Month: June 2005

Thai film–well, Thai director, ultrahip Japanese star (and cameo from Takashi Miike), played out in English, Thai, and Japanese. Shot beautifully by Christopher Doyle, which made me half-expect another Wong Kar Wai knock-off, but director Pen-Ek Ratanaruang has his own absurdist approach to narrative and imagery despite some nods toward WKW’s obsessions. Like so many films of the last few years (or narrative, always?), the movie plays around with issues of life & death, coincidence and meaning, romance, violence. Japanese expat protagonist Kenji (Asano Tadanobu) seeks to off himself at the beginning of the film–but, he takes pains to note, not for reasons most people commit suicide, although he never names the explicit reasons. Instead he gets mixed up with a local woman Noi (Sinitta Boonyasak) and… well, there’s a couple murders, an accident, a jealous boyfriend, Yakuza. But things never heat up, never boil over into plottedness.

Instead, the film seems willfully even derisively dismissive of explicit reasons. “Big” things occur offscreen, out of frame, or just out of the narrative; there’s a sly humor to the displacement of expectations, replacing our focus on the subtle interplay of the two lead characters. And they’re a joy to watch. The film’s enthralling.

Has anyone seen “Rescue Me”? We talked tv some time ago, and no one ever mentioned this — his show about firefighters. We caught an episode last night, and … it’s good. I had been a fan of his short-lived “The Job,” where he played the same character but as a cop, and that show too is often superb, ‘though pitched more directly as a comedy. “Rescue” seems (from one episode) to have a broader set of objectives, pushing dark comedy but also some of the bleaker portrayals of working-class men destroying themselves which Leary tackled in the film “Monument Ave” some time back.

I ordered it from Netflix, but I’m curious if others have any opinions.

This is easily the best film I’ve seen in some time. A French comedy–and lo these many years I’d assumed that beast to be mythical–about tastes aesthetic and romantic. Every character displays some worldview or some kind of love which collides with some other character’s, and the film is a dry sometimes cruelly blunt evocation of how we don’t understand one another. But it also studiously avoids taking sides–almost no character is simply mocked for bad taste.

In my favorite scene, a crass businessman is trying to woo an actress he’s fallen for, sitting in a crowd of her artsy friends, telling crude jokes which all involve shit or vomit. He completely misses their scorn, so rapt in his infatuation…. And although the actor never betrays the crassness of the character, never seeks our sympathies by softening his character’s faults or making him more likable, there is such compassion for his desire, such appreciation for his appreciation.

I also loved the speed of the film–scenes of 2 minutes, or less, and crosscutting between a host of characters. It feels like a farce in form, but plays much more subtly as a character study.

Highly recommended.

Batman Begins:
Unlike Mauer, who practices his anti-blockbuster sneer in front of a mirror every May, in preparation for quick scornful dismissals in every conversation he has all Summer, I actually continue to dream the dream of the grand great Hollywood extravaganza. I get suckered in every year, or, rather than suckered, I willingly suspend my scorn thinking–well, at least one of these previews has to portend something marvelous. And, of course, like Saturday morning cartoons and burritos at Taco Bell, the preview hype and expectation is almost always better than real life.

This film isn’t the holy grail. It is, though, what a blockbuster ought to be, could be: generally exciting, often surprisingly moving, smartly executed. Fun.
Continue reading Summer