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| Tuesday, April 12, 2005 10:10 AM |
| So Far |
 by Fëanor |
First of all, a horrifying link, courtesy kds. I really wish I could be there when Yagathai watches this, just to see the rage and disbelief and hatred build in his eyes. He might even start to shoot dark side energy bolts out of his fingers...
Anyway, I've got a day off from seeing movies today, and I thought I'd take a few moments to update you folks on how the festival is going for me so far:
- The 10th District Court, Moments of Trials - A documentary that shows you edited versions of various court cases in a particular court over a few days. It was pretty good. It was interesting to learn a bit about the French court system. A lot of the cases were quite funny, as the criminals involved were typically normal folks doing stupid things, or very crazy or stupid people doing very crazy, stupid things.
- Survive Style 5+ - Totally wacky and hilarious and awesome. Five interconnecting storylines involving, among many other things, hitmen, hypnotism, TV commercials, a wife who won't stay dead, and a burglar who's in the closet (in more than one way, actually). The best movie I've seen so far.
- Marebito - A very weird horror movie (sort of) from the maker of Ju-on (and/or The Grudge). It's about a guy looking for ultimate terror and madness, who ultimately finds it (so I guess it's a happy ending??), after spending a bit of time with some kind of demon girl he found chained to a wall in a secret underground cavern under the subway. Or is she just his daughter, and he's insane? Who knows--I certainly don't. I found this one a little too slow and strange, not too mention corny and pretentious and confusing.
- Izo - I was really looking forward to this one. The craziest Miike film yet, according to most folks, about a time-travelling samurai on a quest to kill every human being in the world. At least, that's what the festival material says. But it's really about Buddhism, or about the chaos and imperfection that inevitably arises even in seemingly perfect systems. It's about systems of control and the defiance of those systems. It's about nothingness and karma. It's also one of the artiest and most pretentious films I've ever seen. Overlong, achingly paced at some points, with horribly annoying musical interludes. I can hardly imagine a film that dje2004 would hate more, and I have to admit, I myself did not really enjoy it very much, even though I did appreciate many of the ideas and techniques in the film, and there was a lot of cool, violent samurai action.
- Lakeside Murder Case - Starts out as an interesting sort of murder mystery and murder procedural. (I think I made up the phrase "murder procedural"; by it, I mean that the movie covers in great detail the procedure of covering up the murder--of hiding the body, of covering tracks, etc.) This part of the movie was very interesting, with interesting characters, good acting, and a constant sense of tension and mystery. But then the film veers off into being a message piece about how parents should treat their kids, and the pressures that parents and Japanese society put on kids. The movie gets all preachy and obvious, and creaks down to an achingly slow pace. Even after pretty much everything about the case has been revealed, the movie goes on and on. Then there's the totally inappropriate ending shot of the rotting corpse with the incriminating piece of evidence on it, a shot that would be more at home as the conclusion of a straight horror/slasher flick, and which sticks out here like a sore thumb. Ultimately, the movie fails to be very good at any of the things that it tries to be.
Okay, I wrote a little bit more than I meant to, especially considering I still plan to fully review these films in my diary later. To make a long story short, I'm a bit disappointed so far. The only movie I really enjoyed was Survive Style 5+, and that one was just kind of silly. I hope there are some better movies coming up soon... |
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