Tuesday 31 January 2006
Chiwhaseon (2002)
I'm not deliberately watching a lot of Korean films of late, it just seems to be happening. I knew that this movie shared the director's prize at Cannes and that it starred the actor out of "Oldboy", so I was looking forward to it. It's a biopic of one of the great Korean artists from the 19th Century who unlike others of his time came from very humble origins and was therefore deemed not noble enough to paint with the genius that he did. The artwork and framing of the cinema image were brilliant, but against this one had to contend with a very hard-to-like character who depended on drink and rough sex for his inspiration. It was also difficult to keep track of the various subsidiary characters as he moved around from patron to patron and whore to whore. I found the film consistently interesting but can't quite decide whether I really want to own a copy -- and I suspect that the answer may well be no, although I could well return to the film in the future.
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A Korean verssion of Pollock? (loved Ed Harris in that one by the way - his crowning moment maybe).
Maybe it's the intensity of Korean (and singapore) films that make them so unmissable. Saw 'Real Fiction' the other day, another action gore fest from Korea, they do love their revenge don't they. Or do they? That was the little twist at the end, as it lived up to it's title if you put a question mark at the end. Maybe there's this lighting difference too, or the fact that you're seeing real characters rather than the same icons all the time?
Meanwhile it's time to catch up with Hidden, the french film on current release. Just found out about the Buster Keaton run at the NFT. What do you mean I've never seen any of his films. Shocking. This willl be a chance at least.....
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