October 28, 2005

Stay

Directed by Marc Forster
Starring Ewan McGregor, Naomi Watts and Ryan Gosling

Reviewed by Martin Tsai

Stay is like a second-rate Bruce Willis flick minus Bruce Willis, with a necro-psychobabblish plot redolent of both The Sixth Sense and Color of Night. The difference is that Stay has already spoiled its own supposed twist ending with the tagline on its poster: "Between the worlds of the living and the dead there is a place you're not supposed to stay." Hey, thanks for the heads up.

In this entire-life-flashing-before-the-eyes limbo we find the incongruous figure of psychiatrist Sam Foster (Ewan McGregor) and his patient Henry (Ryan Gosling, as yet another deranged lad), who threatens to kill himself on his 21st birthday. Having already intervened in the suicide attempt of his patient-turned-girlfriend Lila (Naomi Watts), Sam naturally wants to do the same for Henry. He visits a blind psychiatrist (Bob Hoskins) who might be Henry's deceased father, a student/waitress (Elizabeth Reaser) who might be his love interest, his former shrink (Janeane Garofalo, nearly unrecognizable as a blonde) who might be going nuts, and his dead mother (Kate Burton) who might very well be still alive. The mystery is, just precisely which one of them is seeing dead people.

Sam's various encounters prove to be fruitless both for him and for the poor mortal souls who've paid money to watch this. The subplots simply don't add up, and there's very little scare or thrill in this alleged psychological thriller. David Benioff's screenplay is suspiciously similar to that lame 2001 horror flick Soul Survivors, which takes place within a character's comatose mind after a life-threatening car crash. But Stay is even more absurd for the fact that its protagonist is not the person experiencing the hallucinatory visions that make up the bulk of its narrative. The climactic gotcha moment here is likely to irritate rather than awe.

Marc Forster - director of the equally ridiculous Monster's Ball and Finding Neverland - here employs many incoherent stylistic strategies to hammer home the point that the film does not literally take place within its own cinematic reality. Each scene digitally morphs into the next, à la the music video of “Livin’ La Vida Loca”. There are various inexplicable effects, such as when groups of twins and triplets are walking together wearing matching outfits. The scenes are frequently intercut with alternate takes replaying the same actions, or even with different actors repeating the same lines, in a futile attempt to duplicate that same creepy disorientation achieved by the cursed video in The Ring. Forster's visual and audio gimmickries don't necessarily reveal anything about the murky state between life and death. Instead, these superficial touches merely distract viewers from the fact that this scam of a film really makes almost no sense at all.

Good luck stay-ing through its 99 minutes without wanting to play in traffic afterwards.

Reprinted from WestEnder. © Copyright 2005 Martin Tsai. All rights reserved.

October 16, 2005

L’Enfant (The Child)

Reviewed by Martin Tsai at the 24th Vancouver International Film Festival

While some contemporary realist masters such as Mike Leigh, Ken Loach, et al. have managed to branch out without necessarily compromising their auteurist integrity, others like Erick Zonca and the Dardenne brothers are still fervently practicing Bressonism. If it’s not broken, why fix it? As J. Hoberman of The Village Voice pointed out, the Dardennes’ two Palme d’Or winners – 1999’s Rosetta and this year’s The Child – both pay homage to Robert Bresson.

Their latest involves the puerile and unscrupulous Bruno (Jérémie Renier), who enlists two juveniles to commit petty thefts for him, sublets the apartment belonging to his girlfriend Sonia (Déborah François) while she’s in labour, and schemes to sell their newborn son for a quick buck. When Sonia finds out about this and calls the cops on him, Bruno attempts to retrieve the child to make peace. Yet he unwittingly finds himself in deeper trouble.

The film is a respectable and moderate achievement, but it doesn’t reach the psychological dimension of the Dardenne’s previous work, The Son. Its theme of black-market infant trading brings to mind Jan Hrebejk’s Up and Down, but The Child completely underwhelms by comparison for its lack of insightful social and political implications. Since even Cahiers du cinéma suggested that it lacks innovation, in retrospect Cronenberg, Hanake and Hou deserved this year’s top prize at Cannes much more.

© Copyright 2005 Martin Tsai. All rights reserved.

October 14, 2005

China Blue / A Tale of Cinema / Paradise Now

Reviewed by Martin Tsai at the 24th Vancouver International Film Festival

As Jia Zhangke’s The World alluded to, China is experiencing the largest migration in history. More than 130 million residents have headed for the country’s southern provinces and taken up jobs at sweatshops. Micha Peled’s documentary China Blue follows 16-year-old Jasmine, who slaves long hours (one of the shifts lasted 27 hours) for below minimum wages (roughly $1 per hour) at a denim factory. She shares a dorm room with 11 others and pays for the lousy food served at the cafeteria and for hot water from the kitchen for washing. She also gets fined for tardiness, sneaking out, dozing off, or taking unscheduled bathroom breaks. Her factory charges its client $4 per pair of jeans, and turns around and retails it at 10 times that price. Even a worker’s-rights advocate concedes that a factory that provides workers adequate rest and pays minimum wages simply can’t stay competitive. Cogent and alarming, the film certainly will make you inspect the labels carefully and think twice the next time you’re out shopping.

When describing the halfway narrative bifurcation in Hong Sang-soo’s A Tale of Cinema, many critics are citing Tropical Malady. Are they forgetting that Mulholland Dr. likely shares the same strategy? This first half of Tale is actually a film within a film depicting the botched suicide attempt of two lovers (Lee Ki-woo, Uhm Ji-won). Later we learn that the first part is an unauthorized real-life account of Tong-su (Kim Sang-kyung), who is now smitten with the actress who played his ex-lover (Uhm). The distinction between the film-with-a-film and the supposed reality here is effected by the use of camera zooms. The quasi-Adaptation aspect of it is fun, but in the end Hong’s film just isn’t all that memorable.

Hany Abu-Assad’s latest Palestinian political drama is even more eye-opening and thought-provoking than his insightful last feature, Rana’s Wedding. Paradise Now examines the dynamics between two friends (Kais Nashef, Ali Suliman) after an aborted suicide-bombing mission changes one from conflicted to hell-bent and the other from gung ho to compassionate. The most fascinating aspects of the film are its Christian symbolism, its portrayal of the hypocrisy and indifference amongst the puppeteering extremist leaders, and how its protagonists react to the awakening of their consciences. Contemplating the catalytic impact of the two friends’ decisions on their loved ones, the film’s conclusion is so chilling that it’s simply unforgettable.

© Copyright 2005 Martin Tsai. All rights reserved.

October 13, 2005

Heading South / The Last Mitterrand

Reviewed by Martin Tsai at the 24th Vancouver International Film Festival

After examining the corporate downsizing phenomenon with Human Resources and Time Out, Laurent Cantet shifts his focus onto Haiti’s sex tourism in the 1970s with Heading South. Shirtless muscular Haitian studs vie for the affections of desperate middle-age American housewives, who in return shower them with meals, gifts and money. The charming ways of Legba (Ménothy Cesar) cause acid-tongued Ellen (Charlotte Rampling) and newly divorced Brenda (Karen Young) to bond, exchange notes and ultimately fight. Dennis Lim of The Village Voice aptly compared the film to Ladies in Lavender, but there’s much more. Unlike The Constant Gardener, Heading South does expose white foreigners’ ignorance, stereotyping, objectification and hypocrisy vis-à-vis the locals, even if Cantet occasionally undermines Haitians’ perspectives. The devastating finale brings revelations to the protagonists, but leaves the viewers cold.

Robert Guédiguian also shifts his focus from life in Marseilles (Marius and Jeannette, The Town is Quiet) to the final days of controversial French socialist ex-president François Mitterrand. Freely adapted from Georges-Marc Benamou’s account, The Last Mitterrand depicts an unnamed president (Michel Bouquet) at the final stage of prostate cancer contemplating his legacy and confronting his missteps at the prodding of an idealist biographer (Jalil Lespert). Like Marco Bellocchio’s Good Morning, Night, full appreciation of Last Mitterrand demands familiarity with its historical background or some Googling. (Notorious Vichy police chiefs who deported French Jews to the Nazi concentration camps are cited here, but neither does the film nor did Mitterrand in real life clear up his association with them.) Still, the film’s depiction of the frailty of power and ideals is universal and unassailable.

© Copyright 2005 Martin Tsai. All rights reserved.

October 12, 2005

Hell / Mountain Patrol: Kekexili

Reviewed by Martin Tsai at the 24th Vancouver International Film Festival

Following Tom Tykwer’s Heaven, Hell is the second installment of a Dante-inspired trilogy planned by the late director Krzysztof Kieslowski and his frequent screenwriter Krzysztof Piesiewicz. On the heels of his Oscar-winning debut No Man’s Land, Danis Tanovic attempts this ambitious, star-studded French-language baloney about lifelong scars from familial dysfunction. Hell encompasses the lives of three sisters (Emmanuelle Béart, Karin Viard, Marie Gillain) who have drifted apart and are similarly trapped in unhealthy relationships after a traumatic episode in their childhood left their mother (Carole Bouquet) in a wheelchair and their father (Miki Manojlovic) in prison. With its half-baked philosophizing, the film is nearly as pretentious and snooze-inducing as Heaven. But Hell is the more disappointing of the two, as this kind of faux-Kieslowski crap is to be expected from Tykwer (i.e. Winter Sleepers, The Princess and the Warrior) but not from Tanovic.

The Missing Gun director Chuan Lu conversely avoids the sophomore jinx with the captivating and harrowing Mountain Patrol: Kekexili. Based on a true story, the film follows an investigative reporter (Zhang Lei) to Tibet on assignment to cover the story of mountain patrolmen mercilessly executed by antelope poachers. Lacking state funding and manpower, the patrolmen must risk their lives in order to battle dangerous outlaws and survive the harsh weather. As the pursuit drags on, their predicament becomes increasingly dire. One of the more remarkable regional productions from Columbia Pictures, the film has the accessibility of a studio product. Its Scope photography of the austere Tibetan skies and mountains is breathtaking. But even with its somewhat slick façade, Kekexili builds to a powerful climax unmatched by faux socio-politico thrillers like The Constant Gardener.

© Copyright 2005 Martin Tsai. All rights reserved.

October 11, 2005

Twist of Faith / Idiot Love

Reviewed by Martin Tsai at the 24th Vancouver International Film Festival

Kirby Dick’s Oscar-nominated documentary Twist of Faith follows the journey of a man suddenly confronted with the sexual abuse in his past upon discovering that his predator lives five doors down the street from the newly purchased family home. Toledo, Ohio firefighter Tony Comes seemingly has the perfect all-American family life. But whether he is sharing physical intimacy with his wife or potty-training his infant son, his boyhood trauma still fills his life with anxiety. When the Boston priesthood abuses make national headlines, Comes contacts his local bishop about the alleged rape by ex-priest Dennis Gray. But the church responds with only denial and deceit, prompting Comes’s pent-up rage to slowly exact a toll on both his own spirituality and the life of his family. With the subjects given cameras to document themselves, the film provides incredible access into their emotional lives. But when its deceptively innocuous early vignettes ultimately turn out to be foreshadowing, the film’s epilogue is so inexplicably chilling that it warrants follow-up investigation.

Perhaps trying to shake off the heavy Almodóvar influence in his work, Ventura Pons this time looks to Lars von Trier for Idiot Love. Obviously, its chief influence is the Danish provocateur’s Dogme exemplar The Idiots. Self-proclaimed idiot Pere-Lluc (Santi Millán) has no qualms whipping his penis out at his godfather’s birthday party so he can threaten to stick a fork in it, and it comes as no surprise that he suddenly feels compelled to stalk and break into the home of married street-banner installer Sandra (Cayetana Guillén Cuervo) after accidentally walking into her ladder one night. In spite of all its gratuitous nudity, graphic sex and City of God-esque rapid camera zooms and pans, the insufferably self-aggrandizing first-person narration over the prolonged classical-music-punctuated montages suck all the potential fun out of Idiot Love. With no philosophical insight to speak of, Me and You and Everyone We Know it is most certainly not.

© Copyright 2005 Martin Tsai. All rights reserved.

October 10, 2005

Three Times

Reviewed by Martin Tsai at the 24th Vancouver International Film Festival

After contemplating the thematic concerns and filmmaking style of Yasujiro Ozu with Café Lumière, Hou Hsiao-hsien revisits his own with Three Times. A triptych about love, time and fate, the film encapsulates the moods, cultures and preoccupations in three of Hou’s favourite periods with the same cast led by Chang Chen and Shu Qi.

Kaohsiung, 1966: The nostalgic “A Time for Love” fondly recalls the simpler times of Hou’s youth, which he explored extensively throughout the 1980s with films like The Boys from Fengkuei and Dust in the Wind. A young man doing his mandatory military service stint (Chang) becomes smitten with a billiards parlor attendant (Shu) and promises to write her, as “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” and “Rain and Tears” play on. When she takes a job elsewhere, he spends much of his break riding the train across the island tracking her down.

Dadaocheng, 1911: The silent chamber drama “A Time for Freedom” revolves around a brothel à la Flowers of Shanghai. A courtesan (Shu) represses her feelings for a married revolutionary poet (Chang) whose principles compel him to reject concubinage. She soon faces the prospect of lifelong servitude when he inadvertently helps the brothel’s madam marry off another courtesan who got pregnant.

Taipei, 2005: Similar to Goodbye South, Goodbye and Millennium Mambo, “A Time for Youth” centers on a pair of aimless and soulless Gen Y-ers. A bisexual rocker (Shu) and a photographer (Chang) engage in a tryst, jeopardizing their respective relationships with jealous girlfriends. But their fleeting physical intimacy seems to be the only connection in this emotionally vacuous world where everyone is venting discontent via cell phones, text messages, e-mails and techno music.

Through repetitions and variations, Hou economically yet authoritatively compares and contrasts how the shifting times have redefined our values and priorities but not our basic need for human bonding. Each of the three parts is a masterpiece in its own right, and the innocence, doom and desperation variously conveyed in the different segments are all thoroughly felt. The collective Three Times isn’t just the definitive Hou or the definitive treatment of Taiwanese life, but the definitive observation on the evolution of humanity.

© Copyright 2005 Martin Tsai. All rights reserved.

October 09, 2005

Caché (Hidden) / Citizen Dog

Reviewed by Martin Tsai at the 24th Vancouver International Film Festival

Before you die, you’ll watch the tape: Michael Haneke’s Hidden actually plays out like a J-horror film. It indeed bares staples of the auteur’s domestic horror library such as alienation, a threatened household, familial guilt and audiovisual technology. He puts yet another couple named Anne and Georges (Juliette Binoche, Daniel Auteuil) to the test when a series of surveillance tapes filmed right outside their home and creepy childish drawings show up inexplicably on their doorstep. This time Haneke uncharacteristically builds up the atmospheric menace at length before suddenly striking with single unexpected and climactic act of extreme violence (which elicited an audible collective gasp from the fest goers). The narrative strategy immediately recalls Audition, although the supernatural Ringu also comes to mind for the videocassette connection. Leaving much of its mystery unresolved, Hidden haunts viewers like a J-horror classic would.

Wisit Sasanatieng’s whimsical fable-like musical romance Citizen Dog has invited many Amélie comparisons. Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s international hit is vigorously cutesy at best, and it doesn’t come close to capturing the kind of genuinely inspired and beguiling magic seen in Sasanatieng’s sophomore feature. Making over Bangkok with the same hyper neon colour scheme seen in the director’s Tears of the Black Tiger, the film involves an introvert with a severed index finger, a compulsive-obsessive fixated on environmental activism, a chain-smoking 22-year-old who looks to be about seven, a talking stuffed bear, a zombie motorcycle taxi driver and a pair of lovers fetishizing over packed-sardines bus rides. It’s unfortunate that the film’s Thai origin might compel Western viewers to dismiss its quirkiness as eccentricity, effectively confining the film to the festival and arthouse ghetto and barring it from reaching an Amélie-size audience. Then again, Sasanatieng might already be a household name here if Miramax had bothered to release Tears of the Black Tiger.

© Copyright 2005 Martin Tsai. All rights reserved.

October 08, 2005

Ox Hide / Keane

Reviewed by Martin Tsai at the 24th Vancouver International Film Festival

Winner of this year’s Dragons & Tigers award at the VIFF, Liu Jiayin’s perplexing debut Ox Hide is more intriguing than satisfying. Starring the director herself and her parents Jia Huifen and Liu Zaiping and shot entirely in their family home, its anyone’s guess as to whether the film is drama or documentary. After abandoning the mother and daughter’s prosperous sales scheme using year-round discounts to entice stingy consumers to loosen the purse strings, the father stubbornly drags his leather bags business to the brink of bankruptcy for the sake of his dignity and pride. The director has admitted that Ox Hide is autobiographical, but its minimalist fixed long takes and artless claustrophobic Scope compositions are decidedly stylistic. While the film’s meta-realist approach is refreshing, its various scenes come off as episodic, tedious and ultimately trivial.

Similarly verité and episodic, Lodge Kerrigan’s Keane achieves the polar opposite effect with an unfazed and engrossing portrait of a mentally unstable man (Damien Lewis of Band of Brothers) frantically searching for his lost daughter in the bowels of Manhattan. As with Clean, Shaven and Claire Dolan, Kerrigan’s detailed and subjective depictions of mental illness and fringe existence never cease to fascinate. (During the post-screening Q&A, the director offered that he has spent more than a decade researching the subject of mental health and also joked about befriending local junkies.) But Keane achieves more immediacy than Clean, Shaven or even David Cronenberg’s Spider by entirely omitting the auditory and visual hallucinations. Between psychotic attacks, the protagonist is wholly identifiable for having to endure every parent’s worst nightmare. The disturbing climax here is frighteningly all too human.

© Copyright 2005 Martin Tsai. All rights reserved.

October 07, 2005

Waiting ...

Directed by Rob McKittrick Starring Ryan Reynolds, Justin Long and Anna Faris

Reviewed by Martin Tsai

Those who actively pursue their dreams - especially those dreams of the artistic variety - often pay their dues working in the service industry before they get a taste of success. So it's no surprise that many draw inspiration from their experiences schlepping food or manning the video rental counter. The restaurant business alone has served as the milieu for many a filmic entree: Frankie and Johnny in Clair de Lune, Deluxe Combo Platter, Heavy, Eric Bross’s Restaurant, Patrick Hasson's Waiting, as well as (and not to be confused with) Waiting ... by Rob McKittrick, an ensemble comedy about a day in the life of the staff at a cheesy fern bar.

After a night of sex, booze and drugs, Shenaniganz employees show up to work allegedly still recovering from hangovers. (If they didn't overtly declare their toilet-hugging misery, the mostly half-baked acting certainly would not clue viewers in.) And oh, those garden-variety characters! Self-proclaimed perv Monty (Ryan Reynolds) finds temporary diversion from a jailbait dilemma by showing trainee Mitch (John Francis Daley) the ropes. Monty matter-of-factly asks, "How do you feel about male frontal nudity?" The frat-house initiation for waiters at this joint apparently entails mastering the Puppetry of the Penis, which cook Raddimus (Luis Guzman) eventually demonstrates for Mitch with a piece of uncooked chicken leg and its loosely attached skin. Meanwhile, the hopelessly non-committal Dean (Justin Long) reassesses his priorities as he faces a pending promotion and the disheartening news of a former classmate pulling down a $48,000 salary fresh out of college.

In similar workplace ensemble comedies such as Clerks and Empire Records, characters struggle feverishly against tight deadlines to attain their goals. But McKittrick's film lacks the same narrative momentum as it dishes out very little plot. These slackers are just biding their time, and their boredom is infectious. Alanna Ubach's performance as a burnt-out waitress in desperate need of anger management stands out as the only watchable part of the film. The jokes here are mostly stale, and the one about the "five-second rule" - a dropped piece of food can stay on the floor five seconds before it is deemed too unsanitary for serving - is a cold leftover from Hasson's eponymous 2001 film. And you just knew that the Shenaniganz staff would garnish the food with saliva, dandruff and pubic hair. If viewers must take something from this movie, the only moral they can possibly conjure up with would be to dine out at your own risk.

Reprinted from WestEnder. © Copyright 2005 Martin Tsai. All rights reserved.

Avenge but One of My Two Eyes / The White Diamond

Reviewed by Martin Tsai at the 24th Vancouver International Film Festival

Juxtaposing the undignified daily lives of Palestinians – who are unable to pass checkpoints even for medical emergencies – with guides regaling tourists with Jewish folklore of Samson and the Zealots committing suicide in the face of their respective Philistine and Roman occupiers, the documentary Avenge but One of My Two Eyes curiously links today’s suicide bombers with yesteryear’s heroes. The premise is fascinating and inflammatory, but Avi Mograbi’s first-person account provides too much unnecessary distraction. Interspersed scenes of broken-English telephone exchanges between the Israeli director and his Palestinian friend Shredi Jabarin are visually dreary and rarely revealing. The climactic scene of Mograbi snapping at Israeli guards also seems beside the point.

With The White Diamond, Werner Herzog finds yet another hell-bent eccentric on a mission. Brit aeronaut Graham Dorrington is set on flying over Guyana with a helium balloon he built, even though he is still overcoming the guilt from an accidental death caused by one of his experimental aircraft a decade ago. Similar to most of Herzog’s films – as well as his protégée Errol Morris’s Fast, Cheap and Out of Control and Zak Penn’s spoof Incident at Loch NessDiamond treats its mad genius with wide-eyed wonder and deadpan hilarity. (Perhaps auteurist scholars might want to reconsider Invincible as a comedy?) Like Grizzly Man, the most fascinating aspect of Diamond is what the director alludes to but chooses to withhold. Truth is stranger than fiction indeed.

© Copyright 2005 Martin Tsai. All rights reserved.

October 06, 2005

Why We Fight

Reviewed by Martin Tsai at the 24th Vancouver International Film Festival

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist,” former U.S. president Dwight Eisenhower warned in his 1961 farewell address. “We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.” That stark caution has turned out to be prophetic, and the documentary Why We Fight examines the monster created by contractors, corporations, think tanks, lobbyists and politicians. Because a standing military generates thousands of jobs and millions of dollars, the country must continue to engage in unnecessary wars under false pretenses to sustain the industry.

Even though it's one of the most popular titles at the VIFF, the timing of Why We Fight is off. As Gore Vidal points out, we’re living in the United States of Amnesia. Despite the fact that the film is no less relevant than Bowling for Columbine and The Fog of War, its subject no longer interests certain viewers. In an overheard heated exchange among festival goers, someone of the conservative persuasion reflexively dismissed Why We Fight as “liberal propaganda” and therefore unworthy of his time. Director Eugene Jarecki (The Trials of Henry Kissinger) actually maintains the balance with his choice of interviewees from across the political spectrum, but the overwhelming evidence and the conclusion presented in the film apparently are not enough to change many minds in this divisive political climate.

© Copyright 2005 Martin Tsai. All rights reserved.

October 05, 2005

The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes

Reviewed by Martin Tsai at the 24th Vancouver International Film Festival

Ten years since making their feature debut with Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream People Call Human Life, the Quay Brothers finally return with the ambitious The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes. Like their renowned short films, it boasts luminous images and elaborate stop-motion animation. Dr. Droz (Gottfried John) is obsessed with automatons, and he has devised an evil plot to kidnap opera singer Malvina (Amira Casar of Anatomy of Hell) and turn her into a mechanical nightingale. The Quays employ their staple animation to illustrate Droz’s elaborate collection of intricate automatons – including a logger chopping down a tree as mysterious blood drains into a lake, and a severed finger functioning as a stylus on the glass-rim turntable.

There are successful precedents for this kind of experimental mix of live action with animation, such as Conspirators of Pleasure and Little Otik. But for a dreamy fable, Piano Tuner lacks the spunk and subversion seen in the works of Quay Brothers’ idol Jan Svankmajer and their contemporaries like Guy Madden and Matthew Barney. And unlike Benjamenta, Piano Tuner doesn’t have strong central characters to sustain viewers’ interest. So in spite of its fairly conventional narrative, it ultimately comes off as an insufferable art film that doesn’t stand a chance of finding a cult following.

© Copyright 2005 Martin Tsai. All rights reserved.

October 04, 2005

Dear Wendy

Reviewed by Martin Tsai at the 24th Vancouver International Film Festival

Although only serving as a screenwriter this time, Lars von Trier still leaves his personal stamp on Thomas Vinterberg’s Dear Wendy. Just as Dancer in the Dark and his current “America the Beautiful” trilogy have scrutinized American attitudes toward immigration, the death penalty, Christianity, revenge, racism, et al., Dear Wendy targets the reverence Americans have for the Second Amendment. The story concerns a group of small-town misfits and self-proclaimed pacifists – led by Jamie Bell’s character Dick – who find some antique guns which suddenly empower them with confidence and self-righteousness. Their enchantment becomes such an obsession, that the kids ritualistically name their guns and perform wedding ceremonies for the firearms and their respective owners. The title, of course, stems from a love letter from Dick to his revolver.

Despite the fact that von Trier has never set foot in the States, he is once again spot-on with his assessment of both the country’s attraction to guns and the violence and tragedy that ensue from that romance. While this allegory is certainly more cogent and chilling than the heavy-handed Bowling for Columbine and the indifferent Elephant, it unfortunately pales in comparison to the thematically similar A History of Violence. Vinterberg lacks David Cronenberg’s iconic stereotyping and dark humour, and von Trier’s typical sarcasm seems to have gone right over his Dogme co-conspirator’s head.

© Copyright 2005 Martin Tsai. All rights reserved.

October 03, 2005

The Bridesmaid / Takeshis’

Reviewed by Martin Tsai at the 24th Vancouver International Film Festival

Claude Chabrol’s second Ruth Rendell adaptation, The Bridesmaid is a well-oiled, expertly executed Hitchcockian thriller of the type that fans have come to expect from the 75-year-old auteur. Buttoned-down salesman (Benoît Magimel) is married to his job and family until a mysterious and eccentric woman (Laura Smet) throws his routine out the window along with his better judgment. And their obsessive l’amour fou might just turn out to be lethal. Although Rendell’s plot is somewhat predictable, Chabrol’s aptitude for ambiguity keeps viewers guessing. But this is a disappointingly minor work from a director of considerable repute who seems to be just going through the motions here.

With Takeshis’, Takeshi Kitano imagines what his life would have been like if he hadn’t become a multi-hyphenate celebrity. The Renaissance man here plays himself, as well as a dim-witted look-alike who works at a convenience store and aspires to become a successful actor like Kitano. Essentially an elaborate daydream, this attempt at Charlie Kaufman-esque automatic writing is sporadically hilarious and pointlessly mind-boggling. At feature length, Kitano’s self-deprecating digs at his screen personae come dangerously close to an exercise in narcissism. His strength in the juxtaposition of cruelty and tenderness is sorely missed here. Even if the exercise might amuse some hardcore fans, Kitano himself could not figure out the point or even a conclusion.

© Copyright 2005 Martin Tsai. All rights reserved.

October 02, 2005

The Squid and the Whale / North Country / The Intruder

Reviewed by Martin Tsai at the 24th Vancouver International Film Festival

Exactly a decade ago, Noah Baumbach made a promising Whit Stillman-esque debut with Kicking & Screaming. After a string of duds, he has finally proven that the debut was no fluke with the overwhelmingly poignant The Squid and the Whale, a semi-autobiographical account of his coping with his parents’ divorce as a teenager. The separation, infidelity and joint custody arrangement complicate the already awkward pubescent sexuality for two brothers (Jesse Eisenberg, Owen Kline), and also prompt them to choose sides between mom (Laura Linney) and dad (Jeff Daniels). The boys each pick a different role model and become hostile toward the other parent. But further disillusionment awaits as the parents’ selfishness will soon dawn on them. This unsentimental and economically swift film arrives at a surprisingly resonant conclusion, and Baumbach’s mom – the esteemed former Village Voice critic Georgia Brown – can definitely take pride in it.

Also inspired by a true story, North Country is unfortunately a lot less sincere and believable. Niki Caro’s follow-up to Whale Rider finds its inspiration in a class-action sexual harassment suit filed by female Minnesotan miners, and then proceeds to turn it into something fairly generic and shamelessly manipulative. As if having to endure the sexist taunting of male coworkers isn’t enough, screenwriter Michael Seitzman makes sure that Charlize Theron’s protagonist is also a victim of traumatic upbringing, teenage pregnancy, domestic abuse and rape, so that the defendant mining company can conveniently dig up the past in an effort to discredit her. Thank goodness you can see the uplifting happy ending from miles away, or else the film might actually be a devastating tearjerker like Dancer in the Dark.

Jean-Luc Nancy's book on his heart transplant becomes completely unrecognizable and incoherent in the hands of director Claire Denis. By throwing in hunters, smugglers, black marketeers, estranged family members and lots of canines, she transforms The Intruder into a confusingly cryptic and insufferably pretentious tragedy about karmic justice. “Our worst enemies are hiding inside,” goes first line in summing up the moral of the story, although the film eventually becomes so disorienting that the point gets lost. The most remarkable part about it is the fact that it incorporates lead actor Michel Subor’s 1965 film Le Reflux as flashback. But since Steven Soderbergh similarly utilized Poor Cow in The Limey, this ploy has lost its novelty.

© Copyright 2005 Martin Tsai. All rights reserved.

October 01, 2005

Princess Raccoon / Manderlay

Reviewed by Martin Tsai at the 24th Vancouver International Film Festival

Four years after Pistol Opera, Seijun Suzuki raises the bizarro bar once again with the Japanese opera/Greek tragedy/French New Wave pastiche Princess Raccoon. Its costumes are primarily kimonos. The sets alternate between expressionist stages, naturalistic exteriors and ink-painting superimposed blue screen. Like a continuity editor’s worst nightmare, the costumes and sets often change inexplicably within the same scene. There are the Godard zooms and freeze frames that make the film seem more frantic. Then the music ranges from lush Michel Legrand-esque orchestral numbers to rock and even rap. In other words, the film is like a Japanese Romeo and Juliet meets The Umbrellas of Cherbourg tripping on acid. And this is actually a good thing! The film manages to strike an emotional chord in spite of its unconventional methods. What’s more, it stars Zhang Ziyi. After proving her acting prowess in 2046, the crouching flying vixen here hones her geisha skills. Those who think she’s miscast in the upcoming Rob Marshall film might as well shut up now.

Lars von Trier’s Manderlay isn’t as big a disappointment as some critics made it out to be. To be sure, Bryce Dallas Howard is no Nicole Kidman, and she occasionally gets upstaged. The film also takes a while to reach the devastating effect of Dogville. But let’s face it, Manderlay is every bit the politically relevant hell-raiser that its predecessor was. The Danish provocateur revisited many of his favourite elements with Dogville. Even if the bare-soundstage shtick is wearing a little thin this time, Manderlay is thematically original. Set in a 1930s Alabama plantation where slavery still exists in secret, Howard’s Grace liberates the slaves and then enforces democracy with the help of her father’s armed henchmen. The allegory obviously recalls the current situation in Iraq, but it also comments on the institutionalized racism and the complacency among racial minorities that are still prevalent in today’s society.

© Copyright 2005 Martin Tsai. All rights reserved.