Suicide Room (2011)

THE SCOOP
Director:  Jan Komasa
Cast:  Jakub Gierszal, Roma Gasiorowska, Agata Kulesza
Plot:  After suffering extreme humiliation at school, Dominik holes himself up in his room and begins spending all his time in a virtual reality chat room.

Genre:  Drama/Animation
Awards:  Nom. for Teddy (Berlin).
Runtime:  110min
Rating:  M18 for mature content.

TRAILER:  





IN RETROSPECT
“I don't want to live.”

I felt uncomfortable watching Suicide Room.  But that is writer-director Jan Komasa’s intention.  He paints a disturbing picture of severe youth depression, centering on one young man’s plight as he battles the demons that force him to be suicidal.  These demons are woven into the fabric that is reality, and manifest themselves as rich and uncaring parents, school bullies and the amorphous Internet. 

In one scene, the father removes the Internet connection to get his son out of his room (the latter has been in there for days).  The son goes berserk like some of us do when a webpage doesn’t load in two seconds.  But that doesn’t mean we are automatically suicidal. 

Underlying circumstances have made Dominik (Jakub Gierszal) an introverted and misunderstood guy.  He self-proclaims to his conservative parents that he is a homosexual after he kisses a guy due to peer pressure.  He is also teased by his classmates on his sexuality on the Internet. 

Dominik begins to watch suicide videos of depressed folks cutting their wrists or mutilating themselves.  But it is not until he enters a secret online portal called ‘Suicide Room’ that he ironically finds himself at home… with suicidal folks hiding behind avatars, in particular a girl who he has a relatively fulfilling online relationship with.

Komasa’s film toggles between the realities of offline and online realms.  In the latter, the visuals morph into a ‘computer game’ aesthetic.  The colourful and fantastical virtual reality setting is in stark contrast to the punishing reality of Dominik’s life – as characterized by his torturous, claustrophobic and social-phobic physical and psychological environment. 

Suicide Room is quite brilliantly acted, with an outstanding performance by Gierszal who immerses himself into a role that requires more than just being depressed – it requires both subtlety and startling intensity. 

Nominated for a Teddy at the Berlin International Film Festival, Suicide Room is at times powerful with its imagery, though sometimes too ‘visual’ for its own good.  While the intercutting of offline and online worlds is creative, and if I may add, quite audacious, the most engaging parts still revolve around Dominik’s psychological reality, which does not necessarily always conflate with either his off/online realities, but rather how he views himself and his own existence. 

This Polish film leaves one with a bitter aftertaste (like the feeling you would get after seeing a film like Requiem for a Dream (2000)),  and is fair warning for all teenagers (and parents) who are unaware of the perils of the Internet, depression and suicide. 

Verdict:  A disturbing and occasionally powerful look at youths with suicidal tendencies through the off/online realms that they inhabit.

GRADE:  B (7.5/10 or 3.5 stars)



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Great Gatsby, The (2013)

THE SCOOP
Director:  Baz Luhrmann
Cast:  Leonardo DiCaprio, Joel Edgerton, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan, Amitabh Bachchan
Plot:  A Midwestern war veteran finds himself drawn to the past and lifestyle of his millionaire neighbor.

Genre:  Drama / Romance
Awards:  -
Runtime:  142min
Rating:  PG13 for some violent images, sexual content, smoking, partying and brief language.

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OST:  





IN RETROSPECT
This film was reviewed in the 3D format.

“Can't repeat the past?  Why, of course you can.”

The past is truly a remarkable construct.  The embedment of memories within this self-contained yet boundary-free canvas that is the mind is at once private and public.  The Great Gatsby, the new film by acclaimed Australian director Baz Luhrmann, based on the enduring 1925 novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a poignant look at a time of moral decadence and exuberant excess. 

While the film centers on Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio), his story is told from the point-of-view of Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire), Gatsby’s next-door neighbour.  The private-public dialectic is thus manifested in this way and becomes a recurring theme throughout, in particular as an embodiment of Gatsby’s personality.

Please allow me to admit that I have not read the novel before, thus Luhrmann’s film is an eye-opener for me.  It is a decent film, well-constructed and just manages to hold my attention throughout its nearly 2.5 hours runtime. 

Those who have previously read Fitzgerald’s novel or have encountered the text in any other form might have certain preconceived notions and expectations of how the film ought to be like.  Perhaps this has led to mixed reviews for this big-screen adaptation. 

While short of giving it a hearty recommendation, I find The Great Gatsby very strong in its visual storytelling.  You don’t expect any less from a filmmaker who previously helmed Strictly Ballroom (1992) and Moulin Rouge! (2001). 

Luhrmann’s trademark visual aesthetic complements the excess and decadence of Gatsby’s world.  The powerhouse soundtrack, very much anachronistic in style, is a fusion of classical, jazz, rap and dance music, providing energy especially to its first hour where we see sequences of night partying at a grand mansion owned by Gatsby. 

The second half of the film fizzles out somewhat, taking a turn for the less flamboyant and deals with the escalating tension between Gatsby and Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgerton), whose wife Daisy Buchanan (a Carey Mulligan who is so incredibly beautiful) is the subject of Gatsby’s romantic interest, one that is characterized by years of emotional baggage.

Some excellent acting work by Edgerton, DiCaprio and Mulligan fuels the drama, enough to last the lap, though not without its moments of so-so-ness.  The Great Gatsby remains to be a dark film, a cautionary tale of sorts on the perils of associating the American dream with hedonistic idealism. 

Critic William Goss has called Luhrmann’s film “undeniably polished and unfailingly empty”.  Yes, it is largely style over substance, but the substance does unfold itself eventually, albeit less noticeably.  I can feel the soul of the story as narrated by Nick, and that is enough for me, even if Gatsby remains an enigma, whose hopes for the future are deeply rooted in the memories of the past.

Verdict:  An exuberant first hour gives way to a less energetic second half, but there is enough dramatic tension to last the lap in this quite decent big-screen adaptation.

GRADE: B (7.5/10 or 3.5 stars)



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8 1/2 (1963)

THE SCOOP

Director:  Federico Fellini

Cast:   Marcello Mastroianni, Claudia Cardinale, Anouk Aimée

Plot:  A harried movie director retreats into his memories and fantasies.

Genre:  Drama / Fantasy

Awards:  Won 2 Oscars - Best Foreign Language Film, Best Costume Design.  Nom. for 3 Oscars - Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration.

Runtime:  138min

Rating:  PG for some mature themes.

TRAILER:  

OST:  

IN RETROSPECT

“Accept me as I am.  Only then can we discover each other.”

A character leaves the frame, another enters.  This continuous long-take process with more than a dozen characters (with dialogue) lasts for a few minutes and occur a few times throughout 8 ½.  Such is director Federico Fellini’s mastery of film form and style that it is almost an impossible task not to notice and be enthralled by his fluid use of camera and blocking. 

Often regarded as one of the greatest films about filmmaking, 8 ½ is to some a masterpiece of Italian cinema, to others an excellent Fellini endeavour, and to some like myself a tad disappointing only for the reason that it was unexpectedly less engaging than previously thought.

Marcello Mastroianni, one of the most charismatic of European actors, stars as Guido Anselmi, a film director who suffers from director’s block and hasn’t an inkling on what to do for his next project.  A towering set has been built, seemingly for a science-fiction movie about a nuclear holocaust.  But Guido is pressured by all forces imaginable to get things decided so that production can commence quickly. 

Faced with a psychological and professional burden, Guido retreats into a state of existential impermanence as fantasies and memories of childhood take over his mind.  It is an easy-going performance by Mastroianni who exudes a cool likability befitting of a character who is at once self-centered and a free-spirited womanizer.

Fellini closes the film with an astounding dreamlike sequence that brings forth the essence of the film – a recurring theme of sociality as the glue that brings everyone together in the hope that an individual can break free creatively and artistically.  Which in itself is a statement of intent by Fellini whose Guido is modelled after him. 

8 ½ is an autobiographical film of sorts that takes Fellini’s personal crisis and transforms it into a work of artistic triumph.  In 2009, Rob Marshall remade the film as a musical called Nine starring Daniel Day-Lewis, which was critically panned but I thought it deserved more recognition.  This is going to sound blasphemous but I enjoyed Nine more, but Fellini’s film is the more accomplished.

8 ½ stands at a juncture of Fellini’s career best described as a bridge between his earlier works like La Strada (1954), Nights of Cabiria (1957) and La Dolce Vita (1960), and his later films like Satyricon (1969) and Amarcord (1973).  Fellini has always been known as a magician, toying with reality and fantasy.  His was the antithetical response to the post-WWII Italian neorealism movement that dealt with harsh and authentic realities through cinema. 

While I disagree that 8 ½ is Fellini’s magnum opus, I must say that it is quite rightly his greatest magic trick – a film borne out of circumstances unlike any other, and one that remains to this day a monumental inspiration for those who suffered in the process of doing art, but in the end rediscovered hope.

Verdict:  Was unexpectedly less engaging than I thought, but Fellini's mastery of form and style is there for all to revel in this autobiographical film about the psychological crisis of a film director.

GRADE:  A- (8.5/10 or 4 stars)



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Something in the Air (2012)

THE SCOOP
Director:  Olivier Assayas
Cast:  Clément Métayer, Lola Créton, Felix Armand
Plot:  In the months after the heady weeks of May '68, a group of young Europeans search for a way to continue the revolution believed to be just beginning.

Genre:  Drama
Awards:  Won Best Screenplay and nominated for Golden Lion (Venice).
Runtime:  122min
Rating:  R21 for nudity and sexual images.

TRAILER: 





IN RETROSPECT
There is something in Eric Gautier's cinematography that evokes a sense of nostalgia, as if opening a time portal back to the late 1960s where political strife and artistic expression often conflate with real-world socio-economic issues rising from the misappropriation of the capitalist ideology. 

Writer-director Olivier Assayas returns to post-May 1968 Paris in Something in the Air, a free-spirited look at European, in particular French youths, who harboured the dreams and hopes of being part of revolutionary change to alter the status quo, some through the engagement with art, others through journalistic manifestos.

Assayas' film is by no means empathically political.  Instead it centers on the theme of memory, not simply the recollection of the past, but the reminiscing of times of great ambition and energy to sustain the revolutionary spirit, though this is often at the expense of romantic endeavours. 

Something in the Air uses the character Gilles (Clement Metayer) as the focal point in which this prism-memory of politics and art unfolds itself.  Gilles is an aspiring painter, but he occasionally partakes in revolutionary action like spraying graffiti onto the walls of his school in the dead of the night. 

The performances by the ensemble cast are uniformly good, though not particularly memorable.  What is most striking is Gautier's roving camerawork and Assayas' direction that can be best described as strong yet remarkably low-key.  The pair has collaborated on numerous occasions in films such as Irma Vep (1996), Clean (2004) and Summer Hours (2008). 

Here they recreate the look and feel of a time long gone, even as it remains in the memories of those who lived in that era, including Assayas himself, whose film is a loving homage to a period when there was ‘something in the air”, not a slight breeze, but a wind of change.  Where has that wind gone to?  Is it still in the air?  Does it need to be in the air? 

Something in the Air opens with young activists being physically assaulted by the brutal authorities in public (presumably recreating the May 1968 strikes), a powerful prologue that gives way to a romanticized perspective of a volatile period, which itself gives way to a muted feeling of loss and its memory.  This is one of Assayas’ better works and he has been duly rewarded with the Golden Osella for Best Screenplay at the Venice Film Festival.

Verdict: Assayas' latest captures the dreams and hopes of revolutionary European youths post-May 1968 through an eye-opening prism-memory of politics and art. 

GRADE: B+ (8/10 or 3.5 stars)



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Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

THE SCOOP
Director: J.J. Abrams
Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Chris Pine, Zoe Saldana, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelchin
Plot: After the crew of the Enterprise find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one man weapon of mass destruction.

Genre: Action/Adventure/Sci-Fi
Awards: - 
Runtime: 132min
Rating: PG13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence.

TRAILER: 

OST: 





IN RETROSPECT
This film was reviewed in the IMAX 3D format.

“You think your world is safe?”

Benedict Cumberbatch will be one of the most merciless villains you will see this summer.  He does not care about mortal life and is near indefatigable and undefeatable.  In one disturbing scene, he crushes a living man's skull.  Of course, we don't explicitly see the gruesome act or its aftermath because after all this is a Hollywood blockbuster. 

What I'm trying to say though is that with one of the great villains to emerge in many years, we have in our hands a film that is as equally compelling as it is a prime example of how to do a summer blockbuster right.

Enter geek-god J.J. Abrams, a master craftsman astute in both narrative and technical aspects of filmmaking.  He is the Steven Spielberg of our generation, as equally at ease delivering flat-out entertainment as he does contributing to the visual iconography of the highly evolving post-2000s science-fiction genre. 

Star Trek Into Darkness is arguably his best film to date, and I feel a slight improvement over its already excellent prequel, Star Trek (2009).  The characters who adorn the first film return with a sort of familiarity... like family.  And ‘family’, as a character insists, is what the U.S.S Enterprise is all about.

Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) and Spock (Zachary Quinto) face an unprecedented threat in Cumberbatch's nasty yet highly-intelligent villain.  We see them grow closer to each other with a subtle hint of subdued homosexuality, an intriguing discourse that has been started by some Trekkie fans a long time back in a fandom phenomena that has been generally termed as 'participatory fan culture'. 

The plot moves at light speed without confusing viewers, and radiates a sort of energy that excites and thrills.  Abrams understands visual entertainment and its potential to bring awe and wonderment, making us ignore some of the more unrealistic parts involving a particularly heroic quest by a protagonist.

Star Trek Into Darkness features stunning visual effects by Industrial Light & Magic, the highlight of which is a destructive collision between a huge spacecraft and a populated city, some footage of it appearing in the publicity trailers.  However, the effects are never done at the expense of its human characters whom are for most parts richly developed. 

Abrams will metaphorically be like a footballer and a basketballer in the next few years, juggling two beloved sci-fi franchises with Star Wars Episode VII and possibly a third ‘Star Trek’ film.  They will present him with the most challenging phase of his career yet.  But if he continues with this rich vein of form, I think someone ought to put up a gold statue of him in space.  But not on the Moon please… because that is so passé.

Verdict: The geek-god is back with a rousing sci-fi action-adventure that is in for a strong shout as one of this summer's most satisfying offerings.

GRADE: A- (8.5/10 or 4 stars)



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Sin City (2005)

THE SCOOP
Director: Robert Rodriguez & Frank Miller
Cast: Jessica Alba, Clive Owen, Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis, Benicio Del Toro, Rosario Dawson, Elijah Wood
Plot: A film that explores the dark and miserable town, Basin City, and tells the story of three different people, all caught up in violent corruption.

Genre: Crime/Thriller
Awards: Won Technical Grand Prize, nominated for Palme d'Or (Cannes).
Runtime: 124min
Rating: R21 for sustained strong stylized violence, nudity and sexual content including dialogue.

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IN RETROSPECT
“I love hitmen.  No matter what you do to them, you don't feel bad.”

Robert Rodriguez has always been known as a maverick filmmaker, a fearless soul who goes all out to make the films he wants to make... including the ‘Spy Kids’ movies, which bring to mind his split filmic personality of sorts.  He could do a kid-friendly comedy like The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl (2005) and then follow up with a hyperviolent grindhouse picture like Planet Terror (2007).

He doesn't care what you think, and he has Quentin Tarantino as his best pal, so discredit him at your own risk.  Tarantino actually helped in directing a sequence in Sin City after Rodriguez did the score for Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004), and this is despite Tarantino's well-documented distaste for digital filmmaking.

Digital filmmaking is the name of the game here in Sin City, in particular its pioneering use of the green screen in creating a full-length live-action picture.  Rodriguez showed Frank Miller, the graphic novelist who wrote Sin City, that it could be accomplished with the opening scene, and the rest is history. 

Sin City is not so much a big-screen adaptation of Miller's work; instead, it works as a visual translation.  It translates Miller's beautifully-drawn frames into spectacular moving images.  Using Miller's work as a ready-made storyboard, Rodriguez directs an ensemble cast of established and new actors who collectively perform their roles to what I call 'memorable perfection' - not exactly perfect, but perfect in memory.

Sin City stars Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Clive Owen, Jessica Alba, Rosario Dawson, Benicio Del Toro and many more as inhabitants of Basin City, a place where the darkest of nightmares reside, and one infested with female-related crimes.  The film adopts a narrative consisting of three main threads with its own protagonist, antagonist, and oddball characters. 

They are interconnecting threads, albeit loosely, and the entire plot follows a circular logic ala Pulp Fiction (1994).  While occasionally the plot doesn't quite summon our attention, Sin City remains thoroughly entertaining simply because it is so visually-arresting.  Rodriguez won an award at Cannes just for the film's 'visual shaping', whatever that means.

It is also entertaining because it is excessively violent and twisted.  Cannibalism, mutilation and dismemberment accompany the modes of killing, and they are represented in sadistic and fetishistic fashion.  As Rourke's character Marv asserts: how a person dies is more important than the moment of his or her death. 

Sin City is rendered with a noirish sensibility, and this coupled with the graphic novel visual style, makes it more palatable to mainstream audiences - there is macabre beauty in Rodriguez's and Miller's vision, one that is put across quite brilliantly.  Sin City is guilty pleasure at its highest point, meaning that you will have one of the most fun two hours ever, if you can stomach the gruesomeness, ultraviolence, and of course, the sheer audacity of this sort of filmmaking.

Verdict: One of the most visually-arresting films of the 2000s, this twisted and excessively violent tale is shot with a noirish sensibility, providing as pure a guilty pleasure as there can be.

GRADE: A- (8.5/10 or 4 stars)



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Evil Dead (2013)

THE SCOOP
Director: Fede Alvarez
Cast: Jane Levy, Shiloh Fernandez, Lou Taylor Pucci, Jessica Lucas, Elizabeth Blackmore 
Plot: Five friends head to a remote cabin, where the discovery of a Book of the Dead leads them to unwittingly summon up demons living in the nearby woods. The evil presence possesses them and they are left to fight for survival and their sanity.

Genre: Horror
Awards: - 
Runtime: 91min
Rating: R21 for strong bloody violence and gore, some sexual content and language.

TRAILER: 

OST: 





IN RETROSPECT (Guest Review by Tan Yuan Qing)
The recipe for disaster was already brewing when Evil Dead was announced.  It is a remake of a horror classic and it is about demon possession.  These two factors are clear signs that we are in for yet another disappointment.  Furthermore, it is the very film that The Cabin in the Woods (2011) is poking fun at. 

That is until the deliciously cut trailers showed up, and fans like me started to take it more seriously.  And after seeing the actual film, I must say, it is quite a miracle that Evil Dead is not the disaster that most fans fear it would be.

This is the debut feature of Fede Alvarez, who rose to fame with his YouTube short “Panic Attack”.  It stars Jane Levy as Mia, a young woman who brings her brother David (Shiloh Fernandez) and three other friends to an old cabin in the woods to help her overcome her heroin addiction.

But things go from bad to worse, when an evil force is accidentally unleashed.  Is Mia experiencing withdrawal symptoms? Or something else? The drug angle in the story provides a valid reason for the characters to remain in the cabin even after shit happens.

What do people want to see in an Evil Dead movie?  Gore, gore and more gore.  And I am glad to report that those craving for blood will be extremely satisfied.  The practical effects are absolutely outstanding - the star of the show.  I truly respect Alvarez’s decision to go fully practical and bringing old-school horror back.

Shooting all the mayhem on screen is DP Aaron Morton.  He gives Evil Dead a beautiful but haunting look that some may find too polished.  Sound design is top notch, making this film an attack on the senses, especially during a scene when a character saws off her cheek.

References to the original are littered throughout the film and fans will be happy to spot them.  It is very different from the original though, in terms of mood and tone.  The new one is serious fun; the old one is campy fun.  Perhaps in twenty years, people will find the humor in the new one, but for now it is missing.

“The Most Terrifying Film You Will Ever Experience” is the tagline, but it is not terrifying for me; it is more of disgusting than terrifying.  What Evil Dead is lacking, despite being technically outstanding, is sustained tension, which the original had.  The experience is not grueling enough.  I feel Alvarez should have taken his time to build scenes up.  His gory set pieces are impressive, but feel too elaborate and staged.

Evil Dead overcomes the odds and in my opinion is the second best horror remake ever made.  The first belongs to Zack Synder’s Dawn of the Dead (2004).  It may be lacking in character development and tension, but this new version of the horror classic has its own voice, and its own soul.  It also features one of the best horror endings in recent memory.

Verdict: One of the better horror remakes out there, Evil Dead shows no mercy to viewers with its relentless display of blood and gore.

GRADE: B+ (8/10 or 3.5 stars)



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