A Christmas Story (1983) ☆☆☆☆(4/4): Still witty, funny, and sweet

Posted on December 26, 2024 by kaist455

Bob Clark’s 1983 film “A Christmas Story” is quite typical but also very special in many aspects. Yes, this is mainly about one ordinary American kid trying to receive a certain toy for the upcoming Christmas, but the movie somehow hits the right balance between sly wit and nostalgic innocence, and that is the main reason why it has been an enduring classic film for every Christmas season since it came out more than 40 years ago.

The story, which is based on Jean Shepherd’s 1966 book “In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash” (Shepherd also participated in the adaptation in addition to doing the wryly humorous narration of the film, by the way), is set in one suburban neighborhood located in the northern region of Indiana during the late 1940s. As Christmas is coming, a young boy named Ralphie Parker (Peter Billingsley) has been eagerly hoping for getting a Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-shot Range Model air rifle during the ongoing Christmas season, and we are tickled a lot by how much he tries to persuade his parents, who are respectively played by Darren McGavin and Melinda Dillon.

Alas, all Ralphie comes to hear from his parents is “You’ll shoot your eye out.”, but our little hero is not deterred at all, and what follows next is a series of attempts for attaining his goal. At one point in the middle of the story, he attempts to write a good school essay on his passionate Christmas wish which he hopes will impress not only his schoolteacher but also his parents, but, not so surprisingly, he does not succeed at all to our little amusement. Later in the story, he tries to make a wish to a Santa Clause working in a local department store, but that only leads to one of the most hilarious (and twisted) moments in the film.

Meanwhile, the movie immerses us more into the daily life of Ralphie and many other characters around him as they go through a particularly cold winter, and we accordingly get a number of small but hilarious episodes to remember. Ralphie’s father often struggles to fix the faulty furnace in the basement of their house, and his dynamic stream of slang heard from the basement often reaches to the level of rough poetry. Nevertheless, both he and his wife do not approve much of Ralphie uttering a certain bad word at one point (Hint: It sounds a bit like…. “fudge”), and we accordingly get a couple of very humorous moments when Ralphie gets punished in a certain old-fashioned way some of you might heard about before.

These and many other moments in the film are certainly specific to the core, and I must confess that I sometimes observe them from the distance as a non-American dude who has not been that serious about Christmas. Nevertheless, there are also a lot of universal elements to resonate with anyone’s childhood memories. After all, we all had some funny moments to remember during our childhood period, and you will all empathize with the terror experienced by Ralphie and his friends due to a neighborhood bully – and how Ralphie finally become angry enough to feel that enough is enough. Despite being frequently young and wild during my old childhood years, I actually did not get angry that often as mostly occupied with books and movies, but I could also be infernally wrathful at times (I still can be, so don’t ever f*ck with me, folks), and I saw a lot of myself from Ralphie during that hilariously violent moment.

The movie is not afraid at all of becoming broadly comic as shown from several moments of imagination in Ralphie’s mind, but its story is also grounded in a sweet and gentle sense of humanity, which is amply provided by Ralphie’s loving parents. They sometimes look like a mismatched couple due to their vast personality difference, but it is clear that they really respect and love each other like any other decent couple, and we also cannot help but smile as observing their human flaws which look more endearing as I watch the film again and again. In case of an episode involved with a rather bizarre prize item sent to Ralphie’s father, he cannot possibly be prouder and happier about that, but his wife is understandably horrified – especially he enthusiastically puts that item right in front of the living room window for being seen by every neighbor of theirs to her horror and embarrassment.

One of my personal favorite moments in the film comes from the eventual Christmas gift time for Ralphie and his family. An aunt of his happens to send him a very silly bunny costume to wear, and Ralphie does not like this at all, but his mother insists that he should wear it just for being thankful to his aunt. Whenever I had to wear my old military uniform for my annual reserve army training, I felt as miserable as Ralphie during this uproariously humiliating moment, and I am still glad that I am too old for that sh*t at present.

The movie depends a lot on the engaging performance of its lead actor. Although the movie remains to be the sole highlight in his acting career, Peter Billingsley gives a sublime comic performance to remember, and he is alternatively funny and heartfelt without making any misstep throughout the film. McGavin and Dillon ably support Billingsley while having each own moment to amuse us, and so do several young performers including Ian Petrella, Scott Schwartz, and R. D. Robb, and Zack Ward.

On the whole, “A Christmas Story” is something we can always welcome whenever Christmas is coming, and I am glad to report to you that the movie remains as funny and charming as it was when I watched it for the first time in 2009. Yes, as a guy with some morbid sense of humor, I am mostly drawn to its naughtier sides, but I also feel quite warmed by its intimate human moments, and it is certainly qualified as one of the best Christmas movies out there.

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Murder on the Orient Express (1974) ☆☆☆(3/4): An Agatha Christie mystery film with enough charm and craft

Posted on December 26, 2024 by kaist455

Sidney Lumet’s 1974 film “Murder on the Orient Express” is all about style and mood. While this is not exactly one of the best film adaptations of Agatha Christie novels, it still works as an enjoyable genre piece packed with enough class and skill, and, above all, it is also quite fun to watch all of these stellar cast members in the film stuck together within a rather limited background. 

 The story, which is based on one of Christie’s most famous mystery novels, is mainly driven by another seemingly impossible challenge for Christie’s famous Belgian private detective Hercules Poirot (Albert Finney). Not long after he gets on the Orient Express train departing from Turkey, Istanbul, one of the passengers approaches to him because this person in question is quite concerned about his safety right now, but Poirot rejects this person’s request just because he is not particularly interested. What do you know, this person is found murdered in the very next morning, and Poirot agrees to do some investigation as requested by his old Italian friend, one of the passengers who is also incidentally an executive of the train company.

Before the story becomes a bit more serious with this unexpected incident, Lumet and his crew members including cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth did a masterful job of filling the screen with enough period atmosphere and details to behold. As a result, we find ourselves immersed into its romantically old-fashioned style and mood around the time when every passenger of the Orient Express is on the board, and this impression is further accentuated by the Oscar-nominated score by Richard Rodney Bennett (The film received the total six Oscar nominations at that time, by the way).

While the train itself certainly adds extra nostalgia as it passes through a series of landscapes, it is also filled with a bunch of colorful figures who are played by variously distinguished performers to notice. They are (in alphabetical order) Martin Balsam, Ingrid Bergman, Jacqueline Bisset, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Sean Connery, John Gielgud, Wendy Hiller, Anthony Perkins, Vanessa Redgrave, Rachel Roberts, Richard Widmark, and Michael York, and you will be more impressed to know that many of them already won or previously nominated for Oscar before this film (Ingrid Bergman somehow won a Best Supporting Oscar for this film, though even she thought she did not deserve her third Oscar that much).

Around the narrative point where the train unexpectedly gets snowbound in the middle of the second night of its long journey across the Europe continent, the movie efficiently sets up the stage for the next act. A number of small and big incidents happen here and there on the train while our detective hero is trying to sleep, and Bennett’s score naturally takes an ominous tone around this point.

After the aforementioned passenger is eventually found murdered, the movie accordingly goes through a series of Q&A sessions conducted by Poirot inside the snowbound train, and that is where the movie becomes less interesting than before. Whenever Poirot asks some pointed questions to each of those possible suspects, they all naturally look as suspicious as required with some necessary overacting, and this pattern simply goes on and on until our detective hero finally presents his conclusion in front of everyone on the train.

However, the movie fortunately does not lose its sense of fun and humor at all, even though it turns out later that the murder case in the story is closely associated with a devastatingly tragic case of child kidnapping, which is clearly based on the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh’s son in 1932. Lumet and legendary editor Anne V. Coates make sure that the story keeps rolling as our detective hero digs up one crucial thing after another along the narrative, and Unsworth’s camera steadily focuses on whatever is being exchanged between Poirot and each of his interrogation targets without making the film feel too static or stuffy within its limited background.

Above all, Lumet allows his performers to bring some extra personality to their broad archetype roles in addition to having each own moment along the story, and their game efforts are firmly anchored by the masterful comic performance by Albert Finney, who got deservedly Oscar-nominated for this film. While quite amusing in many of his deliberately mannered touches to savor, Finney gradually takes the center as the plot thickens as expected, and he eventually dominates over all of his other fellow cast members when his character has to deliver a rather long explanation on what really happened at that time (Critic Roger Ebert wrote in his 1974 review: “…it’s fun of a rather malicious sort watching a dozen high-priced stars keep their mouths shut and just listen while Finney masterfully dominates the scene.”).          

 In conclusion, “Murder on the Orient Express” does not look that fresh after 50 years while looking rather trivial due to being sandwiched right between Lumet’s two greater works “Serpico” (1973) and “Dog Day Afternoon” (1975). Nevertheless, it remains fairly entertaining thanks to Lumet’s competent direction and the good performances from his stellar cast members, and it remains to be two or three steps above that recent movie adaptation directed by Kenneth Branagh, which is not bad but merely passable on the whole. Yes, this is an old-fashioned stuff indeed, and it is equipped with enough charm and craft at least, and you may want to savor it again just because of that.

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Sugarcane (2024) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): An investigation into one tragic past in Canada

Posted on December 24, 2024 by kaist455

Documentary film “Sugarcane”, which is currently available in Disney+ in South Korea, is alternatively chilling and heartbreaking with its emerging big picture of one tragic past in Canada. As already known to many of us via recent news reports a few years ago, thousands of young Indigenous people in US and Canada were taken to many Catholic residential schools where they were frequently mistreated and abused, and the documentary looks close into the remaining human pain and trauma resulted by this heinous historical crime.

The documentary is pretty personal to Julian Brave NoiseCat, who directed it along with Emily Kassie. As shown in the documentary, his father Ed was actually born in one of those Catholic residential schools for Indigenous people, which is located near to Williams Lake Indian Reserve No. 1 (It is also called “Sugarcane” by local people, by the way). Ed’s mother, who is still alive, was sexually abused by one of those priests of that Catholic residential school while working there, but she is understandably not so willing to tell anything about what happened to her during that horrible time of hers.

While following NoiseCat’s efforts to get to know more about his hidden family history, the documentary also closely observes the efforts of a local activist named Charlene Belleau, who was crucial in exposing the hidden secret behind that Catholic residential school. It turned out that more than 100 Indigenous people died and then promptly covered up around the school, and, as pointed out to us around the end of the documentary, this is just a small portion of the atrocities committed around many other Catholic residential schools which were established across Canada and US around the 19th century.

The purpose of these horrible schools was pretty deplorable to say the least. By forcing those many young Indigenous people into Westernization and Christianity, the priests and nuns of these schools attempted to eradicate the ethnic/cultural identity of young Indigenous people once for all, and those young Indigenous people had to endure a lot of mistreatment and abuse in addition to constant racial discrimination.

The atrocities of those Catholic residential schools were eventually gone around the late 20th century, but their ramifications remain among many Indigenous people as shown from the documentary. While NoiseCat’s father is still haunted by whatever he had to endure when he was very young, we also meet several old local Indigenous people damaged in one way or another by their traumatic experience with Catholic residential school, and one of the most heartbreaking moments in the documentary comes from when one of these unfortunate people openly expresses about how much he remains angry and traumatized even at present.

In case of Willie Sellars, who is the current chief of Williams Lake First Nation, he is really tries hard to bring more attention from the media and the public to what happened at that Catholic residential school in his region. Thanks to his and many other activists’ efforts, the Prime Minster of Canada eventually comes to Williams Lake Indian Reserve No. 1 for giving a public apology, but there are still a lot of more atrocities to be discovered and exposed, and Sellars and many other activists including Belleau are certainly willing to go for that.

Meanwhile, we are also introduced to Rick Gilbert, the former chief of Williams Lake First Nation. He is a devoted Catholic who sincerely takes care of his small church along with his wife, but he also remembers well how much he was mistreated during his hurtful years at that Catholic residential school, and that is why he and several other Indigenous figures go to the Vatican for meeting Pope Francis.

After meeting the pope, Gilbert subsequently has a brief meeting with a priest who is incidentally the Superior General of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, which was closely associated with the Catholic residential school for Indigenous people in US and Canada. The priest listens to Gilbert with genuine care and compassion, but then his following response is as perfunctory as that public statement from the Pope, and we wonder whether anything can be really changed at all in the system.

Deftly juggling its three different narrative lines, the documentary eventually culminates to some powerful personal moments to linger on your mind for a while. At one point later in the documentary, NoiseCat comes to have a more serious conversation with his father, and Ed comes to face how that long struggle with his pain and trauma also affected his family members a lot. Eventually, Ed goes to his mother’s house for an honest conversation with her on their past, but his mother still cannot tell anything about their past. Although we can only listen to their private conversation, her pain and trauma somehow feel quite palpable to us nonetheless, and we can only imagine how much she is still reeling from that.

In conclusion, “Sugarcane”, which won the Directing Award at the US Documentary section of the Sundance Film Festival early in this year (It also recently won the Best Documentary Award at the Nation Board of Review, by the way), is unforgettable in its thoughtful and sensitive presentation of the scars and damages caused by the historical atrocities which should be known more in public. In short, this is one of the best documentaries of this year, and you may want to know more about its important social/historical subject after watching it.

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Blink (2024) ☆☆☆(3/4): Before their kids become blind

Posted on December 24, 2024 by kaist455

Documentary film “Blink”, which is currently available on Disney+ in South Korea, is the story of one loving family who decide to have a very special trip around the world. As the parents sincerely try to help their four children have more experience to remember, the documentary closely observes how this family come to stick together more thanks to this precious journey, and we come to have more understanding and empathy on its personal importance to all of them.  

At the beginning, we are introduced to a middle-class French-Canadian couple and their four young kids. Édith Lemay and Sébastien Pelletier talk a bit about how it has frequently been demanding for both of them to raise their four kids together in their cozy suburban house, and we see how lively their four kids are in each own way. While their eldest kid Mia is your average big sister for her three younger brothers, Léo, Colin, and Laurent are often brimming with their boundless spirit and energy, and it is apparent that they have all happily grown up under the loving care and attention of their parents.

However, there is one big medical problem for three of these kids. Because of a rare genetic disorder called retinitis pigmentosa, Mia, Colin, and Laurent will inevitably become blind, and we notice that they are already on the way of losing their eyesight. It goes without saying that their parents were quite devastated to learn about their serious medical condition, but Édith and Sébastien have tried to help them as much as possible, and that is why they came to decide to have a global travel along with their four kids for showing a lot more of the world around them than before. 

It goes without saying that they were going to spend a lot of money for this special family trip, but then Édith and Sébastien happened to get some enough money to finance their global travel with their kids. After some careful planning on how to spend the money day by day, they and their kids made a sort of bucket list on what they wanted to experience together during their global travel, and their kids eagerly filled the list with some humor and creativity.

And they did travel around here and there around the world as shown from the documentary. First, they went to Namibia for watching many different animals living in its animal preservation region, and they were not disappointed at all as beholding those various animals out there. After that, they went to a number of different countries including Egypt, Turkey, Thailand and Mongolia, and you will be amused and touched to see one of the kids trying something so trivial but also quite meaningful to him when he and his family came to a desert area for riding camels together.

They also even go to Nepal just for watching one of those big snowy mountains of the Himalayas. Although their hiking course around the Himalayas turns out to be a bit more demanding for them, the kids do not lose their spirit at all, and Édith and Sébastien are certainly happy to see their kids enjoying not only all those beautiful landscapes surrounding them but also befriending a few local animals (I particularly like that grumpy cat, by the way).

However, Édith and Sébastien are also often reminded of how their three kids are still losing their eyesight day by day. For example, their three kids cannot easily see during nighttime, and this problem of theirs will surely get worse and worse as time goes by. They and Léo, who is incidentally not afflicted with retinitis pigmentosa unlike his three siblings, hang around with each other pretty well on the whole, but we cannot help but observe that there will soon be more distance between him and his three siblings due to the worsening eye condition of his three siblings.

Nevertheless, the emotional bond among the family members remains strong as before, and that is quite evident to us when they suddenly find themselves trapped within a rather small place in the middle of their trip in Ecuador. As they get stuck there much longer than expected, the kids become afraid and nervous, but they still stick together under their parents, and that is certainly another moment to remember for all of them.

Yes, it should be noted that these kids are pretty lucky to live under the affluent parents who can actually afford to provide a lot of things to them besides their exemplary homeschooling, but it is difficult for us not to be moved by their sincerity and enthusiasm as well as the considerable dedication shown from their parents. Although there are several occasional moments where they are quite conscious of the camera observing them, Édith and Sébastien come to us as very decent people who really care a lot about the future of their kids, and their kids are always direct and frank in showing their thoughts and feelings in front of the camera.        

 On the whole, “Blink”, which is directed by Edmund and Daniel Roher, handles its interesting human subjects with enough respect and sensitivity, and the result is often moving while never losing its sight on the personal dimensions of their precious journey at all. As shown from the end of the documentary, the kids are all right while also quite ready to go further with their life, and their family trip will always occupy a special place in their minds even after they cannot see anymore in the end.

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It’s Not Me (2024) ☆☆☆(3/4): Carax on a Godard mode

Posted on December 23, 2024 by kaist455

Leo Carax’s new short film “It’s Not Me”, which happens to be released in South Korean theaters along with Alice Rohrwacher’s new short film “An Urban Allegory” (2024), is elusive but undeniably intriguing in many aspects. Clearly influenced by those baffling later works of Jean-Luc Godard, the film often made scratch my head more than once, but it also engaged me with a real sense of wit and creativity beneath its seemingly random stream of images, and the overall result is actually a lot more enjoyable than whatever Godard’s later films attempted to do.

At first, Carax seems willing to show more of himself to us, but then his mind cannot help but follow his irrepressible creative spirit, and that is the beginning of his little visual joyride. He is really prepared to baffle or fascinate us in his own way here in this film, and I assure you that you will gladly go along with that especially if you have admired his idiosyncratic directing career like I have.

Like Godard’s later films such as “Goodbye to Language” (2014), the film frequently utilizes title cards for accentuating its ideas and themes. To be frank with you, I was rather annoyed by this at first, but then I was gradually amused by how Carax humorously handles this, and that certainly distinguishes his film a lot from Godard’s later works, which are nothing but hollow and ponderous cinematic doodles to me (Call me a philistine if you want, folks).

What is presented between these title cards are a deliberately jumbled mix of various video clips ranging from some rough home movie to a certain famous short film by the Lumière brothers. While this surely is another thing Godard tried again and again in his later movies, Carax easily surpasses Godard as actually generating a sort of narrative flow among these seemingly random video clips. You can clearly sense him trying one thing after another with no apparent direction, but you can also feel his wit, confidence, and energy nonetheless, and you may actually find yourselves often intrigued by whatever he is going to try next.

This free-wheeling attitude of the film will surely take you back to “Holy Motors” (2012), which is incidentally one of Carax’s better works. In that boundlessly fascinating film, Denis Lavant, who has been one of Carax’s main collaborators since Carax’s first feature film “Boys Meets Girls” (1984), plays many different roles as moving here and there by a big white limousine, and he even plays again that weird character he previously played in Carax’s segment in “Tokyo!” (2008). As a matter of fact, that weird character briefly appears in the middle of “It’s Not Me”, and Lavant has a little juicy fun as going all the way with his character’s amusingly unpleasant aspects.

Another interesting moment in the film is when Carax shows a bit of his sincere concern about how our world has been threatened more and more by the ongoing rise of fascism during last several years. At one point, we see a mother reading a rather twisted tale to her children, and we later see an archival footage clip showing a big American Nazi rally held in the middle of New York City. Yes, as shown in Marshall Curry’s Oscar-nominated short documentary film “A Night at the Garen” (2017), such a deplorable thing really occurred there in 1939, and the chilling images from that archival footage clip are strikingly juxtaposed with the current political status of our world.

Nonetheless, the mood remains casual and lightweight while Carax continues to explore the range of his artistic creativity as much as possible within the 41-minute running time of his short film, and that is why you should not leave the screening room before it is completely over. Right after its end credits, Carax presents a little surprise for you, and that reminded me again that I must re-evaluate his previous film “Annette” (2021) as soon as possible. I wrote a 3-star review after watching it for the first time in 2021, but its memorable moments have stayed in my mind since that, and I must admit that this unconventional musical film is much more interesting and creative than many other recent musical flicks such as, yes, “Wicked” (2024).

On the whole, “It’s Not Me” is a small but undeniably intriguing piece of work, and Carax demonstrates here again that he is still a talented director willing to take a chance at any time. After “Boys Meets Girl”, he became a rising new director to watch, but then his filmmaking career took a big downturn after the problematic (and very expensive) production of “The Lovers on the Bridge” (1991), and he seemed to crash down toward the bottom when his next film “Pola X” (1999) came out. Nevertheless, he eventually made a triumphant comeback with “Holy Motors”, and “Annette”, which garnered him the Best Director Award when it was premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, solidified the second prime of his compelling filmmaking career.

Probably because I was charmed a lot by Rohrwacher’s “An Urban Allegory” right before watching it, I put “It’s Not Me” one or two steps below “An Urban Allegory” at present. but I am willing to revisit both of them sooner or later. Despite being quite different from each other in terms of style and theme, they somehow make a superlative double feature show, and it is really lucky for me and other South Korean audiences to have such a nice little cinematic gift around the end of this year.

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An Urban Allegory (2024) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): Rohrwacher, JR, a bit of Carax

Posted on December 23, 2024 by kaist455

It took some time for me to understand and appreciate the works of Alice Rohrwacher, who has been one of the most interesting filmmakers of our time since she made a feature film debut with “Heavenly Body” (2011). While I admired “Happy as Lazzaro” (2018) as much as many others, I actually struggled a bit to discern what and how it is about, but then I got more accustomed to her own distinctive style and touches after watching “La chimera” (2023) and “The Wonders” (2014) later, and I also enjoyed a lot her Oscar-nominated short film “Le pupille” (2022), which is incidentally available on Disney+ right now.

In case of her latest short film “An Urban Allegory”, Rohrwacher worked along with JR, an acclaimed French artist who previously made an Oscar-nominated documentary film “Faces Places” (2017) along with Agnès Varda. Inspired by “Allegory of the Cave” by Plato, the film explores the importance of art in our urban life via its seemingly simple story, and the result is another fascinating work to be added to Rohrwacher’s advancing career.

At first, we meet a little young boy named Jay (Naïm El Kaldaoui) and his dancer mother. Although he is rather ill, there is not anyone else to take care of him besides his mother right now, so she has no choice but to go to her latest audition along with her son. Alas, she only ends up arriving a little too late at a building where the audition is going to be held, and now she must persuade the supervisor of the audition to let her participate in the audition while her son is waiting for her alone in the corner.

While his mother is occupied with the audition, Jay happens to encounter a guy who is clearly the director to preside over the audition along with his staff. Because this dude is played by none other than Leo Carax (He also serves as one of the producers of the film, by the way), our level of interest is instantly increased, and Carax has some little fun with his brief but crucial part – especially when his character whispers something to Jay.

The film does not specify much what exactly Carax’s character says to Jay, but we come to have a pretty good idea as Jay later wanders around streets and alleys and then begins sort of a steam-of-consciousness monologue clearly influenced by the aforementioned work of Plato. As he looks more around people and places, we become more aware of how we often let ourselves get entrapped in our urban daily life in one way or another, and I assure you that you will not feel like checking up your smartphone at all while watching this small satiric moment.

However, the film also finds some hope and optimism as our little hero comes to discover how things around him and others can really look and feel quite different, and that is where JR’s own distinctive artistic style makes a leap from what has been established so well by Rohrwacher. I will not go into details here for not spoiling any of your entertainment, but I can tell you instead that you will be quite delighted if you were entertained a lot by those memorable pieces of installation art by JR in “Faces Places”.

Around that narrative point, the film smoothly enters a realm of fantasy, so you cannot entirely be sure about what is exactly happening on the screen, but then there comes a sublime moment associated with the collaborative art project “Chiroptera”. With the score by Thomas Bangalter and the choreography by Damien Jalet, this ambitious art project powerfully resonates with the main theme of the film, and we come to reflect more on how art can actually make us regard our reality differently and then become more liberated than before.

In the end, the film returns to focusing on the relationship between Jay and his mother, who is certainly quite upset as looking for her son. Young performer Naïm El Kaldaoui is engaging in his effortless natural performance, and his expressive face sometimes speaks volume even when his character does not tell or signify much on the surface. He and his co-star Lyna Khoudri are convincing in their interactions early in the film, and that is the main reason why the last scene of the film is quietly touching.

Although its running time is only around 20 minutes, the film is efficient in its gentle handling of its story, mood, and character, and it is really fortunate for me and other South Korean audiences that the film is released in South Korean theaters along with Carax’s recent short film “It’s Not Me” (2024). The total running time of these two very different short films is just a bit more than 60 minutes, but I felt satisfied enough with both of these two interesting works, and I am already quite willing to revisit them again someday.

By the way, if you ask me which one I actually like more, I will say that “An Urban Allegory” won my heart while “It’s Not Me” intrigued my mind in many different directions, and I will also add that I usually follow my heart’s judgment in case of evaluating movies. While it is pretty amusing to see Carax emulating whatever Jean-Luc Godard struggled to do in those decidedly (and snobbishly) cerebral works during his later years, what Rohrwacher attempts to do along with JR somehow touched my heart a lot more than expected, though I must confess that my mind was initially baffled a little during its first few minutes. In short, this is one of more interesting short films I saw during this year, and it surely makes a wonderful double feature show along with “It’s Not Me”.

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Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983) ☆☆☆(3/4): A clash of styles

Posted on December 22, 2024 by kaist455

Nagisa Ōshima’s 1983 film “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence”, whose 4k restoration version was recently released in South Korean theaters several weeks ago, is a fascinatingly odd war film which attempts to present two very different human relationships at the center of the story but somehow feels rather unbalanced on the whole. While it remains adamantly distant about one of these two human relationships, it is also often reluctant to delve into the other one which is actually more poignant and interesting in my inconsequential opinion, and I came to have some reservation even though I observed its story and characters with enough interest.

At the beginning, the movie, which is based on Sir Laurens van der Post’s 1963 autobiographical novel “The Seed and The Sower”, feels like your typical prisoner-of-war movie. Its main background is a Japanese prisoner camp located somewhere in the Java Island of Indonesia, and the story, which is set around late 1942, opens with the latest matter to be handled by John Lawrence (Tom Conti), a Lieutenant Colonel of the British Army who has functioned as a liaison officer between his fellow British soldiers and those Japanese soldiers led by Captain Yonoi (Ryuichi Sakamoto) mainly because he is the only one who can speak Japanese in his group. His job is certainly quite thankless to say the least, but Lawrence tries to do his best for his fellow British soldiers despite that, and he has mostly been on good terms with Sergeant Hara (Takeshi Kitano) even though there is always a considerable distance between them.

Meanwhile, a new prisoner is sent to the camp. He is Major Jack “Strafer” Celliers (David Bowie), and he recently surrendered himself to the Japanese Army after his latest military operation was failed, but he remains defiant as unflappably sticking to his pride and dignity. This stubborn attitude of his comes to attract the attention of Yonoi, who becomes gradually obsessed with this dashing British dude for a reason which is probably elusive even to himself.

The homosexual undertone between Celliers and Yonoi is unmistakable to say the least, but the screenplay by Ōshima and his co-writer Paul Mayersberg only comes to tantalize us with suggestions and possibilities without much resolution. Is Celliers actually aware of whatever is going on between him and Yonoi? And is Yonoi really conflicted a lot about whatever he feels and thinks behind his stiffly tense appearance? Although there eventually comes an emotional highlight between them, these two vastly contrasting characters still do not click well with each other, and we are only left with rather hollow impressions even after the movie goes a bit into what makes Celliers tick.

This baffling problem is probably due to how Ōshima deliberately generated the clash of acting style between his Western and Eastern cast members. While he encouraged his Japanese performers toward more acting details, he simply let his Wester performers act as casually as possible in contrast, and the result is particularly evident from the vast difference between David Bowie and Ryuichi Sakamoto. While Sakamoto frequently tries for more acting across the screen, Bowie sticks to his usual cool appearance, and this contrast in style is often fascinating to watch at least for a while.

However, the movie never gets deeper into the strained relationship between Celliers and Yonoi, and, most of all, it also fails to generate enough chemistry between Bowie and Sakamoto. Often reminiscent of Peter O’Toole in “Lawrence of Arabia” (1961) throughout the film, Bowie simply coasts along his own uncanny presence, but he is not supported that well by Sakamoto, who unfortunately gives us a prime example of Overacting 101 here in this film. As later shown again in “The Last Emperor” (1987), Sakamoto is not a very good actor at all, but his rather weak performance can be forgiven to some degree thanks to his memorable score which incidentally won a BAFTA award (It was also his first movie score, by the way).

On the other hand, another main narrative in the story, which is associated with the equally strained relationship between Lawrence and Hara, is more effective in comparison. Although they are not exactly friendly to each other, Lawrence and Hara somehow come to recognize and respect each other more as they push and pull each other throughout the film, and that is why the last moment between them is more touching than expected.

Again, the clash in acting style is evident in this case, but Tom Conti and Takeshi Kitano are more successful compared to Bowie and Sakamoto. Although he had to memorize his Japanese lines phonetically, Conti, who recently appeared briefly in Christopher Nolan’s Oscar-winning film “Oppenheimer” (2023), clicks well with Kitano during several key scenes of theirs, and Kitano, who looks relatively more expressive here compared to that usual static screen persona shown in his subsequent movies, manages to bring some personality and humanity to his bluntly callous character.

In conclusion, “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence” is a flawed but engaging result from Ōshima, who has been mainly known from his highly controversial film “In the Realm of the Senses” (1976). Compared to that shocking work, the movie feels rather mild in addition to being hampered by some glaring weak elements, but it is still a curious mixed bag to admire and remember, and I recommend you to give it a chance someday.

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The Fall (2006) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): A glorious folly of striking images

Posted on December 22, 2024 by kaist455

Tarsem’s 2006 film “The Fall”, whose 4K remastered version will be released in South Korean theaters on Christmas, is a glorious folly of striking images to behold. Loosely based on the screenplay of the 1981 Bulgarian film “Yo Ho Ho”, the film bets almost everything on impressing us more and more with its sheer visual power, and that is definitely something you should watch it on big screen, regardless of whether you like it or not in the end.

The narrative ground of the movie is fairly simple. After the striking opening sequence shown in black and white film, we are introduced to a young Romanian immigrant girl named Alexandria (Catinca Untaru), who has been recovering from her serious arm injury at a hospital located somewhere in California around the 1920s. Just like any curious kid, she moves around here and there in the hospital, and that is how she encounters Roy Walker (Lee Pace), a Hollywood stuntman who has also been recovering from some serious accident. As befriending Alexandria during next several days, he tells her a rather rudimentary fairy tale concocted by himself, and she eagerly listens to his story with growing enthusiasm.

The movie shows us whatever Alexandria imagines in her mind while listening to Roy’s story, and we often get amused by how her innocent mind processes those colorful elements of Roy’s story. When he introduces an “Indian” character into his story early in the film, Roy actually means an American Native character, but Alexandria imagines this figure as a literally Indian guy just because, as shown later in the film, she knows an Indian immigrant guy hired at a local orange orchard where she and her family work. Likewise, many of other figures in Roy’s story are imagined as a number of various people Alexandria previously encountered, and it is particularly funny to observe how a bunch of armored soldiers in Roy’s story are imagined in Alexandria’s mind at one point.

Anyway, Roy’s story is quite familiar to the core. Around one valiant masked hero, who naturally looks identical to Roy, several different figures including that Indian figure are gathered, and all of them are quite willing to have their revenge on their common enemy who is incidentally quite rich and powerful to say the least. For example, this bad guy entrapped the wife of that Indian figure in a maze full of stairs and corridors once after coming to discern that he could not have her at any chance, and her husband still does not get over the devastation caused by her eventual death.

This huge maze scene looks quite real on the screen just like many other scenes in the film, because, well, Tarsem and his crew members including cinematographer Colin Watkinson actually shot the film bit by bit around the numerous real locations around the world for no less than 4 years instead of using CGI. As a matter of fact, Tarsem financed the production of the film for himself, though he subsequently struggled more for its theatrical distribution before it eventually got released in US in 2008.

Sadly, Tarsem’s admirable efforts here in the film were not praised that much at first. The following box office result was pretty unsuccessful (It only earned 3.7 million dollar while its total production budget was no less than 30 million dollar), and many of critics and audiences were not particularly enthusiastic about the film at that time. At least, it was admired a lot by a few notable critics including my late friend/mentor Roger Ebert, who not only gave it a 4-star review but also willingly introduced it at the 2009 Ebertfest.

Impressed by the mesmerizing visual power of “The Fall” as much as Ebert was at that time, I gladly wrote my 3.5-star Korean review around the end of 2008, and I still stand by my initial feelings and thoughts on the film. Yes, the story itself feels quite contrived and superficial especially in case of its numerous fantasy scenes, but these fantasy scenes remain grounded well by the human poignancy observed from the budding friendship between Roy and Alexandria. Still very heartbroken by a painful personal matter of his, Roy attempts to manipulate Alexandria via his fairy tale for attaining a certain hidden goal, but he comes to care about her a lot more than expected, and, what do you know, she eventually functions as an unexpected savior in not only his fairy tale but also his real life.

Everything depends a lot on the effortless chemistry between the two lead performers of the movie, who are certainly the heart and soul of the story. Besides looking as dashing as required during the fantasy scenes of the film, Lee Pace did a good job of embodying his character’s despair and anguish, and he is also complemented well by the genuine sincerity of young performer Catinca Untaru, who is instantly engaging from the very beginning with her unadorned natural performance.

On the whole, “The Fall” still has the power to astound and impress us thanks to its many striking visual moments, while remaining to be the best work in Tarsem’s rather uneven filmography. After making a promising feature film debut with “The Cell” (2000), he seemed to advance further with this precious personal project of his, but, alas, his subsequent works including “Immortals” (2011) were not so successful in many aspects compared to his first two feature films. Nevertheless, he gave us “The Fall” at least, and we will continue to remember it as one of the most daring and interesting cinematic gambles during last several decades.

S

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Time to Be Strong (2024) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): Their aimless little trip in Jeju Island

Posted on December 22, 2024 by kaist455

South Korean independent film “Time to Be Strong”, which is incidentally the 15th movie project of the National Human Rights Commission in South Korea, is a somber but haunting character drama about three young people feeling lost and desperate in one way or another. While a considerable part of their youth has already been gone, there is only a lot of uncertainty about their future, and the movie observes their loss and confusion with deep understanding and empathy.

At the beginning, we meet the three main characters of the story: Soo-min (Choi Sung-eun), Sa-rang (Ha Seo-yoon), and Tae-hee (Kang Chae-yun). We gather that they were once pretty popular as adolescent K-pop stars but they are all retired now, and the main purpose of their trip to Jeju Island is pretty simple: they want to have a private trip which may compensate for their lost high school days.

However, things do not go that well for them from the beginning. Sa-rang happens to get her suitcase lost before arriving at the place where they will stay during next several days, and she also inadvertently causes a serious trouble which costs all the money they have. As a consequence, they have to move to a little camping car, and they also must do some part-time job at a nearby tangerine orchard.

And we get to know more about how things have been quite bad for them. While Sa-rang has clearly been struggling with some mental problem, Soo-min has been suffering anorexia, and we are not so surprised when it is later revealed that their former K-Pop group was disassembled after some infamous incident which happened to one of their colleagues. In case of Tae-hee, he is still officially bound by his contract in addition to having the debt of less than 30 million won, and, as shown from a brief amusing scene early in the film, he still misses when he was quite famous.

Steadily building up its main characters along the story, the screenplay by director/writer Namkoong Sun, who previously made a commendable feature film debut with “Ten Months” (2020), subtly conveys to us how much its main characters have been exploited and damaged by their entertainment industry. Now becoming way over 20, they are not that youthful enough anymore, and, after spending so much time on doing whatever they were demanded to do, they are all at loss now while wondering about any possible way to deal with their loss and confusion.

However, the situation is not entirely bad for them as they come to receive the kindness of the strangers they happen to encounter. The owner of that tangerine orchard turns out to be more generous than expected, and there is a little touching moment when he provides some medical help to Soo-min at one point in the story. In case of a young woman who comes to befriend Soo-min and her friends by coincidence, she is eager to get to know them more, and she surely brightens up the mood a bit for all them during one evening.

However, there is still the harsh reality to deal with for Soo-min and her friends. While both Sa-rang and Soo-min remain haunted by that horrible incident, Tae-hee still does not know how to handle his serious financial problem, and all of them must recognize more that most of their youth is gone forever. Even at the end of the story, nothing much is certain, and they are all reminded more that they only have each other for now.

Nevertheless, the movie also ably pulls out some little moments of hope and optimism among its main characters in the end, and it also shows a bit of humor and warmth at times. In case of an unexpected dramatic moment during the last act, this becomes quite poignant as one of the main characters says something meaningful for all of them, and we also chuckle a bit as observing the absurd aspect of their circumstance.

Like any good character drama films, the movie benefits a lot from its solid cast members, who are all believable in their respective roles. Choi Sung-eun, who previously collaborated with Namkoong in “Ten Months”, gives another strong performance to remember, and she is also supported well by her two co-stars. Although her character often feels rather elusive, Ha Seo-yoon makes her character more understandable than expected, and Hyeon Woo-seok holds his own place well between Ha and Choi. As two crucial supporting characters in the story, Hong Sang-pyo and Kang Chae-yoon have each own moment to shine, and Kang steals the show a bit when her character sincerely tries to cheer up Soo-min and her two friends later in the story.

Overall, “Time to Be Strong” is the impressive second work from Namkoong, who surely confirms to us here that she is indeed a talented filmmaker who may impress us more during next several years. To be frank with you, I am not interested much in K-Pop, and I do not even know a lot about whatever has been happening inside the K-Pop industry, but the movie successfully delivers its important message on human rights via the story and characters to remember for a long time. In short, this is a first-rate public service in addition to being one of the best South Korean films of this year, and you should check it out as soon as possible.

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Carry-On (2024) ☆☆☆(3/4): An efficient genre variation inside the airport

Posted on December 20, 2024 by kaist455

Netflix film “Carry-On”, which was released in last week, is a familiar but efficient genre variation to enjoy. Yes, this is surely influenced by many other thriller films ranging from “Die Hard 2” (1990) to “Nick of Time” (1995), but the story and characters are skillfully handled with enough thrill and suspense, and you will gladly go along with that even while occasionally noticing its plot holes and contrivances during your viewing.

After the opening scene which effectively sets the tone, we are introduced to a lad named Ethan Kopek (Taron Egerton), who has worked as a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officer at LA International Airport. Because it is Christmas Eve, Kopek and his girlfriend, who also works at the airport, will soon go through one of the busiest days at their big workplace, and the movie succinctly establishes their close relationship as they are going together to the airport early in the morning.

Because his girlfriend recently turned out to be pregnant, Kopek comes to feel the need to be more responsible about where his life and career are going, so he decides to be more active about getting promoted. After managing to persuade his direct supervisor, he comes to replace a colleague who is incidentally also his best friend, and we see him scanning the luggage of the incoming passengers instead of that colleague.

However, there soon comes a big problem not long after Kopek begins scanning those incoming suitcases one by one. It turns out that there is someone very dangerous inside the airport, and this guy, who approaches Kopek via a remote earphone sent to him, demands Kopek to do one supposedly insignificant thing. All Kopek will have to do is ignoring the scanning result on the baggage of a certain passenger, and this guy threatens to kill Kopek’s girlfriend if Kopek refuses to follow his instruction.

Naturally, Kopek becomes quite nervous to say the least. He attempts to find any possible way to alert this serious threat to anyone around him, but, not so surprisingly, his opponent keeps cornering him in one way or another, and he chillingly demonstrates at one point that he is definitely not someone Kopek can easily mess with at any chance.

Steadily rolling the story and characters with more tension, the screenplay by T.J. Fixman also brings some more character details to the plot. As Kopek and his opponent push or pull each other throughout the story, we get to know more about why Kopek has been reluctant to do more for his life and career, and it is rather ironic to see how he becomes all the more active than before as trying to save himself as well as many others including her girlfriend. Although he is still one or two steps behind his opponent, he comes to show much more grit and cleverness than he has ever possibly imagined, and we surely come to root for him more as constantly reminded of what is being at stake for him and others.

Under the competent direction of director Jaume Collet-Serra, who made a number of enjoyable genre flicks such as “Orphan” (2009), “Run All Night” (2015), and “The Shallows” (2016), the movie provides a series of solid suspenseful moments to keep us on the edge to the end. There is an unnerving scene where our hero finally encounters what he is supposed to ignore, and that is just the beginning of how things become a bit more complicated for him and several other characters including his opponent. At one point, he must stay calm and careful in handling the content of that certain baggage in question, and you may also be a bit amused by the presence of a time-honored genre cliché which was incidentally disliked a lot by my late mentor/friend Roger Ebert. 

The movie certainly depends much on the talent and presence of its lead performer for vividly conveying us to the amounting tension and pressure on its hero, and Taron Egerton, a promising British actor who has been moving onto better things since “Kingsman: The Secret Service” (2014), dutifully holds the film together as required. Even when his character does not seem to signify much on the surface, Egerton ably illustrates his character’s growing panic and desperation along the story, and his strong performance keeps driving the film even when it stumbles a bit more than once later in the story.

The movie also assembles a bunch of good supporting performers around Egerton. Despite her rather thankless role, Sofia Carson brings some warmth to her scene with Egerton early in the film, and Tonatiuh, Theo Rossi, Logan Marshall-Green, Sinqua Walls, Curtiss Cook, Joe Williamson, and Dean Norris are also well-cast in their respective parts. Although her supporting character is more or less than a plot device, Danielle Deadwyler provides a bit of extra intensity to the story, and Jason Bateman is alternatively smarmy and menacing in his villainous role.

 Overall, “Carry-On” works fairly well while doing exactly what it is expected to, and the result is one of more enjoyable offerings from Netflix during this year. It is surely a by-the-book thriller flick from the beginning to the end, but it is certainly better than Collet-Serra’s recent films “Jungle Cruise” (2021) and “Black Adam” (2022), and that is enough for recommendation in my trivial opinion.

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