Woman is the Future of Man
The first snows have fallen on Seoul. Heon-jun, a filmmaker recently returned from the U.S., looks up an old college friend, Mun-ho, now a respected university professor. As they sit in a Chinese restaurant the conversation moves from their work to their personal lives and finally to their loves - or at least to their memories of love, especially those concerning Seon-hwa, a painter and former lover of both men. Hearing she now runs a bar, they decide to pay her a visit - but could the woman they find ever really be the woman they remember? Top French producer Marin Karmitz - acclaimed for his work with Chabrol, Kieslowski, Kiarostami, and many others - was so impressed by Hong Sang-soo's Turning Gate (NYFF 2002) that he offered to produce this film. Aided by a trio of superb actors, Hong captures every nuance in the shifting emotional and erotic relations among his characters. His still young, still attractive protagonists are haunted by the fear that the best of times may be behind them. 88 min. South Korea/France, 2004.
Vera Drake - Review
Mike Leigh's newest film is one of his very best, a shattering drama about the unintended consequences of virtue. Vera Drake (a superb performance by Imelda Staunton), hardworking cleaning woman, fond mother of two, friendly neighbor, has a secret: she helps out women who find themselves "in trouble" with unwanted pregnancies. As this illegal activity comes to light, its ramifications tear apart her family and the world around her. Leigh abjures satire for compassion and moral complexity, employing a meticulously controlled realism in portraying a precise historical moment - Great Britain in the early 1950s, still shell-shocked from World War II, pulling itself up out of drabness and shortages. In the process, the values of decency, stoical restraint, and class solidarity are put to the test, the admirable disentangled from the hypocritical. 125 min. UK, 2004. A Fine Line Features Release.
The 10th District Court: Judicial Hearings
Veteran photographer and filmmaker Raymond Depardon's look at the inner workings of a Parisian courtroom is a fascinating study of clashing egos and dueling rhetorical styles - where the American legal system occasionally reaches the level of scintillating prose, its French counterpart seems inherently poetic. Within a deceptively simple framework, Depardon gives us an absorbing and entertaining sketch of contemporary French society, as a parade of African immigrants, pickpockets, threadbare artists, and self-righteous academics come face to face with the formidable judge Michèle Bernard-Requin. She's tough, more than a little bemused, and understandably tired of all the shenanigans she has to witness, day in and day out, on both sides of the law. Far more than a documentary on the frustrations of the legal system, The 10th District Court is a film about the endless complexity of human behavior. 105 min. France, 2004.
Centerpiece: Bad Education
Only now, at the peak of his artistic powers and with two Oscars to his name, has Pedro Almodóvar felt ready to exorcise the demons of his troubled Catholic boyhood. The creator of Talk to Her and All About My Mother has designed a ravishing, labyrinthine narrative that centers on the reunion of two school friends, one a film director, the other an aspiring screenwriter (Y Tu Mama Tambien's fast-rising star Gael Garcia Bernal), who become intertwined in memories of Catholic education, multiple identities, sexual dualities, and, above all, a passion for film. Gorgeously photographed by Jose Luis Alcaine, this complex and passionate film pays tribute to such familiar archetypes as the femme fatale and the enfant terrible in surprising new ways. Almodovar's most challenging, provocative and beautifully made film to date. 110 min. Spain, 2004. A Sony Picture Classics Release.
House of Flying Daggers - Review
Even his legions of admirers will be amazed at the sheer cinematic wizardry of Zhang Yimou's latest masterwork, a touching ode to love and loyalty. The year is 859 AD and opposition to the corrupt Tang Dynasty is growing. When a blind dancer named Mei, an agent of the rebel group the Flying Daggers, is captured, the regime sends a double agent to free her, hoping that she'll lead him to the group's headquarters. Their path is strewn with dangers both expected and unexpected-but none more perilous than those lurking in their hearts. A dazzling collage of color, movement, dance, and acrobatics, House opens a new chapter in the creative use of CGI technology, yet even its most eye-popping displays of martial-arts prowess lay bare the deeply emotional core of this epic tale. The brilliant cast, featuring Zhang Ziyi (China), Andy Lau (Hong Kong), and Takeshi Kaneshiro (Japan), points to the emergence of an exciting new pan-Asian cinema that incorporates the best of several film traditions. 119 min. China, 2004. A Sony Pictures Classics Release.
