Beauty and Longing
:)
Did better yesterday. Bed at 11 - up at 4:30. Oh dear God - I will pay. Yes... I will pay. I think by Thursday I should be close to being on this time - and guess what?
Time to go home.
Then I can be screwed up in three time zones... :)
So here's the question.
How often do you watch a movie that isn't American? English sure... But something that requires subtitles?
Granted - there are a reason that a lot of these films are made in other countries - mainly cause they wouldn't be here. But there are so many great directors with incredible voices telling such incredible stories - that it is criminal not to be looking at what they are doing - and letting it influence you.
Here are a few of my favorites:
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Fernando Meirelles
Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Zhang Yi Mo
Chen Ki Ge
And that brings me to
Wong Kar Wai
Here's a selection:
Ashes of Time
Days of Being Wild
ChungKing Express
Fallen Angels
In the Mood for Love
2046
He has just finished shooting a film in the states with Nora Jones as the lead.
This guy left art school to become a screenwriter - and now - he barely uses a script. If you want a lesson on mood - just throw any of his films in. They stop and start - takes a new character halfway through and make him the lead - flash forward and flash back.
And you want to see a pretty picture?
Wow. There are so many. Every frame.
Not that the films satisfy everytime. And the pace... Laborious...
But if you every remember an unrequited love... Or being separated from the one you love - like I am now from my wife - and that feeling you get in the bottom of your stomach that feels like you just ate a large stone...Its there in every frame.
Long looks. Tears. And subtext.
Brilliant.
Not satisfying - but brilliant.
Stretch you mind. Pick one up. Start with Chung King Express. Its there at Blockbuster. Tarantino presents... Try it...
You might like it...
posted by greg at 6:47 PM
3 Comments:
If it's a foreign film, I refuse to use the overdub. Unless I'm showig it in class because teenagers refuse to watch anything they have to read. But I love French films in particular and the recent crop of mystical Chinese stuff like Crouching Tiger or Hero.
Brotherhood of the Wolf is amazing. Violent and yet sensitive.
11:16 AM
I loved Zhang Yimou's Hero. I'm generally not sold out on the whole "here, let me die for you just to prove a point," but the way they painted the characters through stories told by an unreliable narrator was just amazing. And that's without even touching the cast and the cinematography.
Iñárritu is a fantastic director. I wasn't impressed with the story in 21 Grams, though. The chronological shuffle was the only thing that made it interesting, but I did enjoy Amores Perros quite a bit.
Gaspar Noé's Irreversible, Julio Medem's La Ardilla roja, and Kieslowski's Trois couleurs are some of my all time favourites.
Amenábar is another one to look out for. The guy is only 34 and he's already made two friggin' classics (Abre los ojos and Mar adentro).
And yeah, unless we're talking kung fu, overdub sucks. In some countries, they even have the same person reading everyone's lines. There should be a law...
5:53 PM
Wasn't crazy about "2046," but I could watch "In the Mood for Love" a gazillion times.
-MM
9:18 PM
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