After watching a Taiwanese coming-of-age film, it feels oddly appropriate to next watch an American one, though this one is about a 17-year old high school girl set in modern times. As usual this one got my attention by making onto various critics’ lists of their best films of the year but within about a half hour of it, I was puzzled by its inclusion as it seemed like a fairly generic movie about teenagers. Thankfully, my initial impressions were incorrect as this film is indeed smarter than it first appears to be.
It looks like we’re in for a busy week for I’m sticking to more easily digestible fare. This is another film by Hou Hsiao-hsien whose more recent works tend towards the obscure. My wife has watched this one before however and she reports that it’s an example of the director’s earlier works which uses simpler storytelling. Indeed this turned out to be straightforward to understand yet is laden with emotion and nuance.
This confusingly named film is neither set in nor is connected in any manner with the city of Manchester in England. Rather it is set in a tiny town in the US whose full name is indeed Manchester-by-the-Sea. Along with La La Land, it gained prominence from its multiple Oscar nominations earlier this year but only ended up winning two of them, for Best Original Screenplay and for Best Actor for Casey Affleck’s performance.
As a title card within the film itself states, this is not in fact an adaptation of One Thousand and One Nights. Instead it’s a film about contemporary events in Portugal, focusing on how the country is suffering under austerity but it does use the structure of Scheherazade telling stories. It’s also part one of a three volume series but I doubt I’ll ever get around to watching the remaining entries.
I had no idea what Maggie’s Plan was about except that it showed up in the usual lists of the best films of the year. So I was surprised and somewhat pleased when I realized that this is something like an updated version of the romantic comedy genre. I’ve never watched anything by director Rebecca Miller before but it has a cast of serious performers including Ethan Hawke, Julianne Moore and even a cameo role by Wallace Shawn.
Rebecca has the distinction of being the first film that Alfred Hitchcock made in the United States. I was surprised to note that his body of work prior to this while he was still based in England is quite significant beginning all the way back in 1925 with silent films. This makes it quite impossible to really watch his entire filmography. This one is not an especially notable work but it piqued my interest when it was subject of discussion on Broken Forum not too long ago.
By now, Iranian films have a rather respectable representation in this blog but this is the very first Iranian horror film I have ever watched. Indeed, I was somewhat surprised that they even made horror films. In truth, this is an international co-production but with Iranian directors, performers and being set in Tehran, I think it comes close enough to qualify as an Iranian film.
