The Contact (Cheob-sok) 1997 • South Korea

This is the feature film debut of actress Do-yeon Jeon who went on to win best actress by unanimous decision for her role in Secret Sunshine at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. If you are a fan of her work you should definitely see The Contact. It's not a great film but her performance in it makes it more than worthwhile.

The Contact is the story of two people, each involved in their own forlorn love triangles, who meet on the Internet and slowly build a friendship acting as advice-givers to one another. They share the same space onscreen several times without knowing it because neither one knows what the other looks like. Comparisons have been made to You've Got Mail which came out a year after The Contact, but beyond the, uh ... internet connection, there's not much else in common. You've Got Mail was a romantic comedy, which suited the actors starring in it, while this film sports a somber quality, more suited to the actors starring in it. Do-yeon Jeon has a wistful glamor about her that comes from the inside, and Suk-kyu Han, who plays the male lead, has a "woe is me" air about him that is not the least bit amusing and comes off as a little introspectively self-important.

There is about three minutes of (in)-action just before the end of this film in which you will hate Han's character for the decision he seems to be making and the effect it has on Jeon's character. If there were a little more plot substance to account for his inaction, well ... there'd be a little more plot substance.

It's substance that this film lacks in the overall, especially in Han's character. He's a radio show producer who is always being reprimanded for inserting 20 minute songs into the playlists. He receives an anonymous package one day that contains a Velvet Underground album which becomes the link between our protagonists. Han is convinced his long lost love sent it to him but doesn't know why. He plays "Pale Blue Eyes" from the album and receives a request via the internet the following night for the same song, and that's how he connects with Jeon.

Han contacts the person, Jeon, who made the request, hoping it is his old flame or someone who knows her and made the request on her behalf. Jeon lies and says she knows the person Han is looking for. As that little fiction plays out, so do the characters' back stories.

Han's long lost love broke up with him many years ago and fell for his best friend, an army buddy. When the army buddy is killed in an accident, Han thinks the girl will come running back to him, (now that the competition is dead!) but Han is somehow implicated in the cause of the accident and a tangled web is weaved. Han also deals with internal office politics complicated by a beautiful woman who becomes his main writer for the radio show and an emotional distraction.

Jeon, on the other hand, marches forward emotionlessly after her unrequited true love falls for her best friend and roommate instead of her. While Jeon's love triangle plays out a little more interestingly than Han's, it's the emotionlessness of her character, which isn't cold and unkind, but sympathetic and sad, manifested in her inability to cry, that we come to focus on. In a train wreck of plot development, Jeon is driving her car the night Han first plays "Pale Blue Eyes." She witnesses a terrible accident, but it is the song, not the tragedy, that almost makes her cry. Hence her request to hear the song again. She wants to cry.

The Korean film's plot was made more complicated to this viewer, as train tickets, movie stubs, and other written materials are passed around without translation. Even without a good story or all the facts to go on, I was swept away by Jeon's portrayal of a woman who wants to find love but must discover first what it might look like. She's a tremendously skilled and nuanced actress. I recommend this film to anyone looking for a night of romance rental theater or a romantic character-study.

★★★★

The Uncertain Guest (El Habitante incierto) (2004) • Spain

The problem with this movie is it could have been written better. The hyper-expository monologues Claudia dishes out are so unrealistic I laughed. It's a sign of a director in trouble when he has to give lines to a character, for the sake of the audience, that can't be delivered organically by that character. Those plot-getting-in-the-way-of-the-story lines polluted an otherwise poetic, dream like, and metaphorical film. It's a beautiful essay on loneliness.

I would never call this film "Lynchy" ... which is just shorthand for "I don't get it but I liked it anyway ... I think. Didn't I? Did you?" David Lynch's films can be difficult. This film is just a beta release, ya know, like everything from google.

Hence, the sudden remake. El Habitante incierto is a brilliantly conceived film that should have been executed better so the director is taking a mulligan. That's cool. I look forward to it and hope he does a better job explaining Vera's sudden muteness upon being shot in the plot hole we all saw coming like an eighteen wheeler.

OK. She was shot in the mouth and it just took a couple days without food or water for her to get her voice back at film's end. Yeah, that's it.

I give the first half a 9, the second half a 5. Let's call it a 7 and anxiously await the do-over. It's a lovely film to look at and it frustrated me so much I'm going to watch it again and again until version 2 comes along.

★★★★

Trust [1990] • UK

Post modern disgust at its finest and most endearing. Hal Hartley at his best. Nobody acts in this film, they just deliver lines. Lead character carries around a hand grenade at all times ... "just in case."

★★★★★

Strawberry Shortcakes (2006) • Japan

I let this one sit in queue too long. The title, Strawberry Shortcakes, led me to believe it would be a silly slapstick chick-flick about young women engaged in madcap antics which is second only to adolescent comedies about the sexploits of silly young men on my list of film genres I hate, Asian or otherwise. Turns out, Strawberry Shortcakes is an engaging indie film that takes a rather bleak look at the lives of four (at times I thought there were five, read on) young women who live mostly on the margins of life in contemporary Tokyo. Sex in the City it's not, quite.

One could critique this film as being superficial because it focuses primarily on the angst-ridden side of these twenty-something women's quest for love and happiness. This is a two hour movie about four very different women and I would, if I could, ask for a hand in marriage from any one of them because they are all intelligent (and dumb) and strong (and weak) and kindness means a lot to them. The portraits of these women are, almost unnervingly, complete.

There is a religious theme running through Strawberry Shortcakes. The film begins and ends with questions and thoughts about God (big G). One of the characters is commissioned to draw a picture of God for a book cover. Hope is a constant companion to these women throughout. It's the brand of cigarettes they smoke. At one point one of the women stops by a vending machine to buy a pack and they are unavailable. She looks to the sky and asks, "Is Hope all sold out?"

A brief synopsis of who these women are:

Toko Iwase is a bulimic, intense, sometimes bitchy, but very true to her art, artist, who makes a living doing illustration and designing book covers. Her onscreen, very visceral scenes of (binging and) purging are frighteningly realistic—very, very painful to watch. She masturbates while lying on the bed, and reading the "secret" diary of, her superficial roommate. She also folds her roommate's clothes, fixes her alarm clock, makes sure she gets to work on time, and she takes care of the funeral arrangements when her roommate's pet hamster dies. Her roommate is:

Chihiro She is a beautiful, perhaps naive, perhaps sheltered office worker who sucks up to her male superiors to the disgust of her female colleagues. She's the type of woman who doesn't have any girl friends. She tries and she hopes, in the face of all things pointing against it to have a meaningful and lasting relationship with some punk loser from her work. She buys herself a pair of shoes and has them gift wrapped for her birthday because no one else is going to honor it. When her boyfriend is too busy to see her on her birthday, she calls some dude, presumably from her past, that does nothing more than deposit his manhood on her face.

Satoko is a kind-hearted, sweet, plain but very cute, charming and adorable dreamer ::sigh:: who works as a receptionist at an escort agency named Heaven's Gate. When her boss asks her why she doesn't put herself on the market she says "I am not pretty like the other girls, no one would pick me." Her boss, who turns out to be falling for her responds, "Our customers like all kinds, even ugly girls. You should think about it." Ouch. She eats at a local shop where the noodles suck and the cook and sole proprietor is a young Chinese man. His "Japanese is no good" so she answers the phone for him and takes orders. She ends up working there after her boss at the escort agency treats her to an expensive dinner and makes his feelings for her known, causing her to quit. She's the type who is attracted to, and befriends, other loners such as:

Akiyo She sleeps in a coffin at night and works as an escort at Heaven's Gate. She has a suitcase full of cash, saving up for a condo. It has to be fifth story or higher, for when her body fails her but before she's senile. "Anything below five stories and the fall might not kill you." She's in her late twenties and the other girls, in their early twenties, don't like her because all the customers do. She has a certain Lena Olin tough beauty and submits to all kinds of sexual degradation in her job because it nets her more customers and more money, and because her long-time crush on an old college friend remains unrequited. Here's where the mysterious, non-existent fifth woman comes in.

Akiyo wears high heels, her hair down, a lost in space demeanor, and other escort garb to work at Heaven's Gate. When she jumps on her bicycle to meet her old college friend, a self-described late bloomer (i.e., he doesn't have a full time job yet) for beers at a local dive sushi bar, she wears Converse gym shoes, frumpy ripped up blue jeans and t-shirts, puts her hair up and dons a pair of very bookish glasses. She appears very sharp, happy and focused when she is with him. It isn't meant to be ambiguous, or a secret that this is the same woman, as a second screening of the film revealed to me. I just missed it first time through.

There are many, many more subtle and poignant events that make up the complex portraits of these complex women. For me, and I don't think I'm alone in my opinion, Toko is the centerpiece, the rock, the glue that holds this film together. The t-shirt she wears throughout most of the film has the Led Zeppelin lyric "TO BE A ROCK" on the front and "NOT TO ROLL" on the back. Turns out this actress who plays Toko is the artist/writer of a very popular manga, of nearly the same name, that this film is based upon. She is not an actress by trade and it took quite a lot of coaxing to get her to play the part. Her presence gave this film a realism I don't think it would have had without her. Strawberry Shortcakes is not an accurate portrayal of all women in contemporary Tokyo, not even a majority, but I think Toko, real name Kiriko Nananan who writes under the pseudonym Toko Iwase, put her heart and soul into painting a wonderfully authentic portrait of a segment of that population.


Having said all that about a picture I clearly enjoyed, the director's signature is all over this film as well. It's very episodic, sometimes unsatisfying in nature; many scenes are captured in an almost documentary fashion; I think the person who adapted the screenplay put in the stuff about God and Hope in an attempt to give the film a meaning others could talk about (successfully, I think, it just didn't appeal to me); and the ending was too happy and abrupt. I can't wait to watch it again.

★★★★★

World of Silence (Joyong-han saesang) (2006) • South Korea

When I saw the poster for this movie of the two guys and the girl with the big red clown lips painted on her face I said, "That's messed up, that's freaky. I'll gamble." It paid.

World of Silence, a.k.a. Missing Girl, is a classic who-dunnit mystery/suspense/thriller/melodrama drama/buddy cop comedy from South Korea. At its heart is the story of a world weary cop and his goofball partner investigating a series of murders of young orphaned girls who appear to have been tripping on non-indigenous magic mushrooms and otherwise treated very well before being killed. No visible signs of trauma. Dressed nicely. Woven into that is the story of a man who possesses extra-sensory abilities and a constantly unfolding history of sadness and loss who, coincidentally or not, appears ahead of the cops at each of the crime scenes and who, as plot would have it, takes custody of a young orphaned girl who has a plot moving special disease.

This film is sprinkled with throw-popcorn-at-the-screen, Crime and Punishment style coincidences and delivered with a controlled ominosity worthy of Brian De Palma and General Hospital. The more films I see from South Korea the more I see that this kind of mixed mellow drama genre bag is quite common. It might take a little patience and getting used to, but when it's as well executed as World of Silence it's a very fulfilling film experience. I hesitate to throw melodrama into the mix because it often conjures up associations of chick-flick, which this flick is certainly not. In the capable hands of director Jo Ui-seok, melodrama is a key ingredient, used almost as a heat check, a dare, alongside mystery elements and light-hearted humor to keep the audience engaged.

Despite the groan-out-loud-inducing plot moves and a few eye-rollers to boot, I loved this movie. The performances are all top-notch. Yong-woo Park (My Scary Girl) plays the world-weary detective with a cynical sense of humor, unkempt hair, and a cool leather jacket he steals from a co-starring criminal who plays a key role in solving the murder case. Sang-kyung Kim, who played that cool cop role in Memories of Murder, plays the mystery man here looking good in an elegant, long black overcoat putting some freak in the head of the world weary detective. A very pleasant surprise is the uncredited young girl who plays the orphan Soo-yeon Park. She is adorably able to transform her screen presence from sad orphaned girl whose father died in a car accident and whose mother's been in a coma for two years but is described to her as just having a really bad cold and needing to take a really long nap, a nap that Soo-yeon hopes she will awaken from in time to attend her upcoming talent recital, to a smiling and feeling-loved 3rd-grader in the length of a breath.

World of Silence peels off layer upon layer, uncovering about five film's worth of internal demons and other dramatic tragedies, but it ends, and it seems to end a few times, like a sportscaster screaming "No! No! I don't believe it! Don't ..." and then "Great shot!" when it goes in.

★★★★★

Rouge (Crocodile) 2007 • Australia

As far as mean monster croc movies go this one is pretty decent because the characters are fairly well drawn and the environments both creepy and beautiful. It's more of a suspense film than a chew 'em up slowly gore slasher. We get only brief glimpses of the angry man eater until the third act which takes place in a different location from the first two.

The first act is devoted to character development, some basic saltwater crocodile facts, and lots of beautiful scenery shots of Australia's rugged Northern Territory. It's here that we decide who we hope gets killed and who we think will be the heroes. The second act finds the group of tourists and their guide trapped on a tiny little island after the big croc takes a bite out of their boat. This island is in a tidal river which means it will soon be underwater; and it will soon be dark.

The second act sees the group attempting a number of escape routines, as tensions build and the population shrinks. We still don't see much of the monster, just people who are there one minute and gone the next. An attempt is made to trick and trap the crocodile, if only for a few minutes so the group can make a run, er ... swim for it.

One of croc-o-facts we learn is that they often don't swallow their prey whole right away, but rather they take it to a hiding place and save it for later. This is where the third act takes place. The hero attempts to rescue the heroine from the crocodile's den. It's a pretty cool looking lair and we get lots of angry croc shots here. It looks and acts pretty realistic, revealing its CGI inner child only briefly. And it's big. But we've only got the hero and heroine left so there's not a lot of snacking going on. If you like your croc flicks gory, give this one a pass. If you're just looking for a little suspenseful fun, Rogue is not too bad.

★★★

An Affair of Love (Une liaison pornographique) (1999) • France

A cute, yes cute, 40ish French couple recount the stages of their pornographic affair to an interviewer while we are treated to flashbackical scenes of meetings and memories. I call the couple cute because most of their acting is thoughtful, sincere reflection, and they are cute doing it.

BIG SPOILER: We are never told nor shown what kind of kinky sex constitutes the affair even though it is referenced a number of times. Instead, the focus is on how they come to actually like one another, going against the code established for the relationship, and then sadly decide to stop seeing one another.

Even though I liked the characters the film seems a bit of a cheap tease, and tries to pull on the heartstrings too much, too artificially. I don't know what the goal for the film is and the ride by itself isn't good enough to compensate. It is not particularly erotic nor sexy, and for a talkie film it has too much yardage between the goal posts. This is one of those films that comes off like a screenwriter's catharsis more than a slice of life.

★★★

Cold Prey (Fritt vilt) (2006) • Norway

Not much here except for some beautiful shots of the Scandinavian Mountains at the beginning. It takes 45 minutes before there are any clues that this might be a scary movie, and then all we see is a anonymous swinging pick axe.

The heroine of the film is the only likeable character; I'm glad the rest of them get killed but it's annoying that it takes our Leatherface clone a couple of goes at each one. This is one of those stupid slasher flicks where somebody takes a pick axe to the face, end of scene, and then shows up later so they can be violently killed again. Their friends don't get to see the first kill which is done in private to try and build tension as the non-killed-yet wonder and fight over "what happened to so and so".

There is more gore to the snowboarding accident than any of the kills. The goofball of the group breaks his shin and we get to see the bone sticking out. Big whoop.

Fritt vilt fails to deliver on all fronts and the film's final shot at humanizing the big jerk Leatherface clone with the pick axe by going full circle with backstory is not worth mentioning. The film comes off like a genre exercise by a director who's not cut out for it.

★★

Blue Gate Crossing (Lan se da men) (2002) • Taiwan

Dreamy, Romantic, Tender. OK We're given those on the poster. They are not the words I would use. Instead, I'd go with: Adorable, Sweet, Sensitive. This is a well-acted, well-directed, well-written movie, a joy to watch.

It took me a few minutes to warm up to the characters, but only a few. We meet the two girls first, a girly girl who seems to be in control, and a brooding follower. Not much to go on with that. Girly girl spots sensitive boy and wants him but insists that brooding girl act as the go-between. The film focuses on the friendship that develops between brooding girl and sensitive boy after that. Brooding girl becomes razor-sharp, adorably-mixed-up-commando-teen when paired with sensitive boy—who falls in love with her.

This film (the director?) does a remarkable job of capturing teens as they are: insecure and passionate; as easily hurt as they are to fall in love. They provoke each other without knowing why and then act like it never happened. One of the many highlights of this film is when the boy and girl, having run out of verbal ammunition, begin a shoving match. It goes on for some time and then they stop. They talk again. The director cuts to a scene of the two of them straightening up their surroundings together. He makes many decisions like that to keep us focused on the big picture: shit happens, and then something else happens. There's no stopping it.

I have to point out that watching this Taiwanese film with English subtitles added quite a bit to the adorableness of it. For example, after brooding girl sets up sensitive boy with girly girl, who knows he likes brooding girl, (you have to see the film to see how that happens), sensitive boy walks girly girl home. After an uncomfortably done good-bye, girly girl calls out after sensitive boy as he's about to mount his bicycle and says: "Zhang Shihao, (pause) can you date with me?" I don't know exactly what was said in Taiwanese, but that odd translation seemed to capture the moment perfectly.

I smiled from ear to ear while watching this movie from the time sensitive boy was introduced until the very end. This is an exceptionally well done film, off-the-charts-delightful.

★★★★★