Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Fantasia Day Four (Dimache 10 juillet 2005)

Missed Fafner in the listing of day 3 stuff, since it wasn't actually a movie, but the first four episodes on a TV series, screening about a week and a half before they're released on US video. Not bad, but not a lot happened in two hours. Good-looking show, but I don't think I'll buy the DVD right away or likely pick up volume 2 in September. Maybe I'll put it on a Netflix list.

Heh. Like I'll ever see $20/month for Netflix worth it with the amount of videos I watched, compared to hitting the Brattle.

Sunday wound up being a long day, since there was a projector malfunction first just as The Place Promised In Our Early Days was starting. Apparently they had to borrow equipment from another theater, which was cool because that meant the show could go on, but it meant a forty-five minute delay. Fortunately, I was in Theater Hall all day, as opposed to Salle J.A. de Sève, but it meant no going out to grab food, since they eliminated any slack between shows. And then the writer/director of The Birthday was a surprise arrival at the end of the night, so we were there until after one. So, thirteen hours in the theater.

Kind of a bummer: Two of the most visually amazing movies of the festival, which eventually won some of the jury awards - Mindgame and The Taste of Tea - played on digital video, at least on Sunday. If Mindgame is at the New England Animation Bash in a few weeks, on film, I'll be all over that.

The reviews:

The Place Promised in Our Early Days (Kumo no mukô, yakusoku no basho)

* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 10 July 2005 in Théâtre Hall Concordia (Fantasia)

The "science fiction should focus on human emotions, not big explosions or cool ideas" crowd should be quite fond of The Place Promised Us in Our Early Days. Though it features a multitude of intriguing concepts and a potentially action-packed ending, Makoto Shinkai's film maintains a rigorous focus on its three main characters. As a fan of "hard" science-fiction, I must admit to wishing these ideas were explored in a little more detail, but the work is very strong. It's absolutely worth a look, and its director is one to follow.

The film takes place in an alternate history, where Japan was partitioned much like Germany after World War II. Hokkaido and the northern archipelago have been annexed into "the Union" (the word "Soviet" is curiously omitted) while Honshu and the southern islands are under American influence. Middle-schoolers Hiroki Fujisawa and Takuya Shirakawa live just across the Tsugaru Strait from Hokkaido and the enormous tower built there in the early 1970s - one so tall that it seems to stretch into infinity, and which can be seen all the way from Tokyo. They dream of building a plane to fly to that tower, and using found materials (including an engine), they start on it soon included in their plans is Sayuri Sawatari, a girl in their class who is related to the genius who designed the tower for the Union (among other scientific breakthroughs).

Read the rest at HBS.


Mindgame

* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 10 July 2005 in Théâtre Hall Concordia (Fantasia) (projected video)

Just look at this thing. Seriously, don't try too hard to follow the story or expect too much for the characters - that stuff is there, and it's not bad, but it's the visuals from Yuasa Masaaki - set to the music of Seiichi Yamanoto - that will grab you, challenging you to keep up. You probably will not like all of them, but that's okay; the movie is so stuffed to the gills with new sights that you will likely see enough to be well satisfied by the time the movie is over.

The story, such as it is, involves aspiring manga artist Robin Nishi (also the name of the man who created the manga that this film is adapted from) meeting his childhood girlfriend Myon, only to hear that she is about to become engaged to big, handsome Ryo. He offers his congratulations, of course, even if he's still carrying a huge torch for her. It's not to be, though, as a pair of yakuza burst into the bar run by Myon's sister Yan, looking for the girls' father, and kill Nishi (in a most humiliating manner) as he tries to stand up for Myon.

Read the rest at HBS.


Arahan

* * * (out of four)
Seen 10 July 2005 in Théâtre Hall Concordia (Fantasia)

The first thing you see when a movie opens these days are vanity cards, labels showing which companies produced and distributed the movie. As with seemingly every Korean movie at this year's Fantasia festival, the studio is Cinema Service; this film's production company, however, is called "Fun and Happiness". It seems kind of silly to say, but how many brand names describe their company's product so well?

The film's humorous opening addresses a number of misconceptions the public may have about the sort of high-flying martial-arts master we see in kung fu movies but not so much in real life - you know, the ones who can run up walls, jump several times their own height, and project concussive energy from the palms of their hands? The conventional wisdom is that the chi masters train secluded in the mountains, but why would they want that? Ja-woon (Ahn Sung-kee) and the other four of the seven chi masters (yes, that's accurate) have settled in Seoul, where Ja-woon's daughter Eui-jin (Yoon So-yi) is their only disciple - and she works in a convenience store to make ends meet. Most people, the masters scoff, don't even know what chi is any more.

Read the rest at HBS.

The Taste of Tea (Cha no Aji)

* * * (out of four)
Seen 10 July 2005 in Théâtre Hall Concordia (Fantasia) (projected video)

The Taste of Tea is the kind of film that can drive me insane: Two hours and twenty minutes of a relatively typical family facing relatively small day-to-day challenges. The fanciful visuals dress this up a bit, though not enough to stop wondering "hey, is there any kind of actual story here?" Despite that, the movie is sort of mesmerizing. It regards its subjects with a sort of detached fondness, and by the end has managed to get us to share that affection.

We watch a the Haruno family, living in a town outside of Tokyo a little too far out to really call suburban (I grew up in a place like that, and jokingly called it supra-rural). Nobuo (Tomokazu Miura), the father, works in the city as a hypnotherapist, while his wife Yoshiko (Satomi Tezuka) stays at home, drawing, getting assistance from the grandfather (Tatsuya Gashuin), whose mind is slipping. When not posing for Yoshiko, he spends a great deal of time in his room, peeking out the window at six-year-old Sachiko (Maya Banno). Sachiko is a very serious little girl, concerned about the product of her imagination - a giant version of herself - that is following her around. Her older brother, Hajime (Takahiro Sato) has just seen the girl he has a crush on move away, whereas Uncle Ayano (Tadanbou Asano), an record producer staying at the family home either on vacation or because he's currently unemployed, is more concerned with the girl he'd loved as a younger man moving back.

Read the rest at HBS.


The Birthday

* * * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 10 July 2005 in Théâtre Hall Concordia (Fantasia)

Eugenio Mira's The Birthday isn't quite in real time - somewhere along the line, about fifteen minutes get cut out (during the Q&A, the director informed us that the opening text should have said that Norman Forrester was about to have the most bizarre 110 minutes of his life, as opposed to 95). Still, the intent to tell a story in real time is there, and that gives this movie a unique feel, a burst of energy that pulls the audience along, no matter how strange the story gets. And it'll get pretty strange.

Norman Forrester (Corey Feldman) knows he's in over his head as the movie starts. He's a not-terribly sophisticated New Yorker working in a Baltimore pizza place, but his girlfriend Alison Fulton (Erica Prior) is a gorgeous, high-maintenance blonde from a wealthy family. She's invited him along to her father's (and uncle's) birthday party, which is being held in the Fulton family's first hotel. Now closed, the hotel is empty except for the Fultons' tony affair in the main ballroom and the considerably wilder party being held in a second-floor room (one of those guys knows Norman, too, and invites him to drop by when the other one gets boring). Feeling out of place to begin with, Norman is completely thrown for a loop when one of the waiters recruits him to help ferret out who among the partygoers and staff are planning a massive human sacrifice as part of their plans to revive some eldritch creature and bring about the end of the world.

Read the rest at HBS.

Next: A short day of movies which I make up for with pictures of penguins.

No comments: