Risselada Blog

Under discussion:

Summer Palace  (2006)

I've been pretty lax about making myself write these maven reviews in a timely manner.  I notice that just about everyone else has already written a review on Summer Palace already, and anything I'm about to say has probably already been covered by someone.  I'd recommend joem18b's review of the film as one of the most comprehensive collection of thoughts on various aspects of the film.  Of course it may take you longer to finish reading his 4,778 word review than it does to watch this 140 minute movie.

How much does enjoying and understanding this film rely on being already aware of certain aspects of a culture?  It's a question I have to ask when considering a film made outside of the culture I am familiar with.  In this case I am very unfamiliar with China's political history and the featured events in Tiananmen Square.  This movie shows some of the physical events occurring, but the reason behind them is not explained.  I thought perhaps the reason was that the filmmakers were merely trying to use these events as a backdrop for a more universal story of love and relationships.  Well if that is true, then it's unfortunate because the main story and characters are frustrating and not very engaging.  The characters themselves don't even seem to know what's going with themselves (the main story) or the events going on in the bigger world around them (the more interesting background).  Which leads me to the other possibility.  Maybe the characters aren't the only ones who don't really know what was happening around them.  Maybe the filmmakers had no idea what all of these events going on at that time meant either.  Information from some of the other maven viewers regarding this film seem to support the fact that most of the entire nation of China has less idea about what happened in some of their history than people do in the United States.

Maybe I should be viewing the movie in that context then.  A bunch of confused kids are forced to live together (college) with no apparent role models.  At least there is hardly ever an adult on screen, and when there is the film gives them very little importance.  It's hard to see what the goals and motivations of any of the characters are other than to experiment in sex and lounge about.  In the context shown, I guess I could believe that maybe they wouldn't have any other goals, but the problem is that we know what is being shown isn't the whole context.  We know that the kids are going to class, that they have parents, that there must be other kids around them who do have real goal and motivates because there is a revolution going on around them!  So why are the main characters so apathetic, selfish, and aimless?  The film gives no reason, and there must be some reason if you expect for me to empathize with Yu Hong's plight.  All we get is narration of diary entries that spout unconnected emotions and metaphors without offering any tangible source for these feelings.  How can I react, be affected, or learn anything then from this story?

There are some good things about this movie.  There are a few wonderful images, an example being a shot of a boat on the water that doesn't seem sped up but somehow the sunset seems incredibly expedited.  I'm not sure how they did this shot but it's beautiful.  It's also apparent that the actors are all quite talented.  So it's a waste sometimes that the cameraman is so often asked to film nothing, while the actors are asked to do nothing.  Nothing of interest at any rate.

Rating: 5/10

Under discussion:

Angel Heart  (1987)

This blog entry is part of my “movie year countdown round #2”.  Read more about that here.

Angel Heart

I like looking at people's lists of favorite movies that they post on the internet.  I'm always looking for people who have movies in their lists that I love just as much, especially when they are somewhat more obscure movies that you don't see on these lists as much.  I found several lists like this that also contained the movie Angel Heart, so I was really excited to see it.

Unfortunately it didn't live up to my wild expectations.  Fortunately it was still quite a good movie.  It was mostly interesting for the different characters and locations, some of which you don't get to see much of in movies like the Louisiana culture and all the Voodoo stuff.  As far as the plot goes, I wasn't quite sure by the end what really happened.  There's something of a twist ending which just kind of frustrated me because looking back on the movie I'm not sure what really happened, and in what order, and to who, and what was real, and what wasn't.  And it wasn't the kind of movie where these kinds of questions were good to be asking since it was largely a detective story.  Still I don't want to criticize it too much due to the quality of the afore mentioned items.

The special features on the DVD of the interview with Mickey Roarke is pretty interesting since the interviewer is gushing about the film but Roake clearly thinks the film was nothing special.  So even though you realize Roake was never too interested in the film and keeps saying he just did it for money, the interviewer keeps asking questions that seem to imply that Roake should think it was great.  So it's this weird kind of battle against Roake's apathy to try to make the DVD features more interesting.  But the only interesting thing is how much Roake just won't play the game.

Rating: 8/10

Under discussion:

Eraserhead  (1977)

Tetsuo: The Iron Man  (1989)

This blog entry is part of my “movie year countdown round #2”.  Read more about that here.

Tetsuo

You won't read many reviews of this film without mention of Lynch and Cronenberg.  Lynch because the industrial black and white feel is reminiscent of Eraserhead.  And Cronenberg because of the machine body transformation and sexual stuff.

If those two things along with a penchant for some of the more extreme aspects of Japanese culture appeal to you, then check out Tetsuo.  If not, then don't even bother.

I found it curious but not especially inspiring, but at just a little over an hour long it wasn't too much of a waste to find out what all the fuss was about.

Rating: 6/10