2000s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 3)

[domino harvey]

Cashback (2006, Sean Ellis) - A movie that can't decide whether it wants to be a twentysomething sex comedy or rumination on art and love and all those big topics. It winds up throwing in the towel and becoming an awkward mesh of both, focusing its first-half on the generic woe-is-me artist who's really good at art because he draws a lot of sketches of naked women and then turning its attention to the antics of his coworkers. I think my bitterness toward the film comes more from the fact that I was forced into watching it than the trifling criticisms I can lob but it struck me as a forgettable enough time. There is one scene that seems specifically targeted toward the trenchcoat brigade in which the lead wanders around the supermarket he works in and proceeds to undress every woman he walks by while she stands frozen. Of course each of the women look as if they walked off a Victoria's Secret runway but that's another lobbing criticism. In the end, don't bother.

I actually like this a bit, partially for one of the reasons you don't, namely that it unexpectedly combines two very different genres, the "lad mag"-ish sex comedy and the visually-elegant art house flick. For all its outward naughtiness, it ends up being a surprisingly sweet little movie. Most of what you negatively describe in your capsule occurs in the short that was expanded to feature-length here, so I think you can safely skip the source material as well!

[knives]

Extraordinary Stories (2008)
This is the most audacious film I've seen in recent memory threatening so badly to fall under the weight of its trappings which often feel born out of poverty based necessity that it is all the more surprising that it succeeds. It's took me about an hour to get on this four hour film's wavelength, but by viewing it essentially as a visual companion to three 'lost' Borges stories edited to communicate tension and ideas about one another it is easy to see it as a masterpiece. In fact by themselves the stories aren't terribly innovative, but by confining most of the action to narration and by being compelled in how paranoia creates stories the material is lifted beyond B-thriller material into that philosophical suggested by Borges (though without question Ruiz and Greenaway play a role too not to mention a limitation based in Chris Marker's photoplays). Two of the more daring moments is a digression so separate from the story that they even give a new narrator and the introduction to the film's last act which basically admits its own anticlimatic nature as a part of the design whether virtue or not.

What was hardest for me is the visual style of the film. The narration does most of the heavy lifting leaving the sense initially that the camerawork may be amateur and not even necessarily in a good way. Many of the shots are distant in the way you see regularly today with guys like Reygadas and until it proves otherwise the narration seems a device to avoid the cost of syncing sound. Slowly the film disproves this (though the initial betting sequence in the third story still seems off to me) in a way that can't help but leave admiration in the self imposed limitations a bit like watching The Tracey Fragments. Where the film does break its rules (really only once, but it plays with loopholes constantly) it does so at a logical necessity to convey a thematic point while also taking the audience off guard. I imagine few will get to this anytime soon, but if you can you have to.

Margot at the Wedding
This is an absolutely amazing film which along with Greenberg seems a perfection of Baumbach's style. What's so surprising though is how contrary the film is to it's reputation having so many moments of elation (however undercut) and characters which accept themselves for perhaps the only time even if they have difficulties with each other. Rather then toxic which is the most common critique I've seen it is almost friendly though that's not quite the right word with a real sense of connection present. There's also an amazing deal of honesty and frankness to the sexuality of the characters that is unheard of in recent American cinema. Even compared with Baumbach's other films which aren't exactly afraid there's a simplicity in how emotions are expressed and triggered. The kids here really deserve a special note for the performances which are underplayed and adult without falling into writerly unavailability. Claude here manages to even best Eisenberg though that might be because of how Zane Pais has not gone on to be a recognizable face.

Not on the Lips
Thank heavens for Wild Grass and You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet because otherwise it seems Resnais' last years would have completely undone his good name. This is a significantly better film then Private Fears in Public Places if only because Resnais' flair for genre play is clearly on display, but it is easily his most incompetent attempt at such I've seen. The primary problem, and to be fair only one relating directly to the film itself, is that Resnais seems unable to stage a musical at all. The opening song is quite good, but all of the subsequent ones are very lazy in how they're sung and staged as if Resnais actually wanted to do an Irma la douce, but chickened out. The other problem, and no real fault of its own, is that recently Wes Anderson has simply with a similar tone tackled the same material so much better that the film just flops by comparison. Nothing is in the same league by some distance.

That said since these negatives seem well aired I should go to the positives. It's a gorgeous film using garish warm colours, particularly green to evoke the era unconventionally yet with success. It relays information on class and theatricality that frankly the play doesn't seem to support. The one area of the script where adaptation to cinema seems to have worked is the fourth wall breaking. Now admittedly there's nothing with it that hasn't been seen in Annie Hall, Alfie, or dozens of others with the breaking most resembling Autumn Sonata. All the same it seems where Resnais is most comfortable to the point where he even suggests it when the normal story is going on unfortunately to poor effect. The acting in spite of said effect are quite good, though all the actors I'm familiar with have done better work (usually in Resnais films). Two exceptions to that are Toutou and Isabelle Nanty. The later is just terrible overacting and being stiff at the same time. Just not good. As for Toutou this is only my second film with her and while she's still a little too Audrey Hepburn for her own good she's very lively and interesting in her little role. I suspect that she is what Resnais was ultimately reaching for and really is acting out a higher quality of this film while looking like she would have been in the 1925 version too. She even brings a good life to her songs.

The Curse of the Jade Scorpion
I do not know at all why this is poorly considered. While this film is nonexistent on themes as a period piece and comedy it's as good as they come. The period detail is especially good with Allen's obsessions coming across in colour, dress, even wallpaper. It's simply a delight to look at. Also funny though, and not just joking funny, but funny due to jokes which integrate the period effortlessly. The best of these jokes is Charlize Theron as Lauren Bacall with Veronica Lake's hair (though I'm also fond of Helen Hunt's mangling of insults). This is a brilliant little film that deserves a far better reputation.

Abouna
This is a great piece of observation and growth beautifully reminiscent of the earliest of Kiarostami. Haroun tells this story of two brothers looking for an absentee father intimately in its often naive POV playing with the magical realism that childhood brings to life. It's also a very beautiful film utilizing the still master shot setup so common nowadays in a rather different fashion often bringing us closer to the actions of the characters.

Taken
This is so French I'm surprised the Americans didn't take it as disingenuous. The Americans are just dumber and more violent French and the emphasis placed on class and European divisions is so outside the American norm that the film is almost refreshing as a change of pace. It even comes with a French audience identification character like some bad Jules Vern novel that I'm assuming is dropped in the sequels. Outside of that the film is neither as bad as its reputation nor good enough to be worth its 90 minutes. The film isn't as racist as its reputation with the villains mostly being nondescript with Albania chosen seemingly for the same reason Russians are in American films. Even the accusation of misogyny with the treatment of the friend seems a bit off since the film makes clear she was dead at the time. The film is paternalistic as all hell though which seems to be Morel's MO.

Speaking of MO, compared with the earlier District B13 the action in this movie is terribly done with the editing undercutting all interest. Though that's a shockingly small component of the film with the first third being a generic family drama like one of those late '90s Jim Carrey films. Even the hour subsequent to that plays more like a low rent Batman or Punisher with a surprising emphasis on detective work however violently done. The one real positive here is Neeson who not only brings a level of professionalism not otherwise present, but even the poor direction gets a good lift in how it uses him. The man's a giant and the film plays that well to make him look like a frightening inhuman bird of prey lumbering over the anonymous villains. This further prevents the action from having suspense, but if the audience ID character had been better used I could easily see this being a true advantage. That would mean doing more then the minimum though and that doesn't appear to be Besson's goal.

A Talking Picture
This film is probably too slight by half, but it is delightfully so giving a very fascinating look at the history of the Mediterranean. If just for the easy going travelogue qualities this film would be one of the more enjoyable of the decade, but fortunately de Oliviera has more on his mind focusing on the myths of the region painting a reflexive image connecting the modern and the ancient in a daring fashion defined by its simplicity. I don't know if it is merely a quirk of the subtitles or a part of the original work, but little things like calling Athena the patron saint of the island does such a good job in showing that the new functions as the old with time as a wheel. I am curious how reliable all this information is or is intended to be as even in my limited knowledge I spotted a few factoids such as the retelling of the Moses story. Though even without this the film's surface qualities are invaluable to someone curious though lacking in knowledge such as myself. While the run time suits the film well I wish he had gone on longer as the history of even just the European side of the great sea has infinitely more crevices to reveal.

Small Time Crooks
This is pretty funny and on the level of the old comedies it seems inspired by without getting stuck in their plots. The thing preventing me from liking the film fully though is Allen's character particularly his treatment of Tracey Ullman (who is the best thing here) in the first act which just doesn't fit the tone of the film and makes an already tough performance at times unbearable. To be fair it does lead the film into some interesting avenues and Ullman really takes on the typical male role which raises it a few notches. The film is also a bit flat visually as if Zhao Fei doesn't know how to light contemporary America which is the only explanation I can give since his other two Allen's are pretty amazing.

[zedz]

Extraordinary Stories (2008)
This is the most audacious film I've seen in recent memory threatening so badly to fall under the weight of its trappings which often feel born out of poverty based necessity that it is all the more surprising that it succeeds. It's took me about an hour to get on this four hour film's wavelength, but by viewing it essentially as a visual companion to three 'lost' Borges stories edited to communicate tension and ideas about one another it is easy to see it as a masterpiece. In fact by themselves the stories aren't terribly innovative, but by confining most of the action to narration and by being compelled in how paranoia creates stories the material is lifted beyond B-thriller material into that philosophical suggested by Borges (though without question Ruiz and Greenaway play a role too not to mention a limitation based in Chris Marker's photoplays). Two of the more daring moments is a digression so separate from the story that they even give a new narrator and the introduction to the film's last act which basically admits its own anticlimatic nature as a part of the design whether virtue or not.

What was hardest for me is the visual style of the film. The narration does most of the heavy lifting leaving the sense initially that the camerawork may be amateur and not even necessarily in a good way. Many of the shots are distant in the way you see regularly today with guys like Reygadas and until it proves otherwise the narration seems a device to avoid the cost of syncing sound. Slowly the film disproves this (though the initial betting sequence in the third story still seems off to me) in a way that can't help but leave admiration in the self imposed limitations a bit like watching The Tracey Fragments. Where the film does break its rules (really only once, but it plays with loopholes constantly) it does so at a logical necessity to convey a thematic point while also taking the audience off guard. I imagine few will get to this anytime soon, but if you can you have to.

I'm delighted that I've found my first convert for this amazing film. It's a hard film to talk about without giving too much away, since so much of its invention has to do with the narrative structure and the way the narration functions - which is one delightful surprise after another as you're watching it. I think the visual style works well for the film. In most cases the visual restraint echoes the distanciation of the narration, but there are passages that are formally ambitious enough (it's been a long time since I saw the film, but I'm thinking of a montage sequence in the second part) to let you know that the straightforwardness of the rest is the director's choice rather than a limitation. (Clarity of visual style is also important for those moments when what we see doesn't line up with what we're told.) Borges and Cortazar are the clearest reference points for the film, and as such I'm not sure whether the film's stylistic similarity to Ruiz and early Greenaway is a direct influence or simply the inevitable expression of that shared literary affinity.

The Intermedio DVD of this film is still "proximamente" - hopefully it will come out before this list project expires.

[knives]

Having it on disc would be a delight especially as that might help with some of the more difficult scenes. In general a rematch seems needed now that the knowledge of where it is going will help make many choices more understandable. I don't think the film is much deeper than its narrative turns, but they're so good it doesn't need more.

[zedz]

It's a film about narrative, so I think the ways it turns are the "more" (which amounts to the same thing).

[thirtyframesasecond]

I'm fairly guilty of not adding too often to this forum, but wanted to flag up a film I've recently seen.

LA ZONA (2007) starts with a scenario out of a 90s Ballard novel; the affluent middle class live in a gated community where CCTV captures everything, the residents are fearful and paranoid about outsiders. This is a deeply polarised Mexico City where inequality is rife. A break-in attempt in the community has deep and shocking ramifications. I didn't find too much on the forum about the film, so if it's not too well know, it's well worth checking out. Soda has released it on DVD in the UK.

[swo17]

Some recommendations from recent viewings...

5 Centimeters per Second (Makoto Shinkai)
Studio Ghibli excepted, I've never considered myself much of an anime fan, but that's probably because so much of what I first associated with that term was of the aggressively "masculine" variety. This film is more concerned with simple things like growing up and looking at the world with wonder, which is nothing new of course, but it's much easier to identify with when the animation is as jawdroppingly gorgeous as it is here. I mean, just look at all the care that went into even these throwaway establishing shots:





Daughter from Danang (Gail Dolgin & Vicente Franco)
This was brought up in the documentaries thread as a film that didn't turn out as initially envisioned. Namely, a Vietnamese girl adopted and raised in America returns to her home country where her birth family eagerly awaits her visit. Only as you learn when you visit a place for more than a few days, things start to get real, and the chasm of cultural difference that has eroded over the girl's lifetime eventually becomes devastatingly clear. One might be tempted to judge either the girl or her estranged family for how things play out, but stop for a moment and consider what that might say about your own cultural biases. This must have bummed out so many regular "American Experience" viewers.

Sound Barrier (Amir Naderi)
An endurance test that feels almost as trying for the bulk of its runtime as having to go through life both deaf and mute, the film subsequently shames you for thinking so with an ending that's like a sledgehammer to the heart. And I'm not sure that the film would have had quite the same impact if it had been edited down to a more audience-friendly short.

Bluebeard (Catherine Breillat)
I must confess that I had sort of written Breillat off as a willful provocateur based only on the evidence of Fat Girl and the appearance of most of her other films, sight unseen. So this was a welcome surprise--a vividly colorful, intentionally stagey telling of a macabre fairy tale that feels a little like something that Švankmajer might make during a clay shortage.

Four Nights with Anna (Jerzy Skolimowski)
Somehow I had gotten it in my head that Essential Killing was Skolimowski's long awaited return to directing after a decades-long absence. I was even vaguely familiar with the title of this film, but was for some reason expecting it to be directed by Chantal Akerman. So when the film opened with this classically foreboding music and the unexpected director's credit, I was greeted with that strange sensation of taking a sip of orange juice when you think you're drinking milk. And the whole film maintained that uneasy feeling, always teetering right on the edge between love and love taken too far. I have of course now just spoiled the experience for the rest of you though. Sorry, let me fix that.

SpoilerShow

This film is not directed by Chantal Akerman.

[zedz]

Sound Barrier (Amir Naderi)
An endurance test that feels almost as trying for the bulk of its runtime as having to go through life both deaf and mute, the film subsequently shames you for thinking so with an ending that's like a sledgehammer to the heart. And I'm not sure that the film would have had quite the same impact if it had been edited down to a more audience-friendly short.

Glad you could track this down. I had mixed feelings about it when I first saw it, but it's a film that has stayed with me for a very long time.

Bluebeard (Catherine Breillat)
I must confess that I had sort of written Breillat off as a willful provocateur based only on the evidence of Fat Girl and the appearance of most of her other films, sight unseen. So this was a welcome surprise--a vividly colorful, intentionally stagey telling of a macabre fairy tale that feels a little like something that Švankmajer might make during a clay shortage.

This is one of my favourite Breillats, and though you're not wrong about a lot of her output, she's nevertheless a very talented filmmaker who from time to time gets things right. Her filmography is a minefield, and of her other 00s films Anatomy of Hell is a howler of tin-eared pretension, Brief Crossing is kind of anonymous but solid, Sex Is Comedy is a decent self-reflexive movie movie (not especially characteristic except that it's about the making of a Breillat film) and An Old Mistress is pretty much a masterpiece. If you enjoyed Bluebeard, I'd recommend the latter without hesitation. Lush, sharp, and Asia Argento's performance is almost as dynamic as that of the jewellery. It also has the best deployment yet of Breillat regular Roxane Mesquida.

[Numero Trois]

and An Old Mistress is pretty much a masterpiece. If you enjoyed Bluebeard, I'd recommend the latter without hesitation.

It's by far her sharpest and most layered script. For the most part she avoids the pitfalls she succumbed to in some of her other work. Like her habit of using the line "That's their strength" in reference to men in general. I think there's at least two films where she does that, and maybe even three. Her narrow focus can turn her thematic concerns into vices rather than fully fleshed out ideas. Not necessarily a fatal problem, but a recurring one nonetheless.

[Tommaso]

Dunno, I recently watched Fat Girl and found it quite impressive, not least for the acting of the two protagonists. The film seems to be generally disliked here, and I admit that the unmotivated ending didn't convince me too much, either, though I have an idea why Breillat chose it (wish-fulfillment in the form of a nightmare). Perhaps a bit too constructed, but all in all it's certainly on quite a different, much more honest and believable level than "Romance", which I remember basically as some sort of exploitative, underwritten take on sadomasochism for people who can easily be shocked because they never imagined the like. Quite different to Fat Girl, which worked rather well for me as a character study, and is certainly not just an exercise in provocation.

I need to see Une vieille maitresse again, but I do remember it rather fondly. Probably that has to do with Asia Argento in the main place, though.

[zedz]

Dunno, I recently watched Fat Girl and found it quite impressive, not least for the acting of the two protagonists. The film seems to be generally disliked here, and I admit that the unmotivated ending didn't convince me too much, either, though I have an idea why Breillat chose it (wish-fulfillment in the form of a nightmare). Perhaps a bit too constructed, but all in all it's certainly on quite a different, much more honest and believable level than "Romance", which I remember basically as some sort of exploitative, underwritten take on sadomasochism for people who can easily be shocked because they never imagined the like. Quite different to Fat Girl, which worked rather well for me as a character study, and is certainly not just an exercise in provocation.

I need to see Une vieille maitresse again, but I do remember it rather fondly. Probably that has to do with Asia Argento in the main place, though.

I actually like Fat Girl as well (it was the first Breillat film that impressed me, after writing her off completely with the hilariously bad Romance), but don't tell anybody.

Maybe the secret is: see Fat Girl after Romance and it looks like a masterpiece.

Getting back to swo's comments on Sound Barrier, I think his assessment of it as a very long short is astute. It's a short film idea that just wouldn't have worked at short film length, and would also have been destroyed by conventional 'padding out' (e.g. cutting away to another story, incorporating flashbacks) since its whole point depends on the laborious intensity the film attains.

This reminds me that when I saw the film it was on a VHS screener. I knew who Amir Naderi was, of course, but I wasn't familiar with his American output and knew nothing about this film beyond its title. I didn't even know if it was a short or a feature. I started watching it and within the first ten minutes I realized it was only a short, and figured it would have a simple repeat, repeat, repeat, twist structure. But it kept going. Overlong short, I figured: he's going to push this to thirty or forty minutes and end up with a much weaker version of the same thing. But it kept going, and I started to get fascinated and even involved in the ritual. Okay, it's a Chantal Akerman thing. Cool. But surely it's not a feature. We get to the hour mark and stuff starts happening. It seems we're drawing to conclusion, and Naderi has managed to eke this material out to nominal feature length (65 minutes, maybe). Good for him. But it kept going, and I started to hope it wouldn't end, because I just knew it wasn't going to end well for the protagonist - who, my God, gives one hell of a performance.

[Shrew]

Zhang Yimou

Happy Times (Xinfu Shiguang, 2000)
This is part of China’s “urban comedy” genre, like Keep Cool last decade, but there aren’t many laughs here unless you find rude fat women inherently hilarious. Around this time, this genre was also skewing hard toward the sentimental, and Happy Times is no exception (blind girl? Check! Sudden accidents? Check!). Zhao Benshan (a popular Chinese comedian) is a hapless retiree trying to get married. He finds a… large woman through a matchmaking service and gives her the impression he’s well-off. After failing to raise cash from his friends, he pretends to be the manager of a “Happy Times” hotel. Later he founds that the woman has a mistreated and blind stepdaughter and reluctantly takes her under his wing. Feelings follow. Zhang hits every bad turn here that he avoided in Not One Less. Nor is there much of an aesthetic reward—this is the nadir of Zhang’s “realist” style films, with none of the kinetic energy of Keep Cool, the punchy documentary style of Qiu Ju or Not One Less, or even pretty landscapes. The subsequent wu-xia films have their problems, but this is my vote for Zhang’s worst of the decade (and possibly his career).
R1 Sony (OOP, but cheap)/R2 Fox

Hero (Yingxiong, 2002)
Zhang’s most significant film of the decade, and arguably his best, is by far my favorite of his wu-xia trilogy. Jet Li is a nameless assassin meeting with the King of Qin (the eventual unifier of China) to be rewarded for killing several other assassins from lands conquered by Qin. The two than hash out conflicting views of said killings. The film’s main conceit of presenting a pseudo-Rashomon series of events from different characters’ points of view in various corresponding color schemes could have been empty formalism or arthouse cliche, but Doyle makes it look stunning.

Of course, the film is compromised (or not) by the political situation it was made in. The film is essentially a defense of authoritarianism, made under an autocratic government. The historical views of Qin Shi Huang (the first emperor of China) have ranged from genocidal to mixed (see the more complex/negative portrayals in the earlier The Emperor and the Assassin and The Emperor’s Shadow), and while this revisionist take on him as a necessary means to great dream of unification isn’t exactly new, it can’t help to seem like propaganda given China’s current regime. I think the film is still an amazing formal feat, and its general structure/narrative strong enough not to fall into total cliche (it could do without an assassin or two, and certainly less of the b-plot love triangle that includes one rapey sequence), but I’ll admit to feeling queasy about its ending.

Oddly enough, the film is actually more jingoistic in its US release (don’t know about internationally) than in the original Chinese version. The explanatory prologue throws in an anachronistic map of modern China (including Taiwan), and the original Chinese epilogue is a relatively dry run-down of historical fact (“The King of Qin united China, ended the wars, and built the Great Wall, protecting the country and the people. He become the first emperor in Chinese history.” Though it notably leaves out the usual addendum that his dynasty was overthrown after his death). The US version adds something like “even today, the Chinese still call it ‘our land’”—itself an odd, overly patriotic translation of tianxia “all under heaven,” a common historical term for the Chinese “world.”
RA/RB Miramax/Lionsgate

The House of Flying Daggers (Shi Mian Mai Fu, 2004)
Takeshi Kaneshiro and Andy Lau are two policemen of a corrupt Tang dynasty trying to crush the titular secret gang of rebels by following the blind agent Zhang Ziyi back to their base. Also they fall in luv. Zhang drops the filter effects of Doyle’s cinematography in Hero for a more kaleidoscopic approach; the film never looks better than in the opening sequence of Zhang Ziyi dancing/fighting in a “teahouse” covered in brilliant multi-colored tiles and costumes. It’s a breath of rainbow-fresh air in the age of Orange and Teal, though it also demonstrates why that maligned approach has become so common—there are some really obvious color timing issues in several fight scenes, particularly in the autumnal forest. So while the film is nice to look at and the action sequences frequent and well (if not incredibly) choreographed, the film feels hollow beneath its surface. House of Flying Daggers’s colors don’t have the conceptual grounding of Hero’s, nor do they feel especially expressionistic (save perhaps for the bamboo forest fight and the final battle in the snow). There’s also a heavy reliance on CGI shots of daggers/arrows/beans flying through the air, which get boring long before the image is supposed to carry an inordinate amount of dramatic weight in the final act.

And outside of those pretty action scenes, the narrative and connective tissue of the film doesn’t hold up. Perhaps reacting to the debate over Hero’s politics, the political conflict here is abstracted to the point of meaninglessness. There are no specifics beyond what’s spelled out in the introductory text—government corrupt, secret rebel society, no clear motives for any individual on either side. That may well be the point, as our hero complains about being just a pawn in a larger, pointless conflict, but the contrasting love triangle that we’re supposed to care about is just as bland. That’s what happens when your female lead is a cypher, your male lead is handsome but more than a bit creepy (this is a film where a man’s elaborate strategy for peeping at a blind woman bathing is “charming”), and your second male lead stays off-screen for more than half the film.
RA/RB Sony/Fox

Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles (Qian Li Zou Dan Qi, 2005)
Ken Takakura‘s estranged son gets terribly sick, and he decides to finish the son’s work by filming a promised performance of the titular opera piece by regional Chinese opera singer. Of course, the title also refers to the father’s own journey to seek forgiveness from his son. Obstructions occur but everyone’s really helpful, beautiful landscapes are filmed, a cute kid shows up, and everyone is united by poop jokes.

Pat summary aside, the film is a welcome diversion from Zhang’s wu-xia pageants and a hell of a lot better than Happy Times, but it still feels insubstantial. Zhang doesn’t get in the way of Takakura’s strong interior performance, letting the actor’s face (and back) and the scenery do all the heavy lifting, which makes for some resonant moments. But there’s so little friction in Takakura’s search that there isn’t a dramatic pulse. He’s delayed by tracking down the right people or waiting for an office to open, but most everyone he encounters are super helpful—so much so that the one guy who doesn’t try to help him right away just seems like a total dick, even if he has his reasons.
R1/R2 Sony

The Curse of the Golden Flower (Mancheng Jindai Huangjinjia, 2006)
Zhang finally reteams with his muse Gong Li, but she (and most of the other women in this film) are wrapped in ridiculous pushup bras that provide the most eye-rolling cleavage this side of Game of Thrones. More importantly, she’s unable to balance the character’s imperious nature and obsessive lust for her stepson with her doomed struggle against her husband, the emperor (Chow Yun-fat), who’s slowly trying to poison her. Despite the enormity of that crime, Gong’s character comes off as vindictive up until the final moments squeeze out some pathos. She’s petty and obsessive with her son, and faces the man trying to poison her more with passive-aggressive bitchiness than restrained hatred.

That’s the main problem with this film: everyone is awful and they all deserve to die (with the exception of the middle son played by popstar Jay Chou, who’s just honest and boring). Zhang one-ups the multi-color ostentation of House of Flying Daggers in the elaborate costumes and sets of the Imperial palace, but as the film goes on it becomes dominated by gold and silver and thus more visually bland. Worth a look for the visuals, especially for fans of Zhang’s previous wu-xia films, but this feels by far the emptiest of the trilogy, even though in its illustration of the innate rottenness of those in power, it may be the political opposite of Hero.

A quick final note on these films, I find it interesting that while wu-xia traditionally focuses on outsiders and wandering swordsmen/women (the Chinese for the genre is often translated as “knight errant”) often fighting against bandits or corrupt officials, Zhang’s trilogy steadily gets closer to the center of political authority. The main characters move from stateless assassins to state police to the Imperial Family. Perhaps that’s part of why the latter two films don’t work as well—the “wu-xia” elements are like Christmas ornaments on a palm tree.
RA/RB Sony/Universal

A Woman, A Gun, and a Noodle Shop (Sanqiang Pai’an Jingqi, 2009)
In many ways, this is a surprisingly faithful remake of Blood Simple, except that it reverses the original’s formula of black comedy + thriller. Whereas M. Emmet Walsh is cartoonish in comparison to everyone else in Blood Simple (until he isn’t), the hitman in this film is always deadly serious and everyone else is playing broad caricatures straight off a Chinese sitcom. This was not a good choice. The “comedy” scenes are awful—though I admit I have a very low tolerance for the archetype of a shrieking, shrewish wife (common in Chinese comedy) and for the male lead Xiao Shenyang, a sketch comedian whose shtick consists of bumbling about pratting on in a fey, high-pitched voice, then suddenly belting out deep-throated renditions of Chinese karaoke classics (fortunately there are no musical numbers in the film).

All that said, there is a series of clever sight gags involving a bed screen, and some elements of the Coen’s black comedy are still present. The thriller elements are still compelling, and I forgot just how much Zhang had carried over and adapted the details of the original’s setup until rewatch (like the “burial” being interrupted by a group of horses rather than cars). There are a lot of parallels to Judou, with its story of a woman seeking solace from a cruel husband in a forbidden affair, but to its detriment, this is a practically asexual film (in a probable swipe at Chinese censors, the police seem more concerned about catching adulterers than murderers). Aesthetically, this is a unique point in Zhang’s oeuvre and a good showcase of his skills with a lower budget, creating a just slightly-right-of-reality dream world of moody day-for-night noir, searing desert landscapes, and bold (if slightly garish) costume design. Despite its problems, I’d still say the film is worth a watch for the visual style and Zhang’s a-step-beyond-homage take on the darker sequences, but it’s certainly not an improvement on the original.
RA Sony

directors to come: Chen Kaige, Tian Zhuangzhuang, Feng Xiaogang, Jiang Wen, Lu Chuan, Jia Zhangke, Wang Xiaoshuai, Lou Ye, Zhang Yuan, Li Yang, Zhang Yang (Feel free to suggest any others. Speaking of which, anyone know where to find Zhu Wen's two films, Seafood and South of the Clouds?)

[colinr0380]

Shrew, thanks for the great write ups! I'd be interested to know your thoughts on the 2008 Beijing Olympics opening and closing ceremonies that Zhang Yimou produced, especially how they could perhaps be seen as one further extension of his historical trilogy. "Christmas ornaments on a palm tree" indeed, even if you couldn't get better spectacle, and sparkle, anywhere else!

[Michael Kerpan]

Thanks for the write-up on ZY -- though I think I disagree with it in a number of major respects.

[Shrew]

Colin, I'd say Zhang's Olympics ceremonies are easily better than the last two films in the trilogy, given that all that pageantry fits best in a pageant! And they have their share of legitimately jaw-dropping moments like that final lighting of the torch. Of course, politically, you could make a good argument that it's the best piece of fascist art since Triumph of the Will, portraying the power of a vast number of people working in unison under the power of a singular autocratic vision. But for me the only really irksome bits (besides the eye-rolling decision to have a more telegenic little girl lip sync) are the parts with China's 56 minorities, who are mostly played by Han Chinese in "traditional" costume. I think there's also a DVD of Zhang's early 2000s staging of Turandot in the Forbidden City, if you're interested in his work beyond film.

And Michael, I'd figured you would probably be fonder of most of these films than me. Of course, Zhang's a major director and I think all of these are worth seeing (except Happy Times, which, whatever its other theoretical merits may be, must hands down be Zhang's least visually interesting film), but Hero's the only one I'd push as a must-watch. There's a lot of other stuff in China that's of more interest to me (warning: my Jia Zhangke list is going to be 90% red).

[Michael Kerpan]

I actually like the original version of Happy Times a lot (totally different ending -- available only as a low-quality extra on the first mainland DVD release), but would agree it was mostly not visually striking. I think I actually like Golden Flowers the best of the three wuxia films (even if some of the CGI was annoying). One wonders how different Flying Dagger would have been had Anita Mui not died so young 9before she could do her part in this). While not perfect, there were many wonderful aspects to Riding Alone. Probably Noodle Shop was the least interesting of the films of the decade to me.

In any event, even I would not put any of these films near the top of my overall ZY list.

My wife tells me she saw an announcement indicating that ZY's latest will be showing up here soon Somehow, I have managed to hear nothing about this one yet.

[thirtyframesasecond]

House of Flying Daggers will make my list; Hero most likely not. Have to say, I've not seen a Zhang Yimou movie since. It seemed like he'd run out ideas.

Looking forward to the other Chinese cinema guides though. It's a great decade for the Sixth Generation. Is Lou Ye's Summer Palace easily available? That's one of the films I've been interested in.

[thirtyframesasecond]

If I said a dead cert for a high placing in my list was an Australian film featuring David Gulpilil, you'd probably think I meant The Proposition or Rabbit Proof Fence. But no, 'The Tracker' by Rolf de Heer is a terrific film. Gulpilil is the eponymous tracker, coerced (employed is the wrong word) by three white chaps to hunt an Aborigine suspected of murdering a white woman. I might grab Ten Canoes next.

[zedz]

If I said a dead cert for a high placing in my list was an Australian film featuring David Gulpilil, you'd probably think I meant The Proposition or Rabbit Proof Fence. But no, 'The Tracker' by Rolf de Heer is a terrific film. Gulpilil is the eponymous tracker, coerced (employed is the wrong word) by three white chaps to hunt an Aborigine suspected of murdering a white woman. I might grab Ten Canoes next.

I was hoping you were going to say Ten Canoes, which I think is easily De Heer's best film.

[thirtyframesasecond]

If I said a dead cert for a high placing in my list was an Australian film featuring David Gulpilil, you'd probably think I meant The Proposition or Rabbit Proof Fence. But no, 'The Tracker' by Rolf de Heer is a terrific film. Gulpilil is the eponymous tracker, coerced (employed is the wrong word) by three white chaps to hunt an Aborigine suspected of murdering a white woman. I might grab Ten Canoes next.

I was hoping you were going to say Ten Canoes, which I think is easily De Heer's best film.

Well I'm definitely going to make sure I see this. Shame a lot of Paul Cox's films are tough to get hold of, as I'm really keen on watching Innocence too.

[zedz]

If I said a dead cert for a high placing in my list was an Australian film featuring David Gulpilil, you'd probably think I meant The Proposition or Rabbit Proof Fence. But no, 'The Tracker' by Rolf de Heer is a terrific film. Gulpilil is the eponymous tracker, coerced (employed is the wrong word) by three white chaps to hunt an Aborigine suspected of murdering a white woman. I might grab Ten Canoes next.

I was hoping you were going to say Ten Canoes, which I think is easily De Heer's best film.

Well I'm definitely going to make sure I see this. Shame a lot of Paul Cox's films are tough to get hold of, as I'm really keen on watching Innocence too.

I haven't seen all of them, but of those I have, Cox's post-80s films seem to be a pretty disappointing bunch. I found Innocence rather ordinary and anonymous.

[jindianajonz]

I've been watching a lot of movies for this list without reporting on them, so I figure now's as good a time as any to dive in.

Gangs of New York (Martin Scorsese) I don't think I've seen this since mid way through college, and had been looking forward to a rewatch. Other than Day-Lewis' outstanding (as always) performance, there wasn't much to like here. Day-Lewis felt like he was in a completely different movie than anybody else- i was fully immersed and engaged whenever he was on screen, but the illusion always fell apart when the film's focus moved elsewhere. I'm not sure I can fault the other actors for that; since they do a decent enough job, but I couldn't see Cameron Diaz, John C. Reilley, and Brendan Gleeson as anything other than actors in costume throughout the film. Scenes like

SpoilerShow

Henry Thomas' betrayal and comeuppance

felt shoehorned into the plot to add drama to an otherwise dull stretch, and felt like they borrowed heavily from other movies who did similar scenes better. The

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riots

at the end of the film appeared to spring up out of nowhere, occurring in parallel to the events we followed through the earlier stages rather than because of them, and having them play such a big role in the conclusion felt like a cheat, both narratively and thematically. Scorsese seems conflicted in wanting to show how similar the Butcher is to the Priest, but also showing how much more brutal and different he is, and it's tough to discern what he's really trying to say about the relationship between two men. He seems similarly conflicted on the tone of the film, turning the politics of the period into a farce before asking us to take them seriously. A good example of this is during a murder that occurs late in the film, when a character let's loose with the Schwarzenegger-worthy one liner "That's what we call the minority vote!" before issuing the genuinely chilling deathblow. All in all, some pretty period trappings and a great performance by Day-Lewis aren't nearly enough to put this 3 hour slog on my final list.

The New World (Terrence Malick), on the other hand, almost certainly will. This was the only Malick film I hadn't seen other than Knight of Cups, and it didn't disappoint. Malick seems to guide as we explore and make sense of this world together, and the conveyance of alienation in both societies is masterful. Likely a top 10 choice for me.

Volver (Pedro Almodovar) This is probably the 4th or 5th Almodovar I've seen, and although it pales next to his two earlier efforts this decade, it is still an excellent film that may make my list. At the risk of comparing a Spanish director to a Mexican holiday, I've always thought that Almodovar's stories felt like Dia de los Muertos dolls- genuinely creepy things dressed up in bright festive clothing. Although this holds true more in his previous two films, there are elements of it here. Also, the way his own style, which I've seen described as bordering on both surreal and hyperreal, facilitates the the story of the grandmother in the second act, is brilliant.

[jindianajonz]

Kimjongilia (N.C. Hiekan): It must be tough to make a documentary about North Korea- the only obtainable footage of the country comes from propaganda pieces carefully chosen by the country's politburo, and most western knowledge of the Hermit Kingdom is really a series of educated guesses based on the testimonials from defectors. Kimjongilia tries to fill in these gaps by splicing what is available- interviews with escapees interwoven with context free still images and shots from North Korean films and recordings of the Arirang Games. These snippets, along with footage of an aborted attempt at smuggling a North Korean out of China, represent the high points of the film. Still, it's hard to say that this film made the most of the few opportunities that it had- it's already slim 74 minute runtime feels even sparser due to lengthy scenes of stock video accompanied by music, and it's aruguments rarely go beyond explaining that the Kim family is bad, life in North Korea is tough, and attempting escape carries a lot of risk. I can't help but compare this film to the book Nothing to Envy, which chronicles the lives of six escapees in greater depth, with a focus on some more interesting and overlooked aspects of North Korean life such as how black markets work in the country, the apparent ease with which some Koreans illegally run back and forth across the border with China, the nuanced stance China has towards North Koreans within its own borders, or the difficulties North Koreans have assimilating into South Korea should they manage to complete their exodus. If you are already of the opinion that North Korea is an unkind place filled with oppression and have watched bits of Arirang on YouTube, you probably don't have too much to gain from this film.

Millennium Actress (Satoshi Kon): Beautiful and imaginative featuring a duo of interviewers chronicle the life of a Japanese film actress. However, documentation leads to particpation as they literally stroll through her past alongside her. References to classic Japanese cinema abound as they journey through different periods luciously rendered with hand drawn animation. Looking through previous discussions on this film, it seems that its reception has been mixed, but I certainly enjoyed the fun romp through this world.

[Michael Kerpan]

I liked Millennium Actress when I first watched it -- but after seeing and disliking (or not liking very much) most of Kon's other work, I fear re-watching MA (lest my mostly very positive memories get damaged).

[jorencain]

"I Am A Sex Addict" (2005; Caveh Zahedi)

I don't know how I stumbled across this film a few years ago, but what a pleasant surprise it was! Unique in it's storytelling, the film is a first-person account of Zahedi's sex life, chronicling his relationships and his addiction to escorts and massage parlors as he waits to get married.

SpoilerShow

Literally. He's narrating the story while waiting in the chapel. The film ends with his actual wedding ceremony.

It's often very funny, and his use of re-enactments is clever. Maybe Godardian isn't quite accurate, but his self-reflexive approach (explaining how the budget wouldn't allow for a trip to Paris...except that they were able to do it later for another scene) feels very fresh. The second half of the film begins to feel a little too tedious, and I can see how some might criticize it for being too much of a confessional. But I think it's a lot of fun, rewatchable, and also presents a very honest account of a sex addict.