The same week I rented Dead Or Alive, I also got Dolls by Takeshi Kitano. It was a film filled great images of beauty and sadness, but dragged a bit. His trademark bursts of violence were missing from this film. It comprised three tales of devotion. In the first a young man breaks off his engagement with a young woman to marry his boss’ daughter. But on the day of the wedding his former fiancé tries to commit suicide but survives with mental damage. He devotes his life to taking care of her and ties a sash between them (because she is given to wandering), and they wander the countryside known as the “Bound Beggars.” The second story concerns a couple who meet every Saturday and the woman brings two bento boxes, one for the man who abandons the ritual when he becomes a yakuza boss. Later he returns to the park in a wave of nostalgia and finds the old woman continuing the ritual. The third story is about a pop star that is disfigured by an accident possibly caused by a daydreaming fan, who later makes a great sacrifice for her. All stories contian elemants of tragedy, but I won't give those away. Overall, quite beautiful and lyrical, Kitano has a pencahnt for impressive locations and bold colors. However, it’s a bit long at almost two hours.
The Berlin film festival recently awarded a lifetime achievment award to the Korean director Im Kwon-Taek, who also is famous for the beautiful scenes in his films. I've only seen one, Chihwaseon, but I really enjoyed it. See it if you get the opportunity. It won him best director at Cannes a few years back. It shows elements of an aesthetic Korea that are very hard to find nowadays - in amongst all of the concrete, traffic, pollution, pop culture etc... I haven't made it to the mountains yet though, which are supposed to be very nice. I'll be going to Korea's equivalent of Kyoto this weekend (minus a lot that the Japanese burned down in 1592 mind you), so that should be good for the soul.
Posted by: Edward | February 22, 2005 at 02:19 PM
Recently I've been really interested in Asian films, but Japanese subtitles don't cut it for me. I really want to see Brotherhood, the Korea war story about the brothers on oppposite sides I heard it's better than Saving Private Ryan. Have fun in the mountains.
Posted by: MC | February 25, 2005 at 03:28 PM