I am surprised that I watched so many films and TV series in the last four months, much more than I had in the previous six years before that. Here are some more:
1. Monsieur Lazhar (2011): It’s a Canadian movie in Québecois French, so that was an interesting listening practice. The story itself is a tribute to all those immigrants who made it to their new adopted country and tried hard to settle down and start again, but always with some distance, doubt and fear. The past is unspeakable to most of the people, and the mundanity that people in the new country take for granted can become easily unattainable. Again, can we have fewer “save the world superhero” movies and more telling the stories of the people around us who are almost invisible? 2. Perfumes (Les Parfums, 2011): It’s always a delight to watch films about men and women but with no sex or even romance involved, a delight very rare. 3. He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not (À la folie… pas du tout, 2003): Audrey Tautou is perfect for this film, just as in Amélie. A great psychological drama directed by a young female director Laetitia Colombani. 4. Kicking and Screaming (1995): first movie by Noah Baumbach at the tender age of 26. You can get as much jealous as you want. 5. Her (2013): AI chatbot is all over the place recently, but here is a movie made 10 years ago about the romance between a man and an AI program. It’s not crazy. It’s totally human I think. I would probably fall for her too if I was a man, just like many of them in the movie. I mean, who wouldn’t for a witty mind, a caring character, a sexy voice, and a body that you can imagine according to your own preference?
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I meant to watch TV series because each episode is much shorter than a film, but of course I always end up binging the whole season in one or two days. At least I could still say that I watch French TV series to keep up with my French. Here are some good ones:
1. Voltaire High (Mixte in French): how shocked I was to learn that co-education didn’t begin in France until early 1960s, and women were not allowed to own their own bank accounts until 1965. What achievements we have made in the last half century, and what a long way to go still! And those disturbing and unpredictable coming of age stories, I imagined in my mind what if the protagonist was my own daughter, my own son. I cannot protect them from everything, and I don’t think it’s necessary to protect them from everything. Their life is for them to experience, just as we have been experiencing and living ours. What I will do is to stand by their side with as few judgements or prejudices as possible. Huh, might be easier said than done. Very much looking forward to season 2. 2. Call My Agent! (Dix Pour Cent in French): very interesting and intriguing with great performances by the leading roles, and supporting roles which are played by top stars as themselves. Isn’t this a great idea for TV series? If I have to name one thing that I have learnt from watching it, it is stop telling lies, even the good ones, the harmless ones. Life would be much simpler, and probably better, if we don’t tell lies but just true feelings. 3. Family Business (fashionably it only has an English name): a hilarious comedy, a family’s fantasy. 4. Lupin: I am never a big fan of detective stories. Mr. Know-All just seems to have too much luck in every case. If you admit that you are just pretending to be Mr. Know-All, it’s fun to watch, as in “Les Petits Meurtres d’Agatha Christie”, but if you are seriously trying to be a real Mr. Know-All, it’s pretty lame. Nevertheless, Monsieur Omar Sy is so pleasant to watch, n’est-ce pas? 5. The Forest (La Forêt in French): a great suspense story with multiple well-developed characters. Watching films is like listening to others' intimate stories in a society where people, even familiar friends, don't open up to each other any more in real life. It’s also fun to compare American movies with European (French) films. To be biased and generalized, I would say Americans are obsessed about salvage and happiness: saving the world, saving the protagonists, finding happiness and peace, usually through love, and the ending of the stories are usually easy to predict (at least for me). Whereas the French ones could not care less about salvage. Their world is themselves, and love doesn’t necessarily bring happiness, but rather, complications. And they are obsessed with exploring the millions of facets of love and desire, and hence, unpredictable endings usually. Here are my recent ones.
1: When Harry Met Sally (1989): this is considered as one of the masterful pieces of rom-com, one of Nora Ephron’s best, and the key theme explored in this movie is: can a man and a woman be really friends without the man’s desire to get on the bed? Harry and Sally spent two hours of the whole movie to arrive at the conclusion surprising to themselves that no, man and woman cannot. I don’t think any French film would even bother to answer this question (counterexamples welcome here). 2. You’ve Got Mail (1998): a light-hearted cheerful no-brainer, but that short-haired Meg Ryan is so pleasant to watch. 3. Sleepless in Seattle (1993): I watched it simply because I am living in Seattle. When I visited Sweden, friends there would say: “Oh, Seattle, I know Seattle, it’s in that movie.” That’s usually all they knew about Seattle. But I really don’t get the movie. I mean, when Americans get crazily romantic, do they really ditch a perfect husband (albeit the massive allergies), fly across the US and bet their love on a guy whose stories they heard accidentally on the radio? On the other hand, I guess you would never know unless you try. Or, you would probably regret the rest of your whole life if you don’t try, as Francois said in No. 4. "It rains nine months in Seattle", that's the only thing I could sympathize with in the film. 4. Les Choses Qu'on Dit. Les Choses Qu'on Fait (2020): which literally means “The things we say. The things we do”, which is translated into its crippled English title “Love Affair(s)”. The French seem to be specially fond of long titles for their films (see No. 6 ) That’s how François and Daphné met: he walked away but turned around to invite her for a drink, saying: “It’s probably imprudent to invite you for a drink like this, but I think it’s also stupid not to ask.” And that’s roughly the philosophy that I am trying to live my life by nowadays, metaphorically of course. But then Daphné also said (not to François, who later becomes her husband, but to François’s cousin who becomes her lover): “People have the right to express their desires, but they don’t have to take actions. I want you. You want me. But we are both taken. It’s still nice to meet you in my life.” But of course they are all lying, hence the name of the film. Watch it, and also listen to the songs by Camélia Jordana who acted Daphné. 5. One Day (2011): Anne Hathaway is American, but Jim Sturgess is English, and the director Lone Scherig is Danish, so of course, it’s a European film. And isn’t the snobbish British English a delightful change from my daily American English? Some reviews say it’s just a British cover version of “When Harry Met Sally” as another friends-turned-true-lovers story, but somehow I am more impressed by One Day than Harry and Sally, probably because it’s less pretentious. We know about Em’s love and desire for Dex from the very beginning. She wanted to have sex with him. That’s expressed clearly from the very beginning. Let’s just throw sex out there and get it out of the way for a while, for like 10 years, and come back to it, no, not to sex, but to true love. No bed scene needed in the end. The story is a melodrama, the locations are glorious: Edinburg, London, Paris, French beach town. Good-looking people like Em and Dex never hang around in forlorn places. 6. Qu'est-ce qu'on a fait au Bon Dieu (2014): Literally means “What have we done for God’s sake!” Its crippled English translation: “Serial (Bad) Weddings”. Does English have to use parentheses to translate every French film with long names? Get some real translators please! Back to the film, a pure comedy, a true delight, just laugh out loud. 7. Mon Roi (2015): simply means “My King”, less challenging for translation. A powerful poignant exploration of a relationship. A very feminine perspective: writer, director, cinematographer are all females. Impeccable performance by Vincent Cassel and Emmanuelle Bercot. No judging, no preaching, no salvation. The man and the woman talk for themselves. The qualities that attract us can also be the ones that trap us. We might leave someone for the same reason that we love them. The other doesn’t change. Our expectations for the other change. Circumstances change. Cruelly true. 8. Finally, the blockbuster “Everything Everywhere All At Once” (2022). I get it that it may be good, I don’t get it that it is that good. It’s an ambitious movie taking on the eternal theme of the meaning of love and life in a very … grand and… imaginative way, just as its fitting name. But of course it starts with “saving the world”, and ends with a happy ending. Congratulation to Michelle Yeoh, but that universe jumping is a bit too much for me. I've noticed that my most creative moments is when I get sick and can do nothing but lie in bed trying desperately to catch up with some sleep but cannot. Fortunately and unfortunately I had plenty of this opportunity in the last four months. I've also taken the opportunity of this limbo state to watch - mostly rewatch- some films from the 1990s and early 2000s. Here are some quick thoughts:
1. Brokeback Mountain (2005): what if the two protagonists were women? In 1960s-1980s in the film, could they just leave their young kids and have fun in the mountains for a week two or three times a year? 2. The Squid and the Whale (2005): As Roger Ebert wrote, I don't know what I am supposed to feel either about the film. The unsettling lack of love in their talk or behavior to their kids left me totally blank. But again, as Roger wrote, these kids will be fine, especially if they grew up in Brooklyn in the 1980s and raised up by two writer parents whose dinner table talk was about Dickens. What do you get to complain about? 3. Marriage Story (2019): Noah Baumbach's recent story about divorce is much more powerful than The Squid and the Whale, and more relatable to audiences, even though this time the couple was equally talented as theatre producer and actor. The love, tenderness and grace remained even at the ugliest moments of the divorce made the characters so human and true. Go watch it if you want a divorce, or save your marriage. 4. Films by Wong Kar-wai: As Tears Go By (1998), Days of Being Wild (1990), Chungking Express and Ashes of Time (1994), Happy Together (1997), In the Mood for Love (2000), 2046 (2004). I watched all these films about 15 years ago, but still I had to watch 2046 twice to get the connections between these films. It felt like a fun detective game. All of Wong's films are about unattainable love (with the only exception in Chungking Express), lost or missed, and the efforts to correct the past, to rewrite the memory, or to forget the unforgettable, as epitomized in 2046. Watch them only if you want to be submerged in a flood of emotions. 5. The trilogy by Richard Linklater: my favorite is the first one Before Sunrise (1995) because it's so romantic but still feels so true. It's the romance that everyone of us wants to have, that everyone of us thinks we could have. It's a romance full of youth, hope and brain. It can brighten up my day. Before Sunset (2004) is not a romance any more, but still an exciting affair, and Before Midnight (2013) is the real picture of the "happily ever after". I love the dialogues in all the three movies. 6. Happily Ever After (2004) by Yvan Attal and Charlotte Gainsbourg, and fairly enough, it's French enough. Another effort to depict one of the true pictures of middle-age marriages, which seems to be: if you have problems with your marriage, take it easy, it's completely normal. You could probably play on both sides, at least for a while. 7. The Bridges of Madison County (1995): and here is the American morality to deal with extra-marital relationships: you cut it, you bury it, you treasure it for the rest of your whole life, and you write a thick diary about it and show your kids after you die for them to learn from it. |
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May 2024
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