No, Asian films are ugly.Originally Posted by Chris Knipp
No, Asian films are ugly.
just kidding ;-)
There were 3 Asian films that were widely recommended in 2018. I listed 1) "Burning" and didn't think 2) "Shoplifters" was quite as special/meaningful/distinctive. I plan to watch 3)"Ash is Purest White" next month.
I plan to finally catch up with Jia Zhangke's MOUNTAINS MAY DEPART this weekend.
Anything you recommend particularly?
I love Korean romances and just bought an import dvd of "Art Museum by the Zoo" for my collection
PARASITE
Ash Is Purest White/江湖儿女 (Jia Zhang-ke 2018)
Long Day's Journey Into Night (Bi Gan)
Suburban Birds//郊区的鸟/Jiao qu de niao (Qiu Sheng 2018)[/SIZE][/B]
Burning was one of my favorites of the year, seen in the NYFF last fall, also re-watched on screeners.
Burning/Beoning /버닝 (Lee Chang-dong 2018)
I wasn't that crazy about Shofplifters. It will be interesting to see the Cannes prizewinner Parasite, which has a related theme.
I've done coverage of the New York Asian Film Festival at Lincoln Center for the past two years and will do it for this year, and it's coming up.
NYAFF 2017
NYAFF 2018
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 06-20-2019 at 07:08 PM.
Thanks for the recommendations. I'll definitely see "Long Day's" some day soon.
Good. Don't miss Burning. Suburban Birds might be harder to find. I saw it in ND/NF this year and it crept up on me.
I've experienced another film "released" in the US in early 2018 (after a Cannes 2017 premiere) that I consider among the greatest achievements in contemporary world cinema; a film that has a therapeutic, meditative effect beyond compare; a film that I cannot get enough of; a film that will be my companion for years to come; a film finished in the absence of its maker, who passed away in 2016:
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI'S 24 FRAMES
His latest film consists of 24 four-to-five minute animations that begin or end with a still photograph taken by Mr. Kiarostami. The exception is the first one: which begins and ends with the painting "The Hunters in the Snow (1565) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. This painting motivates and informs the selection of the photographs, most of which include animals and wintry landscapes. A couple of the vignettes include hunters just outside the frame.
*Since I want to refrain from listing 11 films in my Top 10, the Israeli film "Foxtrot" was sent to the also-ran category with great reluctance.
Thank you for keeping this thread alive.
Have you seen LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT and BURNING yet? Don't miss them!
I saw Kiarostami's 24 FRAMES in an art museum, a show dedicated to him at the Musée Pompidou, a good venue for it. I also got very wound up about Samuel Moaz's FOXTROT initially (I do love the dancing-with-the-gun trailer) but ultimately consigned it to the second level "best lists" with no regrets. Just revisited my review of it. Can't find it on Filmleaf but it's HERE.
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 08-09-2019 at 08:15 PM.
I watched "Burning" when it came out in the States and listed it at #12
What a great place to watch Kiarostami's 24 Frames. Was it a screening, or was it an installation where you can choose the order in which you view the frames?
I want to point out that not all vignettes are digital animations. There is one, for example, that is a process shot. There is a photograph of a group of 5 Iranians watching the Eiffel Tower from a fair distance with their backs to Kiarostami's photographic camera and he combined it with a cinematographic shot that shows people (including a woman wearing sunglasses who sings "Autumn Leaves" in French) walking in the foreground from left to right; the kind of "matte shot" that was common in Hollywood since the 1940s, and then later was perfected by means of "blue screen" technology.
I ranked BURNING higher but not everybody did!
24 FRAMES I think an installation with an exhibit devoted to Kiarostami. I believe it may have grown out of an exhibition at the museum in 2007 Correspondences with the Spaniard Victor Erdice or at least this French article implies so: https://revue24images.com/les-critiques/24-frames/
I see that of my my Wish I'd Seen list for the year I still have not seen
The Wild Pear Tree (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 08-09-2019 at 08:17 PM.
There is a consistency and developmental continuity in Kiarostami's filmography going all the way back to the 1970s. Take for example The Traveler (1974), about a boy who uses a photographic camera cunningly to make money to buy a ticket to the big football game and then falls asleep just before the game starts. You might remember that the last shot of 24 Frames features a person who falls asleep in front of a computer screen playing the last shot from William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives,Dana Andrews and Teresa Wright's romantic kiss.
His last film most closely remembers two of the frames from Five Dedicated to Ozu (2003), particularly the ones that feature a static camera revealing humans and ducks walking from left to right and having at least one of them turn around to stare at the camera.
Kiarostami often remarked that a very positive effect he was hoping to accomplish with his cinema is to make people fall asleep peacefully.
Last edited by oscar jubis; 08-10-2019 at 04:00 PM.
Great! Thanks.
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