I have to admit, when we bought tickets to see Vital, we were expecting a horror movie. We were wrong, but in a good way.
Director Shinya Tsukamoto weaves a fairly intricate, slow-to-reveal tale about a Japanese medical student and his attempt to uncover his past. Recently, this student was involved in a car accident that left him an amnesiac, and killed his girlfriend. The accident caused the student to become a recluse, until an anatomy textbook brings his fervor for his studies back to life. As he and his fellow students work on dissecting human bodies, the student discovers he is operating on his dead girlfriend. As he dissects more of the body, the lines blur between dreams and reality, as the student tries to reveal his opaque memories of himself and his girlfriend.
What's most interesting about Tsukamoto's treatment of the film is its almost casual pace in building the emotions in the main character. There's no direct impact, no horror shots, no ghosts around the corner to surprise you, and no gruesome scenes to drive the points home. Instead, this tale focuses on the student's evolving emotions to create the sense of loss and discovery that the film ultimately conveys.
Overall rating: 7.0 /10.0
Details:
Runtime: 86m
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Sunday, July 17, 2005
Review: Frozen (SIFF 2005)
Frozen focuses on the story of Kath, a woman living in Lancaster, and the mysterious disappearance of her older sister, Annie, two years ago. Kath lives a relatively normal working woman's life in a relatively small city, but seems to be haunted by Annie's disappearance, so much so that she's seeking help from a therapist.
Kath's last living memory of Annie is some Closed-Circuit Television footage of Annie walking down an alley, away from the camera. In reviewing the footage one day, Kath notices an odd image on the tapes. She travels to the alley, and there she begins to have visions of an alternate reality in which clues of Annie's existence appear.
The movie oscillates between Kath's daily life, her therapy sessions, and her increasing exploration of the alternate universe she's discovered. As is expected, not many people believe Kath's experiences to be true, including her therapist, but this doesn't stop her explorations. Eventually, we find the answers to Kath's visions as the movie builds to its climax, and we see Kath's alternate universe collide with her reality.
Shirley Henderson does an excellent job playing Kath in the film. Her passive, shy, yet obsessive characteristics come through exceedingly well, yet she doesn't overdramatize or overplay the character's emotional state. The result is a very honest, believable performance.
The camera work in the film is equally superb. Some excellent shots during the alternative reality sequences clearly indicate a "dream-like" world, but a sinister one at that with a very defined blue and white color palette and striking contrasts in the exposure.
Overall rating: 9.0 /10.0
Details:
Runtime: 90m
Countries: United Kingdom
Languages: English
Kath's last living memory of Annie is some Closed-Circuit Television footage of Annie walking down an alley, away from the camera. In reviewing the footage one day, Kath notices an odd image on the tapes. She travels to the alley, and there she begins to have visions of an alternate reality in which clues of Annie's existence appear.
The movie oscillates between Kath's daily life, her therapy sessions, and her increasing exploration of the alternate universe she's discovered. As is expected, not many people believe Kath's experiences to be true, including her therapist, but this doesn't stop her explorations. Eventually, we find the answers to Kath's visions as the movie builds to its climax, and we see Kath's alternate universe collide with her reality.
Shirley Henderson does an excellent job playing Kath in the film. Her passive, shy, yet obsessive characteristics come through exceedingly well, yet she doesn't overdramatize or overplay the character's emotional state. The result is a very honest, believable performance.
The camera work in the film is equally superb. Some excellent shots during the alternative reality sequences clearly indicate a "dream-like" world, but a sinister one at that with a very defined blue and white color palette and striking contrasts in the exposure.
Overall rating: 9.0 /10.0
Details:
Runtime: 90m
Countries: United Kingdom
Languages: English
Review: Dreamship Surprise (SIFF 2005)
On the heels of the German comedy Night of the Living Dorks, we saw another great German comedy, Dreamship Surprise. Dreamship (its proper German title being Traumschiff Surprise - Periode 1), spoofs popular American sci-fi franchises, most notably Star Wars and Star Trek, including plenty of takeoff jokes and silly situations.
The premise is probably familiar to any sci-fi film aficionado. The year is 2304, and humans have colonized Mars. Now, the people on Mars have turned a bit sour, and their leader, Regulator Rogul (think Emperor), along with his first mate, Jens Maul (think Darth Vader), want to attack Earth. Their armies are on the way, and the leaders of Earth, led my Queen Metaphor (think...oh, you get it) have no alternative but to call on the crew of the Dreamship Surprise for help.
Surprise is manned by three very ebullient men: Captain Kork, Mr. Spuck, and chief engineer Schrotty. Simply put, they're very gay and are focused on training for the Miss Waikiki song-and-dance contest. Instead, they're summoned to Earth (via a taxi driver, Rock, and his spaceship taxi) and commissioned by the Queen to travel back in time to 2004, where a UFO brought knowledge of space travel to humans, which led to the Mars colonization.
Mishaps abound, leading the Queen, our three Surprise crew members, and the taxi driver to jump to different points in time, courtesy of a couch-turned-time-machine. All the while, Jens Maul is pursuing our heroes in time with a flying-scooter-turned-time-machine. The result is some predictable but very amusing scenes as our heroes interact with people from times long past.
Dreamship Surprise plays off of other sci fi movies well to make its jokes, but doesn't linger too long on any of them. The result is a well-made, fanciful, relatively high-budget sci-fi spoof. One more point of evidence that German cinema can be (and is) funny.
Overall rating: 8.5 /10.0
Details:
Runtime: 87m
Country: Germany
Language: German
The premise is probably familiar to any sci-fi film aficionado. The year is 2304, and humans have colonized Mars. Now, the people on Mars have turned a bit sour, and their leader, Regulator Rogul (think Emperor), along with his first mate, Jens Maul (think Darth Vader), want to attack Earth. Their armies are on the way, and the leaders of Earth, led my Queen Metaphor (think...oh, you get it) have no alternative but to call on the crew of the Dreamship Surprise for help.
Surprise is manned by three very ebullient men: Captain Kork, Mr. Spuck, and chief engineer Schrotty. Simply put, they're very gay and are focused on training for the Miss Waikiki song-and-dance contest. Instead, they're summoned to Earth (via a taxi driver, Rock, and his spaceship taxi) and commissioned by the Queen to travel back in time to 2004, where a UFO brought knowledge of space travel to humans, which led to the Mars colonization.
Mishaps abound, leading the Queen, our three Surprise crew members, and the taxi driver to jump to different points in time, courtesy of a couch-turned-time-machine. All the while, Jens Maul is pursuing our heroes in time with a flying-scooter-turned-time-machine. The result is some predictable but very amusing scenes as our heroes interact with people from times long past.
Dreamship Surprise plays off of other sci fi movies well to make its jokes, but doesn't linger too long on any of them. The result is a well-made, fanciful, relatively high-budget sci-fi spoof. One more point of evidence that German cinema can be (and is) funny.
Overall rating: 8.5 /10.0
Details:
Runtime: 87m
Country: Germany
Language: German
Sunday, July 03, 2005
Back From The Southeast
I've been remiss in posting for a while due to being in the Southeast US for a week for two weddings and a jaunt down to Destin, Florida. Fear not, no sharks were seen. Coming soon on this blog:
- Pictures of interesting road signs on the way from Atlanta to Destin, Florida (preview: "The Best Butts in Alabama" can be seen on one)
- The top 5 reasons Atlanta is (and isn't) cool, and what's changing in the ATL as of late
- How clouds and rain seems to follow us wherever we go (and, strangely, we don't mind)
- Catholic weddings and receptions, and being the partner of the maid of honor
And of course, a wrap up of SIFF reviews and back on a real-time schedule.
Wish me luck.
- Pictures of interesting road signs on the way from Atlanta to Destin, Florida (preview: "The Best Butts in Alabama" can be seen on one)
- The top 5 reasons Atlanta is (and isn't) cool, and what's changing in the ATL as of late
- How clouds and rain seems to follow us wherever we go (and, strangely, we don't mind)
- Catholic weddings and receptions, and being the partner of the maid of honor
And of course, a wrap up of SIFF reviews and back on a real-time schedule.
Wish me luck.
Sunday, June 05, 2005
Review: Waiting for the Clouds (SIFF 2005)
Waiting for the Clouds is a combination history lesson and personal story. The movie depicts an elderly woman who lives with her ailing sister in a small Turkish village. The woman, with an almost perpetual forlorn look on her face, is somewhat recluse and perceived as a bit off by her fellow villagers. A stranger visits the town one day, and jogs her memory. From this encounter, the woman sets off on a trip to connect with her familial roots. We leave the woman at the end of the film only as she's opened the door to her past.
While slow to get off the ground, the movie captures village life in Northern Turkey alongside a woman's conflicted past with her present. The events the movie base on were real, yet little known or understood about this time period overseas. The acting in the movie is excellent, and the scenery is shot superbly; the eponymous "clouds" scenes in the mountains were truly haunting.
Overall rating: 8.0 /10.0
Details:
Runtime: 90m
Countries: France / Germany / Greece / Turkey
Languages: Turkish / Greek
Saturday, June 04, 2005
Review: Night of the Living Dorks (SIFF 2005)
Before watching Night of the Living Dorks, I admit I hadn't been exposed to much German comedy before. I think I chose the right entrance in the genre. This is an excellent, light-hearted comedy that plays off of themes in zombie and teenage-high-school movies at the same time.
The basic premise revolves around three dorky high school students who don't get any respect. After a night in a graveyard with some Goth kids and a spell gone bad, the trio ends up in a morgue, zombified. They're not your George Romero zombies, mind you; their personalities are intact, and in fact they've gained a few skills:
- They don't feel pain, and are pretty strong
- They like raw meat
- Their body parts are more easily detachable
The movie is much more bent on teen comedy; it's the zombie premise that puts the twist in the expected scenes (with a girl, against a bully, attending a party, in a class, etc.). The jokes are frequent and consistently funny; there are quite a few laugh-out-loud lines and images in the movie. All in all, a movie worth your time if you're in the mood for a film that doesn't take itself too seriously.
Overall rating: 7.5/10.0
Details:
Runtime: 90m
Country: Germany
Language: German
The basic premise revolves around three dorky high school students who don't get any respect. After a night in a graveyard with some Goth kids and a spell gone bad, the trio ends up in a morgue, zombified. They're not your George Romero zombies, mind you; their personalities are intact, and in fact they've gained a few skills:
- They don't feel pain, and are pretty strong
- They like raw meat
- Their body parts are more easily detachable
The movie is much more bent on teen comedy; it's the zombie premise that puts the twist in the expected scenes (with a girl, against a bully, attending a party, in a class, etc.). The jokes are frequent and consistently funny; there are quite a few laugh-out-loud lines and images in the movie. All in all, a movie worth your time if you're in the mood for a film that doesn't take itself too seriously.
Overall rating: 7.5/10.0
Details:
Runtime: 90m
Country: Germany
Language: German
Review: Hostage (SIFF 2005)
SIFF 2005's only (mostly) Greek film was another fine offering from Constantine Giannaris (director of One Day in August, a SIFF offering from a couple of years ago). Hostage is a fictional story based on a true event of an Albanian who holds a Greek bus hostage in northern Greece in 1999.
The film almost immediately plunges into the conflict: very soon after the opening credits, we see a young man climbing into a bus, and a few minutes later he is holding it hostage. Soon after, he lets most of the passengers go, but holds seven of them hostage. His demands: 500,000 Euros and passage to Albania. His threats: an automatic gun and a live hand grenade.
Greek authorities tail the bus, and approach the hostages and the Albanian when he stops. The scenes are markedly conversational: the hostages talk to the police, asking them to fulfill the Albanian's demands. The police do indeed bargain. The hostages also ask for cigarettes and pizza, as if they're holed up somewhere, cramming to finish a project. These scenes between hostages, hostage-taker, and police are much less tense than one would expect see in a American action movie.
But these scenes serve the film's core theme: the hostage-taker is seeking freedom from prior failings (and framings) in a foreign land. He first and foremost wants to clear his name; he's not interested in the news cameras that follow the bus, nor does he get overly aggressive with any of the hostages (considering the circumstances, of course). Rather, the hostages begin to become somewhat compassionate with the hostage-taker (I'll leave it up to you to decide whether they were suffering from Stockholm Syndrome).
Giannaris does a good job keeping the momentum and tension up in the movie, and he delves below the surface with more than one character on the bus; only a handful remain relatively flat (predictably for sake of time, though everyone gets at least a few lines for us to paint a sketch of their personality from).
Once the bus crosses the Albanian border (much to the disagreement of the Greek police chief), the movie takes a dark turn. Giannaris casts Albania as a Wild West compared to northern Greece, and it is here where, sooner or later, we expect the bus to come to a halt.
Giannaris was at the screening I attended, and answered a few questions after the movie. He mentioned that the film didn't do well in Greece, noting that Greeks didn't like the way it portrayed themselves. Granted, Albanian/Greek relations haven't been the best of late, but as a Greek living outside of Greece, I think it was a fairly accurate portrayal. It's these kinds of movies that bring forth an artistic version of the truth that will help two countries and cultures come together over their differences, so I applaud Giannaris in his efforts in making what he must have known would be an unpopular movie in his native land.
Overall rating: 8.5/10.0
Details:
Runtime: 90m
Countries: Greece / Turkey
Languages: Greek / Albanian
The film almost immediately plunges into the conflict: very soon after the opening credits, we see a young man climbing into a bus, and a few minutes later he is holding it hostage. Soon after, he lets most of the passengers go, but holds seven of them hostage. His demands: 500,000 Euros and passage to Albania. His threats: an automatic gun and a live hand grenade.
Greek authorities tail the bus, and approach the hostages and the Albanian when he stops. The scenes are markedly conversational: the hostages talk to the police, asking them to fulfill the Albanian's demands. The police do indeed bargain. The hostages also ask for cigarettes and pizza, as if they're holed up somewhere, cramming to finish a project. These scenes between hostages, hostage-taker, and police are much less tense than one would expect see in a American action movie.
But these scenes serve the film's core theme: the hostage-taker is seeking freedom from prior failings (and framings) in a foreign land. He first and foremost wants to clear his name; he's not interested in the news cameras that follow the bus, nor does he get overly aggressive with any of the hostages (considering the circumstances, of course). Rather, the hostages begin to become somewhat compassionate with the hostage-taker (I'll leave it up to you to decide whether they were suffering from Stockholm Syndrome).
Giannaris does a good job keeping the momentum and tension up in the movie, and he delves below the surface with more than one character on the bus; only a handful remain relatively flat (predictably for sake of time, though everyone gets at least a few lines for us to paint a sketch of their personality from).
Once the bus crosses the Albanian border (much to the disagreement of the Greek police chief), the movie takes a dark turn. Giannaris casts Albania as a Wild West compared to northern Greece, and it is here where, sooner or later, we expect the bus to come to a halt.
Giannaris was at the screening I attended, and answered a few questions after the movie. He mentioned that the film didn't do well in Greece, noting that Greeks didn't like the way it portrayed themselves. Granted, Albanian/Greek relations haven't been the best of late, but as a Greek living outside of Greece, I think it was a fairly accurate portrayal. It's these kinds of movies that bring forth an artistic version of the truth that will help two countries and cultures come together over their differences, so I applaud Giannaris in his efforts in making what he must have known would be an unpopular movie in his native land.
Overall rating: 8.5/10.0
Details:
Runtime: 90m
Countries: Greece / Turkey
Languages: Greek / Albanian
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Review: Warsaw (SIFF 2005)
On the heels of Hawaii, Oslo comes another movie involving characters of separate trajectories bound together by relationships and events. Warsaw shares the theme of love as a unifying (and destructive) force with Hawaii, Oslo, but I believe the similarities fall away from there.
Warsaw depicts a day in the life of different characters with different goals. A woman stops in Warsaw on the way to Andalusia with the hopes of finding love. A man leaves an orphanage he has lived in for most of his life to find a job. A fruit farmer arrives in the capital with the hopes of finding his long-lost daughter. A confused, aged war veteran can't find his way home.
Director Dariusz Gajewski places these characters together only at the very end. The audience sees the interconnections between the characters slowly uncover themselves, but the characters are not as quick to catch on; they pass each other on the street, unknowingly.
The character development and storyline was reasonably good in this film, albeit with a somewhat weak tying-together of the storylines at the end. But, the most striking part of this film for me was the portrayal of Warsaw as a new, modern Eastern European city, versus the Warsaw at the conclusion of World War II that we've all seen in film footage. The film depicts modern Europeans going about their lives in a modern (and snowy) capital city, with scenes that could play out just as well in Berlin or Edinburgh. For those of us who haven't traveled to Poland (myself included), the film becomes a peek into modern life in the city and challenges viewers to remake Warsaw in their (potentially stereotyped) minds.
Overall rating: 6.5/10.0
Details:
Runtime: 104m
Country: Poland
Language: Polish
Monday, May 30, 2005
Review: Hawaii, Oslo (SIFF 2005)
There's plenty of movies that involve a range of unrelated characters that are tied together with a singular place or event (like Amores Perros, or Kilometer Zero). They're tricky to make in such a way that they don't seem forced. Hawaii, Oslo falls into this camp of movie, and it fortunately does a great job of not only avoiding this trap, but being inventive on top of it.
Hawaii, Oslo is primarily a movie about love; brotherly love, romantic love, friendship love, parental love, and love (or maybe it's compassion) between strangers are all presented as part of the storyline's intertwining of characters and plots.
These are the threads, or character sets, in Hawaii, Oslo:
Hawaii, Oslo is primarily a movie about love; brotherly love, romantic love, friendship love, parental love, and love (or maybe it's compassion) between strangers are all presented as part of the storyline's intertwining of characters and plots.
These are the threads, or character sets, in Hawaii, Oslo:
- A couple who is having their first baby, and who then discovers that it has a debilitating disease that only an expensive American clinic can cure
- A suicidal pop star who is saved by a papergirl on her morning route
- A couple of orphaned boys, angry at the loss of their father and risking separation into separate foster homes
- An institutionalized kleptomaniac and his long lost love, who both agreed to meet at the age of 25 if they were both single, and an institution nurse who watches over them.
- The kleptomaniac's brother, who receives an escort from prison only to rob a bank and try to flee the city.
Reading the above list, one would think this movie is about the most depressing of the genre. Quite the contrary; Erik Poppe manages to squeeze quite a bit of situational humor and humanism out of the characters and their interactions. He also slowly uncovers the mysteries of each character for you, without explicit lines or cues shown all at once. The result is an engaging movie that leaves you feeling love for the characters, adding to the movie's core theme.
Overall rating: 9.0/10.0
Details:
Runtime: 125m
Countries: Denmark / Sweden / Norway
Language: Norwegian
Review: Izo (SIFF 2005)
Having spent 2 hours with this movie, I'm not going to spend more time than is necessary with this review. Izo is quite simply a movie about a crucified samurai who transcends time and space to return to the world of the living and wreak havoc. Like most of Takashi Miike's films, this movie has plenty of gore and blood. However, unlike some of his other films, this one is also chock full of pointless philosophical drivel, badly-choreographed fight scenes, an irritating folk guitar soundtrack, and bad CGI. It's a disappointing product from an otherwise unique and talented director.
If you're really curious, rent it. If you're not, simply avoid it.
Overall rating: 1.0/10.0
Details
Runtime: 128m
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
If you're really curious, rent it. If you're not, simply avoid it.
Overall rating: 1.0/10.0
Details
Runtime: 128m
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Sunday, May 29, 2005
Review: The Art and Crimes of Ron English (SIFF 2005)
Pedro Carvajal's documentary about Ron English, the artist known for his illegal billboard art, was a great foray into this talent's career. The documentary depicts two segments of Ron's art: the first, focused more on political and anti-corporate messages formed as art, and plastered onto billboards, and the second, where this art is moved into the medium of canvas and oil paint and gains accreditation through gallery showings.
The first portion was certainly the more amusing; anyone who's been irritated at a large, blaring billboard shouting an unagreeable message will take to Ron's "liberation" of this medium. The billboards he creates are certainly of a liberal bent (anti-Bush, anti-war, anti-tobacco), but are more than just scrawled words on a sheet of paper; this is real art that Ron spent time creating and displaying. Ron's reasoning was that he wanted his art to be public; sure, the politics behind it are motivating too, but he claimed having his work locked up in a gallery or in someone's home is not what he wanted.
Interesting, then, to note the latter half of the film, which is Ron's foray into oil paint. His paintings are photographic and realistic, but depict unusual circumstances (kids smoking with KISS-style face paint, Homer Simpson urinating on a campfire while others look on). But his style is unique, and his skill is great, evidenced by the popularity of the gallery showings that are displayed in the film.
Has Ron given up billboards? The film leaves you with a sense that the answer is "no". Sure, Ron's art has matured beyond the public and illegal to more traditional forms, but one can see from the documentary that Ron seems happiest when he's creating, or installing, his billboard art for the masses.
Overall rating: 7.0/10.0
Details
Runtime: 78m
Country: USA
Language: English
The first portion was certainly the more amusing; anyone who's been irritated at a large, blaring billboard shouting an unagreeable message will take to Ron's "liberation" of this medium. The billboards he creates are certainly of a liberal bent (anti-Bush, anti-war, anti-tobacco), but are more than just scrawled words on a sheet of paper; this is real art that Ron spent time creating and displaying. Ron's reasoning was that he wanted his art to be public; sure, the politics behind it are motivating too, but he claimed having his work locked up in a gallery or in someone's home is not what he wanted.
Interesting, then, to note the latter half of the film, which is Ron's foray into oil paint. His paintings are photographic and realistic, but depict unusual circumstances (kids smoking with KISS-style face paint, Homer Simpson urinating on a campfire while others look on). But his style is unique, and his skill is great, evidenced by the popularity of the gallery showings that are displayed in the film.
Has Ron given up billboards? The film leaves you with a sense that the answer is "no". Sure, Ron's art has matured beyond the public and illegal to more traditional forms, but one can see from the documentary that Ron seems happiest when he's creating, or installing, his billboard art for the masses.
Overall rating: 7.0/10.0
Details
Runtime: 78m
Country: USA
Language: English
Saturday, May 28, 2005
Review: North Korea: A Day in the Life / Seoul Train (SIFF 2005)
Our first documentary of SIFF 2005 was actually a pair: two documentaries about life in North Korea and life for those who try to escape it.
North Korea: A Day in the Life is a snapshot of events for one family on a typical day in North Korea. The family awakens and has breakfast. The mother takes her daughter to kindergarten, and then goes to work in a textile mill. A son goes to attend an English class. They return home, and over dinner the grandfather recounts stories from the war. The power of the film comes from what's presented. Director Pieter Fleury received permission from the Ministry of Culture of the Democratic Republic of North Korea to film inside the country. This means they reviewed the film's contents. This also means that not a trace of poverty, disease, prisons, or anything else related to the current regime of North Korea was shown.
What was shown is the Orwellian presence and control that the North Korean regime currently imposes on its people. Pictures and statues of Kim Jong Il are everywhere. Kids are taught how he was benevolent and a man of the people, even when he was a young boy. Patriotic music is piped into production factory floors. Anti-American sentiments run rampant, with the West blamed for most evils, past and present, including the frequent power outages. Workers perform organized work-outs at specified times of the day.
A sense of confinement and enclosure are felt while you're watching this movie. Not only is everything artificially clean, happy, and orderly, but there's no way out of, and no way into, this system. To many in the movie going about their daily lives, North Korea is practically the entire world.
Coming off of this documentary, the perfectly-paired Seoul Train shows a more realistic view of North Korea, and also follows refugees who are trying to escape the country. An underground railroad exists to shuttle refugees from North Korea to safer areas, like South Korea and Mongolia. China, however, is not a safe area: China considers nearly all North Korean refugees as illegal immigrants, and returns them to North Korea. Furthermore, escaping North Korea is punishable by imprisonment, forced labor, and death.
The film shows three things: true life of rural border towns in North Korea with a hidden camera, interviews with government officials and humanitarians, and the stories of a set of refugees and their attempt to arrive in a country that will accept them for what they are.
The images of North Korean rural life are in sharp contrast to the first film; here, you see clear evidence of the famine that is plaguing North Korea (the movie explains that international aid is routed to party loyalists, and denies from others). The interviews with officials and humanitarians shows both great intents and bound hands, as everyone complains that no one can do anything. Finally, the underground railroad depicts people taking life and law into their own hands, with heroic people risking their freedom in an attempt to provide it for other people.
Overall rating: 8.0/10.0 , 8.5/10.0
Details
Runtime: 48m / 54m
Countries: Netherlands / USA
Languages: Korean / English, Korean, Mandarin, Polish
North Korea: A Day in the Life is a snapshot of events for one family on a typical day in North Korea. The family awakens and has breakfast. The mother takes her daughter to kindergarten, and then goes to work in a textile mill. A son goes to attend an English class. They return home, and over dinner the grandfather recounts stories from the war. The power of the film comes from what's presented. Director Pieter Fleury received permission from the Ministry of Culture of the Democratic Republic of North Korea to film inside the country. This means they reviewed the film's contents. This also means that not a trace of poverty, disease, prisons, or anything else related to the current regime of North Korea was shown.
What was shown is the Orwellian presence and control that the North Korean regime currently imposes on its people. Pictures and statues of Kim Jong Il are everywhere. Kids are taught how he was benevolent and a man of the people, even when he was a young boy. Patriotic music is piped into production factory floors. Anti-American sentiments run rampant, with the West blamed for most evils, past and present, including the frequent power outages. Workers perform organized work-outs at specified times of the day.
A sense of confinement and enclosure are felt while you're watching this movie. Not only is everything artificially clean, happy, and orderly, but there's no way out of, and no way into, this system. To many in the movie going about their daily lives, North Korea is practically the entire world.
Coming off of this documentary, the perfectly-paired Seoul Train shows a more realistic view of North Korea, and also follows refugees who are trying to escape the country. An underground railroad exists to shuttle refugees from North Korea to safer areas, like South Korea and Mongolia. China, however, is not a safe area: China considers nearly all North Korean refugees as illegal immigrants, and returns them to North Korea. Furthermore, escaping North Korea is punishable by imprisonment, forced labor, and death.
The film shows three things: true life of rural border towns in North Korea with a hidden camera, interviews with government officials and humanitarians, and the stories of a set of refugees and their attempt to arrive in a country that will accept them for what they are.
The images of North Korean rural life are in sharp contrast to the first film; here, you see clear evidence of the famine that is plaguing North Korea (the movie explains that international aid is routed to party loyalists, and denies from others). The interviews with officials and humanitarians shows both great intents and bound hands, as everyone complains that no one can do anything. Finally, the underground railroad depicts people taking life and law into their own hands, with heroic people risking their freedom in an attempt to provide it for other people.
Overall rating: 8.0/10.0 , 8.5/10.0
Details
Runtime: 48m / 54m
Countries: Netherlands / USA
Languages: Korean / English, Korean, Mandarin, Polish
Friday, May 27, 2005
Turning Off The Tap
Victrola Coffee, a local coffee shop in my neighborhood, is trying out something relatively new: no Wi-Fi on the weekends.
Blasphemy, you say? Interestingly, they've found their weekend audience has morphed from a sea of people with laptops who don't interact with each other, to one that's more welcoming and less solitary.
Now to install those cell phone blockers...
Blasphemy, you say? Interestingly, they've found their weekend audience has morphed from a sea of people with laptops who don't interact with each other, to one that's more welcoming and less solitary.
Now to install those cell phone blockers...
Sunday, May 22, 2005
Review: Three...Extremes (SIFF 2005)
This was our first movie for the 2005 film festival, and a midnight movie at the Egyptian theater at that.
This movie is a collection of three shorter films by three directors:
- Dumplings, by Fruit Chan (Hong Kong)
- Cut, by Park Chan-Wook (South Korea)
- Box, by Takeshi Miike (Japan)
The three movies differ quite a bit from each other, both in theme and in style, so it's worth discussing each one separately.
Dumplings is an exploration of the idea of unattainable, perpetual youth. A former actress is aging, and is seeking some modern Fountain of Youth. She visits a woman in her home, who prepares some special dumplings for her. After about 3 minutes into the movie, you understand the ingredients of these dumplings are not normal. After about 5 more minutes, you realize that this dumpling chef is a purveyor of cannibalism.
The actress returns to the woman for ever-increasing dosages of dumplings. When the actress asks for the most potent dumpling the cook has, things get out of hand.
The interesting thing about Dumplings is that it creates shock and surprise out of relatively normal themes: the fear of aging and the length people run to subvert it. If you remove the tension created by the music, the camera work, and the actors, the topic at hand is not completely out of this world. Sure, you don't find many people eating their own kind in urban areas across the world, but they do some pretty wacky things to make themselves look younger, not all of which are any less strange than this.
Cut is pure, rising tension, on the lines of an movie with an overreaching premise that the main characters need to do or avoid. Cut involves a director of a horror film who, after returning to his home from shooting a scene involving a vampire, is knocked unconscious by an intruder. When he awakes, he finds he's in a movie set with his wife, a child, and a distraught film extra who's been in several of the director's films. The director is harnessed with an elastic band that limits how far he can move. His wife is tied up with piano wire stretching from an unseen ceiling, and her fingers are glued to a piano. The child is bound and gagged to a sofa. The film extra wishes to punish the director as a way of punishing his projected failures in life. He challenges the director to commit an act of evil to save his wife.
Most of the movie therefore hinges on the director's internal plight, his wife's physical plight, and the child's innocent involvement in this constructed game of the disturbed extra. Things end less predictably than you might think (with only a bit of foreshadowing), but the visual imagery of the torture, both physical and psychological, is fairly intense and carry throughout the film.
After these two somewhat gory films, I was expecting a similarly bloody offering from Miike, director of the very violent Audition. Not so; Box is an exploration into a personal, painful past. A recluse of a woman, who is an author, has perpetual nightmares about her death involving plastic, a man, snow, and a box. Between this line, you see unfold a personal history of this woman and her sister as carnival performers. The two performed a dance/acrobatic show involving contorting themselves into two boxes. They were mentored by a man who appeared to take preference in the sister over the main character. Then, an accident occurs.
Box is the most visually interesting and slow-to-reveal movies of the three. It's much more cerebral than the other two. Rather than trying to scare you, it tries to put you into the mind and body of the main author character. And it succeeds; at the end of the movie, you're not frightened. Rather, as the last scene fades to black and the closing credits appear, you realize you feel quite sad.
Overall rating: 7.5/10.0
Details
Runtime: 118m
Countries: Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea
Languages: Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin
This movie is a collection of three shorter films by three directors:
- Dumplings, by Fruit Chan (Hong Kong)
- Cut, by Park Chan-Wook (South Korea)
- Box, by Takeshi Miike (Japan)
The three movies differ quite a bit from each other, both in theme and in style, so it's worth discussing each one separately.
Dumplings is an exploration of the idea of unattainable, perpetual youth. A former actress is aging, and is seeking some modern Fountain of Youth. She visits a woman in her home, who prepares some special dumplings for her. After about 3 minutes into the movie, you understand the ingredients of these dumplings are not normal. After about 5 more minutes, you realize that this dumpling chef is a purveyor of cannibalism.
The actress returns to the woman for ever-increasing dosages of dumplings. When the actress asks for the most potent dumpling the cook has, things get out of hand.
The interesting thing about Dumplings is that it creates shock and surprise out of relatively normal themes: the fear of aging and the length people run to subvert it. If you remove the tension created by the music, the camera work, and the actors, the topic at hand is not completely out of this world. Sure, you don't find many people eating their own kind in urban areas across the world, but they do some pretty wacky things to make themselves look younger, not all of which are any less strange than this.
Cut is pure, rising tension, on the lines of an movie with an overreaching premise that the main characters need to do or avoid. Cut involves a director of a horror film who, after returning to his home from shooting a scene involving a vampire, is knocked unconscious by an intruder. When he awakes, he finds he's in a movie set with his wife, a child, and a distraught film extra who's been in several of the director's films. The director is harnessed with an elastic band that limits how far he can move. His wife is tied up with piano wire stretching from an unseen ceiling, and her fingers are glued to a piano. The child is bound and gagged to a sofa. The film extra wishes to punish the director as a way of punishing his projected failures in life. He challenges the director to commit an act of evil to save his wife.
Most of the movie therefore hinges on the director's internal plight, his wife's physical plight, and the child's innocent involvement in this constructed game of the disturbed extra. Things end less predictably than you might think (with only a bit of foreshadowing), but the visual imagery of the torture, both physical and psychological, is fairly intense and carry throughout the film.
After these two somewhat gory films, I was expecting a similarly bloody offering from Miike, director of the very violent Audition. Not so; Box is an exploration into a personal, painful past. A recluse of a woman, who is an author, has perpetual nightmares about her death involving plastic, a man, snow, and a box. Between this line, you see unfold a personal history of this woman and her sister as carnival performers. The two performed a dance/acrobatic show involving contorting themselves into two boxes. They were mentored by a man who appeared to take preference in the sister over the main character. Then, an accident occurs.
Box is the most visually interesting and slow-to-reveal movies of the three. It's much more cerebral than the other two. Rather than trying to scare you, it tries to put you into the mind and body of the main author character. And it succeeds; at the end of the movie, you're not frightened. Rather, as the last scene fades to black and the closing credits appear, you realize you feel quite sad.
Overall rating: 7.5/10.0
Details
Runtime: 118m
Countries: Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea
Languages: Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin
Volunteer Farming
We spent Saturday morning (10am-2pm) at Marra Farm through a Microsoft-sponsored Seattle Works project. Marra Farm is organic, and almost totally volunteer, so they always need lots of help to do basic farm work. It was great fun - we got to weed out large poison hemlock plants (some were almost 10 feet tall), turn beds of soil to get them ready for planting, and help existing plants beat the weeds by carefully removing small weedlings from the ground. And the weather was nice to boot - it wasn't sunny, it wasn't cold, it wasn't rainy. That's perfect for working out of doors, in my opinion.
Weird connection #215: One of the Marra Farm projects, Lettuce Link (donates farmed food to food banks), is led by Sue McGann. Her husband is Greek, and is from the town of Brisa on the island of Lesvos in Greece. Well, it just so happens that my maternal grandfather is from that very same town, on that very same island! Sue's husband's grandfather used to own this shop in the village, and some of my extended family actually remembers going to the shop when they were young.
Small world indeed.
Weird connection #215: One of the Marra Farm projects, Lettuce Link (donates farmed food to food banks), is led by Sue McGann. Her husband is Greek, and is from the town of Brisa on the island of Lesvos in Greece. Well, it just so happens that my maternal grandfather is from that very same town, on that very same island! Sue's husband's grandfather used to own this shop in the village, and some of my extended family actually remembers going to the shop when they were young.
Small world indeed.
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
SIFF 2005
The Seattle International Film Festival is almost here. In less than a week, thousands of Seattle-ites will respond to the longer, warmer, sunnier days by rushing into darkened theaters and watching movies all day. Admittedly, it's better to wait in line to get in the theater when it's nice and sunny versus when it's raining, but it's still a bit odd that we choose to have this festival just as the weather is starting to improve.
This year's festival features 182 films, 55 documentaries, and 111 shorts from around the world. We had to contain ourselves to just over a dozen films over the course of the three or so weeks. Trust me, we could have easily done twice as many.
I'll try to post some movie reviews of what we see after the fact, as well as general takes on how the festival's going, how the crowd's reacting, and any director/actor/movie mogul sightings.
This year's festival features 182 films, 55 documentaries, and 111 shorts from around the world. We had to contain ourselves to just over a dozen films over the course of the three or so weeks. Trust me, we could have easily done twice as many.
I'll try to post some movie reviews of what we see after the fact, as well as general takes on how the festival's going, how the crowd's reacting, and any director/actor/movie mogul sightings.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
A Tartan Fit For A Greek
Being in the Scottish piping and drumming scene, and being part in some upcoming performances with a small group of pipers and drummers, it was time to order a kilt of my very own.
But what does a Greek guy choose for his tartan? Luckily, Scotland's flag, the St. Andrew's cross, is blue and white, just like Greece's flag. So I went with the St. Andrew's tartan:
What do people think?
Once I get my full outfit going, I'll post some pictures.
But what does a Greek guy choose for his tartan? Luckily, Scotland's flag, the St. Andrew's cross, is blue and white, just like Greece's flag. So I went with the St. Andrew's tartan:
What do people think?
Once I get my full outfit going, I'll post some pictures.
Sunday, May 08, 2005
Fankick vs. Streetbeat
Seattle's a quirky town. Case in point: the fact that a dance battle between two groups, Fankick and Streetbeat, was demanded by the public as a way to settle who's best.
Fankick: A "dynamic 80s duo" comprised of two women dressing up 80s style and dancing some 80s dances.
Streetbeat: An 80s duo comprised of two men dressing up 80s style and dancing some 80s dances.
When word got out that there were two competing 80s dance duos in the city, the people would not have it. Case in point: a letter to the editor on April 7 under "The Original '80s". One of our local weeklies, The Stranger, decided to serve up a challenge to both groups: a dance-off! A week later, both groups had contacted The Stranger and were working out terms.
A week after that, the terms were settled: on Wednesday, April 27, 2005 at 7:30 PM at the Westlake Park downtown, the two groups would compete in a head-to-head dance competition.
The results? Well, you can watch them yourself in this 5-minute video, courtesy of Joe Wiscomb. Or, you can interpret the results from the latest cover of The Stranger:
I find it funny that our city can get good-naturedly worked up over this kind of stuff. I think it's great, though. It points to the fact we can enjoy ourselves and be silly. And I wouldn't have it any other way.
If you want a more complete backstory with more letters to the editor, check out this forum post.
Fankick: A "dynamic 80s duo" comprised of two women dressing up 80s style and dancing some 80s dances.
Streetbeat: An 80s duo comprised of two men dressing up 80s style and dancing some 80s dances.
When word got out that there were two competing 80s dance duos in the city, the people would not have it. Case in point: a letter to the editor on April 7 under "The Original '80s". One of our local weeklies, The Stranger, decided to serve up a challenge to both groups: a dance-off! A week later, both groups had contacted The Stranger and were working out terms.
A week after that, the terms were settled: on Wednesday, April 27, 2005 at 7:30 PM at the Westlake Park downtown, the two groups would compete in a head-to-head dance competition.
The results? Well, you can watch them yourself in this 5-minute video, courtesy of Joe Wiscomb. Or, you can interpret the results from the latest cover of The Stranger:
I find it funny that our city can get good-naturedly worked up over this kind of stuff. I think it's great, though. It points to the fact we can enjoy ourselves and be silly. And I wouldn't have it any other way.
If you want a more complete backstory with more letters to the editor, check out this forum post.
Sunday, May 01, 2005
Smart Car Tipping
You knew it had to arrive. Smart Cars are now getting tipped over, like cows. Ergh - this will be a tough one to explain to the insurance company for the unlucky owner of this car.
Interestingly, a Smart Car weighs 1588 lbs, while an average cow weighs 1150 lbs. Still, I'd give the cow a higher degree of difficulty, since it can proceed to trample you if it awakens mid-attempt*.
*ZtG does not condone tipping either Smart Cars or cows. Tip your local waitperson a good amount, however. They deserve it.
Interestingly, a Smart Car weighs 1588 lbs, while an average cow weighs 1150 lbs. Still, I'd give the cow a higher degree of difficulty, since it can proceed to trample you if it awakens mid-attempt*.
*ZtG does not condone tipping either Smart Cars or cows. Tip your local waitperson a good amount, however. They deserve it.
Happy May Day
Yes, it's that time of year again. A time to celebrate the coming of summer. A time to prepare for the arrival of a film festival. And a time to pretend to be a fairy. It's May Day!
Here in Seattle, our Folklore organization is putting together a traditional May Day signing & dancing event at Gas Works Park. At 6am. Sorry, way too early for me. They claimed they'd be dancing around May Poles in different parts of the city throughout the day today, however.
Last night, we went to a concert given by Slighe nan Gaidheal. Great music, most all in Gaelic. Afterwards, there was a ceilidh at someone's house, complete with food, Scotch, and more music. Nice to spend the coming of summer listening to centuries-old music and songs.
Here in Seattle, our Folklore organization is putting together a traditional May Day signing & dancing event at Gas Works Park. At 6am. Sorry, way too early for me. They claimed they'd be dancing around May Poles in different parts of the city throughout the day today, however.
Last night, we went to a concert given by Slighe nan Gaidheal. Great music, most all in Gaelic. Afterwards, there was a ceilidh at someone's house, complete with food, Scotch, and more music. Nice to spend the coming of summer listening to centuries-old music and songs.
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