linyuwei1's Reviews

Breaking and Entering (2006)

6/10

29 November 2006

It's a story full of metaphors. The title 'Breaking & Entering', in fact, captures and summarises all metaphorical scenes in this film: breaking an old relationship and entering a new one, breaking a window and entering a building, breaking a class boundary and entering a new middle ground. Even a construction site where the architect, starred by Jude Law, works symbolises a place composed of frequent breaking activities (knock down old buildings) and entering activities (constructing new buildings and entering a new space). The beautiful cinematography that often blurs a part of one scene, and the endless passing through a door are the other two significant symbols of 'breaking and entering' activities.

However, apart from the arty way of presenting the story, I was disappointed by the story. I reckon the story would be more gripping if the architect starred by Jude Law made a more definite decision - broke up with his wife/girlfriend and start a new relationship with a low class immigrant starred by Juliette Binoche. But on the other hand, if such a decision were made, the whole film probably lost its meaning and beauty of blurring and confusing after breaking and entering.

Jude Law and Juliette Binoche performed outstandingly while Robin Wright Penn did not really catch the role - she badly interpreted this middle class white woman who was a stressful mum uncertain about her relationship. I thought Nicole Kidman's role in Eyes Wide Shut would fit well if migrated to this film.

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Manual of Love (2005)

8/10

Entertaining & laughter-loving!

19 November 2006

It's a very well-made light-hearted, romantic comedy consisting of several small stories sorted out by the different stages of relationships. The stories were told in such a fluid way that you don't feel disturbed by the director's chronically linear view on relationships, although the figures in different stories were connected in a way or another.

The outstanding performances from every actor in this film also makes the everyday love stories naturally telling. Although the audience can share lots of jokes about relationships in this film, I also like that sometimes the actors talked to the audience directly through the camera. This is a skillful technique to get the audience's empathy and involvement.

Brava & carina - this film is surely very entertaining.

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The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999)

5/10

The problem of Kids being Bullied at Schools

20 August 2006

This is a forgettable but offbeat teenage film. The visual effect is certainly better than the first Carrie (1976). The flashback of Carrie 1 and the return of Amy Irving starring as Sue Snell again also help.

Apart from the film itself per se, having seen Carrie and Carrie 2, I can't stop thinking why the problem of kids bullying with each other continues to be a problem in schools. In fact, this problem is not only between school kids, but also between grown ups in society. What's wrong with our society? What happened in the film is no more worse than the real event 'Columbine High School Massacre' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbine_High_School_massacre). When are we going to solve this problem?

Perhaps showing this film to kids will make them understand how bad if they treat their mates badly.

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Renaissance (2006)

8/10

Stylish and Creative

18 August 2006

The film looks like a parody of various sci-fi and action films including Minority Report, Hallow man, Highlander, Catwoman, the Sin City. But the black and white animation style is a selling and brilliant point of this film.

First, the form of animation makes the director's intention of being sci-fi pastiche more strongly convincing.

Second, the black-and-white colour makes the futuristic life in Paris more fluid, particularly people's movements around the multi-layered architecture.

Third, because of the black-and-white, the audience needs to and is allowed to imagine the futuristic architecture and technology. But this imaginative space is also constrained by our memories of previous sci-fi films (as mentioned earlier) that the directors would like to emulate. So the black-and-white style affords us to imagine, but in a way perhaps subject to our experiences and historical materials. That's another trick of being a successful sci-fi parody.

There are certainly many glitches in the plot, but the plot is not the main point of the whole film. The centre of the film is the black-and-white animation style and the director's intention of making a sci-fi parody accompanying with a mediocre storyline.

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The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005)

7/10

Good acting and narratively realistic

18 August 2006

This film was advertised as a black comedy. But it is much 'blacker than a black comedy'. The most funny part is probably at the beginning with Mr. Lazarescu's neighbours around.

The pace of the film is quite slow. The content is very narrative and down to earth. It's the outstanding performance from the protagonists that bolsters up the whole film.

Apart from the good acting, the director also delivers a realistic view on the relationship between doctors and nurses, and between doctors and patients in a medical system. This is very different from the mainstream TV series e.g. ER, House or Hollywood films that usually treat doctors like god or hero. It mirrors a growing problems in a health care system across the world. But interestingly this rather universal phenomenon on the hierarchy in a health system is documented so well by Romanian.

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Lost in Translation (2003)

1/10

Shallow Film Full of Stereotypes about Japan and Japanese Culture

3 August 2005

Warning: Spoilers

This film has been nominated for 4 important items of the Academy Award and referred very often, so I wanted to check out the hype. However, the film really disappointed me and eventually I was so released seeing the end. Sofia Coppola said the screenplay was based on her life. Then I have to say that her life and her way of viewing is really neither pointing nor poignant. The plot is neither exciting nor politically correct. Important western people working in the entertainment industry (and they're Americans) come to Far East and exploit all the pre-given stereotypes they learn, rather than going to explore the local culture and to know the differences between people. While showing that Japanese is a dominant language in Japan, the director forgets that Americans usually go around the world assuming everyone speaks American English. This film does not reflect most of feelings of travellers or lost people; instead, it is just about rich people (actors and actresses certainly fall into this category) going to big Asian cities looking for fun. Many stereotypes about Japan and Japanese culture have been represented in this film apart from one, which is the unbelievably expensive living cost there. And the actors seem spend money without hesitation, perhaps just like the director herself? Before seeing this film, I admire the Oscar having nominated a female director, but after seeing the film, I fear the Oscar nominated Sofia Coppola just because she's a woman and she's the daughter of Francis Ford Coppola.

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