Cafe Lumiere
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Movie Reviews of Cafe Lumiere
Movie Review: Excellent film; definitely a work of art.
Summary: 5 Stars
In the special presentation segment, an interview with the director,
Hou Hsiao-hsien in Taiwan, he comments that Japanese viewers felt he strongly captured the essence of Japanese cultural life. The wonder of this film is it's subtlety in showing the aesthetic of the characters. Woody Allen for instance exaggerates characters and focuses on the dysfunction and weaknesses of the characters. Here, the characters are faced with the dilemma of having a life, but also facing an unexpected pregnancy. The don't, however whine and complain or have psychological breakdowns.
As cinema, this is a 5 star gem. All of the visuals are magnificent.
This accomplishment was not accidental; much planning and re-shooting of scenes was required to make this film look so easy. As another reviewer mentioned, the title has historical reference to the Lumiere brothers as pioneers in film; and the train sequences both visually and audio are wonderful. I am curious if a foley artist was used for some of the sounds inside the train or if they were dubbed in from real life.
Re Ozu, the clips shown in the special segments, imo were much more harsh, crass, and unevolved aesthetically than the subject film.
Movie Review: Great reflection film!
Summary: 5 Stars
If you enjoy indie films, especially ones that just follow the character's life & story, this film is for you. I quite enjoy the 'sleeper' movie that's not all action packed. This is a lighthearted story of an independent, young Japanese girl who makes her own life decisions, even if it's against her family's traditional views. Also stars Asano Tadanobu as a shy love interest.Movie Review: Gentle and Subtle
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a very different kind of storytelling. Everything is shown, almost nothing is told. You have to be keen to pick up the clues, but the scenes are all so quiet that it's too easy to think nothing is happening. Often, even the placement of the camera is telling you something.
It's a slow, gentle, slice-of-life look at one modern woman's relationships. Not for everyone.
Movie Review: A good Japanese film from a Taiwanese film maker. Helps if you like trains.
Summary: 3 Stars
You have to like trains, find them romantic or aesthetically pleasing in order to enjoy this movie to the fullest: there's a train going by; there she is walking to the train; there she is getting on the train; there she is on the train; there she is getting off the train; there she is walking away from the train ... cut. Rinse and repeat.
Having said that, she, Yo Hitoto, a Japanese singer making her film debut here, is fabulous. I enjoyed her 'hmm', 'hai', 'mmm', 'grunt' style acting. I've never heard acting like it before. She gives a very natural and genuine performance. She's great. Her mom and dad are great. Tadanobu Asano is here. He's a good enough actor that you can sense his muted desire in subtle ways. Almost every minute of people interaction in this film, even in silence, is superb. But the film is padded with a lot of train rides and walking.
I assume we are to live with Hitoto's internals while she is traveling around doing nothing. The problem (or contradiction) with that approach is that we are presented with a character who appears not to have much going on inside, problem-wise. She is overtly presented as someone rather carefree. The spectacular scene where her parents come to visit and she speaks her mind about the man who made her pregnant gave me no sense that it was troubling to her. This seems at odds with the desire of the film. Or else it's genius. I was touched by (what turned out to be) the end of the film, until it turned out to be the end of the film. Hitoto's reaction both times to waking up to Asano's character: the first time when she has the flu and the second time at the end of the film, were lovely as could be. I give Hou high marks for reiterating the theme, and for making it obvious the first time and subtle the second but sadly, final time. Waking up to the little joys in life, done without fanfare. Hou does possess a subtle brilliance.
I understand what Hou is trying to do. I really think I get this thing. Well ... a couple things. One is the pace, creating a tempo, a rhythm. The other is creating a scenario with compelling characters that is deep enough to be immersive but not thick enough to proceed and resolve in traditionally expected ways. Basically, we should be left wanting more. We're given the gift of letting our imaginations fill in the blanks. That's a good thing. I just think Hou filled Cafe Lumiere with a little too much un-engaging material, although the Taiwanese director did highlight, very well, many of the family and generational issues that show up as the theme in many of the best Japanese films.The nonchalance of the daughter towards her pregnancy is not an approach her parents share. Nor is her un-romantic, pragmatic view of the man who made her pregnant.
I am suspicious of (these whatever generation) film makers who employ the nothingness technique in the name of realism. I think some of them are jerks who just want to be challenging, some of them are inept and don't realize they aren't succeeding in making something good, and some of them do things that appeal to others but not to me.
I'm not against the technique. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. And sometimes trains, or at least train tracks, are used very effectively.
Movie Review: Shadow and Light
Summary: 3 Stars
Director: Hou Hsiao-hsien
Duration: 103 Minutes
Directed by one of Taiwan's most acclaimed directors, Goodbye South, Goodbye, Flowers of Shanghai, Millennium Mambo, but filmed entirely in Japan and in the Japanese language, Café Lumiere is a tribute for the 100th birthday of one of Japan's most famous directors: Ozu Yasujiro. Renowned for his use of shadow and light and unmoving cameras, Ozu's films mainly concentrated on the internal struggles of families inside there traditional, often spacious, homes where not only did the hidden tensions between family members come to the surface, but also the care and affection, albeit subdued, that the family members hold for each other. In this 2003 film, Hou Hsiao-hsien attempts to capture Ozu's celluloid landscape with his own camera, but how successful is he?
A writer, Inoue Yoko has just returned home to Japan from Taiwan where she continued her research on the Taiwanese composer Jiang Wen-ye. Suffering from nightmares on her trip, she calls her friend Hajime, Asano Tadanobu, the proprietor of a used bookstore, and tells him of her nightmare about a baby whose face began to melt like ice. Later she travels to the quiet confines of the bookstore to pick up a couple of books and CDs Hajime acquired for me. Yoko then spends an inordinate amount of time wandering Tokyo before going to see her father and stepmother. Almost completely silent, almost the only sentence uttered by Yoko while at home is that she would like her mother to prepare her some nikujaga, beef stew. However, that night, after her father has gone to bed, Yoko tells her stepmother that she is pregnant and that she does not plan on marrying the baby's Taiwanese father but instead that she intends to raise the child on her own. It is later revealed that she does not want to marry her boyfriend because he is a mama's boy whose mother still controls most of his life.
With this information later revealed to him, Yoko's father becomes even more silent, and Yoko continues her day to day activities researching Jiang Wen-ye and enjoying the company of Hajime who helps her with her research while he continues his own obsessions of recording the sounds of trains.
Although a bit vacuous, Café Lumiere is beautifully filmed. The interior of Hajime's bookstore, Yoko's apartment and family home, and the interiors of the cafes are stunning to behold because of the mixture of shadow and light. Hajime's bookstore has an almost claustrophobic comforting nature with its hundreds of books and dark wood. The characters come off as a bit empty, but this might stem from Hou's desire to create characters who are so absorbed within the interiors of their own beings that they chose to reduce their communications with the outside world. While a decent movie, Café Lumiere is definitely not a must see unless one is either a major fan of Hou Hsiao-hsien or maybe Asano Tadanobu.
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