Cities of Love/Anthologies

Paris, Je T'aime



Paris, Je T'aime seems to have started the run of anthology films about cities back in 2006. 18 short stories make up Paris, Je T'aime--each about a different arrondissement in Paris. (Wouldn't it be perfect if there were only 18 arrondissements so each district get their own story? Sadly 2 arrondissements got left out.) I really liked the film. The music used is brilliant, goes really well with the mood of each story. And the way the shorts are stringed together in the end is touching, somewhat dainty.

Having watched it over 2 years ago, I still remember liking, in particular, the Quais de Seine, Tour Eiffel (story about mimes that inspired my Halloween costume sophomore year), Parc Monceau (clever, single continuous shot story directed by Alfonso Cuaron), Pere-Lachaise, Faubourg Saint-Denis (Natalie Portman!), and 14e arrondissement shorts. The film not only features an ensemble cast but some of the most relevant directors today: Gus Van Sant, the Coen brothers, Christopher Doyle (Wong Kar-wai's long time cinematographer...although I really didn't like his feature), Olivier Assayas, Wes Craven, and Alexander Payne.

What Paris does really well is show the beauty and romance of Paris whether it's through a bittersweet breakup, a mother losing her child, love stories, or the city's racial diversity.

New York, I Love You



I anticipated the premiere of New York, I Love You for quite a long time. I did a Looking Forward post about it back in 8/12/09 and I finally watched it last month. I think it went through some sort of distribution problem, and the release date kept getting pushed back. Anyways, this anthology was a huge letdown.

The way the short films is tied together is an embarrassing cliche. The music is not memorable unlike Paris, Je T'aime's soundtrack. And the stories themselves are not as interesting nor do they feature the boroughs of New York City in a way that lets the characteristics of each borough shine.

Of the 10 shorts, there is only one that I truly liked. It's the 7th section directed by Shekhar Kapur (Elizabeth & Elizabeth: The Golden Age) and written by Anthony Minghella (who unfortunately passed away 2 years ago). This short features Shia Labeouf, Julie Christie, and John Hurt. It's really beautiful, ambiguous, and a must-see. Rent the dvd or find it online but just skip to this short feature!

Tokyo!



Tokyo! doesn't really belong to the Cities of Love franchise that includes Paris, New York, and will include Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro, Jerusalem, Venice, and Timbuktu. (I really don't know how they are going to do all this. The two produced so far have been financial flops.) But Tokyo! follows the trend of these anthology films. This one is slightly different with just three segments; and while they are about love, the way each feature treats Tokyo is strangely unappealing and negative.

Honestly, I don't think I like any of the three features. Bong Joon-ho, who directed two of my favorite films, The Host and Mother, directed the feature Shaking Tokyo. The story is about hikikomori, "the phenomenon of reclusive people who have chosen to withdraw from social life, often seeking extreme degrees of isolation and confinement." (Wikipedia) It's somewhat interesting and the best of the three films in terms of the style, story development, and characters. But I don't know if I would want to watch it again.

Bummer...these anthology films just keep getting worse and worse huh?

Julia

The plot of Julia sounds insane and implausible on paper: a mentally ill mother, Elena, enlists the help of her neighbor, Julia (Tilda Swinton), to permanently kidnap her son, Tom, who is "imprisoned" by his wealthy and "evil" grandfather. If Julia helps in the kidnapping, Elena would give Julia a large reward. Julia, who is a completely dysfunctional alcoholic, agrees to help but, on her own, plans to double cross Elena by kidnapping Tom and asking for an even larger ransom. But, as the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry, when Julia actually kidnaps Tom, Tom is then kidnapped by Mexican kidnappers when she accidentally drives across the border while escape authority.

Sounds impossible right? I would think so. But somehow Erick Zonca, a French director, made it all work with incredible realism. Julia is one of best thrillers I have seen this year. I literally held my breath for the last 5 minutes. I wish I had seen it earlier. It was on my Netflix queue for quite a long time. However, since I never read any articles or heard any publicity about the film, I never got the motivation to watch it. But last time, I was craving for a thriller and felt I was finally time to give it a try.

It sure did not disappoint. Tilda Swinton's performance is mesmerizing. There's nothing glamorous about her character though; in fact, she was uglified for the role kind of like Penelope Cruz in Don't Move. She is a complete drunk, cannot get her act together, does not even think of herself as an alcoholic, and creates a huge web of lies where she herself gets entangled. She parties all night, sleeps with random men, and looks like a total mess the morning after. Swinton as Julia is raw, surreal, and utterly incredible. I am so surprised that this film and her performance for this character did not garner more attention and accolades in the United States. If she was good in Michael Clayton as Karen Crowder, Tilda as Julia is 50x better than the Karen during the bathroom scene.

In addition to Tilda's performance, Aidan Gould who plays the boy Tom adds a great touch to the film. He is a likable and quirky character with extremely extremely bad luck and just gets caught in the middle of all this mess! He was playing in the river wearing a speedo when Julia kidnaps him. Then he gets taken to Mexico during his sleep while Julia drives like a mad woman. Then he gets kidnapped a second time! And throughout the movie, someone is always pointing a gun at him, and he has the least clue of what is going on. Aidan really needs to be in the next Wes Anderson film. He would be a perfect fit.

At 2 hours and 30 minutes long, Julia can be a bit tiring at points especially in the desert scenes (think--the scene in Babel where the nanny tries to find the children in the desert). But even at 2 hours and 30 minutes, Julia is a truly exciting drama-thriller where the plot and characters are out of this world, and it has its touching and amusing moments of poignancy, sheer panic, and heavy absurdity.

The Class

So I am on a Palme d'Or run.

The Class is an unpretentious, documentary-like, and focused film that touches on so many important issues--race, socioeconomics, sexual orientation, the education system, parenting, and immigration. Like other Palme d'Or films, The Class is just as thought-provoking.

The film is actually quite uneasy to watch for me. Growing up, I went to public schools. From elementary school all the way till high school, most students (probably 95%) behaved very well. We got our work done, respected our instructors, and respected other students. The students in The Class is nothing like that. In the film "insolent" is used to describe the students a lot. But at the same time, you can tell some of these students are brilliant in the conventional way and perhaps in unconventional ways as well. The problem is that not everyone is going to grow up to be philosophers, professors, lawyers, or doctors. Some are to become musicians, police men and women, athletes, or farmers who still use their brains for their trade. Each student in the film has something special to offer and be discovered.

The camera takes on a very tightly focused mise en scene. Most frames are filled with only the characters' faces. We don't get to see a full picture of the classrooms until the end and the camera never leaves the school. The way the film is shot really focuses your attention on issues at hand and the characters. The Class is an unconventional and universal film that brings our attention to problems in our society.

Séraphine

I've been trying to remember where I saw the poster or ad for Séraphine because that quick glimpse of an ad led me to a great movie. Séraphine, who I have never heard of before this film, is a French artist who lived from 1864-1942 painting in primitivism. Her style similar to that of Van Gogh's and her color is vibrant and lively. Séraphine was self-taught, poor, and eccentric but produced paintings that her patron, Wilhelm Uhde, thought were brilliant.

In the film, Séraphine is played by Yolande Moreau. You will instantly recognize her as the Madeleine Wells from Amélie, the landlady whose husband left her for someone else in South America. At first, I could not take Moreau's acting seriously because of the contrast in tones of the two films. But slowly, I began to realize that Séraphine was probably in fact just as outlandish as the way Moreau was portraying her.

Two things I really enjoyed about the film is its narrative of the topics of religion and the way Séraphine worked as an artist. Séraphine was highly religious. She went to church, worshiped Virgin Mary, and had small shrines in her tiny apartment. She said her inspirations when painting comes up above. During certain parts of the film, however, as the film suggests, her talent morphed into madness--a madness that stemmed from religious beliefs. Moreover, her downfall was caused by an event mixed with her psychological problems and her delusional belief that God will save her.

The other thing that makes this film so wonderful is how the film shows Séraphine working relentlessly despite her living conditions, WWI, and the overall hardship of her life. As a household maid, Séraphine made a meager living. On the side, she washes linen and works at a butcher. She did not have the money to buy paint and canvas. Despite this hardship, she still painted by finding natural ingredient to mix her own paint. She collects mud by the river, wax from votive candles at church, blood from the butcher to mix her own paint. The results are vivid and rich colors that supposedly have stood the test of time as they are still as beautiful as they were when painted.

Because of this beautiful film, I will be looking for Séraphine's paintings the next time I visit museums in NYC.

Trailer:

A clip showing works by Séraphine:

Looking forward

There are two films that I am looking forward to: New York, I Love You and Coco avant Chanel. After watching Paris, Je T'aime, I have been anticipating the release of the portmanteau film based on New York City. New York City is my favorite American city. Sadly, the released date kept getting pushed back from like November 08 to April to May and now October 09. It's strange that they kept changing the date. It premiered all the way back in September 2008 at the Toronto Film Festival. I'm guessing because Paris, Je T'aime was not a financial success, the producer had a difficult time finding a distributor for the NYC version. Limited release: 10/16/09

Since watching Amelie, I have been following Audrey Tautou. I also loved her in The Da Vinci Code. :p She was courageous, intelligent, yet gentle. I think casting her for Coco Chanel in Coco avant Chanel is perfect. I am confident that Audrey will play Coco Chanel exceedingly well; hopefully this film will be for Audrey what La Vie en Rose was for Marion Cotillard. Limited release: 9/25/09

The City of Lost Children

I can't really remember how I stumbled upon The City of Lost Children. I think it might have been a recommendation on Netflix. It seemed quite scary and old but was rated as a good foreign film which is my most watched genre. Old is something that I usually step away from though, especially black and white films. My viewings of black and white movies are almost always in a classroom environment. But anyways, TCOLC is not a black and white film so I added it only my Netflix queue.

The film's opening prominently features actor Dominique Pinon who is also in Amelie, one of my favorite films. (I say prominently because there are 4 of him.) This opening sets the tone of the movie as something bizarre, adventurous, and, somewhat, fun. Actors of the film are atypical in that they are not attractive or sexy; they are a bit strange looking with unusual behaviors and backgrounds.

I can't really say the story is anything special but the way the story was shot somewhat upped it. I guess it's similar to Pan's Labyrinth in that the style of the film really delivered the story. Depressing, dirty, tinted colors filled the film. The world that the film takes place is something like a dilapidated and crime-ridden carnival town. Orphans steal from adults and give their stolen goods to their caretakers who are also their teachers. Unfortunately, TCOLC didn't do it for me.

One moment in the film that I really enjoyed is the choreographed movements of the caretakers who are semi-siamese twins, attached at the foot. This one scene shows the two making food: one would hold up a cheese grater, the other would grate the cheese; one would hold a cucumber, the other would slice it; one would eat the food, the other would actually taste it. These rapid movements all take place in like two minutes and makes this part fun to watch. My reaction was that it probably took them a long time to practice for this one scene.