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mtsmith02
Reviews
Prikazano zabyt (2014)
Black and white and red all over
Stalin's deportation of the Chechen-Inguesheti peoples in 1944 is a matter of historical record, but the harrowing detail in "Ordered to Forget" raises this maneuver (albeit on a smaller scale) to the level of a Holocaust. At a screening at the Pitt Russian Film Festival this year, the director indicated his intent to tell the tale from the point of view of the Chechen people, making the moral decisions of major and minor characters the heart of the film. It is not a documentary, although the incidents depicted actually occurred.
It is a well-made film; the emotions are raw. The mountainous landscape dwarfs the lives of the individuals, and it is inconceivable that anyone other than a paranoid dictator could suspect the population of being enemies of the people, capable of allying with Hitler's troops. Yet clearly all power corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely is a story that repeats itself in countless fables and legends. Here is one retelling that has much contemporary resonance.
Dârin wa gaikokujin (2010)
I think the manga is probably better
This film provides a window into cross-cultural romantic difficulties, but the more pointed possibilities are relegated to individual lines of dialogue that can easily get lost in a a "rom- com" haze. As a movie, "My Darling is a Foreigner" is of the type that could well play on the Japanese version of the "Hallmark" channel - a "made for TV" sort of film, best viewed as a cultural artifact rather than a major motion picture with international appeal. The interviews with other cross-cultural couples a la "When Harry Met Sally" are more revealing of the kind of issues that can come up in such relationships; the dramatization of these conflicts in the actual Saori-Tony relationships in the movie are pallid in comparison. The interspersed drawings from Saori's Manga have a freshness that scenes of the coupe frolicking on the beach or making their bed together are the kind of filmmaking clichés that a Woody Allen would have masterfully satirized in a film like "Annie Hall," or "Love and Death."
I sought out as many reviews as I could find to understand the cultural relevance of the plot. It does indeed seem like a burning social issue for Japanese society, and as such, its appeal to a domestic Japanese audience is understandable. I most appreciated the words of a cross- cultural blogger, who suggested that any who choose to criticize "My Darling" view it alongside Sophia Coppola's Oscar-winning "Lost In Translation." As pieces that might have made arguments for cross-cultural sensitivity, they are equally lacking.