jazzest

Some use film-making as a tool to reflect themselves and search their identities. With her first important feature, Je, tu, il, elle, Chantal Akerman relays this tradition, which has been established and inherited mostly by generations of female filmmakers, from Maya Deren to Rose Troche and Jennie Livingston. Like Deren, Akerman combines a traditional narrative and surrealistic ingredients, but Akerman's surrealism is more true-to-life than Deren's, as seen in a sugar-only diet of "Je" or a wrestling-like foreplay between "Je" and "Elle." Painfully naked honesty in these scenes shows how seriously Akerman is in need of examining her identity and sexuality.

(The surface of the film extremely resembles Stranger Than Paradise by Jim Jarmusch, completed in 1983; the two films share the three-episode plot and the B/W medium shots by the fixed camera without panning/tilting/dollying. But this may be irrelevant for viewing this Akerman film.)

A romance and a breakup between two girls develop into a mutiny at an all-girl boarding school--this sounds extremely familiar, but the outcome of Lost and Delirious is not, thanks to the fact that the film is neither the filmmaker Lea Pool's semi-autobiography nor one of her earlier works. As a veteran filmmaker, Pool puts a distance between the characters and herself; it produces a tone that is neither too emotional nor too objective. The contemporary touch is made subtly but noticeably, as the story takes place at a school where the girls play soccer and the teachers accept students' openly discussing love and sex in a classroom. The incredible acting of two leads, Piper Perabo and Jessica Paré, makes the girls believable. They look similar with each other; the combined castings may be called a mistake as it could confuse the viewers at least in the beginning.

If you are both a fan of the Asian underground S&M and a film nerd who loves the French New Wave, Color Blossoms is a film for you; otherwise, just not. Without questioning if it is suitable for the subject or not, the over stylization, directly borrowed from Last Year at Marienbad (Four mirrors reflect Madam Umeki simultaneously in the story that mixes the past and the present) and Godard (jump-cut, lettering, and a cameo appearance of a film snob), leads to a stretched S&M scene at the climax.

Some unnecessary settings seem to be added just to be exotic or eccentric. Madam Umeki (Keiko Matsuzaka and Harisu when young) has to be neither Japanese nor M-to-F transgender. Besides, her being a transgender is not believable with the appearances of Matsuzaka and Harisu. The lesbian intimacy between Madam Umeki and Mei Li (Teresa Cheung) is halfway; it must have been either intense or nothing.