Tchaikovsky’s Wife (2022) ☆☆(2/4): The Passion of Tchaikovsky’s Wife

Posted on May 1, 2024 by kaist455

They say misery loves company, but, after watching Kirill Serebrennikov’s “Tchaikovsky’s Wife”, I am wondering whether Russians love misery more than it wants. Here is a relentlessly grim, solemn, and miserable film which does not have much sense of human passion or spirit to compensate for its increasingly tedious dirge, and we are left with growing emptiness while not getting much entertainment or enlightenment about Tchaikovsky or his very, very, very unhappy wife.

According to the movie, Antonina Miliukova (Alyona Mikhaylova) had no idea about her husband’s homosexuality when she approached to him like your average groupie girl not long after encountering him at a private meeting. While Tchaikovsky (Odin Biron) simply shows some courtesy during several following private meetings between them, Antonina becomes more determined to be the wife of a great composer, and she is not deterred at all even when he flatly tells her that he is not interested in women.

In the end, after agreeing with each other that their marital relationship will be mostly platonic, Antonina and Tchaikovsky get married, and she is certainly thrilled to become Mrs. Tchaikovsky in addition to finally getting away from her domineering mother, but we already begin to see bad signs here and around them. For example, after their little wedding ceremony, they go to a party where nearly all of the guests happen to be men, and the mood is not that jolly or vivacious to say the least, while Tchaikovsky becomes too drunk to do the consummation event of their wedding night.

And things only get worse and worse during next several months for both Antonina and her husband, who still seldom touches her while preferring to hang around with his certain male friends more. When he happens to get a new work to do outside Moscow, he gladly goes away from his wife, and Antonina remains baffled and frustrated as wondering more about what she should do for really being loved by her husband.

Yes, there eventually comes a point where Antonina comes to learn about her husband’s homosexuality from several people close to her husband, but she cannot accept this at all – even when she receives a fairly nice offer any sensible woman cannot refuse under her tricky situation. She adamantly refuses to let her husband go, and she firmly sticks to her position even while letting herself having an inappropriate relationship with a lawyer representing her.

As duly observing her following downward spiral, the movie does not go that deep into what makes its heroine tick, so we only come to observe her ongoing misery and despair from the distance without much care or understanding. Is she just delusional? Is she really clinging desperately on the hope of getting finally loved by the man she has worshipped no matter what? Alyona Mikhaylova brings some fire and passion to her character, but Serevrennikove’s screenplay sadly does not provide much insight on her character, and it is certainly daunting to see her fierce efforts getting wasted from time to time.

Furthermore, Tchaikovsky himself in the film is not particularly interesting to observe either. As often limited by the flat characterization of his role, Odin Bron, who is actually an American actor, does not have much to do here, and his character eventually becomes more distant to us as being all the more absent during the last act.

In case of the soundtrack of the film, I must tell you that you will not hear that much of Tchaikovsky’s works here in this film as it sticks so much to his wife’s gradually unhinged viewpoint. Filling the resulting empty space as much as possible, the score by Daniil Orlov is certainly quite melodramatic, but I doubt whether you remember the score as much as the brief humming of one of Tchaikovsky’s famous works in the middle of the film.

At least, the movie is fairly competent in technical aspects. Cinematographer Vladislav Opelyants, who previously worked with Serebrennikove in “Petrov’s Flu” (2021), serves us a number of skillful visual moments where the passage of time is deftly illustrated in unbroken shot, and the movie is surely packed with authentic period atmosphere as required. Around the end of the story, Serebrennikove and his crew members pull off all the stops at last for a dramatic moment to remember, but, alas, that comes too late in my inconsequential opinion, and it actually made me more depressed, considering that the movie would be much more interesting if it had more of such a bold moment like that.

In conclusion, “Tchaikovsky’s Wife” has some interesting potential at first, but it only ends up being a generic biopic lacking enough human interest to hold our eyes for its overlong running time (141 minutes). Although you may admire Serebrennikove’s attempt to give a female perspective to what can be regarded as your typical great male artist drama, you will probably be quite bored by its monotonously gloomy presentation of human misery and suffering, and you may become more interested in watching Ken Russell’s Tchaikovsky biopic “The Music Lover” (1971) later. No, I have not watched that cult film yet, but I heard from others that it is not boring at least regardless of whether you like it or not, and, as a matter of fact, I really want to check it out right now after regrettably wasting 141 minutes of my life today.

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Wicked Little Letters (2023) ☆☆☆(3/4): A little problem in their town

Posted on April 30, 2024 by kaist455

“Wicked Little Letters” is a lightweight comedy film coupled with a bit of mystery. While it is not that difficult for us to guess the answer to the mystery inside the story even before its half point, the movie remains buoyed by its cheerful mood and several good performances even at that point, and we gladly go along with that.

The story, which is set in a small British town named Littlehampton around the 1920s, begins with a situation which would instantly draw the attention of Agatha Christie’s famous rural sleuth Miss Marple. Another anonymous poison letter has been just delivered to a local spinster named Edith Swan (Olivia Colman), and, though she is rather reluctant at first, she is eventually pushed by her domineering father Edward (Timothy Spall) to report her ongoing incident to the local police.

As subsequently talking with the local chief constable of the town, Edith says that she suspects that her neighbor Rose Gooding (Jessie Buckley) is the one who has sent those anonymous poison letters. When Rose moved to the house right next to Edith’s along with her young daughter, she surely drew lots of attention as a single mother quite open and forthright about her close relationship with her boyfriend, and this certainly shocked Edith to say the least, who has had a repressed conservative daily life under her strict father. Nevertheless, Edith and Rose somehow befriended each other for a while despite that for a while, but then they became quite estranged from each other due to a conflict ignited by the clash between Edith’s father and Rose.

Even though there is no incriminating evidence against her from the very beginning, the local police decide to arrest Rose, who naturally insists that she did not write any of those anonymous poison letters. Fortunately, Gladys Moss (Anjana Vasa), a young female police officer in the local police station who has aspired to follow the footsteps of her detective father, believes Rose, but, not so surprisingly, her opinion on the case is immediately dismissed by her misogynistic supervisor to her frustration.

Once she begins her own little investigation, Gladys soon finds some allies to help her. There are a trio of local ladies willing to assist Gladys as the close friends of Rose, and, though their first encounter was not exactly pleasant, Rose comes to accept Glady’s help after being released on the bail paid by her good friends, because being separated from her dear daughter is the last thing she wants now.

Around that point, you can easily deduce the culprit behind those anonymous poison letters if you are familiar with the Law of Economy of Characters, but the screenplay by Jonny Sweet, which is actually inspired to some degree by a real-life case as humorously mentioned at the beginning of the film, keeps things rolling with enough wit while making some indirect points on female rights and solidarity. Nearly all of the female characters in the film including Edith and Rose are often disregarded due to their gender, and we come to care more about Edith and Rose as observing how they struggle with misogyny day by day in one way or another. While Rose sticks to her feisty appearance outside, Edith silently endures her father’s emotional abuse inside, and that is probably why they easily became close to each other at first.

In case of Gladys, she also has had a fair share of disappointment and frustration as often discriminated by her supervisor and other male police officers at her workplace, but that does not stop her at all from getting the justice for Rose. Later in the story, she and her new friends eventually discover a substantial clue, and now they will have to plan for catching a certain figure on the spot because the case becomes much more serious than before with more anonymous poison letters sent around the town.

The movie loses some of its narrative momentum during its last act as almost everything in the story is revealed as expected, but it still holds our attention thanks to the good performances from its main cast members. Olivia Colman, who also produced the film, and Jessie Buckley, who was Oscar-nominated for playing the younger version of Colman’s character in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Lost Daughter” (2021), ably complement each other throughout the film, and Anjana Vasan holds her own place well between Colman and Buckley as another crucial main character in the story.

Around these three wonderful actresses, director Thea Sharrock, who recently gave us Netflix film “The Beautiful Game” (2024), assembled a number of colorful supporting characters to remember. While Timothy Spall, an ever-dependable British character actor who has constantly impressed us for more three decades, is suitably obnoxious as required, Gemma Jones is also fine as Edith’s fragile mother, and Joanna Scanlan, Lolly Adefope, Malachi Kirby, and Eileen Atkins are well-cast in their respective supporting parts.

In conclusion, “Wicked Little Letters” is a small but jolly comedy film which does as much as intended, and I fine with that. While it is a bit weak as a mystery story in my inconsequential opinion, it has enough humor and personality to support itself at least, and it is certainly recommendable for the delightful efforts of its solid cast.

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Petrov’s Flu (2021) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): A baffling Russian flu fantasia

Posted on April 29, 2024 by kaist455

Kirill Serebrennikov’s “Petrov’s Flu” is a boldly self-indulgent mess you may admire for good reasons. Mainly revolving around one plain hero who happens to have a serious case of flu, the movie freely and whimsically goes back and forth between reality and fantasy, and there are a number of visually striking moments to be savored, but you may also often scratch your head on what is actually about. To be frank with you, even I do not know how to describe its plot and characters to you on clear terms, so I will simply write down what I observed from the film.

The opening scene of the movie shows its titular character, Petrov (Semyon Serzin), being inside an urban bus along with many other passengers during on winter day. He is going to an apartment where his ex-wife and their son live, but he is not so well now because of recently having a flu, and his miserable current status is more exacerbated by a series of grumblings from a number of different figures around him inside the bus.

Some time later, Petrov’s ride is unexpected interrupted by a vehicle coming behind the bus. The vehicle belongs to a guy named Igor (Yuri Kolokolnikov), and Igor subsequently has Petrov get off from the bus and then join him inside the vehicle, which turns out to be a makeshift hearse. After an absurd moment involved with the coffin inside the vehicle, Igor takes Petrov to his workplace, and things become more absurd as Petrov finds himself hopelessly and miserably stuck with Igor and his colleague.

The movie also pays attention to the equally melancholic daily status of Petrov’s ex-wife Nurlinsa Petrova (Chulpan Khamatova), who incidentally works as a local library employee. For some unknown reason, she can suddenly be quite dangerous to others around her whenever she becomes quite exasperated, and we see how things can be very bloody when she becomes really angry to one rude attendee of a small poetry meeting held at her workplace.

In case of her son, he and Nurlinsa are not particularly friendly to each other. While Nurlinsa has been quite estranged from her ex-husband, her son still wants his father to take him to some holiday celebration event, even though he becomes rather ill probably because of that flu. While she actually feels a murderous urge at one point, Nurlinsa tries to tolerate her son as much as possible, though he does not appreciate her efforts much.

Meanwhile, Petrov’s state of mind becomes more feverish due to his worsening medical condition, and the movie deliberately blurs the line between reality and fantasy more than before. In case of one sequence, Petrov finds himself spending some time with a writer friend of his, and the situation becomes a bit amusing when Petrov finds that his friend’s latest work contains a surprising moment of sexuality. Not so pleased about this for a personal reason, Petrov and his writer friend argue with each other for a while, and then there comes another absurd moment between them as cinematographer Vladislav Opelyants’ camera fluidly hangs around them (Opelyants deservedly received the Vulcan Award for cinematography when the movie was premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, by the way).

Around this point, you will be quite baffled to say the least, and the movie keeps throwing more baffling moments as if it were following a stream of ill consciousness inside its hero who remains rather elusive to us to the end. For instance, we never get to know that much about him beyond his very sick condition, and you may not be entirely sure about whether he is a mechanic or a graphic novel artist or both.

While nothing is clarified enough on the whole, the movie goes further during its last act, which is incidentally presented in black and white film. We get to know more about a certain female figure briefly appearing in the middle of the film, and there are some moments of poignancy, but then you may also wonder whether this part is actually a story imagined inside Petrov’s mind. This will probably make you more distant to the story and characters than before, and you will not be that impressed much when the movie tries to catch you off guard again during its final scene.

Overall, “Petrov’s Flu” is admirable to some degree for how Serebrennikov and his cast and crew members try to do as much as possible during its rather long running time (147 minutes), but it was a frustrating experience for me as I often failed to sense and then hold onto any kind of emotional narrative inside the film. As I told you many times before, I do not mind getting baffled and disoriented at all, but “Petrov’s Flu” lacks the emotional center to engage and then touch me, and that makes me less inclined to give it a second chance later.

Anyway, “Petrov’s Flu” reminds me again that Serebrennikov is an interesting Russian filmmaker who willingly takes a chance with his artistic vision. I admired his previous works “The Student” (2016) and “Leto” (2018), and, despite his recent serious clash with the Russian government, he has already moved onto “Tchaikovsky’s Wife” (2022) and “Limonov: The Ballad” (2024). While I did not like “Petrov’s Flu” enough, I am already ready for these next two films of his, and I sincerely hope that I will be more impressed and entertained.

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Challengers (2024) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): Are they ready to serve?

Posted on April 28, 2024 by kaist455

Luca Guadagnino’s new film “Challengers” is quick, deft, and passionate in its every serve, and I like that a lot. Electrifyingly and humorously bouncing along one very complicated situation among its three main characters, the movie alternatively amuses and thrills us to the end, and you will appreciate its masterful handling of story and characters more after getting totally knocked down by its intense and breathtaking finale.

After the opening scene where it skillfully sets its overall tone, the movie quickly establishes how things have not been going that well for Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) and his wife Tashi (Zendaya). Although he has been quite a prominent professional tennis player in US for last several years, Art may have to consider retirement seriously due to a series of rather dissatisfying tournament results at present, but he is willing to try more with the full support and encouragement from his wife, who was incidentally a very promising young tennis player before she had to retire due to an unfortunate accident. After her retirement, she began to pursue the career of a tennis coach, and, not so surprisingly, she has been her husband’s coach since their marriage.

After some consideration, Tashi decides to have her husband participate as a wild card player in a Challenger event in New Rochelle, New York, and she hopes that this may boost her husband’s confident to some degree, but, alas, there comes an unexpected problem via Art’s old friend/colleague Partick Zweig (Josh O’Connor). While he is struggling at the bottom of his professional career in addition to being on the verge of becoming literally penniless, Patrick thinks this Challenger event can bring some change to his professional career, and he becomes more confident when it later turns out that he may actually get back in his element at last.

The movie already shows us that Patrick and Art will eventually confront each other during the final game, but the screenplay by Justic Kuritzkes gradually doles out one surprise after another as frequently going back to the interconnected past of its three main characters. In case of a flashback part which goes back to 13 years ago, we see more of how much Art and Patrick stuck to each other as two close friends, and we also observe how zealous Tashi was in preparing for her professional career in the future. When she happens to come across Art and Patrick at one point, she seems to regard them as a tempting challenge to handle instead of being actually attracted to either of them, so she willingly comes to a hotel room where they have been staying.

What happens next among them is both funny and intense in unexpected ways. I will not go into details here, but let’s say that both Patrick and Art get what they want while, to Tashi’s little naughty amusement, also coming to face what has been below their very close friendship. At first, it seems that what happened among them will just stay in the room where that happens, but this inevitably affects everyone in one way or another in addition to putting more strain on Art and Patrick’s supposedly strong relationship.

As we get to know more and more about the very complicated history among these three main characters, we keep wondering more about their real feelings and motives. While Patrick and Art turn out to be struggling with their old mutual emotional issues as before, Tashi also feels less confident than before as becoming rather unbalanced about her feelings about Art and Patrick. Although her self-interest seems to come first for her, she also looks like really caring about her husband while not entirely denying whatever she actually feels about Patrick.

As these three main characters virtually throw or return a serve to each other along the story, Guadagnino and his crew members dials up the level of tension across the screen whenever it looks necessary to them. A number of tennis match scenes in the film are often visually impressive in addition to being increasingly taut and sweaty as demanded, and cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, who has been mainly known for his frequent collaborations with Apichatpong Weerasethakul and also previously worked with Guadagnino in “Suspiria” (2018), and editor Marco Coast deserve to be praised for their top-notch efforts on the screen, which is further accentuated by the propulsive electronic score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

The movie surely swings up and down with the absorbingly dynamic interactions among its three main cast members. While Zendaya demonstrates more of her natural talent and charisma than whatever she achieved in Denis Villeneuve’s recent Dune movies, Mike Feist and Jack O’Connor are also equally stellar as their characters constantly push and pull each other throughout the story, and they and Zendaya steadily support their movie even when it stumbles a bit during the last act where every card held behind its back is unfolded for delivering the expected climax as required.

In conclusion, “Challengers” is a well-made sports drama film besides being another knockout work from Guadagnino, who has seldom disappointed me since “I Am Love” (2009). As shown from many of his previous films including “I Am Love” and “Call Me by Your Name” (2017), he is a master filmmaker who really knows how to illustrate human passion and sensuality on the screen, and he definitely proves his main strength again here in this superbly entertaining work.

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They Shot the Piano Player (2022) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): The disappearance of Francisco Tenório Júnior

Posted on April 28, 2024 by kaist455

How much I actually came to learn about Francisco Tenório Júnior? That was a lingering question left in my mind after I watched animated docudrama film “They Shot the Piano Player”, which was mainly about the real-life disappearance and presumed murder of that rather obscure and but undeniably talented Brazilian pianist in 1976. Yes, his disappearance was really tragic for many reasons, but he remains to be a frustratingly elusive human figure even at the end of the film, and that was a little disappointing for me even though I admire its considerable technical efforts.

The narrative of the film is driven by a fictional New York City journalist named Jeff Harris (voiced by Jeff Goldblum), who comes to embark on writing a book about the Bossa nova music of Brazil around the early 1960s after his article on that subject came to draw lots of attention around the world. As a part of his material research process, he plans to spend several days in Brazil, and a close local friend of his is certainly willing to help him right from the beginning.

As doing more research into Bossa nova, which is a relaxed mix of American Jazz and Samba music, Harris comes to learn more about how influential Bossa nova was when it was developed in the late 1950s by a group of very young talented musicians such as João Gilberto and Paulo Moura. Just like when those young French filmmakers of the French New Wave concocted something quite revolutionary around that period, Gilberto and his fellow musicians happened to create their own innovate stuffs to be spread around the world, and it is interesting to note that both Bossa nova and the French New wave were highly creative responses to the considerable influence from some of the best parts of the American culture during that time.

While Harris interviews a number of living legends of Bossa nova in Brazil (Their real interview recordings are incorporated into the film, by the way), one certain figure keeps appearing, and that figure in question is none other than Francisco Tenório Júnior. All of the interviewees who personally knew him during that time talk a lot about what a talented genius this young pianist/composer was, and the film naturally gets more interested in delving into his exceptional but tragically short career along with Harris.

Although there are only a few recordings to show the talent of this ill-fated artist, they are fairy enough for us to feel and understand his considerable artistic talent, which could have influenced Bossa nova more if it had not been for his sudden disappearance. In March 1976, Tenório was doing a tour along with his several colleagues including Vinicius de Moraes in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and everything seemed fine for them as they enjoyed another satisfying moment for their careers, but then he was suddenly vanished not long after he went outside his staying place during one early morning.

This mysterious incident was certainly devastating to many people around him. While many of his colleagues were quite baffled, his wife and children as well as his mistress were more devastated as it became more evident that Tenório was another victim of many South American dictatorship governments during that period. As an expert explained to Harris later in the film, those dictators of a number of Central and South American countries gathered together for their joint covert operation to oppress millions of citizens during that period, and, not so surprisingly, the US government and CIA secretly supported this atrocious operation for securing their national interest on Central and South America as a part of the Cold War strategy.

Because what really happened to Tenório right before his presumed death remains an unsolved mystery even at this point, the film understandably comes to keep circling around that maddening question as a bunch of various testimonies associated with his disappearance and presume death keep popping out here and there. For example, we never get to know the exact reason for why he was targeted from the very beginning, and we can only guess that he was just casually labeled as a “subversive” just like millions of innocent victims during that terrible period. In addition, there are also several different versions of how he got vanished on that fateful day, and you will not be that sure about whether he went outside for buying a sandwich for him or getting a medicine for his mistress who happened to accompany him during that tour of his.

Moreover, the film is so occupied with the mystery surrounding Tenório’s disappearance that it often seems to overlook presenting Tenório as a human being to know and understand. Although it looks a bit into his early years later, Tenório still feels distant to us even at that point, and we are only reminded again and again of how wonderful he was as an artistic and a man despite his rather complicated private life. Furthermore, its fictional interviewer hero is quite colorless despite Goldblum’s good voice performance, and you may wonder whether the film could be more effective if it just directly approached to its narrative materials instead of using a redundant narrator figure as its narrative framing device.

In conclusion, “They Shot the Piano Player”, whose title is clearly derived from François Truffaut’s “Shoot the Piano Player” (1960), is not entirely satisfying, but it is technically impressive thanks to its vibrant and colorful juxtaposition of music and animation. Compared to directors Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal’s previous Oscar-nominated film “Chico and Rita” (2010), this is relatively less recommendable in my humble opinion, but it is not a total waste of time at least, and you may be interested in checking it out if you are not so familiar with its main subject.

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The Breaking Ice (2023) ☆☆☆(3/4): A quiet triangle in one cold Chinese city

Posted on April 28, 2024 by kaist455

“The Breaking Ice”, which was selected as the Singaporean entry for Best International Film Oscar in last year, is a somber but poignant drama about three different young people who happen to be stuck together during several cold winter days in the northeastern area of China. While it requires some patience from you at first mainly due to its slow narrative pacing, the movie will gradually immerse you in its vivid local mood and details to observe and appreciate, and you will also come to care about its three main characters more than expected.

The main background of the film is Yanji, a country-level city in the east of the Jilin Province of China which is also the center of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture. As some of you know, many of its citizens are the descendants of Korean people who moved there during the Japanese colonization era during the 20th century, and they have proudly maintained their heritage for many years as reflected by the frequent appearance of Korean language throughout the film.

The story begins with the big wedding ceremony between one Chinese dude and some Korean Chinese woman, and it soon comes to focus on one of the guests at the spot. This person in question is a lad named Haofeng (Liu Haoran), and it is slowly revealed to us that he is from Shanghai and also has been struggling with some serious mental problem. As a matter of fact, he later becomes so depressed that he seriously considers suicide, and then he changes his mind when he happens to spot a pretty young woman who works as a guide for visiting Chinese tourists.

Her name is Nana (Zhou Dongyu), and the movie observes her daily work for a while once Haofeng impulsively joins those Chinese tourists under her supervision. At one point, she and her tourists drop by a big tourist spot showing more of the local Korean culture in Yanji, and I must tell you that this is quite an interesting sight for South Korean audiences like me.

After that, Nana takes her tourists to a local restaurant for lunch, and then we get to know more about her friendship with a lad named Xiao (Qu Chuxiao). While not knowing what to do for his currently aimless life, Xiao usually works for his aunt and her husband who have incidentally run that local restaurant, and it is evident to us that he wants to get closer to Nana, though she is not so interested in that despite still regarding him as a close friend of hers.

When Haofeng happens to lose his smartphone, Nana is willing to help him a bit, and then she suggests to him that he should spend some time along with her and Xiao before going back to Shanghai. Although he is reluctant at first, Haofeng eventually agrees to have some fun along with his two accidental friends during the following evening, and we come to see more of the city and its surrounding area as observing how they go through a few more days and nights together.

On the surface, nothing much seems to be happening, but the three characters of the film gradually reveal themselves bit by bit along the story. Although the movie never specifies whatever Haofeng has been struggling with, we come to gather a bit about how much he has been pressured in one way or another, and that is the main reason why he and Nana come to form a sort of kinship between them. As revealed later in the story, she also ran away from lots of expectation and stress, and she understands Haofeng to some degree even though she never asks any direct question on his depressed status. In case of Xiao, he still yearns for Nana’s affection, but he is willing to accompany her and Haofeng as their friend nonetheless, and several playful moments among them in the film may take you back to those young main characters of Jean-Luc Godard’s “Band of Outsiders” (1964).

Patiently rolling its story and characters, the movie establishes more of its realistic local background which will haunt your mind as much as its three youthful but melancholic main characters. Thanks to cinematographer Yu Jing-pin, the cold ambiance of the city and its surrounding area on the screen feels quite palpable with the frequent shots of ice and snow, and this icy atmosphere is accentuated more during one sequence where Nana, Haofeng, and Xiao try to climb to the top of the Changbai Mountains, which are also known as the Great Paekdu in Korea. As more snow and fog come, the mood becomes rather surreal, and we are not so surprised when they experience something unbelievable before eventually going back to Yanji.

Under the thoughtful direction of director/writer Anthony Chen, a Singaporean filmmaker who won the Camera d’Or for his first feature film “Ilo Ilo” (2013) at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, the three main cast members are convincing in their earnest low-key acting. While Zhou Dongyu brings some tranquil beauty to her character, Liu Haoran is effective in the restrained depiction of his character’s deeply troubled state, and Qu Chuxiao is also solid as another crucial part of the story. Because they never spell out whatever is happening among their characters, it is always engaging to observe the subtle interactions among their performances, and the movie wisely avoids any unnecessary melodrama even during its eventual finale.

In conclusion, “The Breaking Ice” is worthwhile to watch for its cold but haunting poetic qualities to be savored. You may struggle a bit at first for getting what and how it is about, but it is fairly rewarding on the whole thanks to its solid mood, storytelling, and performance, so I recommend you to give it a chance someday.

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Unknown Narrative (2023) ☆☆(2/4): A jumbled dream movie

Posted on April 28, 2024 by kaist455

South Korean independent film “Unknown Narrative” could be named “Unfathomable Narrative” instead. It is supposed to be your average dream movie reminiscent of many other similar films such as David Lynch’s “Mulholland Drive” (2001), but any of its variously confusing moments do not gel together enough to hold my attention, and I found myself checking the time more than once during my viewing despite its rather short running time (75 minutes).

In the beginning, the movie seems to be mainly about Gi-un (Kim Dae-gun), a young man who works as a stunt double for the lead actor of some zombie apocalypse movie. When he begins another day, Gi-un feels rather disturbed for some unknown reason, and that odd impression on him grows further when he and others have an inexplicable happening while shooting one particular scene of their zombie flick.

After that weird moment, Gi-un frequently experiences one weird thing after another in his dream, and the movie accordingly throws lots of odd moments in seemingly random order. For example, we are introduced to a colorful delivery truck driver who keeps talking to himself as driving to somewhere, and then we see a schoolteacher doing her classroom lesson in front of a bunch of plant pots for no apparent reason. To be frank with you, I really have no idea on what these strange moments really mean for Gi-un, and I must warn you that they are just the prelude to many baffling moments to follow.

In the meantime, we are also introduced to Gi-eun (Jeong Ha-dam), a young woman who has suffered a lot due to her spinal injury caused by some serious accident. She recently decides to quit her painkiller because it keeps muddling her state of mind, but her doctor warns that the following withdrawal symptoms can also be quite severe, and things surely start to become very confusing for her mind. For example, there is a colorful dream moment where she does a free shopping here and there inside a big clothing shop, and then it turns out that her unconscious state of mind is connected with Gi-un’s for some unknown reason. This certainly makes the situation all the more confusing for us, and we come to wonder more about whether something actually happened between them.

However, the movie does not give us anything tangible enough for us to sense and understand whatever is happening on the screen, and there are also a number of glaring technical tactics which became more and more tiresome for me during my viewing. Whenever a character mentions something supposedly important, the movie suddenly makes a blatant jump cut just for showing that for a few seconds, and you will feel more embarrassed as the movie does the same thing again and again to the end. As an amateur film reviewer, I am not an expert at all, and I can tell you at least that even a film school novice will be too ashamed to do such a heavy-handed thing like that.

And that is just one of many other things which may frustrate or annoy you a lot. The sound effects of the movie are deliberately jarring, but this serves no purpose at all in my humble opinion, and neither does the decidedly overbearing score, which grated on my eardrums more than once. In addition, the line delivery of the performers in the film often feels so stiff that you will become more aware of the artificial qualities of the movie.

I guess the movie wants to catch its audiences off guard all the time, and I respect that to some degree, but it unfortunately forgets to ground its random dream narrative on any kind of emotional thread we can hang on. Sure, we may never explain everything in “Mulholland Drive”, but there is always a strong emotional center to interest and fascinate us to the end. In case of Charlie Kaufman’s “Synecdoche, New York” (2008), it is also equally confusing from the beginning to the end, but it somehow touched me in a similar way, and that is the main reason why I have been eager to revisit this sublime piece of work someday.

At least, I cannot say anything bad about the two main performers of the film, who try their best for filling their respective parts with some life and personality. While Kim Dae-gun, who previously played a crucial supporting character in “Drown” (2022), did a fairly good job of embodying his character’s growing confusion and desperation along the story, Jeong Ha-dam, who has been another interesting South Korean actress to watch since her breakout turn in “Still Flower” (2015), has some fun with several showy moments given to her, and it is a shame that their efforts are often limited by the weak storytelling and thin characterization of their movie. In case of several performers who simply come and go, Park Myung-shin manages to acquit himself well even though he is required to carry his single scene alone, and Lee Hyun-jin and Lee Ju-won also leave some impression during their brief appearance.

“Unknown Narrative” is the first feature film of director/writer Yang Gun-young, who previously made short film “Please Don’t Ask Me Why” (2019). Despite my immense frustration with her movie, I must point out that there are occasional signs of considerable talent in the film, and I guess she really wants to demonstrate what she is capable of as much as possible here in this film, but she sadly fails to make something as singular as Park Sye-young’s remarkable debut feature film “The Fifth Thoracic Vertebra” (2022). At least, she will probably move onto something more interesting sooner or later, and I really think she can do that.

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A Traveler’s Needs (2024) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): Hong and Huppert meet again

Posted on April 28, 2024 by kaist455

Isabelle Huppert, who recently had her 71st birthday in last month, is one of the most interesting movie actresses I have ever seen. With that consistently distinctive persona of hers, she has steadily fascinated and impressed us for more than 50 years, and now she entertains us again in South Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-soo’s new film “A Traveler’s Needs”, which incidentally won the Grand Jury Prize when it was premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival early in this year.

Here in this film, Huppert plays an elusive middle-aged French woman who goes through a rather eventful day in one neighborhood area of Seoul. On the surface, this French lady is simply enjoying some life in Seoul while supposedly working as a private French tutor, but neither the movie nor she reveals that much about who she actually is, and that is where Huppert brings her own magic. Effortlessly exuding her own charm and charisma, she makes her opaque character interesting to observe to the end, and Hong certainly provides his own comic moments to support his lead actress.

The first act of the movie opens with the meeting between Huppert’s character and a young South Korean lady. After casually talking with each other in English for a while, the young South Korean lady demonstrates a bit of her piano performance skill, but Huppert seems to be more occupied with something else as she goes out to the balcony of her young pupil’s residence, and her young pupil keeps playing the piano in the meantime.

Some time later, Huppert throws a few seemingly serious questions on how her young pupil felt about her performance. Although she stumbles a bit as trying to articulate what she exactly felt at that time, her young pupil manages to give the answers, and Huppert writes down her answers on notes in French. When they subsequently go outside, Huppert asks about how her young pupil feels about a certain object they happen to come across, and, again, she writes down the answers on notes in French.

In the end, Huppert gives her young pupil what she wrote in French. According to her, one can learn a foreign language better via trying to speak what feels close to one’s heart first, and her pupil seems to believe in this rather unorthodox method while also showing some gratitude via a little tuition from her. I cannot say whether this teaching method can be really effective, but I must say that I was constantly amused by how Huppert delightfully handles this amusing moment under Hong’s unadorned but smooth direction.

The second part of the movie is more or less than a variation of the first part, and Huppert visits a middle-aged couple introduced to her via the mother of her young pupil. Because she happens to like a South Korean rice wine named “makgeolli” a lot, she and the couple later come to have a little drinking time together, and that reminded me again that it is not so recommendable for any alcoholic performer to collaborate with Hong (I heard that he often made his performers drink in front of the camera, by the way).

And I was also reminded of that simple but sublime moment of Huppert drinking a bottle of soju, another South Korean alcoholic beverage, alone in Hong’s previous film “In Another Country” (2012). As he did in that charmingly enjoyable film, Hong finds some rich humor from how his South Korean characters clumsily interact with Huppert in English, and that becomes all the amusing for me and other South Korean audiences when Huppert is later introduced to a famous poem from one of the most famous South Korean poets of the 20th century.

Around the last act, things get a little more serious as Huppert comes to show a bit of her character’s private life in Seoul. It turns out that she has been in a romantic relationship in a younger man, and she is willing to give him some financial help via that little tuition earned by her, though we are not so sure about whether she really loves him or not.

Our doubt on that aspect of hers is increased more when someone makes an unexpected visit to that young man’s residence. I will not go into details for not spoiling any of your entertainment, but I can tell you instead that what follows next is surprisingly tense, and you will even be surprised by a brief but striking moment of jump cut, which certainly stands out in contrast to Hong’s usually laid-back handling of story and characters.

Although you may scratch your head a bit due to the rather ambiguous ending, Huppert will still hold your attention as usual as freely bouncing along with the movie, and she is also supported well by several South Korean performers including Lee Hye-young, Kwon Hae-hyo, Cho Yun-hee, Ha Seong-guk, and Kim Seung-yoon. Like Huppert, most of them worked with Hong more than once, and they surely know how to handle those dryly humorous moments in the film while ably supporting Huppert as required.

Overall, “A Traveler’s Need”, which is incidentally Hong’s 31st feature film, is one of his more enjoyable films during last several years besides being one of the better South Korean movies of this year. He seemed to be spinning wheels in his two previous films “In Water” (2023) and “In Our Day” (2023), but he is back in element here, and I certainly hope that he will collaborate with Huppert again someday.

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Yannick (2023) ☆☆☆(3/4): One nutty interrupter

Posted on April 27, 2024 by kaist455

French film “Yannick” is a little one-joke comedy film which may often amuse you with the increasingly absurd situation surrounding its main characters. Despite its rather short running time (67 minutes), the movie does as much as intended without wasting any minute of it, and then it makes a rather neat exit when the story seems to be approaching toward its inevitable finale.

The movie opens with the ongoing stage performance of a play inside some little theater in Paris. The play, which is incidentally titled “The Cuckold”, initially seems a bit interesting with the scene between the husband and wife in the play, but it becomes more evident to us that its three main performers are really trying hard to sell their characters in front of their audiences. As a matter of fact, there are only a handful of audiences in the theater, most of whom are mildly interested without much care.

And then one of the audiences suddenly interrupts the performance to the surprise of everyone in the theater. He is a plain working-class guy named Yannick (Raphaël Quenard), and he is not so pleased because he has to endure this rather mediocre performance instead of actually having a good time there. He attempts some earnest criticism on the play as well as its performance, but he does not get much agreement from his fellow audiences or the main performers, and then he is eventually demanded to leave theater for continuing the performance.

At first, Yannick seems defeated when he exits, but he somehow changes his mind later while determined to do something quite drastic. He returns with a gun in his hand, and nobody dares to object him this time, regardless of whether that gun is real or not. As holding both the audiences and the main performers as his hostages, he eventually demands the main performers to do something else instead of what they were supposed to do on the stage, and that certainly throws the main performers into more panic and confusion.

Now this setup surely requires you some suspension of disbelief, and the movie manages to sidestep some plot holes as cheerfully wielding its darkly absurd sense of humor along the story. Mainly because there are not many people in the theater besides the audiences and the main performers, Yannick can easily take over the theater quite easily, and the audiences and the main performers have no choice but to follow his demands without being not so sure about what is really going on around them. The audiences do not complain that much mainly because they have been rather bored during the performance, and some of them actually seem amused by how Yannick breaks the monotony of the performance. In case of the main performers, they all agree to indulge Yannick as much as possible, but, not so surprisingly, they come to see more of how impossible he really is as their new writer/director (Their original writer/director is conveniently absent, by the way).

Considering what he manages to write in the end, I should say Yannick is not a very good writer at all, but I must also admit that he is constantly fun and amusing to observe from the distance at least. During the second half of the story, he even attempts to ingratiate him with a number of audiences, and most of the audiences except one cranky old dude are more amused as coming to side with him more than before (Talk about the Stockholm syndrome!).

These and many other moments in the film are effectively presented under the deft direction of director/writer Quentin Dupieux, who is also known as “Mister Oizo” and incidentally serves as the co-producer/editor/cinematographer of the film. While it is mostly confined in its small, closed background, the movie never feels stuffy despite being shot in the screen ratio of 1.33:1, and his main cast members keep their appearance as straight as possible while not seeming to be aware of being on the joke of the film at all. Although the story begins to run out of its narrative momentum during its last 10 minutes, it still maintains its lightweight mood even at that point, and you will also get some extra laugh before the end credits roll.

While Raphaël Quenard is naturally a standout thanks to a number of juicy comic moments given to him, the rest of the cast members are also engaging in their solid ensemble performance. As the three main performers of the play in the film, Pio Marmaï, Blanche Gardin, and Sébastien Chassagne are often hilarious as their characters frantically try to cope with their increasingly complicated circumstance in one way or another, and Marmaï is particularly funny when his character happens to reach to a sort of breaking point around the climactic part of the story. In case of the supporting performers playing the audiences, they ably support Quenard and the other three main cast members, and their individual responses to their ongoing hostage situation certainly contribute more humor to the story.

On the whole, “Yannick” is a modest but interesting piece of work from Dupieux, who previously made several notable feature films including “Dearskin” (2019). In my consequential opinion, it could be developed further in terms of story and characters, but the movie tickled and entertained me enough while not staying out its welcome at all, and now I become more interested in checking out Dupieux’s previous works later.

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BlackBerry (2023) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): The Rise and Fall of BlackBerry

Posted on April 26, 2024 by kaist455

You probably remember that there was a very popular smartphone called BlackBerry before iPhone and many other smartphones. To be frank with you, I never used BlackBerry because I stuck to my small cellular phone during that time although I saw it from movies and TV from time to time. When I eventually move onto Samsung smartphone along with my family in 2013, BlackBerry was already being pushed out by other smartphones, and now it becomes an artifact of the early 2000s at present.

Matt Johnson’s third feature film “BlackBerry” presents the dramatic story of how BlackBerry rose and then fell during the 2000s, and it splendidly works as an ironic cautionary tale on ambition and hubris. Sure, the company behind BlackBerry would have gone nowhere if it had not had someone to push itself much further, but that person in question also turned out to one of the main factors in its eventual downfall later, and there is certainly a rich irony in that.

The movie, which is mainly set in Waterloo, Canada, opens with an accidental meeting in 1996 between an ambitious businessman named Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton) and the two young nerdy co-founders of Research in Motion (RIM): Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel) and Doug Fregin (Matt Johnson). While Lazaridis and Fregin initially do not impress Balsillie much mainly due to their clumsy presentation on their new cellular device called “PocketLink”, Balsillie subsequently come to see some potential from PocketLink, and he decided to go all the way for RIM not long after getting fired from his company.

Although Balsillie demands to Lazaridis and Fregin that they should hire him as the co-CEO of the company first, Lazaridis, who is incidentally the current CEO of RIM, eventually agrees to accept Balsillie’s demand despite some initial hesitation. After all, RIM is on the verge of bankruptcy because of Lazaridis and Fregin’s bumbling mismanagement, and it surely needs a guy willing to bring some constructive changes into the company right now, which feels pretty much like your average fraternity house for nerdy boys.

And Balsillie does the job as much as expected. After doing some aggressive reorganization inside RIM, he makes Lazaridis and other technicians focus more on the development of PocketLink, which is renamed later as, of course, “BlackBerry”. Thanks to Balsillie’s savvy business tactics, RIM eventually succeeds in drawing the attention from the executives of Bell Atlantic, which is also known as Verizon. in US, and, what do you know, BlackBerry subsequently becomes a new hot electronic device to buy once it comes out in 1999.

The second half of the screenplay by Johnson and his co-writer/producer Matthew Miller, which is based on Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff’s nonfiction book “Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry”, jumps forward to when the company becomes much bigger and richer in the early 2000s. While Fregin remains your typical nerd just like many of his colleagues in the company, Lazaridis becomes a bit savvier as influenced more by Balsillie, and both he and Balsillie are quite confident about the future of their company.

However, their company soon begins to have one big trouble after another. When RIM confronts the impending possibility of the hostile takeover by some bigger American company, Balsillie pushes RIM toward selling much more BlackBerrys in US for blocking that possibility, but this aggressive business tactic of his leads to a disastrous outcome which irrevocably tarnishes the reputation of the company. Moreover, Steve Jobs and his Apple company suddenly surpass RIM with, yes, iPhone in 2007, and that certainly makes Lazaridis and other technicians in the company all the more nervous.

Quite intoxicated with his big success, Balsillie is more occupied with buying a NHL (National Hockey Leagues) team, so Lazaridis has to handle this immediate problem for himself. Not so surprisingly, he quickly finds himself under a situation way over his head – especially when US SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) begins to investigate the company.

Under Johnson’s competent direction, the story smoothly rolls toward its predestined finale, and Johnson also draws good performances from his two fellow cast members. While Jay Baruchel successfully dials down his comic image for his usually subdued character, Johnson functions well as a goofy but surprisingly sensible counterpart to Baruchel’s character, and Glenn Howerton, who has also been mainly known for comic performances like Baruchel, is palpably intense and aggressive in what may be regarded as a breakthrough turn in his acting career. While his character is pretty unlikable to say the least, Howerton presents his character as a fascinating case study to observe with some dark amusement, and he certainly energizes the movie whenever he enters the screen.

“BlackBerry” is another recent entrepreneur movie about famous product after “Air” (2023) and “Tetris” (2023), but it is one of more enjoyable ones thanks to its solid storytelling and entertaining performances. Although I have no idea on how much the movie actually embellishes its real-life story, the overall result is quite engaging on the whole, and it will probably be remembered more than BlackBerry itself in the future.

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