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Lumumba
directed by Raoul Peck, 2002
“This film is not an ‘adaptation,’ it aims to be a true story. I want to extract the cinematic narrative from reality by remaining as true to the facts as possible,” so said Raoul Peck. Using archival images of official history (many of film’s pivotal scenes are moving recreations of famous still photographs and newsreel footage from Lumumba’s short political life and assassination), Peck crafted a documentary-style recreation and meditation for what might have been in the events surrounding Lumumba’s assasination. Read the rest of this entry »
Bus 174
Ônibus 174 (2002, Brazil)
José Padilha
This has been oh-so-often compared to aforementioned City of God, but I like this much better. On June 12, 2000, Sandro di Nascimento hijacked a bus, and for four and a half hours it was broadcasted live all across the country. This incident would be known as Ônibus 174, the hijack never portrayed as anything but a prototypical psychopath with a plan gone wrong. Read the rest of this entry »
City of God
Cidade de Deus (2002, Brazil)
Fernando Meirelles & Kátia Lund
You’ve heard the hype: the focus of the story is on ‘Cidade de Deus’ (‘City Of God’), a housing project constructed by the Brazilian government in the 1960s to isolate the poor from Rio de Janeiro’s city centre. It chronicles of the growth of gang warfare and the drug trade that grip the ‘favelas’ or slums of Rio de Janeiro.
Lots of actions that somewhat remind me of John Woo, you wish realities were that simple. I’d be lying if I say I didn’t enjoy it (at least more than I did Woo’s films), but it is uncomfortably unsettling to see all these one-dimensional gung-ho stints placed at the expense of underdeveloped, underplayed caricature of one of the world’s worst slums (I’m almost tempted to say exploitative). But I guess in “sleek” movies (whose main purpose is to, d-uh, entertain) dealing with these kinds of grim subjects one’s bound to find the drama/action to be trivialising the bigger issues. I’d say watch this as a company of Bus 174, instead of the other way around.
Motorcylce Diaries
Diarios de Motocicleta (2004)
Walter Salles
As a work of fiction, it was enjoyable. If the movie wasn’t based on such a popular figure whose face is on every T-shirts and posters, I’d have enjoyed it more and forget my usual nit-picking on the cult of Che and have less reason to feel such irritation about what it’s doing. (The usual problems with biographical films: hagiographic, too naively, glamourly romanticised, a charade on martyrdom all the while ignoring his savage sympathies and deeds, blah blah blah.) So to reiterate: it’s best treated purely as, well, a fiction not based on anyone. Forget who he’s supposed to represent, forget what this film is doing to those who wear his face without knowing what and who he was. Read the rest of this entry »
Mysterious Skin (US, 2005)
directed by Gregg ArakiTwo boys. One can’t remember. The other can’t forget.
It’s based on a novel by Scott Heim, about two boys subjected to sexual abuse in their childhood, and their different coping mechanism: Brian has nightmares and blackouts accompanied with nosebleeds of five hours he lost—couldn’t remember—when he was 8 years old, believing that it was a result of an alien abduction. Neil, on the other hand, remembers all too well the time he was seduced and molested by his Little League baseball coach. Brian grew socially awkward, while Neil pretty much flaunting (and hustling) his sexuality to anyone interested (and indeed there were many). Read the rest of this entry »
My Summer of Love (UK, 2004)
directed by Pawel Pawlikowski
Summer holidays. Two girls, one an orphan “tomboy” living in a pub, her brother a former criminal recently converted to Christianity, eagerly pouring out all of the booze. The other filthy rich living in a country house, horse-riding, private school, decadent. Met. And? As if the title isn’t obvious enough.
Don’t know what other reviewers are raving about. The story cheesy, the hormonal angst irritating, the predictability driving me up the wall, and were it not for the fact that this was my first time paying to see a movie in a theatre after a few blissfully ignorant years I’d have stormed out of the theatre and shoved the ticket up the reeler’s arse.
Now that that’s out of the way, OK, the shootings are pretty at times, but the tepid cliché of two female teenagers experimenting with and obsessing over each other, peppered with the so-called “tragic” family problems of the rich and the decadent… topped with the most expected twist at the ending—complete turn off, really. I repeat: I shall not wander into a movie theatre when I have a three-hour break. I will spend my time doing worthwhile causes such as reading and researching in the library for hidden AV porns.
It’s based on a novel by Helen Cross with the same title, but some—positively glowing—reviews I’ve read made me cringe further. “Reminiscent of Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar.” Uh-huh, that nails the coffin.
Ryosuke Hashiguchi is generally well-known for bringing independent low-budgetry to success in Japanese film industry and for films that, being openly gay himself, deal with issues of homosexuality in Japan. But let’s not pigeon-hole, shall we?
Like Grains of Sand (Japan, 1995)
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A coming-of-age story of a group of high school students, without the annoyingly excessive romance or angst-ridden tantrums. Easy-going Yoshida and shy, soft-spoken Ito are two good friends. At the beginning it’s revealed that Ito’s developed feelings for Yoshida (who has a half-hearted relationship with Shimizu, their classmate). Then comes Aihara (Ayumi Hamazaki at the beginning of her career), seemingly drawn to Ito (and probably the first to sense Ito’s hidden feelings for Yoshida).
It’s difficult to convey the subtlety of this movie in words without making it look like just another pop-corny high school drama, but shot in a candid documentary-style without a narrowly-focused plot, it’s at least one of the better understated films dealing with coming-of-age of different sexualities (het and homo).
Hush! (Japan, 2001)
A third film by Ryosuke Hashiguchi after a six-year hiatus from Like Grains of Sand, Hashiguchi this time focuses on adults. A good review can be found at Midnight Eye, but if I could just have one complaint, it was the relatively melodramatic part where families meet. Otherwise, it was a good film.
Worth getting? Well, just to inform you of my viewing habit, due to monetary constraints (and a much more whopping preference for books), to date I have only ever bought 4 DVDs. Normally I just do some trades or rely on the good ol’ VCR, so of course I’d say just tape them. I don’t think I’d mind rewatching them though, unlike, say, Irréversible.
誰も知ら��
Nobody Knows (2004)
Hirokazu Kore-eda
(Buy the DVD at Amazon.com)
Out of all movies I’ve watched recently, this is by far a favourite (much love and thanks to a friend who sent me the DVD). Apparently it is based on a real 1988 event known as the “Affair of the Four Abandoned Children of Nishi-Sugamo”, fictionally retold. Four children, the oldest aged 12 (Akira), who all came from different fathers, were abandoned by their reckless, immature (though arguably “not unloving”) mother in a tiny apartment. The four children tried their best to survive the helpless descent. Lack of exaggerated drama, awkward captured moments and gestures: refreshing without any farfetched effects or violence. Highly, highly recommended.
You’ve heard it: most disturbing, brutal, most walked out, most hated, most feted of 2002, et cetera et cetera, almost banned in Australia (but was aired sometime ago anyway in WorldMovies, where I taped it from). “Memento”-style (oh it’s a style on its own?), as in the plot moving backwards (with the credits at its very beginning). We know it’s an “arthouse”, spinning camera, strobe effect, the notorious 9-minute non-stop static rape scene, the gay S&M club, “The Rectum”.Is it worth watching? The rape scene wasn’t as violent as I was bracing myself for (having been troweling through accounts of war crimes that are my bedtime stories, not because I craved for (Lord forbids) a more preposterous shot). Since when does a 9-minute rape scene become the new art form? Ugh. The kind of “extreme”, “arthouse” film, shocking only to the completely uninitiated, but with a noticeably lack of quotable dialogues that most “extreme films” are so rife with. (“Le temps detruit tout?” Cliché. “There is no bad or good deeds, only deeds?” Oh darling, but Wilde’s done it—a century earlier.)
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