Sun taam (Mad Detective) (2007)

"I can see the inner personalities of a person."

If we are talking about contemporary Hong Kong film we can't miss two names: Johnny To (who still can't speak English) and Wai Ka Fai are definitely one of the most active film directors of our age in average two quality (!) movies in each year. The last time I focused less on Asian movies, but my return to them was really worth: Mad Detective gave exactly that freshness in its storytelling why we turn our attention time to time to the direction of  East.

The starting point of the film is almost classic: two cops, a young one (Ho) and an experienced crazy one (Bun) are trying to solve a strange case: more than 18 months ago during chasing a thief, officer Wong disappeared in a forest. Some months later a deadly robbery spree started where the murder used Wong's disappeared gun. I said classic situation, but I have to mention a "small" detail: Bun has a disturbing supernatural skill. He can see other people's inner personalities. What does it mean? Imagine that you're talking with somebody, and with this this skill you are able to see different characters of your partner according to his or her actual feelings (bored, amazed, ...). Usually you hide your inner personalities with your socially controlled behave. The more characters you have the more you hide with the help of your surface-self...

Bun's talent is useful in solving crime cases because our inner personalities are talkative about our hidden sins. But it drives him crazy too: after a while he can't make distinctions among somebody's real and inner characters. He becoms a crazy maniac, a Mad Detective.

"Apply emotions in investigate! Not logic!"

And this gives the freshness of the storytelling, because as a viewer most of the time we see what Bun sees. We can't see the reality, but Bun's reality, which is in terms of the storytelling is more than amazing. We are tied to his sick mind: we can't be sure whether we see somebody's real or inner self in a scene. Sometimes these characters surround the real figure, just like in the case of the disappeared officer's partner, who has exceptionally 7 different inner characters. Bun is sure that the complex personality of Chi-wai is behind the serial of murders, but who could believe in his strange methods and crazy argumentations?

If you're interested new and fresh ways of storytelling (only (!) in this aspect imagine the combination of the perfect Infernal Affairs and the more genious Tale of Two Sisters), if you believes that our cognitive and comprehensive limits are limits only for step them over, then watch it definitely! 

Only one hint: If you're not sure about what is happening at the end (as honestly I wasn't sure either), check the imdb-discussion board about it. It's really worth, because the film is much more wiser than you would think after watching first time! Waiting for the dumb Hollywood version...

9/10

Redacted (2007)

"The first casualty of this war is the truth."

...says the poster and one of the soldiers right in the beginning of Brian de Palma's Redacted - and you ask back: "And so what?" I mean we aren't 5 years old children who believes in the coverages of the news channels or the propagandas of the deeply influenced media. And come on, tell me only one war which was about the truth. And I just remind you that here we, more precise de Palma is talking about the Iraq war, you know, the one where the brave (?) politicians (the last one among them is leaving his place this year...) during fighting against the terror (??) never found any weapons of mass destruction. If you still think that they told / tell about the truth, just watch this film:) Btw they must still searching (???) something there, at least the soldiers of democracy (????) are still there. Ok, stop me.

So if the content is too direct, and already told thousand times by others what is de Palma's excuse to make a 1001st version of it? It must be about the film's form: Redacted is redacted from different fictional materials, like news channels' footages, an imagined French documentary, a security camera's pictures, online streaming, the soldiers' night vision cameras and - of course - self made video diaries of the soldiers (The 'of course' refers to Cloverfield, Rec and all the other clones at the meeting of the technological revolution and Hollywood's searching for new forms of storytelling). As I said everything is fictious, "This film is enterily fiction, inspired by an incident widely reported to have occured in Iraq."

We have different styles and genres emotionalized by effective music (Handel's Sarabande used more motivated by Kubrick in his masterpiece Barry Lyndon), but the content remains too direct, very simple and - sorry to say - boring. I'm not talking about the terrible fact that raping a 15 years old girl is not disturbing anymore, but I believe if you show me 1001 times I'm getting bored and - what you really don't want - unsensitive for the topic. Even de Palma told similar story in his Viet-nightmare war crazyness (Causalties of War (1989) - what a nice reference for the motto of Redacted...) already! Another soldier tells: "We don't need another Abu Grabhi!" - he has right, definitely, more than de Palma ever intended.

Ok, I know there is an election coming in the US and A:), you have a drive to talk about the """truth""", but please, for your own sake don't treat your people as a child - otherwise they will behave so and you'll fail your final aim (see conditioned to be unsensitive..).

"I can't afford remorse." - says a soldier. And I agree, so I must say forget this one, and watch something really really BIG from de Palma, for example his unbelievable "series" from the eighties (these movies came right after each other within 4 years!) like Dressed to Kill, Blow Out, Scarface and my personal favourite Body Double.

4/10

California Dreamin' (Nesfarsit / Endless) (2007)

24th of August, 2006. Cristian Nemescu, a 27 years old Romanian director leaving his first feature film's post production works, get a taxi in Bucharest together with his sound engineer Andrei Toncu. A few minutes later on one of the boulevards of the capital, missing its red traffic light with 140km/hr a robust Porsche Cayenne SUV runs into their cab. Nemescu and Toncu never left that taxi, and their debut became an endless story. Literally. Irrevocably.

There are tons of articles about the rising new wave of Romanian talents (among the post-socialist countries next to the ex-Eastern Germans only they seem to succeed presenting their historical weights). After his last year's winning at Cannes Cristian Mungiu is the most known among them, but behind him there are other already proven ones (Puiu, Muntean, Porumboiu); Nemescu could have been the next one in the row... I won't mention here their merits but focus on the 'endless' California Dreamin', the film which suffers a lot from the typical problems of being somebody's debut, but at the same time which is a starting torso of a never delivered oeuvre too.

I decided not to tell anything about the story. The purpose is that the film - as we used to it watching movies coming from the Balkan - uses its story only for expressing something else, something universal, something historical, mental, sociological, something what depicts the place and the certain time. Nemescu tells a single simple, almost comedy-like story (where there is the chance of the tragedy in every minute) from 1999, but shows more about the whole problem of the region: the mentality, the communicative misunderstanding, the false hopes and ill-founded fears, the destructive powers of a misleading propaganda. As the mayor puts into words:

"The arrival of the Americans can only do us good. Because, if we get publicity, we will draw investors to our village."

... The whole politics of Eastern Europe is in this trap: people are living in some mixture of desperate beliefs and ideologically confused hopes, small-time interests. Their whole "democratization" is nothing else than their industrial and spiritual privatization. And they supposed to be happy for that to the USA. But not everybody is thinking this way. Usually these people are the victims of the US troops' short visits. Especially if they are proudly stubborn enough to face with the arrogant American military authority (its physical face (or chin:) played by Armand Assante was a perfect choice).

On the picture: Nemescu and Armand Assante

In the beginning it seems only the Romanians can't understand the way of communication with the Americans (starting to play their anthem in a sensitive military situation is such a perfect absurd joke), but later on we bitterly recognize how their "perfect", "sophisticated" - Western - communication is working. The final speech of Assante front of the village summarizes the whole contemporary mistake of the USA. It's not about that their haven't got right, it's about they can't understand that their right in other countries, cultures, historical situations and social mentalities just doesn't work. That's why they failed in Afghanistan, that's why they fail in Iraq, and that's why they will fail against East too... Their actual "peacekeeping" mission (haha) fails already in a small Romanian village (Capalnita), much earlier than entering their real destination in Kosovo. And this is where the comedy turns into tragedy...

Another 'closely watched trains' with a real Romanian Elvis. Maybe not for this latter reason but watch it, definitely.


8/10

Paranoid Park (2007)

"Nobody's ever ready for Paranoid Park."

The story attached to a young skateboarder guy's, Alex's point of view, more precise to his memories about that fatal night on the seventeenth, when a security guard died (killed?) in Portland's industrial district, right next to the Paranoid Park. Let me explain the informations of this sentence: The "Park" is a place for skateboarders (built illegally by themselves) and all the inherent subcultural figures. When I said that the happenings on the screen follow Alex's memories it was a deliberate choice of words: He remembers through his diary written during the flow of the film. And - as well trained cinephiles we exactly know - our memories, our remembering is more subjective than how the things happened in reality. And along the police's investigation and Alex's growing pricks of conscience the reality can't resist to appear...

I like the expression which perfectly fits here is the Dutch narratologist Mieke Bal's term to describe this way of subjective storytelling. She is talking about the "innocent chronology", where the storyteller who - usually because of his/her guilty feeling's repression - tries to "forget", who tries to convince even his/herself how the past exactly happened - not like in reality. Bal is talking about the innocent chronology in connection with Robbe-Grillet's novel, Le Voyeur's (The Voyeur) protagonist, the travelling salesman who tells a strange murder story "forgetting" mentioning that actually he was the murder. The same narrative game (and a murder case) is played in Attila Janisch's genious spiral-structured Másnap (The Day After Before) as well where the protagonist's narration jumps back and forth in time just to avoid his facing with the pregnant point of the story, the moment of the murder.

Alex: "I had tried to put this part out of my mind. But Lu's picture brought it all back."

Gus van Sant is coming from this direction when gives a diary into his protagonist's hands, where the diary will be the helping tool of the confession. Alex claims he isn't the best in creative writing, but the weakness of the storytelling is not his fault: van Sant seemingly gives the responsibility to him, but the Paranoid Park remains his weak film. After Harmony Korine's or Larry Clark's much much powerful, authentical and effective films about the contemporary America's generational apathy this movie - especially in 2008 - doesn't give anything else to the topic. The soundtrack is the bravest step from the film (I still don't get the point why van Sant used frequently Nino Rota's tunes from Fellini's Giulietta degli spiriti), but if you're shooting skateboarders the super8-like, fisheye-quality of camerawork is nothing more but a huge commonplace cliché. For this it was really unnecessary ask Christopher Doyle to hold the camera...

Van Sant still didn't convince me about his favourized talent (the only significant film from him is still My Own Private Idaho, from 1991(!)).

Sorry, but won't lie to you: forget it. Instead of this watch Kids, Gummo, Bully, Ken Park (another park?), and the rest. 

5/10

Key Largo (1948)

"It's better to be a live coward 

than a dead hero."

The essence of the quoted sentence is in the middle of another co-operation of director John Huston and Hollywood's coolest character ever Humphrey Bogart (- within the same year with ...Sierra Madre). One thing is sure: the moral tale of Key Largo isn't their best.

"At the southernmost point of the United States are the Florida Keys, a string of small islands held together by a concrete causeway. Largest of these remote coral islands is Key Largo." The ex war veteran Frank McCloud (Bogart) arrives there to visit a war causilty friend's family. The sorrow of the meeting with the hotel owner Mr. Temple (Lionel Barrymore), the father of the fallen hero and the ex-wife, Nora (Bacall) changes soon when Frank confronts with a suspicious company of the hotel. When he realises who is hiding upstairs, it's too late to act: A long night begins where the rules of the game are in one hand, the ill-famed, nowadays more frustrated ex-mob Johnny Rocco (no one can better smoke a cigar than Edward G. Robinson). Moreover the last years' biggest hurricane is on its way heading Key Largo...

The film is more a theater piece, a chamber play, some kind of psychological drama, where mentally wounded characters, ethical questions, moral values materialize into a closed group dynamics of the situation. Frank's pricks of conscience ("A living war hero? I know already how he did!"), Rocco's growing inferiority complex ("After living in the USA for more than thirty-five years they called me an undesirable alien. Me. Johnny Rocco. Like I was a dirty Red or something."), Mr. Temple's and Nora's sorrow, and their only trusting /useless  faith (the '/' is the question of the film) in Frank are the catalysts of the unfolding drama of this long stormy night. You can't miss the definitely weighty questions of the post WW2 situation behind, materialized by these characters.

The long and short of it: the moral is stronger than the story, Rocco is more cynical (and yes, better) than Frank, Bacall not as beautiful than in Hawks' To Have and Have Not (btw, the final scene of Key Largo is borrowed from Hemingway's To Have... which wasn't used in its rather free adaptation of Hawks). And hey, have you seen a Bogart-film where Bogey tolerates somebody's hit on his face without giving back? There now!

It's not about that you shouldn't watch it but believe me, there are embarrasingly amount of  better movies from the fourties...

6/10

The Bank Job (2008)

First of all: I'm not a fan of Jason Statham. But nr. 1, and but nr.2:

Impressive start: the sunny Caribbean, 1970, beautiful half naked woman swimming in the ocean, and Marc Bolan shouts through his T-Rex's throat: "Get it On!" 5 seconds later we are (ok, I wasn't there:) in the bed: the same woman enjoying herself being in a sandwich between a couple of dark "bread". I thought it's a nice composition - but it seems not I was the only voyeur of the situation: we see a black guy making photos of the acrobatic scene. Agree with Marc: get it on!

Hmm, somebody pushed the nail of the film's turntable, because suddenly we are in the greyish East London, already 1971. Just briefly: Michael X (the English Malcolm), "the black Robin Hood of Nothing Hill", who always wanted to meet a white man with a name 'Brown':)) was the procurer to make those compromising pictures ... about a high member of the Royal family... He is a simple drug criminal covered his business with contemporary artists (you'll se even Lennon and Yoko Ono around his table) and black ideological bullshit, but nobody can touch him until he owns the negatives. The deposit is in the Lloyds Bank. Should I tell more what is the film about with a title The Bank Job?

Maybe I should, because the case isn't as simple as it looks like (did you realize already that in the latter years one film consists at least two movies; or maybe connected to this fact the average film length is growing steadily?). According to the case's sensitivity there needs to be a solution to get those pictures without any accountability with anyone in high position. Maybe this is the time for the small scale criminal Terry (Statham) and his "garage" to make their big score? They jump into the business, a classic bank job without knowing what they are really looking at. And as I suggested, the case is a "bit" more complicated: at least there are other values in that bank, with relations of even higher upper crusts...

Actually there isn't any new under the sun: criss-crossed storylines of motivations, and every kind of overlapped interests are meshing London's and the story's textual. But (nr. 3) Roger Donaldson's (Cocktail, huh..) 'based-on-true-story' (the seventies' police corruption, the mysterious bank robbery case, and princess Margaret's allegedly secret affair) bank-film still gives a quickly flyin' two hours of amusement. Nothing else, and that's really good. One-time watching somewhere halfway of Guy Ritchie's and the Ocean's 11-12-13's feelings.

(Here is a bonus picture about the film's bank clerk. Do we have a cameo by Mick Jagger? The idea is not mine, who personally quite sceptical about the similarity... or is he really?)

8/10

... coming soon: Interstate 60 (2002)

A friend of mine copied this conversation from a movie called Interstate 60 (by Bob Gale) into an e-mail. If the movie as good as this nice (cognitive) theory than I'm coming back soon with a short review (I'm trying not to draw too deep conclusions looking at its terrible poster...). Stay tuned, but now enjoy:

[In the scene Ray is showing Neal cards in qiuck

succession and he has to say what suit they are]

- Neal Oliver: So did I pass?

- Ray: No! (shows him the cards) But few people do.

- Neal Oliver: Black hearts? Red spades? Come on, that's like cheating.

- Ray: Ah, experience has conditioned you into thinking that all hearts are red and all spades are black because their shapes are similar. It's easier for your mind to interpret them based on that past experience instead of being open to the idea they could be different. We see what we expect to see, not necessarily what's really there. Children who have never played cards always pass this test. Makes you wonder how many other things are right in front of you - sights, sounds, smells that you can't experience because you've been conditioned not to. The good news is, if we do the test again, you'll pass. Once you're aware that there can be black hearts and red spades you'll be able to perceive them. Our brain's wiring is like the interstate highway system. It's easier to go from one well-traveled place to another. But the places in between, off the highway, even though they're there, most people zip right past them.

- Neal Oliver: Well, that's a cool trick, but there aren't any card games with red spades and black hearts.

- Ray: Well, how would you know?

Charlie Chan's Secret (1936)

"Necessity - mother of invention.

But sometimes stepmother of deception."

You certainly love or hate Charlie Chan's figure (created by Earl Derr Biggers, played (this time) by Warner Oland), the Chinese detective, who used to tiresomely repeat these laconic sentences of dubious wisdom, who is sometimes wearing a terrible white suit, and who is using limited English with a bad, but characteristic pronunciation. Maybe in the real world I would like to hit him on his small moustached face, but actually in a movie like the whole series around his investigations he is a private eye full with individual virtue.

This time (Charlie Chan's Secret by Gordon Wiles) the film starts with a headline of a special edition of a newspaper: "S.S. Nestor lost in storm off Hawaii!" The rescue is going on already, because many prominent persons among missing. And just like it used to be, there is something "fishy" around the whole case: "A man walks out on a fortune seven years ago. Then all of a sudden, he appears from nowhere to claim it." The man's name is Allen Colby, and from the passanger list of the sunken ship he is the only one who is missing. He maybe disappeard in the deepest dephts of the ocean, but nobody could say that he died. Charlie Chan won't for sure... 

There is something common between the film professor David Bordwell and me: Charlie Chan's movies were one of our favourites during our childhood. Maybe he had luck to see them in some local movie theatre while I enjoyed some from the television. If you're regularly watching and analyzing films it isn't a surprise thet you've been amazed with these films: following Chan's methods, trying to find out his Columbo-like tricky logic, being interested in the wisely told and unfolded crime shows similarities with our everyday's interpretative methods like collecting small pieces of informations from images amd sequences, trying to look at the given narrative from different points of view, approach from parallel perspectives, build up hypotheses, summarizing existing knowledges. Actually Charlie Chan's stories contain all the values how we like and read movies.

Even if it's a bit overacted (there is a living ghost of a silent cinema in the air), even Chan's irritating character (after a while you will like him more and more) ten out of ten without a single doubt. Nothing's left but quoting the detective's most used words:

"Thank you so much."

10/10

Szürkület (Twilight) (1990) "petition" !!!UPDATED!!!

Today I was reading an article about Benedek Fliegauf's short Hypnos, where the young director mentioned among his motivations the best Hungarian film ever made (the opinion is mine, but maybe Fliegauf would agree with me as well). He was talking about the too early died György Fehér's masterpiece, Szürkület (Twilight) from 1990 (another cinematic adaptation of Dürrenmatt's Das Versprechen (next to Sean Penn's The Pledge and basically Joon-ho Bong's perfect Salinui chueok (Memories of Murder))).

If you know / like Hungary's most important contemporary cinematic ambassador's, Béla Tarr's oeuvre, then you should definitely know György Fehér too. If you amazed Tarr's black and blacker images, Jancsó-like (and Antonioni-like) camera-movements, unbelievable suggestive way of story(?)telling, then you will ask the legitimate question: 'How is it possible that such a cinematic genius is hidden in the contemporary film market?" The expression 'market' is a deliberate choice from me: it refers on the reason of this blog entry. It is one thing that nobody knows Fehér's films, the problem is that the Hungarian distributors maintain this situation.

Actually what should we expect from those distributors who until now couldn't publish one of the most important films ever made in Hungary, Tarr's more than seven hours long, cosmic, worldwide known and celebrated (it was Susan Sontag's favourite film) Sátántangó (Satan's Tango) (1994 - four years later than Fehér's film...)? There are some visible efforts on the horizont (some of Tarr's films came out lately), but somehow the most valuable ones are still missing (if you don't want to wait for the impotent distributors, order the 3dvd set Satan's Tango from the UK (only €12,49!!!) here).

Fehér's film actually doesn't exist: you are not able to buy it in any major stores. I had a bad VHS copy what I gave to my film professor as a present. I thought I will buy it sooner or later. That moment was 3 years ago... and now I still can't copy here even the film's poster.

This entry is a small contribution to express my disappointment. I exactly know the small amount of my blog's visitors, that's why in the next days and weeks I'm trying to open discussions about this shameful fact in several filmblogs and -sites. Just for my conscience's-, and your eyes' sake.

10/10

UPDATE:

In the meanwhile I formulated a petition. If you would like to have a chance to see this real masterpiece on DVD, then don't care with the Hungarian sentences but make a signature for the petition! Thanks!