Udine Dispatch. 3.

Sunday morning, my choice was to see a film I have already seen twice or to see a film new to me. The rain helped me lean towards the former, since I was umbrella-less and computer-full and didn't want to walk across town to see Season of Heat (Kurahara Koreyoshi, 1960). Bad things happen in the rain, at least that's the case with Bong Joon-ho's Memories of Murder (2003), the movie I've seen twice before and am more than happy to see again. Memories of Murder would be the perfect film for the first South Korean monograph in the British Film Institute series, since there are so many topics to travel. One can relate the film to the play upon which it was based, relate the film to the real-life unsolved serial murder case from which it evolved, flush out the composite Koreans represented in the three "suspects" (particularly the leftist intellectuals that left their privileged homes in the 80s to organize with the working class, hence the soft-hands that led to the third suspect), illuminate the rural/urban divide and South Korean specifics of that universal struggle, or even elaborate on Bong's sneaking in Boiler Kim again, a character mythologized in his debut film Barking Dogs Never Bite. Memories of Murder continues to impress upon me new analytical avenues.

Continuing with the series on leading cinematographers, Memories of Murder (and Peppermint Candy) was utilized here to provide examples of the work of Kim Hyung-koo. In Memories of Murder, Kim creates a warm tone with the yellows of the fields and a cool tone with bluish rain, adding to an already solid atmosphere provided by Bong's direction and one of the better ensembles in South Korean cinema (the exceptional Song Kang-ho, Kim Sang-kyung, Song Jae-ho and everyone else involved).

When Lei Fu asked Dan Dan if there was a festival going on in One Nite In Mongkok, Dan Dan told him there was, but not one of theirs. That is, not a Buddhist festival, but the Christian festival of Christmas Eve. I couldn't help but think that, since this was a Sunday and I was momentarily involuntarily fasting because most of Udine's restaurants were closed during lunchtime in this mainly Catholic city, how cinema is very much my church, and Udine one of my church's festivals. I am one of those people Jonathan Haidt and Craig Joseph, in their article in the Fall 2004 issue of the journal Daedalus, note "... love to exercise their third party moral intuitions so much that they pay money to see and hear stories about fictional characters who do bad things to each other." Here at Udine, I was indeed praying in my own agnostic way as I sorted out the ethics and aesthetics of Memories of Murder.

A family's own unique moral conundrums followed in Lee Jung-chul's A Family (2004). Veteran Joo Hyun plays a widower of a young boy and a young adult woman (Soo Ae), the latter having just come home following a three year stint in prison. The film follows the slow processing of each character's ethical stance rubbing against the others. The other tension within the film has to do with the daughter's gangster past and the way it stands in the way of the future she wants. Both Joo and Soo pull in wonderful performances, as does little Park Ji-min. Korean kid actors are often directed to be too cute or too obnoxious, but Park shows promise here. Interestingly, the daughter's violent past is filled in via flashbacks whereas the widower's past episodes of domestic violence and alcoholism is left free from such elaboration. Still, the daughter is a noticeably strong character who does harbor some secret wound, the resolution of which does not bring her fully back into a female's "proper" place, a la the My Sassy Girl Syndrome. This family definitely tugs those emotional strings that tie up all of us and even the steps over the melodramatic edge at the end; it's difficult to keep the tears from flowing.

Yes, I'll admit it, I cried. (And why is it that critics rarely admit that?) And I wasn't the only one. Besides the other people sitting in my row, Philippine director Joyce Bernal was quite choked up as well. So much so she had to compose herself when introducing her film Mr. Suave (2003), a film Bernal commendably admitted she doesn't like herself. The film was made fast in order to capitalize on the song of the same name by Parokya ni Edgar that hit the top of the charts in the Philippines. Bernal joked (or perhaps she was serious) that they had to complete the film before the song "dropped to number two." The film follows Suave (Vhong Narrano) - and you guessed it, his first name is Rico - as the personification of the song, a lanky, bicycle-mustached, long-haired lady-killer who wears chaps over his pants. However, this Casanova has a little trouble with the final thrust. It's not the dysfunction you think, so here's where I'd tell you to go see it to find out except I wouldn't recommend the film unless you're into this kinda thing - whatever this thing is. Boy, does the speed of production show. The film doesn't hold humor for long, falling quickly into over-used sight gags and jokes at the expense of lesbians and gay men. We end up laughing simply at the ridiculousness of it all. The only good things that can be said about this film are that Narrano has talent that shouldn't go to waste like it does here, that the film at least doesn't impose a double standard when it comes to requiring virginity of its characters, and that Bernal knows this film is as bad as it is.

Mr. Suave was not the only film based on a song today, but whereas Suave was a synergistic product, a song by Italian pop singer Gianna Nannini that Hong Kong director Pang Ho-cheung heard during a jaunt to Rome after his last trip to Udine was the inspiration that solidified Beyond Our Ken for Pang. Improving tremendously on my first impressions of Pang made by the lackluster AV, Beyond Our Ken goes well beyond expectations. Ex-girlfriend seeks out ex-boyfriend's present girlfriend and a strange but endearing friendship emerges. And why shouldn't it, they "share common interests." Gillian Chung is wonderful as the ex, and Tao Hong, as the other half of this strange "friend crush," complements Chung well. The second film so far to be affected by the Udine Far East Film Festival itself (the first being Pang's AV and the third will be Hirayama Hideyuki's Lady Joker showing on Tuesday, April 26, where a scene within the film takes place in Udine), we can also see the influence of Pang's previous trip here in the romanticism of his Roman holiday via the lovely Vespa ride through Hong Kong that solidifies the bizarre relationship between our two protagonists.

My second Pang film is definitely my favorite so far of the festival. And rather than risk another Mr. Suave harshing my buzz, I decided to turn down my opportunities to see the Japanese World War II film Lorelei: The Witch of the Pacific Ocean (Higuchi Shinji, 2004) and the Thai martial arts film Born To Fight (Panna Ritthikrai, 2004) and called it a day.

Posted by cphillips at April 29, 2005 1:45 PM