Film Reviews by MN

Detective, playfully deconstructs genre conventions of 40s and 50s crime dramas, standing out as a fantastic piece of criticism-within-a-film. The characters search for clues, but the crime remains unresolved, and the film asks us not to guess the killer’s identity, but to make sense of what's happening by following the characters thoughts. We see Godard’s usual fixation with the limits of language, literature and film, in a presentation that provides a challenge to those more accustomed to play-by-numbers who-dunnits. The characters speeches and monologues are wild and chaotic, hard to keep up with but constantly riveting, albeit an unconventional way with the film using its lack of action to focus almost entirely on the human side of the police procedural. No doubt, dyed-in-the-wool Godard fans will get more out of it than anybody else, so, if nothing else, it's a great entry-point into his second wave of filmmaking.

In anime-circles, Mamoru Oshii is sort of a God. Perhaps not an infallible deity, but certainly one of the few directors in the business who've spent their career creating consistently excellent projects. His 1995 film, Ghost in the Shell still resonates at the height of Science-Fiction and his earlier works, like this one, Patlabor, are still of high interest to those looking for the very best works of the medium. In Patlabor 1, Oshii takes his oft-used notion of technology and power, turning it into a Biblically-inspired detective story and finding a happy-medium between enjoyable action and serious reflection.

On the surface, it's a mecha-anime but underneath it's very much a story about the ill-use of power by technocrats. The technocrat in question is Hoba, a genius-recluse who, in addition to creating software that the entire world relies on, has designed a new project that will turn Tokyo into a 'Cosmopolis'. Shortly before the project's completion though, a band of labour units (robot mechas known as 'Patlabors') run amok, functioning autonomously without their intended human-input. This puts the onus on Division II to search for clues about the episode, leading them to a discovery about the horrific truth behind Hoba's planned suicide and technological ambitions.

Similar to the principal antagonist in Paul Auster's, City of Glass, Hoba's obsession with wrath plays towards his misuse of power. He sees his new vision of the world as an homage to the Tower of Babel -- as a a way of invoking a Godly wrath through his own software. His creation of the Ark projects his desire to remove vice from the world, but why? We're never given an insight into his character but through symbolism and imagery, Patlabor segments a blend of old and new Japan, pitching a reflective take on the notion of progress and change in an anime that, essentially, ends with a massive fight between two mecha units.

As Tears Go By is the debut film of Mr Kar Wai, dating all the way back to 1988 and containing a love letter to both Hong Kong action movies and gritty urban American dramas. I'm not the first to say it but the film has long since been described as a response to films like Mean Streets, which it is, but it’s also a reflection of the cultural legacy of Hong Kong too.

If you’re not aware, Hong Kong’s cinema industry was built on action. It wasn’t the only type of movie out there but it was Huge. Prior to Wong Kar Wai, the famous exports often came from the Shaw Brothers studio – a studio who, beginning in 1925, made a huge impact on the realm of the film industry with a unique brand of provocative, funny, and downright crazy series of action films. Marking their allegiance to Asian Martial Arts, their work made a huge impact on filmmakers, stretching into the late 80s when the country’s Second Wave began. Most importantly, it made a huge impact on the likes of Wong Kar Wai and John Woo – the country’s best-known filmmakers to date.

With that in mind, As Tears Go By can easily be assessed by reflecting its roots. Wong Kar Wai would go on to form a highly unique style of cinema but it's rarely evidenced in this film alone. Instead we have a synth-laden, gangster film about two competing small-time street gangs and the result is, looking back, a well-shot oddity. It reminds me as much of the urban ennui pushed to the fore of Fallen Angels, Chungking Express, and In The Mood For Love as much as it does the stylised action of John Woo’s ultra-violent gangster movies: A Better Tomorrow, and The Killer.

Not a poor movie by any stretch, it’s a hardly remarkable one either. In fact, the film feels very much like an oddity: a debut film going through ideas but not mastering any of them.

The love-story that takes place between Lau and Ngor will remind anyone instantly of his later films but the insistence on action makes the film feel uneasily like the project may well have been out of Wong’s hands. At times, the film seems to revel in violence, while at other points it’s more like a slow perfume commercial happy to languish on the disaffected nature of its characters. Fans aware of his other films will no doubt see recurring elements but As Tears Go By lacks a lot of cohesion judging it alone.

Not that this should put you off. If you’re interested in Wong Kar Wai, and you’ve seen almost all of his other films, then I’d definitely consider it necessary viewing – if just to see how he developed from this to Fallen Angels and Chungking Express some 6 years later.

Rental Recommended? For fans of Wong Kar Wai, or those interested in 80s Hong Kong action movies.

I suspect that The Wayward Cloud is not a film for everyone. Part-musical, part-screwball comedy, part-drama, part-tragedy, the film is an unhinged work lacking restraint and is, probably, the most 'risible' film out of Tsai Ming-Liang's catalogue so far - to quote Slant Magazine.

What Tsai Ming-Liang achieves through this story of an agoraphobic woman and a pornstar though, is a film that is as wild as it is sad; as chaotic as it is boring. If a constant feature of his work up until this point has been his quiet interest in Taiwan's isolating nature then The Wayward Cloud is his clearest backlash against that world. Taking aim most obviously at the strange values of the porn industry ('everything's staged'), but also generally at Taiwan's technological landscape too, he uses his film to create a paradoxically dystopic vision of a place that seems both real and removed.

His characters don't produce (or at least show) many emotions but they seem happy at having found somebody to share their time with and this is especially the case when sex becomes involved. This is a major theme of the movie and there's a constant juxtaposition between healthy sex and the porn industry. The opening shot of a man pleasuring a watermelon (a symbolic watermelon) will confuse many but it becomes clearer over the course of the film that Tsai's point is to poke fun at the strangeness of the entire industry. Also present is the usual symbolic use of water; now scarce, in its placed is a fetishisation for Watermelon Juice - this I personally chose to see as a way of deconstructing product fetishisation.

Maybe this seems off the mark, but it's definitely a film with plenty of intentions, many of them lost in a sea of oddities. It's often quite hard to place where the film is going and while at times I was laughing hysterically, other points I was honestly bored rigid. At one point, near the end, I almost turned it off completely but I'm happy I didn't because the film's final stretch is perhaps the most conventional narrative part - even if the ending is rather abrupt, shocking, and squelchy.

Above all, The Wayward Cloud demonstrates a languid, almost dream-like narrative, that is as subversive as it is reflective. Fans of Tsai will probably realise there's not that much new in this film that he hasn't presented elsewhere, but they'll be intrigued to see him go completely off the handle as he does - especially compared to his latest, sombre entry into the world of slow cinema, Stray Dogs.

I think one of the things we don’t like to admit about film-makers, is that the older they get, the worse their films tend to be. Not an authority on the matter but Quentin Tarantino famously said as much, and while it’s not true in all cases, it is in a lot. Far be it from me to put forward an ominous conclusion right off the bat, but the reputation of Abbas Kiarostami – the Iranian film-maker who once made fantastic films like A Taste of Cherry, and Close-up – is in a bit of a slump. Judging from his last two efforts: Certified Copy and Like Someone in Love, he’s become more inclined to follow the less interesting parts of human relationships, rather than command our full attention.

The film follows the exploits of Akiko, a sociology student living in Tokyo who moonlights as a high-end call-girl. Her fiancee is suspicious but unaware and for the past several years, she’s been servicing the needs of wealthy individuals. One night, she’s assigned to Takashi Watanabe, an elderly University professor - conveniently an expert in Sociology, her own subject of choice. But he's more interested in making her dinner than succumbing to the pleasures of the flesh, and the two strike up a friendship which is marred by the introduction of Noriaki -- Akiko’s boyfriend, a garage mechanic who thinks Takashi is Akiko’s grandfather.

Above all, Like Someone in Love is a film about strange relationships, marked by coincidence and ordinary human deception. Akiko represents this best of all, splitting herself between two personalities: one known by Takashi, and the other known by Noriaki. Initially separate, these collide and the film's main conundrum (Akiko's secret life) comes forth: a problem which shifts a radically sombre first-half to something more anxiety inducing later on. Watching on the side, we’re presented with an uneasy (and voyeuristic) level of elevation: a over sense of knowledge that makes us constantly wonder when the truth about Akiko’s secret life will finally reveal itself.

This is cemented by a long scene mid-way through the film where Watanabe drops Akiko off at school. Waiting for her because she turned her phone off the previous night, Takashi is introduced to Watanabe. The two strike up a kinship marked by nothing more ordinary than a bold lie. Further coincidence ensures that Noriaki eventually finds out the truth, and the slow presentation of drama takes on a new form resulting in a final stretch that culminates in Noriaki’s intense anger. In the mean time, Kiarostami’s scenes are made long and drawn; like Korean film-maker, Hong Sang Soo, they linger and ask nothing more than acceptance of realism. In fact, the story is really so unremarkable that it becomes remarkable simply through its presentation on film. Kiarostami avoids cliche and one-dimensional characters, and his off-hand style ensures that a rational reaction is prized over an emotional one.

Rental Recommended?

Potentially not, although I'm sure dyed-in-the-wool Kiarostami fans will get something out of it. If you're looking for a contemporary Kiarostami then I'd suggest renting Certified Copy over this one. I don't know why, but I expected to see more of Japan's seedy underworld - it's definitely not that kind of film.

Metropolis was a film I used to see a lot hanging on the walls of my local Blockbuster. I never rented it at the time, but it always struck me with its strangely serious image of a sun-glassed boy standing tall among looming skyscrapers. Growing up to learn it was an animated remake of Fritz Lang's classic heightened my scepticism, but the film is an excellent example of how remakes can be made.

Visually, it's all Lang, but the actual story is based on a popular-manga (Osamu Tezuka's) eponymous series. The film orientates around a city set in the far reaches of space. This 'metropolis is so advanced that it ranks as the crown jewel in the solar-system. In charge though is a despot called Duke Red, who's harvesting a future robotic leader to take the city to the next level (Tima). The film orientates around the grand old Duke's aim, but is more about Tima herself; specifically her relationship with a young boy (Kenichi), and how they discover the overt political problems at the heart of the city-state.

Metropolis bears a lot of the best characteristics of the Ghibli movies - that it's enjoyable for a child or an adult. The visuals are excellent, and it retains an important message about progression, technology, and class-division. Much of this was apparent in Lang's film too, and while it's not completely unique, Rintaro's revels in its use of combining social-metaphors with visual excess. There's even something of Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell in its reflection on the relationship between humans and robots - not as pronounced but there.