30 min in...
you just gotta roll with this one, like a kid at the theater... It's a slow fantasy, one of my personal favorite plots: an alien encounters life on earth... will see where this slow ride goes...
unlike those terrible Hollywood versions of the plot, this was done with little to no special effects, a tiny cast, simple shots around the city. It really makes me want to make films!
later...
the elements are top tier: Kore-eda, Mark…
45 min in... and this might be the sole Kore-eda film i feel is.. off.
Since Shoplifters, I noticed he's tryin' a new, more dynamic style, but this...??
The actors feel amateur. The script is cringe at times, soap opera'ish. And even the music is overtly melodramatic. It feels much closer to his TV stuff, which, for heart-warming slice-of-life TV is perfect, but here, is strange. The two detectives (or whatever generic police workers) are comically bad, like Home Alone…
this is a very dense mourning for the death of traditional culture; via visuals, plot, and characters.
an older Japanese male tourist and a Hong Kong school-girl meet and live out the bluest days; the blues of digital technology are mirrored by Hong Kong's architecture, all of it oozing a cold isolating lifeless loveless emotion, not even yearning for life.
the dialog feels very real, and it's quite a unique and lovely little odd friend relationship too as both characters…
half-way through, second viewing, last viewed (if ever viewed) 10+ years ago:
Hou XiaoXian directs a film about his own childhood, using his own memories, trying his best to portray it realistically (and objectively), all in his own unique film-style. Maybe a childhood event is depicted. Maybe a story (within a story) is told by one of his many siblings, or his parents, of their own lives, with content so real it feels as if it came from an interview.…
