Hey, guys. I'm back from the abyss. Here's the fourth and final part of Present Confusion's HK special 2017. (I can't think of a better name at the moment.)
The Cutler family has lived in the English countryside for years, committing numerous robberies and petty crimes. Thanks to skillful planning, they haven't been charged by the police for anything... yet. Chad (Michael Fassbender) is one of the key members of the gang, but he wants a normal life for his wife and kid. On the other hand, his father (Brendan Gleeson) keeps a tight leash on his most skilled man.
Trespass Against Us is a mishmash of ideas: it's part family drama, part gangster thriller, part comedy. These disparate parts don't really mesh that well, but there's still plenty in the film to enjoy. For example, Gleeson's character, Colby, is an interesting mosaic of a man, both religious and sinister, keeping his charges uneducated and ignorant to keep them loyal. Michael Fassbender is way too handsome for Chad, but he still delivers a pretty impressive performance as a loving dad to his kids. Their two performances carry a film that is deeply flawed.
Trespass Against Us is entertaining, but I wish it would have stuck to one thing all throughout. Instead, the haphazard pastiche of ideas really takes a toll on the final product.
***
The next two films are part of the HKIFF (and the last films I will be reviewing for this feature.)
The first 30 or so minutes of Romy Trocker's The Eremites takes its time getting you into the daily rhythms of its protagonists. And this rhythm is solemn, paradoxically(?) quiet even. It details the life of Albert, a man who is torn between a life working in a mine and returning to his parents' old farm in the Alps, where that way of life is in the process of disappearing altogether.
Albert's elderly mother is adamant about her son carving out his own way of life, but we are initially not told her reasons why. Trocker decides to peel away these layers subtly, clues hidden in conversations that one might easily ignore. The film's characters are framed in wide shots of the countryside or the inside of the mountain, a dichotomy of man framed within nature, but with wildly different contexts, one where man works in unison with nature, another with a colder, more mechanical atmosphere.
It seems ironic, then, that our protagonist's time mining in the mountain, carving it out from the inside, takes away from the same mountains that have sustained his family all these years. Perhaps it's out of a subliminal sense of vengeance, or perhaps the irony stands. The film makes us fill in the details ourselves. It represents an age old trope of traditional ways of life clashing with modern points of view, between a sense of duty to family and a sense of independence and freedom.
The Eremites is slow, atmospheric arthouse that is challenging to watch, but is rewarding for the patient viewer.
Set in the scenic vistas of mountainous Chuncheon, Jang Woo-jin's Autumn, Autumn is a fascinating portrait of a place as transformative catalyst. It is reminiscent of Hong Sang-soo's 1998 film, The Power of Kangwon Province with its two part story structure (they also take place in the same relative location; Chuncheon is the capital of Kangwon province).
Jang uses long takes and parallel sequences that connect its two plot threads, intersecting on a train during the film's opening sequence. One follows a young man whose regret and frustration over his life choices make him face a crossroads in life; another follows a couple whose motives and backstory are tantalizingly revealed to us through conversation.
Some of those long takes are truly magical moments. In the first plot thread, a lengthy phone call becomes an emotional fulcrum for everything up to that moment; in the second plot thread, there is a fantastic sequence (pictured above) of the couple eating at a restaurant, the natural lighting shifting from dark to light, reflecting the moods of the two characters and the revelations that are brought up during the sequence itself.
Jang uses temporality and repetition to show how Chuncheon as a place transforms its characters: trips to a local shrine may depict a search for answers or relief to a troubling situation. Slow motion scenes during a marathon are met with disinterest or avoidance; the appearance of a praying mantis elicits different reactions as well. It is poetic and tranquil, and by the end we see how these characters can either be profoundly changed or stay the same.
Autumn, Autumn is a real surprise to me. it's a brisk watch at a little over an hour, and it has some fantastic moments, a real achievement for a sophomore feature.
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