Category: movies

In Michael Haneke’s Caché, a family is terrorized by a series of videotapes left on their front porch. The tapes at first contain impersonal images – a two-hour video of their apartment shot from a distance – until the recordings become more personal. There is no score save for incidental music, there are no audio cues for some horrific or tense scenes. We are left to contemplate the stark images, and the relative silence heightens the fear and confusion. It is edited in such a way that we are not sure if what we see onscreen is footage from the tapes, or real life – until the couple rewinds the scene.

I first encountered Haneke when I saw the remake of his home invasion film, Funny Games, which starred Michael Pitt (I’m planning to watch the original). I can’t say I enjoyed that film; I can say I was affected by it, deeply so, as I am affected and disturbed by Caché. Haneke loves to disturb without the hysteria, and I admire that about him and his work.

Cut for more discussion and spoilers. (Please don’t read on if you haven’t seen the film; that said, do watch the film.)

Continue reading caché (hidden)

So many things could have gone wrong with Kathryn Bigelow’s retelling of that May raid that ended with the death of Osama bin Laden. It could have been sickeningly indulgent or celebratory, it could have been unnecessarily action-packed or violent, it could have been manipulated to add more tense moments a la Homeland or 24. Instead, Zero Dark Thirty, through excellent cinematography and direction, shows us an ugly process that has finally come to an end. There is no big celebration after the final gunshot. If it is a victory, it is a Pyrrhic one. We are not cheered, but unsettled, as Maya (Jessica Chastain) cries in that final frame. There is no joy in her tears.

I love Laura Bogart’s review of the same film:

De Beauvoir cautioned her countrymen against believing that they could ever find succor in vengeance. The common refrain of the aggrieved, “they must pay,” betrays a desire for a “balancing of wrongs,” to see their aggressors suffer a comparable horror. This is a truth born out in Bigelow’s bravura staging of that May raid, especially the claustrophobic effect of shooting in night vision. The sickening intimacy of the sequences—tight huddles of men charging narrow stairways, narrow rooms—makes the whole endeavor seem small. There’s no grand, cathartic showdown, no real firefight. There is only a man poking his head out of a room before he’s shot between the eyes. There is nothing that could conjure back 3,000 lives and bring them, like Lazarus, out of the rubble.

I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed Rurouni Kenshin, the live-action adaptation of anime hit Samurai X. The film, Japanese-produced and distributed by Warner Bros., concerns a wanderer named Himura Kenshin, once a deadly samurai assassin known as Battosai. After the Bakumatsu war, Japan transitions from feudal shogunate to the Meiji government.  Some samurai end up as part of the military force of the new government, while others enter a life of poverty and crime. Kenshin, wanting to atone for the lives he has taken, vows never to kill again. This vow is soon challenged.

I cannot call myself a fan of Samurai X because I never got the chance to watch the animated series in its entirety. I know some characters, but know nothing of the major plot points. (To illustrate my ignorance: The first time Sanosuke Sagara appeared onscreen, the people around me started murmuring with delight. I just thought he looked vaguely familiar.) If you haven’t encountered Kenshin’s story before, don’t fret. The filmmakers are able to create an entertaining film with a satisfying plot and excellent cinematography. The film is also successful in showing the pain of change as Japan turns over a new leaf before the 1900’s. “I was starving,” says one of the former samurai, “in this insipid new age of yours.” It has got to be the best line in the film. Casting is laudable, with main man Takeru Satoh able to show the playfulness and darkness of Kenshin.

I just love the final scene. Rurouni Kenshin ends on a great note, a sweet note, that caught me by surprise.

I love the book this film is based on. I have read the book first, so there is no way to look at the film with new eyes. The novel’s narrative structure is like this: think of six short novels placed on top of one another, and then folded. So you have a complete story in the middle, and halves of the five others on either side. It is a fairly simple structure.

For the film, however, directors Tom Tykwer and the Wachowskis collapsed the structure and decided to tell the six stories parallel to one another, transitioning based on visual cues (a gun pointed upwards at a runaway slave in the 18th century, cut to a hovering ship pointed upwards at a fabricant on a bridge in New Seoul), audio cues (the Cloud Atlas Sextet playing across the centuries – which sounds amazing, by the way), emotional tone (sadness cut to more sadness), and action (climax cut to climax – a futuristic fight scene cut to a daring escape). The result is breathtaking at times, but sometimes I feel this structure forces the (already loose) connections. You find yourself wishing the juxtapositions made more sense.

There is also the questionable decision to make non-Asians play Asians and vice-versa, to drive home the point of reincarnation. The novel, with only words to tell us the story, relied on the recurring appearance of the comet birthmark. But if we’re using the birthmark anyway, is the use of “yellowface” (and blackface, Otherface) necessary?

I didn’t think the filmmakers meant any offense. Making the actors play multiple characters across timelines does add another layer to the story. We see characters reunited. We see Sixsmith transform from a passive holder of records (Frobisher’s letters, the Swanneke report) to an Archivist who may or may not tell the world the truth. But how about Frobisher? From great young composer to music store clerk? A flimsy connection there. And don’t get me started on Yoona~939.

And let’s just be honest here: everyone looks like Spock.

Its weird. And I was looking forward to seeing actual Koreans (or at the very least, actual Asians) in the Sonmi~451 storyline. It’s not like there’s a dearth of Koreans in film right now. John Cho is Korean-American, Hollywood!

Still, Cloud Atlas is a remarkable achievement in filmmaking. I am hesitant to say yes when friends ask, Should I watch it? I feel like I should add a qualifier. Read the book first, or Find out the plot first, or Wait for the DVD so you can watch it with subtitles, because goddamn if I can understand a word far-future Tom Hanks is saying.

But I enjoyed it. It’s almost three hours long, but it engaged me, and I never felt bored.

If the idea of six stories in one film doesn’t daunt you, or if it tickles your curiosity, go watch Cloud Atlas. Despite its flaws, it’s still a rewarding cinematic experience.