Unabashedly Noir

Bastards (2013) - Denis

It's raining. Hard. The camera descend alongside the wall of a building glistening in water outside. The man in the building seems distressed. Then we cut to a naked, teenage girl (Lola Créton) walking down a wet street. She seems to be in trance. Then it's Marco (Vincent Lindon), a sea captain coming in to the harbor. This is how the film starts. With moody music by Tindersticks, I'm instantly hooked.

Denis goes all out noir on Bastards, a brooding, nocturnal thriller where innocents get punished and good men go die. With star studded cast - the mix of her regulars (Alex Descas, Vincent Lindon, Gregoire Collin, Michel Subor) and new to her clan (Chiarra Mastroianni, Lola Créton), Denis creates a film experience so seductive and mysterious which I haven't had since maybe Mulholland Dr. Its pulpy premise and fuzzy the ending didn't really bother me. I hear this was Denis' first foray into digital filmmaking, but with Agnes Godard at the DP helm, the images are just as mesmerizing as her previous films. Bastards played as part of NYFF. It will get theatrical releases in October 23rd here in New York and available elsewhere in theaters, VOD and digital on 25th. Don't miss it.

Here is Tangerine Dream inspired, mesmerizing soundtrack by Stuart Staples:

Scenes from A Marriage

Exhibition (2013) - Hogg

British filmmaker Joanna Hogg, along with Mexico's Fernando Eimbcke is chosen by FSLC's The Emerging Artists Program, part of this year's New York Film Festival. They are playing all 3 feature films by her, the latest being Exhibition. Recently discovered her films and impressed by her talent in portraying human (dis)connections related to specific environment, I was eagerly awaiting her new film. Complex yet subtle, innovative yet basic, it's absolutely one of the best films I've seen at the festival.

A three-story modern house is just as much a character in Joanna Hogg's Exhibition as a married artist couple (played by non actors - Viv Albertine of the punk rock band Slits and artist Liam Gillick) who inhibit it. Equipped with floor to ceiling glass windows, a small lift, a spiral staircase, curtains and dividing screens, the building possesses strong sense of utilitarianism. The childless, middle aged couple have their own work spaces and talk to each other through intercoms whenever they need each other's company. He is a successful architect and she seems to be an artist who is still looking for her voice. At the moment, she is obsessed with recreating Ecstasy of St. Teresa with her own image. For hours on end, she poses almost acrobatically on a stool, looking at herself in the mirror for sketches.

Accompanied by amazing sound design, Hogg often creates and takes away these dividers, figuratively and literally between the couple, inside/outside. The large windows reflect what's inside as much as it shows what's out. We hear everything as she works in her space which is located underneath(!) his space- from heavy footsteps to sliding doors, shutters, sirens outside, street noise, people fighting, construction....

These people are still very much in love and tell each other so (through the intercom). They even take bath together. She fakes fainting so they can be excused from a friend's boring dinner party. They really want to be together and left alone most of the times. Yet they have problems communicating their feelings verbally. Each needs his/her own space too. Just like real life couple, they are complicated people.

They are in the process of selling the building which they have been living for over a decade. Their only condition to a real estate agent (Joanna Hogg regular Tom Hiddleston) in selling is that the building should remain intact and never get demolished. At the party celebrating their leaving, they ironically serve the guests the cake- the mini replica of the building.

Without much of expositional dialog, Hogg paints the complicated picture of relationship brilliantly using other means. The result is exceptional. If her previous films (Unrelated, Archipelago) showcased her as a promising writer/director of subtle emotions and family dynamics, Exhibition proves that she is also very much in tune with cinematic language. The film announces the arrival of major cinematic talent.

Along with her 2 previous films, Exhibition plays part of this years NYFF (The second viewing is on Oct. 8th). Please visit FSLC website for tickets.

A Touch of Jia: Jia Zhangke Interview

A Touch of Sin is an anomaly for Jia Zhangke. Or at least it feels like it. Known for his unique melding of documentary and fiction, observing China's transformation with critical eye and nostalgia, here he bases the film on four different recent news flashes. First half tells gritty, violent, senseless killing sprees, the second half turns a little giddy in its style with dramatic shifts. The fact that they are based on real events adds another layer to this sprawling, ambitious film. Interesting to note that Jia's version of real life events veers dangerously toward glossy fiction.

I had a privilege of talking to him on the phone while he was in town for this year's New York Film Festival.


First of all, congratulations on winning the best screenplay at this year's Cannes film festival. That said, knowing your documentary work and your documentary style, I am wondering how much of the dialog is actually written and how much of it was improvised.

On the script level, everything was very detailed including the dialog and lines for each character. Actually there are two different, distinct states that were shot within because the characters portray two different states.

Right.

The first one is this very natural, sort of quotidian, relaxed state. When I approached writing this aspect of the script, the dialog was more loosely written and I left some room for improvisation. But the other, the opposite end, there are very dramatic scenes in the film. For those scenes I needed the actors to stick to the script so they could prepare for the scenes. So I required them to stick very closely to the dialog that was written on the script.

Your films always have been reflections of rapidly changing Chinese society, but never really this explicit about death and violence. I wonder what made you to concentrate on that aspect in this film.

Because the violence is an issue in social reality in China that has been accumulating in the past 2-3 years in particular. I digest them via the social media- from microblogs and weibo(Chinese version of Twitter). I noticed that these events are very widely discussed and I wanted to portray this in my film.

The scope of your film has been getting bigger over the years. You were making films in Shanxi, your hometown, then you moved on to other cities- Chengdu, Beijing, Chunquing, then this film takes place in 4 different corners of china with 4 different stories. Is this your biggest production yet?

Yes. It was definitely the biggest and the most challenging one. The geography required us to travel four different locations. We were arranging things in a countryside separated by thousands of kilometers. We kind of joked that we indeed made four different films in one. For instance, casting we had to do four times, scouting locations, four times, and so on and so forth.

It was also an expression of the theme of migration in wuxia films. The theme that characters are always roaming around the country...peripatetic you could say. You can also notice it in traditional Chinese paintings that the landscape also conveys sense of movement. So there was an emphasis on landscape in this film.

Considering the scope of the film did it take longer to make than usual?

The entire production we spent about half a year and the principal photography was about three months.

The fantasy aspect of the film doesn't come out until Hubei story with Zhao Tao where things take interesting turns in terms of mood and rhythm. Was there a specific method on which order the film was going to play out?

The integral structure of the film rested upon two notable considerations: One is temporal - I structured the film temporally around the Chinese New Year. The first segment occurs during the lead up to the New Year where people are migrating. Second part happens during the New Year. The third part occurs after, where everyone travels back to work and the last part is after that. It's the time of the year when this mass migration happens in Chinese society.

The other consideration was that of geography - going from north to south. Four stories together formed a throughway in Chinese geography.

Along with the progression of geography, there is also the progression of drama. For instance, the emotional quality in each event filled with more intensity with each character. So when it reaches Zhao Tao's segment, the drama has expanded and accumulated in such a way that wuxia form begins to inhabit. At the same time it's set in a mountainous region where you tend to associate with wuxia imagery. So it was shot with thorough aesthetic consideration.

The English title A Touch of Sin is obviously a play on old wuxia film A Touch of Zen by King Hu. And you have already answered many of the connections this film has with wuxia. Are there any other connections that I'm missing?

There is one pertinent element, which is that I see King Hu films as political allegories. They portray individuals under duress in their surroundings and they need to fight back. So I find that these stories very much parallel the four stories I wanted to tell. Although times have changed, the connections between people have not necessarily changed so much.

I found it interesting that of all your films, this one, based on true events have the most stranger than fiction quality to it.

Yes. Although all the stories have their roots in the events that happened in the real world, when you consider the characters facing such extreme situations, perhaps the only way to depict this is through the imaginary.

Since your scope of the films is getting bigger, do you ever think about making films outside China?

Currently I am beholden to a project that have already taken six to seven years in preparation. It's set in China between 1800-1900, about the beginnings of modernization of China. I have another project that is set in 1950-60s about a Chinese journeyman traveling through the world- first China to Europe then Europe to South America.


A Touch of Sin has been garnering critical acclaim since it won the Best Screenplay Award at this year's Cannes Film Fest. After TIFF and NYFF screenings, Kino Lober is rolling out the film in theaters on October 4 in New York. Jia will be on hand for the opening night screening Q & A. For tickets, please visit IFC Center website.

Nature vs. Nurture

Like Father, Like Son (2013) - Kore-eda

It seems Kore-eda Hirokazu is incapable of making bad movies. The babies-switched-at-birth premise in films is nothing new. But he just makes it so darn affecting and poignant, avoiding all the clichés that go with this kind of blurry-eyed family drama. Him getting unbelievable performances out of his child actors is already legendary since, then 12-year old Yagira Yuya won the Best Actor Award at Cannes in 2004 for his film Nobody Knows. But it really stumps me how Kore-eda manages that with kids every time. Like Father, Like Son is no exception. For example, I really need to know how he captures moments where child actors shrieks in true delight while maintaining themselves in character. HOW? If Kore-eda's last film I Wish was more focused on childhood, Like Father, Like Son is more about parenting.

Ryota Nonomiya (Japanese TV star and pop idol, Fukuyama Masaharu) is a hard working architect who pushes his adorable, well-behaved son Keita a little too much to excel at everything. It's not that he doesn't love his son, but because he's always been pushing himself hard all his life to be successful- so naturally that's the way it is supposed to be with everyone around him. But married to his career, he doesn't have much time for his family. When he and his wife Midori (played wonderfully by Ono Machiko, Eureka, Mourning Forest) gets an urgent message about the switcheroo from the country hospital where Keita was born 6 years ago, their tranquil life gets turned upside down. They meet their counterparts, Saikis - Yudai (Franky Lily) and Yukari (Yoko Maki) a country bumpkin couple managing a small electrician's shop. They have three adorable children including Ryusei, Nonomiyas' real son. They happen to be a very loving, warm family. Both parties decide that it is best to switch them back before they get too old. Either way, it is going to be a scarring experience for both families.

In a funnily awkward scene, Ryota in his arrogance of the well-to-do, unknowingly insults the Saikis by offering money to take both children in. Astonished by this suggestion, Yudai, a little older than his counterpart, walks up to him and with a moment of hesitation, bonks Ryota in the head. Midori apologizes profusely for her insensitive husband's behavior of course. After that, they slowly agree to do family get-togethers and sleepovers to a permanent switch-over. Even though Ryota says that the switcheroo is not a clear-cut matter, he makes up his mind never to see Keita again.

The children are confused and don't really know what's going on. Ryusei is often left alone in their posh, hotel-like, apartment with Midori who is having hard time getting used to him. She still feels guilty about sending Keita off and starting to love Ryusei. It bothers Ryota that Ryusei's unruly behavior and table manners are not like that of Keita's. It is quite apparent Ryota has been mostly absent and quite terrible at being a father to Keita in many ways compared to affable, warm, funny Yudai.

How could one just ignore your child of 6 years and take up another just because he is your own flesh and blood? The good old, Nature vs Nurture debate aside, Kore-eda makes you think about what it means to be a good parent. Ryota's own daddy issues float up to the surface during the process and him realizing his faults plays out beautifully and naturally as the families reunite with their children who grew up with them.

It's another warm, life affirming film by Kore-eda with the help of pitch perfect acting from everyone involved. One of the best films I've seen this year so far.

Like Father, Like Son plays as part of NYFF. For showtimes and tickets, please visit FSLC website.

The Wind Rises...We Must Live

The Wind Rises (2013) - Miyazaki

'Follow your dream' is the theme of The Wind Rises, the latest, decidedly grownups oriented film by master Hayao Miyazaki. The setting is different too. It's the 1920s-30s Japan: The Great Kanto Earthquakes, The Great Depression, unemployment, poverty and tuberculosis. It's also politically very pointy. From early on, we see a boy's tranquil dreams of flying get overshadowed by ominous war planes adorned with Nazi crosses and Italian flags. There are talks of thought police following engineers. Based on the real life character who ended up designing the Zero fighter plane, the main character Jiro grows up to be an idealistic engineer who dreams of creating a beautiful aeroplane in the midst of national turmoil. But as usual, he is as generous and selfless and heroic as any other Miyazaki protagonists. There is a love story there too, albeit a sad one. Jiro and Nahoko meet during the fateful earthquake and fate would have it, meet up again later on. Nahoko is suffering from tuberculosis and frequents a sanitarium to recuperate.

We all know Miyazaki's completely capable of creating exciting battle scenes. It seems he greatly strains himself from portraying any kind of man-made violence in The Wind Rises. There is a poignant scene where Jiro walks through the graveyard of wrecked planes: the horror of broken dreams. Some of the stylistic choices and especially innovative sound design separates the film from his previous ones too. Mostly the color palette of The Wind Rises is more like sunny impressionist paintings. The title comes from Paul Valéry's poem and characters quote it in French. The complete line is: "The wind is rising...we must attempt to live." The country still reeling from The Great Eastern Japan Earthquake, Miyazaki at once finds parallels in the past and also don't shy away from criticizing Japan's military ambitions. It's definitely the saddest Miyazaki movie I've ever seen. As he announced his retirement, The Wind Rises is a fitting finale of the one whose remarkable carrier not only serves him the title of a master filmmaker, but a true humanist.

The Wind Rises plays part of this year's New York Film Festival. Please go to FSLC website for tickets and showtimes.

Stranger than Fiction

A Touch of Sin (2013) - Jia

A Touch of Sin is an anomaly for Jia Zhangke. Or at least it feels like it. Known for his blend of documentary and fiction observing China's transformation with critical eye and nostalgia, here he bases the film on 4 different violent recent news flashes. 4 people resort to violence to express their discontent in 4 corners of rapidly changing China. It's an interesting one- first half tells gritty, violent, senseless killing sprees, the second half turns a little giddy in its style. The fact that they are based on recent news events adds another layer to this sprawling, ambitious film. In A Touch of Sin, Jia's version of real life veers dangerously toward glossy fiction.

A Touch of Sin plays part of this year's New York Film Festival. Showtimes and tickets, please visit FSLC website.

Enigma of Harry

Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction (2013) - Huber

There are only a few actors I can think of whose faces alone speak volumes without uttering a word. Harry Dean Stanton possesses one of those. He always looks like hell. Having appeared in more than 200 feature films, even my Korean grandma recognizes his weathered face: he meowed into his demise in ALIEN, got to have Adrienne Barbeau all to himself in ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, taught Emilio Estevez some codes to live by in REPO MAN, failed to seduce Warren Oates in TWO LANE BLACKTOP and made Nastasha Kinski and everyone else cry in PARIS, TEXAS.

Swiss filmmaker Sophie Huber's portrayal of Harry Dean Stanton isn't exactly a revealing documentary per se. Because the 86-year old character actor, isn't really a talkative fella. Rather, most of the doc is filled with Stanton singing his favorite songs -- Country Westerns, Mexican songs and Danny Boy. He happens to be a very good singer. And PARTLY FICTION happens to be a great documentary on one of the great living American actors.

There is some background information revealed, but not that much: born in Kentucky, a war veteran who fought in the Battle of Okinawa and forever bachelor and womanizer. Debbie Harry wrote a song about him and hooked up with him once. Many of the questions are answered without further elaboration: Was his mother proud of him after he got famous? "Yes," (followed by long silence)

Huber lets Stanton's famous friends do the talking. David Lynch tells him how many movies they've done together because Harry doesn't remember ("Well, I'll tell you Harry!"). There is a funny bit with Lynch reading a list of questions (presumably Huber's) off of a piece of paper. "Have you ever been married?" "No. But I was really close once...," "Oh, the next question would have been, how did you meet your wife?"

In Partly Fiction, more than any other characters he's played, Stanton resembles Travis from Paris, Texas the most - a world-weary man with his gaze always fixed toward the yonder, deep in regret. This is confirmed by Wim Wenders, who got the veteran actor his first lead role in 1984. "He brought a lot of himself in the character. It's a brave thing to do to be that vulnerable."

Kris Kristofferson shows up and reminisces his first encounter with Stanton who recruited him and did a screen test with him in Cisco Pike. Harry chimes in, telling us how he held a broken bottle, just to intimidate the then young Kristofferson. Stanton regrets a little not to pursue his real love - music. "I avoided the success and fame...gracefully." He tells his friend with a wry smile. KK performs the song He's a Pilgrim in which the title of the doc originates. This is how the chorus goes:

He's a poet, he's a picker
He's a prophet, he's a pusher
He's a pilgrim and a preacher, and a problems when he's stoned
He's a walking contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction
Talking every wrong direction on his lonely way back home

Stanton's view on life is that of a zen Buddhist - a total detachment. He gets into a conversation with a driver about how the earth travels around the sun at 11,000 miles per hour while driving around Sunset Blvd at night. The mere thought of it makes him uneasy. When asked how he wants to be remembered by, he says, "Nothing." Life is a fleeting dream. Love is when you are not attached.

Only counterpoint to this comes from Stanton's spry personal assistant, Logan Sparks. According to him, the actor's nonchalance in his life and career is all bullshit. Sparks says that if Stanton didn't do anything, he would be still sitting in a rocking chair at home in Kentucky. He got to where he is now by hard work. That's why he is so well regarded and respected in Hollywood after all these years.

Gorgeously shot by Seamus McGarvey (Atonement, Avengers) in part monochrome and color, the scope of Partly Fiction feels very much like a passion project with everyone involved. We get to know the real Harry only as much as he wants us to know. His enigma is still intact. Huber as a fan, respects his subject enough not to overdo it. The result is still more than enough for us to appreciate Harry.

Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction gets a national US theatrical release on Sept. 27th.

*I attended the New York Premiere of the film with Stanton, Huber, McGarvey and producer Chiemi Karasawa present. Karasawa announced that there is a soundtrack coming out. I'm definitely getting that!


Dustin Chang is a freelance writer. His musings and opinions on the world can be found at www.dustinchang.com

Late Term

After Tiller (2013) - Shane, Wilson

The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman's life to her well being and dignity. When the government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a full adult human responsible for her own choices.

(Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg)

We all can agree that no one is really pro-abortion but I believe that what women do with their bodies is not for public debate. It amazes me that this day and age this is even an issue, especially in this country. Documentary filmmakers Martha Shane and Lana Wilson are not here to engage the religious nuts in conversations. Late-term abortion is not an attractive subject and not many people want to touch the subject. But After Tiller an essential film for anyone who is interested in women's rights issues who needs a little more convincing.

George Tiller, a physician and the medical director of Women's Health Care Services was gunned down at his church in Wichita, Kansas by an anti-abortion activist. Tiller was a mentor/friend to the four remaining doctors in the country featured in this film, who still performs late-term abortions. They do it because they are first and foremost, medical doctors concerned about the health of their patients. They do it under the constant death threat from violent, so called pro-lifers. There are many searing anecdotes told in the film: one of the doctors decided to provide abortion services because when he practiced his medicine in Peru, there were one maternity ward and two wards for women recovering from attempted self-induced abortions and the fatality rate in those wards was about 50 percent. There was a young rape victim who, after urging of the doctors, went to the police to report.

Their patients, many of them couples, with their faces blurred for protection, make difficult decisions to terminate the pregnancy because of severe defects in their fetuses. They can't bear to carry the term and see their baby live in agonizing, torturous short life. These defects are usually not detectible until the 20 weeks in. Then there are others- poor, young.... the thing is, there are many different circumstances why women end up seeking the procedure. These compassionate doctors are there to help them make informed decisions.

This film isn't a requiem but help to inspire other doctors to take up the cause and I hope they do.

The Other Side of Mexican Cinema

Duck Season/Temporada de Patos (2004) - Eimbcke


A charming little debut film of director Fernando Eimbcke. Unlike the current crop of modern Mexican directors who tend to go for broke, Eimbcke chooses to be smaller and quieter in scale and scope - and it's refreshing. The awkward comedy of human connection, black and white photography, static long shots and fadeouts have more common with the world of Jim Jarmusch than that of Iñarritu. Young actors here are very good and natural. It tells the lives of two 14 year old boys left alone without adult supervision on one lazy sunday, which is meant to be a pizza and videogames duderthon, interrupted by a sexy 16 year old neighbor and a pizza deliveryman. They are middle class, ordinary people soaked in American culture, not miserablists in some poverty porn. It's a slacker comedy (which I usually hate), but a good, charming one. I enjoyed it.

Fairytale for Adults

Vendredi Soir/Friday Night (2002) - Denis





With tinkling orchestral score and a couple of unobtrusive and brief CG effects, Claire Denis creates fairy tale for grownups with Vendredi Soir. Without much dialog, it tells a one-night-stand taking place amid of a transit strike in Paris. Laure (Valérie Lemercier) is first seen in her flat, packing up all her belongings in boxes. She is moving in with her boyfriend the next day. She is on her way to her friend's house for dinner. But with the strike, the traffic jam is severer than the one in Week End. Laure picks up a handsome stranger Jean (Vincent Lindon) with the urging of radio broadcaster's plea to carpool. The attraction between the two is palpable.

Denis makes the most of the City of Lights through the car window. Agnes Godard's fluid camera captures pulsating street and intimacy of the confined space. With ordinary looking Lemercier is our guide to the fairytale, Denis suggests that this particular night, anything is possible. Laure asks a young man who happens to be Gregoire Colin if he needs a ride. He politely declines. The camera focuses on a lovely blond in a car for a while. But Jean chooses Laure's car. Even after their hook up, there are sequences suggesting other possible scenarios. Laure's personal problems or insecurities are never discussed, nor Jean's background. Vendredi Soir treads on the subject of one-night-stands very lightly with maturity, avoiding all the pitfalls of crass Hollywood romance or tortured realistic drama. I couldn't get into the film when I first attempted watching it. I suppose you have to be in a certain mood for it.

Life's Rich Pageant

35 rhums (2008) - Denis






A family drama so understated yet deeply affecting, 35 rhums showcases Claire Denis's versatility as a filmmaker. It presents the life of an extended Parisian family consists of long-time neighbors in the same building. They are Lionel (Alex Descas), a stoic metro conductor and his daughter, Jo (Mati Diop), a college student, Gabrielle (Nicole Dogue), a cab driver and a one time lover of Lionel who still has feeling for and Noe (Grégoire Colin), a loner who lives up in the penthouse & has been a best friend/love interest of Jo since their childhood.

Times are changing. Lionel's buddy Réne, kills himself after retirement from his longtime metro job. Jo is getting too old to be a daddy's girl anymore. Noe is selling the house and leaving the country because his 17-year old cat just died and nothing in Paris is holding him back(?). Denis weighs each characters equally and the cast is marvelous. Each small gesture, each unspoken moment has profound resonance.

But the film's largely about Lionel and Jo. It's perhaps the tenderest father-daughter relationship I've seen on screen. As they embark on a short road trip to visit the grave of Jo's mother in Germany, they know that they are spending time together like that for the last time and we know this too, even though no words are ever uttered between the two about it.

Said to be an homage to Ozu, 35 rhums comfortably slips in to the universality of human conditions. Paper lanterns in Germany, rice cookers in an African household in France are completely in harmony with their surroundings. It's a beautiful film. I might have to try Vendredi Soir again.

Collective Hypnosis

Heart of Glass (1976) - Herzog





What is crazier: a film about a whole town going mad or a filmmaker hypnotizing all the actors to get a certain mood out of it? Herzog did the latter with one of his least seen masterpieces, Heart of Glass. In the heart of the majestic Barbarian mountains, a town is thrown to chaos because their glassmaker died, taking the secret of the much prized 'ruby glass' to the grave. Everyone, from the town's master, owner of the glass factory and his son to workers and farmers, is somehow completely dependent of this one industry. After many failures to duplicate ruby glass everyone sheepishly, subtly go mad collectively, just as Hias the oracle (Joseph Bierbichler)'s predicted.
(Non) actors who are hypnotized look and act like they are lobotomized zombies, moving slowly and uttering their fed lines in monotone. Their glazed eyes are either rolled back or staring nowhere, as if their souls have been sucked out. Herzog's mission therefore, is accomplished!

Accompanied by Caspar von Fredrich inspired visuals of nature and men and Popul Vuh's soundtrack, Heart of Glass is even more hypnotic than usual Herzog in many different ways. His commentary on industrialization, Fascism, losing soul in the modern world are painted with his usual bold style and he does it like no other. Its tacked on operatic ending at sea -- concerning the futility of man, at first feels like it comes out of nowhere, doesn't seem too far fetched when you digest the film as a whole. It's a truly majestic film and the one that needs to be seen on the big screen.

No Harm Done

Abigail Harm (2013) - Chung

I've always liked Amanda Plummer. Her small, gravelly voice, her fawn-like demeanor, and her hidden ferocity have always gotten my attention in the many films in which I've seen her. It's that fragile, otherworldly quality of the seasoned actress that director Lee Isaac Chung (Munyurangabo) taps into and uses to maximum effect in his new feature film, Abigail Harm.

This modern day fairy tale is apparently loosely based on a Korean folklore, Woodcutter and the Nymph, which goes something like this:

Once there was a poor man who barely eked out a living off of cutting down and selling trees deep in the countryside. One day, he encountered a wounded deer in the forest. The animal pleaded with him to hide him from the hunters. This he did. In return, the deer let him in a secret on how to keep a heavenly nymph to be his wife. "You see, there is this lake where the nymphs take baths. All you have to do is steal one of their robes. One that remains after others ascend to heaven will be bound to you forever." This the poor, lonely man followed so....

But I'm sorry to tell you that the story doesn't end well for the woodcutter because the lesson here is -- 'if you love somebody, set them free.'

Abigail Harm (Plummer) is a lonely woman living in New York City, making money here and there for reading books for the blinds. One night, she finds a wounded stranger (Will Patton) in her apartment. This slightly incoherent, ethereal man directs her to a grand empty building where she finds a naked Asian man (Kuramochi Tetsuo) taking a bath in a large metal tin bathtub. She nabs his robe and runs out. A few days after, she goes back and finds the man wondering around naked. She calls him, like she would a pet and brings him home. So starts a charming little romance, big on creating the melancholic mood of urban loneliness but small on everything else. But it's lovely nonetheless.

Plummer is adorable. Her childish excitement and happiness when she finds her first true love are palpable. It's all her. The almost mute companion is just there to stand around to be adored by our heroine. It's pretty hard to sell a man-child with a thick Japanese accent pass as being otherworldly in this day and age. But director Chung keeps everything light as feather. Serving also as a cinematographer, Chung beautifully captures magic light hours in mostly Brooklyn shot settings. Abigail Harm is a modern fairy tale with affecting performances by many character actors (including, Plummer, Patton and Burt Young of the Godfather films). It is rare to see urban loneliness presented in American films, and it's rarer still to see it done in a micro scale and budget, and done well. It's a charmer.

Abigail Harm opens on Friday, August 30 at Quad Cinema in New York.


Dustin Chang is a freelance writer. His musings and opinions can be found at www.dustinchang.com

Lithuanian Sci-fi

Vanishing Waves (2012) - Buozyte






A very good looking Lithuanian Sci-fi. Lucas (Marius Jampolskis) volunteers to an untested scientific experiment where he will be hooking up to a comatose patient to see if transfer of human psyche is possible. What Lucas encounters is a beautiful Aurora (Jurga Jutaite) and the experience is so real and sensual, he keeps the details to himself and hidden from the scientists. It takes a toll in his mental state and his relationship with his girlfriend. The psychiatrist assigned to the project suspects something is wrong but infatuated Lucas keeps pushing on, refusing to divulge his secret. After secretly injecting truth serum to unlock the repressed memories in Aurora, Lucas finds her dark relationship with a mysterious lover (portrayed very briefly by Sharunas Bartas) and how she had fallen into a coma. Determined to help her come back to life, he decides to dive in one last time despite everyone's objections.

This concept of Vanishing Wave is nothing new, but the execution here is exceptional and not derivative of any other films. It is worth checking out just for the visuals. Gorgeous Jutaite often bares it all as a damaged woman who was/is desperately in love. Writer director Kristina Buozyte doesn't lose her footing in balancing the film from falling into either being too realistic/procedural or full blown feel-good fantasy. One of the better Sci-fi films I've seen in years.

Grand Visual Master

The Grandmaster (2013) - Wong










Wong Kar Wai fans who's been waiting for this since it's first announcement back in...when was it, won't be disappointed. Even though it was Wong who initially started this Ip Man craze, given his notoriety for procrastination, his Grandmaster is the last to open after a series of Ip Man franchise. And since it's a WKW movie, Grandmaster is less about the famous martial arts master but the extreme visual fetishization of his life. There is not one frame of the film that are not screengrab worthy. Every frame, a work of art. As far as pure visual porn goes, it surpasses last year's Dredd (detractors, now is the time to speak up!)

Much like In the Mood for Love and 2046, theme-wise, we are safely in Wong territory: Unrequited love, lost chances, eternal beauty, etc. Unfortunately, because the film is based on a real life character, Wong has to resort to title cards for dates (as the timeline is heavily jumbled), hence, cramping his perfect sense of style. The unrequited love between Ip Man (Tony Leung) and Lady Gong (Zhang Ziyi) is fluidly meshed together even though they have very little screen time together. It's as much Ip Man movie as it is Lady Gong movie, who is the real tragic figure in the story. Wong paints Gong as a woman who fell victim of its time and place: she takes the burden of revenging her father(master Gong)'s death, which consumes all her strength, despite everyone's advice to walk away from the man's world and 'settle down'- no time for love, no time for life. It is that short sparring between her and Ip, that fleeting moment when their bodies mingled like two dancing flames that she cherishes forever...wow cheesy.

Seriously, that fight scene is not even the best one. The best is the one between Lady Gong and Ma San, the former pupil of/who killed papa Gong at the snowy train station, Leone style. Wong employs slightly slower shutter speed in seriously dark (the whole movie is dark dark dark) fight sequences where actors' faces and moving hands get accentuated against velvety black backdrop. The effect is close to an elegant ballroom dancing rather than kung fu. The worst are the ones in the trailers in the rain which is nothing more than an exercise in super slow-mo for a tire/windshield wiper commercial.

Since it's about these two lovebirds (who are not really lovers), everything else is just window dressing. Ip's wife and two kids never once factor in to the picture, nor does the Japanese Occupation and unfortunately, nor the Razor (Chen Chang) who takes up three meaty scenes which never develops into anything. My guess is his scenes are severely cut due to its length (the version I saw was already 2 hrs 10 minutes and seemed long). Since it's a Wong movie, I wouldn't be surprised if there already was a redux version or director's cut in the works.

All in all, it's a rapturous visual experience and on par with his later works on every level. Too bad I don't find joy in his films anymore. At some point he traded off his playfulness with static elegance, coquettishness with stoicism, humor with slow-mo raindrops. He might be back in form, but I'm not interested in what he's selling anymore.

**It's been said that the version I saw is different than the US version. The US release is shorter and more linear in structure. Keep that in mind, folks.

Death Tickles

Through the Forest/Á travers la forêt (2005) - Civeyrac








Magical. Jean-Paul Civeyrac makes something extraordinary out of a story that could've been easily written by a morbid teenage girl. This 56 minute film, only comprised of nine 6-minute long shots, is at once a love story, super natural thriller and musical. A fawn like Camile Berthomier plays a grief stricken young woman, Amelie. She sees Renaud, her dead lover, in her dreams every night. After consulting a medium and having gone through a mental breakdown, she is suddenly given a power over people. So she wills her way over Hippolyte who is a deadringer for her dead lover- making him(and herself) believe that he is Renaud.

I usually hate musical numbers in films but Berthomier can sing and has a beautiful voice and the music is actually good. Then I find out she is actually a singer: