2000s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 2)

[GringoTex]

3-Iron - Holy shit this is a horrible film. Did he have to pay WKW royalties for ripping off Chungking Express?

I think that's a bit of a stretch, honestly. The context, tone and significance of the home invasion motif is very different here from that in Chungking Express. Maybe I'm missing more blatant allusions to Wai, but do you care to go into more depth about why you feel it's derivative/horrible?

I think the allusions to WKW are very blatant- protagonist breaks into a house to experience somebody else's living space while taking pictures of themselves and providing a la carte cleaning services.

That's not my problem with the film, though- it's the facile, wish-fulfillment day dream fluff completely divorced from any socio-cultural context that I could ascertain. That's just my bias, though- I need my films strongly grounded in reality.

[Shrew]

The Forest for the Trees- I'm not sure how I feel about this film. Having just finished my first year teaching, this was excruciating to watch. It captures perfectly the feeling of lost control in a classroom and the mistakes new teachers often make in dealing with other teachers. However, I feel that's all it gets, keeping with its title. There isn't much balance in this film, (maybe just maybe we could see Melanie succeed at something?) though perhaps that is the point. But It comes across like the nightmare I'll wake up screaming from the day before school where absolutely everything goes wrong more than a true slice-of-a teacher's life.

The lead actress does a great job, but the film looks terribly bland (perhaps the fault of online netflix), and the ending is atrocious. It makes no sense, and it makes the metaphor of the title appallingly literal. Blegh. It may be that I am simply too close to review this film properly, similar to The Class.

Drama/Mex- Didn't care for this film too much, but I didn't hate it. Nice cinematography and pacing rescue it from the annoying teenagers flooding half the story. I did like that it didn't force its two tales into some contrivance or faux-philosophical connected world. Certainly better than Babel-the only Innaritu I've seen-but ultimately not fulfilling.

The Baxter- I enjoyed this one, though I'm not sure why it would be anyone's number 1 film of the decade. It certainly doesn't top Sturges, but it isn't a bastard successor either. I almost turned it off 5 minutes in, until it clicked that Banks and later Theroux were meant to be intolerable (but not inhuman). Williams has already received many just accolades.

I think I'll make Devils on the Doorstep my swapsie. It's an HVE r1 release available through netflix. After Jia's films, (which Devils is nothing like) this is my favorite film to come out of mainland China in the oughts.

[puxzkkx]

I thought the ending of the film was genius and the ambiguity really well-done -

Spoiler

Melanie has lost complete control both in life and in the classroom - and this shows us two ways that she could possibly deal with it without settling on one. It leaves it up to the viewer whether she commits suicide or whether she goes on to a better deal in another place.

The handheld cam bothered me at first but by the end it seemed like the only possible way to shoot a story like this.

[zedz]

as far as I remember there were no scenes that focused on her specifically reacting, in an emotional way, to her situation (despite screaming "Sonny! Sonny!")

Sorry to leap in if domino's already addressed this, but doesn't the entire form of the film constitute her 'reaction to the situation' (and account for the absence of more conventionally melodramatic a-weepin' and a-wailin')?

And I agree with Gringo Tex that 3-Iron is "fucking awful", but for me ripping off Wong Kar-wai was the least of its crimes. But I'd seen Kim's earlier films and saw this as yet another installment of his designer new-age misogyny. Now I won't go near his work with a bargepole (even one with a big sharp hook on the end).

As for me:

Woman on the Beach – This was the only Hong I hadn’t seen, so I was sort of keeping it in reserve – in case he was run over by a bus or something. Wouldn’t you like to have a major film by one of your favourite directors up your sleeve for emergencies? But I couldn’t really justify not seeing it for the 00s list.

I don’t have a lot to say about it. It’s probably his most Rohmeresque film – even more so than Night and Day, which was much more explicit in its homage. He’s a little more generous to the feckless Korean male at the centre of the film than he has been in other recent films (Woman is the Future of Man, Tale of Cinema, Night and Day) and the whole film is relatively relaxed (as was also the case with his subsequent film). Ultimately, however, I miss the brilliant structural games of his earlier films, and his first four features are still my favourites. Virgin Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors will make my top ten and On the Occasion of Remembering the Turning Gate will be in contention for the lower reaches of my list. This was a delightful watch, but it’s down the queue behind Night and Day and Woman Is the Future of Man.

[GringoTex]

Regular Lovers - It feels like a perfectly preserved artifact, wholly exhumed from a May '68 mass grave. If I didn't know this film was made in 2005, I would have bet a million dollars it was at least 35 years old. It's as if Garrel's internal cinematic clock stopped ticking decades ago. Bertolucci's The Dreamers has never looked so stupid (and Bertolucci is brilliantly called out by the film for his stupidity)

Haunting, naive, unabashedly romantic- it has stuck with me for days. I love it more now than when I was watching it.

[puxzkkx]

The Strength of Water is one of the few legitimately good pictures I've seen come out of my home country for quite some time. It works on many different levels without sacrificing any tension or mood. There are a few minor problems with the script (for the most part the lines are appropriate but occasionally there's some 'profound' dialogue that sounds forced and incongruous), Ballantyne has a keen grasp of image structure (although I think it'd look better on a small screen) and the acting is fantastic across the board (a strong ensemble is one thing that is incredibly rare in NZ film). One thing I wish it would have done is pay more attention to the potupairehe myth - a story that isn't familiar to most NZers (who, nowadays, learn Maori language & culture throughout their entire primary & intermediate education) or even most NZ Maori. Also good to see that it doesn't magically idealize the Maori as possessing of deep spiritual wealth (River Queen) or condescend to them (The Piano). Of course, this isn't a period piece, but it is nice to see a frank depiction of contemporary life in a Maori community, paying attention to their culture and mythology without letting an awed Pakeha viewpoint spoil it (the director, a first-timer, is a Pakeha woman). Definitely worth a look if you see it on anywhere.

Another nice touch is that the entire closing credits are hand-written.

[GringoTex]

The Son - This is the perfectly distilled Dardennes film and there's hardly a thing in it I can find fault with, so I'm at a bit of a loss why I found it so dissatisfying. It's almost as if the Dardennes have become too predictable- nothing in the film surprised me. Every emotion felt like a familiar recitation. Even Olivier Gourmet, who startles me in every performance, felt a bit rote.

Paranoid Park - Van Sant trades in the formal rigor and expressive body language of Elephant for pop psychology and Christopher Doyle. I found the few scenes of random high school life much more satisfying than anything related to the crime or the fetishism of skaters.

[puxzkkx]

I agree with you about The Son. I found it all perfectly decent on a filmmaking front, quite well-acted, etc etc... but it just failed to inspire or move me in any way.

Saw Secret Sunshine again last night. Jeon's performance definitely makes the film - a film that only could have been as good as it is with a great lead performance. Not to say the screenplay is poor or the direction bad - quite the opposite - but they needed an actress who could really understand how Shin-ae's grief pattern would develop in this way. I actually found Shin-ae's reactions to be quite realistic, but I think it needed a strong and smart performer like Jeon to play the role as a 'character arc' rather than as a collection of big crying scenes devoid of emotional weight (Angelina Jolie in Changeling, anyone?).

Song continues to underwhelm me, however - he has a far more straightforward role than Jeon's, and he does fine for the most part. No more than that, though - and a lot of his scenes felt like a second-rate comedian's ad libs (the phone calls to 'Ma', the stupid dance he does when Shin-ae agrees to go on a dinner date).

I was really intrigued by the character of the killer's daughter, and the actress' performance of that role. She isn't in the film for much but she gives us backstory and makes us want to see that story explored more by the director... personally, I wouldn't mind seeing a film about the same events but shown from the daughter's POV.

And the ending of the film is a saving grace, I think. And I think the final shot is less ambiguous than it seems -

Spoiler

the camera resting on that patch of sunlight in the dark courtyard is really moving and definitely fits in with the eponymous idea of "secret sunshine" - perhaps there is hope for Shin-ae amidst the darkness, after all.

[Lemmy Caution]

Regular Lovers - It feels like a perfectly preserved artifact, wholly exhumed from a May '68 mass grave. If I didn't know this film was made in 2005, I would have bet a million dollars it was at least 35 years old. It's as if Garrel's internal cinematic clock stopped ticking decades ago. Bertolucci's The Dreamers has never looked so stupid (and Bertolucci is brilliantly called out by the film for his stupidity)

I'm glad to see someone validate my impression.
I spotted a copy of this a few months back and previewed it in the store.
I didn't get it because the version here lacked subtitles, but I was seriously impressed by how thoroughly it seemed to capture that certain late 60's French art film look and vibe. I wasn't even convinced that it was a 2005 film, as the back cover asserted, until I got home and verified its origin. Quite a conjuring trick by Garrel. I only skimmed through a few scenes for a few minutes, but it's stayed in my mind and left me eager to get hold of a subtitled edition.

[FerdinandGriffon]

I wasn't even convinced that it was a 2005 film, as the back cover asserted, until I got home and verified its origin.

Really? The way Garrel's characters dressed, their lanky, slightly androgynous bodies and angular facial structures all seemed terribly incongruous with the period that the film was set in to me. I was struck not so much by how much the film looked liked the late 60s but by how much it looked like a modern Vogue photoshoot that was trying (not very hard) to look like the late 60s. As for the filmmaking style itself, what 60s films look like this? With its long takes, heavy shadows, low contrast B+W and languid, plotless meandering it felt far more reminiscent of a late 80s or early 90s film to me.
Partly because it didn't really work as an evocation of the 60's for me, but more because i thought it was furiously dull, I'm not such a big fan of the film. I would be interested in recommendations from people who thing Garrel's work is worth giving a second chance, however.

[Michael Kerpan]

Re: Secret Sunshine

Yes, the killer's daughter is intriguing -- as are the heroine's interactions with this character. Supposedly, the very promising young (first-time) actress playing this part was totally unenthused with film making and has waved off all offers for further film work.

According to what I have read, the ending of the source material is much more unambiguously downbeat than the film.

[Murdoch]

Partly because it didn't really work as an evocation of the 60's for me, but more because i thought it was furiously dull, I'm not such a big fan of the film. I would be interested in recommendations from people who thing Garrel's work is worth giving a second chance, however.

I recommend checking out the Zeitgeist Garrel set before completely writing him off, especially for I Can No Longer Hear the Guitar.

[domino harvey]

I wasn't even convinced that it was a 2005 film, as the back cover asserted, until I got home and verified its origin.

Really? The way Garrel's characters dressed, their lanky, slightly androgynous bodies and angular facial structures all seemed terribly incongruous with the period that the film was set in to me. I was struck not so much by how much the film looked liked the late 60s but by how much it looked like a modern Vogue photoshoot that was trying (not very hard) to look like the late 60s. As for the filmmaking style itself, what 60s films look like this? With its long takes, heavy shadows, low contrast B+W and languid, plotless meandering it felt far more reminiscent of a late 80s or early 90s film to me.
Partly because it didn't really work as an evocation of the 60's for me, but more because i thought it was furiously dull, I'm not such a big fan of the film. I would be interested in recommendations from people who thing Garrel's work is worth giving a second chance, however.

I too loathed the film and am chiming in to tell you don't bother

[mattkc]

I don't understand why people think they can understand a director's work just by seeing one or two of their most recent efforts. Garrel strikes me as a filmmaker who goes through different phases, with each not necessarily being representative of the whole body of work. I think with Sauvage innocence began a new phase, just as J'entends plus la guitare did, and L'enfant secret before it.

[zedz]

Takeshis’ – Not a fantastic decade for Kitano, but he’s still a mighty talented filmmaker and one of the sharpest editors on the planet. I remember Brother as an all-out debacle, even flimsier than Jarmusch. Dolls looked great, but completely caved in to the cloying side that threatened to weaken his previous output. Zatoichi, the big, commercial remake, sounded like a compromise and a gimmick, and is probably his least personal film, but I think it’s far and away his best of the 00s (barring Achilles and the Tortoise being a major return to form). If only all big budget action films could be this effective, kinetic and well made.

As for Takeshis’, it’s hands down the weirdest film of the bunch, a self-reflexive joke that pushes its slipping-into-dream / fantasy structure as far as it can go and then some. It’s predicated on the idea of pre-fame (read: loser) Kitano running into post-fame (read: arsehole) Kitano and dreaming himself into movie-Kitano (read: homicidal maniac) revenge fantasies against those who’ve slighted him – and then living out those fantasies, but that’s probably a dream as well. OR: it’s about post-fame Kitano wondering what would have happened if pre-fame Kitano had got ahold of heavy weaponry and had the luxury of blurring fiction and reality.

Whatever the underlying ‘reality’ is – and the longer the film runs, the less relevant this seems to be – the form of the film is a dizzying progression of bizarre and amusing themes and variations that continually fall through narrative trapdoors into new, corrective (and ultimately phantasmal) versions of themselves. For example, loser Takeshi grabs a gun from a dying yakuza who runs into his convenience store, finishes him off and then goes out and blows away a wide array of people who have pissed him off but eventually he’s woken up, at his convenience store counter, by that dying yakuza, waggling his gun.

There’s a great tap routine in the middle of the film by The Stripes (who gave Zatoichi one of the strangest and most exhilarating endings of any 00s film). Why? Eijanaika? There are also lots of references – actors, situations, haircuts – to previous Kitano films, and some of the dream sequences nail dream logic very effectively (e.g. a quick getaway from a bank robbery that gets deferred and slowed down by the petty distractions of third parties). It’s all a lot of fun, but it never built up the necessary momentum or depth to tip over into greatness for me. One of the intrinsic problems of the film’s structure that Kitano never managed to overcome was its repetitiveness. Almost every sequence sets up patterns of absurdity or frustration and is resolved in a blaze of gunfire before dissolving as a dream or fantasy into the next scenario. I wouldn’t be surprised if this film had one of the highest on-screen body counts ever.

[GringoTex]

I wasn't even convinced that it was a 2005 film, as the back cover asserted, until I got home and verified its origin.

Really? The way Garrel's characters dressed, their lanky, slightly androgynous bodies and angular facial structures all seemed terribly incongruous with the period that the film was set in to me. I was struck not so much by how much the film looked liked the late 60s but by how much it looked like a modern Vogue photoshoot that was trying (not very hard) to look like the late 60s. As for the filmmaking style itself, what 60s films look like this? With its long takes, heavy shadows, low contrast B+W and languid, plotless meandering it felt far more reminiscent of a late 80s or early 90s film to me.

Androgynous bodies- what did I miss?

I would be interested to know which late 80s/early 90s films this is reminiscent of.

[zedz]

As for the filmmaking style itself, what 60s films look like this? With its long takes, heavy shadows, low contrast B+W and languid, plotless meandering it felt far more reminiscent of a late 80s or early 90s film to me.

Androgynous bodies- what did I miss?

I would be interested to know which late 80s/early 90s films this is reminiscent of.

Bingo. I thought the look of the film was very persuasive as a vision of the times, and very evocative of Eustache and Moullet without being entirely derivative. Of course, it's also somewhat evocative of that late 60s / early 70s filmmaker Philippe Garrel (if inevitably less psychedelic).

[puxzkkx]

I quite liked Zatoichi, but need to see it again. The ending is definitely fantastic, though.

[zedz]

The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes – This film is wall-to-wall stunning visuals, a brilliant combination of the Quays’ animation with live action. The plot involves the titular piano tuner repairing a series of eerie automata on a mysterious (Bocklin-inspired) Isle of the Dead in preparation for some esoteric cataclysm (eclipse, earthquake), and the automata, the disasters and the island itself are all Quay miniatures inhabited by actors rather than puppets. It’s also a film that’s very effectively built around effects of light: dazzling, diffused sunlight; sinister, silvery moonlight; dark, candlelit chiaroscuro; flitting, flickering reflections.

So as a longform visual poem, the film is a consistently dazzling success. As a dramatic feature, it works less well. The weird, referential plot is conveyed in highly stylised language of a kind that’s extremely hard to pull off effectively, and it has to be delivered by actors for whom English is a second language (with the exception of Amira Casar, who has the least to say). Fassbinder veteran Gottfried John works beautifully with the material, and I suspect the heightened, dislocated, sinister edge to his performance is what the Quays were striving for, but lead Cesar Sarachu lets the material drop to the ground. He seems to be putting all of his effort into just getting the lines out, and there’s little energy left for any other shadings. He’s got the right look, but there’s no performance to back it up. The two women fall somewhere in between, but all that inconsistency makes it hard to care about the narrative.

Nevertheless, it makes for quite a sensory experience, and any fans of Institut Benjamenta or the brothers’ amazing 80s shorts should definitely track it down.

[swo17]

any fans of Institut Benjamenta or the brothers’ amazing 80s shorts should definitely track it down.

I love it when "tracking down" a film entails all of twelve seconds of 'search' and 'add to queue' on Netflix.

[zedz]

I love it when "tracking down" a film entails all of twelve seconds of 'search' and 'add to queue' on Netflix.

I've got to give you regionally challenged folk some easy ones.

[domino harvey]

Still working on tracking down Maid in Manhattan

[Murdoch]

Drama/Mex - Interesting, didn't particularly enjoy it, but I'm not a Mexican New Wave fan and this was my first Naranjo. It was a good-looking film, and I agree with Shrew that the coincidence-heavy story didn't feel strained because it wasn't specifically trying for some "big statement about life, the universe, and everything". The beginning was intolerable, but the second story I found enjoyable, it was a mildly pleasant surprise once I was able to get over the annoying teenagers.

[puxzkkx]

Saw most of Pieces of April again last night. It's not a fantastic film - some of the writing is really clumsy, and some of the actors don't suit their parts (Hayes is wasted and Luke, a good actor, comes off as far too smart for a character that clearly wasn't supposed to be incredibly intelligent) but on the whole the acting is good - Clarkson and Holmes are very good, Platt, the grandmother, the guy who plays the son and the other apartment tenants are serviceable and Pill has at least one very, very good closeup.

But the reason to watch this movie is the completely unexpected emotional power of the finale. I think the choice to end the film in this way is one of the most simple, yet most breathtaking and most genius filmmaking choices I've seen in recent American independent film. It is, quite simply, perfect, and the emotions that it invokes are genuine - it is, so far, the only film that successfully has made me cry. And here, by cry, I mean bawl. It won't make my list - most of the film just isn't on that level - but the ending is really special and worth seeing the whole movie for.

[GringoTex]

The Headless Woman - Martel moves into a more abstract, symbolic territory (a la Antonioni), continuing to demonstrate a wide-ranging mastery of different cinematic languages. The political metaphor is a bit obvious, but it doesn't matter when buttressed by Martel's typically powerful characterizations.

Question for those who have see it:

Spoiler

It seems very obvious to me that Vero is suffering from a real medical amnesia, but most reviews I've read are claiming she's deceiving herself. I think it's the people around her who are deceiving themselves by pretending there is nothing wrong with her. Thoughts?

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu - My first impression is that this is the most important film of the decade. Puiu's bare naked mise-en-scene makes the Dardennes look like Penny Marshal in comparison. There's nothing between his camera and his subject- he's a master. The way he slowly, imperceptibly transfers protagonist status from Lazarescu to the people trying to save him (with various degrees of effort) is astounding. People who claim this is a black comedy are mistaken- it's a straight-up, life-affirming comedy without a cynical bone in its body.