Between right and wrong, a wide gulf resides

A Separation
My rating:




I don't just sometimes worry about my credibility as a film critic; I also worry about my own tastes as a supposedly discerning and refined film buff. Because I gotta face it, I like the lowbrow stuff. (If I didn't, I wouldn't have rated the previous movie so high.) I knew I was obliged to watch A Separation; it isn't often that Best Foreign Language Oscar-winning films make it to our screens, especially universally-acclaimed films like this one. But I worried that I'm too much in the Hollywood blockbuster mindset to be able to enjoy an Iranian domestic drama, especially with The Avengers playing right now and everyone talking about it and me just itching to go catch it already.

I needn't have worried. I enjoyed it, and appreciated it, more than fine.

Nader (Peyman Moaadi) and Simin (Leila Hatami) are a couple undergoing a divorce; she wants to migrate with their 11-year-old daughter Termeh (Sarina Farhadi), but he can't leave due to his Alzheimer's-ridded father (Ali-Asghar Sharbazi). When Simin leaves the house to stay with her parents, Nader hires a woman named Razieh (Sareh Bayat) to care for his father. But one day, he comes home to find both Razieh and her daughter Somayeh (Kimia Hosseini) absent, and his father fallen unconscious with a hand tied to his bed. When Razieh returns, he fires her and angrily shoves her out of their apartment - only later, she suffers a miscarriage, and he is accused by Razieh's hot-tempered husband Hojjat (Shahab Hosseini) of causing it. Their feud will lead to court hearings, clashes of wills and betrayals of trust, and possibly even tear both families apart.

I've said before that what I enjoy about a good low-key drama is the same as what I enjoy about an action movie or thriller: well-drawn characters engaged in compelling conflicts that can be suspenseful, even gripping. The stakes need not be life and death or the fate of the world; it can be as low as a person's happiness, as long as that person is developed well enough that he or she becomes real, as real as someone we know personally. A Separation does this with no less than four characters: Nader and Simin, and Hojjat and Razieh. And it sets all of them against each other, in bitter disputes that they all have intense personal stakes in - and then it sets us, the audience, as the objective observer in this dispute.

We start off with Nader and Simin, pleading their wish for a divorce before an unsympathetic judge, and straight away the root cause of their conflict is made clear. Nader is a filial son who will not abandon his father; Simin wants to leave Iran and seek a better life elsewhere (as is made clear when the judge asks her "Why do you want to leave?" and she sheepishly does not answer). Both their motivations are understandable and sympathetic, and if Simin's seems less so, there is a scene between her and her father-in-law that shows how much she cares about him, and how much she regrets the circumstances that made her decide to leave. After she moves back in with her parents, we spend most of the time with Nader - which only seems like he's the protagonist of the story.

But once Razieh is introduced, it's not hard to instantly sympathise with her too. Devoutly Muslim, clearly overwhelmed by the job of caring for an Alzheimer's patient (at one point, she has to seek religious advice on whether she is allowed to change an old man's soiled underpants), forced to travel a tiringly long commute to come to work, in dire financial straits, and all this with a baby on the way. Nader however, who has crushing burdens of his own, refuses to believe himself responsible for her miscarriage, and does a little amateur sleuthing to clear his name. But even before he does so, the judge asks if he knows Razieh was pregnant - and Nader, knowing how bad it will make him look if he said yes, lies. That lie turns out to become more than a little white one, when it goes on to involve Termeh's tutor Ms. Qahraei (Merila Zarei) - and Termeh - in abetting it.

Even Hojjat - prone to violent outbursts, and whom, at one point, the film teases us with the possibility that his physical abuse of his wife caused the miscarriage - becomes a fully-realised and sympathetic character rather than the clear antagonist. From his point of view, his child was murdered, and the man who did it is trying to worm his way out of the charge. His angry rants also expose the class differences between the two couples; one comes from humble backgrounds, the other is more worldly and affluent, and this is but one of the many fine threads running through this story. Another is that Razieh initially did not even tell her husband that she is working in the house of another man - perhaps out of fear he would object out of religious reasons, or perhaps simply to protect his wounded pride out of no longer being the family breadwinner. This exposes cracks in their marriage, just as Nader's and Simin's is close to ruin.

And as an objective observer of the entire drama, one can only conclude that there is nothing even close to right and wrong here. Everyone has wronged and been wronged; everyone has done bad things with the best of intentions. Only Termeh, and Razieh's much younger daughter Somayeh, are the only true innocents here, and they are ultimately the ones who suffer the most - especially Termeh, who has to choose which of her divorcing parents she's going to live with. We, as audience members, are free of the obligation to resolve these people's problems. Even when we want to reach into the screen, shake them by their shoulders, and yell at them to do the right thing instead of the prideful one, we know it most likely won't make a difference. But Termeh has to act on what has happened, and decide the best (or more likely, the least worst) course for the future of the people she loves. It is a terrible decision, and it makes for the perfect ending to the film.

I think I've done it again: spent this entire review talking about the movie, rather than properly reviewing it. It was pretty hard, I gotta say, and I most likely find it easier to review a formulaic genre film than a quiet human drama like this. But as quiet human dramas go, A Separation is terrific. I may not have found it as much of a masterpiece as AV Club's A rating, or Roger Ebert's four stars, or its 99% RottenTomatoes score might imply - I would've liked it more if the tone wasn't so low-key - but I still found it highly sophisticated in its complexity, yet riveting in the unfolding of its story. It's the perfect palate-cleanser in the midst of the Hollywood summer blockbuster season; there's no reason why you can't enjoy it and appreciate it just like you did, say, The Avengers.

NEXT REVIEW: The Avengers
Expectations: finally!

Little Afghan girl's big (symbolic) adventure

Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame
My rating:




I am somewhat less familiar with arthouse and international films than a film critic should perhaps be. I've vaguely heard about how Iranian films have become quite popular and highly-acclaimed among the arthouse circuit - some of which have even been screened in Malaysia - but I haven't seen one till now. I freely admit that my cinematic tastes run more to the lowbrow, but it's good for a film buff (and a self-proclaimed film critic, more so) to every now and then watch something outside his comfort zone. Also, I was drawn to Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame because of its clear reference to the Bamiyan Buddhas, the destruction of which I remember reading about and feeling as outraged as the rest of the world over. So I had that as a point of reference, at least, to a film that was otherwise to be a completely unfamiliar experience to me.

Maybe I just need to pick better Iranian films.

Baktay (Nikbakht Noruz) is a 5-year-old girl living in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, in the caves under the remains of the Buddha statues that were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001. One day she overhears the neighbour boy Abbas (Abbas Alijome) reading aloud from his schoolbook, and makes up her mind to go to school. But she can't find her mother, who has left the house to get water, and so she must set out all by herself. First she must raise the meagre amount of money to buy a notebook, then she must find the girls' school - but her greatest challenge will be the gang of boys playing Talibans-and-Americans, whose childish game both mimics the violence around them, as well as reflects the social injustices under which girls like Baktay live.

As per my last attempt at reviewing an arthouse film, I immediately went looking for reviews to help make sense of clarify what I just watched. (Seriously, this is totally what film reviews are for. Read 'em before you watch a movie, so's you know whether it's worth watching - but also read 'em after you've watched it so's you appreciate it better.) With their aid, I can tell you now that this film is essentially the adventure of an incredibly cute little girl who just wants to go to school. It's a simple story, simply told, and it can be quite charming. Nikbakht Noruz is adorable, and any heart that her gap-toothed grin cannot melt must not be a human one. And of course, what makes her story interesting is that she lives in a part of the world in which even her simple desire to learn how to read is fraught with difficulty - even danger.

But, y'know, simply told is one thing; well-told is another entirely. I'm okay with the fact that it doesn't follow your traditional Hollywood three-act structure; its spends its first third on Baktay trying to buy the notebook, and it isn't till around the halfway mark that she meets that gang of boys. But its unstructured narrative is also an often unfocused narrative. It's okay for a scene to be incidental if it's also entertaining, e.g. the one where Baktay mischievously keeps stepping out of the gang leader's (Abdolali Hoseinali) chalk-circle prison. But a lot of them aren't - e.g. the one where Abbas falls victim to the boys as well, or the one where Baktay meets a traffic policeman. And when Baktay finally makes it to school... okay, no spoilers, but suffice it to say that this is where the story takes a turn that had me scratching my head. It's almost as if director Hana Makhmalbaf simply couldn't get the performance she wanted out of Noruz, so she just decided to go with this new direction.

That schoolroom scene is problematic for more than one reason. The film's soundtrack is sparse, as befits a low-budget indie film that tells a very simple story - but its use of music is embarrassingly heavy-handed. Every time the (single piece of) music comes up, it signifies that A Very Important Point Is Being Made Here. Because y'see, what with this movie being titled the way it is, Makhmalbaf clearly isn't just telling the story of Baktay's Big Adventure here; she is also making Very Important Points about the Taliban and their cultural ignorance and subjugation of women. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but it didn't have to be done so clumsily. Yes, the music comes up during the classroom scene, in which poor Baktay can't find an empty seat. The problem with this scene is that this makes the teacher stupidly oblivious of a new girl in her class climbing all over the chairs and tables. "Contrived" is not a word I would've expected to apply to an Iranian film. (And all this even before the storyline takes that turn for the odd.)

Strangely enough, my opinion of it was somewhat raised by its ending, in which it becomes clear that Makhmalbaf is attempting to be symbolic in delivering her Very Important Points. What else to make of (again, trying to be careful with spoilers here) the bit where someone cries "die, and you'll be free!" which immediately cuts to actual footage of the Bamiyan Buddhas getting blown up? No, the symbolism probably doesn't all hang together - it certainly isn't very comprehensible - but it did finally make clear to me what Makhmalbaf was trying to accomplish with this film. And when it comes to arthouse films, I consider it a success if I'm merely able to figure it out. So three stars then, which just about makes this a favourable review. Hopefully, as with my review of At the End of Daybreak, I've told you enough about it that you may enjoy it more - or understand it better - than I did.

NEXT REVIEW: Predators
Expectations: hoping it's not just a rehash of the first

Indonesia boleh!

Merantau Warrior
My rating:




So I felt obliged to watch and review this, seeing as how I talked it up in my review of My Spy earlier. I wasn't expecting much though. It looked like an Indonesian version of Ong Bak, and I didn't much like Ong Bak. Don't get me wrong, I love a good ta kau flick as much as the next Y chromosome, but frankly I got bored halfway through it. The characters were dull, and the plot was practically nonexistent; there just wasn't anything that engaged me beyond the fight scenes. Maybe it was because I watched it on DVD, maybe I would've liked it better if I saw it on the big screen, I dunno.

But Merantau Warrior? Is better than Ong Bak. Yeah, you heard me.

"Merantau" is a traditional Minangkabau rite of passage in which young men leave hearth and home to seek their fortunes. Yuda (Iko Uwais) leaves his mother (Christine Hakim) and his rural Sumatran village for the big city of Jakarta, with nothing more than his silat harimau skills and a vague notion of making a living teaching them. Chance leads to an encounter with street urchin Adit (Yusuf Aulia) and his sister Astri (Sisca Jessica), a go-go dancer whom he impulsively rescues from her sleazy boss Johni (Alex Abbad). But this makes him some far more dangerous enemies - the leaders of a human trafficking ring, Ratger (Mads Koudal) and Luc (Laurent Buson).

Okay, it's a ta kau flick through and though. The plot couldn't be simpler: Boy meets girl. Boy helps girl and in process kicks some ass. Boy and girl exhibit romantic tension. Girl gets kidnapped. Boy spends rest of movie kicking truckloads of ass to rescue girl. And during the climax, boy confronts two crime bosses, both of which just happen to be expert martial artists themselves. Fresh and innovative this movie is not. But what it is is very well-made, exhibiting a surprising amount of care to the dialogue, characters, and emotional underpinnings. It's there in the opening scenes of Yuda's village, featuring Indonesia's national cinematic treasure Christine Hakim. She was good in Puteri Gunung Ledang, and she's great here; her scenes are poignant, and it sets the tone for the rest of the movie.

And it's there in the aforementioned romantic tension scene, in which Yuda and Astri get to know each other and trade backstories; the dialogue here is well-written and affecting. It's also in the subplot about Eric (Yayan Ruhian), a fellow Minangkabau whom Yuda meets on the bus ride to Jakarta and whom he encounters later under very different circumstances. In fact, there's even thematic depth to this subplot; cities like Jakarta chew up country boys like Yuda and Eric every day, and the only way to keep from getting spit out is to sell their soul to the devil. Hell, it's even in that one scene between Ratgar and Luc, in which the two are revealed to have a brotherly relationship that makes them more than just moustache-twirling baddies. How many action films actually bother to give depth to their villains?

But yes, it's still a ta kau flick. And whoo, it rocks as a ta kau flick. I'll be honest and admit that the fights and stunts aren't as balls-out extreme as Ong Bak's, but they're teeth-jarringly thrilling enough. (When a guy gets a gas tank thrown in his face, you will wince.) Unlike Tony Jaa in his movies, Yuda is no invincible superman. In fact, he loses his first fight against Johni's goons, and takes his fair share of lumps in all his subsequent fights. But it's that first loss that tells us this hero is vulnerable, which makes every other fight scene even more exciting. And I also gotta give it up to writer-director Gareth Evans' sheer economy of storytelling. In most other movies, if the hero loses his first fight, he'd crawl off to lick his wounded pride and take on the bad guys again some other time. Not Yuda. He just gets back up, grits his teeth, and proceeds to open up an entire brewery of whoopass.

Another pleasant surprise is a refreshing lack of misogyny. Astri is an exotic dancer but not a stripper, and she is not ashamed of what she does. (Nor is she a shrinking violet - watching her spit venom in Bahasa Indonesia is lots of fun.) Yuda himself is never judgmental nor anything less than respectful towards her. And the movie sees fit to grant her a happy ending, which is more than can be said for certain Malay movies. That's right, Indonesians appear to be more enlightened in their gender views than we are, or at least than Malay filmmakers are. For shame.

Christine Hakim's isn't the only good performance here. Sisca Jessica is often asked to carry an entire dramatic scene by herself, and she never drops the ball. (It helps that she's super-cute too.) Mads Koudal plays main baddie Ratgar with cold-blooded understatement instead of shouty over-acting, which makes him better by a wide margin than most Caucasian baddies in Asian action movies. But the star, in more ways than one, is Iko Uwais. Another edge he has over Tony Jaa is that he can act. He is as comfortable and charismatic in a dramatic scene as he is in a fight scene; I'd have sworn he's a veteran TV drama teen heartthrob if I hadn't learned that he's a first-time actor. He deserves many more opportunities to show off both his acting and ass-whuppery skills.

And this movie deserves to make as big an international splash as Ong Bak did. That film kicked off an entire new industry of Thai martial arts movies - but if Indonesia continues to make their own that are as good as this, they'll give the Thais a run for their baht easily. You guys, throw more money at Evans, let him make more movies with Iko and his stunt team and any other fresh young talents he can find, and don't feel bad that he's a Brit and not one of your own. (Hell, us Malaysians would love to borrow him.) Be proud that you've got a terrific home-grown movie here, one that beats Ong Bak at its own game and is still uniquely Indonesian. Ong Bakso? Ha ha! Okay, sorry.

NEXT REVIEW: Legion
Expectations: good cheesy fun, nothing more

Ebbs, rises, then sinks again

Tsunami at Haeundae
My rating:




I have a pretty high opinion of Korean films. I've seen some really good ones, like Shiri, A Tale of Two Sisters, JSA, Oldboy, and The Host. South Korea has perhaps the most exciting movie scene in Asia right now; they constantly make films that are unique yet accessible, they're doing some amazing things with genre, and they can even adopt the Hollywood blockbuster formula and outdo Hollywood while they're at it. All the movies mentioned above have been highly acclaimed in both East and West; all are prime examples of the cream of Korean film.

And then there are the non-prime, non-cream, unacclaimed Korean films.

Man-shik (Sol Kyung-gu) is in love with Yeon-hee (Ha Ji-won), but is wracked with guilt over his involvement in her father's death in a fishing boat accident. His brother Hyong-shik (Lee Min-ki) is a junior lifeguard who clumsily rescues Hi-mi (Kang Ye-won), a spoiled rich (and somewhat psycho) girl, and she starts stalking him for it. Dong-choon (Kim In-kwon) is a good-for-nothing friend of Man-shik's who lives with his long-suffering mother. And Kim Hwi (Park Joong-hoon) is a geologist who learns of disturbing seismic activity in the nearby ocean floor - but must also deal with his estranged wife Yoo-jin (Uhm Jung-hwa) and their daughter. All these people must struggle for their lives when a massive tsunami hits their seaside resort city of Haeundae.

Yes, it's an ensemble disaster movie in the grand tradition that includes The Day After Tomorrow, Deep Impact, Titanic, and goes all the way back to The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and Airport (1970). I guess being in Korean gives it points for originality. There's a very rigid structure for movies of this genre: first you introduce a bunch of characters and their various interpersonal conflicts. Then the disaster strikes, and the aforementioned characters are thrown into death-defying action scenes. How well this formula works depends on how well-drawn the characters are, which makes their subsequent life-and-death struggles all the more thrilling.

And frankly, during much of the first hour it wasn't working well at all. There's a lot of dumb slapstick and ill-defined drama, and it was all pretty tiresome. Man-shik's mother hates Yeon-hee for some unknown reason, there's an old guy who wants to develop the seaside district and is trying to evict all the residents (or something), Hi-mi goes all My Sassy Girl on Hyong-shik, Kim Hwi delivers some inane geological technobabble, and Yoo-jin is a royal bitch. The somewhat suspect subtitles didn't help either; for all I know, all of Kim Hwi's scenes may have had rigorously accurate scientific terminology in its original Korean. But I still don't know who the old guy is and why everyone hates him.

(As a matter of fact, according to this Wikipedia summary, there's an entire subplot that was excised from the movie. I have no idea why or what gives.)

Then a curious thing happened. The tsunami hit, and I found myself actually caring about these folks. (Actually it happened a little sooner, during a fireworks display the night before that everyone watches entranced. It neatly brings together all these disparate characters into a common narrative thread.) Sure, the CGI is bad - or at least, not so good that you can't see the seams - but the massive destruction still delivers a visceral thrill. And these characters' goofy charm had actually grown on me enough that their struggles through storm-tossed oceans, trapped and flooding elevators, and flooded streets with fallen electrical cables kept me engaged.

But then the real waterworks started. See, the one defining characteristic that sets Asian commercial cinema apart from the West is that it always goes for broad; broad melodrama and broad comedy. They're not afraid to put slapstick pratfalls and heartrending tragedy in the same movie, and the best ones can make it all of a consistent tone. This one goes way overboard. A rescue helicopter's winch malfunctions for no other reason than to allow the rescuer to heroically sacrifice himself, which he only does so after a long and tearful goodbye to his love interest. Two parents hoist their daughter to safety on another helicopter just before a second tsunami hits, and there is much weeping and bawling and slow-mo. Both scenes are shamelessly, artlessly manipulative. Just because you're painting with a broad brush doesn't mean you don't need skill to wield it.

For some reason, the female actors all consistently fare much worse than their male counterparts. Ha Ji-won is wooden as hell; Kang Ye-won attempts to channel Jeon Ji-hyun and fails; and Uhm Jung-hwa is, as mentioned, little more than a royal bitch. The male characters all have a sadsack charm that works, although Park Joong-hoon never gets to do anything more than look worried a lot. The standout is Kim In-kwon, who plays an effective lovable loser; he gets to be in the movie's best scene, involving falling shipping containers.

I guess your enjoyment of this movie will depend on how cynical you are. Do you laugh at goofy slapstick, or do you roll your eyes? Do you weep at tear-jerking melodrama, or do you check your watch? Me, I'm pretty goshdarn cynical, and I can call out mawkishness and schmaltz when I see it. And even I almost liked this movie. So I guess this counts as a tentative recommendation - but you'd really be better off watching something like The Host instead.

NEXT REVIEW: Jin Notti
Anticipation level: ...for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me

An achingly lovely film

Departures
My rating:




I have been to only two funerals in my life: the first that of a school friend who was killed in a road accident, the second my grandmother's. Both times, I wasn't sure what to feel - I recall vague emotions of regret that I never spent more time with them, but they were just, well, vague. I was all of 17 during the first, and well into my adulthood during the second; but I'm not sure if I'll ever really know how to respond to the death of a loved one. I doubt it'll ever be as cathartic for me as you see in movies, or this one in particular.

It's a rare film that gets me introspective like this. And this is certainly a rare film.

Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki) is a concert cellist who's out of a job when his orchestra folds. He persuades his wife Mika (Ryoko Hirosue) to follow him back to his hometown and the house his late mother left him, which holds uncomfortable memories of the father who left him when he was a child. Seeking work, he answers a classified ad put up by what he thinks is a travel agency, run by a Mr. Sasaki (Tsutomu Yamazaki) and his secretary Yuriko (Kimiko Yo). It turns out Sasaki is looking for an assistant in the trade of "encoffinment", the practice of cleaning, dressing and applying makeup to the departed at funerals. Although Daigo balks at first, he soon finds fulfillment in the job - but must face the prejudices of others, including his wife, at his "unclean" line of work.

From the very first scene in which Daigo performs his duties in front of the family of the departed, you'll know you're in good hands with this film. The encoffining process is a careful, respectful, almost ceremonial, and utterly lovely ritual. I can confidently say it's something you've never seen before in a film, and coming as it does in the very beginning of the movie, it effortlessly draws you into its story and its world. Later we see how this process affects those still living, even when it's done wrong. The first time we see a grieving husband weep over the body of his wife, meticulously restored to the beauty she possessed when she was alive, I am not ashamed to say I was brought to tears, and I'm sure most of the audience I saw it with was too.

Yes, it's an unashamed tear-jerker, and it's so honest and true that you should not be ashamed at all if it makes you shed tears. Yet there are also generous doses of humour, primarily from its early scenes of Daigo's initial squeamishness at handling dead bodies. There are no gross-out shots of corpses, but Motoki's performance is enough to make us both squirm and laugh. In fact, his very first job is to be the model for a corpse upon which Sasaki demonstrates his trade for a DVD. This is practically sitcom-level humour, but you forgive it because it's all executed in such a real and humanistic manner.

In fact, it succeeds at making you forgive quite a bit. As fascinating as the encoffining process is, we are shown just a tad too many scenes of it. The plot unfolds in an entirely predictable manner, and the conflicts are arguably resolved way too easily. And on just one or two occasions, it falls into self-conscious profundity. Yet none of this detracts from the sincerity of the film. When the climax comes along, in which Daigo finally comes to terms with the father who abandoned him... yes, it's predictable, but it still works at wrenching the necessary emotions from you. It's earned them.

Motoki's performance is, as mentioned, terrific. He starts off as almost buffoonish in his sad-sackness, but he never allows us to laugh at him instead of with him; we see how his heart breaks when his wife leaves him, and ours break right along with his. Hirosue too is a joy to watch; she may be playing an archetypical perky and borderline-infantile Japanese wife, but she imbues real strength and character into her role, all the while being cute as a button. Yamazaki puts a delightful spin on his Yoda-like role, and Yo shines in her few scenes as the secretary with a secret shame.

I don't believe I've mentioned anything about music in any of my reviews, but here I believe it deserves a mention. There is a solo cello piece that Daigo plays at one point in the movie, and the theme reoccurs often throughout. It's as lovely as anything else in the film, and if you're the type to tear up at music, that scene is as likely to make you cry as any other. The music is by Joe Hisaishi, which, if you've watched any of Hayao Miyazaki's movies, should constitute another strong recommendation for this film.

Only towards the end of the film are we given to understand exactly what the encoffining process means: it is a final act of love, performed for one whom we will always regret not doing more for when they were alive. Now I know why my vague emotions of regret were so vague. I can't engage the services of Sasaki and Daigo, but the next time a loved one leaves me, I hope I'll think of something I can do in its stead.

NEXT REVIEW: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Anticipation level: bleh. That's right, I said bleh