Father Geek here with another bit of coolness from our crew in Hawaii covering this Spring's Edition of HIFF (Hawaii International Film Festival). AICN Islands Editor Moon Yun Choi sent in the following report from her reporter Albert...
The South Korean drama JEALOUSY IS MY MIDDLE NAME was the first film shown on April 4th at the Hawaii International Film Festival's Spring Fling.
Written and Directed by Chan-ok Park, JEALOUSY revolves around a magazine writer in his late twenties, Lee Wonsang and the middle-aged editor and publisher of the magazine he works for, Han Yun-Shik. Wonsang is a new writer at Mr. Han's magazine and he gets reamed out by Han over the quality of his writing or the choice of a writer to highlight.
As the film progresses, Han begins to take a shine to Wonsang. He feels comfortable around the young man who has been squiring him around to and from work in his company work and also dictating letters to him. However, Han is also a seducer of women and easily cheats on his wife (as compensation it seems for being an editor and not the writer he set out to be).
One of his conquests happens to have been Wonsang's ex-girlfriend who left him for Han only to get dumped herself. Han is unaware that Wonsang is the boyfriend of his former lover. Wonsang also is drawn to the magazine's new photographer, Sungjeon, who worked as a veterinarian to pay the bills before being hired to take photos.
Unfortunately, Han is also attracted to Sungjeon. Hmm, another love triangle or lust triangle seems to have formed... Yet, JEALOUSY IS MY MIDDLE NAME is not a romantic melodrama or disturbing thriller but a quite observant drama that takes a higher road.
Instead of simply creating messy, embarrassing situations with even messier outcomes, director Chan-ok Park focuses on Wonsang and Han and the burgeoning friendship that is developing between the two men.
JEALOUSY is a thoughtful and somewhat mature film. The filmmakers seem to accept their characters for who they are instead of manipulating the script in order to produce some violent or emotionally charged resolution. Wonsang and Han are seen for what they are--slightly flawed but interesting men. They are not twisted by dictates of the script into becoming newly formed, perfect men on the order of your average brain-dead Hollywood flick.
Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa's BRIGHT FUTURE from Japan which screened later that afternoon continues the male bonding theme which seemed to be a overarching cinematic motif that day.
BRIGHT FUTURE starts out in the factory where 27-year-old Arita and 24-year-oldYuji work. It's a lackluster working class life for both men. Arita likes to wear loud clothes and keeps a Red Jellyfish in a tank in his apartment. Yuji wears a tattered green jacket around that looks like it was the full-course meal of a group of moths and likes to play arcade games.
Their lives are uneventful and largely unmotivated by a higher goal or purpose. That is until Arita kills his factory foreman and his wife in their home.
Arita easily winds up in jail and will most likely be executed for this senseless crime. However, he would like for his one dream or ambition to come true--depositing his Red Jellyfish in Tokyo's sewer and water system. The undisciplined Yuji seizes on this idea while visiting Arita in jail and goes to work. Yuji feeds the Jellyfish brine shrimp. In a fit of rage, he breaks the fishtank the creature is in and watches it slip under the floorboards of his apartment into the water below. The Jellyfish has been introduced to fresh water, adapted and survived in it's new watery habitat.
Yuji meets Arita's father who hasn't seen his son in five years and now visits him in jail. The old man has a sort of rubbish and recycling business where he finds and repairs discarded electronic items like televisions and lamps Yuji ends up working for Arita's father and the two strike up a friendship that grows into a substitute father-son relationship.
In the meantime, the Red Jellyfish are growing and spreading in the waterways and streams of urban Tokyo, causing stings and hospitalizations. That's a little unexpected news to Yuji and Arita's father but so what? Arita's dream of glowing Red Jellyfish infesting Tokyo has come true. It seems that Yuji's beliefs in a "bright" future have paid off...somewhat.
An intriguing and watchable drama that gets more and more interesting as it progresses, BRIGHT FUTURE is a departure of sorts for director Kiyoshi Kurosawa who has helmed more disturbing films such as CURE and PULSE in the past.
Here, Kurosawa turns his cinematic eye to unproductive and unmotivated youth and scores a minor triumph here. The idea of dumping dangerous Red Jellyfish into Tokyo's water supply may not seem benign but Kurosawa treats it with a thoughtfulness and a slight sense of humor.
Indeed, Kurosawa never looks down on his characters, treating them merely as working class fringe dwellers but respects their dreams, their goals and more importantly their lives (this is illustrated abundantly when Arita's father chews Yuji out for insulting his shop and his line of work by telling him this is "my reality" and he is not going to let anyone look down on it). There are also nice performances here by Tadanobu Asano as Arita and Joe Otagiri as Yuji.
BRIGHT FUTURE might be seen as slow and slightly oddball by some but this film is really an observant drama that accurately zooms in on young males in Japanese urban society.
The final film for the day for me was the French slasher film HAUTE TENSION.
HAUTE TENSION starts out with a tight close up of the back of two feet and then moves up the body of the owner of those two feet--a young woman--as we see a number of scars and cuts under the hospital gown she wearing. On the soundtrack we keep hearing her say "I won't let anyone come between us again." This phrase is heard near the end of the movie and is a kind of verbal bookend. By the time, this film concludes, we know why she uttered this sentence.
The basic plot and story of HAUTE TENSION (also known as SWITCHBLADE ROMANCE) are actually quite compact: Two young gal pals,Alex and Marie, are headed to Alex's family farm in the country from Paris. They arrive by car at the farm at night, greet and meet the familyand settle in for the night. An old truck drives up late at night when everyone's sleeping. A portly workman gets out and heads to the house.
It is here when the killings begin and Marie winds up eventually leaving the farm and trying to save her own life and Alex's from the unknown killer clad in a beige uniform. I won't write any more about the story because to note any more details might give the film away to quick-witted readers.
I will say that there is a major twist that alters the contours of the film's characters and of how the story has been told. I wish I could say I was surprised by this twist. I wasn't, especially since the main female protagonist makes a choice near the climax of the film that seems highly foolhardy if not illogical at first.
Though I have reservations about the twist within HAUTE TENSION, I must admit that this is, overall, an effective horror film. Director Alexandre Aja does an effective job here. Aja and his editor keep the film's pacing quick but not too rapid fire and Aja successfully moves his actors through this streamlined story that invests more time in action then in dialogue and reasoning.
HAUTE TENSION is also one of the bloodiest horror films I have seen in years. DP Maxime Alexandre is especially good here helping to light and film sequences such as one scene where the closet doors of a bedroom are almost rinsed in blood. The bloodletting is superb here.
HAUTE TENSION tries to hard to be clever in my view but I have to say this film does work. Horror film fanatics will have another interesting film to dissect (or should I say dismember) in the years to come.
Albert Lanier signing out...
