danielhsf Reviews

The Terrible Children (1950)

Like Rimbaud's poetry

[24 July 2007]

I saw this twice in a single day. And couldn't stop watching this after. Each time I start watching a Hollywood movie I can't help but surrender back to this surrealist nutjob where nothing is really definable.

Much of the literature I've read on this focus on the unlikely collaboration between Jean Cocteau and Jean-Pierre Melville, with most putting it in context of Cocteau's other films. But I've always thought that Cocteau's Orphée, made during the same period, feels static and leaden amidst the classical style of its 50's direction. Les Enfants Terribles, while retaining a very classical premise, is completely revolutionary, resembling the unruly romanticism of Rimbaud's poetry. Nothing in the film stays the same - everything is constantly shifting; dyamics are constantly changing; even the sets change in subtle ways. Everything is made purposefully ambiguous and ambivalent such that paradoxes and contradictions abound in a single emotion. But ultimately, as all great Melvillian films are, the film is about the futility of humanity in the face of life and death.

I could go on and on about this movie; Melville is truly one of the great poets of cinema.

The Lovers (1958)

The most romantic film ever made

[10/10 · 1 October 2006]

Louis Malle's Les Amants is the most romantic film ever made. Screw subjectivity and critical judgment. I've just come off fresh from seeing it, and, in the spirit of the film, I'll let my excitement wash over me instead of letting it die down to see it coolly. Seeing it gave me one of those precious moments, moments where you gasp and go oh-my-god, disbelieving your eyes that cinema could go to places like this, and make you feel things you never felt were possible in fiction.

Buried within the Optimum Releasing of the Louis Malle box set, but it emerges the most deafeningly romantic, even when compared to the already celestial ending of the more famous Elevator to the Gallows. Its blissed out view on happiness makes it impossible to attach any critical adjectives to it; it requires us to suspend all thinking faculties and just go with that one powerful emotion.

It's amazing how it turns what could've looked like a cover of a chick romance novel into something this beautiful. Henri Decae, who almost single-handedly created the first images of the New Wave, literally sets the screen aglow in ecstasy, painting the two lovers in a heavenly light in that pivotal centerpiece, which is one of the greatest moments of cinema, bar none. Even Jean Vigo's L'Atalante holds nothing on this. (There will be spoilers from hereon, and I would urge you to stop reading this paragraph if you've not seen the film. The joy of discovery in this film is so much more than any other film I've experienced, that I'm wholly convinced that one should experience this as fresh as a virgin.) Stripped of their daily pretenses and graces, the two lovers traverse a God-made Eden, becoming simply Man and Woman and reuniting again, several millenia after the First Man and First Woman were expulsed from paradise. When Jeanne Moreau takes Jean-Marc Bory's hand and asks him 'Is this the land you created for me to lose myself in?', the gaze is sealed and the viewer can do nothing but share in their passion. The two lovers become such eminent symbols of love, sex, and happiness that it's hard to imagine anything more sensual and erotic than this, especially when compared to the fully colored and fully exposed sex symbols of today. They belong to an era removed from any other, not the era that the film was made in, but a black-and-white, pristine era that exists only in cinema, one in which true love still exists without the moorings of reality.

And the decided lack of moorings in this film is what makes it so bewitching. Whether it's the fleeting white horse or the eyes of the beautiful beautiful Jeanne Moreau, the film doesn't look back, but indulges fully in the moment, that moment of sensuousness. It is so fitting that the film should be called Les Amants, because anything else would be pretension - the lovers become the lovers of any era, any millennium, by their love alone they have been elevated to the great lovers that have long passed. They transcend being, nature, rules and become one - spirits entwined - with a world that is beyond the tangible, such that any rational reasoning will not be understanding. It's a magical world, a fantasy world, a world that is as unreal as we want it to be real. And this world, the film proposes, can only be reached through a temporary moment of love, un-selfish, immaterial, illogical, and unquestioning love. And when you're able to give yourself in, together with the film, it suddenly becomes so clear and not that unreal anymore.

At the risk of sounding like a nut, I just wanted to recommend this film to everyone who thought that this century has made us cynical. Cinema, which began and evolved with this century, has rarely stepped out of its time so gloriously that it becomes a monument, a structure of those classical (and probably impossible) days. It is the single most ravishingly beautiful moment in the history of cinema.

Undertow (2004)

Brilliant!

[6/10 · 26 September 2005]

Freaking brilliant film! I enjoyed the hell out of it. In crafting an old-fashioned Faulkner-style Southern Gothic tale of brotherhood turned sour, David Gordon Green has created a masterpiece that is not only intensely atmospheric, but also deeply moving and at times downright scary. From its highly stylized opening to the ending, this textured and rich film will provoke endless discussion to its meaning and its many implications. Green has layered the action here thick and rich such that there is so much depth to the brotherly relations of the two generations, and the shocking (and it's really shocking) violence that ensues is but a cypher for all the undercurrents swirling around underneath, all played out beautifully a human tragedy against the forests and plantations where such human dramas had been played out for ages and centuries beyond.

Like all of his previous films, the Southern landscape has always been a large part of David Gordon Green's painterly canvas and this film is no exception. He is the only present filmmaker who has directly inherited William Faulkner's sense of reverence for the landscapes--where, dwarfed by the heat and dense forests of forgotten yore, the characters play out their little epic dramas--and his pulse on the treachery and love that bind the people together. The Southerners in their works are not mere rednecks who chew straw on their patio and watch their livestock all day, they are fiercely intelligent folk whose strength and willpower to survive come in no indirect relation to the harsh landscape they are born in -- fighting humid and sweltering heat most of the year, and short, raw punishing winters, they have no other options than to carve a hard existence whose dramas often mirror that of the temperamental weather.

But at it is with all Southern tragedies, the core of the film is the duality of the human heart -- its savage darkness and the triumph of goodwill. The relationship of the father and the uncle of the two boys--brothers who turn from love to hate by greed and jealousy--is put to contrast with the relationship between the two boys, who may not even be blood related, but share a bond stronger than the violence that threaten to destroy both of them.

The film is split clearly into two halves, with the narratively looser, lyrical second half more resembling David Gordon Green's previous works than the nightmarish first half. While the film definitely succeeds as a thriller on domestic violence (the pivotal scene gets the uneasy feeling of a nightmare so down pat, that it is one of the most disturbing scenes this year, even if it wasn't meant to be a horror film), it also works as a meditation on the insular family tragedy put against the world at large, which is shown as corrupt and dirty. The father's desperate attempts at protecting his children from the heartbreak and loss of the outside world shatters at the arrival of the uncle, fresh from prison, forcing the children to immediately grow up awkwardly and painfully, and to escape into the filthy decay of the outside world.

Whether or not the human spirit indeed triumphed in the face of violence and decay is purposefully left unclear. The ambiguous and abrupt ending, while depicting a sense of warmth and care, gives the viewer a sense of unease at the same time, and that ambivalent feeling is left hanging long after the screen turns black and the credits start rolling. This ambivalence is felt throughout the entire film, with the destructive darkness of human treachery often lurking underneath the beauty and comfort of the human spirit, and the two halves of the film often express that ambivalence with a little of each half peeking through in both. As such, it remains a complex film that will reward anyone who dares plunge into its obscurity. For whether it is light or darkness at its surface, there is always an undertow of uncertainty plowing through.

Crash (I) (2004)

Is this what indie cinema's been reduced to?

[1/10 · 10 September 2005]

Through its 2-hour running length, Crash charts the emotional anguish of its 10-odd ensemble of characters when faced with the sometimes blatant and sometimes latent forms of racism underlying in American society. That and the emotional anguish of one of its audiences sitting near the front and desperately trying to make sense of what movies have become these days.

The era we live in has become so complicated. Not only do we reject modernism, even the not very enthusiastic flag-waving of post-modernism ideas is always being shot down by what, post-post-modernism that aims to destroy all these ideas, all in no part thanks to the great destructivist ideas of those great 'thinkers'. But I digress. This has nothing much to do with the what the movie is about, but rather what the movie is.

Sure, it seems hard to earn a living in a Hollywood that has to cater to a market that is so post-post-post everything that cynicism has become more than just a motto in life. It has become part of everything we do and part of everything we think of whether we like it or not. And so a new studio product is born! Indie films, which once were energetic and idealistic in its defiant experimentalism now seem to be as equally adamant as Hollywood films to sell to indie film markets. An indie film must sell at Sundance before becoming 'acclaimed'. And so nothing is simple anymore. Even what constitutes a good film becomes so murky. Whereas in the past filmmakers just wanted to entertain people and tell a good story--and in these seemingly simplistic attempts the greatest of films are borne--filmmakers nowadays have to make films that are good first and foremost; films have to make people think, have to be meaningful, has to be provocative, raise questions, yadda yadda yadda. What it all boils down to, is a subversion of the Hollywood movie system, but this subversion seems strangely similar to the formulaic similarity of Hollywood films, the countless ways of differing to essentially be the same product.

And I haven't even begun on the film yet. Maybe I've become too picky on films I see these days. Maybe it's because of my primary need to be entertained, rather than, say, be probed when seeing a movie. But hell, this movie is one big load of crap. And I'm repulsed by this movie not just because it follows the How to Make a Good Movie Good 101 guidebook to the T--characters spout eloquent lines and are sooo witty like they're gifted with the speech of God; it raises issues about racism and life confronting racism in America; it has 'touching' moments where everyone discovers more about themselves and more about other people; not to mention the fact that once you hear the ambient/new age soundtrack of women singing in high registers in foreign languages, you know you're in for all of the above traits.

And something about the aforementioned point--about it raising questions about immediately-compelling issues like racism--pisses me off big time. Like all post-post-post-post-post everything movies, it doesn't contend with just having a message about this issue. Because oh, our audiences are much to intelligent for that these days in this post-post-post-post world. Our audiences want us to make them think, doesn't want us to put things so simplistically, (and then they will go into existentialist crap and say) that's because life itself isn't simplistic. Ha ha ha. What other common drill do we here then the audience need to think about issues rather than have them fed to them. Okay, okay, and okay. So the film makes it a point to pound the audiences with these non-messages and since they're not exactly a message, it's so decidedly subtle and subtle means good right? So we're being hit again and again with this well-written subtlety with the eloquence of rhetorical prose. And as if the irony is not steep enough, we have Ludicrous' character, the only character who seems to not take all these racism discussion bullshit seriously, being 'converted' into one of those irritatingly meaningful characters where he learns something in the end, giving meaningful looks and pauses where audiences are supposed to 'learn something about themselves too'. Um, yeah. How I wanted to see an incredibly racist film right after this man.

To cut the long bullshit short, I guess I wouldn't have taken issue with the film if it wasn't so bloated in its self-importance. The angst that forms the entire movie felt more like white-boy whining than actual Spike Lee-ish anger. It's so Tim Robbins and Sean Penn, the type that wants to wave flags about humanitarianism when the only thing they don't realize is the flag they're waving is their hole-ridden underwear. Plus it's become so trendy in the post-post-post-post world to be completely subtle about it. Nothing is simple any longer. In its best efforts to actually be good, provocative, and ultimately human, it's become neither, imho, just another indie crap from an indie director that wants to make a name out of himself as a credible indie-filmmaker. Now at least Hollywood is more simple and sincere in its manipulativeness.

Café Lumière (2003)

Ozu is dead.

[10 September 2005]

Ozu is dead. If there's one thing that Hou manages to prove in his tribute to Ozu's centennial, it is that Ozu is dead. Never is there going to be another man who can portray human relationships in the same light as Ozu. The same steadfastness they have as they try as hard as they can to hold on to each other; the sadness they feel when having to leave the family; the difficulties of living together in one household; the moments of regret that they have when one of their family has to leave; and their final acceptance that these are all but a part of life.

Hou shows us a Japan that has changed so much from the Japan that Ozu so painstakingly tries to hold on to by capturing it on his camera. Each tear, each regret, each joy is now lost in a world that tries too hard to change. Wim Wenders first laments this in Tokyo Ga on how banal Tokyo has become and how much of an imitation culture new Japanese culture is. Cafe Lumiere, while not being as impassioned as Wender's masterpiece, is every bit as pensive about its regret of the passing on of the old Japan that Ozu loves so much.

While in Ozu's films, a pregnancy would herald a big event in a family's lifeline, in Cafe Lumiere it is merely a passing thought. While in Ozu's films, the lead character (most often played by goddess-like Hara Setsuko) would usually be self-sacrificial as best she can to ensure the family's togetherness, here Yoko is determined on striking out as a single mother, regardless of her father's silently burning disapproval.

Undeniably, Hou doesn't pass much judgment on his characters. In fact the portrayal of Yoko only shows her as a very modern and much independent Japanese female that is fast becoming the norm in Japan. The female who does not want to be tied down and holds little regard of familial values. And definitely, it would be seen as regressive should Japan return to the past for the sake of the days when family was at the core of societal structure. After all, the definition of progress is change right? Yet, one can't help but feel the absence of Ozu in this movie, the absence that makes its tone all the more poignant in spite of its spots of warmth. Ozu seems to be like the ghost of Maggie Cheung in 2046, or the missing woman in L'Avventura; he is not there, and is never referenced in the movie, and yet, the opening shot of the movie and a few scenes of familial warmth gives one such a pang in the heart that is so distinctly Ozu. In fact, that Hou decides to have many shots of trains departing and leaving and criss-crossing each other in modern Tokyo, and letting us hear the all-familiar sounds of trains going across railways that is so definitive of Ozu's films, only shows that he is fully aware of this fact, and, like Wenders, is seeking to find what little there is left of Ozu's spirit. In the overwhelmingly modern backdrop of Tokyo, we see how something of the past, like the cafe that Yoko hunts for, that some people so want to preserve, has been turned into another urban development project. However, in the film, Hou also shows us that although the landscape of Tokyo now denies Ozu, there is still decidedly some of Ozu's warmth in human relationships. Like how Yoko still feels the same kindred spirit as she tucks in to her favorite dish that her mother has prepared; seeking out old sights in her hometown, sights that remind her of times when she was a kid and still not thinking of independence. And just perhaps, in showing all this, Hou is persuading us to accept life as what we can, just as how the people in Ozu's movies eventually have to accept the loss of one of their family members.

I went to Tokyo last June and coincidentally, Kamakura was part of the itinerary. I remember how excited I was, since Kamakura was many a setting for Ozu's films, and it was the place where Ozu was buried after his death. As I reached the Kamakura station on the Enoshima metroline, my heart was all awashed with glee to see that the station looked almost exactly the same as it looked in Ozu's films. The same old signboard, and the same railway tracks against looming mountains. And yet as I walked around Kamakura (now a popular tourist spot for its famous Daibutsu or Big Buddha), I couldn't help but notice how foreign it was despite its quaint Japanese-ness. There were so many tourists walking around the town amidst its quiet surbuban houses, and so many signboards blaring English signs. In a bid to find Ozu's grave, every time I saw a cemetery I would go over to look if there was a tablet that has only a 'mu' character on it. But I never found it. Sigh.

Whisky (2004)

You will miss these characters.

[9/10 · 10 September 2005]

Much nothing ever happens in your life.

You go through the routine of sleeping and waking at the same times, travelling to work on the public bus, spending your day at your job which doesn't give you any kind of immediate remuneration. Your mind idles off to whether the money for the job is worth spending your life on, then you take the public bus home again, looking out at the sights you are used to, listening to the music you feel the most comfortable in. And usually on this bus ride home, most of the angst you feel in the morning is replaced by a irrepressible fatigue that tells you honestly that life is not just about chasing pipe dreams; life is also about going through it as best you can and surviving.

And as this goes on you get used to not expecting much out of life, not expecting much out of relationships, because that's the easiest way to be, just being. There is not much need to expand, really. There is not much need to feel the crests and falls of emotions. There is not much need to continue seeking, to continue dreaming, to continue hoping. And this is by no way any mistake; this is only part of the process of going through life, getting eased into it to not allow yourself any more anger that comes from lost hopes. Soon, as you get settled into your groove, you don't find going through the same days mundane anymore. You don't question what is expected of you out of life. You don't feel the need to keep expanding and expanding anymore.

Once in a while, you grant yourself the pleasure of watching a picture in a darkened cinema, vicariously and voraciously living the lives of people you don't know; people whose lives seem more exciting than yours; people who experience highs and lows so much that you feel as if you are experiencing the same highs and the same lows. You sit alone in the darkened theater by yourself--you are used to being alone--while somewhere else behind you, young couples are busy checking each other's necks out with their tongues. You see this, but you don't bother. You are only interested in the people living on the screen with you, sharing with you their pains and their hopes. Then you walk out of the cinema, and your life returns back to you. You realize that it is only a short relief, before you have to face reality again, the reality that you are really not so special.

Sometimes, the people in the movies cease being characters. They cease becoming people whom you fantasize about or feel pity for. Their lives suddenly seem so mundane and simple to you, and like you, they have stopped dreaming and started living in the real world. You see their everyday movements, everyday actions of endless repetition, and their normal, placid emotions that do not dare affect them in their daily lives. You grow so used to the repetitive actions, the repetitive shots, the repetitive dialogues, their every movement, that you find them so familiar. You feel as if you are sharing in some of their private lives, even if it is just make-believe. And when they discover something kind or special in their routine lives, your eyes widen and your heart fills with warmth. Mundane lives can be so beautiful too! You tell yourself secretly.

And in their daily effort to live, you see how their lives subtly affect other people's lives. You see how such small acts of kindness, can gladden your heart. You see how they are used to their loneliness, and then when they find companionship, you see how gladly they hang on to them, no matter how minute their friendship may seem. You see how comical they are in their lonesome blues, and you sneak a laugh at them, knowing fully that at the same time, you are laughing at yourself and with them too. Then you find that after all, there is comedy in pathos, and there is sorrow in bliss too.

At the end of the movie, the movie ends and the characters fade away into the blackness of the screen and the dark recesses of your memories. And suddenly you miss the repetition that bored you earlier, the simple mundaneness that was conveyed so simply. As you walk out of the cinema and see people walking out together with you, you feel more alone than ever before, as you're deprived of your newfound friends that you have fallen in love with in that short span of 95 minutes; like when you get used to being with other people, being lonesome again suddenly seems so difficult. And as you sit at the back of the cab on your way home, you feel that you've lost something special, even if that specialness came from make-believe situations, and a tear runs slowly down your cheek.

Human Touch (2004)

Evocative work of art

[10/10 · 10 September 2005]

I feel the title 'Human Touch' itself is misleading. Upon hearing its title and reading its synopsis, I was misled into thinking that the film would be a simple story about how touch is important in our lives. But how far it is from the truth. If the title was not meant to be intentionally misleading, I thought it would be far more apt to name it 'The Human Touch' because it is really more about humanity than anything else. But then again, if director Paul Cox really named it that way, not many people would even bother to see it in the first place. I would, for one, dismiss it as yet another existentialist arty-farty piece of crap that nobody can understand.

Human Touch is of course existentialist art-house fare, but it is also something else altogether. Because it doesn't purport to know anything about the mystery that is ourselves, nor does it have any theory of the reason of our existence. It too, like us, is seeking in understanding further just exactly what makes us tick, and how we can simply be, after we inherited millions of years of culture. And this shared culture, is so vast and inexplicable, that we simply call it 'humanity'. But what is 'humanity'? And does anyone even understand any cornerstone of it? In this way, the film's provocative nature reaches into many beings of humanity. From the arts, history and religion, to our bodies, morals and emotions like affection and lust, it never ceases to probe and question just what drives us to do things a certain way that other creatures would not do. And how our surroundings and our history binds us together and affect us collectively and yet, splintering us in many different directions and personalities.

But the film never engages into verbose intellectualizing a la many French New Wave directors who just get lost in a world of their own by talking and talking about theories and never managing to shut up. This film has a heavy anchor by the very real people in the film and their relationships, such that every decision they make and every emotion they feel, doesn't help us any better in understanding their, say, 'character design', but only manages to open up more vistas of the mystery that is us.

This is wholly because the film doesn't seem to be theoretical. In fact, it is far from theoretical, its people often seemingly idiosyncratic and unfathomable but always very plausible. It explores all these questions not by theorizing like most art house directors do, but rather by allowing us to experience. Not unlike Tarkovsky, whose great work similarly explores humanity by framing mankind's actions against our surroundings and nature, the scenes in this movie are not linked by logical linearity or emotion, but rather through ambient noise. From the ancient stalactite caves that echo with baby cries and church bells to the great emotions within people ringing with rapturous choral voices, this film puts us through experiences that connects us--rather than alienate us--and makes us part of a far greater whole - mankind.

For what my young eyes and ears can see and hear is little, and bound by my limited sensory capabilities; what sadness or happiness I feel is bound by my shallow experiences in life; what ideas and concrete thoughts I can construe is bound by my fundamental education and understanding of the world. But what connects us all, and can only be reached through intuition, is the spark that the creator puts in all of us, that separates us from the other creatures and the inanimate - the human soul. And this movie touches so unflinchingly on this shared human nerve, that all that I am made of is not as important as what I am part of. Where I share the same blood as generations of creatures who have come into consciousness of themselves and the womb surrounding them.

It is what I enjoy finding in cinema, that if any one moment can touch on this what I perceive as the human soul, then that is worth sitting through piles of crap for. For the human soul--the truth, as what more philosophical people would call it--is worth every inch of living for. And this movie uncannily hones in to this same nerve that we all share and quiver for, and holds on to it unflinchingly. True, it may not have been genuinely successful in every inch of its celluloid film. And I would be hard-pressed to say it is good for its individual technical parts. But what little the film understands about its subject matter, it knows this: that most reasoning and emotion cannot bring anyone as close to the human soul as raw intuition. And the intuitive power it brings to screen by merely seeking the human soul, and by large, finding it, is all that matters and all that makes it a truly truly great film.

The Decalogue: Dekalog, piec (1989) Season 1, Episode 5

Whoa.

[12 May 2005]

Decalogue 5 left me speechless.

It left me shaking my head in despair. It left me moved about humanity. It made me take a hard honest look at the world around me. It left me raw and abraded. It left me feeling cold about humanity and its inherent evil. It left me feeling deeply touched by humanity and its inherent goodness. It made me rethink my concepts about justice. It made me rethink my concepts about compassion. It left my mind in a total state of shock reeling from the last image. It made me feel like a whirlwind millennia of humanity just washed past me.

All this in one hour.

In short, whoa.

Mirror (1975)

The perfect movie

[9/10 · 12 May 2005]

Is there a movie that's practically flame-proof? This is probably the biggest flame-bait among Tarkovsky's works. Convoluted? Disorienting? Pretentious? Art-house crap? Poseur? What does this say about the movie, or by extension, what does this say about the people who like this movie? Perhaps writing at length about this movie can be too easily seen as inflating one's ego and self-image. Sadly, proclaiming about the movies one love seems to be too easily seen by other people as focusing on beefing up one's street cred rather than one's love for the movie.

No matter what, to save any other criticisms or any kind about myself or the movie due to this post, I shall not lavish any saliva on it. Safe to say the movie can speak for itself. It perhaps speak a language that, in similar respects to my post about this movie, sparks criticism as boosting the director's art-house ego, rather than love for the craft itself. It is sad that art-house has been delegated to such a status.

Criticisms nonetheless, I will say without any pretensions that right after I saw this movie, I wound it up to the beginning and saw it again, immediately. My strong connection to the movie is inexplicable, as is the movie itself.

If there is one movie that I would choose to represent art-house cinema, this would be the one. Yet, this would be the one movie that I would never recommend to anyone for my selfish desire to keep it pure and personal, safe from the risk of anybody degrading it or humiliating it. The movie shows to me a strong ego-less love, the very reason why art was created, the very reason why art-house cinema exists. And at the same time, the very reason why art-house cinema is reviled, and seen as pretentious crap.

From the first scene, from inarticulation to articulation, from its articulation to my inarticulation at the end, this process that repeats itself every time I see it again is a very personal, and inarticulate affair. This film is a miracle to me.

Tristana (1970)

Great Bunuel

[12 May 2005]

I can't say I know Luis Bunuel's style well, since I've not seen many of his works, and those that I've seen usually just struck me as blah. But then yesterday I saw Tristana which starred Catherine Deneuve and was awe-struck by it. See, the comments that I've read online about it have seem to have the focus all wrong, they are more interested in commenting on Bunuel's usual attack on the bourgeois and catholicism. Yes it is dark and in some places rather surreal, but above all, Tristana is a simple and sad story about its characters as they grapple with life, love, loss and regret. It is especially well-crafted with its sinewed study of human relationships, and humans that desperately try to relate with each other.

Tristana, played brilliantly by Catherine Denueve, is the central character whom we see evolve from an innocent young girl with her many ideals about love and relationship, to a bitter and cynical woman at the film's end who cannot believe in anything any longer. It is with special finesse that Deneuve plays her, that we witness, with heartbreak, every turn of her back on the things she love, and every rejection of all morality that she held before.

Fernando Rey's character is probably the murkiest but ultimately most empathetic character, as at the end of the film, age wears off his hard-edged cynicism and turns him into the loving father figure that Tristana desperately needed in the beginning of the film. In a sense, it is a film about age, how when we reach a certain point in our lives we see things much clearer and as it is, rather than try to twist things to our advantage. The way Rey's character treasures the time with the vile and vindictive Tristana at the end of the film is not only overwhelmingly sad, but also an epiphany by an auteur who is gaining age himself.

In spite of all its dramatic turns of events, Tristana is not an emotional and angsty film in its portrayal of its characters' lives. Instead it is a soft and peaceful film that sympathetically accepts its characters' flaws as much as it forgives them. It is a film that evokes the intricate feeling of looking back in our dark and troubled past and finding the exquisite moments of happiness amidst all the cynicism and grit. When, towards the end, Rey reaches the peace that he has been struggling so hard to attain throughout the film, he notes, 'It's snowing so hard outside, but in this house, I'm nice and warm. What's there not to be happy about?'. A silent recognition that peace is not bending reality to your own will, but merely, acceptance.

Earth and Ashes (2004)

Incredible.

[8/10 · 23 April 2005]

The second Afghanistan export in recent years to gain international acclaim, Earth and Ashes is not entirely different in mood and style from its more successful predecessor Osama; both richly populated with unforgettable imagery and floating upon a wistfully deliberate pace, and ingrained with the pain of a nation just now coming to its own.

Set against the sandy dunes of nowhere in Afghanistan, this film tells the tale of an old man bringing his deaf grandson to seek his son and tell him the news that his village has been burned down, and most of his family is dead. The simple and direct premise gives a sense of immediacy to the film, leaving much of it as the physical journey of an old man looking for hope in a desolate world, and at the same time, coming to terms with his loss. For his loss is even more than personal; his loss is a loss of his homeland, where everything he once knew is ravaged and sacrileged by powers not of any control of his.

At once both a modern day Middle Eastern Odysseus carrying his deaf Telemachus along with him; and a Moses set off by pain onward to his spiritual journey of acceptance of loss, leading his only people—his grandson—out of suffering and hopefully into something better; the old man embarks on his arduous journey wearier but not as empowered as either of them. His search for spiritual redemption is framed against the sparse landscapes of ancient Afghanistan, a land which has seen too much pain and destruction, that it is no wonder the more recent Afghanistan movies are filled with regret and sorrow. Criticism would be leveled at this facet as pandering to the ignorant and susceptible West where knowledge of the Middle East can only rest at this level. Yet, if this can hardly be seen as criticism, it is because the universe in which this film inhabits is one that is not on this plane of reality, but rather a reality that has all its truth and goodness washed away, with its inhabitants left to make out what is left of their lives and their homeland.

For everywhere we see in this film, is of burning villages and barren deserts. And yet, amongst the desert, there is often a single shrub of vegetation that manages to eke an existence out of its harsh landscape. And for every burning village, there are people left behind to bury the dead.

Indeed, it is often said, and in this movie too, that the survivors are often worst off than the dead, because they have to shoulder the burden of having to live on; to have their hearts broken again and again, driven mad by the incessant frequency of destruction and deaths and having lost any sense of purpose in life. Even though the old man is lucky enough to have a sole purpose in life--to seek his son--the film is often meandering in his wavering doubt of the good it would do to let his son know about this painful truth, often touching on the aspect of truth and the fact that truth might often do anyone more harm than good.

This strong sense of doubt and uncertainty permeates the film's reality too, punctuating it with surrealistic images amidst the desert. It is a feverish nightmare in which the people in the film are trapped in a purgatory, haunted by the spirits of the dead, and struggling to find a meaning to all this. In all its hypnotic mirages, only the concept of pain and loss remains the most real, bringing the old man and his grandson back to earth time after time; the fact that they still have each other, but not much else.

At one point of the movie, the young boy, ignorant to the fact that he is deaf, pleads with his grandfather to bring him to somewhere where there is more noise, not knowing that even if he could hear, everything would still be under a shroud of deathly silence. In all the film's silence and echoes of the dead, it is a poetic elegy of loss and the need for its painful acceptance in life. It is a sorrowful journey of spiritual and mythical proportions, one that all of us have to face somehow, and not withdraw from the truth and our broken hearts.

Twentynine Palms (2003)

Could they be undercover spies? Or is my mind just trying desperately to make some point out of this?

[1/10 · 29 March 2005]

My interpretation is that David is probably working as a secret agent for the CIA, and Katia is probably from the Spanish Intelligence sent to assist the USA to uncover a deadly plot involving deserts. They are thus sent to 29 Palms on a covert operation, by their handler Michelle, with whom David was conversing in the beginning of the film. We are never told what the operation is (you see, the most important thing in the movie is the cover, not the actual content, much of the beef happens offscreen, much like the other 'masterpiece', Claire Denis' Beau Travail).

For the most part of the movie, they're required to act like a young lusty couple who 'lose themselves on nameless roads and trails. Frantically making love all the time and most everywhere, they regularly fight, then kiss and make up according to the petty events of this quite ordinary daily life.' (Source: IMDb) But for the more perceptive audience, there is apparently something very wrong to this perfect road trip cover. Not only do the couple talk in riddles, they talk in circles, ellipses, parallelograms, and pentagrams. It becomes very apparent at a certain point of time that this is a certain type of code that absolutely no one else but the two lead characters understand. (Sample line: 'D: Do you think it's good?' K: 'Yes, I think it's good. But I don't think it's good.' D: 'Then why are you eating it?' K: 'Yes I think it's good'. Katia also screams for absolutely no reason over trivial matters, probably a smart move to throw the leads working for the enemy side off. Uh-huh, doesn't the Chinese woman who got angry so easily for no reason in the Chinese restaurant seem suspicious now. Good move, Katia.).

Another point where the audience can easily tell that all that is played out is indeed just a cover is that David's supposed 'job' throughout the desert was supposed to take photographs but we do not even see him handling a camera. Katia speaks French throughout the movie, but her accent is hardly French, sounds Spanish.

They constantly stop at absolutely random points of the road where David will just come out of the car and stare into the distance for awhile and then return. These are probably to discern if they are followed by any enemy spies, and also to re-con and gather information about their targets.

They are obviously hunted down by an unknown enemy force (Katia whispers to David in one scene where a black wagon drives past their stationary car: 'Looks like we are not alone') This unseen menace is a looming threat throughout the entire movie with their unique spy/partner/romantic relationship. Their relationship is put on the strain and they fornicate like there's no tomorrow. However, there comes a point in the movie where David and Katia stops by an isolated house in the middle of the desert with two dogs. One look at the isolated house and the ignorant audience member will surely perceive it as some sort of grand road movie metaphor about life, or rather a dystopic vision of an abandoned America (a la the truly great Stroszek). But to the more enlightened viewer, it is not simply a house! It's probably one of the checkpoints that the two lover/spies have to stop by and re-con but alas, it has already been wiped out by the enemies of the United States. In the agents' place are two seemingly harmless looking dogs who are probably (not Gozu's yakuza dogs) but 'spy dogs', trained only to pick out and kill spies! But Katia pulls a smart one on them, tricking them to follow her round the car and getting her 'boyfriend' to run over one of them, scaring the other one off in the process. To ensure that her cover is not blown, she screams at David further for harming a harmless creature. Such good spy tactics are obviously not just gleaned off an episode of Alias.

As their relationship becomes increasingly strained, and their pressure of their unknown enemy and their abandoned mission, they are left stranded with no mission and no direction in the middle of the desert. So what do they do? They decide to fornicate more and more (preferably in swimming pools, deserts are to dry), but these fornicating sessions obviously produces even greater pressures for the two of them, as David seems to come too hard, and Katia seems to come too little. It comes to a standstill when Katia suddenly and angrily decides to leave David for awhile and tricks him into sparring with her in the middle of the road. Alas alas, their CIA training has been degraded so much by lack of practice and too much screwing, as David pins Katia down and slaps her face screaming: 'I hiiiIIIiit you! I hiiiIIIiit you! I hiiiIIIiit you!'. After a round of night fighting, they wake up fresh and invigorated, especially after a highlight night of more wild sex.

But then destiny works in strange ways, the next day, they are finally caught up with with their unknown menace, who proceeds to anally rape David, and strip Katia to look at her boobies, but leaving her untouched for god knows what reason. It is probably a metaphorical challenge to the USA, that someone would one day screw them up the ass. (It's a French film after all). Without a single inch of screwability left (David's face is horribly disfigured), no mission, total disillusionment of their spy training abilities, and totally defeated, David does the most horrifying thing of all. He kills his long-time partner and possibly lover in the most gruesome and poignant manner.

This film deals with so much depth into the complex psyche of spies, that it really is one of the top in the spy genre. I liked it.

Bijitâ Q (2001)

Absolutely rapturous

[8/10 · 29 March 2005]

One would think that a film about the dissolution of what may be the basis of Japanese society - the family unit - would be full of pathos and the edginess of portraying dysfunctionality, yet what Visitor Q achieves here (especially towards the end), is something more transcendent, and by that fact, more moving, than that. Which makes it in the same vein of Ozu's films on the demise of family, and achieving in the same light, the same poignancy and forgiveness that usually bookend the greatest of these films.

Throughout the better half of the film, Miike overlays the violence and the extreme sex with a campiness that never makes it hard to swallow. It all seems to make sense in a weird kinda way, in part due to the feeling that it is a hyper-real realization of the seething undercurrents of the modern yet conservative Japanese society. Everything is presented as if it is common and mundane, and yet what is considered in our eyes as taboo (considered even more so by the Japanese) is presented nakedly in every scene, so much so that it explores a wholly different society altogether. Not one that we know, of course, but one where each member in the family unit drown themselves in their deviancy, distancing themselves further and further away from each other.

Yet, all this sexual deviancy and wanton violence never seem pointless, for (as it is seen as the film progresses) it seems that the reason why the people in the movie become more deviant and the further away from each other, stems from their desire to return to the early beginnings of family, when things like sex and violence were out of the equation; when things were a lot less complicated. And the fact that this is impossible, the fact that things will only become more complicated from here; and the pressures put on them when they have to face this reality, drive them further away from reality itself, and deeper into their dark and twisted worlds of amorality. To put it simply, in a strange way, the more extreme they act, the more they want to return to family, which is what makes it especially resonant in a time when family is losing its importance.

So when the film opens, we see these people lost in their own devices, and vices; sinking deeper and deeper down into the murky depths of deformed humanity. And all it takes is a stranger, armed with a rock, to knock some sense into the family again. I've heard comparisons of this film with Pasolini's Teorema, in which a stranger takes turns to seduce an entire household, and eventually pushing them to open themselves up to each other, and to their own selves. In a way, this is true, especially from the portrayal of sex in this film, for it seems that sex is the only way they attempt to communicate to each other; the only way in which they are forced to feel each other's pain and scars. However sex in this film is, more often than not, destructive rather than healing. This is not the first time phobia of sex has been portrayed in Miike's movies, from the stuck penis in Gozu to the anal rape torture in Shinjuku Triad Society. In fact, in all the extreme sex, most of them are shown to shock and revolt with an underlying sense of camp that makes them revolting one moment, funny the next, but never truly erotic.

It is thus hardly any surprise that salvation for this deranged family comes in the form of a return to the very beginnings of the concept of family. In the person that is able to give, and the people that want to receive, infant-like. It shows that of all the madness and chaos raging in the outside world, there is always a place where everyone can return to, even if the picture of it is not exactly as it was before.

This is particularly what sets this film apart from most of the aberrantly violent or overwhelmingly bleak films that characterize extreme art-house cinema today. The fact that peeled away of all its nihilistic layers, what lies at the core is a warm film of understanding and acceptance, showing that above all, Miike is indeed a sentimental director at heart, pushing forth his exuberance and faith in humanity under the black covers of sardonic absurdity.

What a beautiful beautiful film. By turns dark, bizarre, funny in all its campy glory, heartbreaking and redemptive, the film only proves that as our orbits drive us further and further away from each other, the sticky substance of milk is the only thing that can glue us together and keep us floating above the water like bubbles, instead of sinking inside the vast and anonymous sea of depravity and debauchery. The extremities in the film will hit you like a stranger with a rock and force your head down from outer space and back onto the good hard earth of reality.

Coffee and Cigarettes (2003)

Breezy absurdist comedy

[6/10 · 11 February 2005]

--Mild spoilers--

I haven't seen a single Jarmusch before this and have no knowledge or his style whatsoever, nor have I smoked a cigarette while drinking coffee, but I enjoyed this film immensely.

It doesn't purport to speak of grandiose themes and epic emotions, nor does it go out of its way to be deliberately offbeat and quirky; the audience has no emotional attachment to the characters and there is no plot in most of the vignettes. So what puts this film above all the pretentiously shot black-and-white art-house crap that is slugged out every year? For one thing, it is really funny. From its expressionistic colors to the dialog that proudly smacks of absurdist humor, this film is like a breeze of cool air, utterly enjoyable from the first reel to the last that does not cloy on to the heart, but is very unforgettable.

Ultimately, its unobtrusive absurdist humor, which provokes chuckles instead of heartily laughs, serves to prove the Pinter-esquire themes of the futility of communication. We get a sense that the characters are isolated and desperately trying to touch each other through their speech but ultimately failing to do so; and yet, through their manic speech patterns and delirious pauses, what is unsaid speaks more than what is said itself. While this unconventional style of humor is often difficult to pull off as it might fast become monotonous (as evident in a recent stage production of The Caretaker that I saw), Jarmusch's deft direction with his actors (from their gestures to the way they hold their coffee cups) pushes forth the humor and carries it on steadily throughout the entire film.

It is hard to say much about a film who has nothing much to say. As in my favorite segment, 'No Problem', the one with the two French black guys, their dialog only serves to underscore the meaningless and nothingness of communication. What is scary about it is that it is so accurate, that these type of conversations, however ridiculous and absurd when portrayed on screen, often typifies our daily conversations. It depresses me sometimes that human communication can be easily reduced to all these, and this film makes the point entirely clear.

So it definitely comes as a relief, that as a conclusion, the relatively more heart-warming vignette with the two old guys (Champagne) was chosen. Not only does it touches lightly on the recurring 'acoustic resonance' theme, it also hints that we may in fact touch each other, through common music or through a common idea. And it just happens that that common song was 'I have Lost Track of the World' by Gustav Mahler, an amazing piece by an amazing composer that I have just recently began to love, a delightful moment which shows that although we are as disconnected at the different vignettes in the movie, it is comforting to know that we are still united in some weird cosmic way, like this forum here. And like the two old guys, after our coffee and cigarette break in which we step into an odd world that is not really unfamiliar, we would have to step back in to the real world again. But it doesn't hurt to have a little nap in between and pretend bad coffee is champagne.

The Green Ray (1986)

The craving for solitude and the unbearable loneliness that comes with it

[8/10 · 11 February 2005]

It is not unreasonable to say that Rohmer's films are without par. No director has ever come close to his exquisite and acute observations of the human psyche, and so Rohmer's films are probably only comparable to each other. I find that the more films of his that I watch, the more I am able to see each film clearer. It is no wonder that out of the directors that emerged from the French New Wave, only Rohmer has been able to sustain critical acclaim for his films consistently.

Many detractors find fault with his style -- there is little or no music, the plot is only a very very rough skeleton of what actually goes on in his films (as it takes a backseat to exploring the psychology of his characters), there are many moments of silence, and those moments of dialog are mostly ramblings about philosophy, love, and life instead of plot advancement. Well, I find it quite difficult to articulate the charm of his movies too, since he isn't particularly flashy in his writing or his direction.

His films are largely introspective, drawing us in to view the character's psyche instead of the events that happen to him, as such his films are always introverted and quiet, where it seems nothing much happens. At first glance, the lead characters of his films seem to be all from the same mold: gloomy, quiet people who are extremely prone to making fickle choices and outbursts of emotion. But the more Rohmer you see, the more likely you'd be to distinguish a pattern among them and their distinctive traits in his characters.

They are always caught in a 'limbo' for lack of a better word, usually either caught between two choices that may tear their lives apart or make them better, or caught between two emotions that are pulling them in totally different directions. They are often afraid to take the leap, take the risk in deciding which point of action to make, and thus the films largely comprise of them searching for themselves, their identities, their desires and their wishes. They are as equally clueless about themselves as we are about them initially, and so it is folly to attempt to analyze them at the beginning. And as the film progresses, they learn more about themselves and perhaps we might learn a little more about ourselves too after we have gone through the same emotions and internal struggles with them.

That every lead has a distinctive trait is what separates his movies from each other. Each one of them is stuck, and exemplifies the different nuances of our struggles, and so they might all appear gloomy but they vary in their intents and sentiments. In The Green Ray in particular, the lead character is torn between the craving for solitude, and the unbearable loneliness that comes with it. To say I relate to it probably cheapens the film to a certain extent, but it is the best I can say with Rohmer's films. They portray a small corner in our lives that we have been before, that it is impossible to say any less. The fact that he is able to take each corner of our lives (and its accompanying mood) and blow it up on the big screen into a full-length feature film that is neither didactic nor ever fully reassuring, shows the mastery of his craft. Like us, he is unsure and searching, and he portrays that in his films beautifully.

All of his oeuvre is definitely worth watching, (save for the god-awful La Collectioneuse, one can only assume that he was going through a shitty state of mind when he was making that pretentious junk), and the best thing about Rohmer is the more films you see of him, the more you see in his films. The reason why I singled out The Green Ray (or Summer on the US DVD), is because of its brilliant lead actress Marie Riviere, which is not only immediately likable, but also painfully personal. Her journey is one that I can slip on comfortably anytime, with an ending that is equally sublime as it is magical. I don't want to spoil it for anyone who is intending to pick this up, but let's just say that it is probably one of the greatest moments of cinema that I have witnessed in my short life. To be able to capture it with such beauty and in such a context, not only offers a respite from the turmoil that we (the lead character and I) have gone through, but also a hope of self-discovery and awareness, makes this gem a great slice of cinema.

The Forgotten (2004)

Something more than sci-fi?

[6/10 · 11 February 2005]

Perhaps the greatest flaw of every genre film is the very fact that it is a genre film. And as long as a film is labeled as a genre film, people are often not willing to see it as more than that, and if it doesn't satisfy the people's expectations of a genre film (too predictable, too overdone), it will often be overlooked by even the most eloquent and perceptive critics and reviewers.

I am not unfortunate in the sense that I went into the movie knowing fully well what the movie is about and how its twists are going to go, and so from the trailer itself I have absolutely no expectations of being shocked or surprised. Sure, The Forgotten is a shameless rip-off of countless X-Files episodes, sure it is B-grade and cheesy, but it wears its heart on its sleeve and makes no pretensions about it. It does not try to be original or clever, and that's precisely what works for me. That is probably why I hate The Sixth Sense so much. Okay, so it is clever and the twist is shocking, but other than that gimmicky manipulative ending the film is devoid of any content at all. Zilch. In this way The Forgotten is similar to the best of the X-Files episodes for me, which are not the ones which are exceedingly smart or shocking, but rather the ones which focus more on the exploration of its characters.

In this sense, free of all its genre trappings, it has an ability to shine through as a tale of love and paranoia. For one, the fact that all that matters for Julianne Moore, even after going through all the various forms of alienation, is a simple drive -- to find her son back -- differentiates it from the shallow Hollywood crap that is pounded in molds everyday. She is forgotten by even her husband, yet the only important thing is the very realistic bond between her child and herself, insofar making the movie a simplistic quest of finding her child back. It moves me most that the film is driven by such a humane sentiment.

Much has been said about the cheesy acting. Apart from Julianne Moore, all of the actors perform in a classic B-grade cheesy horror movie way. So what is there to blame? It takes a bigger person (in this case, film) to be able to be fully aware of its errors and poke fun at them. But if looking at it another way, all this bad-acting might well be explainable.

From the beginning of the movie, we are given a sense that this woman is severely unstable and paranoiac. She has never once had concrete proof of the conspiracy and what is presented to us is often her point of view. So what makes us believe so whole-heartedly that she is leading us on a government conspiracy track? Come to think of it, the entire plot about alien abduction seem extremely ludicrous for a film that started out as a psycho-drama. Furthermore the character Dominic West plays is never shown talking to the same person in the same scene as Julianne Moore, and seeing how unstable Julianne Moore seems to be from the start (she imagines drinking a coffee that wasn't there), it might be possible that she embellished these characters, and even invented the government conspiracy plot. The most telling (and hilarious) sign for this, is after Dominic West calls the cops, and after Julianne Moore gets taken in by the police (and that was when all the ridiculous things started, when she got taken over by the NSA, whose motives she didn't question), he experiences a flashback sort of thing with an extremely slapstick expression that is reminiscent of an ape who had glue stuck on its face.

If taken in this respect, the movie does not become merely become a search for her missing child, it becomes a ride into an unstable character's mind, that makes the ending more chilling. Julianne Moore's kid is strange. Not strange in the odd-cute way, but in a crazy-psycho-something's-controlling-my-brain way. His over-exaggerated winks and jerks of the head and smiles (often so many of these in one single scene) are so fake and smack of artificial warmth, that it is not difficult to believe it is an embellishment of some sort on Julianne Moore's part (remember that she admitted to embellishing some of her memories in the beginning). If this is so then all the clues and details picked up in the film will be false, and which would again prove how unreal the film's 'plot' is.

The film ends with an incredible encounter with an alien (made even stupider with the bursting of glass, and the forcing to forget memories part), which suddenly and inexplicably ends with Julianne Moore finding her son again in the park. But looking at the way it is shot, the film grain and the yellow-tinged cinematography, and her son's weird winks and ticks, and the sudden way that he appears, it is not unlike her flashbacks (or hallucinations). It is not unreasonable (in the world of celluloid) when a mentally unstable person thinks of a scary situation (in this case, the entire plot of the film, including her being forgotten, and the aliens and the government) to distract herself from a bigger and scarier situation (the fact that her son is actually already dead), and that is what probably draws me most to this movie. Could it be possible that Julianne Moore, in order to convince herself that her son is still alive, makes up the entire plot about being hunted by government agents, being embroiled in a government conspiracy, encountering a scary alien, so that in the end it can lead to a conclusion where she finds her son again, alive? I don't know for sure, but I find it an interesting postulation that grounds the film's psychological undercurrents.

Last Life in the Universe (2003)

Beautiful and pensive film about life and death.

[10/10 · 11 February 2005]

Perhaps I was in a different state of mind when I first saw this movie, but after revisiting it on DVD, it didn't make any more sense than it first did when I saw it, but I came out feeling so much more satisfied than most of the films I saw this year. It works best as a DVD movie for me I guess, especially on lonely nights where thoughts overrun and sleep is scarce, the calming glow of the movie is especially comforting and soothing.

The music and photography felt like a balm to me, but that is not all that made me re-love this film. The music sounds to me like waves on the ears, making me think, for lack of a better analogy, of a person in a placid swimming pool, where all is calm. Yet when you submerge yourself underwater and when you come back up again, the experience is so different you seem to have emerged into a different world. Where underwater the outside world is entirely muffled out, only traces of what you can usually hear seep into our ears, the peaceful allure is enticing, but you cannot stay there for long unless you lose your breath forever. When you come up for air, which is a necessity, life's banal and blaring sounds attack your ears again and you're forced into it, forced to hear it, forced to participate in it. The incessant beeping of an alarm, the buzzing of a doorbell. Never can we find peace in our world, unless we submerge ourselves in death, and the line between life and death is so abstract, that being in a swimming pool we experience both the peace and the banal, sometimes a split second out of the other.

At the same time, death and life are not extreme ends of each other. Rather, life encompasses death in its entirety, and vice versa. The dead person becomes a part of us, in the same way as we become part of the dead person when the person dies. Life and death aren't seen as two separate beings as much as they are one and interchangeable. As the characters in the film teeter in the brink of existence they experience both life and death at the same time, with Nid and Noi fusing into each other unpredictably and Kenji living out his suicidal fantasies in his head yet not being able to die at the same time, is he dead in his mind already, and if so, is he dead? I can't help but sigh at the beauty in which these two (or three?) characters encounter each other. They meet each other at the brink of their lives, just as they are going to lose it, and their lives coalesce and separate and intertwine with each other again, in the hands of fate, they are never one and alone, and yet they are separate identities merged into one.

Both characters yearn for resolution, for a place to take them out of the uncertain limbo they are in. Kenji longs for the resolve (or so he thinks in the beginning) of death and is probably why he arrived in Thailand from Japan. Noi wants to go to Japan to escape having to face the death of her sister and her uneasy existence after that. Yet in the film, there is no resolution or ultimate. Life and death are presented as equally fragile; as simply as life can be destroyed like how Nid died out of a complete freak accident, death can also be discarded away like how Kenji never manages to die. As such they are forced into an existence that has no resolution or comfort, in which the only comfort they can find is with each other. Noi ultimately is left alone in the airport waiting room, and Kenji is left in the police station, and as such, Kenji can only resolve this whole tale in his mind, in a fantasy in which he rejoins Noi in Japan. It is a sweet and heartwarming fantasy, but yet some might argue that it still remains a fantasy and that in reality, the ending is ultimately depressing.

This brings into question the importance of reality in this whole equation. To think of this film logically or mathematically will probably drive anyone nuts, for it is a film that defies any logic or truth. What is truth if life and death aren't at opposites? In the same way, how does reality get the upper hand over fantasy when in fantasy, Kenji has already died twice, and has a happy ending in the end? In any case, does all these even matter when one is in between the line that separates the cool placid waters and the outside world? In the same right, I love that the movie doesn't attempt to explain anything. In any case, what reason do you need to die? If a person can die as suddenly and inexplicably as when shot by his best friend, why can't you take your own life? What reason does anyone need to meet, or in any case, fall in love, then get separated again? What reason do you need to make an abstract, surreal, yet half-completed film? The room in which it allows the audience to complete the film makes it attractive for its unfinished quality. It does not provide anything to be fully satisfying, it does not even provide controversy for one to think about.

Watching this film again, to me, is like plunging into the state of mind of the film again. The consciousness akin to being in a swimming pool, amidst the calm we have two extremes fused into each other, working off each other, and most importantly we can never go into any of the two completely, just teetering on the edge of both ends hoping for fate to deliver someone that comes from the same position for our lives to coalesce.

In My Skin (2002)

A fascinating study of human behavior

[5/10 · 9 January 2005]

Many people couldn't respond to the lack of easy answers in this movie, but I think one of the reasons why they did not provide any easy answers for this movie is simply because there really isn't any easy answers for these acts. In fact, I think if the makers tried to force down a message or a motive (like what the director of Monster did), it'll just be another gore flick with nothing to look out for.

For me, the most disturbing aspect of In My Skin, is the fact that it did not disturb me at all. The extremely gory scenes were presented in such a normal way, that after awhile I got used to seeing them, accepting them as commonplace and that scares me. I was surprised at the way self-mutilation was presented in this movie. I went in expecting it to show it as ugly and awful, but the scariest thing is, towards the end of the movie, the violence towards herself becomes so beautiful.

I find it intriguing that Esther's self-mutilation and auto-cannibalism does not stem from self-loathing or hatred of her own body. In fact, it definitely seems to me that she is more fascinated and in love with her body thus provoking her to get into this stuff.

SPOILERS

Her fascination with mutilation did not come from the fact that she fell and got the ugly wound on her leg, it came only after she had it bandaged, and it started to itch and ooze pus and split open. In the first self-mutilation scene, it feels almost as if she becomes intrigued by her wound pushing her to start exploring what is beneath her skin. The effect came across to me as being not unlike a boy in puberty who first discovers the many wonders of his little Johnny and explores it in all the most pleasurable ways possible.

In fact, the progression of this fascination seems almost metaphoric to the masturbating boy, although I hesitate to bring in terms like 'metaphors' and 'allegories', because they sound so intellectual. The shame she felt at what she had done causing her to crash her car and make up an elaborate excuse of her injuries to her boyfriend, it seems, is alike to the boy who discovers carnal pleasures and later regrets at his 'sinful' indulgence. It often brings into mind the notion of those who indulge in hedonism and later after thinking back on what they had done, feels the pang of guilt from societal rules. On its own, these acts are neither harmful nor destructive to anybody (save for the person who does these acts onto himself, but then again if this person does not feel pain as being painful, how can it qualify as 'hurt'?), and it is only because it is viewed as abnormal and perverse, that they feel guilty.

Throughout these acts of self-mutilation and auto-cannibalism, it struck me that the way she sucked at her own blood and nibbled at her skin; and the way she caressed the large piece of skin she had carved out from herself, seem to me as if she was making love to herself. Locking herself up in a hotel room and taking pictures of her mutilated self seems more like an act of masturbation to the extent of narcissistic abandon than something downright repulsive. The pleasure on her face as she moved her carved-out skin around her face even made me start to eye my own skin funny.

But perhaps the reason why this act is seen upon as perverse smells more of societal concerns. The behavior of Esther, first and foremost, is an anti-social behavior. She derives pleasure entirely from her self, to the extent of shutting out everybody in her life (she is deaf to her boyfriend's worries, and in the most telling scene, she picks at her hand with her knife under the table as her friends eat), and probably the need for wholeness in the society frowns upon acts like these that asserts independence and individualism. Perhaps that is why after so many years of people doing it, masturbation is still taboo in discussions, stirring up the alarm bells that society has injected into our blood through the many generations.

END OF SPOILERS

But look what you can into this film, well after all it's a French film, and if it isn't experimental, pushing-edge and thought-provoking, it isn't French enough right? Despite being completely devoid of any emotional content, it does have some questions about our basis of humanity and our needs, it only depends on how much you want to look. And if you look enough, you'd probably uncover many 'metaphors' and 'symbolism' that your brain so craves to provide intellectual masturbation. I heard one American critic saying, 'whatever symbolism or underlying message this film attempts to offer, it is ultimately weighed down by its revolting imagery'. Revolting or beautiful, perhaps depends on which point of view you are coming from and what baggage you bring to the film, but ignoring the entire basis of the film is plain stupid.

For me, well I didn't love this movie as much as I sound I do here, but it is a nice food movie with a positive tone about a girl who learns how to love herself through eating herself, regardless of how weird it sounds.

So go see this movie before it ends, it doesn't matter if you have an iron stomach or not, what matters more is that at best, it gives enough to masturbate our egos by feeding ourselves intellectual thoughts (something I'm certain that many very intellectual critics didn't get); at worst it is a heck lot entertaining to see someone eating herself, and your food options will be broadened.

Ju-on: The Grudge (2002)

Horrible movie, avoid at all costs!!

[1/10 · 12 June 2003]

This is a supremely horrible movie! After being touted as the scariest movie ever made and Sam Raimi singing his praises, I was more than disappointed.

The least a horror movie could do is to at least make my heart pound a little faster but this movie is so bland from start to end. The director seems to think that by throwing in a story that does not make much sense and a few scenes of blue-skinned, black-eyed ghouls will instantly make it a horror classic.

How wrong. A good horror movie not only relies on shock tactics but also on the build-up of tension. This movie sorely lacks both, making it blander than anything. The plot goes nowhere, the characters are just there to be killed off, and the horror scenes aren't really horror. The only thing that separates this from the average slasher flick is in place of a slasher, we get a long-haired ghoul who prefers to crawl instead of walk a la The Ring.

Don't get me wrong, The Ring is a superb horror movie. It is just that Ju On uses all the old, tired tricks in the book that it is impossible to get scared anymore. This 'horror' movie puts Japanese horror movies to shame. Japanese horror movies had a revival recently with The Ring and Dark Water. I just hope that people would not judge all Japanese horror movies by this very badly done crap.

The Son (2002)

Minimalistic film, but simply AMAZING!

[7/10 · 1 May 2003]

SPOILER The film has rarely any dialogue and totally NO background music. But the moments of silence speak so much more volumes than the moments of dialogue. The style of the film is also very distinct -- it's shot in jerky hand-held camera (inducing motion-sickness in a lot of people), and every scene is only shot in one take...a bit like Sokurov's Russian Ark. It's about this person who initially rejects a boy to be his carpentry apprentice but then starts maniacally stalking him and we find out later that the boy is actually the person who killed his son. It sounds really melodramatic, yes, but it's so not. It seems that the camera is stalking the main character throughout the whole movie, with an intensity intensified by it's minimal-editing style. Throughout the whole movie, there are so many hints of violence, so many points where it seemed that the main character will just snap and kill the boy any moment but this are all played down. It is not about violence.

I didnt quite like it as much as I do now when I left the theater. But as I went home and reflected upon it, the more emotions it evoked in me. It's quite difficult to pin-point exactly what makes the film so brilliant in my opinion. I think a lot hinges on the fact that the lead actor is just amazing. He emotes so well with his eyes, and every change in emotion is hinted subtly by a change in his eyes. I mean, throughout the entire film the camera is focused on him, of course he had to be able to sustain the whole film. Another reason is the silence. Sometimes silence can be so much louder than words, which is totally true in this film. The silence here is not only suffocating, it's menacing and intense, as if like the prelude to a thunderstorm. This is one film which brilliance hinges more on its silence than its script.

The most brilliant thing I think is the style of the movie. While the style of many movies complement the story and illuminates it, the style is movie IS the movie itself. It's a narrative technique. Much like Zhang Yimou's Hero. And I think that's part of the reason why the comments about this film are so extreme. The maniacal style of the camera stalks the main character, just as the main character stalks the boy. It never bothers to show the main character's feelings, it never bothers to explore the depths of the character (although the actor explores it fully). It never bothers to explain why the main character has such a fascination with the boy even though he killed his son. It never bothers to explain why the main character doesnt in fact, want to hurt the boy at all. The entire film just shows the reactions of the character to the situation. At the same time, I think, the stalker-camera style detaches the audience from the character. The audience is always observing the characters from far and the director makes no effort to let the plunge the audience into the character's feelings. I think the reason in this is more to evoke the audience's feelings towards this, and not by pulling in the main character's feelings to consideration. The film is a reaction piece, and it aims to draw the audience reaction to the film also, and in that sense allows the audience to participate in this way instead of, the usual way in which the audience participate by being part of the film. The audience is never part of this film, if you get what I mean....I dont even think I'm making much sense here...

Oh, and I have my thoughts on the end of the film too. Some think the ending was too abrupt to be understandable but I think it's more like you know, the rain...The silence throughout the whole film was the prelude to the storm and it all erupted in the character uncontrollably telling the boy that the person he murdered was his son. Instead of the violence and gore we were expecting, we got calm instead. Instead of the devastating lightning that seemed imminent, we got heavy rain. It was tender, that both of them decided to silently make up and be master-apprentice. And that's what makes the film so tender and delicate.

To quote Roger Ebert's review of The Son, though I dont quite agree with a lot of things he said about the movie...I do agree, however, that it's an awesome movie ;) '"The Son" is complete, self-contained and final. All the critic can bring to it is his admiration. It needs no insight or explanation. It sees everything and explains all. It is as assured and flawless a telling of sadness and joy as I have ever seen. '