I knew little about this 2018 Korean movie but now understand how it garnered so many awards worldwide. Jung-su, the lead played by Yoo Ah-in, is a young Korean who plans to be a writer but is unable to get a start or even know what type of novel he wants to write.
Originally from a farming village near the North Korean border, he now works in poor delivery boy jobs in Seoul. Then he meets up with a childhood classmate who almost instantly invites him to look after her cat when she is away and also goes to bed with him.
This woman, Shin Hae-mi, played by newcomer Jeon Jong-seo, goes off to Africa and Jung-su begins to believe that the cat, Boil, does not exist. When Hae-mi returns with a new friend, the enigmatic Ben (Steven Yeun), Jung-su feels jealous and out of his depth. Ben has money, a nice flat, a Porsche and a circle of friends from the upper classes.
Jung-su seems to think that Hae-mi has fallen under his spell. Nevertheless, he continues to see both of them, while looking after his father’s farm.
Ben is a curious figure with no clear source of income and a professed hobby of burning down abandoned greenhouses.
When Hae-mi disappears in the middle of the film, Jung-su starts to track Ben to see if he has anything to do with it and suspicions grow.
In the middle of all this mystery, we also get an insight into the class divide in Korea, the generation gap and the sense of a change of values or the absence of some. Jung-su is an observer of social cogs he has no knowledge of and of a legal process that is busy condemning his father for battery. Director Chang-dong Lee patiently gives us layer upon layer of mystery but also literary and anthropological references. While it is quite a slow and long film, we are intrigued and enjoy the way photographer Kyung-pyo Hong makes quite dirty and common street and landscape scenes seem beautiful.
Mowg’s soundtrack adds to the effect. Haunting and revelatory as to what may be happening underneath modern Korean society.
Luca Guadagnino’s 8-episode series sets itself a tough if interesting task with the ingredients it’s made of. Set in an American military base near Venice (they were able to use an abandoned base in reality), which appears like Little USA inside with KFC and other names in the Food Court,
a US Mail office and other comforts of home, it features a new commander, Sarah Wilson played by Chloe Sevigny, her wife (Alice Braga)
and their adolescent son Fraser. This latter played by Jack Dylan Grazer has a look of Timothee Chalamet about him and is a restless, highly intelligent, obstinate and not very likeable character, who with his NY Fashion week style and possible gay inclination goes down a treat in a military base full of square types. He soon becomes obsessed with Jonathan (Tom Mercier), his mother’s assistant and a major in the army, even though Jonathan has a live-in girlfriend.
That’s family number one. The second one is the Poythress’s next door with Richard (Kid Cudi), a career soldier and former contractor, his Nigerian wife Jennifer (Faith Alabi) who is not as hetero as she may seem and their two children Caitlin and
Danny (Spence Moore 11), who is vacillating between embracing the Muslim faith and still having drunken binges on base.
Caitlin (Jordan Kristine Seamon) is the central character alongside Fraser, a sort of BFF because the two of them don’t fit in. Caitlin starts the series with a boyfriend but then starts exploring gender fluidity and a possible transition. At one point, she gets an appointment with a sympathetic doctor who can inform her about the options. I found this somewhat hard to believe in this context.
Meanwhile Richard is trafficking fuel, the oldest of the group of friends, Craig, the older brother to one of the teens is about to be sent on a mission to Afghanistan and decides to marry his Italian girlfriend in one afternoon,
the after party venue is the ostentatious but empty villa of some Russians which they break into, Trump is busy winning the 2016 election and a musician called Blood Orange is doing the rounds. I can’t imagine life on most military bases are either so varied or “unwholesome”.
What we see really are two young people exploring options in life and a sort of conclusion that everything now is more ephemeral and less set in stone. Very interesting when it comes up against such a rigid and structured organization like the US army. The suggestion is that Italy is more spontaneous and emotional and that part of the liberation of the Yankees comes from living here. Yes and no.
Accepting the poetic licence, I found the series a bit of a roller-coaster in general.
Some episodes seemed mundane and dragged, scenes of the teens at the beach, the last episode which had long scenes of Caitlin and Fraser walking and travelling to Bologna to a concert of Blood Orange, with long scenes devoted to the songs of the group. That final episode also had flirts and kisses galore in a rather over synchronistic array of attempts to find the flavor you really want.
On the other hand, Guadagnino is able to create awkward and memorable cinematic moments. Episode 4’s wedding party break-in looked like it would be a crashing bore of a drunken teen event but turned out to be a strong piece of film-making while episode 7 when people on the base reacted to the loss of some of their soldiers in combat, had two or three striking scenes with excellent acting.
Yes, it feels a bit indulgent. Yes, the privileges of these Americans who think they are the defenders of the free world but are really just trying to export their consumerism and values palls at times and yes, we could have had a lot more input from Italians among the cast (despite the fact that the writers are Italian too).
But what we have is an interesting and different look at the US abroad trying to pass through their rites of passage. Grazer and Seamon act well but I personally found Caitlin’s character less than magnetic.
Grazer creates a memorable and annoying character as Fraser.
I also liked the work of Chloe Sevigny, butch beyond our imagination, Faith Alabi, the Nigerian who misses Chicago and Tom Mercier. Francesca Scorsese, daughter of …., is also convincing in her supporting role.
Maybe this series will return with more to say. I personally felt it was enough on these two leads unless it shifts forward some years.
A 2016 made for television movie that is actually a bit better than the average and it did pop up in a couple of festivals. The story is basically about a custody case in the children’s courts of New York.
Sara Diaz (Catalina Sandino Moreno) is being investigated following an accident involving her son. Given that there is another case in town where a 5 year-old starved to death after being returned to her mother, the authorities are being very picky about any case that may produce a similar outcome.
Diaz is a single mother trying to keep her two children on the right track despite holding down a full-time job, having no family help and living in a fairly tacky area.
In court, she is being represented by rookie lawyer Ally Fisher (Hayden Panettiere) who is new to this job and has her own unresolved child abuse situation in her family.
The other main protagonist is Martha, the judge, played by Viola Davis. She is somewhat ground down by the job and also by an emerging family issue.
So, we see these three women over the few weeks of the case and what happens to them in their lives outside the court. This could have been a melodramatic movie or a feelgood fest but James Lapine largely keeps things restrained and balanced.
Davis is as compelling as ever while Sandino Moreno gives a fine performance as a mother pulled in various directions. It was also nice to see veterans Tony Shalhoub and Ellen Burstyn in minor roles. Although some of the stories are left a little underdone at the end, the overall result is a watchable and intelligent movie.
I would like to be able to say that this movie which depicts the last few years of Oscar Wilde’s life was a memorable tribute to the writer. Rupert Everett has put a lot of time, energy and money into this project being the actor, director and scriptwriter, but it left me lukewarm. Basically, we see the huge decline in the man, released after two years in jail on vice charges and public enemy number one of the time for his homosexuality.
Forced to seek exile abroad, he is estranged from his wife Constance (Emily Watson)
and 2 sons, he longs for his lover Lord Alfred Bose (Colin Morgan)
who is too young and too selfish for him and the support he has from his friends Reggie Turner (Colin Firth) and Robbie Ross (Edwin Thomas) is not enough.
He is constantly short of money and moves from Paris to Rouen to Naples and back, declining in health and writing much less. Inevitably it seems death catches up with him at the age of 46, still young in those times at the turn of last century.
Although he had great success on the stage with plays like The Importance of Being Earnest, his reputation as a writer has grown in the decades since his death and he has been accepted and rehabilitated much more than when he was alive.
Through editing and flashbacks, we get a lot of this information in the film and the odd poignant scene but it also shows a Wilde who could be bloody difficult like so many talented celebrities can be. And he was yet another addicted to booze, etc. The issue of his being accepted back into the church is also handled on his deathbed.
Despite all that the film does not lift off in any aspect for me.
The acting is correct, the pace is not too slow but there are never any wow moments – even with cameos from the like of Beatrice Dalle. Everett is perhaps a less flamboyant and more doggedly morose Wilde than I expected and it is to his credit that this is a role against his usual type. Everything, costumes, music and camerawork are correct but that’s about it.
Another documentary but happily an uplifting one as we follow legendary French cinematographer and photographer Agnes Varda
and JR, a young photographer and street artist meander around France putting huge blow-up photos of people onto public buildings, containers, derelict houses and rock faces.
Faces Places has several very nice aspects. Firstly there is the combination of two generations.
Agnes is nearly 90 when this film is made and dies within two years and JR is in his early 30s. Each have different experiences of the world but both are in the vanguard.
Agnes recalls and reminisces a lot during this 90-minute film as she goes back to the 50s and 60s working with greats like Jean-Luc Godard.
Next, there is the sheer delight of this project. Producing large instant polaroids and plastering them on walls, to honour the inhabitants of a place or simply to bring life.
Varda, in particular, has a way of bringing out the locals and getting them to discuss their lives and perhaps even issues that have been left untouched.
Thirdly, we get a look at modern-day France.
What has changed, what is the same. There is something very French about the film.
Face Places is a reminder of the tremendous power of art to heal, to unite and to communicate.
All in a low-key movie that moves along sweetly and gently.
This 6-part documentary series tries to make some sense out of the death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman in Argentina in 2015. Nisman had been investigating the AMIA bombing in the 1994 when a bomb went off in the Israeli Mutual Centre in Buenos Aires killing 85 people and injuring hundreds.
Reportedly a terrorist attack at the hand of Hezbollah with the backing of Iran, the case has never been solved partly because the investigations have been sloppy and the court cases lamentable in their search for the truth and transparency. Collective opinion seems to be that certain sectors of power have not wanted the real planners and perpetrators of the attack to be found.
Nisman was also investigating an approach by Argentina’s president Cristina Kirchner in 2012 to Iran proposing an agreement to try to find a solution to the case. As this involved a usurpation of Argentine judicial authority over events occurring on its soil, this was seen as treason by some.
Why the President and her team should seek to push aside local investigations into the terrorist attack and warm up the relationship with a country that if it was responsible for the attack stood in the position of enemy of the nation is never clear. Nisman had evidence that she was up to something not in the best interests of Argentina. He was due to present his findings to the Congress and then he died violently and mysteriously.
This series directed and penned by Martin Rocca and Justin Webster attempts to contextualise this story and discover something more about why Nisman died. Not an easy job.
The death scene in Nisman’s apartment is thronged with people doubtlessly destroying evidence, the prosector investigating the case can neither find definitive evidence that Nisman shot himself or it was a suicide.
In the mix is a long standing member of the national intelligence agency, the SIDE, one Jaime Stiuso, who has his own fights going on with Cristina Kirchner and who was helping Nisman in his research. Nisman himself had assets greater than his earning capacity suggesting he was receiving bribes or funds from somewhere. What a mess! Of course, 6 years further on and Nisman’s death has not been resolved either.
There is something deeply dark and troubling about this world of spies, politicians and judges that has frequently been responsible for heinous acts in the history of Argentina and other countries as well. This sensation continues throughout the series together with the sense that many people have been lying. Stiuso appears and comes across as being highly political and ambiguous but many of the others too struggle to demonstrate transparency.
While Rocca and Webster do a fairly complete job piecing together all the elements, the choppy nature of the editing and the constant drone views of the city tend to pall. I found I wanted something more neatly constructed. The interviews with different famous people involved and with contacts of Nisman are indeed interesting but end up just confirming the idea that we will never know the real truth.
And that is a sad conclusion. The topic didn’t help but I felt somewhat ground down by this series despite the best intention of its makers.
A low-key American independent film I had little expectations of but which turned out to be well-made and surprisingly effective. There are no great innovative features in this movie, it is simply a story from the heart about overcoming grief and about prejudice.
Lisa (Stephanie Turner, actor, director and writer) plays a war widow, her husband having being killed in the Army. She is in a sort of denial about it, particularly because of the circumstances and packs up her two kids and goes to live with her father-in-law. That means a shift from Virginia to California.
We see her looking for a job and when she cannot get office work she agrees reluctantly to take on the caring of a young girl with spina bifida – the Justine of the title. Despite some quite strict parental controls she and Justine bond and the two start helping each other to grow beyond the stage they are at in life. Lisa is grieving her husband but won’t seek help while her father-in-law Papa Don (Glynn Turman, excellent)
keeps the house going. Justine’s parents are cases too.
Father Michael is a racist and both are workaholics. The mother Alison is little Miss Perfect. So you can expect some disagreements along the way with Lisa who is a tough nut to crack and will speak her mind when she wants to.
The big merit about the movie is that it tackles the dual themes of grief and discrimination without any sentimentality. Things develop naturally and messily but always authentically.
Daisy Prescott is charming as Justine and Lisa’s two kids natural. So, while we have seen films of this ilk before, Justine is a valuable addition to the genre.
This film set in Bosnia-Herzegovina but funded by 9 European countries takes us back to the massacre of Srebenica in 1992. Although this Bosnian town was supposedly a safe haven controlled by the UN, Serbian forces entered freely causing the locals to flee.
About 30,000 people ended up at the local UN headquarters, an abandoned factory. The Dutch NATO troops in charge made weak attempts to negotiate with the Serbs, no strike power or diplomatic help was forthcoming from above from either NATO or the UN and the Serbs basically bussed the Bosnians out of this factory, sending the women off in one direction and killing the men.
Over 8000 were killed in this action which later led to Serbian leaders of the time being found guilty of ethnic cleansing in The Hague and the Dutch also admitting that they were negligent in not doing more to save the Bosnians. Basically, the event is a shame on Europe and the free world who failed to protect these people in a continent that swore after WW2 that such genocide would not happen again. It did and I still feel the Serbs got off lightly.
The film focuses on Aida, a school teacher who because of her English is used as the translator by the UN forces. She is able to know more about what is going on but is also very much let down by the Dutch. She has her husband and two sons in this makeshift camp and she wants to find a way to save them. This goal provides the drama with which we proceed through the movie.
As time passes, will she be able to save her folk? Will the Serbs get away with whatever they want?
Jasmila Zbanic really comes up with a dramatic and meaningful movie here. Not only is it tense in the style of a thriller, but it also gives us a much needed history lesson on these relatively recent events which have plenty of documentary footage but not so much feature film treatment. Technical aspects are very good and acting convincing.
The film focuses most of all on Aida, superbly played by Jasna Djuricic who runs the gamut of emotions during the film.
Her real-life husband Boris Isakovic is General Mladic, the main leader of the Serbian troops and gives us a character full of his own importance and also very attentive to appearances.
In short, this is a movie that depicts the horrors of war and aggression between countries and how this affects the civilians in a very clear and chilling way. A sort of Schindler’s Ark for our times. To be seen and recommended.
A film starring Tom Hanks and directed by Paul Greengrass should guarantee a minimum level of quality and this is indeed true of News of the World. Most impressive is the recreation of Texas in the 1860’s after the end of the Civil War. It is a rather barren, heartless place full of slave labour and tough weather conditions, bandits and ne’er do wells.
Greengrass built several cities for this film and Dariusz Wolski’s camerawork captures the toughness of life in these places and in the desert surrounding them. The story propelling this visit to Texas is the discovery by ex-army captain Jefferson Kydd (Tom Hanks) of a 10-year-old blonde girl of Germanic descent who lost her original family to murder at 4 and now her Kiowa Indian family have suffered a similar fate.
Kydd takes on the traumatized girl and when the US army refuse to help, he agrees to escort her across the state to her only known relatives, an aunt and uncle near San Antonio, where incidentally Kydd has been living and has a wife. Kydd is an interesting character as he makes a living reading the news to people in the different towns.
It is a form of entertainment and information at a time when people had no other access to what is going on in the world. Kydd sees his role as one of bringing some degree of enlightenment to the people and preparing them for the new world.
The trip itself is full of dangers from sandstorms to ambushes and members of the public who have their axes to grind.
It is not helped by the facy that Johanna and Kydd do not speak a common language. He has a few words of German which she barely remembers and no Kiowa. Slowly but surely they form a team.
Hanks is all you’d expect in the lead role: avuncular, moral and also still an effective fighter when needs be even though he’s getting on. Helena Zangel as Johanna is a revelation considering her limited dialogue. Supporting actors all live up to expectations and James Newton Howard again provides a good soundtrack.
Nevertheless, at the end I had a sense of ‘So, that’s all, is it?’ The fairly spare story seems like an excuse to string together a number of challenges and trials and while there is a moral underpinning to the movie I just had the feeling that it will disappear from memory rather quicker than it should. Good quality with reservations.
Catalan film maker Isabel Coixet has an interesting catalogue with work in Spanish and English. Here, she ventures to Benidorm to make a film largely in English with Timothy Spall as the lead. He is Peter Riordan, a dull banker recently made redundant, and he stars with Sarita Choudhury as Alex, the owner of and performer in a burlesque club in Benidorm.
The film starts innocently as Peter plans to visit his brother in the Spanish resort having not seen him for over ten years. All is arranged but when he lands at the airport Daniel is not there and not traceable.
Thus starts a mystery that must be the most languid thriller ever as Peter makes some feeble efforts to find his brother not helped by the local police being disinterested and local contacts unwilling to help out.
As he discovers some facts about his brother, Peter is accompanied by Alex who had business interests with Daniel. Alex is a mysterious magnetic figure, an independent woman who does what she wants. Seeing Sarita Choudhury inhabit this role with the energy she has is one of the positive features of this film.
A sort of romance grows up between them, supported by the discovery that Sylvia Plath had been in Benidorm in 1956 when it was a fishing village and unrecognizable to today’s wall-to-wall high rises.
The other interesting aspect of the movie is the town itself – a non-place in the sense that it is mostly inhabited by tourists and people who come and go and the struggle to make some sort of community there.
Certainly the shots of the city, though not always attractive are impressive.
But for all the messages of being open to change and not to judge things on first appearances I’m not sure it works so well as a film. Spall’s character is good but indescribably dull and not enough is made of Carmen Machi’s character as the local police chief
and Ana Torrent as Lucia, a maid with certain obsessions.
I watched it for Choudhury and for the setting but by the rather petered out ending, enough was enough.
passionfilm 