Fenwick's Review Thread

Love Exposure - 愛のむきだし

Ai no mukidashi/Sion Sono/2008/Takahiro Nishijima, Hikari Mitsushima, Sakuro Ando

A digitally shot, 240 minute hyper-treatise on Catholic guilt, faith in the modern world, young love, parenthood, perverts and peek-a-panty porn, Sion Sono's Fipresci winning film is as ambitious and original as it is outrageous and successful. Its manga-influenced stylings echo the flourescent, bubble-gummy tones of even-odder compatriots Kamikaze Girls and Memories of Matsuko, yet it suits a much grander purpose; the eroto-theosophical sensibilities of Alexandre Jodorowsky and furthermore, the modernization of East Asia's arcane sexual attitudes - in practice, thought or the clandestine images one may remember from incendiary works like Crazed Fruit or more graphically, In the Realm of the Senses. Indeed, if this were not so inescapably middle-class and its violence not so carnivalized, Love Exposure would be positively Imamura-like. The below-the-belt humour and nods to equally sexploitive Japanese cinema (the hard-on gags hark to Hanzo and the Miss Scorpion alter-ego riffs on Meiko Kaji's likewise named creation) make this an inimitable imitation, the stuff celluloid (or digital) dreams are made of.

Inception

Christopher Nolan/2010/Leonardo Di Caprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Ken Watanabe, Cilian Murphy, Marion Cotillard

The zinger that closed my previous review would better serve this capsule for Inception, a screwball-scramble of a mind-puzzle**** from hot-off-the-block 'sure thing' Christopher Nolan. Inception could allegorize, in smashy-smashy pots 'n pans form, the filmmaking process, with Leo's plucky dream thief a substitute for Nolan, himself an architecht of design. Indeed, this is very 'out-there' for a summer blockbuster, its theology far less dimestore than standard big-budget hokum, but much of this is stymied by repetitive gunfights that make more noise than sense. Make no mistake, this is more Michael Bay than Andrei Tarkovsky, but only explosions and visual gymnastics outnumber ideas here. Although it is 12 years, two Batfilms and $170 million later, like his first film Following, made for tuppence in Eraserhead monochrome, Inception is overpopulated with the kind of hocus-pocus that obfuscates rather than illuminates.

Ouch. Pretty harsh stuff. I'll agree that the gunfights are repetitive (probably the film's only major flaw, from my perspective), but I wouldn't say they don't make sense. And the film has scads of ideas. Some of this we agree on (but disagree as to the degree), but that's one complaint I can't relate to at all, honestly.

Reading my review back, it does come off as rather harsh. I liked it well enough but to be honest, I haven't thought about it since my achy coxsix came off the seat last night.

And you're right the gunfights do make sense but logistics aside, they make one helluva racket, and I can't help but think that for a technical virtuouso like Nolan, the content of these 'dreams' are worryingly routine. We start by bullet-spraying over a rainy LA, then tirlt-a-whirling through the corridors of a post-modern hotel and then trudging (and by then I definitely was as well) through some bizarre alpine territory - it seems like Bourne and Bond to me.

Thirdly Yoda, once again I agree, the film has scads of ideas (only it has more Matrix-style wizardry) but suffocates under the weight of them, much like Following did, much like Memento did, much like The Prestige did (that had other problems too). But hey, at least it's not Insomnia.

Damn, I liked Insomnia.

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It cured mine. I have a lot of time for the Norwegian one mind.

The Norwegian one does indeed piss all over Nolan's version.

Not for me, but I guess that means that somebody just pissed on me...

double post, soz.

Nah, Nolan's Insomnia is in no way inferior to the original. Yeah, I know i'm biased, but I think the worst thing you can say about the remake is that it's on par with the Stellan version, which I did enjoy too.

I do think that original's protagonist motives are a bit more ambigious and, perhaps, a little bit less likeable. However, Nolan's version does a far better job at exploring the complex relationship between the killer and detective. Plus the female lead is more interesting in his version and has more to do. Plus it is BEAUTIFULLY directed and proved that Nolan can work within the confines of narrative, too. Watch the remake again without thinking about the original.

I don't hate Nolan's Insomnia. Come to think of it, he hasn't made a bad film, but then again, I don't think he has made a great one either. I know that if Nolan pissed in a glass and called it lemonade, you'd think it was the best ****ing lemonade ever (and I like the fact you know this ) but it has been far too long since i've seen either to get into semantics. All I remember, and all I need to remember, is that to this day the Norwegian effort reverberates much stronger in my mind than Nolan's, which has vanished into some vague images of Al Pacino chasing Robin Williams through snow.

One question though. What do you mean when you say Insomnia proved Nolan can work within the 'confines of narrative'? Surely he was working within the 'confines of narrative' with Following and Memento? Memento was back to front granted, but still had a narrative. Do you mean that Insomnia proved Nolan could comply with a traditional genre formula? For a director of his technical skill, I don't think this was ever in question - he certainly never need to prove it to me.

I assume he means the confines of a fairly traditional narrative. Memento and (to a lesser extent) Following were far from linear. When he has his way, dude seems to like to jumble scenes about quite a bit. He'd probably do it with the Batman films if he thought he could get away with it.

This is what I assumed.

Nolan is what, 40 years old so time is on his side. I'd be very suprised if we get anything less than 10 more films out of him, and odds are that one of them will tick all my boxes. And good luck to him.

My biggest problem with Nolan's version and, therefore the entire film, is that I never get that feeling of tiredness. It doesn't feel like the guy's been up for days, I don't get that sense of weariness that I do with the original. The Nolan version's ok, but I truly don't think it's a patch on the original.

I didn't like either of 'em. So there ! Now I'm gona watch this four hour acrobat panties movie that Fenwick liked.

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Yep, what Yoda said. Confines of traditional narrative.

Lol, so you have me well figured out too, Fenwick. Tis true, Nolan could probably make a film about toilet cleaning and i'd still find it interesting. Dunno about drinkin' his pissade though . But seriously, I understand how the remake was difficult to appreciate at first, especially since the original sticks in your mind, but I am fairly confident that you will get a more rewarding film if you watch it again.

HK, some people have raised similar issues with the Nolan version. I dunno maybe it's just me but I think both films do a fair enough job in conveying the disorientating mind of the detective. The difficulty in that though is to do it in a way that doesn't make the viewer feel tired.

Watch the film from the beginning and watch how Pacino's (In one of his best performances in the last 10 years) Dormer's face begins to sag from scene to scene, and his random emotional outbursts. It's a feeling though and it would be difficult to get that one again in repeated viewings if you didn't feel that way the first time around, but I certainly did. Though, I do think more could have been shown to see the devasting effects of sleeplessness, but then you run the risk of having a bit of a science lesson.

I don't know. There are several scenes in Alaska, especially near the beginning where we see things through Pacino's eyes and the camera seems to cloud up and the photography gets slower and distorted. I always accepted those images as signs of insomnia. Come to think of it, the same thing occurred with the sound effects, obviously. Yes, I think it's Al's best performance since Donnie Brasco anyway.

The Karate Kid

Harald Zwart/2010/Jaden Smith, Jackie Chan, Taraji P. Henson, Wenwen Han

A blatant Jaden Smith vehicle spearheaded by Mum and Dad, Will and Jada Pinkett, this kowtowing remake of the Ralph Macchio original spars with the same dramatic moves that kicked their way into teenage fandom 26 years ago. The lil’ Fresh Prince flexes his flimsy acting muscles next to weathered handyman and super kung-fu master Jackie Chan in a role that swaps ‘wax-on, wax-off’ for coat hanging and the brilliantly named Mr Miyagi for tepidly tagged Mr Han. There are other changes too, kung fu in place and stead of karate (why wasn’t this called The Kung Fu Kid?) and California to an incredibly apolitical, a-racial China. Indeed, director Zwart’s mystical, spiritualized vision of China, complete with mountain-top meditation, a cobra/woman pas de deux and of course the Great Wall, panders to a specific Western idea of the East. Orientalism aside however, as it will be for this generations new Karate Kid admirers, at 140 minutes there is excess here in need of a chop down; no material this slight warrants such generosity. Nevertheless, there is good clean Hollywood fun to be had here, to say anything but is something akin to saying the original is a classic.

China isn't mystical or spiritualized at all anymore. It's the most ideologically cynical, ultra-capitalistic totalitarian government in the world. I think Will Smith's gravy-training son is the ultimate metaphor here.

Good review.

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This is a great review, man.