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Viewing all posts with tag: movie: berlinale/berlin international film festival



Berlinale 2008 impressions – Japanese films

Hatsu-koi
(Japan 2007, directed by Koichi Imaizumi)

I wouldn’t have bothered writing a review for this movie, this is just too remind myself of what sort of film not to stand in line and pay for ever again: The fact that I did go and see it was because my friend was really interested in the subject of young gay people in Japan. I jokingly mentioned to her that I’d made a promise to myself not to see any Japanese lo-fi indie films at the Berlinale anymore due to some very bad experiences in the past. I told her that most of these films featured very shaky and/or blurry camera work without any sort of aesthetic intention, completely talent-free amateur actors, a thin storyline and at least one disturbing masturbation scene.
Hatsu-koi was no exception. It was basically a commercial to legalize gay marriage in Japan, one scene even featured the older characters (20-somethings) reiterating all arguments for legalization… not the subtlest way of bringing your message across but oh well. The story was so-so, the coming-out story of the school boy Tadashi was kind of cute, though I could’ve done with that godawful masturbation scene, thanks very much. The film handled sex scenes quite explicitly, one in the toilet of a bar felt extremely awkward. Quite a few people left the cinema, I think both due to the slightly gross sex scenes but also because the actors’ performances throughout the whole film where extremely inconvincing. The film had its serious, touching moments but on the whole it was just too silly, too amateurishly executed and too inconvincing on all levels.

Kabei – Our Mother (Kaabee)
(Japan 2008, directed by Yoji Yamada)

During World War II, Kayo Nogami, called Kaabee (a variant of okaa-san) by her children, is left too take care of her daughters Teruyo/Terubee and Hatsuko/Hatsubee (Mirai Shida, I’ve seen her in various dorama before, like 14 sai no haha and Watashitachi no kyôkasho) on her own because her husband Shigeru (Toobee), a professor for German literature, gets imprisoned under the Peace Preservation Law. To get through the hardships the war and her husband’s imprisonment bring with them, she can rely on the help from Yamasaki (Tadanobu Asano), a former student of her husband’s, her sister and an uncle. The film focuses on the everyday life during the war and lets you experience the propaganda and general madness from the inside. The family forms a sort of safe haven from all this. The life in the Noyami’s house is framed by the passing of the seasons, intouched by the war but affecting the house itself and its inhabitants. The movie finds a fine balance between serious, moving scenes, especially those set in prison where Noyami is treated so unfairly and cruelly or when his family reads out his letters, and the more lighthearted, funnier ones (usually involving Yamasaki).
The film was slightly episodic but never boring, always touching, true, convincing and deeply humanistic. Sometimes it was trying a bit too hard to be emotional but I think that’s a common trait of mainstream Japanese movies. The cinematography was solid, on the conventional side of things but offered new insights into a country at war, from the point of view of ordinary people. The set design was brilliant, especially in the town scenes where you could see the propaganda posters and larger crowds of people.
The film ran in the official Berlin International Film Festival competition. The director Yoji Yamada, the screenwriter Teruyo Nogami whose own life story this movie was based upon, Sayuri Yoshinaga (Kaabee), Mitsugoro Bando (Toobee) and Tadanobu Ando (Yamasaki) were present during the premiere screening. They all came up on stage afterwards and told a bit about the making of the film. Nogami, who worked for Akira Kurosawa for a very long time, expressed her gratitude for the fact that his movie had mad its way to Germany because her father who loved German literature so much never had the chance to visit the country himself. Needless to say, the audience was deeply moved by her words.

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Categories: Film/TV, Various.
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Posted on Feb 17, 2008 (Sun, 10:49 pm). .

The Tracey Fragments

I saw my first Berlinale 07 film earlier this evening: The Tracey Fragments by Canadian director Bruce McDonald (who was the only staff & cast member who attended the screening and took part in the Q&A session afterwards), featuring the wonderful Ellen Page as leading actress and a score by Broken Social Scene. The film itself was brilliant and unique, both plot-wise and visually. Shots from different angles weren’t arranged frame by frame but shown as smaller screens all in one frame, or blended into each other, using different filters and such. It looked really fresh and worked perfectly as an artistic tool to support the flow of the narration. The events weren’t told in a chronological order and sometimes it was hard to tell what was ‘real’ and what was only happening in Tracey’s imagination.
On the surface it might be just another film about a distressed teenaged girl but the complicated, outstanding plot and the unique visuals really make this movie stand out. I really enjoyed watching it, at least as much as you can ‘enjoy’ slightly disturbing movies like this. But it made me think and it made me appreciate the fact that there are filmmakers who make movies about and for people who are different.

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Posted on Feb 11, 2007 (Sun, 11:07 pm). .

62nd Venice Film Festival

This year’s Biennale in Venice proved to be quite amazing again, featuring a fantastic line-up that made me feel sad as I couldn’t be there myself :(
(My only solace now is the Berlinale Film Festival which I’ll be able to attend next February.)

Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain was awarded the Golden Lion for Best Film. Ang Lee is the man for Westerns with a difference. (Think Ride with the Devil.) And of course, he is a brilliant director in general; The Ice Storm is one of my favourite movies ever made.

Speaking of The Ice Storm, Elijah Wood, who was in that film, also attended the Venice Film Festival to promote Everything Is Illuminated, the movie adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer’s extremely well-written, hilarious and moving novel of the same title. The few trailers I’ve seen suggest that the film is just as weird and funny as the book and I hope it will find its way to a cinema near me very soon :)

Ang Lee was handed his award by none other than Miyazaki Hayao. If that wasn’t wonderful enough, Miyazaki Hayao received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement! I am overjoyed that a European film festival acknowledged again what an outstanding film maker Miyazaki is.

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Categories: European & American Literature, Film/TV, Various.
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Posted on Sep 11, 2005 (Sun, 11:29 pm). .




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