Hey, folks. Capone in Chicago here, with a couple of films that are making their way into art houses around America this week or at least expanding to more theaters (maybe even taking up one whole screen at a multiplex near you. Enjoy…
STILL WALKING
The word "master" seems to get tossed around a lot when it comes to Japanese filmmakers, and I could probably write 2,000 words on why that's not the worst thing, since for as long as the Japanese have been making movies, there have been examples of master filmmakers from that nation. I remember taking a "History of Japanese Cinema" class in college and the professor explaining the connections between the compositions in traditional Japanese painting and those in their films, and a great deal was made clear to me. But that never really explained the care and perception that arose from the plots and characters in those films. I entered the world of Japanese cinema, as many did, through Akira Kurosawa, but Kurosawa should only be a gateway to so many other fantastic, detail-oriented filmmakers. And when you reach and envelop yourselves in the microcosm of Ozu's world, well, then you are an adult, my friend.
One of the current Japanese filmmakers that I'd put on par with the masters is Kore-Eda Hirokazu. If you'd only ever seen is breathtaking AFTER LIFE, you could consider yourself ready to die. It's telling of what happens between life and death is quite simply one of the greatest films I've ever seen. His latest work, STILL WALKING, has far more modest intentions than AFTER LIFE, but it's still an exceptional work of art as Hirokazu dissects the modern Japanese family, who gather every year on the death anniversary of the youngest son, who drowned 15 years ago saving another boy. The emotional intent of the day seems lost on the family, each member of which has his or her own set of problems and concerns to deal with. Still, the family almost can't help drag out some of their best and often-told stories, so that some of the younger or newer members can hear them for the first time over some elaborately prepared meals that will make your mouth water as your mind is simultaneously stimulated by the wonderful conversation.
Nearly the entire film is set at the home of the now-elderly parents--the accepting and forgiving mother, and the largely silent and bitter father, who passes judgment on anyone and anything that passes before his eyes. Both are frustrating in their own way. Their now-grown children are aggravating in their own way, largely because they attend this event out of obligation rather than any kind of respect for their lost brother. Strangely enough, when the character whose life was saved by the dead boy arrives to pay his respect as he does every year, he is largely viewed (behind his back) with contempt by the family for having lived a wasted life after having it saved as a child. The relationships and emotions are tangled and complex and utterly familiar to anyone with extended relations they see regularly. And the film ends with a brilliant shot that sums up everything you will ever need to know about family. There are so many words you could use to describe STILL WALKING, but calling it "perfect" doesn't quite cover it, despite it being true. The film eases into this family as if you were a member, or perhaps a neighbor with a window open into every happening. Each conversation reveals a little bit more about everyone involved, and that makes it genuine and captivating. Perhaps Kirokazu hates getting it right every single time, but I'll never get tired of it.
MY ONE AND ONLY
I'm not a knee-jerk Renee Zellweger hater. I'm not starting up any fan clubs on her behalf, but she's given enough solid performances in films like JERRY MAGUIRE, A PRICE ABOVE RUBIES, CHICAGO, NURSE BETTY, COLD MOUNTAIN, and, yes, even those damned BRIDGET JONES movies that I think the fact that she makes a scrunchy face sometimes should get a pass. I think she lowers herself when she makes traditional romantic-comedy fare like LEATHERHEADS or NEW IN TOWN, but thankfully she doesn't make many films like that. I kind of covered this ground in my review of that film, but the bottom line is, Zellweger takes more chances than most actresses in her class (Bullock, Witherspoon, Lopez), and she seems to take more shit than any of them.
So now she's in an indie period piece called MY ONE AND ONLY in which she plays Anne, the mother of two teenage sons (Logan Lerman as the college-age George, and Mark Rendall as the slightly younger and far more gay Robbie) and the recently divorced wife of a womanizing band leader (Kevin Bacon), who decides to take the kinds out of their New York dwelling and travel the country in search of a better husband and hopefully a better life in 1953 America. Zellweger portrays Anne as an aging beauty, whose appearance, manners and general outlook on the relationship between men and women would be more suited for a Southern belle than a mother of two nearly grown sons. It's a frustrating existence for everyone involved, and the film traces their journey across the country and through a series of changes and adjustments--financial and emotional--the family must make in order to survive. Honestly, the film is a great excuse to meet some interesting characters along the way, including ones played by Nick Stahl, Chris Noth, Eric McCormack, Steven Webber, David Koechner and Troy Garity, among others.
My favorite section of MY ONE AND ONLY is set in St. Louis, and I believe it's the longest Anne and her kids spend in any one place. Living with her less attractive more conservative sister (the great Robin Weigert) and her husband (J.C. MacKenzie), Anne meets a business man (Koechner) who woos her in the most gentlemanly way and proposes to her, offering her and her kids a secure future... until that doesn't quite happen. This is a film loaded with frustration, failure and failed dreams, all of which serve to simultaneously bring the family closer and pull it apart. It's actually an interesting study of a dying era and a fearless mother who uses her dated way of life as a means to keep a roof over her family's head. MY ONE AND ONLY combines the feel of old Hollywood, with a type of realism that didn't enter motion pictures until much later.
Now what if I told you that this entire story is actually chronicling the life of a young George Hamilton (that would be the non-gay son, who is listed as a producer on the film), who strove to be a writer but ended up becoming an actor when his mother got the group to California? I hadn't read anything about this movie when I started watching it, so I had no idea this was a slice of Hamilton's life. But I'll admit, when it's revealed at the end that it is about him, I liked the movie just a little bit more knowing that some part of it was true. Director Richard Loncraine (RICHARD III, THE GATHERING STORM, MY HOUSE IN UMBRIA, and the upcoming film about Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, THAT SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP) does a decent job of keeping these multiple coming-of-age stories (I'd include Anne's journey as one of those stories) moving along without feeling overly sentimental or nostalgic. This is a far sadder story than I would have imagined, and that's completely appropriate and a welcome surprise. Things get a little pedestrian and simplified at times, but the heart-felt performances won we over in the end.
TREELESS MOUNTAIN
One the whole, child actors piss me off... except when they astonish me in films like CHOP SHOP, PONETTE, THE FALL, and now TREELESS MOUNTAIN, just to name a few examples of young actors pulling off incredible work in the last couple of years. If I could, I would never see another movie with a child actor who has a headshot, because that young actor probably has a very narrow sense of what he or she has to do to make us laugh or cry or care about the undoubtedly narrowly drawn character they are playing. I don't entirely blame young actors--the scripts they are being given are slop and often films featuring children don't really respect the characters or the young actors' abilities to given an emotionally driven performance. And then you find young performers like the ones in the film I've named above. If I'm not mistaken, in every case, the children were non-actors or first-time actors when they made these movies. They don't have a bag of acting tricks. They know only how to be themselves, and the two young girls in Treeless Mountain give two of the most believable and agonizingly real performances you will see this or most other year.
South Korean-born writer-director So Young Kim (who earned an MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago), who made the perfect love story IN BETWEEN DAYS three years ago, has crafted a tale of two young Korean sisters (ages 5 and 6), whose father has abandoned them and mother has to give them away to a less-than-responsible aunt in the country while she goes searching for the father after the family is evicted from their small city apartment. The two young actresses are so sweet and natural that we are instantly in their grip emotionally. When they cry, we want to hug them; when someone is mean to them, we want to throttle the bully; and when they find something that comforts them, we are relieved and pleased.
TREELESS MOUNTAIN isn't about big, overblown, emotional moments. The neglectful aunt isn't so terrible, and we can chalk up most of her bad behavior to not having any kids of her own and just not knowing any better... but not always. Eventually the children land at their grandparents' farm, which we are led to believe by the aunt to be a place of utter misery, which it may very well have been when she grew up there. But the feeble couple who live there now seem kind and attentive to their young charges, and the girls take to the routine of farm living instantly. I have no idea whether the events in TREELESS MOUNTAIN actually happened to the director or not, but it ultimately doesn't matter. The story feels 100 percent authentic and believable. If it didn't happen to her, it happened to thousands of other people just like her in dozens of countries around the world. The story has a universal quality to it, while still feeling remarkably original.
The film ends with a lot of questions about the future of these two charming child unanswered, but it doesn't feel open ended. Director Kim has taken us to the exact place she needs to, a place where we might not know exactly where these girls end up but we feel fairly confident they are in good hands for the time being. Treeless Mountain is not about plot; it's about life and these wonderfully sketched characters. I was mesmerized by every aspect of TREELESS MOUNTAIN.
-- Capone
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