Consolation Champs

Le Fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain (France, 2001, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, director) Between Jeunet’s dazzling visual tricks and Audrey Tautou’s dazzling beauty, it was hard to look at the subtitles at all (might be a reason to learn French in itself!). Jeunet (Delicatessen, The City of Lost Children) has made an incredibly romantic movie that celebrates all of life and love (not just romantic). As in all romantic comedies, Destiny is a major character, but only in this film will it use a suicidal goldfish, a globetrotting lawn gnome, and a one-armed fruit vendor as its henchmen. Perfect! 10/10!!

La Pianiste (Austria/France, 2001, Michael Haneke, director) reinforces the “Austrians=grim” thesis I’m formulating. Isabelle Huppert won a well-deserved Best Actress award at Cannes for her portrayal of a woman who, in her efforts to attain the artistic ideal, loses her humanity. Trapped by her talent, she suppresses her emotions and her sexuality until they can only be expressed in twisted and terrifying ways. When a younger student falls in love with her, our hopes rise, but are soon dashed by the realization that she cannot experience love the way others can. It is too late for her, and the film’s final 30 harrowing minutes are, tellingly, devoid of the beautiful music that carried the first 90 minutes. The message seems to be that the music itself is not enough without the life and beauty it’s describing. 9/10

Rain (New Zealand/USA, 2000, Christine Jeffs, director) was a beautifully shot first feature, set at a beachfront cottage in New Zealand. Lots of melancholy, but also strangely disturbing close ups foreshadowing tragedy: soapy dishes being washed, a man cutting the lawn in his bare feet. Sort of a coming of age story, very moving. 8/10.

Japanese Devils (Japan, 2001, Minoru Matsui, director) was almost three hours long, but compelling all the way through. This documentary features the confessions of 14 Japanese soldiers, detailing their atrocities against the Chinese in the war that Japan waged for most of the thirties and forties. At times hard to listen to, it was nonetheless an exercise in bravery for these men to speak out when the overwhelming majority of soldiers did not. A deeply difficult film to get made and shown in Japan. 8/10

Tape (USA, 2001, Richard Linklater, director) was another film that dealt with the issue of confessing our sins. Ethan Hawke and Robert Sean Leonard play two old high school friends reunited in a seedy hotel room ten years later. One character coerces the other to confess to a rape he committed in high school, then informs him he has taped their conversation. It gets even more complicated when Uma Thurman, the victim, shows up. Shot in six days on digital video, the medium is used brilliantly to reinforce the seediness and claustrophobia of the setting, as well as the characters’ unstable relationships. Adapted by Stephen Belber from his play. 8/10