….

 With its trapped hero, the movie reminds me of Rodrigo Cortés’ “Buried”(2010), another movie about similar premise. It was a very interesting experience for me to watch two movies during a short period. Both have the premise that seems to be not so compelling enough to make into a feature movie, but both achieve their respective goals admiringly in their own ways. And they remind us how it will be terrifying for us to be alone and helpless while stuck with the possibility of imminent death.

 The difference is, in contrast to that insidiously immovable dark power of “Buried”, “127 Hours” is brimming with its vibrant kinetic energy while recognizing denial, anger, frustration, and acceptance in its hopeless state. Boyle and his crews do their best to make their movie, shall I say, a very watchable one, and they really have done it. Thanks to the vividly impressive cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle and Enrique Chediak and skillful editing by Jon Harris, the movie stays very closely with Ralston, his mind, and his circumstances. With lots of time in the trapped state, Ralston’s perception on the surroundings becomes keener – he notices a raven flying over the sky every day at exactly the same time in the morning. His mind goes freely into the memories with his family and friends. He also experiences some hallucinations coupled with the introspection about his life. The movie always makes us conscious of his physical state; the landscape still looks beautiful, he is still trapped in the canyon, and he still has to make a hard choice sooner or later.

 There have been lots of talks about that mutilation sequence in the climax which shocked some audiences a lot during the screenings. I have to admit that it was hard for me to watch this sequence on the screen, but it is shown with skills while supported by our empathy built on its hero. James Franco recently got an Oscar nomination for this movie, and he deserves that for carrying the movie for himself during most of its running time. With the camera always near him, Franco does a credible job of presenting to us an ordinary young man who is capable of making such a hard choice to survive. Ralston does not lose his sense of humor as well as his will in his dire circumstances, and Franco shows some of his comic talent in one funny scene(but it’s not so funny if you are in his shoes, by the way).

 We see blood and some gory details with considerable medical accuracy in the climax sequence. The film effectively conveys to us how excruciating it was to Ralston with the suggestions created by the clever mix of sound effects, editing and cinematography. Driven by the aggressively dynamic score by A.R. Rahman, this sequence crackles with the barely bearable intensity that makes torture porn movies like “Saw” and its sequels ridiculous. While the bodies are mutilated as some sort of a twisted entertainment with no emotional connection from us in those movies, we have a believable and vulnerable human being we care about, and that is why this sequence is more striking, more painful and, I dare to say, more cathartic to us. As a biology major, I recognized that thin white sensitive tissue on the screen and winced even before the sound effect came in because I knew well about how it would be penetratingly painful for Ralston. He was quite lucky considering that he could have died for blood loss even with his makeshift tourniquet.

 In spite of grim situation and following grueling climax, “127 Hours” is ultimately an optimistic movie whose spirit is kicking and spinning in its stuffy space as much as Ralston. It reminds me that people are capable of doing anything at the right time and at the right place – that always both amuses and horrifies me. After surviving from his ordeal and giving a farewell to his right arm, Ralston is still active with his mountain climbing and canyoneering. Of course, the lesson that cost his right arm is not something easy to forget; he always leaves a note saying where he has gone.

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True Grit (2010) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4) : After all, it’s her story

Posted on February 12, 2011 by kaist455

 How unpredictable the Coen brothers are – I have been always amused by their unpredictability in their career. When we became a little bit disappointed with playfully heartless puppet plays in their lesser movies for a while, they suddenly ambushed us with the greatness as shown in “Fargo” or “No Country for Old Men”. After getting three Oscars including Best Picture award for the latter, they immediately went to having a little cold fun with “Burn After Reading”, and then they stroke us again with “A Serious Man”, a sublime black comedy whose neurotic hero is punched repeatedly by the chaos in the life while he is desperately looking for an answer or an order in it. No matter what kind of film they make, the Coen brothers make it because they want to do it – and because they can do it. As they said, they are just same as when they made movies together at their home in adolescent years.

 That was why I was both surprised and not so surprised when I heard about the Coen brothers’ next project after “A Serious Man”: The remake of 1969 movie “True Grit”. Based on Charles Portis’ novel with the same name, the 1969 version is not a great movie, but it is still an enjoyable classic western film with an Oscar-winning performance by John Wayne. It is debatable whether that win was more for honoring his great career than for his performance, but it is, if not the best, one of his great performances, and that is one of the main reasons that make the movie still work at present.

 The most interesting thing about the Coen brother’s version is that, they made a surprisingly straightforward western film with little twists. Although they make some diversions from the original plot in the middle, this version is more faithful to Portis’ novel than the 1969 version, and it is actually an improved version in many aspects. As a matter of fact, Portis’s novel(Pardon my ignorance, I was really surprised to know that it was actually written in the 1960s) has a dry sense of humor along with its attitude as no-nonsense as its heroine, and it fits well with the Coen brothers’ style as much as Cormac MacCarthy’s “No Country for Old Men”.

 The main accomplishment of the movie is that reminding us that, after all, the story belongs to Mattie Ross. Now a middle-aged spinster, Mattie tells us about how her hard journey in the past began through her opening narration. When she was a 14-year-old girl living with her family in their farm in Arkansas, her father went to Fort Smith for his business matter with one of his temporary employees Tom Chaney(Josh Brolin), who killed him when Mattie’s father tried to solve the dispute between Chaney and others over a card came at the bar. Chaney ran away from the town with her father’s gold pieces and horse, but none of the law enforcement officials in the town particularly cares about that because they already have lots of outlaws to deal with besides this petty criminal.

 Instead of her fragile mom, Mattie, played by Hailee Steinfeld, comes to Fort Smith to sort out the family business. She is young and small, but she has worked as a bookkeeper for her father, and she has a shrewd business mind as well as indomitable determination based on her strong religious faith. She firmly takes care of her business matter with the horse merchant who makes a serious mistake of underestimating her from her appearance. Also, for immediately bringing justice to Chaney, she chooses to hire a Deputy US marshal known as the most ruthless one among her options – Rooster Cogburn(Jeff Bridges). When we and she sees him for the first time, he is testifying at the witness stand during the trial for the latest criminal apprehended by him. It seems that the arrest was not a wholly clean process, but the ends usually justify the means in this gritty world in the 19th century.

 While accepting her offer, Cogburn does not like the idea of her going with him. He rather prefers to go with Laboeuf(Matt Damon), a Texas Ranger who is also interested in capturing Chaney for a different matter, to track down him in the Choctaw Indian territory where he hides along with the robbery gang led by “Lucky” Ned Pepper(Barry Pepper). However, Mattie is very determined about seeing their contract executed as promised and written, and Cogburn eventually accepts her, and they and Laboeuf begin their journey into the wilderness with potential dangers lurking in it. During this rough journey coupled with the conflicts between them, they begin to recognize each other while reaching for their common goal.

 Comparing the Coen brothers’ version and the 1969 version, you will see how much the western films have changed during more than 40 years. The 1969 version can be considered as an old-fashioned entertainment even with the standard of its era due to the rise of the revisionist western movies including the great movies such as “The Wild Bunch”, which incidentally came out in the same year. After going through temporary depression in the 1970s-80s and following recent rejuvenation, the western films nowadays have a different flavor; their world is harsher, grittier, and more realistic than before. Although less shocking and bloody than Coen brothers’ twisted thrillers, “True Grit” also has a fair amount of violence while showing the time when the survival sometimes is the first priority above all else and the mercy cannot be easily afforded(“Ground’s too hard. Them men wanted a decent burial, they should have got themselves killed in summer.”)

 The Coen brothers are masterful storytellers. With their economical storytelling, they provide tense moments along with some humorous interludes like Rooster and Mattie’s encounter with the man wearing bearskin. They have been always good at setting the impeccably realistic backgrounds as the genres they handle require, and they excel at that again. Though the director Henry Hathaway did a good job in the 1969 version, Fort Smith and the wilderness depicted in that movie looks like the theme park on a sunny day compared to the realistic visuals of the remake version. For example, compare the shack sequence in the 1969 version with that of 2010 version. The latter is more violent, darker, and colder in its looks(it happens at night instead of under daylight). We get the sense that people really get hurt in its harsh world, and and the Coen brothers have some twisted fun with that.

  The movie is quite impressive with its excellent production design and costumes, Carter Burwell’s memorable score mainly based on many traditional hymns including “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms”(too bad they do not have Best adapted score category at the Oscar any more), and the beautiful cinematography by Roger Dickens, who will probably, and finally, win an Oscar. It is almost crime that this great cinematographer has never won an Oscar while constantly getting nominated(he has been Oscar-nominated five times for the collaborations with the Coen brothers out of his nine nominations), and, for this time, he has a very good chance.

 The actors are uniformly good or excellent. Jeff Bridges was Oscar-nominated again for his role after his Oscar win for “Crazy Heart” in last year, and he definitely deserves that. While Wayne assimilated Rooster Cogburn into his quintessential star performance, Bridges, another kind of star actor, unassumingly immerses himself into Rooster Cogburn. With mumbling voice and shaggy appearance and potbelly, you cannot help but think of Jeff “The Dude” Lebowski on western mod. Nobody can replace The Duke, but, what the hell, The Dude also can be cool by shouting to the bad guys bravely: “Fill your hands, you son-of-bitch!”.

 The supporting actors are mostly better than their counterparts in the 1969 version. Matt Damon is curiously more restrained than Glen Campbell, but he ably supports his co-workers while taciturnly holding his place. Josh Brolin is both menacing and equally pathetic as a small-time outlaw. Barry Pepper is also good as a gang leader whose ragged face clearly shows the history of hard survival, while channeling some characteristics from Robert Duvall’s performance in the 1969 version.

 And Hailee Steinfeld’s breakthrough performance is one of the best performances in last year. Although she was rewarded with Oscar nomination as a supporting actress, the movie belongs to her as much as Bridges. While surrounded by veteran actors, Steinfeld firmly holds the center and goes forward with confidence. Her acting is quite remarkable considering that the movie is her first feature movie(she was picked out of around 15000 applicants). In one scene, with her unflappable manner and no-nonsense mind, Mattie relentlessly corners the merchant with the common sense and logics and legal knowledge until he surrenders to her with no condition, and Steinfeld deftly delivers her lines while capturing wry, droll humor from her character’s prim attitude. Kim Darby was excellent in the 1969 version in spite of herself being around 20, but Steinfeld, as a child actor who is really 14, is far better and far more convincing as a strong-willed little girl who will not stop at nothing to see the justice done. She sees she is vulnerable in her world in the end, but she knows the lesson(“Nothing is free except the God’s grace”), and she never steps back with her strong belief. That is what Cogburn and Labeouf begin to respect, and, in exchange, she admits she initially misjudged them.

 The Coen brothers score big again, and I am sure they will come back from the horizon again – with another surprise, maybe. They are never boring. Along with the biggest box office success in their career, “True Grit” is welcomed quite well by the Academy awards, nominated in 10 categories including Best Picture(Thanks to its success, it will probably be released in South Korea in late February or early March). I am a little hesitant about calling it as one of their best films, but the movie has everything we demand from an excellent western film, and I have no complaint about that – this is the remake/western film of the year. The Coen brothers make a better adaptation than the 1969 version, and, unlike its predecessor, it stays true to the original novel with a bitter, haunting poignancy in its ending; this is the story alive in Mattie’s memory while everything is gone into the past. This time, you will remember Mattie more than before along with Rooster and others.

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The Dresser (1983) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4) : About one backstage relationship

Posted on February 10, 2011 by kaist455

 It is always difficult to put a play on the stage. Actors and crews work hard amid many setbacks that can happen on and behind the stage. If they are lucky, they will survive today’s performance with descending curtain and some fulfillment. And then, they will have to struggle for another performance tomorrow with today’s performance faded into yesterday. It sounds gloomy, but people in “The Dresser”(1983) stick together and try to go on while believing they are accomplishing something in spite of their mundane reality in and out of theater. At one moment, one character confides to the other about her life spent on theater business: “No, I haven’t been happy. Yes, it’s been worth it.”

 Norman, played by Tom Courtenay, can also say like that if asked. It has been more than 15 years that he has worked as a devoted dresser for the manager/actor of some touring company. While attending on him, Norman is accustomed to do the multi-tasks including assisting his employer to prepare today’s performance. If his employer feels insecure and nervous before the performance, Norman is the one who cajoles and galvanizes him. Then, after the performance, he is ready with a glass of beer and bath for his employer. Like many enablers behind the enabled, Norman lives through his employer’s performance on the stage, and he privately prides himself on being the most helpful person to his employer as he endures every whim and anger from him. He is as loyal to his employer as Sam to Frodo or Smithers to Mr. Burns.

 The name of his employer, played by Albert Finney, is never identified throughout the story, but he is “Sir” to everyone in his touring company, and that name is even written on the plate on his dressing room door. It seems Sir was a respectable Shakespearean actor with the glorious past, considering a memorial plate for his Hamlet performance in the dressing room. We are not so sure about whether he really received a knighthood as his name suggests, but that is just a trivial matter. He has his company firmly under his control while leading his people around the provinces, and no one questions about his authority.

 But now his mind as well as his world is crumbling. It is the Britain during World War Ⅱ. The news about the air raids is heard from the radio. We hear later that one theater was actually destroyed during air raid. Most of young people are drafted to the army, so all actors Sir has are mostly aged performers. He frequently complains about their performances, but Sir himself is a big old ham, and, to make the matters worse, he is losing grips on reality with deteriorating health. The fact that Sir now has to play King Lear for the 227th times is quite ironic. Maybe he was too young to play King Lear before, but now he may be too real to play him – he is already living through that role with Norman as his Fool. He tears away his clothes and shouts aloud on the streets outside. He confuses with the roles to play tonight. He has trouble with remembering the first line. It becomes clear to others surrounding him that his remaining days are not so many.

 In spite of his problems, Sir is insistent about appearing on the stage for the show must go on. While others, including his wife and the stage manageress, have some reservation, Norman absolutely agrees with Sir. As usual, Norman supports him, motivates him, and indulges him while Sir’s temper unpredictably goes back and forth between pompousness and helplessness. As this dynamic interaction between them goes on, the things get started in and out of Sir’s dressing room. The other actors are preparing for their roles. The crews are checking the stage and props under the stage manageress’ supervision. The seats are being ready for the audiences to come. The show time has come at last, and everything is ready for Sir, but is he all right for coming out on the stage?

 The movie is based on a well-known stage play with the same name written by Ronald Harwood, who adapted his play for the film. Before his playwriter career, he worked as a dresser for the Shakespearean actor Sir Donald Wolfit(1902-1968), and his story was based on his experience during that period. Like the character inspired by him, Wolfit managed his touring company, which performed in London during World War 2, and he was also famous for his performances in Shakespeare plays, especially King Lear.

 According to some legends, Wolfit was not that different from Sir. While he was a good actor(He was memorable as Laurence Harvey’s possible future father-in-law in “Room at the Top”(1959)), he was also a tempestuous and tyrannical boss to others. Disliking being outshone by supporting actors, he always hired mediocre actors, and he drew criticisms for that and other several other reasons. Although he is regarded as one of the notable British stage actors during his time, some of his peers including Sir John Gielgud did not think highly of him(Gielgud: “We always regarded him as something of a joke.”). None the less, comparing Wolfit to Sir is more or less than comparing Anna Wintour to Miranda Priestly, and “The Dresser” was by no means Harwood’s roman à clef a la “The Devil Wears Prada”.

 Harwood’s story is an insightful drama about people revolving around the stage and their small, shabby world. Sometimes what happen backstage are far more interesting than what the audiences see on the stage, no matter how lousy or good the performance is. There are the human problems involved with vanity, insecurity, discontent, enmity, and so on. There is always nervousness among people before the curtain rises. They often quickly have to adjust to sudden changes or problems by such means like extemporization, while facing the grim possibility of something worse than a lousy performance. Amidst all these difficulties, they sometimes rise to the occasion, and it is really exhilarating to watch such a moment like when Norman and others work exhaustingly and exultantly together like “Band of Brothers” for creating the storm effect for Sir playing King Lear on the stage.

 Like many notable movies based on the stage play, the success of “The Dresser” depends on the performances, and the film is driven by a fabulous duo performance by Courtenay and Finney(they were Oscar-nominated for Best Actor). They look so different from each other on the screen that, while watching it, it is sometimes hard to believe that both actors started their respective movie careers as the members of promising young British actors during the 1960s. Finney began his career with a fiery performance as a young working class hero in “Saturday Night and Sunday Morning”(1960); Courtenay gave an unforgettable performance as a juvenile delinquent defiant to the authorities in “The Loneliness of The Long Distance Runner”(1962)(And both movies, coincidentally, were adapted from Alan Sillitoe’s works).

 Although he was around 40 at that time, Finney looks convincingly far more aged as a fascinating shell staggering on the line between vulnerability and arrogance. He is your average egomaniac artist who makes the lives of others hard and takes what he gets from others for granted. He is capable of showing some gratefulness, but that is only after he is overwhelmed by a sudden introspection triggered by his performance. Despite all these selfish and petty behaviors, we understand that Sir really needs help and we feel sorry for that. However, this stocky old ham has not lost all of his sound and fury yet, and Finney’s vigor goes at full throttle whenever it is required. There is a terrific scene at the train station where he shouts at a train that dares to leave without him with his loud, commanding voice: “STOP… THAT…. TRAIN!”

 Courtenay, who played Norman in the original play, complements Finney’s bravado with his typical sullen intensity coupled with nervous mannerism and quiet desperation. His performance is sometimes a little too dated and stereotypical at present, but it is still heartbreaking because, inside his exaggerated gestures, we eventually see a sad man who cannot imagine the life without his employer. Outside the theater, it is hard for Norman to live with his homosexuality, which is accepted in his world without mentioned much. Around that period, homosexuality was regarded as a criminal activity, and, even when actors gossip about their fellow actor recently jailed for that, they do not directly mention it.

  The director Peter Yates, who passed away in last month, is widely known for his other notable works like “Bullitt” and “Breaking Away”. The film is an actor’s movie belonged to Courtenay and Finney, but it should be mentioned that Yates provides the appropriate space and atmosphere for the story in an unobtrusive approach(he was rewarded with two Oscar nominations as director/producer). Faithful to its origin by focusing on the main background, the movie rarely feels stagy or stuffy. We are pulled into its small world while observing small details like wigs, makeup, and that funny superstition associated with “The Scottish Play”. The supporting actors surrounding Courtenay and Finney including Eileen Atkins, Edward Fox, and Michael Gough are also good as the people of this world. Unlike his bombastic score for “Krull”, a disastrous SF movie directed by Yates in the same year, James Horner composed a sparse, somber score right for the film’s gloomy mood(On sidenote: during the makeup scene, his music interestingly foreshadows the quiet part of his classic score for “Apollo 13”).

 “The Dresser” is a very good stage play adaptation with a sad, poignant story about one symbiotic relationship between two miserable characters. It is funny because it honestly reveals how pathetic and silly they are; it is also moving because it sincerely shows how serious and desperate they struggle. Poor Norman. He knows about how their relationship works, but he has been blind to why it works. When the moment of truth inevitably comes upon him, alas, it is already too late for him. “What about me!?”

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2011/02/03

Posted on February 8, 2011 by kaist455

Photos taken on Chinese New Year Day.

I went to the neighbourhood that I lived during 1991-1993. Things has changed a lot except few things such as the mosque I used to see from the distance.

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The Town (2010) ☆☆☆ (3/4) : A good crime drama in their rough town

Posted on February 7, 2011 by kaist455

 On the whole, “The Town” works effectively as a crime drama despite some weaknesses. Although the movie turns out to be less successful than it wants to be, it works in most parts because the characters and their world are interesting enough to hold our attention. Actually, they are interesting enough to make the action sequences more like obligatory chapters – or showy wrapping papers for a good standard product of its genre. I do not think drama and action are meshed well in the film, but the movie is engaging when it focuses on its characters.

  Ben Affleck plays Doug MacRay, a professional criminal living in blue-collar Boston neighborhood named Charlestown, which, according to the movie, “has produced more bank robbers and armored car thieves than anywhere in the world”(I heard that this area has been much more gentrified now than before). The criminal trades are frequently handed over from fathers to sons, and Doug is no exception; Doug’s father, now incarcerated in the state prison, was a bank robber, and Doug also robs banks or attacks armored trucks with his accomplices. With his meticulous plan, they quickly finish their business and run away immediately without leaving their traces.

 In the opening sequence, an unexpected trouble happens during their efficient execution of bank robbery. The silent alarm is activated earlier than they predicted, and, on their hasty escape, they take a hostage – a young assistant manager named Claire(Rebecca Hall). Fortunately for her and them, there is no further trouble after that, and she is soon released without knowing anything substantial about her captors except one trivial thing(She was blindfolded). However, after knowing that she lives in their neighborhood, they have reasonable worry about her. So, for checking any possibility of danger to him and others, Doug approaches to her while hiding his identity.

 While getting intimated with Claire, Doug confirms that she is not a dangerous witness to them, but the situation gets more complicated due to their growing relationship. Traumatized by her experience, Claire sees him as someone she can lean on. Having been tired of his criminal life, Doug sees her as someone with whom he wants to get out of his criminal world. However, if you are familiar with crime movies, you know that things will not go easily for them. On one side, there is an FBI agent Adam Frawley(John Hamm) who recently grasps on Doug’s crew and are determined to catch them on the spot. He also keeps in touch with Claire, so it is a matter of time before he discovers the relationship between Claire and Doug. On the other side, there are Doug’s volatile friend/accomplice Jem(Jeremy Renner) and their boss Fergie(late Pete Postlethwaite), who do not welcome Doug’s desire to quit from his profession. And new jobs for Doug’s crew are coming.

 With the screenplay adapted from Chuck Hogan’s novel “Prince of Thieves” by him and others, Affleck proves again that he is a competent director. Considering his previous work “Gone Baby Gone”, it is not so surprising that the movie has authentic presentation of Boston neighbourhood; he is familiar and comfortable with the setting he deals with. There are several action sequences in the film, and they are assuredly handled well with enough tension and urgency.

 However, there is the lack of synergy between drama and action. The characters are compelling enough to carry a familiar plot alone, but, interrupted by actions, their story is developed in hurried pace as a result. Although I admit that the action sequences are exciting, I also find that they do not fit well with the realistic environment built on the screen; they would have looked more natural if they had been in a standard action movie. In addition, I seriously have some doubt about the proportion between the number of shootings and that of casualties in the movie.

 None the less, the movie does not entirely fail with what it intends to do. Although the movie brings nothing new to its genre, Affleck deals with its melodramatic story in dry, calm approach, and that mostly works. While the movie could have shown more about it, Charlestown is still an interesting background in the film – it becomes its own character. The drama between characters is the film’s strongest point, and that is why the most effective scene in the film does not involve with shootings or car chases. It has three people who must not be together in one place, and the suspense is subtly increased below the screen while only one of them is aware of possible danger.

Affleck has the cast as good as he can get. He gives an adequate lead performance while maintaining a warm, laid-back chemistry with Rebecca Hall. Jon Hamm is as dashingly persuasive as Don Draper, and he has nice scenes with Blake Lively, who plays Jem’s sister Krista. Pete Postlethwaite and Chris Cooper(he plays Doug’s father) make big impression in their brief appearances. Finally, there is Jeremy Renner who was recently Oscar-nominated for his volatile performance. Right after his breakthrough performance in “The Hurt Locker”, Renner plays another intense character addicted to what he is good at, and, thanks to Renner’s intensity, you instantly know his compulsive character is always looking for the chance to do something violent and dangerous. This is someone you don’t want to be near, but, unfortunately for Doug, Jem clings to him in the name of friendship.

 The movie is overrated by some, and it is also unfairly underrated by South Korean critics when it was released in last month. Although I do not think the movie is one of best films in 2010 as some argues, I enjoyed the film and its several good aspects. The movie certainly does not reach to the level of Michael Mann’s “Heat”, but Affleck does a skillful job with his material. In spite of flawed mix between drama and action, it respects the characters at least and I liked that.

 Footnote: I recently saw Director’s cut, 28 minutes longer than the theatrical version, and, while added 28 minutes does not make much difference, the movie is a little better than before. Thanks to extended or inserted scenes, the characters are given more space, and their developments are progressed in more leisured pace. But I also found the Director’s cut a little too long. In conclusion, I think you will not lose much if you decide to stick to the theatrical version.

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I Am Love (2009) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4) : When she discovers her desire to be happy

Posted on January 30, 2011 by kaist455

 

 “I Am Love” tells us the story we have heard countless times from many tales – from literature books to your average trashy soap drama on TV. After having been living as someone more or less than a component of her comfortable world, she suddenly finds something she passionately wants – something that is acceptable to some degrees but is not inappropriate to be revealed to the people she has lived with for a long time. Maybe she has some second thought about it after her realization, but, folks, have you ever heard of anyone who can stop his/her heart when it truly wants to be happy?

 When we first meet Emma Recchi, played by Tilda Swinton, it is quite apparent to us that she is an outsider among her people because of her Russian accent. A long time ago, she met her Italian husband Tancredi Recchi(Pippo Delbono) through her father, a restoration expert, in Russia, and, after his proposal and following wedding, she came to Milan with Tancredi and has lived there since without going back to her country.

 Although the relationship between Emma and her blunt, aesthetic husband is based on formality rather than love, the life in his house has been not bad to her. She has three children who love her. The other family members have accepted her as one of them. And all of them live without any particular trouble from outside while immersed in the sumptuousness reminiscent of Luchino Visconti’s exquisite movies. Thanks to their family business, a very respectable textile company well known even outside Italy, they live in quite a comfortable and expensive modern manor while wearing the nice-looking costumes by Antonella Cannarozzi, who is recently Oscar-nominated for this movie. As many critics have pointed out, it must not be a coincidence that the name of Emma’s husband is Tancredi, one of central characters in Visconti’s great movie “The Leopard”.

 That unforgettably elegiac masterpiece is about the transition between generations coupled with inevitable deteriorations and changes, and so is “I Am Love”. After the beautiful opening scene showing the quiet streets of Milan on one winter day with agitatedly repeated rhythms of John Adams’ score, we see the family meeting being prepared in the manor. It is the birthday dinner for her father-in-law, and, as a hostess, Emma checks several things including the table arrangement while going around the house.

 Her father-in-law, Edoardo Sr.(Gabriele Ferzetti), has run the family business for many years. He hopes the empire he has built to reign forever, and, knowing that his time is near, he announces his decision at the middle of the birthday dinner. He will retire from his work and will soon hand over his position to his son. And Edoardo Jr.(Flavio Parenti), his grandson and Emma’s first son, will be No.2 of the company. Few months after, as he wishes, the company is run by Tancredi and Edoardo after Edoardo Sr.’s death.

 But the future of his company and the Recchis will be not as he has wanted – or he has ever imagined. Tancredi has different ideas about how to take care of the family business. Edoardo does not like it because he knows his grandfather would not have approved it, but he is more interested in the restaurant business he is planning with his chef friend. In case of Elisabetta(Alba Rohrwacher), Emma’s lovely daughter, she finds that she is a lesbian while attending an art school in London. Emma discovers her daughter’s sexuality by accident, and her daughter comes out to her mother without much hesitation. From her daughter who actively pursues for her own happiness, Emma begins to see the desire for happiness inside her. Confined in a comfortable world with little to complain about, she has been content with her role in the Recchis, but now, the desire is awakened and begins to grow. 

  Not long after that, the fate finds a right object for her yearning, and it is none other than Antonio(Edoardo Gabbriellini), Edoardo’s chef friend whose excellent professional skill gives us one of the most electrifying scenes associated with certain sensory neurons I have seen recently. Except background dialogues, there is almost no word, but what Emma feels is evidently conveyed to us. It is quite enthralling, and you’ve got to see it for yourself. You will be wholly convinced that it must be like heaven for her.

 Emma finds herself drawn to Antonio after that epiphanic moment. One day, when she goes to Sanremo to see her daughter, she sees him while walking around the streets. Soon, she hesitatingly follows him without noticed by him. Eventually, she goes to his restaurant outside the city with him. It is the quiet, bucolic country on a sunny day, and they are alone, and….

  I don’t have to tell you what happens next or what consequences will be waiting for them and the people surrounding them for the story is quite familiar from the beginning. The director/co-writer Luca Guadagnino fills this typical story with arrestingly beautiful moments with delicate precision, and the movie is great to look at. While courteously following that sumptuous style of Visconti’s movies, Guadagnino infuses his own sensitive style into his film. There several scenes where what characters feels or realizes are captured and delivered accurately to our eyes even without many dialogues. In addition, the characters are not only nicely dressed but also very interesting characters with intriguing interactions between them. Tancredi is not a lousy husband, but his attitude to his wife is as loving as his feeling to the artworks he collects. It is implied but never said that Edoardo has certain personal motives for pushing his private business with his friend, and that complicates the situation more later. And we also have distant but generous mother-in-law(Marisa Berenson), and a middle-aged maid named Ida(Maria Paiato), who turns out to be more devoted than we thought.

 And everything is supported by Tilda Swinton’s another knockout performance which is sadly not Oscar-nominated for Best Actress in this year. Swinton has been continuously an interesting actress, and, even after winning the Academy Award for her neurotic supporting turn in “Michael Clayton”(2007), she keeps giving us stellar performances from challenging roles. For example, in “Julia”(2008), she dashed into a very unlikable character many actresses would have hesitated to accept, and she succeeded with one of best performances in her career.

 “I Am Love” provides another challenging role to Swinton, and, again, her performance is nearly flawless in many aspects. She masterfully plays the character who has been assimilated into the world that was foreign to her at first time, and her delivery of Italian dialogues with Russian accent is so natural that it draws our attention as little as the characters’ in the movie. Swinton is also very good at embodying thoughts and emotions without showing them off. We always know what she feels throughout the movie while guided by John Adams’ wonderful score, which is mostly based on his previous works.

  The movie is a fabulous visual experience with terrific lead performance by Swinton as its heart. A stylishly and melodramatically overblown finale with equally bombastic music never feels out of place because of that. And beneath its impressive style and atmosphere, it understands the inner working of human hearts. Even when they are conscious of what is going on inside themselves, people are helplessly swept by what they feel for their heart like to be happy. Well, who can stop that? It’s as unstoppable as the nature.

  Footnote: The film was released in South Korea in last weekend. I heard that the video quality was quite crude due to the local distribution company’s blunder. I saw the movie in HD last year, so I know how damaging that problem will be for enjoying it. As one of critics said, let’s hope they will release the movie on Blu-ray.

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Winter’s Bone (2010) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4) : Her desperate determination in cold, harsh world

Posted on January 24, 2011 by kaist455

 Although its story is driven by a mystery surrounding certain missing person, the mystery only serves as a trigger for something far more than itself in “Winter’s Bone”. While we follow its heroine’s plight and wait for the answer to that mystery to come out, a harsh world that frustrates its heroine relentlessly for many reasons is unfolded in front of our eyes along with her desperate but strong determination against this despairing world. Despite its slow pace, the movie has the atmosphere shrouded in subtle tension with good performances to engage us into the story, and, when the tension is no longer at atmospheric level at certain moments, we find ourselves fear for her.

 A 17-year-old-girl Ree Dolly(Jennifer Lawrence) lives in some rural town in the Ozark mountains of southern Missouri. She has already been leading hard daily life when her latest trouble appears. Her mother is ill, and her younger sister and brother are still too young and innocent to take care of themselves, so she has been laboriously taking care of her family instead of her absent father Jessup, who has been known a lot around the neighbourhood for his criminal activities including cooking methamphetamine. It is not a big deal to her or others because, like her father, many of her neighbors are involved in crimes in one way or others.

 One day, the town sheriff visits Ree’s house and he gives her a bad news. Her father recently put their house at collateral bail to get out of jail, and it seems he will probably not show up at the court date. After a week, Ree’s family will be evicted out of their house with nowhere else to live if her father does not turn himself in. Ree goes around asking people who may know or have clues about his whereabouts, but there is little success. As time goes by, it is getting apparent that her father is possibly dead, but, if that so, she still needs to find him for keeping their house. The time is getting short, and she is desperate, and people who probably can help her, including her drug-addicted uncle Teardrop(John Hawkes), does not seem to be willing to do that for their personal reasons. She mostly gets unkind responses from them with hostility.

 Through her journey, a small, tightly-knitted community where everybody is somebody’s cousin is shown to us. If you do or say something, the words can be spread out quickly in this neighbourhood. Some characters in the movie likely know about the answer Ree seeks, but they do not trust her even though she is related to them. Although they may understand she needs help, they are more concerned about their circumstances and family loyalty. As one character says offscreen, “talking just causes the witnesses”, and they do not want to risk their unstable position due to illegal activities. And they are willing to do anything for protecting their standings; that puts Ree in a very precarious situation as warned by her uncle and others.

 The movie was first shown at the Sundance Film Festival in last January(it got two awards including Grand Jury prize), and then it was shown later in US theaters in last June. Like many other countries, overseas independent motion pictures usually arrive late in South Korea(For example, “Junebug” took two years to get released here, and “Frozen River” is still not released except in several local film festivals), so I did not particularly expect “Winter’s Bone” to be released soon in South Korea. However, my prediction turned out to be wrong delightfully. Maybe because of recent Oscar buzz surrounding the film along with US critics’ enthusiastic responses, the movie is released in South Korean theaters in this weekend – limited release as I predicted, but quite earlier than I had expected.

 And what a good timing it is. Our South Korean audiences experienced the bleak world of “The Road”, an excellent gloomy film based on Cormac McCarthy’s novel in last January, and now, after a year in the same month with colder winter weather, we get another movie filled with bleak beauty evocative of that movie. Shot on the real locations, the film has authentic mood. I was not familiar with the Ozarks, but, like any good movies that transport us into the real worlds alien to us, I could instinctively sense that the movie showed a real world to me.

 There is a certain sense of familiar hopelessness pervading its scenes. I am sure it is the 21th century (or near it) in the story, but this place looks like having unaffected by the influences from outside. They have cars, electricity, and a school, and a police station, but it is hard to find any sign of modern technology. Under the cold, gloomy weather, the woods around the town are shown from time to time to accentuate the desolate condition of this place. Useless objects are scattered around here and there with no one to use them. And it is hard for Ree’s family to get the food. Because it is not season for deers, Ree shot a couple of squirrels instead and later we see her teaching her younger brother and sister how to skin them.

 While learning how to remove guts from her, her brother asks, “Do we have to eat it?” Ree plainly replies: “Not yet”. Based on Daniel Woodrell’s novel, the director Debra Granik and the co-writer Anne Rosellini create a sad, honest story with no ostentation. Like Ree’s reply mentioned above, the characters’ situations, thoughts and feelings are conveyed through short, plain words. Despite tons of hardships and following desperation burdened on its heroine, there is no such a thing like showy melodramatic moment in the movie. Even in the most perilous situation, there is only her exhausting will talking quietly to others who have even thought about killing her for poking around them.

 While the relationships between characters are not clearly explained and it is sometimes a little confusing to describe them, Granik and Rosellini compensate that flaw by filling their story with vivid characterization. Thanks to the wonderful cast, you can instantly accept that people in the movie have been through hardships for years and years while living there from tired, wrinkled faces. In their world, kindness is not something they can accomodate easily.

 Already nominated for Best Actress award at Golden Globe awards and Screen Actors Guild awards of this year with lots of praises from critics and bright future in her career, it is almost certain that Jennifer Lawrence will be Oscar-nominated for Best Actress for her breakthrough performance in this movie. She is very realistically convincing as a ordinary but remarkable teenager girl who struggles to keep her and her family’s life going in her bleak world. She rarely raises her voice, and she says not much, but her overflowing desperation and exhaustion can be glimpsed inside her calm face. None the less, Ree has lost none of her will – and her belief in the basic decency of people surrounding her. At one point, she says to her brother, “Never ask for what ought to be offered.” That is how she gets help from others while keeping basic dignity.

 The supporting actors are as good as Lawrence. John Hawkes, who can be a surprise Oscar nominee on next Tuesday, is excellent as a conflicted man capable of showing both heartlessness and compassion to his niece. I fondly remember Dale Dickey as one of hilarious caricatures in TV series “My Name Is Earl”, but she shows quite different side to me with her realistic performance in this movie. Her character can be quite ruthless when she thinks she has to do something to deal with the situation, but she also can be compassionate. There are some unanswered questions, and one of them is whether she makes a certain decision for herself or is allowed to do that.

 After watching the film, I wondered whether cold, sad, lonely independent movies about desperate people were becoming a genre of their own, or cliche of their own. But I won’t mind as long as they have good stories to tell with good characters, and “Winter’s Bone” is one of them. We know that Ree will eventually get what she wants to know for it is a familiar story to us, but the movie holds our attentions with calm tension, and we attentively observe her struggling through difficult situation. The world surrounding her is dangerous and hostile, and she knows that well, but she persistently tries even if there is little she can do. In the end, there are some unsolved things left in the story, but that does not matter to us for the movie works as something more than thriller while being a functional thriller. And we are certain that she will go on – no matter what happens next after another frustrating chapter of her difficult life.

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Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010) ☆☆☆(3/4) : That baffling world of death and reincarnation

Posted on January 15, 2011 by kaist455

 Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s latest movie “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” scored some points from me at the beginning. After the enigmatic opening sequence featuring a cow and the jungle shrouded in strange atmosphere, the following sequence with a car going along some country road drew my attention. The land was different, the trees and plants surrounding the road were also different, and the climate was also different, but the mood was somehow familiar to me. It was not different from what I remember from our family’s occasional short journey to my grandmother’s country village. We also went there by a car, we also went along a paved country road, and I used to pensively look at the landscape outside car while a little bored in backseat.

 Why was my memory about a South Korean country stimulated by a Thai movie made in the area I have not known much about? Maybe, I think, the reason is that “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past”(“Uncle Boonmee” in short) is a retrospective movie about memories. Beginning from a dying man who believes he can remember his past lives as the title suggests, the movie challenges us by throwing impressive visual fragments upon us while intriguing us with its odd styles. The result is rather a mixed bag, and it is not entirely successful as intended in my view, but it is an interesting artwork if we cannot call it “an interesting movie”.

 The movie reveals very little about the characters inside that car except that Uncle Boonmee(Thanapat Saisaymar) is dying due to kidney failure. After some time at the hospital, with two of his family members, he is going back to his home in the northeast region of Thailand. His place is in the area next to the border between Thailand and Laos. We see some people from Laos working under him later along with slight prejudice seen from Jen(Jenjira Pongpas), Boonmee’s sister-in-law.

After arriving at the house in the afternoon, Boonmee and others have dinner in the dining room as the night descends on the house and the jungle nearby, and we have one of several effective scenes in the film. While they are having a mundane conversation with each other in gentle but monotonous tone(according to Weerasethakul, this flat delivery is the homage to old Thai TV dramas where lines were whispered to the actors and were flatly delivered by them), there is notable awkwardness about the empty space on the left side of their dining table. Then, something slowly appears in that space without much emphasis. The process is so natural and subtle that it took some seconds for me to notice that during my first viewing.

It is the ghost of Boonmee’s wife who died 19 years ago. Although a bit surprised by her visit, the living accept her and begin to talk with her as if she were an ordinary guest. If you think this is weird, here comes a weirder thing for you to behold. Boonmee’s dead son also comes to see them from the darkness, and he is a monkey man with red eyes(this is another convention from old Thai TV dramas; monsters usually had red eyes gleaming in the dark). I wish Weerasethakul would have that character to stay in the darkness. In the direct light, Boonmee’s dead son looks as silly as a talking Chubaka in this utterly serious situation. It may be intended to be humorous. I checked IMDB, and the movie is categorized as comedy and fantasy.

The rest of the movie is not easy to summarize for it freely floats in and out of Boonmee’s world while still being elusive to us. After that memorable night sequence, we see Boonmee and Jen interact with his employees on the next day. And then the film momentarily enters the world of folk tales with no reason. An ugly princess is bitter about her face at the pool with waterfall in the jungle, even though she has an admirer. Later, she has an intercourse in the water with a talking catfish who also has revered her. It sounds pretty silly(my mind went to that hilarious scene with an underage sheep in Woody Allen’s “Every Thing You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask”), but it is done with restraint and style, and old-fashioned day for night technique adds more otherworldly quality to this scene.

 The film is inspired by the book “A Man Who Can Recall His Past Lives”, written by the abbot of Buddhist temple in Weerasethakul’s hometown. There was really a man named Boonmee and he claimed to the abbot that he could recall his past lives during meditation. Later in the movie, we see Boonmee and others go through that mystical jungle and enter the cave where his first life supposedly began. We are surrounded by ominous sounds. We hear him talking about one of his past lives, accompanied with the montage of photos showing soldiers and a tall man in gorilla suit(I’m not kidding).

 I learned later that “Uncle Boonmee” is a part of Weerasethakul’s video installation art project “Primitive”, which includes a short film “A Letter to Uncle Boonmee”. Using the book mentioned above as the starting point, Weerasethakul subtly integrates several elements from his project into the movie. One of the subjects in his project is a turbulent confliction between the Thai army and communist sympathizers in the northeast region of Thailand in 1965, and Boonmee briefly contemplates on whether his illness is karmic for killing many communists at that time in one scene. In addition, Weerasethakul also incorporates autobiographical aspects into his movie; for example, Boonmee’s dialysis tool in the movie is the one that had actually been used by his father, who was also afflicted with kidney failure.

 With “Uncle Boonmee”, I think, Weerasethakul tries to assemble and mix his philosophical and artistic ideas on death, reincarnation, spirituality, and movie along with historical, cultural, and personal aspects from himself and his country on the screen. There are several things I noticed during the second viewing after acquiring some helpful information from Internet, and I think there are still many things unnoticed by me in the movie.

 And that promoted me to think about some explanation on James Joyce’s “Finnegans Wake” I have come across years ago. In difficult that novel, H. C. Earwicker and his family are continuously transfigured throughout the story while embodying the vast knowledge on human history and cultures contained in the book whose last sentence at the end goes back to its first sentence at the beginning. H. C. Earwicker can be “Here Comes Everyone”, and so can Boonmee, probably. We are not sure about his past lives, but his previous lives can be anything shown in the jungle: human beings, animals, or plants, maybe. Considering it is the part of a commissioned art project, “Uncle Boonmee” might be the tip of Weerasethakul’s version of “Synecdoche, New York”; these “past lives” sometimes look like small fragments from an elusive bigger world of time and space.

 However, despite several interesting thoughts provoked by the movie, I do not think Weerasethaku completely succeeds with his experiment. He indeed provides us beautiful scenes we can appreciate, but the movie is too distant and meditative to be something else. There is little to hold on in case of story and characters while it focuses purposely on its space and atmosphere. The characters are presented in long or medium shots in most cases. We are consequently distant from them, even during brief moments when they are allowed to show feelings. The film firmly stays in its position. It never attempts to reach to us while confidently presenting its mystifying images to the audiences. The last sequence does not work for it does not add much to the cluster of images in the film. It has already perplexed us too much.

 As a whole, the movie is more like a piece of video installation art. It will not make any difference if you are drowsy while watching it. Or, you can walk into the movie at any point and you still can get the same impression. As a matter of fact, I even wondered whether there will be any difference if the movie is chopped into several coherent segments and then exhibited in modern art museum. All it needs is a guidebook they sell us at the entrance of art museums.

 In spite of these sarcastic reactions, I have enough admiration for this movie. And I agree with others that Weerasethakul is a very talented director. The movie is slow and evasive, and I do not wholeheartedly like it, but his exploration fascinated me as much as Godard’s early experiments in the 1960s. It tries something different; it tries the interesting extension of movie toward installation art. It made me curious about that mysterious jungle and its components while also making me run out of patience.

 The movie won Palme d’Or at the 2010 Cannes film festival in last year. Many critics, including our South Korean critics, chose this as one of best movies of last year.

 Well, I have lots of reservation about that. I remember my friend Wael Khairy quoting from Roger Ebert’s “Awake in the Dark” in one of his reviews: “A movie is not good because it arrives at conclusions you share, or bad because it does not. A movie is not about what it is about. It is about how it is about it: about the way it considers its subject matter, and about how its real subject may be quite different from the one it seems to provide.” I don’t think I wholly understand what “Uncle Boonmee” is about, but I can say I was distantly absorbed in how it is about. 

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Tron: Legacy (2010) ☆☆☆(3/4) : Unnecessary but it’s nice to look at anyway

Posted on January 2, 2011 by kaist455

 I still have some conflicts about whether “Tron: Legacy” is really necessary for us. “Tron”, its predecessor in 1982, showed the audience the initial potential of CGI with the world they had never seen before. The movie looks now quite dated after many years of rapid CGI techniques developments, but, while becoming the product of its own time, its special effects have that discreet charm of old special effects. Plus, the movie still retains the pioneer spirit of people behind the movie, who really wanted to create something new with their limited abilities and resources. That is why I find “Tron” a fun movie though I was not even born yet around when they were making it. I liked its world – giggling at its dated aspects was an extra fun.

 It is needless to say that maintaining its original looks of this unreal world is out of question, considering how much progress they have made in Hollywood after that. Things have changed during last 28 years, and even an independent filmmaker can work with his own computer for creating CGI on the screen nowadays, as shown in Gareth Edwards remarkable movie “Monsters”. If you have enough money, you can do almost anything on the screen.

 Because “Tron: Legacy” is an expensive blockbuster movie made by a major Hollywood studio with a big budget, the world shown in the 1982 movie is now re-created and polished by the computers whose capacity exceeds those used in that time. The movie certainly looks fabulous on the screen. But we cannot help but ask this; is it as revolutionary as “Tron”? My answer is absolutely no, and the movie is not so remarkable in the standard of our time. In addition, its polished improvement only bares the main weakness inherent in its predecessor; it is no more than an expensive eye candy.

 The movie starts its story several years after Kevin Flynn(Jeff Bridges) became a new CEO of his company at the end of “Tron”. After his adventure in the world inside computer, Flynn had been busy for working on its potential even when he was not working at the company. That meant his only son Sam, who had lost his mother a few years ago, had to deal with his father’s absence although he was taken care of by his grandparents.

 One day, after another short but enthusiastic conversation with his son at night, Flynn was suddenly disappeared. More than 20 years has passed since his disappearance without any clues, and Sam(Garrett Hedlund) now becomes a young rebel who does not hesitate to do risky stunts for stealing the new OS program from his father’s company, whose leading major stock owner is none other than him, incidentally. Through Flynn’s co-worker Alan(Bruce Boxleitner, who reprises his roles), Sam gets an unexpected message from his father, and he soon finds himself transferred to the world his father used to talk about.

 His father has been very much alive in that world, but, before meeting him, Sam meets Clu, a program modeled after his father. Clu is also played by Jeff Bridges, but what we see on the screen is a younger version of Bridges created by CGI. Like CGI characters in Robert Zemeckis’ animations, a younger image of Bridges has a creepy and inhuman aspect, suitable for a character who comprises of computer codes. Clu has been a ruthless tyrant of his world after betraying and banishing Flynn, and, like any ambitious, megalomaniac dictators, he wants to conquer the world beyond his area – our world. He has been preparing for that plan for many years(or many cycles, shall I say), and only one step is remained for him – that is why Flynn and his son have to stop him as soon as possible.

 While not as groundbreaking as “Avatar”, “Tron: Legacy” is a nice visual treat. I enjoyed several objects and designs renovated while being faithful to the 1982 movie. I was personally amused to see the design of a big mirror-like touch screen desk utilized in the meeting room in a brief scene. It still looks as cool as before. The action scenes are sometimes disorienting and not so thrilling in many cases, but they are well-made and pretty good to look at. In case of 3D, this is one of the most comfortable 3D effects because, ironically, you are not conscious of it much while watching it. The real world scenes are shot in 2D, and the computer world scenes are shot in 3D – in the unreal world of light and darkness, the major weakness of 3D effect, dimness, is not much of a big problem. On the whole, the movie primarily focuses on its visuals without any distracting effect, and it admirably succeeds with the propulsive orchestral/electronic score by Daft Punk.

 Nevertheless, the story holding this world is too week and bland to be overlooked. Of course, the story was not exactly Academy Award material in case of the 1982 movie, but it was compensated by its unadulterated trial to break into the undiscovered world against many limits. But now, with boundless possibilities from advanced CGI technology, the story of “Tron: Legacy” has lots of possibilities to deal with its interesting ideas, rather than merely showing them on the screen.

 Unfortunately, the movie does not do much besides dazzling us with its visuals. One of the lost potentials in the screen in the movie is Quora, a program who has assisted Flynn for a long time and comes to be emotionally(is it right expression?) involved with Sam. There is a touching scene where she asks him about the world outside, but the movie has ultimately wastes this character’s potentials. It also should be mentioned that the movie did a disservice to its title character, Tron, who appears not much in the movie.

 With bland story and characterization, it is necessary for the actors to fill the holes in the movie with their presences, and they all do good jobs. It is clear that Bridges is having fun with dual roles. His presence was a major asset in the 1982 movie, and he again holds the movie quite well. I especially like the way he makes Flynn look like a wiser, calmer version of Jeff “The Dude” Lebowski in “The Big Lebowski”(1998) – one of great characters in his career. Garrett Hedlund is a little too bland but it is not bad considering his weak character. Olivia Wilde is attractive while holding her place well, and Michael Sheen is flamboyant as the nightclub owner program.

  I have to remind you again that I don’t regard the movie as highly as “Tron”. The first one is an eye candy which also was something new, and it is still a landmark in the special effects history. While wonderful to look at as itself, “Tron: Legacy” is still more and less than an eye candy – with a cynical purpose of merchandising. I still think they should have a more developed story for what we can do now with CGI, but, what the hell, I looked at the screen with amusement and fascination. As a matter of fact, after enduring an abysmal movie  “The Last Godfather”, I was enlivened by the movie; I wanted to recommend it to kids rather than that dreadful comedy “intended for kids”. None the less, I will probably forget its images far sooner than those of “Tron”. I envy the audiences who saw “Tron” in 1982.

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