Kjærleik i Beijing. Mumitrollet. Argento.

FILMER SETT SIDEN SIST:

Haibane Renmei, som føles som Lost regissert av David Lynch i Straight Story – modus, men som endelig viser tegn til drama etter å ha brukt nesten halve serien på gjøre oss kjent med karakterene. Vakkert.

Perhaps Love

Hong Kong har en lang musikaltradisjon, men den har ligget død lenge. Etter å ha sett Perhaps Love lurer jeg på hvorfor. Hvis dette er nivået musikalene pleide å ligge på der i gården er tida overmoden for en skikkelig revival. Dette er en skikkelig fin film.

Det hele dreier seg om Sun Na (spilt av Xun Zhou, et nytt bekjentskap for meg), en ambisiøs skuespillerinne som har ofret identiteten sin for berømmelsen, regissøren Nie Wen, (spilt av veteran og popstjerne Jacky Cheung i en altfor sjelden hovedrolle) som ga henne alt hun ønsket seg, og Lin Jian-dong (spilt av en av Fru Uts favorittjekkaser, Takeshi Kanesheiro) som hun forlot og forsøkte å glemme. De tre kommer sammen for å spille inn en musikal om en trapesartist med hukommelsestap som har latt en sirkusdirektør skape minnene sine, og som møter igjen gamlekjæresten. Det går som det må gå.

Regissør Peter Chan har hentet inspirasjon fra mange hold; overraskende nok er det ikke Moulin Rouge, men Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind det lånes mest fra. Men det er ikke noe i Eternal Sunshine som er like vakkert innrammet og fotografert som Perhaps Loves flashbacksekvenser Beijing. Christopher Doyle må ha gjort en avtale med Djevelen. Han er den eneste grunnen til at jeg er spent på lady in the Water.

Jeg skrev litt her om dagen om at Hkfilmer ofte kan være tunge på underholdning og lette på substans. Perhaps Love er slett ingen dum film, det sies mye fornuftig om kjærlighet, oppurtunisme og nostalgi her, og det hele gestaltes av skuespillere som er mer enn kleshengere. Det eneste jeg har å utsette på denne filmen er egentlig selve sangene; de er litt anonyme, med unntak av den som heter Den of sin eller noe sånt, den er veldig tøff. Bruken av sangene er imidlertid stilig, og Jacky Cheung kalles ikke “God of Song” for ingenting. Bra lunger på den mannen.

Alt i alt er dette en vakker, trist, klassisk liten musikal med mindre pantomime og mer følelser enn gjennomsnittet. Og slutten er ikke slik man tror den blir.

Anbefales alle, men spesielt Tor Andre

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Nytt

De 25. Hong Kong Film Awards
Har nettopp blitt delt ut. Et litt magert Hongkong år ble behørig feiret, men når Initial D får priser er kandidatene for svake. Election tok en drøss med priser. Full liste her. Perhaps Love burde fått flere, mener nå jeg.

The Third Mother
Tok en tur bortom den fabelkatige Dario Argento-siden Dark Dreams for å sjekke status på den tredje filmen i Trilogien om de tre Mødrene. Det henger altså slik sammen at filmene Suspiria(1977) og Inferno(1980) er de to første filmene i en trilogi basert på en prosatekst av Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859), fra Confessions of an Opium Eater:

“…What is it the sisters are? What is it that they do? Let me describe their form, and their presence: if form it were that still fluctuated in its outline, or presence it were that for ever advanced to the front, or for ever receded amongst shades.

The eldest of the three is named Mater Lachrymarum, Our Lady of Tears. She it is that night and day raves and moans, calling for vanished faces. She stood in Rama, where a voice was heard of lamentation, – Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted. She it was that stood in Bethlehem on the night when Herod’s sword swept its nurseries of Innocents, and the little feet were stiffened for ever, which, heard at times as they tottered along floors overhead, woke pulses of love in household hearts that were not unmarked in heaven.

Her eyes are sweet and subtle, wild and sleepy, by turns; oftentimes rising to the clouds, oftentimes challenging the heavens. She wears a diadem round her head. And I knew by childish memories that she could go abroad upon the winds, when she heard the sobbing of litanies or the thundering of organs, and when she beheld the mustering of summer clouds. This sister, the eldest, it is that carries keys more than papal at her girdle, which open every cottage and every palace. She, to my knowledge, sat all last summer by the bedside of the blind beggar, him that so often and so gladly I talked with, whose pious daughter, eight years old, with the sunny countenance, resisted the temptations of play and village mirth to travel all day long on dusty roads with her afflicted father. For this did God send her a great reward. In the spring – time of the year, and whilst yet her own Spring was budding, he recalled her to himself. But her blind father mourns for ever over her; still he dreams at midnight that the little guiding hand is locked within his own; and still he wakens to a darkness that is now within a second and a deeper darkness. This Mater Lachrymarum has also been sitting all this winter of 1844 – 5 within the bed – chamber of the Czar, bringing before his eyes a daughter (not less pious) that vanished to God not less suddenly, and left behind her a darkness not less profound. By the power of the keys it is that Our Lady of tears glides a ghostly intruder into the chambers of sleepless men, sleepless women, sleepless children, from Ganges to Nile, from Nile to Mississippi. And her, because she is the first – born of her house, and has the widest empire, let us honour with the title of “Madonna!”

The second sister is called Mater Suspiriorum – Our Lady of Sighs. She never scales the clouds, nor walks abroad upon the winds. She wears no diadem. And her eyes, if they were ever seen, would be neither sweet nor subtle; no man could read their story; they would be found filled with perishing dreams, and with wrecks of forgotten delirium. But she raises not her eyes; her head, on which sits a dilapidated turban, droops for ever, for ever fastens on the dust. She weeps not. She groans not. But she sighs inaudibly at intervals. Her sister, Madonna, is oftentimes stormy and frantic, raging in the highest against heaven, and demanding back her darlings. But Our Lady of Sighs never clamours, never defies, dreams not of rebellious aspirations. She is humble to abjectness. Hers is the meekness that belongs to the hopeless. Murmur she may, but it is in her sleep. Whisper she may, but it is to herself in the twilight. Mutter she does at times, but it is in solitary places that are desolate as she is desolate, in ruined cities,and when the sun has gone down to his rest.

This sister is the visitor of the Pariah, of the Jew, of the bondsman to the oar in the Mediterranean galleys; of the English criminal in Norfolk Island, blotted out from the books of remembrance in sweet far-off England; of the baffled penitent reverting his eyes for ever upon a solitary grave, which to him seems the altar over-thrown of some past and bloody sacrifice, on which altar no oblations can now be availing, whether towards pardon that he might implore, or towards reparation that he might attempt. Every slave that at noonday looks up to the tropical sun with timid reproach, as he points with one hand to the earth, our general mother, but for him a stepmother, as he points with the other hand to the Bible, our general teacher, but against him sealed and sequestered; every woman sitting in darkness, without love to shelter her head, or hope to illumine her solitude, because the heaven-born instincts kindling in her nature germs of holy affections, which God implanted in her womanly bosom, having been stifled by social necessities, now burn sullenly to waste, like sepulchral lamps amongst the ancients; every nun defrauded of her unreturning May-time by wicked kinsman, whom God will judge; every captive in every dungeon; all that are betrayed, and all that are rejected; outcasts by traditionary law, and children of hereditary disgrace: all these walk with Our Lady of Sighs. She also carries a key; but she needs it little. For her kingdom is chiefly amongst the tents of Shem, and the houseless vagrant of every clime. Yet in the very highest ranks of man she finds chapels of her own; and even in glorious England there are some that, to the world, carry their heads as proudly as the reindeer, who yet secretly have received her mark upon their foreheads.

But the third Sister, who is also the youngest-! Hush! whisper whilst we talk of her! Her kingdom is not large, or else no flesh should live; but within that kingdom all power is hers. Her head, turreted like that of Cybele, rises almost beyond the reach of sight. She droops not; and her eyes, rising so high, might be hidden by distance. But, being what they are, they cannot be hidden: through the treble veil of crape which she wears the fierce light of a blazing misery, that rests not for matins or for vespers, for noon of day or noon of night, for ebbing or for flowing tide, may be read from the very ground. She is the defier of God. She also is the mother of lunacies, and the suggestress of suicides. Deep lie the roots of her power; but narrow is the nation that she rules. For she can approach only those in whom a profound nature has been upheaved by central convulsions; in whom the heart trembles and the brain rocks under conspiracies of tempest from without and tempest from within. Madonna moves with uncertain steps, fast or slow, but still with tragic grace. Our Lady of Sighs creeps timidly and stealthily. But this youngest Sister moves with incalculable motions, bounding, and with tiger’s leaps. She carries no key; for, though coming rarely amongst men, she storms all doors at which she is permitted to enter at all. And her name is Mater Tenebrarum – Our Lady of Darkness.

These were the Semnai Theai, or Sublime Goddesses, these were the Eumenides, or Gracious Ladies (so called by antiquity in shuddering propitiation), of my Oxford dreams…”

Et spennende mythos, dette, med koblinger både til Furiene fra gresk mytologi (og Sandman) og til en av favorittbøkene mine; Fritz Leibers Our Lady of Darkness.

Suspiria (om mater Suspiriorum) er en av de flotteste filmene jeg vet om, mens Inferno (om mater Tenebrarum) er ok. Den tredje skulle startet produksjon nå i april ,men er utsatt til høsten. Argento selv har uttalt at han gleder seg til å vende tilbake til mødrenes syke verden, etter å ha gått lei av den semi-realistiske stilen han har benyttet i de tre siste filmene sine. Den nyeste, tv-filmen Do you like Hitchcock er ute på DVD (og gikk utrolig nok på svensk TV i fjor sommer uten at jeg fikk sett den), men er etter sigende minst like nitrist som fjorårets The Card Player. La oss be en stille bønn om at gamle Dario finner igjen Mojo’en sin og gjør et like solid comeback som Romero har gjort. September er foreløpig produksjonsstart, men før det skal Dario lage en ny episode Masters of Horror. Dårlig prioritering, spør du meg.

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Trailerparken

CLERKS II
Jeg likte tittelen The Passion of the Clerks bedre, men likevel.

THE SIMPSONS
For å blidgjøre Anne.

THE SPARROW
Johnnie To holder tempoet oppe, det er bare Takashi Miike som er mer produktiv. Etter å ha fått mye skryt for Election følger han opp med en helt annen type film. Election 2 kommer senere i år.

KEKEXILI: MOUNTAIN PATROL
The Man with the Plan kaller denne filmen årets beste, denne må sjekkes ut snarest.

MUMMITROLLET

Ikke akkurat en trailer dette her, men for å feire at den ordentlige dukkefilmversjonen av mummitrollet endelig har dukket opp på DVD er det mulig å laste ned en hel episode klassisk mummitrollet her (.zipfil).

april 9, 2006 | Kategorier: film | Tags: argento, filmnytt, haibane renmei, mummitrollet, musikal | 2 Kommentarer »