A small-scale slice-of-life that romanticizes the joys of a modest existence: being kind, caring about your craft, making art, and taking care of others. Perfect Days acknowledges the loneliness of this kind of life as well, but overall celebrates living in harmony with the present. Out of the Cannes films I’ve seen this festival, this one spoke the most to me.
A perfect movie!
The most amazing thing about this film is how unconventional it is, yet it feels so natural and coherent. Bong Joon-ho is such an innovator in this regard. Some examples:
- There are two totally separate but both incredibly long, tense sequences. So much happens in these sequences, and it's bewildering that it just keeps going and going, until finally it's over and you can catch your breath.
- The way each family member scammed their way…
Thought a lot more about the Roman empire than I expected
Honestly baffling. Took a story that delved into gray areas and complexities of human connection and only managed to make awful caricatures out of everyone.
The atomic bomb allegory works really well. The human suffering and post-war trauma is well-articulated while still having sick monster shit going on too. I did find some of the writing overly melodramatic and some shot sequences odd. Really wish they showed Godzilla get out of the water for the first time, rather than him suddenly on land. I think the fairy tale ending was a bit of a disservice to the heavy themes that the story led with, but it is true that staying alive rocks.
A character study of a selfish middle-aged man, but it’s very rewarding trying to understand him as a flawed human while holding so much contempt for him. He just never succeeds in getting over himself.
When I was in middle-school, my teacher pulled me aside to angrily snap at me for calling another kid in his class a teacher’s pet. As if I had something out for him when I was just an annoying kid being observant lol. This film is basically about that guy.
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
Yoooo this was dope as hell!!
The visual language of this film is striking. So many shots are close-ups of faces. Faces looking into the camera, faces looking down, faces looking up, faces looking away. Two faces, and all the various angles they can interact with each other and the camera. It reminded me a lot of Portrait of a Lady on Fire, which was clearly visually inspired by Persona. Exquisite cinematography.
For most of the first half of this…
If Awkwafina cries, I cry, it's just ON SIGHT.
I've never seen a movie like this before. It's rare enough to see myself represented in a film... I never even considered it possible to see my entire family represented on-screen. I think the key to resonating with an audience member's life experiences is the little genuine moments, taken directly out of real life, as if the director is letting you know: "I've experienced this too". The film was a feast…
I really love movies that describe an incredibly specific emotion, so specific that we don't have a word for it.
The emotion that Burning captures is the loneliness you feel even when you're around others. That heavy-hearted knowledge that you never truly understand someone. How hard it is to accept that other people's lives can't fit perfectly together with yours, for reasons you won't ever fully know.
Even though I think I need to give the film another watch to…
Random thoughts on this movie:
Some jokes didn't land. The exposition dragged on for some stretches in the first and third act, which made the film feel much longer than it was. The twist at the end and the things that go wrong during the heist lacked a lot of the weight and thrill of the original (I never watched 12 or 13 tbh).
One problem inherited from Ocean's Eleven: The writing is pretty transparently showing off the acting skills…