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joinee_cleary
Reviews
Kotpanum chonio (1972)
The 'classic' that no one ever heard of.
It's messed up I know, but I enjoyed this movie. The Flower Girl is perhaps North Korea's most successful film, both abroad and in the homeland. It is something I think everyone should watch - not because it is an especially brilliant movie in terms of plot or acting but I think it gives a rare insight into this sort of propaganda cinema. It is set in the 1930s which is of course during the Korean Independence Movement. Supposedly it is based on one of Kim il-Sung's six operas. There are a few songs that are part of the plot, which I imagine are arias taken from the opera.
At times I thought that this film was made with people in mind who have never watched a feature-length film before, as this is the only audience who would be subliminally affected by the anti-Japanese sentiment or the love of the Juche Idea. Anyone else would surely find the propaganda obvious. Toward the end it becomes more honest in its ideology, by calling the Japanese 'Japs', at least in the English subtitles. One of the main characters claims, almost in direct address, "We've lost our country" and "This is the tragedy of a stateless nation."
The story itself is of Kotpun, the subject of the film's title, who is trying to sell flowers to support her sick mother and blind sister, Sun-Hui. Amongst other hardships, they manage to raise enough money for the medicine, but shortly after buying it, the mother is found dead. The soundtrack generally reflects the awful pop music of North Korea. It must be diatonic! Major tonality! Uplifting! So when it becomes melancholy or violent to add the vilification of certain characters, is it fairly effective and shocking, probably more so for an audience who has never heard such music. The best part of the score for me was a scene early on where the sick mother is fatigued and struggling to clean clothes for a landlord. There is a devastating, longing solo cello piece playing that almost compensates for the hilarious acting. When you see Kotpun and Sun-Hui reunited after being apart, you even get some John Williams-esque 'going home' music (think E.T., Jurassic Park). Maybe this moment was symbolically pushing reunification?
As stupid as it sounds, the change of Kotpun's face is a way of keeping track of the narrative. She is consistently beautiful but after every problem she faces, her make-up becomes more patchy and her hair more erratic. Hilariously after listening to and agreeing with a motivational speech by a villager who is probably representing Kim il-Sung, there is a cut to a completely different scene and location and she looks even happier than at the start. To me this looked like a humorous polar opposite of Thelma & Louise, two characters that you enjoy more once they start to look messy.
Overall I did enjoy The Flower Girl but only because I imagined it wasn't from North Korean filmmakers and took a completely different reading. Sometimes you will hear the people of North Korea being called blind, hopeless cases, brainwashed idiots etc. but that view shows a total lack of empathy. I think this movie shows - though not deliberately - that under particularly desperate circumstances, it's possible to think that the weirdest of ideologies might be helpful to you. Go watch it.
Han nyeohaksaengeui ilgi (2006)
More 'exploring' than reviewing
For a nation with such hatred towards "Imperialist America", the opening shot of A Schoolgirl's Diary is particularly vivid. You see a young girl walking away from school with a Mickey Mouse backpack. This decision confused me, so reply if you have any idea what the meaning of it is. Now, to unemotionally explain the premise, the story is of a girl called Soo- Ryun who is ashamed of her father because he hasn't obtained a doctorate, but she is unaware of the hard work he does. An obsession with qualifications and being the best is very prominent, which is seen in Soo-OK - Soo-Ryun's sister - whose aim is to join the women's national football team. She is so keen on this that whenever she is on screen, we are made to think about football, for example when she's in bed doing headers with a balloon.
In a similar-but-not-really way to Vertigo, you get a constant repetition of certain colours in shots. In Vertigo it is rather vividly red and green, and it's infuriating the first time you watch it. With The Schoolgirl's Diary it is the colours of the North Korean flag: Red, white and slightly dark blue. Looking at the frequency at which you see these colours together in clothing and props, it is definitely no coincidence. This brings me to something it has in common with The Flower Girl (1972, also DPRK): it seems to be constructing an audience of people who have never or almost never seen a movie before. However, there is no point in introducing propaganda in subtle(ish) ways like colour palette or elisions to the Juche Idea, as the expected belief of North Korean citizens is mentioned explicitly, through joyous songs about the 'Dear General'. Other more subtle ideology includes representing the leader as a father figure and as a protective umbrella, for accidental humour.
There are a few things to learn from this film about the country's culture, though some of it seems unlikely. In particular I'm thinking of Soo-Ryun's desire to live in a small apartment rather than the lovely detached house they already live in. This seems an odd preference. Are the filmmakers just trying tell their audience that this is what they should like? It was great to hear some references that cross borders. The football lover Soo-OK is described by her uncle as a "female Pele". Esope's Fables is also quoted. A hilarious representation that any culture will recognise is the representation of Soo-Ryun the stock character, 'moody teenager' alongside the school's bitch. Both are hilarious versions of this very familiar representation. Said bitch's malice is directed at Soo-Ryun because of the whole doctorate thing. Something that surprised me was, out of nowhere, Soo-Ryun slapping Soo-OK for being rude to their mother. Perhaps this is more culturally normal, like it is in Bollywood. An unusual view of science is taken and I'm not sure if this reflects how people really feel or if it is just being pushed in this film. The dad thinks that the purpose of science should be to improve a nation and improve its people's lives, therefore there are some areas of science are pointless. No interest in the pursuit of knowledge is given. One more cultural thing I must know more about: what is this fixation North Korea has with piano accordions?
I noticed a few technical flaws that really spoil the smoothness of certain scenes. As it has a fairly classical, traditional score, it would benefit from 'sneaking'** some of the music in, rather than having a violin obtrusively enter a pivotal conversation. The music that BLARES out after the line "Mum has cancer" is also quite irritating. In places the voices have very obviously been recorded in a studio and seem detached from the actor. Often the juxtaposition of shots just doesn't work. The scene where the plug socket bursts into flames is a good example and has that low-angle shot that doesn't fit in anywhere. A broader point covering the whole narrative is that there is not a good sense of changing pace or intensity. It's difficult to know how this could be improved but the nature of the story makes narrative excitement pretty difficult. There is some attempt at narrative cohesion, with a good but unmemorable main theme that plays clearly in the opening scene and at the end to make their ugly apartment block look more aspirational. There is clever non-linear, circular bit of narrative involving a paper aeroplane. In any case, The Flower Girl is a much more polished and professional film.
There are some real gems of quotes in A Schoolgirl's Diary, some of which are amusing and some which are angering. It can be said of many countries that there is only an illusion of choice, summed up in this quote: "A bird can fly because it has wings. A train can move forward because it has rails." It is great to see some real humour, through banter and slapstick, and a football match between scientists and factory workers. Soo-OK joins in and scores of course. The line to end all lines though, is upon erecting a chimney: "Long live thermodynamics!"
The Devil Inside (2012)
Please, tell me how I "don't get it".
This US box office surprise has been advertised as "the film the Vatican doesn't want you to see", not because it unveils a scandal in the Catholic Church but because even they know it's a poor movie. It is saddening as the topic of exorcism is so interesting and has succeeded in earlier films, but The Devil Inside does not know what it's doing with its pace or characters or fearfulness or anything.
Believe the negative comments you're hearing from the US. The story is of Isabella Rossi (Fernanda Andrade) and her cameraman/boyfriend Michael (Ionut Grama) who want to learn about exorcism in the Catholic Church and see if it can help Isabella's mother, who killed three people during an exorcism in 1989. Two fairly well-acted priests, Benjamin and David (Quarterman and Helmuth respectively), are willing to educate them about "the combination of science and religion", and allow them to film everything ever. Despite the running time of 95 minutes and the abrupt ending, it felt like it went on too long. About 40 minutes in my friend said to me, "Nothing has happened yet." If the first 45 minutes were condensed into 20, there would be enough action.
Perhaps this film will kill the fake-documentary, shaky-cam style that recently worked so well in Chronicle. Much of the 'found footage' was trivial shots that you wouldn't shoot and would have made sense if done professionally. Even worse were the shots that would be important enough to shoot, but the camera is unnecessarily mobile. Get a goddamn tripod! Stop zooming in! If this was meant to have suspension of disbelief, it didn't work. The shots that have no reason to be filmed included the fleeting moment involving the nun with pupil-less eyes. This image has been used on many posters, meaning a lot of the audience probably went to see it on the back of the poster. Understandable as it's a cool poster, but when the moment comes around it's forgettable and not a part of the story. Perhaps more irritating than shots that you would not shoot are the shots that are impossible to shoot. When Isabella meets the hilarious Maria in a mental hospital she appears to be seeing her alone. Yet, you see hand-held camera crap from at least three different angles. It's as if Michael is not only in the room, but he's in the room three times. Perhaps this is fussy, but I would say confidently that you don't need to be watching critically to notice this.
This is not the new Paranormal Activity. Whilst I'm not mad about that series, they manage to sustain fear until the end, especially the first PA. The Devil Inside scares you in jolts and then shuts up for a while. It has to be said, I jumped every time I was supposed to and a few that I wasn't. The scene with the exorcism of Rosa - played by the brilliant contortionist Bonnie Morgan - genuinely scared me, but so did a dog that barked at Isabella in another scene. A minor problem with Rosa's scene was the creepy, grimy basement it took place in. If you're doing something frightening like an exorcism, do it in a well-lit, comfortable environment. Maybe all the scenes should be exciting or an important part of the narrative, instead of only being exciting on special occasions. Maybe all the nearly-good scenes shouldn't be juxtaposed with goings-on in the priests' house. Most of all, maybe Father Benjamin should throw out that lamp that hurt my eyes every time it was on-screen. The division into sections by telling us the date with white text on a blank screen became boring after about the sixth time too.
Not much to critique about the soundtrack. Music was very minimal - a smart choice to match the found-footage idea and make things vaguely believable. The slightly exaggerated ambiance was useful too. In the opening where a couple of investigators are looking around the bloodied basement there's some silly, eerie, music that we could do without.
The main issue I was hearing on the IMDb forums was that the ending is awful, lazy, doesn't make sense etc., but considering it made $33 million in its opening weekend, I speculated that it was being shown in multiplexes to audiences mainly used to a tight Hollywood ending. Not the case. It doesn't leave you asking yourself the question that Isabella asked early on: "I want to find out what happened." Instead you ask, not for the first time: why on earth did that happen? It is a rushed, not emotive, disappointing ending. Usually when you see a scene that you don't like, you can accept that there are differing tastes or specific audiences that will 'get it'. I was left asking, why did anyone think this was good? All that said, it did provoke a reaction from me. It provoked me to shout "f*** off!" at the screen. NB: I've had to make this review worse as some words were either made-up or not English.