I would check out anything by Chan-wook Park after seeing his impressive and entertaining Revenge trilogy, so Thirst was on the must-see list. However, I was inspired by Andrew O’Hehir’s write up as well. Park incorporated parts of Emile Zola’s novel Therese Raquin into the story line. Park incorporates several nontraditional themes in his vampire film. The protagonist is a Catholic priest who loses his faith but no this calling to help people after being infected with a disease that almost kills him while volunteering in Africa. He undergoes a transfusion that saves his life, but he blood is tainted with vampire blood. When he returns to Korea he struggles with his new identity struggling not to harm people and reconnects with a family from his youth when he was living in an orphanage in Bussan. He falls in love with the mousy wife of his childhood friend and a torrid affair that results in murder. There are some astonishing cinematic scenes in the film: the roof jumping scenes and the car accident/trap. There’s one part of the story that doesn't ring true: in relation to keeping the mother-in-law around, but other than that the story was logical as much as a vampire story can be. It was an entertaining and well-made film.
Roman Polanski’s latest film, The Ghost Writer, has been getting a lot of good press and has a top notch cast with actors like Ewan McGregor, Pierce Bronson, Olivia Williams, etc. I thought the acting was more than adequate, the location and cinematography impressive. However, I found the story a bit predictable and uninspired since it was ripped form the headlines. In the Loop did this as well, but in a way that made it seem completely fresh and almost unrelated. In this case it detracted from the film and made it less thrilling for me.
Jane Campion’s Bright Star is one of the more successful biopic I’ve seen. I think the strength lies in the fact that it focuses on a very specific time period in the life of the seminal Romantic poet John Keats. Campion does an excellent job of capturing the limitations of life in that time period as well as the prevalence of nature and social amusements in people’s lives. The leads Ben Wishaw and Abby Cornish do an excellent job of bring the respective historical figures to life.
Capitalism: A Love Story directed by Michael Moore is the latest of a series of invectives about the failings of institutions in America. Many of his methods are tired, but he does bring up some interesting issues like corporations taking out life insurance policies on their employees and invoking the polices of presidents like FDR and Jimmy Carter’s call to America to leave behind materialism and return to values of thrift. One of the more interesting parts of his documentary got left out: Flint Michigan is taking back foreclosed houses and demolishing them in order to take the blight out of neighborhoods and increase the value of the houses that remain in the neighborhoods. I’m assuming it got cut due to time considerations, but it is an innovative and progressive way of turning things around.
Lorna’s Silence is the Dardene brother’s realistic portrayal of woman embroiled in a dehumanizing scheme to get a Russian man an UE citizenship in Belgium. The seemingly simplistic production values with little background music and basic cinematography seem appropriate for this production that shows a woman slowly regaining her humanity and rejecting the only money matters mentality. It reminded me slightly of the brilliant 4 Months, 3 Days, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days in its realistic portrayal of Eastern Europe and the limited choices those emerging from totalitarian regimes and joining the democratic EU Europe.
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