Art House & International
4 Films by Lukas Moodysson (Review)
4 Films by Lukas Moodysson includes the films: Show Me Love, Together, Lilya 4-Ever and finally A Hole in My Heart. This is Moodysson's critically acclaimed debut and well worth viewing.
In true Swedish fashion, Show Me depicts a story of two provincial girls coming out, and hailed by Bergman as a masterpiece.
Together features Elisabeth who is tired of mundane, suburban mediocrity. She ditches her husband and takes her children to be with her brother Goran who live on a commune, where battered idealism and long hair reigns. And where discussion on politics, friendship and free sex prevail.
Lilya 4-Ever is a heart-rendering catalogue of a 16-year old Estonian's descent into sex slavery, and describes Lilya's friendship with 11-year old Volody, himself an outcast.
Finally, A Hole in My Heart depicts the degradations of amateur porn and where bedlam prevails as social codes are abandoned and cosmetic surgery, pop psychology, politics, alienation and human emotions are ground through the mill.
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2046 (Review)
2046 is Wong Kar-Wai's most stylish work to date. The story is based on a writer - Chow Mo-Wan (Leung Chiu-Wai) - who arrives in Singapore to start a new life - spent mainly at dealing tables. A mysterious woman, only known as Black Spider, furtively walks into his life and reveals his lost memory of time spent with a married woman called Su Li-Zhen (Maggie Cheung). Black Spider helps Chow Mo-Wan win back his money in order to buy a ticket and return to Hong Kong. Black Spider refuses to share her past with him, except her name, which is also Su Li-Zhen (Gong Li). The story escalates further when Chow returns to Honk Kong where he meets Lu Lu (Lau Kar-ling), another woman from his past, who happens to be staying in room 2046. Chow moves into room 2047 to continue his life writing a novel about 2046, a place people go to recover lost memories.
We see Chow travel through time and space, freely and randomly, collecting various pieces of his imagination, vividly depicting his journey. In the end, we see the story return to the exact point where it started more than two hours earlier.
With an unbeatable cast, Wong beautifully alternates between the late '60s and a fictional future, conjuring a vivid web of memory and emotions.
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9 Songs (Review)
9 Songs is certainly not short of controversy as it is argued whether the film is a porn film versus a graphic art-house equivalent - or both?
Director Michael Winterbottom documents the intimate relationship between Matt (Kieran O'Brien), a Mancunian living in London, and his American lover Lisa (Margo Stilley). Actually, rather than documenting the peripheral aspects to their relationship, Winterbottom's story sees the couple diving straight into explicit sex scenes including oral, intercourse and masturbation all garnished with some drug taking to boot.
The sex scenes are however remarkably well shot with clever and beautiful use of lighting and colour adding an intimate warmth. When the couple eventually decide to venture our of their bedroom, it is invariably to go to a gig, and it is largely these scenes that break up the sex.
The premise of the film is an interesting one - many relationships are founded solely on sexual attraction, so why can't this be displayed on screen? Can sex alone create a good plot where the audience have a relationship with on-screen characters?
One should at least respect Winterbottom for this bold piece of filmmaking, and leave personal judgement until the final credits have rolled.
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