rotban

Friday, December 23, 2016

Cinephilia on the Go (Extra Time): Death Note, Long Excuses and more

Before we dive in head on to the MMFF and the end of the year, let's take a look at a number of movies I saw during another trip to HK.

Death Note ended conclusively, whether it be the anime, manga, or the live action adaptation. But, probably thanks to a recent live action TV series, the franchise has risen from the dead, and a new live action film, Death Note: Light up the New world has shown up to cash in on the action.

However, the new movie has little to nothing to do continuity-wise with the live action series; instead, it's based on the continuity of the first two live action movies, Death Note and Death Note: The Last Name, while ignoring the events of the previous spinoff movie, L Change the World. The ending of that series of movies was quite interesting, as it diverged from the manga in a major way after its first half, making it the most fertile land for a sequel. This fact, however, has its own share of problems.

The movie is based on an obscure rule in the original anime and manga that states that only six death notes can work in the human world at any one time. 10 years have passed since the events of The Last Name, and a number of Death Notes have found themselves on earth once again. Almost immediately after, two factions emerge: one that seeks to collect all the Death Notes and keep them away forever, rendering any additional notes useless, and one that seeks to collect all the Death Notes to continue the legacy of the old Kira and discover the identity of the mysterious new Kira.

A number of characters from the original live action movie series return here (played by the same actors), and they are joined by a cast of new characters made exclusively for this sequel. The new characters, which include the successor to L (Sousuke Ikematsu) and a cyberterrorist (Masaki Suda) allied with the pro-Kira forces.

There's a bit of entertainment in keeping track of which faction has which Death Note, and whether Light Yagami is truly alive or not, but that's as far as the movie goes as far as entertainment value is concerned. The whole production feels like mid-tier fan fiction to be honest. None of the new characters are as interesting as the old ones, and the psychological battles that defined the original series are gone. On the other hand, this story is not without its own set of twists at the end. When all is said and done, it feels like a sequel that didn't need to be told.

Death Note: Light up the New world is occasionally fun, but it ultimately amounts to a momentary distraction. It's like getting one more serving of food when you're already full - regardless of the taste of the food, you really don't feel like eating anymore.

When Sachio (Masahiro Motoki of Departures fame) learns that his wife has died, he has trouble processing the emotions that come with it. There wasn't really any spark between the two, and their marriage had been loveless up to that point. He pretends to be sorrowful, waxing poetic and crying on cue. He encounters a truck driver, Yoichi, who is truly devastated by his wife's loss. Learning that his wife and Yoichi's wife were friends, Sachio arranges to help take care of Yoichi's two children to learn about the process of grieving.

Miwa Nishikawa's Nagai Iiwake (The Long Excuse) follows the themes of her previous films Dreams for Sale and Dear Doctor, in which complex characters deceive and live elaborate lies for the sake of themselves and of others. It's a languidly paced character study that finds moments of levity in its more audacious moments. Sachio begins to connect emotionally with the two children, having had no such connection in his previous life. Though he is surrounded by fans of his work as a writer and co-workers, he hasn't had a lasting emotional connection, even with his wife.

Sachio deals with this guilt in different ways. He ends up being attached to Yoichi's family, depending on them as a sort of emotional crutch. And when there's a threat that this crutch is going to be taken away, he predictably lashes out. These dramatic moments are furthered by excellent acting from all of the ensemble cast, and commendations go to the child actors, whose performance rival anything by their adult co-actors in this film.

The film is quite slow, but it does draw you in. The Long Excuse ends up as a highly emotionally textured examination of its characters, allowing us a look through the process of their own pain and loss.

To call Shuichi Okita's Mohican Comes Home as offbeat is a bit of an understatement. When rocker Eikichi (Ryuhei Matsuda) decides to return to his hometown, a sleepy island village in Hiroshima, he runs across his father, who works as some sort of music teacher at the local school. When his father begins to suffer from some health problems, Eikichi decides to take care of him while he figures out what to do with his life.

Mohican Comes Home is structured very loosely; much of the plot described above doesn't really kick in until the last half of the film. Before that, it seems like its trying to decide what kind of movie it wants to be. At times it seems like it's going to be one of those inspirational movies about perfecting a craft, but no luck there. It tries to be a more serious family drama, but it ends up laughing at itself.

The film is flavored with its own distinct kind of deadpan humor that's almost bipolar in nature. At times the jokes play themselves straight, at other times it devolves into something akin to screwball comedy. One particular scene at the end is a prime example of how weird the movie takes us.

At times the whole thing becomes a little too distracting, a little too loose. In finding its father-son narrative only during the last thirty or so minutes of the film, the film lost me. Once moments started becoming profound, I had long given up on the film. That's kind of a shame, as the last half hour or so has a few really nice moments between these two characters. I was laughing at the absurdity of it all, but feeling empty towards the overall experience.

Feng Xiaogang's I Am Not Madame Bovary plays an interesting trick on its viewers, and the endpoint of that trick makes its themes even more relevant. It's almost structured like a fairy tale with a moral lesson at the end.

Much like this year's I, Daniel Blake, I Am Not Madame Bovary pits its character against the bureaucracy of a national government, although this time, the treatment is different. Rather than just being obstinate, the officials of the Chinese government try to muffle our protagonist's voice in a bid to save their own skins. But Xuelian (played by Fan Bingbing in top form) herself is a force to be reckoned with, her cause backed up by dogged, almost superhuman persistence. Her small dispute (a divorce case that proves far more complicated than usual) turns into a yearly pain in the ass for local officials who are either confused, unwilling or unable to hear her case out.

The film is presented as a comedy, showing how the government bumbles its way towards finding a solution to this legal clusterfuck of epic proportions. Like the government, we are baffled at the absurdity of Xuelian's claim, unable to find context in her situation. We don't know why exactly is she putting so much effort into what seems like a futile case. We laugh as we see government officials sacked over their ineptitude to address her condition, though by all means their view of the case is legally in the right as far as we know.

Visually, the film keeps the action in a very tight circular frame, echoing traditional Chinese art, at the same time giving most of the film a voyeuristic treatment, distancing our characters as if through the lens of a telescope. At times the frame opens up once Xuelian reaches Beijing, but not by much.

It's only during the final ten minutes, when the frame opens up fully, that the trick is revealed, and context is given regarding Xuelian's situation. And we realize that, like the government officials, we are as guilty of judging Xuelian as they were. That's the point the movie tries to make, I think: that an effective government needs the nuance to understand its citizens than being held back by rigid dogma and protocol. And that ends up making the film very effective in its message.

Watching the 2016 documentary Weiner is like watching a burning train crash and derail. This is especially in light of recent scandalous evidence pointing to the fact Anthony Weiner STILL hasn't stopped sexting various women, and the fact that this latest round of evidence has finally caused his separation with longtime Clinton aide Huma Abedin.

Since the title of this film literally begs for it, I shall endeavor to include as many dick references as I can in this review. Weiner is about a man who can't get his hands off his dick. While he was still a somewhat respectable congressman, he had a reputation for going hard against the GOP and fighting for the common man. Unfortunately, a number of scandals killed off that hard-on pretty quick. The movie covers his campaign to run for mayor of New York in 2013, when suddenly even more damning evidence surfaces and embroils him in a new political scandal.

A lot of the film is as uncomfortable as getting your dick stuck in a zipper, as we see Weiner commit one political gaffe after another. But it's hard to feel sorry for the guy since you know how much of a dick he is. I felt even worse for Huma Abedin, who stayed by him for much of his mayoral campaign.  The fly on the wall treatment is very intimate to the point of being uncomfortable.

It's kind of a bummer seeing your campaign, which you worked long and hard for, be turned into a lame duck, but there's a bit of fascination that plays into it, and much of it was Weiner's fault anyway. Much of the film's entertainment comes from the schadenfreude and cringe that we experience as we see Weiner's campaign go limp. The moments of political double talk as Weiner tries to PR and damage control his way out of the situation, working the shaft of the media at large, are also entertaining.

With Weiner's political career dead in the water, It's unlikely we'll be seeing him in the near future. But people like Weiner find a way to rise again somehow, so a political comeback in some sort of fashion isn't too far fetched.

And finally, I watched Makoto Shinkai's Kimi no na wa (Your name) again in theaters here (this is the fourth rewatch; I've since seen it again a fifth time in local cinemas). I've said my piece about this lovely film here. Interestingly, the translation for the Hong Kong release of the film and the local Philippine release are slightly different. For instance, the HK version translates some of the song lyrics, while the Philippine release doesn't bother.

If you haven't watched this film in theaters yet, do yourself a favor and watch this film. It's probably one of the few films out now in theaters that I found worth watching more than once. Once MMFF comes along, there's a good chance this film will not come back to theaters once the festival is finished, making the next two or so days the last chance you will ever have to watch this film in a proper theater. 



Up next is the Metro Manila Film Festival and its repertoire of eight films, as well as the traditional end of the year round up. Stay tuned.

No comments: