the LAST FILM YOU'VE SEEN thread

Sei Mong se Jun (2004) Ab-normal Beauty

Film Five (and the last for me) on the Tartan Asia extreme tour 2005.

Directed by Oxide Pang Chun

Starring Race Wong, Rosanne Wong, Anson Leung (One Night in Mongkok)

The Pang brothers are known for their flash and panache with their film directing and editing, they have also created a couple of really good films, “Bangkok Dangerous” and “The Eye”. Unfortunately their visual flair is often more impressive than the films they create, “The Eye 2” and others, for once the styling works perfectly for the subject matter.

Jiney is an art student, a decent painter but an excellent photographer. She often attains the highest scores but is unhappy with her work until one day she takes photos at a car crash, she is sickened, repulsed but also fascinated, when she sees the results of her work she feels that at last she has found something to satisfy and stimulate her.

She starts taking more pictures at the moment of death, whether people or animals and becomes more than a little obsessed. All the time she’s doing this she’s being stalked by a male admirer from her class, despite the fact that she has told him she’s a lesbian he continuously follows and films her. Her lover, Jas becomes distraught with Jiney’s obsessive behaviour and does her best to get her away from the subject of death.

For a while it works, Jiney appears to have realised how sick it was but she suddenly receives a video tape with what she assumes (and hopes) is a fake snuff movie. The video contains extremely violent scenes culminating in the death of the girl but both Jiney and Jas are convinced it’s just a fake that’s been made by Jiney’s stalker. It’s only when Jiney finds another snuff video outside her home that she takes it seriously, but what can or will she do?

As I said earlier, the main build up is ideal for the Pang’s filming and editing techniques, as the main subject is art and photography. Everything runs along very well, the idea is interesting and the characters believable but………..

Yes unfortunately once again there has to be a but! Once the snuff tape is received, the film changes tack and loses everything it’s carefully built up. You can maybe excuse the first one (although it is pretty gruesome) but when the second one appears, it’s just so bloody obvious where the film is going and you’ll be able to work out the rest of the story in about 5 seconds.

Why, why, why, why, why. What the hell were they thinking, the only thing I’ll say is that it turns from a well developed character study to a more gruesome and even more predictable version of “Saw “. What the f*%k happened? If this was a Hollywood film I wouldn’t have been surprised but!

Anyway you get the point, with “Audition” it works because it’s constantly building towards it but it does not work in this film, it’s as though they couldn’t decide where to take it so just decided to make it as brutal but predictable as possible, in my eyes it’s a film with a lot of promise but ultimately a failure, I’m sure it’ll do really well in the US and UK.

Another little problem but this is nothing really, the two main characters, Jiney and Jas (the lesbian lovers) are real life sisters, although there are no scenes of a sexual nature it is a little odd.

Cheers Trev.

BBFC rated 18.

The Island (1961) - Kaneto Shindo

A unique Japanese art film. One with no dialogue, and looking as well as feeling very much like a Flaherty film. Same harsh surroundings, the naturalistic lifestyle, the quiet surroundings, and of course a little drama to throw in there.

Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man (2005)

From various directors: All Souls (TIFF)

The Hidden Half (2001) - Tahmineh Milani

Well I began to wonder if I had peaked in Iranian film. All too often the films are merely stories of the poor and unfortunate, depressing tales of hardship and adversity. I was yet to see an Iranian film that showed anyone with a slight degree of wealth or even one that showed Iranian's as somewhat comparable to western citizens. That changed with The Hidden Half, a distinctly feminist film that shows an Iran not torn assunder by poverty and famine, but by ideology.

This is a daring film, one that makes political references rarely if ever shown in a film FROM Iran. It takes place during the cultural revolution of the late seventies and early eighties, and it shows women not just as capable of being independant thinkers, but even more so than men. It is comparable to the political films of Godard (minus the overt artiness) and socially consious American movies of the sixties. Because of that I believe the film works, but more than those films this happens to show the aftermath of ideology. It shows what happens when the idealism dies, and how it happens. This is the most important aspect of the film imo. All too often in those films of the time we see the idealist uncompromising, but we realize from history that those revolutionaries don't last.

The life of the film is from director Tahmineh Milani, who was arrested during the making of the film. True to the nature of the story, her crime was punishable by death. Luckily due to her popularity she was released and the film was able to be made. Like many Iranian films though, this seemed to find its audience outside of Iran. Like Milani's previous film Two Women, this stars Niki Karimi, who may very well be the most beautiful Iranian woman I've ever seen. There isn't a great deal of makeup here, and 17 years past, the characters basically look the same. I think it's more thematic than anything. Hard to show how ideas can't change, so instead lets show how people don't change. Sure there is a transition, but it is the essential person that remains the same. Karimi's Fereshteh (same name from Two Women) was made by her ideology. The person she is deep down inside was formed at this crucial time when she was still 19, even if her beliefs have remained internal.

I'd say The Hidden Half is a remarkable film. Sure there is something of a love story, that can offer melodrama, but for once I'd rather see romance be melodramatic than people starving and being exploited as so many Iranian films do. To me, this film represents a potential turning point for Iranian film, just as Rosellini's Voyage in Italy did for Italian film. The story of the poor and underprivalleged can only go so far, a different aspect of society needs to be examined in a national cinema, and with this film perhaps we can start to see a more idea driven Iranian film, rather than one so painfully immitating the Neorealist movement.

Grade A

As one of the final releases from the Miramax which belonged to the Weinsteins, The Brothers Grimm unfortunately has to bear the scars caused by them in an outwardly fashion: The film was not only delayed on a few occasions, but along the way, it had a new cinematographer and a lead actress, both personally chosen by the moguls. Director Terry Gilliam (Brazil [1985] / Twelve Monkeys [1995]) has certainly had his battles along the way with numerous studios, so perhaps this was nothing new -- at least this time he was able to finish the film unlike a few years back when his production of "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" had to be shutdown (remember the excellent 2002 doc Lost in La Mancha?).

The Brothers Grimm is a solid, if a more commercially calculated, effort from Gilliam starring Heath Ledger and Matt Damon as the titular brothers who, in circa 1796, travel from town-to-town duping poor German peasants into believing that they’re what protects them from mystical and demonic creatures. A local general of the Napoleon army (Jonathan Pryce) becomes aware of their shenanigans, and as punishment sends them along with his maniacal Italian officer (Peter Stormare) to a village in order to solve the mystery of a few young girls who’ve been reported missing.

If that sounds a bit too grim, then fear not. For the most part, the film is a Monty Python-esque adventure -- meaning it’s inventive, extravagant, and silly, all at once. And, of course, what makes it stand out is Gilliam’s visual prowess, even though the look at times is less enchanting than disorienting. The screenplay by the ubiquitous Ehren Kruger features some clever folklore gags, but it spends too much time with the Grimms’ love interest (Lena Headey) and not enough with their ultimate enemy, an evil queen seeking eternal beauty (the ravishingly bewitching Monica Bellucci). Both Pryce and Stormare are seemingly aware of the fact that they’re in a Terry Gilliam film, and so they act accordingly; Ledger is fine with his Brando-esque mumbling (in some Australian/British accent), but he required more support from Damon, who’s upstaged by his hairdo.

Grade: B-

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*THE BROTHERS GRIMM will be available on DVD on Dec 20th.

Come Back Little Sheba (1952) - Delbert Mann

Wow what were they thinking? How many times have you asked yourself that watching an Oscar favorite? Well it happens a lot with me, and this was the film that brought Shirley Booth (a somewhat known stage New York stage actress) her one and only Oscar for best actress. Booth is absolutely terrible here. Her character is irritating from the first few minutes and it doesn't let up. Someting is indeed disturbing about a wife referring to her husband as "daddy" and same goes for a husband calling his wife "mommy" I mean that's enough to make you shiver.

Burt Lancaster is rarely ever bad, and I think he does just fine here, in a rather quiet performance. Booth on the other hand just gets melodramatic, so by the time she finally has a chance to do some "acting" we've pretty much lost interest in the story. The plot is slow and almost completely uneventful. I thought my girlfriend occasionally asks questions that she shouldn't but Booth's character takes that to a new extreme. Which leads me to believe that she just might be retarded, but I haven't done enough research into the source material and I'm not going to.

There are some young characters and they help to motivate the story slightly, but as supporting parts they just can't work. Booth's role was originally offered to Bette Davis, and perhaps she could have handled this better. It's a shame too, because well we all know what I think about 1952, but I really don't think the year was fantastic for actresses. If you're wondering just who I would have given the trophy to, I'd vote for Maureen O'Hara for The Quiet Man, now that was a strong female role.

Grade D +

Come Back Little Sheeba. This was a stage play and Shirley Booth I believe was the star in it. Things that work well in theater often don't play so good onscreen. The current Proof is an example. Come Back Little Sheeba was also presented as a radio play. It was irressistible but a corny tear-jerker nonetheless.

Wow what were they thinking? How many times have you asked yourself that watching an Oscar favorite?

:) Great opening!

Did you know that Booth also won awards at Cannes and New York? Heck, it almost makes me wanna watch this to figure out what the hell you're talking about here, even though you're usually on the mark.

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Alan Clarke's The Firm (1989)

Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne's L'Enfant (TIFF)

Shirley Booth was considered a powerful stage actress in her day.

Doesn't detract from the fact that she's irritating in that film, and didn't deserve the Oscar.

I wouldn't doubt it. I never saw the film, I only heard the radio play. It was corny but a successful tearjerker. The point is that tastes change. She probably was't irritating to people then. But I don't know how the movie was received by critics or the public, do you?

It was pretty well liked at the time, although not exactly praised as a film. After all great films like Ivanhoe got best picture nominations that year.

The Weeping Meadow was the last film I saw, and it's in the Favorite Films section, so see that.

I guess as usual you can figure out something about Academy politics from this.

Who inherits the guilt in the case of death penalty? That’s the question posed and rather obliquely addressed by Shadow Kill (Nizhalkkuthu), the latest film from Indian New Cinema pioneer Adoor Gopalakrishnan. Set in colonial India in the early-1940’s, the film examines the guilt-ridden life of a state-appointed hangman named Kaliyappan (Oduvil Unnikrishnan). While he works for the state of Travancore, he’s assigned to live outside its boundaries since the officials aren’t comfortable with him being around people he might have to hang one day. So, Kaliyappan and his family -- a wife, a pubescent daughter, a Gandhian, freedom fighter son -- reside in a small rural village whose inhabitants ironically believe that the ash from his rope contains healing powers. The beautifully paced and consistently engrossing first half, which promises more than what the film ultimately ends up delivering, features Kaliyappan in a state of despair due to his belief that the last man he hanged was innocent, and he’s taken to drinking to ease the pain. His son may not want to continue in his father’s footsteps, but he doesn’t get a say when a sick Kaliyappan is called in to perform an execution and he’s asked to accompany him. At this juncture, Gopalakrishnan veers to overlap his narrative threads that may or may not meet at the ends as Kaliyappan’s daughter and her sexuality become the focal point after a state official starts to tell a story about a young girl who was raped and murdered. The second half’s melodious images also undermine and distill some of the complexities the film established earlier on. However, Shadow Kill, which is possibly a minor work in the director’s much celebrated oeuvre, still has resonance because Gopalakrishnan with his trademark subtlety points toward pertinent issues surrounding the death penalty.

Grade: B
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*The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2002.

*SHADOW KILL was part of the GFI (Global Film Initiative): "A New York-based, nonprofit foundation working with leading American cultural institutions to promote cross-cultural understanding through cinema. Each year, The Initiative acquires ten narrative films from the developing world that tour the country for one year." GFI's partner First Run Features recently established a Global Lens Series, allowing them to release the features on DVD.

*A DVD is now available.

Seen in Rome:

Benigni's new one
Oliver Twist (English soundtrack, no subtitles)
Romanzo criminale/Criminal Romance (Michele Placido)

Last seen in New York:

New York Doll (documentary)
Late Chrysanthemums (Naruse retrospective, Film Forum)
Three Extremes (Chan, Park, Miike)
Jarhead (Mendes)

When I was leaving Jarhead, the theater was gearing up for the premiere of the new Pride and Prejudice film. I caught a glimpse of Donald Sutherland, who plays Mr Bennett. But I guess tonight he was playing himself.