+11
No votes.
Marcel Carné's Children of Paradise is an epic tale of the theatre, unrequited love and the irony of not knowing the truth. The technical credits are impeccable even though it was filmed under extreme conditions. The acting is also very good with Barrault's mime taking the honors. Another irony of the film, at least for me, is that often the dialogue comes so fast that I have to rewind scenes more often than usual to get it all. I certainly recommend it.
Bong Joon-ho's Memories of Murder is basically a police procedural, but it comes across as a Hardy Boys/Korean version of a police procedural. The whole thing seems so ridiculous as the implication is that Korea is a backwards country with little technology and a bunch of incompetent, immature, violent cops who live their professional lives based on how American cops beat the crap out of everybody in 1940s movies. Anyway, at 130 minutes, it seems extremely long but I can accept it as mostly OK. The fact that the ending is a bit open-ended is good, and I have warmed to it a little over the years. The part which makes no sense to me is that this is listed as a BFI film noir, and that's why I first watched it, but if this is film noir, I'm an even bigger idiot than you may have ever thought.
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Last edited by mark f; 07-07-21 at 06:40 PM.