It’s been 25 years since Tampopo was originally released, but the movie still remains as appetizing as ever. This food-filled “ramen western” beautifully captures the sensuous side of the culinary experience through parody.
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Usually, to say that a satire is very much of its time is to give it the kiss of death. But in the case of Giants and Toys, this actually makes the film more appealing. This 1958 Japanese satire of business culture and advertising is dated in all the details but still resonant in its points on consumerism. This split between anachronistic aspects and modern themes end up making the film only more interesting now, serving as both a time capsule and a resonant portrait of the way in which business consumes those who practice it.
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The easiest thing to say about The Taste of Tea is that it’s odd. And this is true. The Taste of Tea is, without a doubt, an odd movie. What sets this 2004 film directed by Katsuhito Ishii apart, however, is its focus on the mundane, an interest in daily life and small moments that makes the film an immensely resonant and pleasant experience.
Manga are increasingly popular these days, filling more shelves in bookstores, and a general awareness about them growing each year. But knowledge is still primarily limited to the paper comics themselves (and a few children’s TV shows), and one wonders if other related media, including films, long popular in Japan, Korea and China, will make their way to North America as well.
La Donation (The Legacy) is a dignified tale about an elderly village doctor passing the torch to a younger physician. Sounds simple, but as she adjusts to her patients and to life in a desolate community, the new doctor becomes reconnected to the human race.
Montreal, December 8, 2009 – Radio Canada International’s Special Projects Team launches The Roots Challenge, a national competition of short films and multimedia productions. The Roots Challenge is open to all Canadians and permanent residents, 18 years and older, who wish to submit a video or multimedia production, 3 to 8 minutes in lenght. This competition targets citizen participation and aims to show the contribution of all cultures to the canadian mosaic.
This film is showing as part of the Jeon Soo-Il retrospective. You can see it at the Cinematheque Quebecoise on Saturday November 28 in Montreal. It will later be shown in Toronto, Vancouver, Los Angeles, Ottawa, and Washington D.C.
Jeon Soo-Il’s Time Between Dog and Wolf is essentially a tale of loss; it is a film about missing both people and sentimental space. The film is shot in a stark style and tells its realist story with a restrained minimalism. In fact, restraint is another term that could easily describe the film. The characters restrain information from each other and Jeon restrains information from the audience, leaving us to sift through the film for meaning ourselves.
The Bird Who Stops in the Air ***1/2 (three and a half stars)
1999, South Korea
Directed by Soo-il Jeon
Written by Soo-il Jeon
Starring Kyung-gu Sol, So-hie Kim
121 minutes
Korean (English subtitles)
I’ll admit, there was a time when my impression of South Korean cinema was unfairly skewed. Two years of a cult film column and a decade of attending genre film festivals had convinced me that even that country’s romantic comedies resolve themselves with tufts of human hair caught in the prongs of a claw hammer.
CBC news is reporting that Xavier Dolan’s J’ai tué ma mère has been selected as Canada’s entry for the Academy Awards. The film, which is the 20-year-old Quebecois director’s debut, has been picking up awards and plaudits at film festivals around the world. [CBC]
Haeundae is Korea’s first disaster movie, where different people try to survive the arrival of a mega tsunami that will leave the city in ruins.