Friday 22 March 2024

3-Iron review

 Number 229 on the top 1000 films of all time is the Korean/Japanese romantic drama '3-Iron.'

Tae-Suk (Jae-Hee) is a lonely drifter who spends his days breaking into people's homes when they're away, eating their food, washing their clothes, fixing their appliances and sleeping in their beds. One day he breaks into the home of Sun-hwa (Lee Seung-Yeon) - a house wife who is being abused by her husband Min-Gyu (Kwon Hyuk-ho.) After Tae-Suk witnesses this abuse in secret, he proceeds to buffet Min-Gyu with golf balls before leaving with his wife who soon joins him on his escapades.

In 3-Iron, I've seen one of the strangest, most intriguing yet subtly powerful films about human connection and communication. What makes the theme of communication even stranger is how there is so little verbal communication between Tae-Suk and Sun-hwa. Despite having minimal dialogue, the two soon start to fall in love. This use of silence was completely intentional by director Kim Ki-duk who wanted the audience to focus on the relationship of the characters without being distracted by dialogue. There is so much more in what we don't say rather than what we do. Ki-Duk captures this idea perfectly. 

It's a great concept. So much of human communication is more than the words we speak. There is our body language, our facial expressions - all those little sub-communications that nobody ever thinks about, but make up so much of how we convey meaning to one another.

However, I wonder if Ki-Duk could have pushed this idea even further. The film is only short at eighty-eight minutes. That's not even an hour-and-a-half. Its short runtime meant that some of the plot-points were rushed and contrived so they could fit in the big thematic ideas within ninety minutes. Let's take the first meeting of Tae-Suk and Sun-Hwa. Tae-Suk breaks into Sun-Hwa's home not realising that she is there too. He starts washing her clothes and fixing her bathroom scale. Meanwhile, she has spotted him there and, rather than confronting him or running and screaming for help, she watches him curiously.

After Tae-Suk beats Min-Gyu, Sun-Hwa leaves with him, no questions asked. Obviously she has to go with him for the plot to work, but it all happened too easily. I am no expert, but in many abusive relationships there is an element of Stockholm Syndrome. Despite being horrifically abused, the abusee still deeply loves their abuser. I thought Sun-Hwa would express distress at her husband being attacked or maybe she would try to stop Tae-Suk. At the very least, I thought she would be hesitant about leaving him, but that wasn't the case at all.

There are other plot points that were completely skipped over. When playing golf on a street corner, Tae-Suk inadvertently hits the golf ball into the head of a random passer-by. We see one shot of him wracked with guilt and then it's quickly onto the next plot point. Tae-Suk and Sun-Hwa are caught in the bed of one of the homeowners they've invaded. What happens next? Nothing negative, as we're rushing along. These could have been great moments of conflict and tension, but they weren't explored properly.

I did enjoy 3-Iron. It was intriguing and very creative, but it definitely needed longer than ninety minutes to explore its big thematic ideas.

Barry Lyndon review

 Number 228 on the top 1000 films of all time is Stanley Kubrick's 1975 epic historical drama 'Barry Lyndon.'

Based on William Makepeace Thackery's novel 'the Luck of Barry Lyndon,' Barry Lyndon (Ryan O'Neal) follows the eponymous Irish rogue as he wiles his way into the upper echelons of society through marrying the rich widow Lady Lyndon (Marisa Berenson) and ingratiating himself into her family and life.

Barry Lyndon really surprised me. As you may have gathered from some of my other reviews, I neither care for epics or period dramas of which Barry Lyndon was both. They're vague, overly-long and tedious. They're so boring. Yet I found Barry Lyndon to be very watchable. 

Did it need to be three hours long? Absolutely not. The pacing was incredibly slow, which was hardly helped by how the accompanying musical score was slow, serene and happy. That hardly helped to ratchet up the tension. Plus there were lots of shots of the characters sitting around doing very little.

But despite all that I thoroughly enjoyed Barry Lyndon. As a character, Lyndon is pretty despicable. He is charming on the surface, but he also has a darker side which regularly comes out when he doesn't get his way. However, he is still interesting to watch. I was intrigued to keep watching just to see whether he gets his just desserts or not, which *spoiler alert* he inevitably does. O'Neal made him a charismatic and three-dimensional character. It worked well enough to stop him from becoming a cliched cartoon villain.

Another reason period-dramas don't work for me is either the lack of stakes or stakes being so artificially produced that they become over-blown and contrived. Neither of these was the case with Barry Lyndon. There was plenty of drama. It was presented in a natural and authentic way, as we see Lyndon navigate obstacle after obstacle. He goes from duelling a rival to fighting for the English in the Seven-Year war to fighting for the Prussians in the Seven-Year war to becoming a gambler and hustler to marrying the widowed Lady Lyndon and then coming full-circle by duelling his stepson Lord Bullingdon. It is quite a journey.

Barry Lyndon really surprised me. I went into the film absolutely dreading it, but it was thoroughly entertaining. I guess you can't judge a film by its genre classification.

Thursday 21 March 2024

The Hustler review

 Number 226 on the top 1000 films of all time is the 1961 drama 'The Hustler.'

Eddie Felson (Paul Newman) is a small-time pool hustler who wishes to make the big league by challenging legendary pool player Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason.) When Felson is crushed by Fats in a game, Felson vows to beat him the next time they play.

I really did not care for this film at all. If I were to describe it in one word, it would just be boring. Part of that is down to me and my own personal taste, I have never been that interested in pool. Or at least not interested enough to watch a 134 minute film on the subject. But the other main reason would be for the lack of musical score. I find that the music in a film can really make or break it. 

At times it can be far too loud *cough cough Christopher Nolan/Hunger Games,* at other times it can evoke entire eras like how Tarantino uses popular music in his films. And, in rare cases, the lack of incidental music can really up the tension.

This was not one of those cases. The music, or lack thereof, should pair well with what we see on the screen. And that wasn't the case here. Even though much of the on-screen action was nothing to be interested by, it could have been made interesting through the use of incidental music. The fact that there was little of it did next to nothing to help things. 

The Hustler was originally based on a book by Walter Tevis. When adapting this book, director Robert Rossen was keen to focus more on the characters and their relationships with each other rather than on the pool itself. Did he succeed in that? I don't think he did. There was still too much focus on the pool rather than on an actual likeable main character that I wanted to root for. Obviously Felson doesn't need to be likeable to make me curious to see whether he will succeed, but he needed to be interesting, and I didn't find him very interesting at all. He was arrogant and obnoxious.

As the Hustler is number 226 on the list of 1000 films of all time, I'm sure there are lots of people who found it interesting. In fact, it revitalised American interest in pool. However, I did not care for the film at all.

The Legend of 1900 review

 Number 221 on the top 1000 films of all time is the drama 'the Legend of 1900.'

Max Tooney (Pruitt Taylor Vince) is a trumpeter in early 20th century New York. When he tries selling his trumpet to make ends meet, he starts recounting the Legend of 1900 - 1900 was a baby found in a crate of fruit D. Lemon 1900 on the ship SS Virginian. 1900 (Tim Roth) grows up to be a virtuoso on the piano, and the best friend of Max Tooney.

Tim Roth and Pruitt Taylor Vince was the pairing I never knew I needed. I've seen Tim Roth in a few Tarantino films where he plays morally grey characters whereas Pruitt Taylor Vince has appeared in a number of TV shows like Deadwood, House and the Walking Dead. I never imagined I would see the two together especially with Roth being English and Vince American, yet they were great. They had an excellent chemistry. Considering their relationship was at the heart of this film, this was only the more important. They worked brilliantly together. The characters couldn't have been played by anybody else.

Without these two actors, the Legend of 1900 could have been a very different film. It's a story of friendship, music and two men becoming friends through their shared love of music. Without Roth or Vince, it could have completely descended into tedium or melodrama, but it remained incredibly watchable. Vince very much remains the straight man helping to navigate Roth's musical genius. 1900 spends the whole film on the ship where he was born. He is too hesitant to step into the outside world believing it to be too big for him.

Later on, Vince returns to the ship, that has since been decommissioned and has been scheduled to be destroyed, as he believes 1900 is still hiding away somewhere on it. He attempts to convince him to leave, but to no avail. Pruitt showed off his acting chops, as we see his heart break. This was a touching moment that underlined the relationship between he and 1900. 

I may argue that the film was longer than it needed to be, with some of the pacing being quite slow. At times, it was a little overly-sentimental, but overall, I did enjoy the Legend of 1900. It really took me by surprise. And it had brilliantly cast two lead actors that I never would have imagined together: Tim Roth and Pruitt Taylor Vince

La Haine review

 Number 220 on the top 1000 films of all time is the French social thriller 'La Haine.' (The Hatred)

Vinz (Vincent Cassel,) Hubert (Hubert Kounde) and Said (Said Taghamaoui) are three friends and second-generation immigrants living in Paris. The day after a riot, where one of their friends is brutally beaten, we see the three young men navigating life in the ghettoes of Paris.

Part immigrant experience, part gritty drama, part slice-of life, La Haine was an illuminating look into working-class life within Paris. It was a far cry from the romanticised Paris that we see on social media. It was raw, gritty and stark. There were no frills - just an authentic portrayal of life in Paris. It strongly reminded me of similar dramas set in London like Kidulthood or Top Boy.

Those dramas have no pretensions; they don't impart any judgement on their characters. Instead, they give you the facts and allow you to decide for yourself. And that's what the best film makers do. They leave their biases behind and leave matters in the hands of the audience.

You could argue that Vinz, Hubert and Said aren't the most likeable of characters. They're destructive miscreants causing trouble wherever they go, but they're not meant to be liked. They aren't heroes. They aren't villains. They just are. We're forced to see the world through their eyes and nothing more. We have no choice.

What made La Haine so powerful was its realism. Everything felt so real. I was right there with the characters walking through the dark streets of Paris. And that was only made better through the excellent decision of rendering the film in monochrome. The stark black-and-white only made the action all the more poignant. There are no distracting colours to hide behind. 

Watching La Haine was a hell of a ride. It was intense and it didn't let up for a second. But it had a brilliant authenticity that carried things along very smoothly. For those who are thinking Paris is like the way you see in Amelie, think again. La Haine presents the oh so painful, but also necessary truth.

Tuesday 12 March 2024

In The Mood for Love review

 Number 216 on the top 1000 films of all time is the Chinese romance-drama 'In the Mood for Love.'

Mr Chow (Tony Leung) and Mrs Chan (Maggie Cheung) are two neighbours who have just moved into a Hong Kong apartment block. Suspecting their respective spouses of cheating on them, the two start becoming attracted to each other. Will they be like their spouses and have an affair too?

Never mind love, I'm in the mood for an entertaining film, because this was film was dull. Insufferably dull. Boring. Tedious. Monotonous. Insert any other synonym for boring. It's a drama. Where was the drama? The tension?

It's quickly established that Mr Chow and Mrs Chan are lonely; their spouses work long hours and are inattentive. Although we never see this on-screen. Plus it isn't like the two would-be lovers are social pariahs. Mrs Chan's neighbours are constantly inviting her in for dinner, but she always refuses. If you actually had dinner with your neighbours, you wouldn't be so lonely. At a certain point, you're just being a victim.

And there's nothing stopping Mr Chow and Mrs Chan from having an affair if they really wanted. Their neglectful spouses are nowhere to be seen. They have no rivals for each other's interests. We, the audience, can see how lonely they are, so we're willing for them to get together. Where's the tension? It's virtually non-existent. In fact, the first moment of tension doesn't occur until the hour mark, where the would-be lovers realise they can't be together.

The film isn't particularly long; only one hundred minutes, but that's ten minutes too long. The film ends with Mr Chan in Angkor Wat whispering into the hole of a temple wall before stuffing it with moss. This references an earlier section where he says that in the olden times people would go up a mountain, whisper their secrets into a hole of a tree before filling it with moss. I get the visual metaphor, but why have it in Angkor Wat and not a tree on a mountain? And why we did then pan around Angkor Wat for five minutes?

One positive was that the original score was very good - it was mysterious and compelling, but it was only used sparingly. Much of the rest of the film had no incidental music, which only made it all the more boring.

And boring is the perfect way of summarising this film. Not enough tension. Annoying characters doing annoying things and too many lingering shots of characters sitting in empty rooms deep in thought.

Thursday 7 March 2024

Memories of Murder review

 Number 213 on the top 1000 films of all time is the Bong Jong-Hoo's 2003 South Korean neo-noir crime thriller 'Memories of Murder.'

Park Doo-man (Song Kang-ho) and Kim Roi-ha (Cho Yong-koo) are police detectives in 1986 Hwaseong who are investigating a string of grisly rapes and murders. They are soon joined by the Seoul hotshot Seo Tae-yoon (Kim Sang-kyung.)

This was a convincing thriller. It was tense, gripping with plenty of plot-twists along the way. Granted it was complicated and convoluted at times, but as such is the nature with these films. Bong makes great use of the weather and music to really up the tension. There were great sequences like when the detectives chase a suspect through the backstreets of Hwaseong.

As is common for thrillers, many of the key scenes took place at night and in the pouring rain, which certainly built the suspense. And one of the biggest clues that cracks the case is a radio song that is always requested to play while the murders take place.

However, there was something stopping me from really engaging with it and that was the interpersonal dynamics between Park, Kim and Seo. Their constant unprofessionalism and squabbling really got on my nerves after a while. I get it. Park and Kim are resentful of having an outsider come help them. They neither want or need their help, but for the greater good they must work together. It is quickly implied that Park and Kim are out of their depths. Their small police department doesn't have the resources or funds to successfully complete this investigation.

But their constant in-fighting made them seem incredibly amateurish. I had no confidence that they would find the true killer especially when they resort to beating confessions out of their suspects. I get that they're from the school of flawed, psychologically-damaged, rough-around-the-edges, willing to break the rules to get the job done, police detectives, but it was all too much. They weren't very likeable and I wasn't too bothered if they would successfully apprehend the killer. Rather than catching the killer, they just get even more people killed like their initial suspect.

And *spoilers*


they don't. Despite having three key suspects, including the most likely candidate Park Hyeon-gu, the case remains frustratingly unsolved. Having the killer escape was refreshing to see. In many thrillers, it's expected that after some ordeals and struggles, the cops would eventually catch the murderer and everything would wrap up nicely. Maybe not with a pretty pink bow, but nicely enough. However, that isn't the case here. And I quite liked this ending. It felt painfully realistic. Sadly, in real life, many murders do go unsolved, because the killers are never caught. They do escape.

Despite the rather unlikeable main characters, I still think Memories of Murder is worth a watch. It's a gripping thriller with a refreshing ending.