The last bit from the NYFF

Okay, there were supposed to be quite a few new reviews over the past week, but it seems that since I got my machine back, there were dozens of things to do, like reviews for the regular sites and the like. Plus, we're going to the Middle East in a few hours, in fact we've got to head on out in something like forty-five minutes.

So....

here are some of the last reviews:

I kind of liked Tristram Shandy and The Passenger but I didn't have time to finish the review for that or Who's Camus way or The Sun which was really very good. As to finished ones:

THREE TIMES, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Taiwan, 120m. 2005.

The expression of love changes through time, and to show that, Taiwanese auteur Hou Hsiao-hsien has decided to do an anthology of shorts in order to explain this thesis.

It’s a failure, but a worthy experience nonetheless.

Three pairs of lovers (Shu Qi and Chang Chen) meander through existence in 1911, 1966 and 2005, each trying to make sense of their feelings for each other.

The first short is by far the most successful. It’s 1966, and Shu Qi’s character May is running a pool hall which Chen(Chang) likes to hang out in. He falls for her but she doesn’t notice. He leaves for the Army and she gets another job. He follows her. Boring as hell for the first fifteen minutes, but the ending is almost worth it.

The second one is a disaster. Not the story, which is kind of cute in a subdued kind of way, or the acting, which is fine. Hou decides to make it a silent!!! Now this would be find if done correctly, say in black and white with faux scratches to make it look old. But no. This is in full color and sometimes the sound when the protagonist sing makes it seem really poorly done.

The third short, which takes place in the present day, is actually rather dumb. It’s a bisexual love triangle and the characters are all paper thin and we can’t care or empathize. Too friggen’ mannered.

This film was designed to win film festival prizes and leave the regular audiences in the dust.

THROUGH THE FOREST, Jean-Paul Civeyrac, France, 65m. 2005.

Armelle (Camille Berthomier) is in love with Renaud(Aurelien Wilk), but he’s dead, but that doesn’t stop her from making love in the mornings…

This drives her sisters Berenice (Alice Dubuisson) and Roxanne (Morgane Hainaux) to distraction. After all, there’s no such thing as ghosts, right? Rox, being a believer, takes Armelle to a medium (Mireille Roussel) who gets is wrong, and…it’s supposed to be really, really deep, but it’s actually really, really shallow.

A complete waste of time.

Keep on checking this place out, and follow my adventures through the Middle East, which might be really exiting. Strange, exotic countries of which we hear quite a bit about but know hardly at all.