Days 1 & 2

Will get around to writing a bunch more the morning of the 9th.

EASTERN PROMISES (David Cronenberg) - 44

[The most distinctively Cronenbergian scene in this sub-par work, a set piece combining two taboos that have never quite been combined before, is still indicative of everything that's wrong with this film, and performance-wise not distinguishable from this in any significant way. His penchant for transgression can be used for subversive good or indulgent bad, and here the abrasive moments messily pile atop each other. The script is quite bad--clunky here's-the-subtext aphorisms abound e.g. "Sometimes birth and death go together"--and Cronenberg does little to salvage it. Performances range from incoherent--wherefore the vague homoerotic intimations, Viggo?--to disastrous. (Cassel needlessly amplifies his villainy before (sigh) weeping for a baby. Sure...)]

PERSEPOLIS (Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi) - W/O

[Fantastic original score by Olivier Bernet, but that wasn't enough to keep my tired ass from bailing. I get the sense Satrapi has reasonable intelligence about how her various childhood epiphanies led her to become an embittered and somewhat indifferent woman, but she fails to trust her audience's, mostly laying out a standard template of nostalgic moments necessarily accessible to everyone. She deviates from this formula a little: I remember liking a moment in which, after learning the sufferings of a relative under the Shah's rule, little Marjane climbs into bed, gasping with half-formed, vicarious joy. But I was pretty sure that kind of nuance was atypical as soon as she and some veiled school buds swooned over random generic dudes, on account of apparently she underwent puberty devoid of even the slightest miscalculation or insecurity.]

LES AMOURS D'ASTREA ET DE CELADON - 75

[Why the 5th century? I'm tempted to think it's Rohmer's (evidently final) affront to the belief that the cinema need be modern or relevant, a widely held position probably responsible in part for his limited popularity. (No wonder I've spotted MASCULIN FEMININ posters at peers' apartments, but no, I dunno, MY NIGHT AT MAUD'S memorabilia.) Theme is reconciliation of the body and soul, exemplified by the fantastic argument scene between Hylus and Celadon's brother. Hylus argues for bodily love, Celadon's brother argues that it lies in the soul, and yet Rohmer makes it as much a competition between each method of persuasion--the former is loud and jolly, the latter quiet and contemptuous--and centered around the underlying sense that each man's nature inevitably gives way to pockets of doubt. Celadon, meanwhile, seems to be trying to reconcile the two within himself, seeing flashes of Astrea's beauty but attributing his love to a sense of obedience towards her. He's at his most romantic when he's also hilariously stubborn; in Rohmer's world, one impeccable virtue is not enough. (See: the druid, who gently encourages the development of many.) This is wonderful stuff, so long as you're attuned to Rohmer's exploration of Nature; obstinate fans of subtle screenwriting, beware.]

THE MOURNING FOREST (Naomi Kawase) - 80

["There are no formal rules," sez an assistant to Machiko, which serves to illustrate the mood Kawase is going for: the camera is everywhere, sometimes too briefly to make an impression, carefree even when it's cutting deep, but usually striking. SHARA didn't strike me as too expressive, but perhaps I responded so well to her latest because she's working with such a lean narrative this time around. Machiko and Shigeki's relationship has such potential to sink into trite cliche--young caretaker treks with senile geezer, only to learn from the experience--but Kawase keeps the film grounded in the experience of the characters: he's sensitive to inner yearnings, she to nature. This is why it's so moving when e.g. she freaks out while trying to talk him out of crossing a tempestuous river: her prudent nature, ostensibly a pragmatic force in calming Shigeki's madness, crosses over into the territory of unsympathetic hysteria.]

LE VOYAGE DE BALLON ROUGE (Hou Hsiao-hsien) - 57

[I blame critics like J-Ro for steering not only Kiarostami but Hou off the deep end: both directors seem more concerned with refining themes than the depth of their art. The opening footage of the balloon itself is the highlight, as Hou is the perfect director to deny it any magic from the get-go: it seems to concede to the whims of the boy but then floats free, like any of Hou's characters, only simply obeying the laws of physics rather than psychology. But the movie is plotless to a fault, contrasting Binoche's neuroses and attempts to reconnect to her childhood with deliberate laziness. Most disappointingly, the balloon transforms from simply being a balloon to a symbol of sorts, there to evoke innocence rather than rubber and helium. (I was especially bummed out because Hou had already so skilfully undermined any artifice in his use of the balloon by showing green-screen dude walking around with it.)

Final note: I assume the lecture given to the kids in the museum is a quasi-reenactment of Hou's own childhood introduction to aesthetics. (One kid observes of a painting, "It's a little happy and a little sad.") Fair enough, but just as often as kids can be unusually intelligent, they can be cruel or stupid. Hou's kindness makes the power of his art suffer.]

THE EDGE OF HEAVEN (Fatih Akin) - 61

[... and then we have Akin, who surely has even less trust in the kindness of strangers than yours truly. I was put off by the sensibility in HEAD-ON, but this is the rare film that confirms bristling with contempt is not necessarily a drawback. It may encourage dislike of the sleazy dad, but still thoroughly lets us feel how old, pathetic, etc. he is. I enjoyed the first two chapters more than the second, which seems to exist because Akin was ashamed of his previously unabashed fatalism. (Fassbinder never was, and it didn't hurt...) To say even more of Akin's general intelligence and less for his taste in CRASH-esque structures, the one overtly crude moment in the film that I can remember--cutting to a sleeping student in the middle of a lecture to indicate just how rough a professor has it--is justified only by plot, much later in the film.]

SECRET SUNSHINE (Lee Chang-dong) - 63

[What a sloppy, bold film, by turns maddening and invigorating. I kept being reminded of Rivette's THE NUN, where any criticism of the church is inextricable from the ecstasy the protagonist finds in it. Lee is never broadly contemptuous, but the religious characters are so open to ridicule I wish he would've worked overtime to avoid it. But for every scene that didn't quite work for me, there was another altogether jaw-dropping in its psychological insight. (The standout is the confession scene, in which a reaction is so unexpected yet plausible as to provoke utter bafflement and acceptance at the same time. Skandie points, anyone else?) I have a feeling Lee plants devices early on so he can deploy them in a big way late in the game, but is less rigorous about using them throughout. (E.g. Song Kang-ho's character, who works quite brilliantly in something like 5% of his screen time but is otherwise unneeded comic relief.)]