Finally saw this last night - it mysteriously reappeared at the local Busan cinema, just for two weekend showings!
Am not quite sure what I think of it, let alone about it, as yet. It definitely has some lovely visuals going for it, and the main character is portrayed convincingly by both his younger and older on-screen selves (Ayush Tandon, Suraj Sharma [him on the boat] and Irrfan Khan, respectively). The first part of the film is quite lovely - especially the tale of how he became known as Pi, and the amusing sequences around religion and his desire to follow (at least) three of them... However, the 'main' part of the film - the story that is meant to make us 'believe in god' - is rather more problematic, I think...
Whether or not the main tale is Pi's creation - something to blot out the horrors of the tale that involves murder and cannibalism amongst and between humans - I'm not very comfortable with the use and representations of other-than-human animals involved. On an obvious level, it's understandable why Pi might wish to blot out what 'really' happened if his 'second' story, the one involving other humans being on the lifeboat with him, and as such this reading of the tale 'works'. It's also understandable that he uses animals in this way, I suppose - to represent aspects and elements of human 'nature' and behaviour - and this may work better (and less problematically?) in writing than on-screen, I suppose (although I'm not convinced of that either; I'm reading the novel, though - which might bring some clarity there. Or it might not!). However, the reduction is not very pleasant, I don't think - not to the animals, anyway! I had kind of hoped to see filmic representations of them that said something about animals-as-persons, not as comments on humans, as it were. And in that sense, the film (the story?) was very wanting.
If the tiger was 'really' on the boat, then it's inexplicable and a shame that such a potentially interesting and animal-human relationship focused tale couldn't find more interesting ways to develop the relationship: it seemed that Pi's father's characterization of Richard Parker was too well ingrained in Pi's head to leave room for a more helpful approach to sharing space with a tiger than the one(s) attempted by Pi. If the tiger was more of a metaphor, or imagined self, then the problem was, I think, even greater: what an odd way to imagine a fellow creature in a shared - horrendously frightening! - situation. Either way, the characterization (caricature-ization) of Richard Parker as relentlessly agrressive seems limited, at best. (I'm not suggesting tigers aren't carnivrous and potetially very dangerous companions at sea(!); but this IS fiction, so something more could well be investigated - and needn't be at complete odds with a 'real' tiger, either - as contemporary work on human-animal relations as well as other-than-human animal behaviour bears out.)
I was left wondering why Pi didn't comfort the zebra, didn't batter the hyena(!), and wasn't more wlecoming to the orangutan, for sure. And while the confusion of the terrifying and death-threatening situation does much to 'explain' all this - as does the situation of its perhaps anyway being a metaphor for/to repress what 'really' happened - this doesn't detract from the way in which the story does nothing to really challenge stereotypical images of other-than-humans as defined largely by theor species characteristics, rather than by situations and relatiosnhips. So for me, it was limited when it could have done so much more. But yes, some beautiful imagery - especially at sea, and also on the 'floating island' - and some nice elements around Pi missing Richard Parker, and his feelings of being let down when he's abandoned by the tiger, and/as a part of him self.
Sunday, 27 January 2013
Wednesday, 23 January 2013
Film-watching in Busan...
It's not easy!
After waiting a while, both Cloud Atlas and Life of Pi opened while I was in Japan for a few days... and as I caught a horrible cold whilst there, I didn't venture to the cinema for the first week I was back here in Korea. By then, both films had gone!
The Hobbit had also gone... but it'd been on for weeks; I was just too lazy to go see it, having enjoyed the real-life New Zealand so much in December!
I'm hoping hard that some or all of these films will be on a second run or some such when I'm back in the UK from March... as I think a small screen won't do any of the three of them real justice?
Another unfortunate aspect of being here is that while Busan boasts a rather lovely new independent cinema in the city centre - the Busan Cinema Center, the main venue for BIFF (the Busan International Film Festival) - which plays all sorts of 'world' cinema, the lack of English subtitles means that I haven't been to see anything at it. Terrible waste!
After waiting a while, both Cloud Atlas and Life of Pi opened while I was in Japan for a few days... and as I caught a horrible cold whilst there, I didn't venture to the cinema for the first week I was back here in Korea. By then, both films had gone!
The Hobbit had also gone... but it'd been on for weeks; I was just too lazy to go see it, having enjoyed the real-life New Zealand so much in December!
I'm hoping hard that some or all of these films will be on a second run or some such when I'm back in the UK from March... as I think a small screen won't do any of the three of them real justice?
Another unfortunate aspect of being here is that while Busan boasts a rather lovely new independent cinema in the city centre - the Busan Cinema Center, the main venue for BIFF (the Busan International Film Festival) - which plays all sorts of 'world' cinema, the lack of English subtitles means that I haven't been to see anything at it. Terrible waste!
Monday, 21 January 2013
MARGIN CALL, d. and wr. J.C. Chandor, USA, 2011
I should revisit this review when I don't have a cold-ridden head, but right now I'm going to say that this film - about the early stages of the 'financial crisis', and set at an investment bank - is brilliantly cast, and pretty well written; it also works somewhat as a critique of those who created (or who participated in creating) the mess - although to my mind, it didn't really critique them enough.
The film has a definite feel of Glengarry Glen Ross (d. James Foley, USA, 1992) - the wonderful Al Pacino film penned by David Mamet, about a bunch of colleagues pitted against each other in a sales competition at a real estate office in Chicago. Of course there's nothing wonderful about the worlds inhabited by the characters of each film - manipulative, selfish, money-obsessed greed-driven as they are. However, both films share insightful writing about the lack of self-confidence at the base of many participants' place in such worlds, and also work to reveal the unethical nature of the world and its inhabitants without oversimplifying such criticism.
Margin Call boasts a remarkable cast - not least of whom is Simon Baker, even if he's one of the less well-known. Jeremy Irons is particularly chlilling, while Paul Bettany is remarkable. I also think Kevin Spacey (who was in GGR!) performs brilliantly, but balked somewhat at the way his character is written for 'sympathy' in some ways: it's not convincing (not to me, anyway), and in that respect I'm kind of with Keremy Irons' character: these guys don't only know what's been happening, but have made their entire fortunes out of screwing people over - so there's little sympathy for any who might have moral pangs at this late stage(!). Demi Moore is also in this film - and her role is a pretty good one. The film doesn't fail in its gendered representation, either: she's convincingly cast, and her role pans out just as one might suspect it would in such a male-dominated 'culture', however key she might seem at some stages to the firm's ongoing success.
Worth watching just for the acting and the dialogue, I'd really recommend this one, despite its flaws. It's not quite Glengarry Glen Ross - but it's got enough of that film about it to make it enjoyable as well as depressing, I think!
The film has a definite feel of Glengarry Glen Ross (d. James Foley, USA, 1992) - the wonderful Al Pacino film penned by David Mamet, about a bunch of colleagues pitted against each other in a sales competition at a real estate office in Chicago. Of course there's nothing wonderful about the worlds inhabited by the characters of each film - manipulative, selfish, money-obsessed greed-driven as they are. However, both films share insightful writing about the lack of self-confidence at the base of many participants' place in such worlds, and also work to reveal the unethical nature of the world and its inhabitants without oversimplifying such criticism.
Margin Call boasts a remarkable cast - not least of whom is Simon Baker, even if he's one of the less well-known. Jeremy Irons is particularly chlilling, while Paul Bettany is remarkable. I also think Kevin Spacey (who was in GGR!) performs brilliantly, but balked somewhat at the way his character is written for 'sympathy' in some ways: it's not convincing (not to me, anyway), and in that respect I'm kind of with Keremy Irons' character: these guys don't only know what's been happening, but have made their entire fortunes out of screwing people over - so there's little sympathy for any who might have moral pangs at this late stage(!). Demi Moore is also in this film - and her role is a pretty good one. The film doesn't fail in its gendered representation, either: she's convincingly cast, and her role pans out just as one might suspect it would in such a male-dominated 'culture', however key she might seem at some stages to the firm's ongoing success.
Worth watching just for the acting and the dialogue, I'd really recommend this one, despite its flaws. It's not quite Glengarry Glen Ross - but it's got enough of that film about it to make it enjoyable as well as depressing, I think!
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