Movie Roundup #4

This may be the last one in a while before my friends bug me into playing Modern Warfare 2 for the rest of the year, which of course will put a grinding halt on my viewing habits. An interesting mix this time around.

Visitor Q (Takashi Miike, 2002)

Yeah, this is pretty tough to watch, even by Takashi Miike ~CINEMA X-TREME!~ standards. I think it fancies itself as much more than an exercise in bad taste, and while it at least partially gets its message across (with some pretty obvious symbolism and an almost heartwarming conclusion) I actually dug it as an incredibly surreal, dark comedy more than anything, satirizing family structure/values and perhaps a jab or two at popular culture.

Plot synopsis: an anonymous visitor gets involved in the lives of a dysfunctional Japanese family. The estranged daughter is now a prostitute. The mother is a closeted heroin addict. The son physically abuses his mother and is bullied by his peers in school. The father is filming a documentary on the youth of today and will apparently stop at nothing in providing the juiciest of entertainment.

The very first scene involves the daughter seducing his father. It's really long and I almost forgot about it. This is the kind of movie it is. A vast majority of the film is shot on digital video held by the cast, providing a sense of realism that seems to work with how the movie is structured. From that first scene onward, it's a game of "how on Earth could this movie get any more insane?", and Miike indeed rises to the occasion with each scene topping the last in terms of the shock factor. A number of them are near unwatchable for even someone like me who watches trash cinema all the time (there is one scene involving milk that I can never get out my head) but some are genuinely hilarious.

Miike makes way too many movies for me to follow but it's safe to say that Visitor Q captures him at his most audacious and nauseating, depending on you perspective. You can pretty much know whether or not you will like this before you even see it, and like I said despite the overall message being a bit distorted by the end ("okay, so the family is back together thanks to the visitor and OMG WTF ARE THEY DOING"), it's a must for fans of such movies. 7.5

Yi-Yi (Edward Yang, 2000)

To me, like most others, the ideal length for a feature film is 90 minutes. Honestly, I think I've only seen a handful of films that go past the two and a half hour mark and I probably have undiagnosed ADD or something. Anyway, I guess the point is that I was more than a little hesitant on watching this movie as it's 3 hours long but I'm glad I invested the time (and the coveted Netflix top spot) for a wonderful epic like Yi-Yi.

It's a sweeping family drama told through three main perspectives of a middle-class family in Taiwan: a white-collar father, his teenage daughter and his young son (I think he's 10). The father comes face to face with his high school sweetheart, the daughter is thrust in the middle of a love triangle, and the son deals with the cruelty of his peers. All the while, their grandmother suffers from a coma and their mother suffers a nervous breakdown.

The film starts off pretty chaotically as the numerous characters are introduced, but as the film goes on, the more simple and the more investing it gets. Complemented with some terrific performances, the characters are lovingly and delicately painted as they stand at significant junctures in their lives, along with the ebbs and flows and the minutiae of daily life in Taiwan (which is both good and kind of dull). They deal with these problems in a realistic, emotionally complex way that connects to every viewer. The result is a movie that's devastating, honest, joyful, profound, gentle, exciting, funny, lucid, and most of all, human. See it. 8.0

Ten (Abbas Kiarostami, 2003)

In a word: enlightening. the movie consists of, you guessed it, ten separate conversations between a female Iranian cab driver and various people, including her own son, a friend, and a prostitute. The whole film is shot digitally, essentially covering two static camera angles (driver and passenger) and little else. There's a lot of hustle and bustle out in urban Tehran, but there's an immediate sense of intimacy between the characters and the viewer in the cramped space of a taxicab.

Of course, the focal point of the story is the cab driver herself. She's as strong as she is beautiful, and appropriately the movie deals mostly with women's rights in Iran. Ten is brilliant in that it doesn't deal with an issue that is seemingly political in a Hollywood-y soapbox kind of way. Instead, it deals with the issue in a emotionally rich, personal manner.

A bulk of the film consists of conversations between the woman and her son, and both deliver incredible, uncomfortably intense performances. The son is still bitter that her mother split up with his dad, and in Iran, divorce is considered forbidden unless abuse plays a role. It makes him act out and treats his mother with disrespect, yelling and disobeying her orders. The way the kid handles himself in the film shows sort of a foolish wisdom, an obvious product of a female-oppressive society.

The conversations build on each other, eventually touching on issues like sex and religion. For every scene, it feels like another facet of this particular culture is uncoiled and revealed, which is a pretty brilliant way of presenting these ideas. Most casual movie-goers will probably find Ten mind-numbing and hard to watch (particularly the mother-son exchanges), but much like a lot of great movies, those willing to stick through will be handsomely rewarded. One of the best of the decade. 9.3

Up The Yangtze (Yung Chang 2007)

Wonderful documentary. This is very similar to the equally stunning Manufactured Landscapes in that it captures the rapid industrialization of China, a truly depressing sight to behold, in an incredibly emotional, matter-of-fact and visually gorgeous way.

A corrupt, government-initiated hydroelectric project will force rural farming families out of the banks of the Yangtze River. Two young people in different socioeconomic backgrounds take a job at a cruise ship serving mostly wealthy tourists. Most of the focus is on the poor girl, Yu Shui. Leaving her parents behind to deal with the imminent flooding, she tries to blend in and serve the affluent crowd, and it's a pretty perfect way to explore the overall transition from the rural tradition of the past to the "progress" of urban consumerism.

The film is also technically well-crafted, favoring simplicity over bombardment. The more intimate scenes between the families kind of resembles well-shot dramas, and the numerous footage they capture, from the police-civilian conflicts in the streets to the incredible time-lapse video of the flooding in the end (heads-up: there's more of these at the DVD extras as well) add a lot of depth and insight into what's really going on.

Up The Yangtze is everything a good documentary should be: it's fascinating, it introduces you to new people, ideas, and perspectives, and it's emotionally engaging without being manipulative. Definitely see it. 8.9

Assault In The Ring (Eric Drath, 2008)

The notorious 1983 boxing match between Luis Resto and Billy Collins, particularly among the mainstream, is a forgotten incident. This film sheds some light into what happened that night to great detail. Drath presents the facts during the recollection of the incident, providing first-hand accounts and an overall historical perspective. What happened to all the people involved in the fight (except for the ultra-sleazy Panama Lewis) is really sad. It's a fascinating story that deserves more attention.

The film starts going downhill once the director starts intervening, making himself some sort of malevolent mediator, confronting Resto and making him do things he probably doesn't have the heart to do. He arranges these meetings and confrontations and follows Resto along the Apology Tour, and filming the entire ordeal, a task that's emotionally draining enough as it is, is not the way to go about it. In addition, Drath does not hide his true feelings, portraying Resto as a subject of pity throughout the film. It's exploitative and shameful on Drath's part, and it really left a bad taste in my mouth. 3.0