Park Chan-wook and David Cronenberg have arrived. Livening up the 75th Cannes Film Festival, the two auteurs debuted new works, prompting many to sing their hosannas in reverent tones. The Film Experience's own Elisa Giudici has declared Decision to Leave the film of the festival, a sentiment shared by many critics who've celebrated the picture's surprising romanticism and Tang Wei's performance. Cronenberg's Crimes of the Future was less ecstatically received, but the reactions are still positive. The verdict is that the film is less shocking than advertised but more elegiac in tone. Nevertheless, as the director predicted, multiple spectators walked out before the end credits rolled.
While anticipating these filmmakers' new offerings, let's remember their past works – Thirst's sicko love story and eXistenZ's visions of a violent future…
If like me you've been hanging on every miniscule drop of news regarding South Korean masterpiece-maker Park Chan-wook's next film over the past six long, long years since The Handmaiden came out -- the film's titled Decision To Leave and it stars Lust, Caution powerhouse Tang Wei and it's been in some state of being filmed for the past two full years -- then consider today's random Park-related gift a gallon of delicious water in the desert. It doesn't have to do with that movie, but it is it's own worthwhile thing -- Apple commissioned Park to shoot a short 21-minute film on an iPhone as part of a series they're doing (selling phones, natch), and he came up with "Life is But a Dream," a martial-arts fantasy horror musical (yes, all of that) that stars the terrific Kim Ok-vin, previously so killer in his 2009 vampire flick Thirst. We love a reunion! Especially with talents this fine. The entire short's online now, watch:
This is actually the second time Park's made a short film for Apple on a phone -- in 2011 he directed a thirty-minute short titled "Night Fishing" which you can also watch right here. That won the Golden Bear for Best Short. Next up for Park -- after Decision To Leave, I mean -- is an HBO limited series titled The Sympathizer, an adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book which will apparently star Robert Downey Jr. in multiple roles, which all sounds very Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove to me.The lead, described as "a half-French, half-Vietnamese communist spy," has not been cast yet. I'd ask for casting suggestions but I have to imagine that the acting pool for "half-French half-Vietnemese" is smaller than most and they'll probably end up going with an unknown?
What's funny looking back on Kim Ok-bin's work in Park Chan-wook's 2009 vampire film Thirst for the first time in a decade is just how brief her character Tae-ju's time as a bloodsucker actually is in the movie. Over the past ten years my memory had turned Thirst into the "Tae-ju Supernatural Vampire Olympics" -- she had opened her maw and swallowed the whole movie whole. And yet in actuality Tae-ju doesn't get turned into a vampire until the last half hour of an over-two-hour film -- her character is there, very much there, but Song Kang-ho's conflicted priest Sang-hyun is the main course. Until he isn't.
Kim is just so damn good that I think any of us would be excused for having handed her the stage. Even before she's turned, as the saying goes, she's already nibbled down the film's edges until it's become Her Shaped...
Alex BBats here, dishing about about a film that has been on Nathaniel’s must-see radar, the South Korean film The Actresses. (Nathaniel, you will LOVE this film!)
The Actresses recently screened in Los Angeles at the Korean Cultural Center Los Angeles as a part of their bi-monthly film-screening program. Though it is usually a projected DVD affair, it is free and I have fond memories of this venue because it was the first place I saw a movie in LA. Jail Breakers, four long years ago …good times. If you’re in the LA area, why not give it a shot (hint: cheap date night).
Time passing is one of the main topics of discussion in The Actresses. Get ready for lots of discussion, because that’s all that happens. Six actresses ranging from 20 to 60 years old get together to talk about acting, public pressures, rivals, boys, failed marriages, fashion, face size, while drinking and smoking. The entire film happens within the set of a Korean Vogue photo shoot, minus a few driving and apartment shots at the beginning. They start out seemingly like archetypes, Ok-bin Kim (Thirstand this year's Korean Oscar submission The Front Line) as young and eager to please starlet and Yeo-Jong Yun (The Housemaid 2010) being the fiery, no-nonsense veteran (who seems to be dealing with ageing better than everyone else), but the character deepens as they have legitimate discussions and debates about the benefits and drawbacks of being an actress and what has changed in the landscape of Korean and Asian entertainment.
Some very funny and awkward set pieces make for a great start like Ok-bin running to get coffee when one of her seniors wants some, only to show up a hair too late. The entire scene of the actresses meeting at the beginning of the day is very enjoyable. The only other people to have any sort of dialogue are the make up team, and you will enjoy their bitchiness (“I heard you had a pearl inserted in your nose.” Gold.) There’s a bit of forced drama between Choi Ji-Woo (TV drama Stairway to Heaven) and Ko Hyun-jung (Woman on the Beach) that’s about...Hyun-jung not liking Ji-Woo, I guess? That portion falls flat, but the real meat is last hour of the film which occurs around a table set for Christmas dinner. The director, E J-yong, said each scene was improvised around certain scenarios, and the ladies let loose here, emotionally peaking during a discussion about how divorce stalled and nearly ruined some of their careers.
The cast at the shoot
Why is the shoot taking place on Christmas Eve? Who cares. I could think of much worse ways to spend a holiday than with six gorgeous women chatting about the culture of fame and beauty. I ended up just like Kim Min-hee (Hellcats) at the end of the film; a fly on the wall, listening to wise women speak of love and film with a smile plastered on my face.
Oscar's foreign film submission announcements will be flying at us for the next month and you can keep track of the whole list at my foreign oscar predictions pages. A short time ago I told you that South Korea had narrowed down their Oscar submissions. That news was shortlived as the competition is over and they've gone with the battlefield drama The Front Line. [Thanks to faithful TFE reader Jin for the info.]
Here's the warry trailer.
Excuse me but I barely see any actressing! I mean other than Kim Ok-bin. Shouldn't there be a rule against films light on actressing in South Korean cinema? They have so many good ones and their one representative film for AMPAS is practically bereft of them? sigh.
Three other selections were announced last week...
ROMANIA Romania, like South Korea, doesn't have any Oscar nominations to show for years of cinephile enthusiasm. The Academy generally can take some time to catch up so if a country wants to get Oscar play their international cinema heat can't be shortlived. Their entry this year is Marian Crisan debut feature Morgen, a hit at the Locarno festival, which is about an unlikely friendship between a security guard and an illegal Kurdish immigrant.
MOROCCO Actor Roschdy Zem's second feature as a director Omar Killed Me stars Sami Bouajila, who international arthouse audiences might remember best from the gay comedy The Adventures of Félix or from major roles in two different Algerian Oscar nominees Days of Glory and Outside the Law (both of which happened to co-star Zem).Bouajila pops up in English language films once in awhile too (The Siege, London River). The previous Oscar heat doesn't stop there: Director Rachid Bouchareb, who directed both of the recent Algerian nominees starring these two, helped with the screenplay adaptation of this biopic about an innocent prisoner. The Hollywood Reporter calls it "intense and superbly acted."
VENEZUELA Alejandro Bellame Palacios’s The Rumble of the Stones is about a mother attempting to rebuild her family's lives after a natural disaster. There are many hardships along the way but apparently it's an optimistic picture; one fan on Facebook called it a "true tribute to the nobility of Venezuelan women."
Not yet announced but getting there...
MEXICO It's not official yet but you shouldn't be surprised if Mexico goes with festival sensation Miss Bala for their Oscar filmwhich we've mentioned a few times. Awards Daily likes the trailer but I'm not watching it since I'm seeing the film in a couple of weeks and want to be surprised. I'm pretty wild for the poster. It's provocative ... and I mean story-wise though I'm sure breasts never hurt in selling a movie. The movie is getting a U.S. release in the fall courtesy of Fox International.
Mexico currently has these 11 features under consideration. Thanks to Armando for sending in the list. The films are
Miss Bala (Gerardo Naranjo)
180˚(Fernando Kalife)
Dias de Gracia (Everardo Valerio Gout Grautoff)
El Baile de San Juan (Francisco Athie)
Flores en el desierto (José Alvarez)
La Mitad del Mundo (Jaime Ruiz Ibáñez)
Bala Mordida (Diego Muñoz Vega)
Siete Instantes (Diana Cardoso)
Somos lo que Hay (Jorge Michael Grau)
Una Pared Para Cecilia (Hugo Rodríguez)
Viaje Redondo (Gerardo Tort)
If I'm not mistaken, none of these filmmakers have ever been put forward by Mexico before so with no "favorite son" precedent it could be anyone's ball game ...were it not for the obvious critical enthusiasm for Miss Bala that is. The other film that has something of an international profile is the disturbingly grotesque Somos lo Que Hay which opened in the US as We Are What We Are. For all its horror dread potency, I can't see Oscar touching that one.
Wednesday, May 25, 2022 at 9:05PM 
