New-to-me movies watched in March 2016

March was a GIANT movie month for me, because I participated in the March Around the World challenge, which has a goal of watching thirty movies from thirty different countries in one month.

I did not make that goal, but I did manage to watch 22 movies from around the world. Not too shabby.

March Around the World Challenge (my favorites are in bold):

1. Monsoon Wedding — India (2001)
2. Suspiria — Italy (1977)
3. The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert — Australia (1994)
4. Ida — Poland (2013)
5. Blue is the Warmest Color — France (2013)
6. Heavenly Creatures — New Zealand (1994)
7. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night — Iran (2014)
8. Bangkok Love Story — Thailand (2007)
9. Volver — Spain (2006)
10. The Snapper — Ireland (1993)
11. The Assassin — China (2015)
12. Sin Nombre — Mexico (2009)
13. A Better Tomorrow — Hong Kong (1986)
14. Juan of the Dead — Cuba (2011)
15. Stalker — Russia (1979)
16. The Second Mother — Brazil (2015)
17. Sympathy for Lady Vengeance — South Korea (2005)
18. Sisters in Law — Cameroon (documentary, 2005)
19. The Devil’s Miner — Bolivia (documentary, 2005)
20. The Cave of the Yellow Dog — Mongolia (docudrama, 2005)
21. Xenia — Greece (2014)
22. U-Carmen eKhayelitsha — South Africa (2005)

Non-challenge movies:

1. Treehouse (2014)
2. Crimson Peak (2015)

REVIEWS:

March Around the World Challenge (my favorites are in bold):

1. Monsoon Wedding — India (2001)

There’s something frustrating and wonderful about all the details that go into a wedding, the way a family comes together to share this one joyful moment. Monsoon Wedding is a gorgeous depiction of an Indian wedding. Multiple characters have their own story arcs and they weave together into an overall depiction of how family sticks together. It’s funny and charming and full of fantastic music. Wonderful.

2. Suspiria — Italy (1977)

Yo, so a chick travels to a European dance school, where things get pretty damn weird as soon as she gets there. And the horrible things pile up and she has to find out the truth to survive.

I’ve never seen a horror movie that was so freaking beautiful. Just about every shot is surreally gorgeous, with vibrant primary colors, sharp shadows, creative angles, and astounding use of architecture.

Combine that with a truly unsettling soundtrack, with a mixture of tinkling high piano and deep resonating base, which Argento cuts off at perfect moments, leaving only ambient sounds — all of which builds more tension at just the right moment.

The acting sometimes falls flat (the sound didn’t always seem to match the lips and I couldn’t figure out if it was dubbed or not), but that’s a minor quibble in a movie that is so strange and surreal and beautifully filmed.

3. The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert — Australia (1994)

I love road trip movies — the strange encounters, the wide middle of nowhere, the inevitable car troubles, the close quarters that always has the group at each other’s throats, while also managing to draw them closer together. Priscilla, Queen of the Desert hits all the right notes with the added flash and flare of elaborate sequined and shiny lamé costumes, worn by a trio of drag queens (one of whom is transgender). Hugo Weaving, Terence Stamp, and Guy Pearce all give fantastic performances. The only sour note for me was the unfortunate portrayal of the one Asian character in the whole as a crazed stripper. Otherwise, this was a fun and fabulous movie.

4. Ida — Poland (2013)

A young woman is instructed to visit her only living relative before she takes her vows as a nun. When she meets her aunt, who is a communist, her aunt informs her that she is Jewish. Together they go on a journey to uncover what happened to her parents during the Second World War.

This is a quiet film, a still film. There is almost no camera movement in the entire movie. Even the actors hold themselves very still in most shots, the depth of their emotions expressed in their faces. These quiet lingering moments are contemplative and seem to draw out something deeper from the scene, partly the feeling of faith ever present in Ida.

It’s a beautiful movie, one that lingers. After watching, I found myself slightly haunted by it, unable or unwilling to turn to any other story right away, because I just need to sit with it for a while.

5. Blue is the Warmest Color — France (2013)

This is a coming-of-age story, in which a young woman experiences first love with a young artist as she’s reaching the end of high school and moving into adulthood.

This is a story about love — not romance. It’s an important distinction, because romance in movies has a compressed unreality to it culminating in a happy ending. While love itself has is complicated, with all its flaws and passion and unexpected loneliness and broken hearts. It’s an aspect of life but not the entirety of it, and I think this movie shows that well. We see Adèle journey as a person, through school, work and family, along with her love for Emma.

Although at three hours in length, the movie is crossing that borderline into being too long, it makes sense for the kind of story it’s trying to tell. It’s a beautiful movie, with phenomenal acting.

6. Heavenly Creatures — New Zealand (1994)

SPOILERS. Two young teens fall into an intense and obsessive friendship. Together they invent a rich fantasy world as an escape from everyday life.

Heavenly Creatures is surreal from the start, something in the acting that is purposefully off key, a little bit overdone. It’s makes the world feel unreal, as though it itself is a kind of fantasy — this feeling works well in a storyline in which two young girls convince themselves that murder is a solution to their problems.

One of the many things I liked, although it was terribly sad, was how Pauline’s mother was portrayed. She’s a nagging, protective mother, but it’s clear that all of her actions come from a place of love. We can see how much it breaks her heart when her daughter starts to behave cruelly to her. While simultaneously, we see Pauline’s POV and her anger at her mother, how she twists the image of her own mother in her mind into something dark and menacing. The contrast of imagination versus truth here is powerful and disturbing.

It’s an interesting choice to take the story of an actual murder and tell it not as a straightforward historical, but as a surreal fantasy focused on obsessive friendship. Ultimately, it was a great decision, making for a more interesting movie and Peter Jackson handles it well.

7. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night — Iran (2014)

I’ve been wanting to see A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night since I first heard about it — and I’m stoked I finally did.

Although it features a vampire and can be classified as horror, it doesn’t have the constant building tension or the gore expected in a horror movie. If I were to use book terminology, I would call it “literary horror,” in which the purpose of the vampire trope is not so much used to incite fear, but as a kind of metaphor.

The story interweaves several characters in a run down oil town, known as Bad City. Although the main character is Arash, who tries to keep himself and his junkie father afloat.

The Girl is a vampire wandering the city streets at night, sometimes hunting for a meal, sometimes just taunting humans. She has an eerie quality, a quiet dark figure in her long black chador. The way her chador moves reminds me of the black cape worn by Dracula, at one point flapping around her like the wings of a bat as she rides a skateboard down the street.

This is not a movie to turn to for thrills or excitement, but I love the black and white filming full of dark shadows and the way the decaying industry plays a backdrop. I love the music that sometimes dissolves into static, further echoing the sense of societal collapse. I love the way everything comes together. It’s a movie I would definetly watch again.

8. Bangkok Love Story — Thailand (2007)

The gangster/hitman angle is just window dressing for the melodrama of forbidden love between a hitman and the man who was his intended target. The gangsters don’t seem to have much purpose or even seem to be threatening.

Most of the movie is made up of scenes of the two men standing in front of beautiful skylines looking hot and gorgeously melancholy because they can’t help being in love.

There is also a side story about the hitman’s family having HIV for some reason.

Despite a few adorable moments, the story was paper thin, the dialogue was weak, and the acting, oh, dear, the acting.

It kind of felt like an extended pop music video.

So, yeah, not a great movie.

Which is sad, because I was super stoked for a fun gay hitman movie.

9. Volver — Spain (2006)

I’m at a loss of how to describe this movie. To say that it’s about two sisters whose mother turns out to not be as dead as they thought, doesn’t quite cover it. It’s a story of family and secrets and the strength of women facing overwhelming challenges.

I’ve seen three movies by Pedro Almodóvar now, and this one was by far my favorite. Fantastic performances by the entire cast of women, and an oddly honest and moving storyline. A beautiful movie.

10. The Snapper — Ireland (1993)

Cute and funny story about a young women who gets pregnant and refuses to say who the father is. The heart of this is the relationship between her and her father, both of them facing their own pride as the town begins to churn the rumor mill. They love each other though, and the whole family cares for each other in their own loud raucous way.

11. The Assassin — China (2015)

A girl was taken away as a child and trained as an assassin, only to be ordered to return home and kill her cousin. Gorgeous cinematography and costuming doesn’t make up for the unfortunate fact that the story is slow to make sense. I spent most of the movie with barely any understanding for what was going on or the motivations of most of the characters. Some of the pieces came together toward the end, but I was still not entirely sure why anyone did any of the things they did. And because I didn’t understand, I wasn’t able to connect with or care about any of the characters.

12. Sin Nombre — Mexico (2009)

A girl from Honduras traveling north to the U.S. with her father and uncle crosses paths with a young gangster trying to escape his past. Although I don’t quite buy the girl’s reasoning for befriending the gangster, Sin Nombre is a well told story, mixing a dramatic immigration story with a crime thriller. It’s well acted, with great filming and interesting shots of the kind of community that grows up out of this kind of travel, which evokes sometimes kindness and sometimes hostility.

13. A Better Tomorrow — Hong Kong (1986)

In this buddy film about two crooks who treat each other like brothers, they’re affection for each other is clear. Meanwhile, one of them has a blood brother, who has gone I into the police force, creating a lot of frustration and anger.

Oh my god, guys. This is, like, so ’80s — in the costumes and giant push button pin pads and the music and ginormous cell phones — I don’t even know what to do with myself.

The whole tone is kind of slap-sticky and the English subtitle translation is shit and the acting is often a little over the top. But the action is bad ass with lots of blood splatter and Chow Yun Fat is fantastic. He bring gravity to a role that could have been just wacky (at first) and one dimensional. He’s the best character in the whole thing.

14. Juan of the Dead — Cuba (2011)

I love zombie movies, so even the bad ones are an easy sell for me.

And Juan of the Dead isn’t bad. It’s not good, either, but it’s not bad.

Juan is a slacker who decides to start up a business taking down the dead when zombies start invading the streets of Havana. The story leans toward comedy and slapstick action without getting any deeper than that, and the characters make ridiculous illogical choices. But the filming style was well done, the zombie make up was cool for the most part (with the exception of some ridiculous CGI moments), and the acting was decent.

It was cool seeing it from a Cuban POV, too. Half the movie, the characters are unable to figure out what the dead are and just call them dissidents. Meanwhile, the government propaganda continues to pour through the news, even while the city falls into complete chaos with exploding buildings and hoards of dead roaming the streets.

Also, undead salsa dancing was the best thing ever and my favorite bit in the movie.

My biggest problem the running stream of homophobic jokes throughout the movie, which were unnecessary. Other than that, it was mostly fun.

15. Stalker — Russia (1979)

A pondering, philosophical story about three men who enter the Zone, a restricted area where a labyrinthine path leads to a room said to grant wishes. The most striking thing about this movie is the cinematography, which is gorgeous, both in the sharply shadowed sepia-toned scenes or when in full color. Although dangers of the Zone are hinted at, they are not overt and the main tension lies in the interactions between and differing philosophies of the three men. It’s the kind of movie you could get into deep conversations about trying to understand what it means.

16. The Second Mother — Brazil (2015)

An interesting exploration of class divisions and family in Sao Paolo. Val is a women who has worked as a house maid for a family for years, having practically raised the son. She’s comfortable in her role within the family and accepts the dividing line between the family and herself. But she finds her view of her position shaken when her estranged daughter comes to live with her and begins questioning the rules that have defined her life.

What makes this work is how natural the dialog and acting are throughout. Every scene rings true, and I could see Val’s journey taking place in real life.

17. Sympathy for Lady Vengeance — South Korea (2005)

Not as coherent or clear in its storyline, while also being less complex compared to the other two films in Chan-wook Park’s vengeance trilogy – which was disappointing.

After thirteen years in prison for kidnapping and murdering a little boy, a woman goes out to seek revenge on the man who was actually responsible for the murder. She wears a veneer of kindness in prison, amassing an crew of friends to help her in her revenge, which is an interesting concept that is not fully developed and is part of the confusion at the beginning. There are too many friends to keep track off and there are too many flash backs to show how those friendships were formed. It would have been more interesting if there were fewer but more emotionally relevant friendships.

Also the revenge itself doesn’t have the level of driving intensity and epically choreographed violence of the first two vengeance movies (although the ending does take and interesting and bloody turn). So, it was also kind of dull.

18. Sisters in Law — Cameroon (documentary, 2005)

The ins and out of a small courthouse in Cameroon are explored in this documentary. Several cases are addressed regarding spousal and child abuse, showing that although there are still problems, the legal system is working to achieve equal rights for women. It’s a fascinating documentary, which is also charming and moving. Really wonderful.

19. The Devil’s Miner — Bolivia (documentary, 2005)

“Our belief is split into two worlds.”

In this well-made documentary, two young brothers work as silver miners, snaking down into claustrophobic depths to make a few dollars a day in order to feed their families and go to school for a better life. There’s also a fascinating religious component to their story as miners pray to God outside of the mine’s, but believe that inside the mines the devil rules. So, they pray and make offerings to Tio, a horned god that has the power to protect or cause accidents in the mine. Although tragic, this story also manages to be hopeful as the boys continue to work for something better.

20. The Cave of the Yellow Dog — Mongolia (docudrama, 2005)

The Cave of the Yellow Dog presents a record of the everyday lives of Mongolian nomads (a culture that is disappearing) through a docudrama style story about a young girl who finds a dog in a nearby cave and begs her family to keep it. A gorgeously filmed and charming movie. I would definitely recommend it.

21. Xenia — Greece (2014)

Xenia didn’t quite all the right notes for me. I enjoyed it, but it seemed like it was trying to do too many things at once. The story of two brothers on a road trip to find out was a good base plot and their relationship was well portrayed.

Mixed in with that is the fact that they are half Albanian and the constant threat of violence and exportation from nationalistic Greeks.

Mixed in with that is a sub-plot in which the elder brother is being persuaded to try out for “Greek Star,” a TV singing talent competition.

Mixed in with that are a few surreal moments, which don’t add much to the overall story but hint that the younger brother might be mentally unstable.

The movie would have been stronger if it had focused on fewer themes and cut it down the running time by about 20 minutes.

22. U-Carmen eKhayelitsha — South Africa (2005)

U-Carmen is a tragedy about a woman who lives passionately, claiming her freedom in the face of men who want to shape her to their own desires.

You definitely have to like opera music to be able to like this movie, as it’s a reinterpretation of the famous opera “Carmen” in a South African township setting. All of the lyrics have been translated into the native language Xhosa, a monumental task, I’m sure, they’ve managed to make them fit smoothly into the original music, while maintaining the meaning.

I’ve never seen “Carmen” — or any opera for that matter — but it has many songs I recognize and enjoy. I don’t know if opera is my cup of tea, but I have to acknowledge the power and skill of the performers; they’re phenomenal. Every song is precisely done and the director and the group did an amazing job of adapting (what’s considered to be) an elitist art form into an every day setting. An amazing piece of work.

 

Non-challenge movies:

1. Treehouse (2014)

So much boredom.

A teenage boy goes out into the woods to shoot fireworks with his brother, where they discover a treehouseuse and an injured girl inside, who is being hunted by something or someone in the woods. It could have been thrilling, except the killers are betray present, failing to kill or torment the kids they’re hunting even though it would be easy to do so. Any sign of tension is lost to long boring scenes of the boy and girl talking, just talking, with a weak attempt at acting out the dry, uninteresting dialog. I’m still staring accusingly at my sister for turning this on.

2. Crimson Peak (2015)

Love the Victorian setting and costuming. Love the gorgeously creepy house in a state of decay and the way the snowy hillside seems to bleed from the minerals underneath. Love the gothic romance storyline. Love Tom Hiddleston and Jessica Chastain. Love the ghosts as fleshy, smoky skeletons, which seem kind of old fashioned but fit with the historical storyline.

The only thing I didn’t love was the unnecessary voice over explanation of what ghosts are at the beginning and repeated at the end, which made me cringe both times. Otherwise, definitely my kind of movie.