Secret Sunshine (Milyang) [2007] • South Korea

This film stars two of the best, and two of my favorite, Korean actors: Do-yeon Jeon and Kang-ho Song, and is written and directed by Chang-dong Lee, of Oasis fame.

The plot in a nutshell: Jeon's character moves with her son Jun to Miryang, the town where her recently killed husband was born. As she tries to start her new life another tragic event turns her world upside down. She looks for comfort in god and religiousness, and then turns a critical eye towards it.

The scene where Jeon's character goes to the prison to forgive the man who committed the most heinous of crimes against her is one of the strongest and smartest statements on religious belief I've seen.

It's a long, slow paced film, but the performances are extraordinary. Do-yeon Jeon won best actress at Cannes for her performance.

★★★★★

La Belle (Mi in) [2000] • South Korea

You have to like films about crazy, beautiful, young, lovable, destructive women and the men who become poetically addicted to them and you have to see this film as surrealism or it doesn't work. Or, you have to enjoy watching a couple of very attractive people get naked, make love, fight, kiss and make up. Either way.

This is not a typical soft-core flick. It's a fleshy art movie with nice production values and good lighting. Tinkling piano too. All in good taste. Although there is a lot of flesh, there's a lot of story too and it's not just inserted as filler. The film is based on the director's own novel, Body, and it explores the addiction of flesh, how to feed and conquer it, and what may come after it. Since it's an art film, as well as a fine piece of erotica, it ends tragically instead of happily but that keeps it in line with all that precedes it.

★★★★

Snakes and Earrings (Hebi ni piasu) [2008] • Japan

For those who've seen Noriko's Dinner Table and wondered what happened to the younger sister played by Yuriko Yoshitaka ('just a nameless girl, walking toward the center of the city'), it may come as no surprise to see her show up drunk, naked, and tattooed in this tale of middle-class urban ennui in the underground. From one dreamworld to another.

Yoshitaka doesn't have the sexual maturity to make the S&M stuff in this film remotely erotic and the two guys she bounces between, two tattooed punks, while giving us a multi-layered view of their world, are little more than posers. Their poses do reach beyond stereotype and the film tries to be cool towards them, demonstrating a reasonable awareness of the subject matter, but it comes up short in execution.

I like Yoshitaka a lot, think she is a promising young actress, but don't think she is suited for this role. She seems to take little pleasure in any of it—giving the film an uncomfortably exploitative hum.

Snakes and Earrings is far more modern and realistic/relatable than a CAT III film, probably because its story comes from a teen-aged girl's prize winning novel rather than the sexist fantasies of old men, but while the film has a contemporary world view it doesn't have the story punch necessary to elevate it beyond voyeurism. For those just interested in seeing Yoshitaka naked, there's plenty of that (thankfully rather tame) but it's not enough to make this film more than a flavorless attempt at revealing her world.

★★★

Summer Palace (Yihe yuan) [2006] • China • Lou Ye

"Because it is only when we make love that you understand that I'm gentle."

That's all the character development I need. This is an ambitious film about the stalled maturation of an idealistic but troubled young woman flanked by the Tiananmen Square protests, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the handover of Hong Kong to mainland China. The film spans a decade and a half from 1987 to 2003 so the misery of Three Gorges Dam didn't make the cut. The direction is a little chaotic at times but it reflects the nature of the film and doesn't come off as too much of a liability. The soundtrack is impeccably chosen and the film is ultimately very sad. I was glued to this 140 minute masterpiece. Politics aside, and they are on the side, this is a remarkable film in its honest portrayal of failure, not of personal character necessarily, but of circumstance.

This is another film that got its director and producer banned for five years from making films in China. Maybe it's the full-frontal nudity or the sheer quantity of sex scenes but I don't see the need for hubbub. The film is about a woman's self-reflection on why she finds comfort in the arms of different men. We see her naked inside and out. She is afraid to love out of fear, fear of something she hasn't yet experienced, which is the scariest kind of fear.

There are a number of things wrong with the film, perhaps, but very little could be done to improve it. Great films succeed in spite of their weaknesses. I'm not a fan of off camera narration but it works for me here. It seems additional rather than necessary. There is a maturity to the woman's voice as she narrates with entries from her diary that compliments, does not seem at odds with, the can't quite grow up activities of the woman on screen. In order to get from the Berlin Wall to the Hong Kong Handover, 1989 to 1997, we're treated to narrative onscreen text to fill us in on what's happening to the characters. Ordinarily that would be a deal breaker for me, in theory at least, but again, it works. Finally, as if this were a real story about real people, after the final denouement occurs we're given updates on what happened or didn't happen to the principle characters. Frankly, as gut-wrenchingly sad but true as the final scene is I wish it would have just faded to black. But I think it's a tribute to the strength of the characters that I found myself intrigued by the postscript.

Having said that, one could argue from a strictly script perspective that a little more fleshing out of character was in order ... and I don't mean full-frontal. But I would argue against a need to dish out explanations for why people act inexplicably. I think it comes down to this: if you've ever known passionate, poetic, misguided imperfect people, you know these people right away. They're part beautiful and part brutal, there's no talking them out of it. It's part of their charm. This film doesn't set out to explain, diagnose, or change its characters. It just wants to show them to us in all their painful glory; and I think it does a very good job of it. Then again, maybe it's just a case of been there, done that.

★★★★★

Butterfly (Hu die) (2004) • Hong Kong

The direction and cinematography are more ambitious than they need to be for this simple love story but not often to the point of distraction. It's very well acted by attractive actors. Josie Ho is gorgeous and understated. The tentativeness of her sexual reawakening has as much to do with her personality as it does with her gender. It's not padded by making the guy a jerk who would make any woman switch teams like is done in many western films about lesbian love. It's got politics too, as the younger pair exist amidst the Tiananmen square riots and massacre. Well done.

★★★★

Synecdoche, New York • 2008 • USA

I've finally seen Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York, and jeezus. I thought his Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was trippy. How this film didn't sweep the Oscars I don't understand. Wait, yes I do. It's relentlessly bleak—in that Woody Allen 'obsessed-with-death' way—but it's also belly crunch hilarious. I had to stop and rewind a dozen times because I missed things, overcome by a wheezing laughter. There is not a feel good moment in the film and yet it left me strangely uplifted.

Charlie Kaufman is a contortionist of the mind. Again, like in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, he stretches and reshapes time (and space, to a degree) until you just have to let go, and yet a firm narrative structure is always present, never abandoned. It's an amazing feat of screenplay-ism.

The film is remarkably cast. Philip Seymour Hoffman is one of the best actors working today and he is perfect for the role of representing, on film, the introverted, insecure because he's seen the abyss genius of Charlie Kaufman. His performance is better, ten times better, and funnier, than anything he's done before. Imagine that! Catherine Keener? Has any one ever had a bad word to say about her? The pièce de résistance, however, in a creepy—as if it were meant to be but will never happen again but seems like it may have, or should have, been done before—kind of way is Emily Watson playing Samantha Morton. You'll have to see it to understand. If a fifth wall existed, this film would shatter it.

Casual movie-goers will find Synecdoche, New York difficult, dark, pretentious and hopeless, but if you like film, if you like writing, if you like artistic commitment, if you like mind-fuck hilarity, don't miss it.

★★★★★

Rachel Getting Married [2008] • USA

On the one hand, Rachel Getting Married is a docu-style contempo-drama where family members rip each other's skin off and speak directly to the nerve endings, and on the other hand it's a celebration of diversity where black and white marry, and a couple Asians are invited to the party for spice. Often, when these two hands come together they'll include a racist character who makes old school remarks so the audience can point and scream "old school!" with sheepish enlightenment, ala the moronic Gran Torino. The beauty of this film is that it doesn't engage in diversity training and simply observes the diversity. Its hipness cup does runneth over, however, by outfitting the bridesmaids in saris and designing the wedding cake as an elephant. There are no Indians in the film, nor any plot points suggesting any characters have ever been to India or even know any Indians. I can only assume that the theme is meant to play on the notion that all enlightened people love India. Maybe I missed something but it seems weird and inexplicable, and hence, a little multiculturally profligate.

The "look ma! No hands" handheld video camera that's meant to reinforce, or rather enforce, the not so much directing as capturing directorial style is annoying more than it needs to be. It devalues the film, and along with the numerous scenes that go on far too long (or needn't have been included in the first place) leaves the viewer with the impression that they are watching a real wedding video. I mean that in an unflattering way.

What makes this film really annoying, however, is that it is completely inauthentic. The grand metaphor for me involves Anne Hathaway and cigarettes. She's obviously a non-smoker in real life and just can't act smoking, and yet she chain smokes throughout the film. Why? Because it gives her rehab character street cred. That's how phony most of the script is. It's full of dialog that even the most narcissistic and damaged are incapable of, or maybe not, but even if you allow the serve, the volleys are absurd. Take the scene where the girls are in a salon getting their hair done. Hathaway is in a chair up front getting highlights while her sister's head is in the back being washed. Some asshole kneels in front of Hathaway and relates a story about knowing her from some rehab psycho ward where they passed around anonymous confessions as an cleansing exercise. The guy tells her he knows the note he got was from her and that her story of an uncle who sexually abused her and her sister helped him and he wants to say thank you. Now, it's just impossible for someone to be that stupid. Did I mention that he tells the story to Hathaway with enough volume that her sister, and presumably everyone else in the busy salon, also hears it? It's this kind of crass and amateurish manipulation that sinks the film. I couldn't recover after that scene, and neither did the film. Even if the film had gotten better, instead of a lot worse and much more boring, that big ugly stain of a scene could only receive positive marks for blotting out, by surpassing in ugliness, the interminable dishwasher fight scene that preceded it.

There is a lot to like about this film. The joy, amidst all the suffering, is palpable, and many of the performances are well-executed, a few resulting in very likable characters, mostly on the groom's side. But the bad overshadows the good, like the omnipresent group of musicians whose constant rehearsing provides a live soundtrack to the movie in lieu of a real one. It's a cool concept, like much of the film, but it doesn't work. I want to applaud the film's good intentions and its progressive approach to film making but it comes off as immature, self-indulgent, and too hip for its own good as it tries to cover way too much ground in its frustratingly unclear timeframe.

★★

The Guitar (2008) • USA

In the first five minutes of this film three big things happen. 1) Saffron Burrows is diagnosed with terminal cancer, given a month, two at most. 2) She's downsized out of her job and then, presumably to illustrate the impact of #2, she makes a collect phone call. Turns out the call is to her boyfriend. How weird is that? He meets with her and spews forth the most inane psychobabble nonsense about needing to find his inner child you've ever heard and says 3) he is breaking up with her. I should have given up right then and there but ... girls with guitars, ya know.

Saffron proceeds to rent a penthouse loft and furnishes it extravagantly using an endless supply of credit cards. She never goes out so she walks around naked and has sex with the UPS guy and pizza delivery girl. Saffron's acting is decent. She's capable of exposing layers of emotion. She buys a guitar. It has something to do with the flashbacks we see of her childhood, of course. At this point things become subjective. I'm a guitar snob and am not impressed seeing people fake a relationship with a guitar. Movies have for years been able to convincingly fake people playing the piano (right?) but I've never seen a good fake guitar playing performance. Granted, she is supposed to be a beginner so I shouldn't have expected much but I did anyway. I could let her slide on the fingering and strumming, given her beginner status and all, but I really needed to see an exciting relationship of her body to the guitar. I'm not expecting her to have sex with it, just show me that her body and her soul (that is the point, isn't it?) understand it, know how to move it and move with it and let it move her. Nada.

Final verdict: thumbs down. Even if you don't share my guitar snobbery I don't think the film has much to offer beyond a decent performance from Burrows. It's pretty standard (trite and fantastic) "what would you do if you were told you had only a couple months to live" stuff. If playing the guitar is something that you'd do, given that you've got only a couple months to live, the learning curve ought to be really quick. I mean, if you are going to make a movie out of it.

★★

Nothing But the Truth [2008] • USA

This is a good film, not a great one but I'm going to call it a great film because I loved it enough for it to fall into the great film category for me. Great films are films that I will watch again and again just to spend time with the characters, performances of characters, really. It's seldom that the story or plot of a film by itself will prompt me to multiple viewings. The story here starts off like it's going to be a dramatization of the Valerie Plame affair. A newspaper reporter (Kate Beckinsale) reveals the identity of a CIA operative (Vera Farmiga). The government goes after the reporter, in the name of national security, to get her to reveal her source. The reporter refuses to cooperate, is held in contempt of court and goes to jail. Beyond that, the story veers off to create a commercial thriller with its own character backgrounds and struggles.

Part of the veering off involves some questionable, or maybe just questioning of, gender politics. Beckinsale's character is given an elementary school aged son, setting her up as not just a professional woman but also as a mother. As her time in jail grows longer, her relationship with her son grows strained and the government uses this to its advantage to try and get what they want. Her struggle, then, is split between motherhood and first amendment issues. I'm not sure this plot branch was scripted very well but there is one scene where it is driven home economically. After doing a television interview where she is berated for neglecting her son, her own lawyer is coaching her to reveal her source and informs her that the public is no longer behind her and thinks she is being selfish and a bad mother. She declares, "Oh! So the message is, you can trust your sources unless they're a mother, in which case they will crack!"

But enough about the story. Suffice to say, don't go see this in the hopes of insight or elucidation regarding the Valerie Plame affair. It's fictionalized enough to distance itself from that. It does have a few short, but not overly dramatic, preachy moments about first amendment issues but they are done fairly and the more fair they become the less pedantic it ends up. It's a pretty smart film. So let's get to the performances.

Kate Beckinsale is beautiful, even while in jail without eye make up for most of the film. No big deal. But she is also very genuine in her role here. And genuine is what makes for good performance. She plays the right combination of spunk and vulnerability which provides great detail in her dual role as mother and gender neutral professional. Same goes for Vera Farmiga. Jesus, the woman scares me. She is tasked with delivering some of the most ridiculous dialog in the film ("You are an unpatriotic little cunt who’s going to walk right off the plank into the bowels of hell, do you know that?") but doesn't lose credibility. She's that tough. It's like she's a chameleon with nerve endings on the outside of her skin. If you even look at her the wrong way she might electrocute you. She'll smile while it happens. Best to just send good vibes her way and hope she doesn't bother you. She has become one of my favorite actresses due to her acting like a really fast car that doesn't handle well. Matt Dillon on the other hand, comes with power steering. He seems bigger now, not just physically but in terms of presence. He plays the special prosecutor charged with getting the information from Beckinsale. He is pitch perfect and totally in control even though he seems to never make any progress. Very well done. I'm tired of Alan Alda's charming simplicity, but for those who are not, in many ways he steals the show as the eccentric, well-dressed lawyer who represents Beckinsale. Angela Bassett, David Schwimmer, and Noah Wyle round out the ensemble cast. All good, surprisingly or not. Noah Wyle actually creeped me out a bit, in a good way. He wasn't at all like a wounded puppy dog staring off into space. With the exception of Schwimmer, every time someone from this ensemble has a scene it becomes their film. Color me impressed.

Then there's the reveal at the end. Brilliantly provocative. Make sure you've been paying attention because it changes everything. It's unexpected and sure to stir up chatter on your way out the theater. Lame or awesome? There is no in between. I loved it just for the cahoneys.

★★★★