Topless トップ (Toppuresu) [2008] • Japan

There's zero nudity in this very sweet film about being lesbian in contemporary Tokyo. Someone is going to argue that the title metaphorically refers to being emotionally topless, i.e., baring your soul, because the film takes the risky approach, like millions of films do, of being about being human. Even though the film focuses on the loves and lives of its central lesbian characters it really speaks a universal language that heterosexual viewers can relate to as well—like having to deny your identity for the sake of marrying a man for security. Uh-huh. No. This film is about being lesbian.

Topless is refreshing and all that. Its themes of love and fear and politics and sadness are universal. Some of its plot points are a little diversitiste though, like the young girl who comes to Tokyo with an anti-lesbian chip on her shoulder to look for her mother who abandoned her several years ago to be with a lesbian lover, meets the film's protagonist who helps her, comes to recognize that lesbians can be good people too. OK. Characters learn from other characters all the time in movies.

The film might appear a little fluffy when you stand back from it, but the journey through it is filled with a number of poignant moments. One is the film's only sex scene, a non-explicit one between the film's central lesbian character and her male roommate. She's lost her true love to a man, is full of turmoil and wants to see what sex with a man is like. The scene is done very well and handled delicately.

My take on the title and the poster depicting two young women about to engage in a passionate kiss is this: the opening moments of the film are a little warm. The two women, as depicted on the poster, are engaged in some very passionate kissing and roaming of hands. And then pop! The top, the attitude many viewers stereotypically enter with, and desire from, a film about lesbians—two chicks going at it will be hot—comes off. The scene makes an abrupt change in tone and direction. All of a sudden the film is about people with personalities and it never looks back. Yes, it keeps saying "my desire to love and be loved as a lesbian is just like yours (as a straight person) except it's a little complicated by all this societal buildup of crud." That's the point.

My biggest takeaway from the film is Mina Shimizu. She's one of those actresses like Noriko Eguchi, except she's very upbeat and not moody and darkish like Eguchi, who owns the screen and everyone else in it every time she appears. I predict big things ahead for her.

★★★★

Director: Eiji Uchida
Starring: Mina Shimizu, Ryûnosuke Kawai, Aya Ohyama, Erika Okuda, Aya Oomasa

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Still Walking 歩いても 歩いても (Aruitemo aruitemo) Even If You Walk and Walk [2008] • Japan

I liked Air Doll so much I decided to seek out more films made by its director Hirokazu Kore'eda. Imagine you have a new friend in life, someone you have a fondness and respect for, and they invite you along to meet the family of one of their best friends. You'll probably attend with an optimistic attitude, thinking the old adage "friends of yours are friends of mine." Such was my approach to seeing this film.

There is a rich tradition of the family drama in Japanese cinema and this is a worthy addition to it. Still Walking observes and reveals the humor, history, and hidden emotions of an extended family over the course of twenty-four hours. A brother and sister, their spouses and children, attend a yearly gathering at the home of their parents to commemorate the death of their older brother, the pride of the parents, who died accidentally fifteen years ago while attempting to save a young boy, a stranger, from drowning.

The film has a languid pace and a subtle sense of humor. There is a stereotypical grouchy and reserved father who has a stereotypically antagonistic relationship with his second son, a doting and good-humored mother, a loving and amiable sister. It seems like there may not be anything new here. There really isn't, and not much happens until another annual guest to the gathering shows up. He is the boy the older brother saved from drowning. He's an overweight, fidgety, perspiring loser. He is extremely uncomfortable and we can sense the parent's resentment that it was not him who died instead of their son.

There was something about Air Doll that bothered me. There is a scene where the Air Doll meets, literally, her maker. The man basically essays to her on the meaning of the film: aren't human beings just empty vessels too, desiring and needing to be filled up? I've come to think that Kore'eda didn't trust his audience, or perhaps himself, enough to let the film speak for itself. He felt the need to explain it. There is a similar scene in Still Walking. After the ill-at-ease boy leaves the family's home the son observes to his mother that it seems almost cruel to invite him as he seems so uncomfortable, almost tortured by it. The mother acknowledges this and says "That's why we invite him." The scene should have cut right there but Kore'eda has the mother discourse on the necessity of this sadism.

Even with that flaw, and the fact that Still Walking doesn't present an original scenario, I still loved it. I enjoyed meeting this family. Kore'eda and the cast bring a freshness to the family drama  staple of Japanese cinema. The photography is beautiful, the direction is fluid and accomplished, the performances superb, and there is a surprisingly good amount of subtle humor throughout the film. Highly recommended to those who enjoy the slow-paced and thoughtful.

★★★★

Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
Starring: Hiroshi Abe, Yui Natsukawa, You, Kazuya Takahashi, Shohei Tanaka, Kirin Kiki
 
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Aftershock 唐山大地震 (Tang Shan Da Di Zhen) [2010] • China

This isn't a perfect film but its story is so moving that any shortcomings in the telling can easily be overlooked. When an earthquake hits Tangshan in the Hebei Province, China, in 1976 at about 3:30 in the morning, a married couple is ... well, they are having sex in the back of their truck, but that's not important. The couple rush home to rescue their sleeping children. When the mother attempts to run into the collapsing building the father throws her aside and rushes in and the building falls on him and kills him. The children are alive but buried beneath the rubble in such a way that saving one of them would crush the other. The mother has to make a choice. After much weeping and wringing of hands she chooses to save her son. Her daughter hears her mother make the choice. Ouch! The daughter is left for dead but miraculously survives. She's so hurt by her mother's decision she refuses to identify herself and is taken to an orphanage where she is eventually adopted by a young couple who were part of the People's Liberation Army's rescue team.

The first twenty minutes of the film are all about the earthquake and CGI. After that it becomes pure drama, spanning thirty two years, with some haphazard scenes cutting in from time to time. The young boy grows up to be a successful businessman and the young girl grows up to almost be a doctor but marries a foreigner and moves to Canada instead. The  boy doesn't know his sister is alive and the girl, despite the urgings of her foster father, has no intention of reuniting with her brother, or her mother. But the film is less about them and more about the mother. She is the film's emotional centerpiece.

The mother suffers long and hard for the decision she made and for the loss of her husband. She refuses to leave Tangshan because she wants to be there when the deceased return to her. She lives in a tent for a while and moves into a modest apartment when the family home is not rebuilt. Every year she visits a ceremonial site of mourning and gives her husband and daughter directions to her new place of residence.

The film builds to a crescendo culminating in 2008 with the earthquake in Sichuan. The brother and sister both go there and join the Tangshan Rescue Team as volunteers. The film drops into a low gear and downplays the moments when they meet each other and the daughter goes home to see her mother. Then there's all this tension about who should be more sorry, the mother for her decision, or the daughter for condemning and causing her mother to suffer thirty two years for that decision.

All of the performances, except the guy who plays the daughter's foreigner husband, are top notch, especially Xu Fan (the director's real life wife) as the mother. There are all kinds of wonderful and heartbreaking scenarios touching on the nature and loyalties of family. The boy's paternal grandmother wants to take custody of him because now that her own son is dead he is her last bit of male family blood. When the boy becomes a successful businessman he wants to move his mother into a nice new apartment, partly for his own notion of her happiness and partly for not wanting to be perceived as someone who is not taking care of his mother. What loyalties and affections should the daughter have towards her foster parents when she becomes an adult? And, of course, what about the daughter's decision to not let her blood family know she survived the earthquake?

I was moved to tears several times during the film but more from just thinking about the material than from any melodramatic presentation of it. Aftershock has a disjointed narrative from time to time and could probably be improved with a second round of editing. Several scenes appear to be part of something larger that got cut out, and a few scenes seem irrelevant. The director's decision to downplay the climax as long as he can is a little disappointing but it fits with the repressed emotional level of the rest of the film after the initial earthquake sequence which, as we are reminded of in a slightly awkward memorial ending that closes the film, is supposed to be its heart.

Aftershock is the first iMax film produced in China and I have no response to that fact. It has structural weaknesses but it's a magnificent and heart-rending story with a lot of legs. Highly recommended to those who like that kind of thing.

★★★★★

Director: Xiaogang Feng
Starring: Jingchu Zhang, Fan Xu, Chen Li

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The Eel うなぎ (Unagi) [1997] • Japan

I like films with a relaxed pace but this one is slow to the point of boring and its poetic undertones are silly. The story is trite: jealous man kills his wife, goes to prison, opens a barber shop in a small village when he gets out, saves a woman from suicide, she falls in love with him, people gossip, his affection remains towards his pet eel, her baggage causes him to defend her, he goes back to jail. We've seen it all before. Nothing wrong with that, per se. There are a handful of cinematically attractive moments but not enough to make the film worthwhile.

Misa Shimizu is fetching in her high-wasted slacks but never shines. Kôji Yakusho isn't given enough script or the proper direction to make his signature introspective style come alive. All of the acting seems very stilted, about the level of Tomorowo Taguchi.

And there's something very excuse-making and just plain wrong with a film that ends several times for about a half hour. Geez.

★★★

Director: Shohei Imamura
Starring: Kôji Yakusho, Misa Shimizu, Mitsuko Baisho, Akira Emoto, Fujio Tsuneta, Tomorowo Taguchi

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The Chinese Botanist's Daughters (Les Filles du botaniste) [2006] • France, China

There has to be a million movies made which ask us to sit through watching some man be a complete asshole so that we can witness the long suffering of the women around him. Often there is a subtext or symbolic undercurrent that the characters and their relationships are meant to represent. This is one such movie.

The asshole in this film is the Chinese botanist and he represents a tyrannical and repressive society. He makes ancient herbal remedies in a botanical paradise he has constructed on an island that is supposed to be somewhere in Yunnan Province, China. The long suffering woman in the film is his twenty year old daughter. She waits on him hand and foot. She cuts his toenails. She represents all that is good and new and wonderful yet shackled in the modern world.

The film has good intentions and attempts to expose some of the lingering absurdities of Chinese traditional values in general and those of the Cultural Revolution in particular. One day another young woman arrives on the island to intern with the botanist. She brings a talking bird that squawks "Long live Chairman Mao" all the time. The two women fall in love, the father sees this forbidden love in the flesh and dies of a heart attack. Really. The two young women are put to death for the crime of the disease of homosexuality that caused the death of a prized botanist.

The director wants to make a point of how fucked up the situation is but he takes it to a ridiculous extreme, much like the film's soundtrack of crescendoing choruses and violins. It's too bad because the film has a strong and very sensual visual appeal. As mentioned, the film's location is supposed to be somewhere in Yunnan, one of the most beautiful places in the world, but because of the homosexual content Chinese authorities prohibited the director from filming there. The irony. So it's filmed in Vietnam where it's green and lush and dripping wet. If all the scenes of the father being an idiot were removed The Chinese Botanist's Daughters would be a gorgeous film.

Sijie Dai, the film's writer and director, was sent to a reeducation camp as a young man during the Cultural Revolution. He's clearly exorcising demons and I would like to applaud his efforts but while the theme of The Chinese Botanist's Daughters is worthwhile the particulars are schmaltzy, unpleasant, and far too melodramatic. Dai's earlier film Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is a much better film dealing with the Cultural Revolution.

Mylène Jampanoï, who stars as the woman with the talking bird, went on to star in the French extreme horror film Martyrs.

★★

Director: Sijie Dai
Starring: Mylène Jampanoï, Xiao Ran Li, Ling Dong Fu, Wei-chang Wang

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The Isle 섬 (Seom) [2000] • South Korea

Pain is the most sincere emotion. Kim Ki-duk likes pain. He likes showing us pain. We don't question the motivation when its genesis is pain. When people speak about pain there is always room for a misunderstanding made possible by the distracting literalness of the communication. The characters in many Kim Ki-duk films never speak at all, navigating and exposing their pain with silent clarity.

This is one of the films that got me interested in East Asian cinema. I had previously seen Kim's Bad Guy and thought it was interesting, if not a great film, but it sure made me want to see more from the guy who made it.

I've gone on to see most of Kim's films and this one still stands as my favorite. I think Jung Suh's performance as the caretaker of a remote fishing village who doesn't say a word in the entire film is the strongest performance in all of Kim's films, and I think her character is one of the strongest characters that Kim has given us. Of course it's a symbiotic relationship where a good actor can make a character come alive and where a well-written character allows a good actor a chance to shine. Suh (sometimes romanized as Seo) plays the caretaker Hee-jin with a frightening intensity, and is all the more enigmatic because she never speaks. I also think this is Kim's best looking film. His background as a painter is obvious in the color composition and framing. The misty lake with the little colored cottages floating about are beautifully photographed.

As for the pain quotient, it's a toss up between this and Address Unknown. I'm not sure why Kim abuses animals in his films. I don't like it but it's not enough for me to ignore his work. And it's not really where the pain comes from in this film. The infamous fishhook scenes are obviously a source of physical pain but there's also the emotional pain we witness between Hee-jin and the man who killed his girlfriend and has come to her fishing village to hide, or die if that doesn't work out. There's murder, rape, and multiple suicide attempts and I'm not sure that Kim's isn't presenting all of this with a little bit of tongue in his cheek. Kim is someone who works in the extreme, that's for sure.

The ending of the film, where the man swims into the weeds which in turn become the pubic hair of Hee-jin lying naked in the boat, suggesting a metaphorical attempt to return to the womb, is a little silly. Many see this as tacked on for some crazy reason and would have preferred the film end with the two of them floating downstream together. I don't think the extra, symbolic, ending is necessary but I also don't think it ruins the film. Great films succeed in spite of their weaknesses. The ending may be weak but this is a great film.

★★★★★

Director: Ki-duk Kim
Starring: Jung Suh, Yoosuk Kim, Sung-hee Park, Jae-hyeon Jo, Hang-Seon Jang

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Go Lala Go! (Du Lala sheng zhi ji) [2010] • China

I enjoy Xu Jinglei as an actress and think her move to behind the camera has shown lots of promise. I wish I didn't have to report that her latest film is a disappointment. To be fair, it's a disappointment because it's not what I expected from her. Go Lala Go!, in which she stars and directs, has none of the depth or artistry of Letter From an Unknown Woman or My Father and I. Go Lala Go! is about promotion hungry corporate trash, and it's pure popcorn fluff, hyper-kinetic and full of fashionable costuming, hairstyles, and product placement.

But is it good popcorn fluff? I'm not sure but I'm inclined to say no. It did very well at the box office (in China, in case that's not clear) and there's probably a reason. First of all, it's solidly within the constraints of the Chinese Film Bureau's guidelines of what kinds of stories should be told and what kinds of messages are permitted. Specifically, with regards to rewarding foul play, there's none of that. Lala's rise up the corporate ladder is entirely the result of good honest hard work. Yes, she sleeps with a high level big shot Director of Sales but it's for love, not strategy, and the film shows it as problematic. In fact, inter-office relationships are a major theme in the movie. A blind eye is sometimes turned but for the most part they are considered not a good or acceptable idea.

Another reason for its success may be that it puts on display all the name brands and fashionable accessories many millions of Chinese feel they are fairly close to partying with. Even though us educated capitalists are hip to that myth, there's a younger generation of Chinese that is probably tired of, or uninterested in films that wallow in a prideful past and they want to dream about a possible future instead. That's all fine and good, and maybe I shouldn't rush to judgement. Xu Jinglei has given the masses what they want. Good for her. She made some money, hopefully.

There's some cultural interest for non-Chinese in Go Lala Go!, but as a film it's thin and a little too chaotic. The chaotic part seems intentional. It's almost as if Xu discovered downloadable iMovie Transitions and went nuts. The direction is strong, consistent, and assured, but it's a style I don't fancy even if it serves its content well. There are some decent comedic bits, Xu possessing a courageous inclination for the self-deprecating, and some of the love geometry is OK, but it's all stirred in very quickly, giving the sense that it's not important. Scenes just sort of smash into one another. Karen Mok is fun and she still has great legs but the American-Taiwanese pop star Stanley Huang as Lala's love interest didn't do much for me. There's some nice scenery when they all vacation on the beaches of Thailand, but not much to the story.

I still can't wait to see what she does next.

★★

Director: Jinglei Xu
Starring: Jinglei Xu, Stanley Huang, Karen Mok

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Woman of Water (Mizu no onna) [2002] • Japan

A very nice looking indie art house film that seems like it might roll over and play dead at any minute but never does. It also never really gets up and goes anywhere either, which is fine because films that are nice to sit back and look at might as well move along at a leisurely pace. Woman of Water is a bunch of pretentious, metaphorical poetry about man and woman and fire and water fueling a story about a woman who runs a bath house and whose intense emotional states are always accompanied by rain and the arsonist whom she hires to stoke the fires that keep her bath water warm.

The film stars singer UA (pronounced "oowa") in her first movie role and gains a lot of art house credibility by pairing her with Japanese heartthrob Asano Tadanobu. They both get naked a bunch of times so it's a gawker's paradise as far as these things go. Even though UA is playing water her dark sensuality is more earthy than watery and her sex appeal is more ethereal than liquid. Born Kaori Shima, her stage name UA is Swahili for flower or kill. She's not idol-of-the-month beautiful by a long shot, more mysterious and a little worn looking with a well-grounded and tough charisma. She does fine in her acting debut even though her main responsibility lies in being photographed well more than exercising any major thespian chops.

Don't go into this one hoping for any strength of narrative. It's meandering and opaque. Both of the characters have baggage in their past meant to give the film some emotional appeal but it might as well be a silent movie with the freewheeling and oblique way the plot develops, mixing dreams, fantasies, deja vu, and visual metaphors in equal measure. This one is for fans of art house esoterica only.

★★★★

Director: Hidenori Sugimori
Starring: UA, Tadanobu Asano, Hikaru, Yutaka Enatsu, Ryûichi Ôura

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This Charming Girl 여자, 정혜 (Yeoja, Jeong-hye) [2004] • South Korea

I sat for two hours loving this woman, and feeling sorry for her, hoping for her. That's what is supposed to happen when you watch a well-executed character study.

If you were to look up "boring art house film" in some film dictionary you might find the plot synopsis for This Charming Girl listed as the definition: The film follows Jung-hye’s quiet life and reveals the landscape of the character’s inner feelings.

Jung-hye has forged her own life out of simplicity and solitude as the result of some trauma earlier in her life. The film doesn't focus on what that trauma is or how Jung-hye may eventually resolve it. Instead, it focuses on the mundane life she has made for herself as a result. We watch her feed her cat, cook herself meals, go to a job at an uneventful workplace, go shopping for shoes. This is not an action movie. It's an extremely slow burn that leads to one very intense scene which involves a knife. It's an intense scene not because anything crazy happens but because we can see all of the repressed emotions inside this woman come boiling to the surface. And we can see this happening because Kim Ji-Su's performance is nothing short of phenomenal.

No use going into more detail about the events of the film. It's better to see them for yourself. If you like well-written, well-acted, meticulously directed character studies This Charming Girl is one of the best ones out there. Even though it is art house to the max, there isn't a pretentious moment in the film.

★★★★★

Director: Yoon-ki Lee
Starring: Jeong-min Hwang, Ji-su Kim, Mi-seong Kim

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M [2006] • Japan

A whole lot of twisted psycho-sexual drama going on here. A young woman has this made up story in her head about when she was a kid and her neighbor's father shagged her mom inducing her to start dating the boy next door as an excuse to be close to the father, but when the boy finds out the truth of her motivation he kills his mom and dad and she feels complicit. To atone for this Freudian guilt over something that didn't happen she takes on a Yakuza pimp, in that fucked up way that people do, to mistreat and abuse her, in that fucked up way that people do. We are given the possibility that all of these things are just fantasies of the young woman's impotent but well-meaning husband, but so what? What if? Doesn't change much of the experience for the viewer.

Meanwhile, a young man who really did kill his own father, and participated in a gang rape of his mother, wants to save the young woman from the Yakuza pimp so a bunch of drama takes place amongst the three of them. The whole thing comes off less like an exploration of psycho-sexual weirdness or repressed and imagined memories, and more like a director's fantasy of seeing how far he can go in abusing a young actress. Kinda creepy, imo.

Single-name actress Miwon, undoubtedly a pseudonym, is quite fetching as the protagonist, exuding a screen presence that's both strong and vulnerable. This is her only screen credit so I'll wonder out loud if she has acted, or is acting, under a different name, or if the experience of making this film put a great big damper on any hopes she had of making it a career.

Director Ryuichi Hiroki's extensive filmography is all over the place. From soft-core pink films to highly regarded film festival winners like Vibrator and It's Only Talk to innocent young love stories like April Bride and the Love on Sunday films. He's pretty good at what he does but I think he goes a little far here in heaping on the abuse without enough consideration of real reasons for why it's happening.

★★★

Director: Ryuichi Hiroki
Starring:
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The Human Centipede (First Sequence) [2009] • Netherlands, UK

My take on this beast. Kudos for the attempt to take horror to a place horror hasn't been before; props to Dieter Laser for being one of the creepier bad guys we've seen in a while; respect to director Tom six for employing some restraint, after the initial premise of course, in what he shows and how he shows it.

For those who don't already know, this is a film about a surgeon who stitches three human victims, a man and two women, together anus to mouth creating a human centipede, with a marketing kicker that this procedure is 100% medically accurate and possible. The film is fairly clean, not too explicit in its horror. Six could have had the three victims be naked instead of wearing diapers, and had the last one shit all over the place and have them wallow in it, but he didn't. The two women are topless but through the use of controlled camera angles there is very little boobage on display. One of the women is flat-chested, which says a lot about what Six wants to give his audience.

Dieter Laser is pretty menacing and spooky as the surgeon but he doesn't have a very good script to work with so half the time he comes off as over-acting and kind of dumb. The rest of the cast, including the centipede people (two of them with variations on the name Ashley, for crying out loud), is pretty weak. The cinematography is crisp but the rest of the mechanics of film making aren't that great, mostly having to do with weaknesses in the script and direction. Little things, like when the two girls show up soaking wet in a rain storm at the surgeon's big, beautiful, immaculately clean house they just traipse in with their muddy feet and plop down on his big, beautiful, immaculately clean sofa. How does the centipede get up and down from a table so easily some times and with extreme difficulty in others? And of course there are many standard B-movie bad decisions by the victims sprinkled throughout.

The Human Centipede (First Sequence) isn't a complete flop by any means but it's not a very good film as far as films go. I don't think it will really disgust anybody who knows what it's about and willingly goes to see it, but I also don't think it will satisfy many people who go in wanting a lot more than it delivers unless they are so hung up and in love with the concept of the film they forget to actually watch it. Most important, I don't think the film leaves a lasting impression ... any more than just the thought of the film initially does.

★★★

Director:Tom Six
Starring: Akihiro Kitamura, Dieter Laser, Andreas Leupold, Ashley C. Williams, Ashlynn Yennie
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Moon and Cherry 月とチェリー (Tsuki to Cherry) aka Electric Button [2004] • Japan

Noriko Eguchi is one of my favorite actresses. She's had small parts in nearly fifty films in eight years. What's remarkable is that most of them have been reasonably high profile and critically well received, suggesting she has good intuition when it comes to selecting roles, and many of them are at the hands of Japan's best directors, suggesting they have good intuition when it comes to casting. She's not a box office draw, being much more a character actor than any idol-of-the-moment type, but she helps elevate every film she's in. Whenever she's onscreen she always appears smarter, stronger, deeper, and a little more enigmatic than everyone around her.

It's almost as if director Yuki Tanada wrote her first feature length film, Moon and Cherry, with Eguchi in mind. The film centers on the machinations of Mayama, played by Eguchi, as a member of a university erotic literature writing club. Mayama, its only female member, is the most talented and respected of the group because she's already been published, albeit under a male pseudonym. She's had sex with all but one of the other members of the group and uses the experiences as fodder for her writings. The film kicks into gear when a younger student, Tadokoro, joins the group. He immediately impresses the male members of the group with his knowledge of female anatomy, but just as he is swimming in their praise and accolades, Mayama walks in and says "Yeah, but you're a virgin." Experienced women can sense these things and Tadokoro is busted. Thus begins the intriguing gender role reversal story that is Moon and Cherry.

Mayama knows Tadokoro will make for good material so she takes him home to create some copy. The deflowering scene is controlled by Eguchi with aplomb, and in a moment of directorial panache, while Mayama is performing fellatio, we see Tadokoro biting his lip to the point of drawing blood. I don't need to spell out the brilliance of that metaphor. As soon as Mayama pops Tadokoro's cherry she jumps out of bed and starts writing. Tadokoro is befuddled but doesn't complain too much. As the relationship grows, Mayama sees Tadokoro's inexperience as an opportunity to try new things like sending an S&M dominatrix to his apartment and then demanding Tadokoro tell her all about it. She invites herself, followed by a pre-paid prostitute, to his place and then hides in his closet to watch the two of them go at it.

The only problem with completing this attempt at full on role reversal is the fact that Mayama is one of those women that men lose their minds over. There's no escaping that. Mayama has sex with Tadokoro in bed, on the floor, in the park, against a vending machine, but in between these events she disappears from his life. Tadokoro is torn but wants to make better use of his new found experience so he starts a relationship with a sweet and attractive co-worker, Akane, who serves as juxtaposition to Mayama. This sort of turns the film back on itself but I don't consider it a shortcoming at all.

Moon and Cherry is a very well-acted, creative and intelligent film that takes a different look at love, sex, and relationships. It's a low budget indie film shot on digital video as part of a Love Connections series of 2004 and it's a welcome opportunity to see the marvelous Noriko Eguchi star in a film. It's a smashing feature debut from writer/director Yuki Tanada who's gone on to script the female and visual extravaganza, Sakuran; write and direct Yû Aoi in One Million Yen and the Nigamushi Woman; and most recently write and direct the small masterpiece, Ain't No Tomorrows which I'll be reviewing soon.

A final shout out to newcomer Tasuku Nagaoka who plays Tadokoro with an awkwardly genuine sincerity. He's young and frail but never lets you think he won't make it, impressive in holding his own in scenes with the powerful Eguchi.

This could be a five star film but I don't think it wants to be. It wants to remain small and intimate. And independent. And even though it's one of the better films in recent memory, considered one of The Best of the Decade by a couple of the folks at Midnight Eye, I'm going to respect its wishes and give it four stars (with a stealth fifth star in the labels).

★★★★

Director: Yuki Tanada
Starring: Noriko Eguchi, Akira Emoto, Tasuku Nagaoka
Midnight Eye

Yoga Class 요가학원 (Yoga Hakwom) [2009] • South Korea

The premise starts off well enough. Gather up a handful of South Korea's pretty, young starlets ... erm, actresses, seal them in a beautiful yet dark and creepy castle and have them do yoga. Film it. That might have been a decent watch if they'd left it at that. Problem is, films need a story, some plot, and at least a little character development. Yoga Class doesn't do very well in those departments. And there's not enough Yoga.

The story is: five women sign up for this secret yoga class which promises eternal youthful beauty to the one of them that does the best. The plot is: there are rules they must follow, some of them break the rules and they get killed. The character development is: make one a yuppie who is being pushed out of her job by a younger yuppier girl; one an attention whore bitch; one a previously fat person who still has crazy cravings; one a goofy twit for an attempt at comic relief; and one completely without personality. Then make the rules they must abide by fit perfectly to each of their weakness, like no mirrors, no contact with the outside world, no unauthorized food ... you get the screenplay 101 picture.

The castle is beautiful, the women are mostly good looking, and some of the kills are bloody enough, but it is not possible to care about anything that happens in the film because the characters are unpleasant cliches and their projects and concerns not worthwhile.

★★

Director: Jae-Yeon
Starring: Eugene, Cha Su-Yeon, Park Han-Byeol, Jo Eun-ji, Lee Young-Jin, Kim Hye-Na, Hwang Seung-Eon
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Sakuran さくらん [2006] • Japan

Sure is colorful. There's a lot to write about when discussing this film but very little of it has to do with the story: In eighteenth-century Japan, a young girl is sold to a brothel by her mother; she's rebellious and tries to escape all the time; she's more talented and beautiful than all the other girls (suspension of disbelief required); she becomes an oiran (in the hierarchy of prostitutes, sort of like a four-star general in the army).

It's not that the story is bad or unimportant, it's that everything else about the film screams "Look at me! Look at me!" The sets and costuming, the soundtrack, and the casting of a mixed-race Polish/Japanese version of Courtney Love in the lead role all go against type. And one cannot help but notice that this is not Memoirs of a Geisha. Insight from the nearly sixty second montage of naked female breasts near the beginning of the film might be missed if one doesn't notice that the director Mika Ninagawa, the art director Namiko Iwashiro, the music director Ringo Shiina, the producer Chikako Nakabayashi, the scriptwriter Yuki Tanada, and the artist of the original manga Moyoco Anno are all women.

The film is beautiful to look at, if a little over-indulgent at times. No attempt is made to be true to the period. I don't speak Japanese, and subtitles are always deficient in nuance, but I'm sure the dialog is straight off the streets of contemporary Tokyo and not in any Edo period parlance. I'm not generally a fan of costume dramas or period pieces so on the one hand I was interested in seeing this modernized production, but on the other hand I felt a sense of incongruity while watching it. The bold colors of the sets and costumes didn't bother me but the soundtrack is a little odd. Not so much in the style—which swims through many modern genres of pop, rock, and jazz—as in the reverb. The music often doesn't sound like it is in the same size room as the action that is taking place. I like Ringo Shiina's music, have a few of her solo CDs and those of Tokyo Jihen, the band she also plays in. It's not that I think the music is bad, or that it is too terribly out of place. I think the sound design could have been better, and I think that some of the folks who find the soundtrack a little jarring would be less put off by it if more attention had been paid to the overall sound design.

Finally, I was not won over by Anna Tsuchiya in the lead role. I'm sure casting her was a well-thought out conscious decision by the director and I also, in theory, think she fits the package the director was trying to deliver. It's not that she doesn't look 'traditionally' Japanese, whatever that is. And it's not that she lacks a certain elegance I've come to expect of these types of characters, although I'm not surprised by the omission of her doing any of the arty things these pre-geisha geisha types were supposed to be fluent in like music, poetry, dancing, or witty conversation. It might be that she just isn't a very good actress. These rock star cum actress types often possess great charisma that passes itself off as good acting in the right context. I'm not sure this is one of them. I hope I haven't spoiled it for potential viewers by bringing up Courtney Love, but that's what it felt like to me, a little vulgar and somewhere between disappointing and distracting. Tsuchiya is a lot more attractive in her own musical environment than she is in this film. I just didn't buy her as a sophisticated beauty who rises to the top. Maybe I'm just upset that Yoshino Kimura is given short-shrift in the fake eyelash department or that the truly beautiful and engaging Miho Kanno is dispatched with too early in the film.

★★★

Director: Mika Ninagawa
Starring: Anna Tsuchiya, Yoshino Kimura, Miho Kanno, Kippei Shiina, Hiroki Narimiya, Masanobu Ando, Renji Ishibashi
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The Clone Returns Home クローンは故郷をめざす [2009] • Japan

I'll start right off saying I'm not equipped to properly review this film but since my modus operandi here is not to review films as much as react to them, I'll indulge myself. I'm not much of a science fiction fan but I love Hiromi Nagasaku so I checked this one out. The Clone Returns Home (aka The Clone Returns to the Homeland) is a heady, metaphorical, poetic, extremely slow and beautiful film. There aren't a bunch of fancy gadgets or spaceships, nor aliens running around. The only reason to call this "sci-fi" is the photographic tweak to things that makes it feel like it's in the future (it is), and the fact that the main protagonist is an astronaut and his spacesuit plays a big role in the film. And, well ... there's the science.

The Clone Returns Home explores the notion of identity by way of cloning and it spends a good deal of expositional time discussing it and the ethical milieu it exists in. It also spends a good deal of non-expositional time observing some guy carry around a spacesuit.

Kohei is an astronaut who dies while on a mission in outer space. His company can legally clone him, complete with all his memories and feelings, as a sort of insurance reimbursement. His wife (Nagasaku) is a little freaked out by this notion, and thus begins the exploration of identity. Things get complicated when Kohei's memory bank seems to get filled back up only to a point in his childhood when his identical twin brother died while trying to rescue him from drowning at a fishing hole. At first I thought it was kind of cheap to use identical twins who, we learn through flashbacks, as children often tried to pass themselves off for one another, as the starting point in an exploration of identity. Even more so when this developmentally stunted clone goes missing and the company decides to clone him again, essentially making an identical twin clone. But then I realized the director wasn't trying to make a solid argument or theory about identity (or cloning) as much as trying to cook up a complex stew of ideas and invite the viewers in to sample all the spices. Just as it takes a connoisseur to fully appreciate the complexities of a fine wine, it will take a hardcore sci-fi fan to get her head around all that's being explored in this film. It's not for casual viewers. I couldn't begin to tell you who is in the spacesuit (which appears to be empty half the time), or who is carrying around whom. The film's glacially slow pace, meant to give the viewer time to savor the ingredients of the film as a whole and the spacesuit in particular, will not play well at the mall.

If I were a sci-fi junkie, especially one who enjoyed the heady and intellectual, I might give The Clone Returns Home five stars. But I'm not, so I give it three ... which means your mileage may vary.

★★★

Director:
Starring: Mitsuhiro Oikawa, Eri Ishida, Hiromi Nagasaku, Kyusaku Shimada, Ryô Tsukamoto
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The Sea is Watching 海は見ていた (Umi wa miteita) [2002] • Japan

The Sea is Watching starts off as an attractive film; rich colors, effective photography, nice framing, fetching prostitutes. Then it goes melodrama, followed by silly, culminating in corny which brought a smile to my face before the surreal kicked in. It never stops looking good, though. I give it high marks for that.

There's nothing particularly new or groundbreaking story-wise, but it is a charming, sometimes funny, bittersweet tale of the inhabitants of a samurai-era brothel whose entire district ends up under water. Plot-wise it focuses on the love lives of two of the working girls: Kikuno (Misa Shimizu) plays an elder to the younger girls and enjoys being the object of pursuit, never giving in to the suitors who want to take care of her and take her for their very own; and Oshin (Nagiko Tono) who, against the advice of those around her, seems to fall in love with every one of her clients. One of them, a sweet samurai type, visits her often and convinces her that her "fallen soul" and "soiled body" can become pure again—just like a person's hair, nails, and teeth fall out and grow back. "A body can become pure again ... it would be too horrible for words if it weren't true".

Oshin is the main protagonist of the film and is meant to give it an emotional center as her heart breaks and yearns, but it never quite happens. Although Shimizu and Tono give good performances, overall the acting is not one of the film's high points. I recommend the film to those wanting a taste of historical Japanese culture and who enjoy quiet films about love, loss, and friendship. Yes, the ladies are prostitutes but they have feelings too.

★★★

Director: Kei Kumai
Starring: Misa Shimizu, Nagiko Tôno, Masatoshi Nagase, Hidetaka Yoshioka, Miho Tsumiki
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Love in a Puff 志明與春嬌 (Chi ming yu chun giu) [2010] • Hong Kong

A foul-mouthed little romance here. Lots of f-bombs and dick or boob jokes tossed around to try and elevate this fairly standard rom-dramedy from the pack. It's not too offensive or juvenile and it's shame to have to get it through subtitles. I'm sure the original Cantonese is more subtle and euphemism based, and crude is always more palatable when it's subtle or funny. Love in a Puff has a CAT III rating and it's not for nudity or all the cigarette smoking.

The premise of Love in a Puff is one all cigarette smokers will be familiar with. The "smoke break" is a time to bond with co-workers or friends, to make plans and share stories, and, in this case, tell dirty jokes and gossip. It's also an opportunity to massage in baby steps a possibly romantic relationship. There's a lot less "Is this a date?" pressure than even just meeting for coffee. There's a pre-determined end time and it comes quickly. If things aren't going well the suffering is short-lived and if there is a spark you'll leave wanting more. Always a good thing.

Zoom out from the premise and Love in a Puff makes many observations on modern SMS-based relationships, budding and otherwise. Something I learned, and put to use, from this film is if you type "i n 55!W !" (without the quotes) into a text message your recipient might see it as some nonsense code, but if they turn their phone upside down it will read "i miss u !". How cute. And appropriately enough, that little tidbit is the catalyst for a couple of the larger emotional transitions in the film.

I like small films like this, the cinematic equivalent, if you will, of a smoke break. Without aiming too high it's easy to hit its mark. It's well acted, and well scripted for the most part, and doesn't veer from its target too often, which is following the seven day courtship of Cherie (Miriam Yeung) and Jimmy (Shawn Yue). Yeung is especially crisp in her performance. There's a wonderful little "no shit!" moment near the end of the film when the two of them are in a small battle about who they are and what kind of relationship they're in and Cherie declares "I'm simple and straightforward". She is.

My only quibble with the film is an unavoidable one. To go from "My name's Cherie", through moving out of the premises and bond of one relationship, to "I'm simple and straightforward" in seven days requires a brisk pace. Maybe that's the way it is these days. There is a time or two where it seems like a little exposition might have ended up on the cutting room floor but maybe things are clearer in the original language and subtitles short of an essay couldn't translate it. Most of the screen time is devoted to the main protagonists, garnished with a handful of side characters and set pieces that don't detract from the lit up screen chemistry required of all good Rom-Coms and provided by Yeung and Yue. All in all a fun time was had with Love in a Puff.

★★★★

Director:
Starring:
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Her Island, My Island (Fune o oritara kanojo no shima) 船を降りたら彼女の島 Getting Off the Boat at Her Island [2003] • Japan

Lots of beautiful scenery of Matsuyama, Ehime, Japan but a few too many long scenes of people just standing there looking at it. There is also nothing particularly cinematic about the cinematography so it just spills across the screen at the level of an average tourist video.

For the sentimental nostalgic types the story might be a compelling one. Kuriko (Yoshino Kimura) grew up on the island but left for Tokyo as soon as she graduated high school. At twenty-five she's about to be married and returns to the island for the first time in two years to soak in and remember all that was wonderful about it before finally leaving it fully behind. Something I found a little strange is that her father doesn't recognize her when she shows up. It has only been two years since her last visit and her father is not losing his mind or anything. I think this bit of non-recognition is meant to be metaphorical, emphasizing the fact that Koriko is now a city girl more than an island girl.

Kimura plays the part well and there are a number of attempts in the script to create an emotional connection with the viewer but most of them come up short. Kuriko's father's character is the typical silent type so communication is difficult. Her mom is efficient and cheerful. There's a burly fisherman who still has a crush on Kuriko who Kuriko uses to take her to find her long lost friend whom she bonded deeply with as a teenager. He turns up dead. We've seen all these tropes before.

Finally, the english subtitles leave a lot to be desired, making things difficult to follow at times.

★★

Director: Itsumichi Isomura
Starring: Yoshino Kimura, Ren Ôsugi, Naoko Otani, Shouei, Kuranosuke Sasaki
IMDb
Japan Times 

A Piece of Our Life カケラ (Kakera) [2010] • Japan

In the "Making of" documentary on the Love Exposure DVD director Sono Sion says to Hikari Mitsushima, “You’re an actress. You’re supposed to move us. Move us, you idiot!” She must have taken it to heart. She was great in Love Exposure and she's the main reason I like this film. She doesn't have a lot of dialog in A Piece of Our Life but she is constantly communicating, through body language and projecting her internals. That's something good actors do.

A Piece of Our Life is a story about two very different young women who end up spending time together. It's not a lesbian love story. There are no make-out scenes or naked bodies entwined in soft focus. No politics. The two protagonists just happen to be women. That's a healthy notion and could have made for a much better movie if one of the women didn't actually discourse about it. "It's not about if you're a man or a woman. You should have someone who you think feels good" might sound like words of wisdom but to me they sound like words from a director who is afraid her audience won't get it unless she spells it out.

There are many subtle and wonderful details in A Piece of Our Life, such as when Riko (Eriko Nakamura), the aggressive and confident one, asks Haru (Hikari Mitsushima) if she liked their "kiss for friendship" and Haru says "No" and the scene cuts away. Haru's response isn't one of objection or disgust. It's simple and honest, even if born a bit from surprise. There are also a few details which are just plain wrong, such as why does the quiet woman, who's probably never imagined dating another woman before, have to start out being in a relationship with an asshole, a guy with terrible table manners who uses her only for sex while he openly has another girlfriend on the side? That seems like a cheap and lazy juxtaposition against Riko's declaration that she likes women because "they're soft and cuddly, and they smell nice". It snuggles up to close to the tired idea that women only choose other women after they've become thoroughly disgusted by disgusting men.

I also think Riko's character was a lot smarter than the way she acts every time the couple interacts with a third party: when Haru's (ex)boyfriend comes over; when a man approaches Haru in the nightclub; when Riko shows up at Haru's university party. Riko acts childish and jealous. This seems at odds with the maturity Riko shows when dealing with her other girlfriend: "I can't fulfill the hollow you have in your heart".

There are a lot of things to like about this film. It's got a simple, honest, and wonderful vision which it explores with some effectiveness, and the two lead performances are outstanding. But it could have been a really, really great film instead of a really good one if it would have practiced what it preaches and left out more of the stuff we've seen, heard, and grown tired of before.

Momoko Ando is a young director to keep an eye on. A Piece of Our Life is one of the best and brightest films I've seen recently. My criticisms are born of a frustration that the director came just short of making an other-worldly masterpiece by adding in elements she just wanted to make a point of rather than letting the world of the film dictate the boundaries. 

Just shy of five:

★★★★

Director: Momoko Andô
Starring: Hikari Mitsushima, Eriko Nakamura, Ken Mitsuishi, Tasuku Nagaoka, Rino Katase

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Millennium Mambo 千禧曼波 (Qianxi manbo) [2001] • Taiwan

I can only imagine that at some point Hsiao-Hsien Hou found himself with a mad crush on Shu Qi and decided to make a film for her, or of her ... or to her ... or something. People can quibble all day long on whether Hou's anti-cinema springs from genius or pretention, but a film like this ought to be able to escape such discussion because it's really nothing more than a love poem to, or of, or for ... or something ... a beautiful actress. This is a Shu Qi vehicle from top to bottom and the film rests on her shoulders, in her hair, on her lips, in her eyes, on her hips, and everywhere else about her über-photogenic self. Marry that to the fact that one of the best cinematographers in the business, Mark "Ping Bing" Lee is shooting this film and you're going to end up with gorgeous. Add a contemporary throbbing techno soundtrack and you get a hypnotic, slow, empty, and depressing film that's pretty close to cool.

I happen to think Shu Qi is a fine and very intelligent actress. I also like slow, empty, and depressing arthouse films if the characters appeal to me so everything works out as far as I'm concerned. If you don't like Shu Qi you probably won't like this film. There's no real plot to speak of and only a thin story about a woman who likes to hang out in nightclubs, smokes a LOT, does drugs and has crummy sex with her loser boyfriend, meets a gangster, loses a gangster ... fade to black. Awesome.

★★★★

Director: Hsiao-Hsien Hou
Starring: Shu Qi, Jack Kao, Chun-hao Tuan, Yi-Hsuan Chen, Jun Takeuchi
IMDb
Beyond Hollywood

Nobody to Watch Over Me 誰も守ってくれない (Dare mo mamotte kurenai) [2008] • Japan

This film starts with a title card message saying "In the event a minor commits a serious criminal offense police authorities may seek to shield the minor's family from excessive media scrutiny and public hostility. The protection is given to prevent members of the accused's family from taking their own lives in response to the trauma."

Some eighteen year boy is hauled off for allegedly killing two grade school children. The media is all over his house. The cops are too. One cop is assigned to protect the boy's fifteen year old sister. He made a mistake in the past and has a shaky hand. He's two days away from taking a vacation to save his marriage. Yawn. A reporter is gonna make his life hell. Stupid plot. Even stupider is when the reporter confronts the cop and tells him the fifteen year old girl should be killed as punishment for what her brother did. And then they show internet messages going around calling for the death of the little girl. Oh, and the mother kills herself in her bathroom while twenty cops sit around not protecting her. The cop protecting the little girl takes her to his shrink's house so we can get more scoop on his problems. He then goes back to the little girl's house to get her cell phone because she said she would be embarrassed if the cops read her email. Not like any of the twenty cops already there might have found it or thought it might be useful as evidence. The cop brings it back to the girl and one of her friends calls her up and says "Bummer your mom committed suicide, huh?"

This movie is so full of stupid I switched it off halfway through. People will claim that this is a side of Japanese culture westerners don't know about. I say prove it. The fact that everything else about this film is so dumb I have no reason to believe the part about the press and public calling for the death of the little girl to be representative of anything but nonsense and bad writing. The parents, maybe. But the little girl? I'm not buying it.

This was Japan's official entry to the Oscars. WTF?

★

IMDb

Funuke Show Some Love, You Losers! 腑抜けども、悲しみの愛を見せろ (Funuke domo, kanashimi no ai wo misero) [2007] • Japan

This is what Japanese cinema is all about: A good title, twisted family drama, black humor that hurts more than it tickles, a little sexual deviance, beautiful women. Funuke Show Some Love, You Losers! has it all.

The films starts with a gruesome bus accident that kills the parents of siblings Shinji, Sumika, and Kiyomi. Kiyomi, an aspiring manga artist, witnesses it and decides the images would make good material for her next project. Four years ago, in their countryside home, elder sister Sumika (Eriko Sato) carved a checkerboard into her father's forehead because he wouldn't finance her dream of moving to Tokyo to become an actress. She turned to prostitution. Younger sister Kiyomi (Aimi Satsukawa) used her sister's actions as manga material and got it published. Sumika, in shame, left for Tokyo. The two sisters have not gotten along since. The death of the parents comes at a good time for Sumika who hasn't made it as an actress and is deeply in debt. She returns to her country homestead in the hopes of collecting some inheritance but finds out there isn't any. The rest of the story, although intricately woven, is not important here. Suffice to say the three siblings have deep dark secrets and rivalries that come boiling to the surface. It's the performances that make this film so good.

Robo-babe, pin-up girl, horror queen, and Cutie Honey: Live Action star Eriko Sato gives the performance of her career as the relentlessly cruel and self-absorbed Sumika. Sometimes a role is just made for someone, and Sato takes this one and runs with it. Aimi Satsukawa brings wonderful pathos to the asthmatic, innocent yet deeply disturbed, Kiyomi. Veteran actor Masatoshi Nagase is solid and creepy as the brother who's gone where brothers are not supposed to go with sister Sumika. Sato is the star of the film and the whole thing would be unbearably dark and cruel if it weren't for the hilarious and wholesome performance of Hiromi Nagasaku as Shinji's wife, Machiko. Shinji procured Machiko via a marriage agency and Machiko, wanting to escape the demands and false hopes of the city thinks she will settle nicely into the lives of some good ol' down home country folk. Oops. Nagasaku, deservedly, has won multiple awards for her performance. She elevates every film she is in and this one is no exception. She plays the straight man to all the morbid cruelty going on around her. Her Machiko is as much of a failure as everyone else but she hasn't learned to take it out on others. She just wants everyone to get along.

Funuke Show Some Love, You Losers! takes the theme of dysfunctional family drama and wrings it dry. If you like your humor dark and cruel, punctuated with double-takes that are sweet, wholesome, and absurd, you'll love this movie.

★★★★★

Director: Daihachi Yoshida
Starring: Eriko Sato, Aimi Satsukawa, Hiromi Nagasaku, Masatoshi Nagase, Seiji Nozoe
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Sada 戯作・阿部定の生涯 [1998] • Japan

Forget that this is another entry in the dramatization of Sada Abe's life and crime of killing her lover and cutting off his man-parts, most infamously portrayed in the sexually explicit In the Realm of the Senses, and ignore all the commentary that molds the story into a historical and social context for your academic pleasure, and never mind that these kinds of stories always start off with the girl being raped as a teenager. All those things involve too much thinking. Just kick back and enjoy this as another odd but fairly well-executed film by director Nobuhiko Obayashi.

The first things you'll notice about the film are the narrative and filmic techniques used by Obayashi. Characters break the Fourth Wall; there's a mix of black & white and color photography which is interesting and useful some times and random at others; some jump-cut editing use is mostly abandoned after the first act; the costuming, both traditional and modern, is gorgeous; there's a fabulous stop-motion sequence in the middle that starts with Sada reading a book while her lover sits near her having a snack, they do the hanky-panky and then resume their initial activities, and there are several moments of Keystone Kops style comedy. After that you should find it to be a fascinating character study of a strong and intelligent woman.

Hitomi Kuroki is amazing as Sada. Her characterization remains a constant as she effortlessly transitions through the varied styles of presentation Obayashi employs. She is always elegant, beautiful, sensuous, and in control. She is also very genuine, which comes off as quite sexy. (For the curious, there is zero nudity in this version of the story, not even a glimpse of Sada's notoriously cute butt. The closest we get, in a brilliant directorial move, is an odd-angled, extreme close-up of her fully kimonoed posterior. There are lots of bare shoulders and legs, and there are several sex scenes but they are mostly played either artfully or comically.)

Sada may serve it's nominal content respectfully and respectably but it comes off so much more as a film than a biography that if it's approached with an educational curiosity its style may frustrate. Watch it for the whimsical stylings of the director and the lovely and remarkable performance of Hitomi Kuroki.

★★★★

Director: Nobuhiko Obayashi
Starring: Hitomi Kuroki, Kataoka Tsutaro, Miki Norihei, Shiina Kippei, Negishi Toshie, Renji Ishibashi
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Switching - Goodbye Me 転校生 -さよなら あなた- (Tenkôsei: Sayonara anata) [2007] • Japan

It cracks me up the way the Japanese (and the Koreans do this too), concoct these un-named, incurable diseases and then treat them as just another plot point, no big deal really. Someone dies here, but this information isn't really a spoiler because it doesn't matter. It's not what the movie is about. Switching - Goodbye Me is the story of two fifteen year old kids, a boy and a girl, who switch bodies and learn about themselves, their relationships, and love. It's a theme that's been done before. In fact, Switching - Goodbye Me is a remake by the same director of a very well received film he made in 1982 called I Are You, You Am Me (Tenkosei).

Switching - Goodbye Me is filled with beautiful cinematography that seems a pay grade above the level of film it's operating in. The acting is all very good, especially from the two teenagers gender-hopping as the leads, and the script is quirky smart. I was a little surprised by the very casual but to-the-point dialog about nuts and boobs and "body parts that change shape" when you touch them. Not because I don't think fifteen year old kids talk about these things but because these two fifteen year old kids are presented as something close to the epitome of innocence. That's the beauty of this film. It's somewhat skewed all the way through. Even the camera angles are all mostly from off the horizontal plane. And the typically Japanese ability to hurl fast-paced absurd dialog at you with a straight face makes for an odd yet peaceful roller-coaster ride.

The first hour of the film is pretty much comedy, turning a bit more dramatic for the second hour. The ending is a slow fizzle which attempts to wrap things up with an upbeat message when it really just rolls over and plays dead. But it doesn't matter. Unless you know for sure you don't like movies about teenagers, I highly recommend this film. It's a family film with a subversive yet sweet underbelly. Kids will get the weirdness and parents will never feel like things have gone too far. The characters are well-developed and likable and it's a very good looking film. A final shout out to both of the teenage actors. They do a remarkable job of channeling the opposite sex, mostly through body language and speech patterns. Switching - Goodbye Me should leave you smiling most of the way through.

★★★★

Director: Nobuhiko Obayashi
Starring: Misako Renbutsu, Naoyuki Morita, Misa Shimizu, Saki Terashima, 
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Greenberg [2010] • USA

I dislike it when there are moments in a film that seem to reflect the writer or director's personal need to express their opinion instead of springing from the natural interactions of its characters. So what to make of a film that seems from beginning to end to be playing out inside the writer/director Noah Baumbach's head? Well, if it's interesting it's interesting, I guess. And I choose the notoriously vague word interesting intentionally. It's like pornography: difficult to define but you know it when you see it. If you don't find articulate ruminations on a life of disappointment, or character studies of people who are imperfect but capable of being attractive, interesting, you won't like this film.

On a technical level, Greenberg is solid. The production values are all good, the music is well chosen and the sets and costuming are fine because they're pretty much invisible, but all that's no big deal. The editing approach is one that pauses, or simply moves on from a scene rather than finishing it allowing the viewer a moment's reflection to create echoes as the film progresses. What really shines is the script. Almost every line of dialog in this film is funny. Not laugh out loud funny, but amusing in its delivery, simplicity, or unexpectedness. And then it comes down to performance.

Ben Stiller's introspective deadpan character is very well suited to Greenberg. He's a guy who says things that many people only think. He's introduced as someone who has spent time in a hospital for mental patients, adding an edge which, brilliantly, is never realized. As I watched this film I kept thinking of the scene from the promotional television commercial for it where Stiller speaks bluntly to some twenty-somethings about his views on the younger generation, and I couldn't imagine how that scene was going to fit into what I was seeing. The film presents a much more subdued character than that commercial implies.

Greenberg is a slow boil and the two other main players are just as muted in their performances. Rhys Ifans plays an old friend of Greenberg and rolls along every time he's onscreen as if he's just gotten out of bed and is too tired to disagree with anything. The highlight of the film is Greta Gerwig. She literally says "Okay" to everything. Her performance is a breath of fresh air, charming and unpretentious, artfully unartful. Contrast it to the small role played by Baumbach's real life wife, Jennifer Jason Leigh. She's become an indie diva, and her appearance is the only thing that brings the film out of its sweet brutal little universe.

I've been a fan of Noah Baumbach since Kicking and Screaming, and his latest film reinforces my admiration of his work. Greenberg is a nearly perfect bit of intelligent and thoughtful film making.

★★★★★

Director: Noah Baumbach
Starring: Ben Stiller, Greta Gerwig, Rhys Ifans
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