We’ve watched Akira Kurosawa’s adaptation of King Lear a couple of years back, and now here is his version of Macbeth. Not only was this made nearly 30 years earlier, it’s a much shorter and simpler film. It makes significant changes from the original and eschews the Shakespearean language in favor of Japanese themes. Yet it is arguably faithful to the intent of the play and is widely considered one of the best film adaptations. For us, even though we already know exactly what will happen at every step, Kurosawa’s lavish production and the excellence of the acting ensure that the emotional impact remains potent.
This being the first television series made by Wong Kar-Wai, I thought I should at least check out a few episodes of it. I thought for sure that it would be released for foreign markets given Wong’s fame and so waited a while for it but it never did. In the event, I had to watch the original version with the Shanghainese language and Chinese subtitles, which is a real pain for me. The first two or three episodes were downright terrible. Too fast paced, too much posing and too little of substance. It gets better when it slows down by episode four and we can finally tell who’s who and what is going on. Even so I stopped at episode five because the full thirty episodes is way too much and there’s a lot that I don’t understand. Watching it properly would be a fascinating but rather taxing project.
A valuable painting is stolen from a museum in 1985. Thirty years later it turns up in the estate of a deceased couple who are seemingly ordinary retired teachers. I don’t much care for the painting itself but the story that this documentary pieces together about the secret life of this couple is extraordinary. To supplement the interviews with the people who knew the couple and those familiar with the theft, actors reenact key scenes in a bold style that looks almost like something by Wes Anderson. I had doubts at first that it would hold my interest, but by the end I agree with the maker of this piece Allison Otto that someone should make a full feature film about this.
So much of the fun of this film is that Andy Lau plays a fictionalized version of himself here along with copious references to other Hong Kong superstars and the industry itself. The premise of a cinema superstar who deliberately does an artistic film to bait for acting awards is both on point and funny. The execution goes well at first but then it seems to lose track, turns into an uninteresting lesson about arrogance and in the end just kind of falls apart. I really wanted this to be good so it’s especially disappointing that it’s not.
As a film directly inspired by Au Hasard Balthazar, this one is similarly about the travails of a donkey. This time the setting is modern day Poland and while it has won a slew of accolades, I believe it is by far the lesser film. While the original was largely about the suffering of life in general, this one is focused on the harm that mankind inflicts on animals. Not only is that somewhat trite but it does so by throwing EO the donkey into a series of misadventures that are more or less random and improbable. It experiments with colors and stylistic effects but overall I’m not impressed.
A Christmas film comes with a certain set of expectations but don’t confuse the French with the Americans. With its large cast of characters and multiple storylines, it threatens to be a confusing mess and is more than content to leave things unexplained. Worse still is the application of French logic as applied to morality and family dynamics, excusing or even glorifying behaviors and actions that would be shocking in the US. Yet it’s undeniable a riveting watch, absurdly funny and makes for a wonderful example of just how different the French can be at times.
