Furious on Film 11.01.07: Issue 112
Posted by Arnold Furious on 11.01.2007
Another trip to Iwo Jima, more war stories from Iraq, the origins of the horror complete with the debut of the vampire and a Japanese film in English that everyone hates and I somehow managed to review anyway!
Furious on Film 11.01.07: Issue 112
Another trip to Iwo Jima, more war stories from Iraq, the origins of the horror complete with the debut of the vampire and a Japanese film in English that everyone hates and I somehow managed to review anyway!
Before we start this week I'd like to remind everyone why it's taken so long to get back to reviewing films. Here below lies a list of links to the Furious on Film top 100 director's column. The one that took a huge chunk out of my life but earned me more positive feedback than a bundle of WCW reviews. Be warned though, this is a long read.
Thanks for reading, thanks for taking the time to email me and thanks for your continued support over the past hundred odd columns. I'll keep writing them if you keep reading them.
This week I have the following cinematic delights for your reading pleasure;
Flags of Our Fathers, Jarhead, Nosferatu, Memoirs of a Geisha
But first
ONCE UPON A TIMELINE Action Actor turned Oscar winning director: Clint Eastwood.
1930. Born in San Francisco, California. Later home to his cop series Dirty Harry.
1950. Drafted to fight in Korea. His plane crashes on route thus ending his military career. He escaped relatively unharmed.
1955. Made his acting debut in Revenge of the Creature. He played a lab technician and didn't receive a credit. Everyone has to start somewhere.
1958. Major cinematic bow in Ambush at Cimarron Pass. Eastwood later called it the worst Western ever made.
1959. Finally scored his big break as Rowdy Yates in the TV show Rawhide. The show lasted 6 years and Eastwood appeared in 217 episodes.
1964. Using his fame from Rawhide as a cowboy he translates that to cinematic success with A Fistful of Dollars. While his character is called "Joe" he becomes better known as the "Man with no name" in its two sequels that make Clint a household name and one of the biggest Western stars of all time.
1968. Where Eagles Dare. In an attempt to diversify his roles Eastwood appeared in this war movie with Richard Burton. Perhaps more importantly he also appeared in Coogan's Bluff playing a cop triggering a 10 year working relationship with director Don Siegel.
1971. While "The Beguiled" is Eastwood's directorial debut his second picture Play Misty for Me has become far more iconic and indicative of Clint's desire not to be typecast as the hardened badass. Equally as important for Eastwood was his starring role in Dirty Harry. A movie that had huge box office success and spawned four sequels along with a string of copycat flicks.
1978. Eastwood continues to explore his range by appearing in offbeat comedy Any Which Way But Loose alongside an ape called Clyde.
1985. Pale Rider. Eastwood returns to the Western genre that had been so good to him with a loving tribute to Shane. He starred and directed.
1988. Bird. Eastwood's desire for creative expression was never clearer than during this early attempt; a biopic of jazz musician Charlie Parker.
1992. Unforgiven. One final trip into the Wild West for Clint as he directed and starred in this Oscar winner alongside Morgan Freeman. The critical acclaim was greater than at any stage of his career and paved the way for more ambitious pictures during the 90's.
1995. Bridges of Madison County. Increasingly attempting more ambitious and personally driven pictures Eastwood made one final stop off in a major acting performance opposite Meryl Streep in this love story.
1997. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. The ambitious directorial projects continued here with Josh Cusack and Kevin Spacey.
2003. Mystic River. Eastwood hit one of his highest points as a director to date with this critically acclaimed film.
2004. Million Dollar Baby. Eastwood returned to Academy Award winning ways with another critical and financial success. He also appeared in front of camera as a veteran boxer turned trainer.
2006. Another ambitious project; the double cinematic releases on Iwo Jima. The first being an American film; Flags of Our Fathers and the other being set on the Japanese side; Letters from Iwo Jima. Both were critical hits and work as companion pieces to reveal the full extent of the events on Iwo Jima.
Flags of Our Fathers (2006)
EXPECTATIONS The sister film of Flags, Letters from Iwo Jima, is easily one of the best films of 2006. Flags source material is a densely researched book on the subject by James Bradley. Bradley's father John "Doc" Bradley was one of the 6 men photographed raising the flag on Mount Suribachi in 1945. So he was quite close to the matter at hand. Bradley wanted the world to know the story behind one of the most famous images of all time. Creatively from there we have a screenplay written by Oscar winner Paul Haggis and William Broyles, who oddly enough also wrote Jarhead. What a coinkidink. On from there we have Clint Eastwood behind the camera. There's no denying the man's pedigree and if 411 had a Hall of Fame he'd be a sure-fire inductee. I also dig my history. Wars are pretty important to history especially World War II. There are many films about World War II and there have already been several about Ira Hayes (he's been played by Lee Marvin and Tony Curtis beforehand) one of the more controversial of the flag raisers.
TRAILER
PLOT After the famous photograph creates a stir among the military high brass those responsible for raising it get a ticket back home in order to help raise money for the war. Those three lucky enough to survive long enough to get pulled out are Ira Hayes (Adam Beach), Rene Gagnon (Jesse Bradford) and John Bradley (Ryan Philippe). They have mixed feelings about it. Gagnon is happy to leave the war behind, Hayes gets lost in a bottle to avoid thinking about it and Bradley is haunted by the memories of those lost on the island.
OPINION I probably should have watched this first and Letters second because there was really no way this was ever going to live up to Letters. And it doesn't. Which I feel hurt my enjoyment of the film. The problem with Flags is that it jumps around to avoid the huge time lapses that need to occur at times compared to short time lapses at others. This was a problem during Letters when days were skipped over in seconds in order to keep the film's run time down. Flags is actually quite smart about the approach having to cover a lot of ground in a short time. The trouble with that approach is the film just skips around and it's hard to get into. It's basically told by Bradley, the author, as he explains what his father did and what makes a hero. Unlike Letters however the cast is huge, like Thin Red Line huge, and the majority of characters just skipped over. This becomes really frustrating because it's hard to care about another soldier getting gunned down because his character has been reduced to saying he's got a great ass (Paul Walker) or just plain dying (Jamie Bell). It's hard to get the same emotional attachment as with Letters. Especially when there's no one anywhere near the level of Ken Watanabe in this. Most of the leads aren't terribly inspiring. Ryan Philippe has a real breakout performance but Doc is the least showy of the three central characters. Had Ira Hayes gone to a more capable actor then it could have made the film more inspirational. As it stands Hayes drunken Indian is irritating and distracting. The great actors that do get roles don't get much to do. Barry Pepper is pretty solid, as he usually is, and Robert Patrick is briefly very strong in support. But that's about it. I found Flags quite hard to get into because I knew how entertaining the footage shot as Iwo Jima was in Letters and it was disappointing that most of Flags takes place back in the USA. Although it's somewhat frustrating that the focus on the Bond drive is merely to drive home the political football nature of the photograph. It was a piece of propaganda essentially. This is part of the story that irks Ira Hayes. He's frustrated that he was even there raising that flag, the second raised on the island that same day. The first flag was, according to the film, removed so a politician could have it. In actuality the flag was replaced because the original flag was too small and the general in charge wanted everyone on the island, specifically all the Japanese soldiers, to see the flag flying high over Mount Suribachi. That's shown particularly well in Letters when the Japanese troops are deflated by losing the mountain. It's on Iwo Jima that Flags is at its most effective. The political element is still mentioned there and works better on the battlefield than back in the States. The battle scenes nicely match up to Letters with the battle seen from the opposing point of view tactically. It's almost a disappointment that due to the sheer number of characters that more tactical issues aren't confronted in Flags. Of course that's not what the book was about. I could have done with the Bond drive being an epilogue to a good war film. Not 50% of a movie that happens to have a war in it. The Bond drive is made even worse by the comic book cut-out caricatures that appear at every turn. "I hear you used a tomahawk on those Japs, chief" (a line actually delivered by the former Sledge Hammer; David Rasche) etc. Meanwhile on the battle field that seems to become far more true here as well. The Japanese troops are almost non-existent. Their only contribution being the odd sniper shot or getting easily killed by the American troops. Compare that to Letters that was far more even in its depiction. Even Barry Pepper's heroic leader in the field Mike Strank (said to be one of the best soldiers on the island and considered a true leader) is picked off by friendly fire.
BEST BIT In a nice nod to John Bradley's real life heroism a scene is included where he tends to an injured soldier on the battle field despite being surrounded by gun fire. He won the Navy Cross for this particular and defining moment of heroism. Putting it in the film shows how Bradley really was a hero and deserved all the plaudits he received and the long life that followed.
RATING - ***. It's not that Flags is a bad film because it's not. But Flags could have been a great film, much like Letters from Iwo Jima was, and it's simply not. It's not an epic war movie neither is it a great character study although it tries to be both. The cast isn't up to telling the story and two of the three elements (Bond drive & the modern day historical research) don't really work and take valuable time away from Iwo Jima itself. The out of sequence storytelling isn't so much confusing as it is irritating. The footage on the island though is a great companion piece to Letters and for that reason alone Flags is well worth seeing to complete the story of Iwo Jima.
Jarhead (2005)
EXPECTATIONS Previously Sam Mendes has a terrific record as a director. Both American Beauty and Road to Perdition were great successes. He seems to leave about three years between film projects, which seems to give him ample time to locate source material he really likes. For Jarhead this would be former Marine Anthony Swofford's book about his experiences in the Gulf War. He's just written his first novel called Exit A. Jake Gyllenhaal isn't a guy I particularly enjoyed when he burst onto the scene with Donnie Darko in 2001. There was something about him I didn't particularly like and considering he followed his immediate success by appearing in the Day After Tomorrow that was probably it. Luckily for him his next big role was Brokeback Mountain so he's won me back over quite easily even if he played second fiddle to Heath Ledger in that flick.
TRAILER
PLOT Anthony Swofford (Jake Gyllenhaal) joins the Marines to become a sniper under the leadership of staff sergeant Sykes (Jamie Foxx). His platoon are shipped off to Iraq to serve in the Gulf War as part of Desert Shield. They promptly spend months sitting around in the desert doing nothing.
OPINION There are two parts of Jarhead that are really important. 1. The training section that lasts about 2 minutes. It's almost entirely lifted from Full Metal Jacket and reminds us of another film that's far superior to this one. 2. The platoon sits down to watch Apocalypse Now humming along to Ride of the Valkyries. Again reminding us of another film that did a better job of tackling war. In fact the references don't stop there with Swoff complaining about the "Nam music" and how come they don't get their own music when a chopper flies over blasting out the Doors. It's like they were trying to pay tribute to classic war movies as if to tell the audience what they should expect from a war film and then deliver none of it. Jarhead cost $70M. Quite how is anyone's guess. There are two scenes that spring to mind. One where there's a brief attack on the camp and another where they're near the burning oil fields. For the rest of the movie very little happens. It's not a war movie because, as Bill Hicks pointed out, a war is where there are two sides fighting. Jarhead shows the monotony and boredom the US troops went through in Iraq only getting to fire their weapons to celebrate the conflict coming to an end. Effectively this turns Jarhead into a passable comedy with some nice set pieces like the football game in germ warfare gear (in itself pretty much a tribute to MASH, another film about war that's much better than this one). Normally comedy in war movies is to briefly distract from the horror of war (Good Morning Vietnam for example) but in Jarhead it's only distracting from boredom. Hell, it could have been set anywhere aside from the one scene with the oil fields and I get the feeling that was only put in there to give the film a connection to the war. Scuds are mentioned but not seen. There's a TV interviews bit but when they do that they've not been anywhere near combat. I get Jarhead in that I understand it's meant to be about the men and how they feel about life out in the middle of nowhere with only their colleagues for companionship but frankly that's hideously boring and the film runs for just over 2 hours. It's effectively 2 hours of nothing but sophomoric humour and the odd attempt at psychology. It's an off day for Mendes although Gyllenhaal comes out looking pretty good because his Swoff is at least the most interesting thing in the film. His affable jock has a more cutting and sinister side that's entertaining to explore. Unfortunately there isn't much for him to explore it during. Usually during war movies people go insane because of the pressure of the situation not from boredom. I think it's a metaphor for our modern society. We can handle any unspeakable level of violence but God forbid we have to spend more than a few days away from our creature comforts. Jarhead shows a more spoilt modern day world where war is done at great distances and heroics no longer exist. No wonder this is the first movie to be made about the Gulf War. Here's hoping it's the last.
BEST BIT The burning oil fields. The only time the film really had a visual worthy of poetry. Jamie Foxx provides it with a great monologue about why he became a Marine. More of that would have been nice.
RATING - **1/2. The second disappointment of the week. Again Jarhead isn't a bad film but it's repetitive and pointless. It didn't tell me anything new about the Gulf War nor did it strive to entertain. It's passable as a light comedy but that's about it. I'm sure Sam Mendes will look back upon this as his worst film to date. By some distance.
ONCE UPON A TIMELINE A History of Horror
A special bonus Once Upon a Timeline in order to celebrate horror for this Halloween week then a quick review of the first vampire film ever, Nosferatu.
1898. House of the Devil. The first ever horror film. Made by French director Georges Méliès. The early film maker invented a number of techniques and was considered one of films true pioneers.
1919. The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. I reviewed this a few weeks back. The first in a string of successful German horror films the central themes included murder and hypnotism. It also helped launch a neo-expressionist phase of German cinema.
1922. Another German film FW Murnau's Nosferatu was released. The subject of this week's review.
1923. Lon Chaney played Quasimodo in the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
1925. Phantom of the Opera. Lon Chaney's biggest starring role during his run as American's silent movie horror star.
1931. James Whale's Frankenstein pushed the horror genre into new exciting directions. It spawned a decade worth of sequels including the Bride of Frankenstein, arguably the greatest horror film of all time.
1941. The Wolf Man. Universal's horror pictures continued with this highly successful werewolf movie.
1956. Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Post war fear of Communism created a series of American films where change was frightening. Invasion of the Body Snatchers was the absolute pinnacle of this form of propaganda.
Late 50's. Hammer horror films began to gain a big following thanks to their Technicolor and big name stars like Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing.
1960. Psycho. Alfred Hitchcock's timeless horror classic still fondly remembered thanks to the shower scene. The early 60's saw a slew of horror films based not on the supernatural or alien as was the trend beforehand but rather in humanity itself. Peeping Tom and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Were foremost examples.
1964. The Production Code of America finally killed off in the USA (well, around this time. Films began ignoring the Code more frequently and by 1968 films were being released regardless of whether the MPAA gave them a rating or not). The "Hays" Code included limitations on nudity, adultery, crime, drug use, mixing of races and "vulgarity". With it well and truly dead the door was open for more adventurous depictions of horror.
1968. Night of the Living Dead. The first truly popular and visceral zombie movie. Also in 1968 was the devil made flesh in Rosemary's Baby.
1973. The Exorcist. One of the most controversial films of all time it depicted a female child possessed by the Devil.
1975. Jaws. Mainstream horror with a killer shark maliciously attacking in dramatic fashion. It spawned a multitude of sequels and is the best film ever made beginning with the letter J.
1976. The Omen. A man discovers his child is in fact the antichrist. One of the leading "creepy kids" films.
The 70's in general brought forth a fresh wave of underground violence and cult horror films like Last House on the Left, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Driller Killer.
1978. Halloween. John Carpenter debuted/reinvented the "slasher" or "stalk and slash" genre with Michael Myers. It triggered hundreds of copycats during the 80's.
1979. In space no one can hear you scream called out the poster for Alien. Ridley Scott's horror film in space pushed the boundaries once again of how frightening and tense films could be. It was the ultimate in enclosed space and being stalked by something that wants you dead. It played off many of the same ideas as the successful Jaws but combined them with the sci-fi elements of Star Wars. No wonder it made so much money as a franchise.
Also during the 70's there were many giallo or violent Italian films. These were unusually bloody compared to their American counterparts and several of them became famous as a result. Especially work from Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci.
1980. Friday the 13th. The beginnings of another slasher franchise. Freddy Krueger followed in 1984's Nightmare on Elm Street.
1980. The Shining. One of the better Stephen King's adaptations and a sign of horror's popularity as Stanley Kubrick jumped on the bandwagon.
1982. Tobe Hooper goes mainstream with Poltergeist. That was also followed by several sequels and a curse.
1982. Basket Case. The first signs of horror-comedy emerging mocking the overly serious nature of the genre.
1987. Evil Dead 2. With the horror from the first film turned into full on comedy Evil Dead 2 marked the start of a series of underground horror-comedies. Peter Jackson's Bad Taste appeared the same year.
During the 1980's with horror on the rise in English culture a number of films found themselves banned as video nasties. They remained banned for most of my youth and I didn't get to see several until quite recently. Obviously I managed to watch an illegal copy of the Exorcist.
1992. Braindead. Peter Jackson's splatter comedy reached new levels of ridiculous.
1996. Scream. The self referential, self aware horror that made famous the line; "what's your favourite scary movie?" The line also created a series of parodies that actually out-lasted the Scream franchise. Although the reason why there was a need to make Scream 2 and 3 was mainly financial.
1998. Ringu. The rise of Japanese horror. The creepy woman pulling herself out of the well then out of the TV set. Still gives me chills. Remade fairly successfully in America as the Ring.
1999. The Blair Witch Project. A fairly innovative concept albeit much maligned since. The idea being that the audience believes they're watching footage from a failed documentary exploration of woods in Maryland. The visuals were created with handheld cameras and the vibe became increasingly weird as the film progressed. An experience that many cinema goers found somewhat unsettling.
1999. Audition. The Japanese forerunner for the current fashion of "torture porn". Saw, Hostel and Turistas all fall into that genre.
2003. Freddy Vs Jason. With ideas running low in the horror community two franchises were pitched against each other.
The past 7 years have seen many remakes and reimaginings of previous horror films far too many to mention.
2005. The Descent. Perhaps the best horror film of recent years it abandoned the male domain and pitted a pack of women against the evils lurking inside an old cave. Rather typically someone else with a bigger budget made a worse version of the same film at the same time called the Cave.
Nosferatu (1922)
EXPECTATIONS As stated above Nosferatu has an important place in the history of horror cinema. It fell just after the Cabinet of Dr Caligari, which I watched for FoF#110. That film left me wanting more so it seems appropriate to follow on that line of thought.
TRAILER -
PLOT Count Orlok (Max Schreck oddly enough the name of Christopher Walken's character in Batman Returns) is a vampire. He's interested in moving from his lonely castle in Transylvania to a bigger city of Wisburg and enlists the assistance of real estate agent Hutter (Gustav von Wangenheim great fucking name) to find him somewhere. When the Count buys the house opposite of Hutter's he believes the Count may have designs on his wife Ellen (Greta Shroder). He does, but he's more interested in her blood than her sex. This leads to lots of explaining about what vampires are and how to kill them and a big race between Orlok and Hutter to get to Wisburg and Ellen first.
OPINION My first reaction was "why on Earth is he called Count Orlok?" Seeing as this was made as a direct adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula. Well, apparently Mrs Stoker didn't give her permission for the film to be made and was mighty ticked off when they did it anyway. She sued the production company after the film was released and won. Only this was way before profits and whatnot so they ordered all copies of the film destroyed instead. Did they hate money in the 1920's or something? Luckily copies survived the purge. Unfortunately I then made a rather crucial error when selecting a copy to watch. I picked a copy that insisted it was 64 minutes long (it wasn't) and was the sepia' version rather than the black and white version. The problem with shooting in monotone in the 1920's is that it's impossible to shoot at night. So all of Count Orlok's shots were taken during the day. Yanno, when vampires die. Because of the sun. So he's walking around in the midday sun and we're supposed to pretend its night time. I realise there's some suspension of disbelief involved in watching films but this is too much. The acting is also appalling. Von Wangenheim may have one of the best names of an actor I've ever heard but he's dreadful. His performance reminds of me someone who thinks they're on stage and needs to make big movements all the time in order for the crowd to see how they've reacting to a certain set of circumstances. The most comically awful being when he reads the book on vampires at the hotel in Transylvania and finds it so funny that vampires might exist that he pops up off the bed, belly laughs and throws the book on the floor. I think I get it, pal. I found most of the goings on in the Cabinet of Dr Caligari to be far more believable and I think that film is far better than Nosferatu. The other major gripe I have with Nosferatu was the added music. I don't know what fool put it on there but there was modern music added to the soundtrack to make it creepier, which would have worked fine if it waited for creepy moments to interject with creepy music. Instead of playing creepy music constantly throughout. It got incredibly irritating after about five minutes. I ended up muting it when they pumped in some dude singing about loss in a gothic style. I wouldn't have objected if the music hadn't been so entirely inappropriate. It would have worked if it only interjected at moments of horror or when the Count appeared. When Hutter goes home to tell his wife he has a big sale lined up creepy music plays. It's a happy scene. Ellen isn't happy but Hutter is and that's not reflected in the music, which remains creepy and gothic and downbeat. And finally one more issue would be the lack of screen time for the most interesting character in Nosferatu the fuckin' vampire. According to IMDB's trivia page he appears for a mere 9 minutes of the considerably longer run time. I only clearly remember two scenes. One where he hangs out with Hutter in Transylvania and another where he stalks Ellen from across the road. Both were very nifty visuals, if you ignore the sun, but the rest of the film I was fighting my eyelids.
BEST BIT Orlok's evil really shining through as he eyeballs Ellen from his new home hanging off the window because he's so desperate to drink her blood.
RATING This is completely unrateable on the modern scale. Yes, it's worth watching because it's a classic and it shows the first attempt at capturing the vampire myth but that's about it. Cabinet of Dr Caligari is a far more rewarding film for the time and by 1931 Frankenstein would completely blow this out of the water. I'm really not sure why it's still so fondly remembered.
I am having a bad week. I really am. Work was bad. I got hideously drunk on Saturday, which I didn't intend to do. Felt sick most of the week. These films are not helping.
Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)
EXPECTATIONS It would be fair to say that I don't like Rob Marshall. I think Chicago was overrated and one of the least deserving best Oscar winners in the history of the Academy Awards. But then I also hate Catherine Zeta-Jones so perhaps it was time to give him another try to make sure my judgement wasn't just being clouded by one of my least favourite actresses. This film boasts several of my favourite stars from the East; Ken Watanabe and Ziyi Zhang along with Michelle Yeoh. Unusual setting perhaps for two female martial artists but I imagine it'll make the dancing nifty.
TRAILER
PLOT Servant girl Chiyo (Ziyi Zhang) is apprenticed by Mameha (Michelle Yeoh) to become a geisha in record time and repay her sizeable debts. When Chiyo changes her name to Sayuri and attracts the attentions of some of the foremost men in Kyoto her housemate "sister" Hatsumomo (Li Gong) sets out to ruin her. Meanwhile Sayuri has her eyes set on the Chairman (Ken Watanabe) after he buys her some sweet ice when she's crying aged 9. She's intent on his love from that moment forth. Matters are complicated by Mr Nobu (Koji Yakusho the father in Babel) who saved the Chairman's life in the war and is also interested in Sayuri after her geisha charms work a little too well on him.
OPINION Where to start here. The most obvious blunder in Memoirs of a Geisha comes from the source material where Sayuri's virginity is sold to the highest bidder. This is termed a mizuage, which is actually just a Japanese term for a geisha graduating from maiko (apprentice) to full on geisha. It has nothing to do with sex. Throughout it's made clear that geisha's shouldn't be confused with Japanese courtesans or "oiran" and other women who confused matters in Japan by dressing as geisha after World War II and offering sex to US servicemen. And yet they seem to miss the point with this nonexistent ceremonial deflowering. Consider that oiran were basically nonexistent themselves, by some 200 years, by the time this film is set and it's hard to explain where the mizuage comes from. Interesting titbit here. Consider that oiran have been rekindled in the future. That companionship with entertainment is acceptable and you have the basis for Inara's character in Firefly. But that is using Chinese culture rather than Japanese, which brings me to my second major issue with Memoirs of a Geisha. Why did it have to be in English? I love watching films in Japanese. I like the way the language sounds. And yet in Memoirs of Geisha the only words of Japanese that are spoken are ones that are widely used by foreigners (konichi-wa, arigato, kampai). It's like they've inverted the language. But why do that? All the actors are Asian. Ah, there we go. Ziyi Zhang is Chinese. Li Gong is Chinese. Michelle Yeoh is Malaysian. They don't look Japanese, they don't sound Japanese and they probably can't speak Japanese. So Memoirs of a Geisha was filmed in English. Why not just cast Japanese? I guess foreign films don't make money in the US. So they give us this instead. I'm sure it'll reach a wider audience as a result. Which is a pity because Memoirs of a Geisha isn't very good. Ziyi Zhang is adorable and does the best with what she's given. Her grasp of English isn't terrific but it's passable and her timing and emoting is near perfect. I'm sure one day a film will come along for her where she's great AND doesn't have to kick anyone's ass to achieve success. At the moment it's just not happening for her. This comes on the back of another film she tried hard in but ultimately came up short; 2046. I respect her immensely for trying and if it wasn't for her I probably wouldn't have given this film a second thought. Practically any shot of her from Memoirs of a Geisha linger in my memory as I write this review, which has to mean something about her command of the screen. Her eyes are frequently compared to deep pools of water in Memoirs and it's true that there's a lot of depth there. Depth not yet explored perhaps. We all know what she's capable of in terms of her graceful movement as demonstrated in Crouching Tiger and House of Flying Daggers so when she breaks out some incredible dancing in Memoirs it's not really a surprise. We're lead to believe she's shy and timid but she also has a comeback for anything Hatsumomo has to say. It seems she's a walking contradiction but that's the fault of the script, and of the director, rather than Zhang herself. The script is uneven and keeps mounting impossible sets of circumstances into the path of Sayuri making her assault of those obstacles even more ludicrous with every step. The bitching and backstabbing continues throughout with every female character happily sharpening the knives at every opportunity and Sayuri's responses becoming increasingly daft until it gets to the point where she's completely backed herself into a corner. Then they tag on a happy ending for no reason. Oh and what on Earth was that whole plot about? **SPOILERS FOLLOW** That a grown man would take an almost sexual interest in a 9 year old girl and remember her to the point where it turns into a fantasy for him to be with her and continue that for how many years? There's a 20 year age gap between these two characters. I wasn't doing the typical girly thing and fawning over a fantasy come true I was thinking how big that age gap is. It wasn't so much romantic as downright creepy. **SPOILERS END**. On the upside the entire film looks really pretty and reminded me of how beautiful Japan was when I had the pleasure of visiting it.
BEST BIT The dance where Sayuri makes her name as the most popular geisha in Kyoto.
RATING - **. At worst a chick flick about melodramatic infighting and backstabbing between women in the workplace. At best a film about following your heart that happens to have a captivating lead actress. Unfortunately too much of the former and not enough of the latter. Although I will quite happily line up for anything Ziyi Zhang does in her career. She's won me over too easily for me to give up just because she got saddled with a hack director in her English language debut.
NEXT Having seen FW Murnau's Nosferatu I'll be checking out Shadow of the Vampire, which suggests the lead character in Nosferatu was actually a vampire. Also Shooting Dogs, the other film about the genocide in Rwanda. And one of my favourite animation director's latest with Satoshi Kon's Paprika.
