Kvetches

All this movie going - I have to empty the notebooks now and then. This weekend, a couple things got to me - so...

1) I saw two new Asian films this weekend, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Three Extremes. I saw the first at 5 PM Saturday - in a very spare house. Saw the second at a Sunday matinee - up until 5 minutes before showtime, there was only one other person in the theater (and he happened to be sitting exactly where I would have wanted to sit - terrible!) At the Saturday Park film, when I bought my ticket, another person asked me if the ticket taker said whether the film was likely to be crowded or not; the ticket taker hadn't said anything about it. It didn't turn out to be a problem.

But I understand the question. 10 years ago, Asian films - specifically (at the time, in Boston, at least), Hong Kong films, kung-fu or gangster films mostly, were mobbed. A film like this Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, with the reviews it's gotten, with Oldboy leading the way, with Tarantino's endorsement, would have had lines around the block. Not - what? a dozen or two people filtering in... I had a row to myself.... What happened? I suppose it could have been other factors - the weather - it was snowing, for chrissakes! (Sunday it hit 60 though, and today is supposed to get up to 70! god bless New England weather!). Or maybe the real crowds were coming out for the 7:30 PM shows, which was a double feature with Oldboy - could be. But I didn't see lines around the block when I left... so I don't know.

This might be exactly the sort of thing that is killing The Brattle. I don't know, of course, what kinds of crowds they got over the whole weekend - but if mine was typical - that is not going to keep anyone in business. And especially since this is exactly the kind of film that, for years, could fill the place, without fail. Is this just part and parcel with declining film attendance? That's one possibility... Or maybe - the vogue for Asian films is passed. Or maybe, the enthusiasm for Hong Kong action (John Woo/Ringo Lam type shootemups, and martial arts films) never translated into enthusiasm for Korean blood soaked morality plays. (It never translated for me into enthusiasm for anime or J-horror - though it did translate into enthusiasm for Beat Takeshi and Takashi Miike.) I have noticed similar patterns at other screenings - the Museum of Fine Arts has shown a few Kim Ki-duk films - which are attended okay - but not like the Hong Kong films (poppy or artsy) they'd show in the 90s. Why would this be? I see as much buzz about Korean films now as I saw about Hong Kong films in the early 90s. Is it just the fact that those films were pushed as cult films, as much by cultists as critics, while the Korean films tend to be pushed primarily by critics, by the film world? I don't know. I'm probably not one to judge.

I am one to worry though. I worry that the Brattle didn't make any money on Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, and so will not book Sympathy for Lady Vengeance when it comes out - and that no one else will take it either... and I'll be left waiting for the MFA or HFA to bring it in for a one shot (or the Brattle - if it's still around - or Coolidge to bring it in for a midnight show). I am somewhat resigned to that sort of thing with Hou Hsiao Hsien films - I understand! the audience for those films will probably all fit in one of these theaters at the same time... I know. But how is it possible that a visceral (and intelligent) action film like Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (or Oldboy - what kind of audiences did Oldboy pull, anyway? ca. $700,000?) can't find some kind of audience? And if these films can't fill places like the Brattle, if nothing else - how can places like the Brattle survive?

2) Meanwhile, at the Kiss Kiss Bang Bang show.... saw previews for Memoirs of a Geisha, and that has set me off. I fear the worst. No, I don't fear the worst - I am positive of it. Here is a film about Japan, about Japanese women, in a profession that is, really, fairly unique to Japan (in that form) - and yet - all the main roles are played by Chinese women. And - in Zhang Ziyi and Michelle Yeoh - Chinese women who do not look in the least Japanese. And furthermore - no attempt has been made to make them look Japanese. The whole film (or, what shows up in the trailer) is like that - it seems to have lifted its look wholesale from Hero and House of Flying Daggers - lots of brightly colored cloth flying in slow motion wind, my friends! lots of flowing garments and hair.... In short - while it is grossly unfair to abuse a film based on its trailer - this one, I think, is going to reek to several heavens. From the very first line of the trailer - "a story like mine has never been told" - well, no, not by American hacks with Chinese actresses perhaps - but the story of geisha, at more or less all stages of their careers, is a perfect staple of Japanese film, and if you must Americanize such things, shouldn't you at least pretend to try to see the era and the characters as they were seen by the people living them? It's a 20th century story - 20th century geisha fill Japanese films. They do not look like Zhang Ziyi.

3) Another trailer that had me in conniptions - is it my imagination or is Ice Harvest a parody/remake of Charlie Verrick? Oh god! say not so! for I fear it is true.

4) And while I generally sit back and take the advertisements at films as they come - this show was a bit excessive. Worse, the string of ads came on after an announcement thanking the audience for watching the "pre-show entertainment" (or whatever they call it - mostly ads for the Discovery Channel, in any case), and promising previews. Instead - one of those stupid Coca Cola sponsored "short films" followed, and then a bunch of plain old fashioned ads. Very confusing.

Hopefully this bit of bitching will hold me for a while...

Happy Halloween! (I think it's Halloween - feels like Memorial Day; 2 days ago it looked like Christmas. Oh, the temporal confusion wrought by the local climate!)