Meat Grinder
A coming-on-middle-aged street vendor projects her madness and history of abuse onto (mostly) unsuspecting, sleazy men — and cooks up a storm. Surprisingly good reviews greeted this gory Thai drama, which is right up there with Hong Kong’s The Untold Story (八仙飯店之人肉叉燒包) as a boundary-pushing, gag-inducing Asian incarnation of Sweeney Todd; it’s also a perfectly timed essay for people who think US beef is the sign of the Devil. Abstruse political subtexts (it’s set during student riots in the 1970s) and class and gender commentary ... or blood, guts and torture for their own sake? Take your pick. Taiwan’s censors have let this one through without cuts, though it isn’t clear if this is the version originally banned in Thailand. Either way, here’s the question: Why doesn’t Taiwan make movies like this?
Taipei County Film Festival
The Taipei County Government is screening a series of local and foreign films, including documentaries, in hardtops and on the road for another week. Outdoor screenings are free. See tcff.eracom.com.tw/eng/eng02.html for details in English of indoor screenings. There’s also a related exhibition at the county government building in Banciao.
Baby Love
A gay doctor (Lambert Wilson) in France wants to adopt a baby but circumstances conspire against him, starting with the authorities and the hostility of his partner. Solution: Arrange a phony marriage with an illegal immigrant from South America and thus acquire a surrogate child. Touches of Green Card and La Cage aux Folles abound, but they don’t quite balance the mood of apprehension that accompanies the fatherly yearnings of the lead character. French title: Comme les Autres.
Rage
The Spot theater in Taipei is taking a chance in screening this strange film. Viewers expecting any sort of standard plot or setting will find themselves hemmed in as the camera (meant to be a cellphone held by some kid at a fashion show) trains on a series of characters who talk for more than 90 minutes as troubling events take place in the vicinity. Fans of Andy Warhol’s films might get nostalgic, and there is a lineup of superb performers (starting with Judi Dench, Steve Buscemi and Jude Law). But director Sally Potter (a million miles away from her excellent Orlando) gives new technology more credence than it’s due; in one of the less convincing gimmicks of recent years, this film premiered simultaneously on mobile phones. Starts Sunday.
Love Happens
Aaron Eckhart (The Dark Knight) is a motivational speaker and author motivated by his wife’s death on the roads. Jennifer Aniston is a florist he meets while hosting a seminar in Seattle. A relationship blooms, even as other people in Eckhart’s life remain difficult customers. “As each struggles with the hurt of love and loss, they realize that in order to move forward, they need to let go of the past. And if they can, they’ll find that, sometimes, love happens when you least expect it,” says the promo. That should tell you all you need to know.
The Girl in the Park
It’s taken more than two years for this drama to be released here; it barely screened theatrically in the US after poor reviews. Sigourney Weaver’s daughter goes missing in New York’s Central Park; years later, her confrontation with a young thief (Kate Bosworth) — who would have been her daughter’s age — sets some very strange behavior, thoughts and relationships in motion. Lots of talent in this one, but for many critics it just didn’t add up.
November Child
Last week the Taipei Times reviewer lamented the superficial rendering of Taiwan’s White Terror era as a love story in Prince of Tears (淚王子). This award-winning German film shows what might have been had there been more commitment to the gravity of the material and human complexity. A young woman and a would-be writer try to locate her mother amid the obstacles posed by Germany’s partitioned history. The lead actress (Anna Maria Muehe) also plays her mother in flashbacks.
M.W.
Another week, another manga adaptation from Japan, though this one is a little unusual because the star of the show is a homicidal maniac (Hiroshi Tamaki) with ambitions of mass murder, and the rest of the cast spend most of the time trying to stop being killed — or stop him from killing just about everyone in Japan. The diseased — but no less debonair — product of a gas attack when he was a youngster, Tamaki does not distinguish between the guilty and the innocent among his victims. A fellow survivor-turned-priest is among those on this happy chappie’s trail.
Savage Planet
In the future, when Earth has become almost uninhabitable, a greedy company seeks to make a handsome profit by taking control of an alternative planet to which some of the population can be moved, but its advance team comes under attack from dangerous creatures that resemble large bears. Actually ... they are large bears. The only notable thing about this no-budget, made-for-cable fodder from 2006 is that it’s directed by Paul Lynch, a veteran TV director who made the original Prom Night with Jamie Lee Curtis and Leslie Nielsen way back in 1980. Starts tomorrow at the Baixue theater in Ximending; yes, it’s another DVD promotion.
A French Gigolo
Another slice of life among restless French folk centers on a married, part-time gigolo (Eric Caravaca) and his latest divorcee customer (Nathalie Baye) and how their widening relationship affects both sets of friends and family. Warm reviews met this rich character study, which prefers to dabble in minds and not bodies. The wonderful Baye made this film before starring in Tsai Ming-liang’s (蔡明亮) Face (臉). French title: Cliente.
Wheat (長平大戰之麥田)
What first might appear to be another tiresome period costumer about one of the millions of battles in China’s history turns out to be something rather different. Two deserters from the Qin army in the Warring States period lucklessly find themselves in an enemy town whose men are away fighting. Their lies and ingratiations with the women gradually wear thin — especially as others arrive with contradictory news. This meticulously photographed drama-comedy is structured around elemental themes, of which wheat, the local crop, is prominent. Directed by He Ping (何平), who made The Swordsman in Double Flag Town (雙旗鎮刀客).
Lehuo festival
Tomorrow and Sunday the Spot theater is running a festival that includes rare screenings of Taiwanese short features and idiosyncratic foreign films such as Rage, The Cats of Mirikitani and Naoko Ogigami’s Megane. Entry is free.
In the March 9 edition of the Taipei Times a piece by Ninon Godefroy ran with the headine “The quiet, gentle rhythm of Taiwan.” It started with the line “Taiwan is a small, humble place. There is no Eiffel Tower, no pyramids — no singular attraction that draws the world’s attention.” I laughed out loud at that. This was out of no disrespect for the author or the piece, which made some interesting analogies and good points about how both Din Tai Fung’s and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) meticulous attention to detail and quality are not quite up to
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