Park Chan Wook’s latest is once again filled with murder. Unlike the past crime thrillers that established his reputation however, No Other Choice is a comedy and I think not a good one at all. The comedic timing is off, the film itself is too long and most of all, the main character is so blatantly evil it’s impossible to sympathize with him. It seems I’m the outlier here as most critics loved it as a critique of capitalism. However since I’m in favor of fair competition, I think actually murdering your competitors is not that at all and so I found this to be highly offensive to my sensibilities.
We finally get back to watching more of Louis Malle’s French work and now I’m kicking myself for not doing this much earlier. Au revoir les enfants as it’s known even in English because Goodbye, Children sounds terrible, is semi-autobiographical, based on events from the director’s childhood. We’ve seen plenty of films about the Holocaust but this one stands out for depicting civilian life in France under German occupation. It’s packed full of perceptive details on their attitudes towards the Jews, French collaborators, the progress of the war and much more and all the more devastating in its impact in that it’s from the perspective of children.
Chalk this up as another one of those films that I should have watched long ago but the stars never quite aligned to make it happen. Its reputation as the best cinematic depiction of the Age of Sail bar none has only improved over time so there’s no excuse. Indeed mere minutes into the film we get a tense and astonishingly realistic ranged battle and it only gets better from there. Its only fault might be that it starts with Jack Aubrey already in his captaincy and his relationship with his crew well-established. That does mean more time watching a skilled captain at the height of his powers playing a deadly game of cat-and-mouse at sea so it’s not a bad thing at all.
I watch so many films these days that it’s hard to feel excited any title in particular. One reliable way to still feel a frisson of thrill is watching something from a country or culture I have zero familiarity with. Haiti is one place I’d never expected to even have a cinema industry given its lawlessness, yet it has produced an impressive film in Freda. The plot of a young woman trying to survive in a country with no hope is composed of the usual tropes. But it more than makes up for it by conveying an authentic sense of what everyday life in Haiti must be like.
The sequel to this Chinese animated film came out last year and is apparently rather good. As I haven’t seen the first one yet, I thought I should get it done. This is itself spun out of a successful animated series and effectively acts as the origin story of its titular hero. With flatter look and more cutesy art style, this can’t compete with the output of the top studios though I will note that the fight scenes are dynamic and decently animated. It also gets off to a slow start and has pacing issues. When it does finally get going, it’s quite good with a large cast of what are effectively superheroes working well together. I wouldn’t say it’s great but it’s good enough to make me look forward to the second film.
I like to watch even very old films because I’m a completionist but I have to admit that sometimes it’s necessary to put up with poor quality black-and-white images and lack of sound. This isn’t the case for Grass, one of the very earliest ethnographic documentaries ever made. As a silent film, it relies on music and intertitles to convey what is going on and the way it tints the film to match different situations can be crude. Nonetheless, its depiction of the migration of a nomadic Persian tribe, along with all the hardships they must endure, is truly incredible. The intertitles can be annoying in the heavy use of Americanisms and play up the exoticism of the Bakhtiari tribe. Nonetheless the result is fascinating, dramatic and at times even humorous. It’s very much worth watching on its merits even today.
