Inbox:Replay: Magnolia

Inbox features items that I have recently purchased or received.

Replay revisits what I've previously seen.

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Magnolia happen to be the very film I ever saw in college. I went into the 9pm showing and seeing the faces of the ensemble cast in close up on the giant auditorium screen while an elaborate group of crossing stories are told about a group of people living in Los Angeles, I was enthralled. However, my friend who I'd come to see the film with nudged me and told me it was getting late and he thought it'd be better to turn in. I looked at my watch and it was almost midnight. I hardly noticed the time flying by.

Magnolia is an ensemble film, dealing with a number of characters living in Los Angeles, who are all connected to each other, some loosely and others much closer. The characters we meet are Jim Kurrig (John C. Reilly), a tightly wound police officer; Earl Partridge (Jason Robards), a dying man with many regrets; his unstable young wife, Linda (Julianne Moore), and his in-home nurse, Phil (Philip Seymour Hoffman); Earl's son, Frank T.J. Mackie, who runs a seminar on scoring with women (Tom Cruise); cocaine addict Claudia (Melora Walters) who receives a visit from her estranged TV host father, Jimmy Gator (Philip Baker Hall), who is dying of cancer; a boy genius contestants on Jimmy's show, Stanley Spector (Jeremy Blackman) and his pushy father Rick (Michael Bowen); and former show champion, Quiz Kid Donnie Smith (William H. Macy), who has money problems.

It's a lot of characters and stories that the movie tries to juggle, which explains why it stretches out to three hours. What Magnolia is successful at is weaving together a tapestry of pain, regret, fear and a desire to make those things better in each of the characters. However, because of the expansiveness of the cast, most of the characters only get limited development and each one can seem a touch shallow as a result. On the other hand, the whole does end up being a little bit more than the sum of its parts, especially as to how the different characters end up relating or influencing each other. All the same, I don't know if Magnolia truly does manage to tell a stronger large story, especially as it's bookended by stories about coincidences and while some of the collisions between the characters do have an affect on each other, I see a lot of them as acting and changing independently, so there's not a lot of dynamism happening here and the coincidental factor doesn't effectively weave itself into the story as a meaningful theme, so it gets lost in the shuffle.

But even where the storywriting can be a little light, Paul Thomas Anderson's direction is quite strong. He captures a lot of close ups of his many actors and gives them lots of room to present their characters. And most of the actors here do a solid job with their characters, imparting what would otherwise be simply written characters with the necessary emotional depth to be convincing. But Anderson also manages an attractive visual component, using close-up framing in such a way as to make the character drama seem grandiose. Also, a level of dynamism is added by a lot of moving cameras.

I also cannot go without mentioning the soundtrack to the film, which is almost integral to the film. The film is woven around a number of Aimee Mann's original songs, which permeate the film both in the soundtrack, but also in the diegetic world of the characters, and includes a surreal point where the characters themselves actually sing along. And her music is absolutely captivating and works so well in the segments of the film where they show up, it's almost as though the movie was written to the songs. The rest of Jon Brion's score also really does a great job of capturing the emotion on screen and, while not subtle, matches the drama of the film well.

When I first saw Magnolia back in the winter of 2000, I was mesmerized by the film. It captured my attention in a way that few three hour films could, but seeing it a second time, I think that the flatness of the characters became a little more apparent and so the end result was much less satisfying than before. However, Anderson's captivating direction and the strong performances by the actors still makes those hours go by and the film manages to provide a strong emotional portrait, even if it's difficult to squeeze a bigger picture out of the mosaic of this film. As such, I think it's still a strong picture worth checking out. 8/10.

Links:

• Feature website
• Available at (Blu Ray) / (DVD) / (Instant) and iTunes

Progress Report: 종로, 겨울

Progress Report provides ongoing impressions of serials or sets I view them.

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Kim Dongwon's short documentary Jongno, Winter ends up being yet another surprise as it continues his deviation away from his past style of documentary filmmaking, although this one is much more a social commentary documentary than his revealing Tekken Family. Like a few of his biographic films, this one is sparked by the death of a man, but rather than focusing on the person, Kim ends up exploring the greater context around the man's death and uses some new techniques to do so, resulting in a very interesting watch that also, as Kim is wont to do, informs about a social problem in Korea.

Sponsored by the Korean Human Rights Commission, which is responsible for sponsoring a number of omnibus films as well as a feature film, this film follows the death of a migrant Choson person, which is an ethnic Korean from China. In American parlance, it would be a Korean Chinese, although I think much of the rest of the world would call them Chinese Koreans. Anyway, this man, Kim Wonsub, dies of starvation in Jongno one winter as a result of tens of thousands of dollars in pay that he never got from his construction job. The issue, he's an unlawfully present immigrant, like a number of Korean Chinese immigrants and the documentary interviews a number of these immigrants as well as activists that organize around them. It also heads to our subject's home town in Manchuria to interview his father and others who have lost their relatives to Korea, whether they are stuck there due to oppressive financial situations or they have, like the man who sparked this film, died.

Like One Man, Jongno, Winter doesn't rely on an ambiguous voiceover narrator and lets the interviewed speak for themselves. In fact, Kim, at this point has become quite good at drawing out some rather candid and personal statements from those he interviews and so there are some genuine emotional moments with the interviewees. Another interesting element of this film, since Kim Wonsub has passed away, Jongno, Winter actually presents his point of view by dramatizing his final moments in live and these parts show up intercut with the rest of the film, at first seeming simply like B-roll before it becomes noticeably something else. And while it doesn't quite hit the level of moving, it leaves quite a strong impression.

In that sense, I find Jongno, Winter to be a rather impressive film for its eighteen minutes of running time. It captures an issue and shows the perspective of the immigrants who are unjustly treated and abused for their labor and their dire situation. All the while, it takes a creative approach to the story of its protagonist, Kim Wonsub. And for that, I have to say that Jongno, Winter is a worthy watch for those interested in the topic matter. 8/10.

Links:

• Set index

Inbox:Replay: Traffic

Inbox features items that I have recently purchased or received.

Replay revisits what I've previously seen.

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Traffic is a complex film, covering a multitude of perspectives in relation to the drug trade in the US and Mexico, seemingly rough-shot and yet manages to take many different storylines, tie them together into a cohesive film and, while it avoids making any declarative statements on drugs, it still does an immense job of providing a strong impression of the complexity of the drug issue. At the same time, director Steven Soderbergh infuses it with a very noticeable style that compliments the immediacy of the film, making the whole experience impressive.

The film's roots as a British TV miniseries are clear, simply because of the many narrative threads that permeate the film. It follows a pair Mexican state police officers in Tijuana, Javier (Benicio Del Toro) and Manolo (Jacob Vargas) as they encounter and become involved with Mexican anti-drug appointee General Salazaar (Tomas Milian). Then there's Robert Wakefield (Michael Douglas), a judge and politician who is to be appointed the US Drug Czar, and his daughter, Caroline (Erika Christensen), a young woman who, along with her friends, has a developing drug problem. There's also Montel Gordon (Don Cheadle) and Ray Castro (Luis Guzmán), two DEA agents who capture cocaine distributor Eduardo Ruiz (Miguel Ferrer) to take down a bigger fish. One of these fish is Carlos Ayala (Steven Bauer), who upon his capture turns the life of his family, including wife Helena (Catherine Zeta-Jones), upside-down.

I really find impressive how the film manages to actually pull all the different narrative threads together into a painting a larger picture of the drug matter. I also like how no one's story really dominates Traffic, helping enhance the concept that the drug trade affects everyone, from users, to pushers to law enforcement. Also impressive is how the film makes human everyone involved and not only paces the different stories well, but manages to intersect all the stories so well. That it manages to distill the various aspects of a miniseries into a single film should be applauded here.

And part of that applause belongs to editing of the film as it really does an amazing job of establishing rhythm and pacing while still following an overall story arc that ties the players together. Soderbergh also adds an interesting touch to the look of his film, shooting the whole thing seemingly hand-held and with a rather gritty camera and then handling the color balance in such a way to blue or orange out some scenes, lending a tonal mood to the different parts set in the US and Mexico. The actors all play their parts well and manage to even capture some of the small humorous moments well without losing the drama inherent in their characters' stories.

I think that the most difficult part of appreciating Traffic is quite simply that there's a lot going on and less observant viewers might get lost in the myriad of details that comprise the many narratives in this film. Also, and this isn't necessarily a criticism, but the balance struck in the film doesn't entirely allow for strong identification with a single protagonist and I think this limits the impact of each individual story, although I imagine this depends on the viewer. As such, Traffic is a well constructed, well performed, and masterfully woven group of tales that manages to capture some of the complexity of the drug trade through a group of believable, interesting stories. Solid. 8/10.

Links:

• Available at Amazon (Blu Ray) / (DVD) / (Instant) and iTunes

Progress Report: 철권가족

Progress Report provides ongoing impressions of serials or sets I view them.

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In the biggest turn in director Kim Dong Won's filmography so far, director Kim turns the camera on himself and his family for the twelve minute short documentary, Tekken Family. As different family members play the fighting video game, Tekken (Tekken 3, it seems), Kim takes the time to interview his family members about what bothers them when it comes to each other, including getting interviewed himself by his eldest son. Not every interview is around the game as the different family members are encouraged to be honest in front of the camera.

Most interesting is the degree reflexivity created by the fact that the kids speak to behind-the-camera Kim and know that he's going to edit the result. We even see a shot of Kim at work, editing video and in the documentary, his wife mentions how she's hoping that the resulting documentary ends up bringing in 2000000 won from a contest it's being entered into. This is all a far cry from the invisible eye of Kim's previous documentaries.

Still, when it comes to short form documentaries, Tekken Family is a revealing glance into the home life of the director and simply turning the camera on himself is quite the courageous act. I think this short documentary's influence actually extends into Kim's excellent documentary Repatriation as he ends up present in that film as well. And that, combined with its brevity and honesty, makes Tekken Family a very interesting film in Kim's filmography. 8/10.

Links:

• Set index

Inbox: 개와 늑대의 시간

Inbox features items that I have recently purchased or received.

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Aside from seeing bits of the silly Runaway and the laughable IRIS, I don't really have much exposure to the action/thriller side of Korean television, so seeing Time Between Dog and Wolf on sale, I thought I'd give it a shot. While not universally praised, it seems to have its share of support from critics and fans alike (although I imagine some of that fan support comes simply from the fact that pretty boy Lee Junki has the lead role in the series). I'm going to try to keep my mind open as I watch it and hope that it's at least decent.

Disc List:

• Disc 1: Episodes 1-3
• Disc 2: Episodes 4-6
• Disc 3: Episodes 7-9
• Disc 4: Episodes 10-12
• Disc 5: Episodes 13-15
• Disc 6: Episode 16 and Special Features

Links:

• Series review
• Series website
• Available at Amazon and YesAsia

Progress Report: 한 사람

Progress Report provides ongoing impressions of serials or sets I view them.

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It seems like a number of director Kim Dongwon's documentaries stem from a few events. This one appears to come from Kim's documentary he produced with the Sangkye Dong evictees, a biography of one of the Catholic priests that supported the group as they struggled against eviction. That priest was Robert "Bob" Sweeney and this film, One Man, was made shortly after his passing.

The documentary unfolds in chronological order after a short introduction with some basic impressions that Bob left on the people he encountered in his life. It spends a short amount of time on Bob's life in New York up until he was sent to Korea and his unusual temperament. It spends a little time following his struggle with both his abrasive personality and his alcoholism and then traces the steps of his transformation into a social activist, following the different communities he touched, including a leper colony, evictees, and impoverished farmers, up until his death.

This documentary is presented in a style somewhat similar to Kim's previous documentary on Reverend Moon, although it is focused more intimately on personal observations and impressions of Bob from the individuals he's impacted as Bob wasn't anywhere as a nationally recognized figure as Moon. In this documentary, Kim manages to do away with the ambiguous narrator that I've always pointed out confuses the point of view of his documentaries, with every single voice that is heard belonging to an interviewee, archival footage or Bob's writings read aloud. As a biography, I think Kim covers the basics well and captures some of the main threads in Bob's life and is fairly balanced in presentation. Traveling around the world to capture interviews from Bob's brother as well as gathering broader archival material helps fill the documentary well.

One Man is actually a fairly strong work insofar as biographic documentaries go, although I think Kim doesn't entirely capture why we should care about Bob in particular, even as he establishes a solid portrait of the man. Maybe Kim's soft touch does result in stronger credibility and he captures at least one moment where an interviewee loses the ability to continue speaking in grief of Bob's passing, but perhaps a stronger examination of Bob's impact on individuals and communities would have strengthened the story. As such, I would say that One Man is a thorough and intimate documentary that might be of interest to those interested in the lives of Catholic missionaries to Korea, especially insofar as their work in support of the socially marginalized. 7/10.

Links:

• Set index

Inbox:Replay: Léon: The Professional

Inbox features items that I have recently purchased or received.

Replay revisits what I've previously seen.

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I remember feeling blown away after first watching Léon as a teenager. There was drama! Emotion! A badass little girl! And at least two crazy action sequences. It was a simpler time for me, but even then, I noticed some elements of the film that didn't go down as well--the overblown dramatics, in particular. Still, watching it again (now in extended edition) with my now much more refined taste, I was surprised to find that everything that worked with Léon still works and those same things I noticed before were still minor quibbles to hold.

Léon, also known as The Professional, is the earliest version of its story I can think of: A trained assassin ends up bonding with a young child and ends up having to kill a whole lot of people for the kid's sake. In this case, our titular hero (Jean Reno), an emotionally stunted, but amazing hitman finds his neighbors slaughtered by some crooked cops led by Stansfield (Gary Oldman) and little girl Mathilda (Natalie Portman) left alone and orphaned. Our Léon reluctantly takes her in and begins to develop his first genuine human relationship in years. At her insistence, he teaches her his trade, but her thirst for vengeance will lead this pair into dangerous territory.

Léon is an unusual action film because the core of it is the story about a precocious young girl drawing out a turtled up man with arrested development. Maybe it was just the extended edition, but outside of the two big set pieces, most of the rest of the film is spent on the two as they establish a rapport and develop a friendship. And because of this focus on the relationship, the story works well overall even if the film is kind of fuzzy on a few points, especially pertaining to what the deal with the crooked Stansfield and his cronies are doing. Stansfield, in particular, is painted with the broadest of villains strokes.

And Gary Oldman provides an immensely bombastic performance here, chewing an immense amount of scenery. But that hyper-dramatic approach isn't just limited to Oldman: director Luc Besson pours it over much of the film, choosing very dramatic "feel this!" shots for poignant emotional moments, and with a girl-hitman-in-training going on, the potential for sentimentality is pretty high. It is cut pretty well by the action--the two set pieces are fantastic, tense and impressive and the film also packs in a bit of appropriately black humor to keep the whole thing from feeling drowned in sentiment.

As such, Léon remains a pretty good time. I'm sure Portman's Mathilda might be disturbing to some for her rather bad-girl characteristics, like smoking, drinking, her infatuation with her protector and her desire from revenge, but she fits into a tradition of cinematic badass girls, from Jodie Foster's Iris to Chloe Moretz's Hitgirl, so her character isn't unique to The Professional. Even after all these years, Léon: The Professional remains as good as it ever was. 8/10.

Links:

• Available at Amazon (Blu Ray) / (DVD) / (Instant) and iTunes

Progress Report: 또 하나의 세상: 행당동 사람들 2

Progress Report provides ongoing impressions of serials or sets I view them.

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About a decade since visiting the cause of the evictees of Haengdang Dong, director Kim Dongwon in Another World We Are Making revisits the nascent community on the eve of its transition into the new apartments they fought so hard to gain for themselves and observes the development in their community life since they banded together against being evicted and then again for housing. And while the documentary style presented here is a clear return to the style that Kim has used for these kinds of documentaries for over a decade since he started making these shorts and features, I do appreciate that he revisits the communities he documented, creating a longer view of the trials and both the successes and failures of his subjects.

His original Haengdang Dong people, left on the evictees being purged from their homes, but on a hopeful note as they organized and formed alliances with other evicted slum communities and petitioned the government for equitable treatment. In this film we watch as the people of Haengdang Dong were allowed to build their temporary housing in the shadow of the apartment complexes that swallowed their old community, but, more notably, we see the developments in the community since they united to fight the eviction. Since then, the individuals that comprised Haengdang Dong, at least the ones who stayed, have become a community, meeting together, sharing resources and even building a coop business and credit union together, some of these resources being shared with neighboring communities of evictees.

Again, the omniscient narrator returns, taking a voice as a member of the community without necessarily being a real person, and this does nothing to ameliorate my reservations towards the approach. Furthermore, compared to his last pair of works, Another World We Are Making depends even more on the narrator to explain what we are seeing and telling us what has happened to the community, resulting is less voices from the actual community being involved. Also, due to the primarily positive nature of the documentary, one might think that it's a puff piece on the principles of community being the means by which the urban poor can collectively improve their standard of living--but if it's that, it works. It's a rather encouraging work.

Production values stay about the same as his last few works, but this one includes archival footage and photographs from his past film to strike a contrast from where they were to where they are now. Kim largely avoids clever editorializing now and sticks right with his material up front, which gives the film a bit more earnestness and pulls a touch away from the otherwise propaganda tone of the documentary. I won't say that this is riveting documentary work, but all the same, I'm glad that Kim got the opportunity to catch up with the people of Haengdang Dong. For those that watched the first documentary about this community, I think this is worthy companion piece and certainly an interesting work for those who work with (or are) the urban poor. Even if some of Kim's approach doesn't harmonize well with my own documentary filmmaking ideology, I still think that this documentary, along with its predecessor, is a worthwhile viewing for those interested in modern Korean history, urban poverty and community organization. 7/10.

Links:

• Set index

Inbox:Replay: 臥虎藏龍

Inbox features items that I have recently purchased or received.

Replay revisits what I've previously seen.

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I distinctly remember watching Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon while a student at Dartmouth College. Director Ang Lee, who by then had several critically favored films under his belt, was one of Dartmouth's Montgomery Fellows and was presenting a little film he had just completed, called Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and while, at the time, I knew little about Ang Lee or wuxia films as a whole, being the diligent film neophyte, I attended the premiere screening of the film. And, wow. I was blown away by what I had seen. Looking back on the film now, as a more refined cinephile, there are some cracks in the story and production that I can now see, but I still largely love this film nonetheless as it still holds a degree of simplicity that many later internationally oriented wuxia productions abandoned in favor of more elaborate visuals.

Loosely based on the Crane Iron series of romance-wuxia novels by Wang Dulu, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon follows the stories of warriors Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun-Fat) and Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh) as they deal with their unrequited love for each other and within this is thrust Jen Yu (Zhang Ziyi), an aristocrat and, secretly, a superb martial artist who eventually draws Li and Yu into an old conflict between Li and Jade Fox, who killed his master, Southern Crane.

After thinking about the story, it's clear that this film is a condensation of a much series of works as the film itself doesn't entirely pick a central protagonist. I would think it's Jen because she's the dynamic character, but Li and Yu's story is so much more powerfully written and emotionally potent that it's hard not to be more empathetic towards Yu, in particular. This makes it harder to be centered on Jen's story and consequently takes a bit of the punch out of the overall story. It would've been better to put Li/Yu more into the background to act as catalyst's for Jen's development or bring them more to the forefront and use Jen as a conflict for their own repressed relationship. Still, Jen learns and grows and Li/Yu's relationship is well wrought--I actually wish that this had been stretched out to a series as giving more air to each of the stories would have been even more rewarding.

The film looks gorgeous. Ang Lee's restraint (or maybe his budget?) allows for simplicity in the production design and art direction, which helps the visuals from completely overtaking the film, but it is also shot wonderfully and the choreographed fight scenes are absolutely delicious to watch, like graceful dances, but with a sense of urgency. The acting is good, but the native accents of the characters are pretty apparent and, even as a non-Mandarin speaker, I can tell that the actors are all sounding a bit different, which will likely result in greater incongruity for actual native Mandarin speakers. But, I don't think I've seen either Chow or Yeoh hit the kind of sympathetic notes in their previous action films that they were able to achieve here. And Yo-Yo Ma and company provide an absolutely gorgeous score for the ears too.

Granted, I think the story here might not seem all that impressive to long-time wuxia film fans, but the grace and quality of presentation in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon is what made this film so attractive to mainstream audiences. And even after all these years and bitter cynicism from watching too many films, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon still throws some magic on the screen for me, which means that it keeps a special place in my heart. Still lovely. 9/10.

Links:

• Additional Reviews: City on Fire, Far East Films
• Available at Amazon (Blu Ray) / (DVD) / (Instant) and iTunes

Progress Report: 명성, 그 6 일의 기록

Progress Report provides ongoing impressions of serials or sets I view them.

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The 6 Days Struggle at the Myong-Dong Cathedral is director Kim Dongwon's first film that approaches feature length and shows overall growth in his filmmaking on many fronts. Like his previous documentary, We'll Be One, The 6 Days Struggle is a retrospective documentary, looking back at a notable event in Korean history, where a student-led movement of South Korean citizens protested against the continuing military dictatorship of the country for six days, entrenching themselves at the Myongdong Cathedral.

The documentary opens with the internal election of President Elect Roh Taewoo, part of the military hierarchy that controlled the country since civilian government was overthrown in the 70's by Park Chunghee and the South Korean military. This event led to increased protests around South Korea, frequently led by students and this documentary follows a united mass group of protesters that eventually retreat from riot police to the Myongdong Cathedral, which had developed a reputation for sheltering political dissidents and, with the larger Catholic body of Korea, opposing the military regime. From there, with a mix of interviews, lots of archival footage (including much first person footage) and photographs, the documentary follows the protesters during their ordeal and follows up with them in the wake of the event.

It's clear that a large portion of this documentary was shot while Kim was directing Sang Kye Dong Olympics, as the Sang Kye Dong community was also taking shelter at the cathedral at the same time, so much of the footage recorded was likely from Kim and his team (presuming he wasn't working along). And the ground-level viewpoint that Kim provides of this event from the perspective of the protesters is enthralling. Kim is thorough in capturing at least the protesters' side as well as their allies and while his lack of examining the military point of view definitely skews this documentary closer to propaganda, because the mainstream media was largely controlled and in favor of the conservative military government, it acts as a counterpoint, instead of pure propaganda.

Kim relies even less on an omniscient narrator, although one is present. While the narrator's own veracity is ambiguous, the film fortunately relies a lot more on recorded interviews to provide most of the narrative of the documentary and these recollections from participants in the event, ten years later, are strong, especially when coupled with real footage of those participants during the event. The documentary does meander a bit towards its end, moving onto a separate protest event that occurred afterwards around the death of a student protester at the hands of the police, but the film's heavy focus on the stories and characters of many of the protesters of the protest at Myongdong Cathedral largely help create a strong story to follow.

Overall, I think that The 6 Days Struggle at the Myong-Dong Cathedral is a valuable documentary work as it records, at a ground level, the perspective of the suppressed opposition to the military regime that ruled Korea at the time in one of its defining moments. It's exciting for those unfamiliar with the events as the story actually holds an amount of suspense as to what will happen to these protesters. I actually remember my father reacting to these protests himself as a youth, with him teaching me anti-Roh chants and perhaps I can credit this pro-democracy movement as the major instigator in his interest in politics and his return to Korea, so this documentary has some personal relevance to me as well. While it's not without its flaws, The 6 Days Struggle at the Myong-Dong Cathedral is one of Kim's strongest documentaries yet presented in the set, clearly showing his development in capturing and telling stories. Even the music has improved for this one. 8/10.

Links:

• Set index

Seen: Source Code

Seen takes a look at the shows I have seen in person.

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Being a little detached from mainstream media, I really had no idea that Source Code even existed as a film, but invited to go with some friends to see the movie, I decided to chance it and headed out to the theater. I found an interesting premise, some muddling science, some unfocused (and sometimes cheap) storytelling, a lack of urgency, but wrapped up in a pretty slick package with a touch of thoughtful science fiction. However, I think the lack of narrative focus constantly distracted me with a whole lot of questions that were raised and never answered and probably kept me from really getting into the film.

The premise is this: Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) wakes up on a train, disoriented and confused and quickly discovers that he is not himself. The train blows up and he finds that he's on a mission to discover who the bomber of the train is before he sets off a bigger bomb. Meanwhile, he struggles to discover the truth about the branch of the military he's working for, what happened to him and to resolve something with his father. And, determine the nature of the "Source Code".

That was a pretty hard description to write up. If you asked me what this story was about, I would be hard pressed to come up with a pointed answer. And therein lies part of the problem with the Source Code. Even with its solid premise about finding the bomber of a destroyed train--mind you, there is a whole lot of sci-fi handwaving going on here, which is more than a little frustrating--which really could have been improved by simplifying the story so that it's about stopping the bomber of the train, which would have amped up the stakes, the film doesn't even run with the those stakes, adding a layer of unnecessary mystery, unfounded romance and straight up schmaltz into the mix that makes the film neither one thing or the other and the result ends up being a rather strange chimera with too many heads wanting to take the film in too many directions. Which raises too many questions about the point of it all and saps the film of much of its fun potential. It's not so much that Source Code has layers, but rather just decided to throw everything it could into the pot and hope that it cooks well together.

At least the directing was clean, the production tight and the acting believable, although some characters really veered into one-note territory, like the scientist, Dr. Rutledge (Jeffrey Wright), complete with visual substitute for characterization. The film was also edited well enough that it kept suspense pacing, even as the story was so poorly constructed to drive such suspense.

Oh, and the ending is a headscratcher, not in that it blows your mind by the awe of what it presents, but because not only does it raise some serious questions about the ethics espoused by the film, but it's completely unnecessary for the story and kind of comes out of nowhere. Still, the film does manage enough mild entertainment that I don't hate it. It's just that it's unfocused approach combined with a premise with actual promise makes the whole effort, in the end, kind of disappointing. 5/10.

Links:

• Artist website
• Available at Amazon (Blu Ray) / (DVD) / (Instant) and iTunes

Progress Report: 하나가 되는 것은 더욱 커지는 일이다

Progress Report provides ongoing impressions of serials or sets I view them.

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We'll Be One sees another change of pace for Kim Dongwon as a documentary film director. This time his film actually has credits and we can see that he worked with a writer, giving a perspective voice to the film, which is also a change for Kim as it focuses not on a community, but an actual single person, Reverend Moon Ikhwan, a Korean unification activist, not to be confused with the more widely known Rev. Moon Sunmyung of the Unification Church.

The documentary opens focusing on Reverend Moon's unauthorized visit to the "Great Leader" Kim Ilsung in North Korea and the fallout that it caused with Korean conservative hardliners, before moving briefly into Moon's background as a theologian-turned-activist along with his conflicts with the governing regime, including plenty of footage and photographs, both of himself and the massive dissent with the government at the time, often shown over Moon's speeches and other B-roll shown over recitations of his poetry. Plenty of interviews also show, describing the man the events as the documentary moves with Moon's life up through his historic visit to Pyongyang and then exploring the aftermath.

We'll Be One clearly has a political lens from which it's viewing the events. It's not trying to be an unbiased report on Moon's life and obviously sides with liberal-leaning Koreans, just as Moon did, and could be said to be a propaganda film as it really only shows its subjects in a favorable light, not shedding a multi-dimensional picture of the man or the unification movement in which he was a leader. Still, credit has to be given for capturing even this much about the man and preserving it in this accessible format, especially as conservative opinions tend to prevail in Korean mainstream media, so the documentary does act as a counter-balance to that when it comes to the memory of Rev. Moon.

Giving the writer a credit (as well as broader credits in general) goes a long way into clearing up any ambiguities about the voice of the narrator in the documentary and helps ease my mind as to its authenticity. Kim doesn't tread very far from retrospective documentary style on We'll Be One, with a mix of slow-zoom photographs, interviews, archival footage, and B-roll over narration/recitation or audio from interviews or archival audio, as such it's quite easy to absorb the film, although I feel a stronger anchor context, an event to pin the viewpoint of the resulting documentary, would have strengthened the overall point of view. Music is still a bit on the cheap synthesized and generic side.

Overall, I wouldn't say that We'll Be One is groundbreaking film in any way, but it fits well into the long tradition of documentaries about political figures, highlighting a particular activist of a movement that eventually made a significant impact on inter-Korean relations, at least for a little while, even after his death. Perhaps for that, it secures its merit as a documentary, but it doesn't add much more than that picture. 6/10.

Links:

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Seen: Macho Like Me, March 26, 2011 at The Matrix Theatre, Los Angeles

Seen takes a look at the shows I have seen in person.

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Macho Like Me Trailer from Helie Lee on Vimeo.

Helie Lee, writer of two acclaimed books, spent six and a half months undercover as a man so that she could experience male privilege and prove to herself (and maybe her readers) that men certainly do have it easier. What she discovered is that life just isn't that simple. Part documentary (using parts of her documentary film of the same name), part speech and part scripted performance, Helie Lee's one woman show is an interesting blend that highlights her experience and tells her story of discovering at least some of what it means to be a man.

We're immediately taken with the setup. In her late 30's, her parents are really putting on the pressure (and blind dates) to get her married away, shown in some hilarious video segments where her South Korean parents directly address the camera. We have some acting-video-speech mix as her ordeal makes her lash out against guys and finally, we hit the experiment, where most of the drama is on the screen and Helie's hindsight reactions and revelations provide much of the comedy and personal insight. Amidst Helie's own story also comes into relief the story of David, an architect with whom Helie strikes up a friendship with, and he highlights some of what she learns about being a man and the impact that masculinity has on the men who abide by its many unspoken tenets.

The whole thing ends up being done from a comedy-inflected angle, as while much of what she goes through definitely seemed difficult for her, in hindsight, many of her experiences are also things that we can laugh at. And the comic tone works well to contrast against her clearly angst-ridden struggles, once she gets into actually trying to be accepted as one of the guys. While I wouldn't call her observations revelatory, I do think her own female perspective on masculinity is a particularly helpful voice for both men and women who want to learn a thing or two about masculinity from the outside.

Helie herself is clearly not a trained actress and so some of her performance comes across as a bit rough (but perhaps charming in her earnestness), but she does seem to have overcome most of the issues with self-consciousness. Her timing with the visual footage was solid and the integration really helped keep the show paced well. Also, the whole stage was well used and symbolic visual elements, including props and wardrobe, helped add some flavor to moments that might have been a bit dry.

All in all, I think this is a fantastic show for women, in particular, to watch as it provides insight, from a female perspective, into the relationship between men and the masculinity they live by. It's lively, funny and still has moments of heart, even if it's not exactly a mind-blowing degree of insight. The presentation and the charming woman at the center of it, keeps it interesting. Recommended. 8/10.

Note: The run of the show has been extended into (at least) April, so interested parties should catch the Los Angeles-based show soon. For those unable to catch it, the documentary might later become available. Check the website for more information.

Links:

• Show website

Progress Report: 행당동 사람들

Progress Report provides ongoing impressions of serials or sets I view them.

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Haengdang-dong People sees documentary director return to his old cause, this time rallying around the people of Haengdang-dong, another community of urban poor that is facing eviction.

However, unlike the downbeat ends to the previous stories, Kim reports a noticeably positive ending here and a return to the style of Sangkye-dong Olympics, complete with all the strengths of having a concrete set of people to focus on and the weakness of having an ambiguous narrator speak "for the people". Kim is much more restrained here, avoiding rhetorical editing and almost exclusively focusing on the story of the people who resist eviction and struggle to keep their community intact and healthy. The turn in his continuing observations is that Kim sees that the greater organization and unity of the tenants (and even owners) of these communities can score them victories against the corporate and private interests that threaten to evict them for reconstruction, deprive them of monies owed and promised future housing by pricing them out of the new apartments.

However, aside from those new developments, this is still largely the same story as before, recorded with better equipment (or perhaps better surviving the decay of time), in the same style. I do like that there seems to be a greater amount of real captured sound versus narration which lends greater believability as the narration ties well together with what people are saying, however, I still find it a crutch that saps from the authenticity of the documentary. I think it would be better if it were written from his perspective or the writer identified by the documentary. Still, I'd say that, watching this in light of his related films does lend to a larger story and that makes this an interesting and hope-giving watch. 7/10.

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