My wife added this to her want list ages ago as she is familiar with the novel it is based on. However it is little known outside of China and proved to be impossible to find. I only found it when I discovered a YouTube channel that seemingly specializes in very old Chinese films. It’s pretty odd to consider what is or isn’t allowed on YouTube at times but these films are so little watched that I doubt it’s much of an issue.
This is the second in the series of films that my wife picked out about senescence and its debilitating effects on the mind in particular. I believe that On Golden Pond was a much more prominent work than Away From Her, featuring as it does a star-studded cast. I find myself embarrassed that while it is the more traditional and even more sentimental film, I actually like it more due to how well-rounded it is and the excellent performances.
So this is one of those big deal films that are impossible to ignore. Kathryn Bigelow is one of the most important female directors in Hollywood and seems to have made adapting important events like this a cornerstone of her career. Personally I’m not a fan though. Her films are well made and hard hitting certainly but there’s something off about them in their intent and perhaps their governing philosophy. Sadly Detroit feels that a continuation of that pattern to me.
This film was nominated for a bunch of categories at Taiwan’s Golden Horse Awards but didn’t really win much. It certainly wouldn’t have caught my attention. Our cinephile friend however sent it along as a recommendation and the first thing that caught my attention was that it has Michael Hui, the legendary Hong Kong comedian in it. Having not watched anything with him in it for years, this certainly makes the film a lot more interesting.
Since I’ve never seen a Coen brothers film I didn’t like, I thought I work my way through their filmography as I’ve never watched some of their very early works. This film has familiar faces from the brothers’ regular cast and even features a very young Scarlett Johansson from before she became truly famous due to Lost in Translation.
I knew of this as recommendations from a couple of different sources and so I added it to my list without knowing anything about it other than its title. Within several minutes of it starting, I asked my wife, “so is this a film about architecture?” And I was totally right!
So our cinephile friend dropped off a whole load of films recently and we basically decided to watch whatever he gave us though it’ll take us a long while to get through all of them. This was one pick that we would never have watched ordinarily, a film about youth rebellion from 1960s Japan. Apart from the fact that it’s Japanese however, I didn’t find it that remarkable.