lateen

A great slow movie about a guy coming back to his hometown and reflecting on what’s changed. I feel like most of the mainland China films I’ve seen are all very similar in pacing. Which is nice, I enjoy slow movies. I think this movie would make a great diptych with Taipei Story since they both have a guy coming back to a changed place.

This also continues the same theme I talked about in my Eva 3.0+1.0 log of not being able to change who you are, which I see a lot in East Asian movies. Maybe I should keep a tally of when I see it.

Much more drama focused compared to Itami’s previous 2 films. I found the style more subtle and was more so found in the editing. Its a little disappointing since I did go in with the expectation that things were going to be similar to The Funeral or Tampopo, but that expectation was entirely manufactured by me so I really shouldn’t.

Knowing the prestige of Katsuhiro Otomo this was a little disappointing. The premise of a yakuza man getting mad at tenants that don’t understand him is good and funny, but I don’t feel like it was worked through very well. He mostly does the same stuff, just waiting on the tenants to react. I think it would’ve worked better for him to try weirder things, and the tenants still not giving a shit. I found it kinda slow to a fault, I felt like nothing was happening for half the movie and I didn’t really feel like the movie was taking advantage of that well enough. The ending was cute though.

Lots of really annoying Hollywood-isms. Random quips that come out of no where, adding nothing. The first ~20 minutes could’ve easily been cut, its entirely exposition and is all reexplained later. There will be these brief 1-second flashbacks to something that was already shown in the movie, which I find pretty insulting. I didn’t fall asleep you don’t need to add a blinking red sign to say THIS IS THE PART WHERE THIS THING PAYS OFF.

Before watching this I would’ve answered yes to the question “Do you consider yourself a movie guy?”. But after watching and thinking a bit I don’t think I would. If I were to have watched every theatrically screened movie ever, I would most definitely dislike more movies than like. I’d think a ‘movie guy’ would end up liking significantly more than me. My definition has changed from “a movie guy is a person who likes movies” to “a movie guy is a person who likes movies for the sake of them being movies”. I think a lot of the ‘great’ American directors that talk about how much they “want to create a great film experience” are just making movies for the sake of being movies. I feel like that’s soulless. I want to watch a movie made for the sake of being art.