20,000 Species of Bees (2023) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): The rural summer story of a trans kid

Posted on January 1, 2024 by kaist455

Spanish film “20,000 Species of Bees” is a little but intimate coming-of-age tale of one trans kid who becomes more serious and conflicted about her sexual identity during one summer. As gradually immersing us in her confused emotional state, the movie emphasizes with not only her but also several adult figures around her while each of them try to deal with her gender issues, and we become more touched as it calmly observes and depicts her emotional journey with lots of care and sensitivity.

At first, the movie slowly lets us gather the situation surrounding its 8-year-old trans heroine and her family. Not long after she caused some unspecified trouble with one of those neighborhood kids, she and two older siblings of hers go to their mother’s hometown located in Spanish Basque Country, but they are accompanied only with their mother because their father seems to be too busy with his job at present.

When our young heroine, who will name herself as Lucía later in the story, arrives along with her mother and siblings in their mother’s hometown, their relatives wholeheartedly welcome them all, and they all look forward to having a good time after the upcoming baptism ceremony for the young baby son of Lucía’s aunt. We soon see Lucía hanging around with a bunch of local kids, and she presents herself as a girl to them without much problem, though there is one brief moment when she has to hide her physically sexual identity from others.

Lucía’s mother is certainly well aware of what Lucía has been doing, and so does Lucía’s grandmother, who can only tolerate the sexual identity of Lucía to some degree. When she walks along with Lucía outside at one point, Lucía’s grandmother is not so pleased to see that Lucía is regarded as a girl, so she instantly emphasizes to others that Lucía is a boy, and that certainly hurts Lucía’s feelings to say the least.

Compared to Lucía’s grandmother, Lucía’s mother is more tolerant of Lucía’s emerging sexual identity, though she does not know much of how to deal with these serious issues of her kid. When they go to a local swimming pool, she generously allows Lucía to use the locker room for women, but she does not hide Lucía’s physically sexual identity at all, and this causes another conflict between her and Lucía.

In case of Lucía’s two older siblings, they turn out to be more tolerant of her sexual identity than they seemed at first. While they sometimes annoy Lucía, they become more accustomed to her sexual identity as their summer days go by, and the same thing can be said about a local girl around her age who comes to befriend Lucía later in the story. As a matter of fact, the girl is not so shocked at all when Lucía shows more of herself to the girl during their little private free time, and this actually deepens their friendship.

The most accepting figure in the story is Lucía’s great aunt, who has always dedicated to beekeeping with admirable diligence and passion. As she often takes Lucía to her little workplace outside the town, Lucía finds herself become more relaxed and comfortable with herself, and Lucía’s great aunt accepts Lucía exactly as who she is without any judgment.

While steadily following Lucía’s emotional narrative, the screenplay by director/writer Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren also pays some attention to what is going on among several female members of Lucía’s family including her mother and her great aunt. As a woman reaching for a chance to revive her old artistic career, Lucía’s mother cannot help but feel frustrated while still feeling like being overshadowed by her late artist father’s reputation, and that causes some tension between her and her mother, who probably tolerated a lot from her husband during their marriage. In addition, they also clash a lot with each other for their different viewpoints on how to handle Lucía’s gender issues, and an attempt of intervention from Lucía’s great aunt only comes to add more tension to their conflict.

In the end, the story culminates to an expected melodramatic moment, but the movie still holds itself well under Solaguren’s skillful direction, and it is also supported well by the good natural performances from its main cast members. Young performer Sofía Otero, who deservedly received the Silver Bear award for Best Lead Performance when the movie was premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival early in last year, is utterly unforgettable in her effortless illustration of her character’s emotional confusion and conflict along the story, and it must be said that Solarguren closely worked with a local association for the families of transgender minors for guiding Otero’s acting. In case of several adult performers surrounding Otero, Patricia López Arnaiz, Ane Gabarain, Itziar Lazkano, and Sara Cózar are well-cast in their respective supporting parts, and Arnaiz is particularly convincing in her character’s frequent struggle to understand and support Lucía as a flawed but fairly decent mother.

Overall, “20,000 Species of Bees” is another excellent coming-of-age queer drama to watch, and I admire its sensitive and thoughtful handling of the story and characters. To be frank with you, I do not know that much about transgender people, but a number of recent good films have given me some understanding and enlightenment on how they often struggle to understand and accept who they are, and “20,000 Species of Bees” is certainly one of such good films to recommend.

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The Teachers’ Lounge (2023) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): A trouble at one school

Posted on December 30, 2023 by kaist455

German film “The Teachers’ Lounge”, which was selected as the German submission to Best International Film Oscar then was recently included the shortlist, is a dry but riveting school drama about how one small matter becomes quite complicated for everyone involved with it. No matter much how its good-willed heroine tries her best for handling this increasingly tricky situation, things keep getting messier thanks to not only others but also herself, and we come to brace ourselves as observing the growing tension and pressure around her and others.

At the beginning, the movie gradually lets us know an ongoing circumstance inside one school. There have been a series of theft incidents, and Carla Nowak (Leonie Benesch) and several other teachers come to suspect that one of their students is responsible for these bad incidents, so Carla and the principal have a little private meeting with her two students who might give any information on whoever is behind these bad incidents. Not long after that, Carla’s male students suddenly get their possessions examined in the middle of their lesson, and then one of these male students comes to draw attention for having a substantial amount of money in his possession.

This student in question explains where that money comes from, and his parents, who are incidentally immigrants, confirm their son’s claim. Mainly because she does not want to get this student suspected more, Carla decides to take care of the problem for herself. She sets up a little trap for the culprit at the teachers’ lounge, and then, what do you know, her laptop video camera captures another incident of theft during her absence, though the identity of the culprit remains unknown as before.

Just because of a little detail shown from the video clip, Carla comes to suspect one of the teachers in the school. She later confronts this teacher in question, but this teacher vehemently denies everything, so Carla decides to report to the principal, who promptly takes an action which comes to ignite a chain reaction of unpleasant happenings. It initially seems that the matter will be resolved sooner or later, but, unfortunately, the actions of Carla and several others around her are followed by the serious consequences beyond their control, which also lead to more problems and headaches to everyone in the situation.

One of these consequent problems is involved with the young son of that suspected teacher, who happens to be one of the smarter students in Carla’s classroom. Strongly believing in his mother’s innocence, he embarks on his little campaign against his teacher, and Carla cannot help but more exasperated even while trying to maintain her appearance and authority in front of her students, who come to regard her with more anger and defiance. No matter how much she tries to calm them down in one way or another, things only get worse and worse, and she even finds herself not getting much help or support from many of her fellow teachers.

Steadily dialing up the level of tension on the screen, director İlker Çatak, who also wrote the screenplay with Johannes Duncker, keeps the story and characters rolling under his skillful direction. Shot in the screen ratio of 1.33:1 by cinematographer Judith Kaufmann, the movie effectively builds up the sense of suffocation around its heroine, and we are not so surprised when Carla is eventually driven up to the point where she really needs any kind of mental ventilation. The score by Marvin Miller often feels jarring with deliberate discord, and we get unnerved whenever Miller’s score subtly announces something to happen sooner or later. While mostly sticking to its heroine’s viewpoint, the movie wisely does not vilify any of its main characters, and we come to understand and emphasize more with not only Carla but also several other main characters in the story – even while watching how they often make the situation all the more complicated and exasperating than before.

The movie is anchored well the strong performance of its lead performer. Leonie Benesch, a German actress who started her movie acting career in Michael Haneke’s “The White Ribbon” (2009), is compelling as quietly conveying to us whatever is churning behind her character’s doggedly patient attitude, and she is especially fantastic when her character belatedly comes to realize her big error later in the story. I am not that sure about whether this moment is real or imagined, but Benesch is simply devastating as her character is reminded more of the growing trouble inadvertently caused by her.

In case of the other adult main cast members of the film, Michael Klammer, Rafael Stachowiak, Anne-Kathrin Gummich. and Eva Löbau are solid in their respective supporting parts. The special mention goes to a bunch of young performers in the film including Leonard Stettnisch, who are certainly another crucial part of the story. Their good natural performances function well as the counterparts to Benesch’s acting, and that is particularly evident during one tense scene where her character comes to face the growing distance between her and her students.

On the whole, “The Teachers’ Lounge” is often tough to watch, but it holds our attention thanks to its deft storytelling and convincing performance, and you may be relieved a bit when it arrives at an unexpectedly calm but powerful moment to remember. While nothing is certain for everyone even at the end of the story, there is some possibility for hope and harmony as suggested by what is played so harmoniously on the soundtrack during the following end credits – and we can only wish for the best for all of them.

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Theater Camp (2023) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): Another season of their summer theater camp

Posted on December 27, 2023 by kaist455

“Theater Camp”, which is currently available on Disney+ in South Korea, is a familiar type of comedy which could be improved here and there in my trivial opinion. While it is apparent that the main cast members of the film are apparently having a fun together on the screen, the story and characters could go further for more humor and insanity, and we can only get the glimpses of that possibility from time to time without entertained enough on the whole.

At the beginning, we are introduced to a little summer theater camp named “AdirondActs”. As its another camp season is coming, Joan Rubinsky (Amy Sedaris), who has run the camp for many years despite its considerable financial difficulties, is eager to have another good and productive time with those enthusiastic kids willing to take more chance with acting and singing, but, alas, she unfortunately becomes comatose due when she is watching a little school musical production, and the management of her camp is subsequently handed to her son Troy (Jimmy Tatro), an entrepreneur wannabe who is apparently quite incompetent from his very first appearance.

Anyway, the teaching staff members of the camp, who have irresponsibly been downsized by Troy, try to do their best as before despite the glaring absence of their dear leader. Amos Klobuchar (Ben Platt) and his longtime professional partner Rebecca-Diane (Molly Gordon) continue to work on their latest musical production for those kids to come to the camp, but, alas, they still do not have any story or song yet even when the first day of the summer season begins. While Glenn Winthrop (Noah Galvin), who is a stage technician, is ready to teach anything to the kids under his charge, Janet Walch (Ayo Edebiri), who has just been hired by Troy, actually does not know anything about teaching how to act, but she manages to get away with that while supposedly encouraging her students in one way or another.

Not so surprisingly, things gradually get out of control day by day. In addition to Troy’s frequent incidents of mismanagement, the camp is threatened more by a local bank ready for the foreclosure of the camp at any point, and Troy is later approached by a representative from some well-known financial company which has already acquired a more successful theater camp near to AdirondACTS. In case of the teaching staff members of AdirondACTS, they often stumble a lot while their students actually turn out to be more talented and knowledgeable, and we are not so surprised to know that most of these teachers have been stuck with the camp for a long time since they came there as students.

Now this looks like a fairly solid setup with rich comic possibility, but, the screenplay by directors Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman and their co-writers/co-producers Noah Galvin and Ben Platt, which is based on the 2020 short film of the same name, feels rather flat and half-faked in case of story and character development at times. While there are a number of little amusing moments to be appreciated by theatergoers, they do not gel together enough together to generate constant comic momentum to hold our attention, and the mockumentary storytelling approach of the film also feels unnecessary and distracting without contributing that much to the story or the characters.

The biggest flaw of the movie is the under-development of many of its main characters, and that is quite evident especially in case of Amos and Rebecca-Dine, who are incidentally the least interesting characters in the story. Although Platt, who looks much less awkward compared to what I saw from the trailer of “Dear Evan Hansen” (2021) mainly because he is old enough to play a dead-end teacher, and Gordon, who recently played a supporting character in acclaimed TV comedy series “The Bear”, are a fairly competent comic duo, they should have brought more humor and depth to their characters and the subplot between their characters, and they are frequently overshadowed by the more colorful main cast members of the film as a result.

The other main cast members are also mostly stuck with their broad caricature roles, but they diligently fill their respective spots as much they can. While Galvin has his own moment to shine during the expected big musical finale decorated with lots of deliberately crummy songs, Jimmy Tatro, Caroline Aaron, Nathan Lee Graham, and Owen Thiele leave some impression despite their thankless supporting parts, and Ayo Edebiri, who incidentally appeared along with Gordon in “The Bears”, is unfortunately under-utilized here compared to her more interesting comic performance in Emma Seligman’s “Bottoms” (2023).

It can be said that the real stars of the film are a bunch of young performers including Alan Kim of “Minari” (2020), and they all never hit any false note throughout the film while freely wielding their natural talent across the screen. As a matter of fact, the movie could delve more into their amusingly intense dedication to their artistic passion, and that brings me back to what Ebert once said about the ever-amazing acting of many child performers out there: “Maybe we are all born as great actors, but after a certain age, most of us morph into bad ones.”

In conclusion, “Theater Camp” is not a total waste of time at least, but I just felt mildly amused during my viewing without having enough laugh for recommendation. I surely recognize the considerable efforts put on and behind the screen, but I still think it could be better for richer laughs for us, and I am already ready to search for something funnier than this.

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Saltburn (2023) ☆☆☆(3/4): Which one is more horrible?

Posted on December 26, 2023 by kaist455

Emerald Fennell’s second feature film “Saltburn”, which is currently available on Amazon Prime, is as disturbing and vicious as its very title suggests. Following one young man’s insidious journey into the isolated world of wealth, ennui, and decadence, the movie often wields its nasty wit upon its story and characters, and we observe this with morbid fascination from the distance.

The story, which is initially set in 2006, begins with how its hero Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) happens to befriend a rich upper-class boy named Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi) during their final year at the Oxford campus. As a nobody who has been depending on a scholarship, Oliver has been eager and desperate to get any popular friend, but Felix and his rich buddies seem to be out of his reach while Oliver only finds himself stuck with some nerdy lad who is as unpopular as him.

Anyway, Oliver later comes to draw the attention of Felix via one small lucky incident, and it does not take much time for Oliver to draw more attention from Felix, who becomes more curious about Oliver during their subsequent encounter. As Oliver eagerly presents more of himself to Felix, Felix gladly lets Oliver get along with him and his inner circle members including his American cousin Farleigh Start (Archie Madekwe), who understandably regards Oliver with subtle hostility and contempt because he has already seen through what is going on between Oliver and Felix.

Not long after their final year at the Oxford Campus is over, Felix suggests that Oliver should stay some time at his family manor, and Oliver has no problem with that, but he soon comes to see how awkward he will be among Felix and his family members. Right from when he arrives their family manor, Oliver is coldly handled and served by their stern butler (Paul Rhys is very good while implying a lot via his mostly unflappable attitude and appearance, by the way), and he feels all the more uncomfortable as having the following formal dinner along with Felix and his family members.

Felix’s family is certainly your average snobbish rich British people. While Felix’s father, Sir James (Richard E. Grant), is pretty haughty to say the least, Felix’s mother, Lady Elspeth (Rosamund Pike), is quite a self-absorbed woman living in her own world who occasionally shows some superficial care to others around her, and Felix’s younger sister, Venetia (Alison Oliver), is apparently tired of being stuck with her family although, just like his family, she does not know how she can possibly live outside their cozy isolated world.

And there is Farleigh, who has to depend on the family’s generosity as long as possible just like Oliver. He does not hesitate to point out how fragile and facile Oliver’s status is in the Catton manor, and we come to sense more of tension him and Oliver as bright hot summer days languidly pass by around them and others in the manor.

Meanwhile, the situation becomes weirder and darker as Oliver gradually comes to show his true colors to us along the story, and Fennell’s story consequently becomes a deranged cross between Evelyn Waugh’s “Brideshead Revisited” and Patricia Highsmith’s “Talented Mr. Ripley”. As Oliver gets himself deeper into the daily life of the Cattons, he begins to manipulate many of them in one way or another, and he even seems to be emotionally attracted toward some of them including Felix. At one point, we get a truly perverted (and disgusting) moment showing whatever he is feeling toward Felix, and that is just the beginning of a parade of moments filled with sexual perversion and debauchery.

Even around that narrative point, the movie sticks to its cold and distant attitude without giving us anyone to care about, but it steadily holds our attention thanks to Fennell’s competent handling of humor and morbidity. The result feels a little overlong and sprawling at times in my consequential opinion, and her screenplay stumbles more than once during its third act, but Fennell and her crew members including cinematographer Linus Sandgren, who won an Oscar for Damien Chazelle’s “The La-La Land” (2016), diligently serve us striking visual moments to remember. We find ourselves more immersed into its main background just like its increasingly unnerving hero, and we become more disturbed as discerning more of how he is as horrible as those rich people surrounding him.

The performances in the film are the main reason why the movie is worthwhile to watch. Barry Keoghan, who has been always good at playing odd or disturbing characters as shown from his recent Oscar-nominated supporting turn in Martin McDonagh’s “The Banshees of Inisherin” (2022), boldly goes all the way for showing more of his own distinctive presence and talent, and he is also supported well by several good performers surrounding him. While Jacob Elordi, Alison Oliver, and Archie Madekwe hurl themselves into their youthful but ultimately superficial supporting characters, Richard E. Grant and Rosamund Pike savor every snobbish moment of theirs in the film, and Carey Mulligan, who previously collaborated with Fennell in “Promising Young Woman” (2020), effortlessly steals the show during her brief appearance.

On the whole, “Saltburn” is Fennell’s another interesting work after her first feature film “Promising Young Woman”, which incidentally garnered her a Best Screenplay Oscar. To be frank with you, I do not think “Saltburn” is better than “Promising Young Woman”, but both of them show Fennell as a distinctive filmmaker to watch, and I am already waiting for whatever will come next from her.

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Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV (2023) ☆☆☆(3/4): The Father of Video Art

Posted on December 23, 2023 by kaist455

I remember an old local TV commercial featuring Nam June Paik and one of his artworks. Although I was just a little boy when I came across it in the early 1990s, what was shown from that local TV commercial impressed me a lot for the striking appearance of that artwork of his, and that is the main reason why I was often fascinated as observing what is interestingly presented in documentary film “Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV”. Although I knew a bit about his artistic career, the documentary shows a lot more than I knew, and I certainly had a fair share of enlightenment during my viewing.

The early part of the documentary focuses on how much Paik struggled during the early years of his artistic career. Born to a very affluent family in South Korea, young Paik was expected to follow his rich businessman father’s footsteps someday, but he defiantly chose to pursue his growing interest in art instead, and he eventually left South Korea for studying in Munich, Germany in 1956. While studying music and philosophy there, he had some difficult times as trying to find his own artistic style, and the excerpts of his old writings, narrated by co-executive producer Steven Yeun, give us more details on that hard time of his.

And then there came an unexpected moment of inspiration when he went to see a little concert by famous American avant-garde composer John Cage on one day. As beholding how freely daring Cage was in breaking many rules and conventions, Paik became quite inspired to do his own things without any hesitation, and he soon came to draw considerable attention as he valiantly threw himself into a series of acts of performance art including destroying a piano on the stage. I must confess that I still do not totally get the meaning of this performance art of his, but I can tell you at least that it did leave some indelible impression on me for his youthful boldness.

While pushing himself further, Paik later got interested in the artistic possibility in TV, and he began some early artistic experiments with a bunch of TVs before eventually moving to New York City for more artistic exploration in 1964. As he created a number of artworks made from TVs and other electronic stuffs, he surely drew a lot of attention from his fellow artists in the city as well as local critics and curators, but his artworks were mostly not appreciated much on the whole. As a matter of fact, many of his artistic outputs including the one associated with the very title of the documentary were not received that well by many major critics, and we get some nasty amusement from several scathing reviews on his artistic outputs during that period.

Not so surprisingly, Paik found himself struggling more in one way or another during next several years, and we hear a bit about how he and his Japanese spouse managed to live day by day without any stable source of income. He often had to depend on the generosity of his friends and supporters, and there is an amusing letter on how he could take care of his daily meal with only 10 dollars during next few weeks.

Nevertheless, Paik did not give up at all, especially after being encouraged and supported more by Cage, who had always been a close friend/colleague of his since they met each other after that little concert in Munich. He tried harder and harder for acquiring any kind of grant, and there is a rich irony in how one of his prominent detractors during that time came to help him in the end.

Once he got the grant at last, Paik went on full throttle mode, and that eventually led to his first major experiment with video art in public. Again, the reviews on this artistic experiment of his were mostly negative to his disappointment, but Paik became more confident about his artistic vision, and the documentary makes a strong point on how Paik’s artistic experiment came to influence a number of famous music videos during the 1980s such as the one for Talking Heads’ “Once in Lifetime”.

In the early 1970s, there came a purely coincidental breakthrough for Paik. Not long after having his 41st birthday in 1973, he happened to buy a Buddha statue just for amusement, and, what do you know, this led to the creation of “TV Buddha”, one of the most famous and successful works in his career. Thanks to its big critical success, he rapidly rose as the leading pioneer of video art, and that was followed by a number of major projects including the global satellite broadcast of “Good Morning, Mr. Orwell” in 1984. Although this project was technically pretty disastrous from the beginning to the end, it further solidified Paik’s prominence in public, and now he was welcomed everywhere including South Korea, though he was reluctant to visit his home country for understandable reasons.

Around the 1990s, Paik became less active due to his declining health, but he kept going as a dedicated artist, and he also saw how communication technology advanced as much as he envisioned in his artworks. As a matter of fact, he already imagined how our world would feel much smaller via what he called “Electronic Superhighway” at that time – and how much we would often feel lost and confused during our current digital era. If he were still alive now, he would not be surprised that much by what is happening on the Internet everyday.

While it does not delve that much into Paik as a human being, “Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV”, directed by Amanda Kim, gives us an engaging presentation on Paik as an innovative artist, and it did a commendable job of mixing heaps of informative archival materials with a bunch of various interview clips. The technology behind many of his artworks may look quite dated at present, but his artistic ideas remain fresh as before, and the documentary will probably make you more interested in exploring his fascinating artworks out there.

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Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus (2023) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): His last performance

Posted on December 23, 2023 by kaist455

Documentary film “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus”, which was premiered in the Venice International Film Festival several months ago and then will be released in South Korean theaters in the last week of this year, is quite simple in its presentation setting. At first, it seems to observe merely what turned out to be the last performance in the long and illustrious career of Ryuichi Sakamoto (1952 ~ 2023), but it did a commendable job of vividly capturing a number of undeniably powerful artistic moments to linger on our minds, and the overall result is often very poignant to say the least.

As many of you remember, around the time when Stephen Nomura Schible’s documentary “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda” (2017) came out, it seemed that Sakamoto was on the way to recover after getting the medical treatment on a serious case of throat cancer. Unfortunately, he was diagnosed to have another kind of cancer a few years later, and he had to go through another medical treatment, but he eventually died early in this year to our sadness.

Several months before his death, Sakamoto embarked on his last project along with director Neo Sora, who is incidentally Sakamoto’s son. After selecting and then arranging 20 pieces from his vast body of works, he did a solo piano performance all by himself during a series of sessions at his favorite recording studio in Tokyo, and he could actually watch the final cut version of his son’s documentary not long before he passed away.

Without any introduction or explanation, the documentary just shows Sakamoto performing a Yamaha piano in the middle of the studio from the beginning to the end, but Sakamoto’s solo piano performance slowly draws our attention in the middle of the quietly isolated environment of the studio, which is further accentuated by the strikingly stark black and white cinematography by Bill Kirstein. Whenever the camera closely observes Sakamoto’s performance, we cannot help but feel some melancholy from his rather weary appearance, and, though he does not signify much on the surface, it seems that he knew well that the end of his life was quite imminent. In fact, we are reminded more of his impending death whenever the documentary looks at his face immersed in lights and shadows generated by a few lighting equipments inside the studio.

His considerable physical vulnerability during these recording sessions is particularly evident when he is performing “Bibo No Aozora”, which was powerfully utilized in the heartfelt final scene of Alejandro González Iñárritu’s great film “Babel” (2006). In the middle of the performance, he unexpectedly makes a glaring error to our surprise, and I found myself bracing myself at times while observing his following struggle to regain the control on his performance. He wanted to do it again, but his son chose to include this flawed take in the documentary, and that is the right choice considering that Sakamoto was ready and willing to present himself in front of the camera with no ego or pretension at all.

Although most of the works performed by Sakamoto in the documentary are unfamiliar to me, I could easily recognize the main themes of his several notable film scores at least. While the Oscar-winning score for “The Last Emperor” (1987) surely gives us one of the highlight moments in the documentary, the score for “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence” (1983) lightens up the mood a bit around the end of the documentary, and the score for “The Sheltering Sky” (1990) provides another enjoyable moment in the documentary.

There are also a number of brief interludes during which Sakamoto occasionally says a few words or silently prepares for whatever he is going to perform next. Many of these moments feel rather inconsequential on the surface, but there is one short but interesting moment to remember. At one point, we see how he puts some devices onto the piano strings for a bit of sound manipulation, and the following sonic result is deliberately jarring but interesting for our ears nonetheless.

Meanwhile, we come to admire more of his considerable artistic dedication as the camera frequently shows Sakamoto’s aged hands and fingers. After that glaring moment of error, we observe more of how his performance feels a little shaky and unstable from time to time, but he is not daunted by that at all as far as I can see from his mostly calm and phlegmatic face. The mood naturally becomes more bitter and gloomier as his showtime is being over, but he keeps going as before, and the documentary closes with a sublime moment which reminds us that his artistic achievement will remain as long as we remember and cherish what he created during last several decades.

On the whole, “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus” is worthwhile to watch for not only the gracefully humble qualities of Sakamoto’s last performance but also how it is sensitively and thoughtfully presented on the screen with lots of care and respect. To be frank with you, I am not a very big fan of his films scores, but I came to admire him all the more than before after observing more of his artistry and humanity via “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda”, which I sincerely recommend you to check out before watching “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus”. I assure you that these two good documentaries will make an interesting double feature show for you, and you may also want to check out more of his works after watching them.

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Trolls Band Together (2023) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): Shiny and colorful again with lots of songs

Posted on December 23, 2023 by kaist455

Animation film “Trolls Band Together” is shiny and colorful just like its two predecessors. I was not particularly excited about “Trolls” (2016) and “Trolls World Tour” (2020), but they were fairly watchable mainly thanks to its bright optimistic energy mainly fueled by its cute animation style and spirited musical numbers, and the same thing can be said about “Trolls Band Together”.

After the prologue scene showing a hidden past of Branch (voiced by Justin Timberlake), the story begins with he and many other cute Trolls including Poppy (voiced by Anna Kendrick) cheerfully preparing for the wedding of Poppy’s best Bergen friend Bridget (voiced by Zooey Deschanel) while singing a lot as expected. Poppy is quite excited to assist Bridget and her groom along with Branch, but then there comes an unexpected intrusion in the middle of the wedding of ceremony via John Dory (voiced by Eric André), one of several older brothers in Branch’s past. As shown from the prologue scene, Branch and his several older brothers were the members of a hot band called “BroZone”, and John Dory needs Branch’s help right night for rescuing one of their brothers as soon as possible.

That brother in question is Floyd (voiced by Troye Sivan), who was incidentally the closest brother to Branch during that good old time of theirs. He is currently captured by two Mount Rageon siblings Velvet (voiced by Amy Schumer) and Veneer (voiced by Andrew Rannells), and these two siblings, who incidentally cannot sing that well, have cruelly sucked Floyd’s singing energy for making them into the most popular pop stars in their land. Not so surprisingly, Floyd is getting weaker as being more and more exploited by Velvet and Veneer, and he certainly needs to be rescued before it eventually becomes too late for him.  

Despite a long period of estrangement between him and his older brothers, Branch is willing to help his oldest brother as much as possible, but there are two problems to handle for them. First, they need to locate two other brothers, and, above all, they all should be able to generate together a certain joint spirit absolutely necessary for saving Floyd from where he is being imprisoned at present.

What follows next is a bumpy journey outside Poppy and Branch’s area. As they ride a big (and colorful, of course) living vehicle belonging to John Dory, it does not take much time for them to locate Branch’s two other brothers, but, as many of you already guessed, they have to persuade these two brothers to accompany John Dory and Branch in spite of these two brothers’ understandable reluctance. Although the four brothers eventually work and prepare together, they soon come to clash with each other as before, even while knowing well that they must band together right now for saving Floyd.

In addition, the film serves us two small subplots respectively associated with Bridget and Poppy. While it shows how Bridget enjoys her honeymoon on the road along with her dear husband, it also focuses on Poppy’s unexpected encounter with a certain Troll character who has led a little community of Trolls which turns out to be more aggressive than expected. When she comes to discover that this Troll character was actually quite close to her a long time ago, Poppy is surprised but delighted for that, though there soon comes a little personal conflict between them later in the story.

Meanwhile, we also get a series of big musical numbers as expected, and I must say that “Trolls Band Together” is often entertaining as your typical jukebox musical film. The parts of several recognizable songs are seamlessly incorporated into some of the musical sequences in the film, and I was particularly delighted by a joyful moment featuring that classic Oscar-nominated song by Dolly Parton. In case of two original songs, one of them is performed by NSYNC for its old connection with Justin Timberlake, and there is even a little joke associated with the name of this band around the end of the film.

Furthermore, director Walt Dohrn and his crew members make sure that their overall result looks shiny and colorful as much as possible. As your typical eye-candy, “Trolls World Tour” will certainly be quite a sweet fun for many young audiences out there, and I am sure that the two little daughters of a colleague of mine will savor its every bright and colorful moment.

The voice cast members of the film are effective in their voice acting. Timberlake complements well Anna Kendrick’s irrepressibly plucky spirit, and they are supported well by a bunch of notable cast members such as Kenan Thompson, Eric André, Daveed Diggs, Kid Cudi, Troye Sivan, Camila Cabello, and Zooey Deschanel. As the villains of the story, Amy Schumer and Andrew Rannells often go over the top to our little amusement, and Zosia Mamet has her own small moment to shine as Velvet and Veneer’s long-suffering assistant.

On the whole, “Trolls Band Together” simply follows the formula set by its two predecessors without advancing further from that, but you will not probably complain at all if you were charmed by its predecessors more than I was. Considering that it does not surpass its two predecessors much, I give it only 2.5 stars just like I did in case of its two predecessors, but I will not deny that I enjoyed it at times, so I will let you decide where you will spend your spare time on this mostly solid product.

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Beyond the Visible: Hilma af Klint (2019) ☆☆☆(3/4): A hidden female artistic pioneer

Posted on December 22, 2023 by kaist455

Documentary film “Beyond the Visible: Hilma af Klint” focuses on one exceptional female artist who definitely deserves a lot of attention and appreciation for her pioneering artistic achievement. Although it has been almost 80 years since she died, many of her numerous artworks were fortunately preserved and then re-discovered at last, and these artworks of hers are worthwhile to observe and appreciate as the hidden but important parts of the Western art history during the 19-20th century.

She is a Swedish artist named Hilma af Klint, and the early part of the documentary shows and tells us a bit about the considerable historical value of some of her artworks, which are now regarded as the earlier abstract works than the ones from many prominent abstraction artists such as, yes, Wassily Kandinsky. As a matter of fact, the documentary even argues that a painting of hers might have inspired Kandinsky to some degree when he happened to encounter it via a mutual acquaintance of theirs, though there is not any definite evidence to prove that yet.

Klint was born to an affluent military family in 1862, and that was one of the crucial factors in her growth and maturation as an artist. Like many other young women during that time, she was expected to become a wife and mother from the very beginning, but her father often encouraged her toward more education and knowledge, and that was how she came to study a lot of things including math and science, which turned out to be the main source of inspiration for her besides her subsequent interest in the spiritual world.

During the early years of her artistic career, Klint usually drew the vivid and realistic paintings clearly influenced by naturalism, but she was not satisfied at all as pursuing her growing artistic vision and ambition, and she happened to be at the right time for the inspiration to boost her artistic sensibility. She knew well about all those exciting academic advances made by those famous scientists such as, yes, Albert Einstein and Max Plank, and that made her reach more for something beyond the visible on the surface.

Eventually, Klint came to have her own artistic vision which still looks quite fresh and modern even at present, and the documentary gives us a number of examples showing how she often preceded many other notable artists ranging from Kandinsky to, surprise, Warhol. As a matter of fact, she already had an early idea of what would be defined as Pop Art, and this is quite evident to us when one of her artworks is shown right next to one of the most famous ones created by Warhol.

The reason why Klint was criminally overlooked throughout not only her artistic career but also next several decades after her death was pretty simple: her gender. She was often limited by that no matter how much she tried to keep going further, and she was quickly ignored and then forgotten by art dealers, critics, and curators, nearly all of whom were incidentally, yes, male. In addition, she was not willing to show or sell many of her abstract paintings because she knew from the beginning that she was far ahead of the time to come, though she did have several exhibitions inside and outside Sweden.

Although she had to stop for a while when she had to take care of her ailing mother in the early 1910s, Klint subsequently painted again while getting some economic support from her best friend, who happened to be a member of one very wealthy family. Thanks to her best friend, she could have a little studio where she could freely wield her creative power, but, sadly, this studio was demolished not long after her death.

During the last years of her life, Klint was more occupied with preserving her artworks. Right before she died, she left all of those artworks and daily records of hers to her nephew because she trusted him a lot. Although her nephew did not regard highly of his aunt’s artworks, he kept them all in a storage place anyway, and it is rather amazing that nearly all of them remained pretty intact during next several decades despite the rather poor environment of that storage place.

Anyway, Klint’s artworks gradually drew attention after they belatedly got discovered. Around the 2010s, she became known more around the world especially after several major articles on her artworks were published, and, as shown around the end of the documentary, a big exhibition was held in Stockholm several years ago for making her artworks more accessible to many people out there.

On the whole, “Beyond the Visible: Hilma af Klint” is an engaging guide for anyone not so familiar with Klint’s artworks. It is clear that director Halina Dyrschka is very passionate about the main subject of her documentary, and she did a competent job of presenting Klint’s artistic personality with care and respect. Although the documentary does not show that much on Klint’s life, her intelligence and artistic spirit are evident whenever the documentary focuses on her artworks, and I was certainly glad to see them on the big screen. To be frank with you, I still do not know whether these abstract works of hers are profoundly simple or simply profound, but I can tell you at least that they did interest and fascinate me in one way or another during my viewing, and I will surely not forget her considerable artistic contribution for the rest of my life.

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Fallen Leaves (2023) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): A deadpan romantic comedy from Aki Kaurismäki

Posted on December 22, 2023 by kaist455

Aki Kaurismäki’s latest work “Fallen Leaves”, which was chosen as the Finnish entry for Best International Film Oscar in this year and then was recently included in the shortlist, is a seemingly bleak but ultimately heartwarming romantic comedy to remember. Just like many of Kaurismäki’s previous works such as “The Match Factory Girl” (1990), it will demand some patience from you due to its very dry sense of humor as well as its languid narrative pacing, but its alternatively amusing and poignant romantic story will surprise you as showing more heart and care than you thought at first.

During the early part of the film, we are introduced to the daily lives of two different working-class people living in Helsinki, which incidentally looks as cold, stark, and drab as you can expect from the background of a Kaurismäki film. Although the occasional radio news about the Russian invasion in Ukraine suggests that the story is set in the early 2020s, an urban neighborhood surrounding the two main characters of the film seems to be stuck in the late 20th century at times, and that is surely one of more amusing aspects of the film.

One of these two persons is a single woman named Ansa (Alma Pöysti). She works at a local supermarket as one of its zero-hour contract employees, and you may get a small laugh as noticing how she and several other employees are constantly watched by a rather aggressive guard who looks like being too serious about his job. After her work time, Ansa usually spends her spare time alone at her little shabby residence, and her silent but palpably melancholic loneliness feels all the more evident to us.

On the other side, we also get to know a guy whose name is not mentioned until the middle point of the story. He is a metalworker who also happens to be a high-functioning alcoholic, and there is some tension from how he manages to hide this serious problem of his at his workplace. He often drinks whenever nobody is watching, and a close colleague of his knows that too well, but the colleague does not stop him much while going outside along with him for drinking from time to time.

As these two dudes are spending another drinking night at a local karaoke bar, they happen to encounter Ansa and her friend. This encounter is rather brief as the metalworker’s friend hilariously fails to attract the attention of Ansa’ friend, but Ansa happens to encounter the metalworker again not long after that, though their second encounter is not very pleasant because he is quite drunk to say the least.

Meanwhile, things become gloomier for both Ansa and him. While Ansa gets fired for just being compassionate to some homeless guy in the need of some food, the metalworker eventually comes to lose his current job when his drunken status is exposed to everyone at his workplace by accident. Ansa later gets employed at a local pub, but its owner turns out to be involved with drug dealing, and, not so surprisingly, Ansa soon has to search for a new job.

Around that point, Ansa meets the metalworker again. They slowly find themselves more attracted to each other, so they decide to have a movie date at a local arthouse movie theater which will delight any serious movie fan for a good reason. After having a fun with a certain recent movie by Jim Jarmusch, Ansa gives him a note on which she wrote her phone number, but, alas, he happens to lose that note by coincidence.

It is not much of a spoiler to tell you that these two main characters will eventually come across each other again later, but the movie takes its time as rolling them along its slow narrative, and Kaurismäki steadily serves us a series of small deadpan moments deftly balanced well between humor and misery. The characters in the film usually look and feel quite detached, but they are also somehow pretty funny and engaging to observe under Kaurismäki’s effortlessly witty direction, and we come to like and care about them while frequently tickled by their dryly humorous interactions.

The movie certainly depends a lot on the low-key chemistry between its two lead performers, whose effective comic performances come to us as the heart and soul of the story. While Alma Pöysti, who deservedly received a Golden Globe nomination for this film, is somberly endearing even when she does not signify much on the surface, Jussi Vatanen ably complements his co-star as a flawed man who may actually be changed by an unexpected possibility of love, and Janne Hyytiäinen and Nuppu Koivu are also solid as the two crucial supporting characters in the story.

In conclusion, “Fallen Leaves”, which won the Jury Prize when it was premiered at the Cannes Film Festival early in this year, is another impressive achievement from Kaurismäki. Although I belatedly watched some of his early works after encountering “Le Havre” (2011), I soon came to admire and ennoy that distinctive mood, wit, and style of his films, and I am certainly delighted to see that he still can impress us a lot even though it has been 40 years since he made his first feature film “Crime and Punishment” (1983). In short, this is another highlight of this year, and you may come to have a bit of belief in the power of love after watching this little charming piece of work.

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Noryang: Deadly Sea (2023) ☆☆☆(3/4): Driven into the last battle

Posted on December 21, 2023 by kaist455

South Korean film “Noryang: Deadly Sea”, the third and (definitely) final film of the trilogy after “The Admiral: Roaring Currents” (2014) and “Hansan: Rising Dragon” (2022), is often relentlessly epic and loud in what it is expected to present on the screen. Again, everything is pretty broad and simple in terms of story and characters, and that made me rather distant to a series of spectacles at times, but I admired how it kept going till the predestined ending without seldom boring me and other audiences around me.

The early part of the film establishes how the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592 ~ 1598) entered its final chapter due to the sudden death of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the de facto leader of Japan who ordered his army to withdraw from Korea shortly before he died in 1598. As a result, every Japanese troop in Korea embarked on leaving Korean while also getting cornered more and more by the allied forces of Korea and China, who were certainly more determined to end the war as soon as possible.

As getting surrounded by the naval troops of Admiral Yi Soon-sin (Kim Yoon-seok) and his Chinese ally Admiral Chen Lin (Jung Jae-young), General Konishi Yukinaga (Lee Moo-saeng) and other Japanese generals must make a choice between their only two options: total surrender or outright battle. Time is running out for them day by day, and they are reminded again and again that Admiral Yi will not allow them to go away easily at any chance, and General Konishi comes to see that Admiral Yi must be held by any means necessary.

Fortunately for General Konishi, there is someone who can distract Admiral Yi at least for a while, and that is Admiral Shimazu Yoshihiro (Baek Yoon-sik), who is the commander of the Japanese naval force. Although he is not willing to save General Konishi from the ongoing trouble, Admiral Shimazu eventually changes his mind after persuaded by a messenger of General Konishi, and he and his naval troops soon begin to leave for where General Konishi and his troops have been stuck for several months.

Meanwhile, General Yi is clearly aware of what is going to happen sooner or later, but he has several problems on his side to deal with. Besides still being haunted by the tragic death of one of his sons, he has to persuade his Chinese ally to support him to the end of the impending battle to come, but Admiral Chen is not so willing to do that as considering a more convenient solution for him as well as their enemies. In addition, General Yi comes to learn that his king and several other high-ranking officials are already preparing for the aftermath of the war, and it is possible that he may be purged just because of being too famous and popular in the country once the war is officially ended.

Nevertheless, this growing trouble makes General Yi all the more determined to end the war on his own terms. Things will certainly be quite risky for him and his naval troops considering how desperate his enemies are, but he is going to give all the hell to his opponents for invading his country, and, again, he has a smart strategy to corner his enemies in one way or another.

Once everything in the story is set and ready for what would be known as the Battle of Noryang, the movie immediately goes for its full-throttle action mode, and, except during a few brief quieter parts, it goes on and on with lots of actions for more than one and half hours. You may feel numb from time to time, but the movie never get us lost amid numerous crashes and bangs thanks to director Kim Han-min’s competent direction, and Kim, who also directed the previous two films of the trilogy after impressing me and other South Korean audiences a lot with “War of the Arrows” (2011), shows again that he is a good action movie director who knows how to engage and thrill us.

However, just like its two predecessors, the movie sometimes feels rather flat in case of characters. Kim Yoon-seok, whom you may remember for his electrifying performance in “The Chaser” (2008), is as charismatic and forceful as Choi Min-sik in “The Admiral: Roaring Currents” and Park Hae-il in “Hansan: Rising Dragon”, but, again, General Yi remains as a merely commanding and honorable leader without much human complexity. General Yi was certainly an exceptional man in many aspects, and Korea was really lucky to have such a brave and clever man like him, but we never get to know or understand him much here except his sheer will and determination, and that is why the eventual ending, which will incidentally not surprise or shock any average South Korean audience at all, feels perfunctory instead of being really impactful on the emotional level.

Around Kim, several notable cast members of the film dutifully fill the spot as required. While Baek Yoon-sik looks firm and authoritative enough as General Yi’s main opponent, Jung Jae-young, Huh Joon-ho, Kim Seong-gyu, and Lee Moo-saeng are also well-cast in their crucial supporting parts, though I wonder how awkwardly their foreign language dialogues in the film sound to Japanese or Chinese audiences out there.

Overall, “Noryang: Deadly Sea” does not show anything particularly new about what I know about General Yi or the Battle of Noryang, but it mostly works despite its rather overlong running time (155 minutes). If you enjoyed its two predecessors, you will certainly not be disappointed, but I would rather recommend “War of the Arrows” first if you have not seen it yet. Even after more than 10 years have passed since it came out, I still remember that exhilarating action movie, but will I remember “Noryang: Deadly Sea” and its two predecessors for, at least, next several years? We will see.

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