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Rurik_Snorri
Reviews
The Storekeeper (1998)
Hilarious
This is one of the funniest film school shorts I have ever seen in my life and I jest not. The level of pretentiounsness mixed with uber p.c. god-knows-what, the misdirected "anti-violence" message is just so completely out of left field that you cannot help but laugh. How those 4 year olds could have pried open the metal bars that a 20 year old criminal needed a whole toolbox to do is apparently not part of the issue. I also like the "arms contractor", a Dutchman natch but certainly a metaphor for (white) South African mercenaries along with his servile sellout native sidekick.
Please, don't let the audience think for a second that the main character may have indeed been protecting his life and property which was being burgled every night. A plea for gun control? Or a clever way to be clever and get your career rolling? You be the judge.
SA has the highest crime and murder rate in the world. Can't we all get along? Har har har
Oldeuboi (2003)
Pointless, Senseless and Repugnant
Try as I may I cannot for the life of me understand the slack given to the type of rubbish like this. Let me rephrase, it's more than slack, in some cases there has actually been critical acclaim. For what?! Please stop it with the references to Oedipus Rex, Beckett, Count of Monte Christo, Hitchcock or whatever. This is a C grade exploitation film, poorly cast, poorly directed, poorly shot, poorly edited, poorly everything. It is one small step better than another waste of film that came out a few years ago which I believe was called "Audition" I think by a guy named Miike Tadashi. (Too lazy to check now). The amount of attention that crap got blew me away. I remember when Japanese cinema used to be acclaimed for Ozu, Oshima, Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, Ichikawa, Teshigahara and others. Those were real filmmakers. Miike is nobody.
That's as far as Japan goes. Surely there must be some South Koreans who are doing better things than this Sickboy.
The only reason I give it a 2 instead of a 1 is because the very initial premise IS indeed interesting but is handled so incompetently and sophomorically that you might as well be watching a snuff film. In fact, if the octopus counts, it is somewhat of a snuff film. Just as violent and just as juvenile as Tarantino but without his (for lack of a better word) "talent".
Basically a completely vile and disgusting exercise that should be relegated to the cutout bin.
A State of Mind (2004)
Caveat Emptor - not realistic, propagandistic
This film does NOT show what ordinary North Koreans go through. It focuses on an a family of the communist elite in Pyongyang who by western standards are filthy rich because they actually have some rice and meat for dinner. Give me a damn break. In order to live in Pyongyang where this film was shot, you need to be a member of the communist party. You need to prove your allegiance to the communist party. In order to do that you will probably need to inform on other people who will end up in a gulag and will die of starvation, beatings, exposure or other privations, if you are not outright executed. The informant is a murderer by proxy.
The film follows the lives of just such people. Some may be brainwashed. Some know exactly what they're doing. Some put decency to the wind and will do anything they can to survive. It's called dog eat dog. (No Korean pun intended).
Of course this all throws in the question of how exactly a UK crew was given access to a completely closed society; a society that could violently collapse at the drop of a dime if it had more information to the outside world. Could it perhaps be that these dunderheads are actually sympathetic to the murderous regime of Jong-Il? All signs point to yes. At the very least they consider this just a 'different system' of life. Just like living in your own house with your wife and kids is 'different' from being in solitary confinement in a state penitentiary... at best.
If the filmmakers had any integrity, heart, soul, or bravery they would have gone against all odds to expose the horrors that occur on a daily basis in this awful place. The concept of the so-called "mass games" as a tool for brainwashing - which is exactly its purpose - could have been shown for the sham that it is but instead is given a nice gloss-over in this rubbish film. The director's commentary on the DVD is the prize winner. He actually states something to the like of "I am just trying to show ordinary people in DPRK" and "it's just a different system". Well the Third Reich was a different system too.
Please try to keep your eyes open people! Relativism in the face of abject evil will make you the first in line under the firing squad when the bullshit artists come to power.
Satansbraten (1976)
The pits
Well Germans aren't really known for their comedy. Regardless, as the other reviewer said, this is RWF's absolute worst film ever. I don't know what kind of drugs and booze he was on when this was made but it certainly wasn't his regular Remy/cocaine/ hallucinogenics cocktail. Despite his penchant for self abuse all the drugs and brandy somehow worked in his favor at other times. Not here. Fassbinder is an absolute genius artist, one that appears once in a very long time but this one is complete rubbish.
Everyone can make mistakes but the remarkable thing about RWF is that some mediocrities notwithstanding, most of his vast output is really, really good. This is the bottom of the barrel. Therefore... don't waste your time. He has 20 other films which range from good to mind- blowing.