# 147 - In The Mood For Love

 

Here we have a movie and a director I have heard a LOT about but never gotten to.   My love of Hong Kong cinema is mostly around the action but films like this and those make me mourn for a Hong Kong I'll probably never see.

This is a masterpiece by Wong Kar Wai - it follows the stories of two neighbors in 1962 Hong Kong who realize their spouses are having an affair and come together in their own unique way.   There is a haunting poetry to how the director shoots, and this seems to be pretty common to all his films

I usually don't do this but I heard this was the middle of an informal trilogy, so I watched the first film (Days of Being Wild) and I plan on watching the third film (which I think tie it all together as the trilogy) at some point.   Criterion has released a Blu-Ray Set of Kar-Wai's greatest films, but interestingly there's no spine number to it so I'm not sure how many I'll get to in the collection themselves besides this and Chungking Express later one - but i'll probably watch the others for fun at some point.   In the meantime most of the films are on the Channel with the exception of the 3rd film in this trilogy which I'll have to go looking for (It's on Pluto - oh god, commercial central) - - might have to find a fast rental somewhere.

Anyways this is a great piece of cinema and some believe it to be one of the greatest films of all time.   It can be a tiny bit confusing as it fades in and out and some scenes are them acting out something they think will happen rather than what happens.    I'd like to give it another run at some point - and get to the commentaries and special features and deleted scenes.   There's a lot to unpack here and it's hard with the seminal work of a director and work back but hey, that's kinda what I did with Satyajit Ray so maybe someday :)

#146 - The Cranes Are Flying

 

NOW we're talking - :)  This is a great movie - this is what I wanted when I started this crazy enterprise :)

My introduction to Mikhail Kalatozov was the film Soy Cuba, which he shot 4 years after this one but took some of his long visual shots to the next level.   There are some great ones in here as well.   This is an anti-war film (which as one director pointed out is a bit jarring given our perception of what we thought the Soviet Union was like).   If someone asks me what my favorite film is based upon the shots and composition, I'd be very tempted to say Soy Cuba.  (With Russian Ark a close second, but the gimmick of one continuous shot does feel a bit strained at times.)

Mikhail was a cinematographer before a director, and so it's resulted in some crazy compositional shots - at times aerobatic and jarring, sometimes soaring and long inspiring shots.   

This film is about a young couple in love separated by WWII.   It especially focuses on the heroine who has to wait for news about her fiance and process that along with the trauma of a rape and marriage to the beast of a man who did it.   There's a lot here to unpack and because I have such an interest in Russia and WWII, it hit all my buttons.

Apparently this came out during a time called the Thaw, which was the restrictions lifted about Soviet Realism after the death of Stalin.   As I say, it does have very strong anti-war sentiments which goes against what we THINK we know about Russia, but Russia suffered nearly 35 million dead between it's armed services and civilians in WWII, so if they came out of that cautious about war, it's understandable.

Got a few good special features on this one - absolutely worth a 2nd watching and if you can find Soy Cuba, that one gets extra attention too. 

#145 - The Fireman's Ball

 

Man...I watched this 4 days ago - (watched is a strong word - it barely held my interest) - and I realized when looking for what's next I hadn't written the entry.

Maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I had understood it's partially a thinly veiled satire at Czech Communist Leadership and it was banned after the Russian Invasion.

As it was it was a slightly humorous farce but nothing that could really entertain me in any real degree - of course Milos Forman would go to America and do lots of other great stuff and win lots of awards - this was his last film in his native country.

Wasn't a good one for me - not terribly enjoyable - DVD is out of print in Criterion but it's on the channel

#144 - Loves of a Blonde

 

Only my 2nd Czech New Wave film - I think I expected a little more after Closely Watched Trains - (and we got another one to go) - kind of an interesting story about a woman in a town where women outnumber men 16 to 1 and she bounces from an absent boyfriend to a new one.

Some of the shots here are really extended - a dialogue shot can go for 10-15 minutes (or a party shot) - with cuts back and forth between the speakers - Milos Forman, of course, would come to the US and do some legendary work - (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Man on the Moon, amongst others) - but we probably won't see these actors/actresses again except in another film out of Czechoslovakia.   (Thank God for Spell check)

it was an interesting film and not a bad way to spend 88 minutes but I won't be getting the DVD anytime soon.   I think when I see New Wave, I automatically associate it with French, but each movement had it's own styles - what I can say is that apparently this was a lax time in some of the authoritarian tendencies of the Eastern Bloc and that gave this particular New Wave a chance to flourish before crackdowns later